Archer Mayor - Scent of Evil

“So, where’re we at?” I picked up the phone slip and began idly folding and unfolding it.

Klesczewski cleared his throat. “Nothing obvious in the canvass results, but I’m hoping we can find some inconsistency somewhere-a crack we can pry open maybe.”

I nodded. It was a good analogy. Canvasses rarely gave us a man holding a bloody knife in one hand and a written confession in the other, but they did supply us with people’s alibis before much thought and refinement had been put into them, a point that often played in our favor if a particular alibi later came under scrutiny.

Klesczewski continued. “Tyler’s digging through his dirt, along with a couple of people from the afternoon shift. There’ll be overtime filed.”

“That’s okay.”

“DeFlorio’s still out there, catching the home-from-work crowd.”

“That makes me think of something,” I interrupted. “We better look into people from outside the neighborhood who use that route to go to and from work.”

“Night-shift types?”

“Yeah. You got late-night grocery stores and restaurants both above and below that section of Canal. It’s conceivable somebody saw something while they were passing through.”

“They’d have to have been on foot.”

“Not necessarily. You get a pretty good view from the Elm Street bridge, if you happen to look that way. What’s Martens doing?”

Sammie, actually Samantha, Martens was the junior-most member of the detective squad, promoted from patrolman after Willy Kunkle lost the use of his arm the year before in a shooting spree with a maniac the local press had dubbed the “Ski-Mask Avenger.” That same case had turned the town on its ear, causing Brandt to leave for a while and putting me in his chair in the interim. It was old news now, but seeing Sammie Martens in plainclothes always reminded me of how out of control a case could become, through no fault of her own. I hoped I wasn’t attending the birth of an instant replay.

“I put Martens on finding whoever was under the bridge. She’s supposed to be combing the flophouses and dives.”

I wrinkled my nose, which brought a smile to Klesczewski’s face. We had both paid our dues traveling the dark side of Brattleboro’s otherwise appealing working-class facade, and we could easily envision Martens holding her breath and watching where she stepped as she navigated the hallways of some of the town’s dreary, ancient, and pestilent rooming houses.

I locked my hands behind my neck, feeling how slippery with perspiration they were. This heat was like nothing any of us could remember-an invisible fog of damp, suffocating, eye-watering steam straight from the equator. Stepping out of a cool shower in the morning, I couldn’t even start toweling off without feeling my own sweat mingling with the water on my body.

It also got inside you, causing the mind to drift. I refocused on Klesczewski. “You have any feel for what we’ve got?”

He scratched his temple. I noticed his hair was dark with dampness. “Not really.”

“No preliminary observations?”

He pursed his lips then shook his head. “I guess I’ll wait for some of the lab results.”

I nodded. It was a legitimate choice and one fitting the man. It hadn’t been a test, or a way for me to expound on my own theory that the body had been planted for discovery. I’d spare him that. I just wanted him to know I was interested-that there was an outlet for something beyond the pure accumulation of facts, where the use of inventive brainstorming would be rewarded. One of the disadvantages of being on a police force that often served young people as a stepping stone to better jobs was that few of them took the time to get their noses out of the paperwork and give their intuition some exercise.

Klesczewski left me. I stared at the now-limp phone message in my hand. I was supposed to have dinner with Gail tonight, dinner and maybe more. I often stayed over on such evenings. Over the years, Gail Zigman and I had become best friends who had only then become lovers, an evolution that had stood us in good stead during rough times.

I called her at home, from where she did much of her work as a Realtor. She laughed when she heard my voice. “My God, the rumors must be right.”

“How do you mean?”

“That the body you found is causing problems. You sound like you’re on a short break from the rack.” Her tone darkened slightly. “It’s not somebody I know, is it?”

I shook my head in wonder. For its size, which isn’t inconsiderable, Brattleboro had the social infrastructure of an isolated mountain village. You could kick a man on one end of town and hear his fifth cousin, four times removed, yell “ouch” on the other. “Gail, we don’t even have a name on him yet, much less whether he was a friend of yours. How did you find out about this, anyway?”

She chuckled again. “It’s been several hours already; Ted McDonald’s made it old news almost. Besides, I’m well connected.”

That she was, being not only a Realtor but also one of five town selectmen. In both capacities, she was frequently one of my primary news sources, as I suppose I was one of hers. “So what about the body is giving us problems?”

“Oh, nothing specific. I just heard there were complications, that the midnight oil was going to burn.”

“Well, that much is true. I can’t make it for dinner.”

“I hope not. I put it in the freezer two hours ago. Do me a favor though, will you?”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t replace my dinner with Cheetos and Coke, okay?”

I laughed. “I promise-nothing that glows in the dark.”

She snorted. “I bet, and try to get some sleep.”

“Yes, mother.”

I hung up, crumpled the pink phone message up, and dropped it into the trashcan by my desk, the smile on my face fading as the realities at hand began to settle back around me.

Some of those realities, I knew, might end up involving Gail and me, assuming my dour instincts about this case proved accurate. As selectman and chief of detectives, respectively, we could, in times of crises, occupy opposite corners, with her peers clamoring for information and mine playing close to the chest. And we were not, as I often wished, that detached from our jobs. Experience had shown us that our basic philosophical differences-hers leaning far left, mine stuck in the middle-could put a serious strain on our intimacy when the pressure was on.

I crossed the room to where Tyler had set up a makeshift laboratory in what had once been a good-sized janitor’s closet. I knew the room was occupied because all the boxes that normally lived in it were neatly piled outside.

“Who is it?” Tyler answered my knock. I could hear the strain in his normally placid voice.

“Joe.”

“Come on in.”

I opened the door cautiously and was immediately assaulted by a cloying wave of moist, sweat-anointed heat. The overworked suction fan in the ceiling screeched in an effort to make the air breathable. A second motor, attached to a large vacuum cleaner hooked to the drain of a special “dry sink,” was also howling, trying to keep the dust out of the air, with marginal results. The noise made me wince in pain. J.P. Tyler and two other men were jammed inside a space in which one person could comfortably operate. They were standing at the two-wall counter, sifting dirt through fine-gauge wire meshes into the dry sink. On the floor, several more dirt-filled, labeled garbage bags awaited processing.

Tyler’s face was dripping with perspiration and covered with a fine layer of dust.

“Jesus, you guys look like miners.” I stood in the open doorway, not being able or willing to actually enter the small room.

Tyler’s two equally grimy companions gave me acknowledging looks. Tyler, however, seemed totally oblivious. He wiped one cheek with the back of his rubber-gloved hand, thereby turning dust into a muddy smear, and gave me a broad smile-the lab man in his element. He looked around, as if suddenly discovering where he was. “Yeah. Tight quarters.”