Archer Mayor - The surrogate thief

"Hello?" he asked sleepily, automatically checking the clock by his bedside. In fact, it wasn't that late. He'd just gone to bed far earlier than usual, yielding to a weariness that he'd been staving off for days.

He half hoped it would be Gail again, maybe even calling from his driveway.

It was not.

"Joe? It's Katz. You sleeping?"

"Trick question, right? What do you want?"

"A statement. We're going with a story that VBI is investigating Tom Bander for murder."

Gunther sat up. "What? That's bullshit."

"On the record?"

"Whoa. No. Just a minute. Jesus Christ, Stan. What kind of high school stunt is this?"

"I didn't think you'd be asleep," Katz said defensively.

"So you call me three seconds before press time? Give me a break. This is an ambush."

"So," Katz drawled, "no comment, is it?"

"Up yours. Tell me what fantasy you and your Deformer crew have cooked up this time."

"I have a solid source telling me you guys are after Tom Bander. You denying that?"

"You said we were investigating him for murder. If that's your story, it's a bald-faced lie."

Katz was enjoying himself. "Interesting answer. Very precise. So, maybe not for murder, but you are chasing him for something."

"Good night, Stanley."

"No, no. Wait, Joe. Don't hang up. I'll tell you what I got. You arrested a man named Gabriel Greenberg for the murder of Hannah Shriver."

"That's public record," Joe said, feeling his face warm with anger. Couldn't keep a lid on a goddamn thing around here.

"The same Gabriel Greenberg who works for Tom Bander."

Joe remained silent. He had no idea how Katz was getting his information. So far, none of this was the deep, dark, secret stuff being shared among investigators, for which he was grateful. That probably meant Stan was just making good use of his standard contacts inside the PD.

"Right?" Katz insisted.

"You asking?"

"No, I'm not asking. I'm looking for a confirmation."

"No comment."

"All right, fine," Katz said heatedly. "Fuck you, too. We're going with this, Joe, whether you comment or not."

"Going with what, Stanley? You haven't told me anything, yet."

"That you busted one of Bander's employees for murder and that you're tearing into all of their backgrounds."

Joe began feeling slightly better. "That's it? How do you go from there to our going after Bander for murder?"

He could hear the reporter sigh with exasperation before Katz asked, "How's Gail taking the news?"

Gunther didn't answer.

Katz perked up. "Uh-oh. Hit a chord?"

"Stanley, you are such a jerk. I haven't talked to her about this. I have no idea how she's taking it."

"You're kidding. Bander is Parker's money bag-the power behind the throne. If he gets mired in this shit, Parker can kiss his ass good-bye."

In Joe's continued silence, Katz followed that with, "Come to think of it, that could get Gail in trouble, too. I mean, here you are, busting the guy who's backing her opponent and all but giving her an election she would've been hard-pressed to win otherwise. Talk about a conflict. Wow. You have any thoughts on that?"

Gunther hung up the phone.

At home the next morning, at about the time he imagined the first papers were being delivered, Joe got a call from Susan Raffner. Her opening line substituted for any conventional greeting.

"What the hell were you thinking, talking to that asshole? I thought at least you were a professional."

Gunther hesitated, struck by his own forbearance. There was a time when he would have let her have it right back. Now he was surprised how little impact such words delivered.

"Good morning to you, too, Susan."

"To hell with that. I am royally pissed off at you, Joe. You sleep with this woman, goddamn it. The least you could've done was make a phone call."

"Is this making you feel better?"

"You think this is a joke?"

Again Gunther hung up the phone, this time hearing the tinny voice struggling out of the earpiece all the way down until he severed the connection.

Clearly, he needed to read the paper-and leave his house.

In fact, Katz's article didn't say much. It mentioned names, drew a few vague connections, and made much ado about the senate race and the fact that the VBI wasn't talking, as if that implied a Watergate-size scandal in the making. Joe was unhappy to see a passing reference connecting him to Gail, but he had to admit that only the context was painful. Their relationship was widely known. The bottom line, as he interpreted it, was that the article was as harmless for the cops as it was clearly explosive politically. For that, he felt sorry for Gail. She and Parker and Bander were going to be grilled in the media, and it wouldn't just be local. But for the short run, he could most likely remain safe behind a barricade of "no comments."

Thus comforted, he was prepared for the reactions he got on entering the basement command center. He waved his hand placidly at the few alarmed or angry faces bearing outrage at a so-called renegade press, and issued a couple of the verbal bromides he'd been telling himself during the car trip over here. No big deal. Just keep on track.

Seeing Willy Kunkle approaching fast, however, as he was setting his coffee on his desk, made him brace for the worst. Willy placed a faxed report beside the coffee mug. "I always knew sleeping with her would get you in trouble," he said.

"Very tasteful, Willy. What're you doing up so early?"

"Thought I'd bring you a little good news to balance the bad," he said.

"Oh, yeah?" Joe picked up the fax.

"Yup. The lab matched not one but two samples of blood on Greenberg's hunting knife. They extracted them from where the blade meets the guard and at the bottom of the 'Made in USA' stamp at the base. Looking at it with the naked eye, you couldn't see a thing."

Joe stared at him, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "You going to tell me, or do I have to read it?"

Willy waggled his eyebrows. "Perfect matches to both Shriver and Shea. I love it when bad guys don't ditch their toys."

Joe Gunther pulled into a parking space and shivered slightly as both he and Kathy Bartlett emerged into the crisp fall air from their heated car. "You know what Harvey drives?" he asked, looking around the lot.

"No clue," she said grumpily, turning up her collar. Dan Harvey was her federal counterpart from the U.S. attorney's office in Burlington, and one of the two people they were hooking up with before meeting with Gabe Greenberg. The other was someone from Massachusetts neither of them knew, a Nick Kennedy, from the Essex County DA's office.

Having gotten directions earlier on how to proceed, Joe set out for a small gate cut into the chain-link fence.

This was not the entrance most visitors used. It was more discreet, and out of sight of the prison's general population. Meetings between inmates and prosecutors were not something the former liked witnessed by their brethren-it was an excellent way to be labeled a snitch and earn a proper pounding at the first opportunity. As a result, the Joe Gunthers of this world and their lawyerly associates had long ago opted for having such conversations off-site. Kathy didn't need her bargaining sessions hindered by the man opposite her checking over his shoulder every five minutes.

The brand-new Springfield facility had been built with that in mind, however, allowing her and Joe to enter and depart without undue notice. The decision to meet here, though, had been largely because of Harvey-he had the farthest to travel and the tightest schedule and, if things worked out, would have the least to do.

They met with both Harvey and Kennedy ten minutes later, after negotiating the prison's security, and then filed as a group into a closed, featureless room where Gabe Greenberg and his lawyer, a thin young man with a permanent scowl, named Randy Nichols, were already waiting.