Archer Mayor - The surrogate thief

Nichols smirked as they milled about taking off their coats, opening their briefcases, and choosing seats.

"No choir to back you up?" he asked.

Kathy Bartlett ignored him, making introductions instead. "Okay, Mr. Nichols," she finally said, "wisecracks aside, we're here both at your request and to show you that we're not blowing smoke up your skirt. The States of Mas-sachusetts and Vermont and the federal government are all on board with a death penalty case here, so what you're offering had better be good. We're ready to go to trial right now with what we've got."

Greenberg was sitting back in his chair, as unruffled as ever, looking like a bored accountant, despite the nature of Kathy's comments. By contrast, Nichols leaned his elbows on the table, his expression darkening. "I want assurances that the death penalty not only disappears, but that the whole federal route does, too." He pointed at Harvey and Kennedy in turn. "This becomes a Vermont case only."

Kathy smiled, not bothering to glance at the other two attorneys, having anticipated this demand earlier. "Any deal depends on what you tell Special Agent Gunther here. You ready for that conversation?"

Greenberg stirred himself enough to whisper into Nichols's ear.

"All right," the attorney conceded.

"Great," Kathy said brightly, rising to her feet, as did the mute Harvey and Kennedy. "We'll be outside."

Joe waited until the three of them had filed out so he could begin the next phase of the minuet. Absurd as it sounded, just as it was necessary for all three legal entities to be present today, it was just as important that none of them fall into the trap of becoming a defense witness because of anything Greenberg might reveal in person. The job of listening to Greenberg fell to Joe alone.

"What've you got, Gabe?" he asked after the door had closed.

Greenberg didn't mince words or waste time. "I did Shriver and the guy in Gloucester on orders from Tom Bander."

Joe kept his voice flat. "How and when did this happen?"

But Greenberg demurred. "That's it. You want more-which I have-I want assurances from the three kings out there."

Joe frowned. A lifetime of dealing with such people had still not immunized him from the outrage he felt at their behavior. That sense of double entitlement-allowing them to kill and then manipulate the system-still infuriated him. "What about Katie Clark?" he asked, exacting a surprised look from Nichols, who clearly hadn't heard the name before.

Greenberg stared at him long enough for Joe to see the cold-bloodedness behind the man's bland exterior. "Never heard of her."

Reluctantly, Joe pushed his chair back. He didn't believe that for a moment, but he could clearly do nothing about it. His irritation, however, did prompt him to ask, "I don't suppose Bander told you why he wanted them dead?"

It was a long shot, not one he thought would stimulate a response, so he was halfway to his feet when Greenberg answered, "He said they had the goods on him for a job he'd pulled when he was starting out-a store robbery where some old guy died."

Joe stared at him, the shadowy figure of Tom Bander finally secured to a reality that made some sense. All this time the man had floated by in conversations with the substance of smoke. Now, at last, he had a pedigree Joe could grab hold of, straight from the proverbial horse's mouth.

"Did that come as a surprise?" he asked on impulse. "That your boss had that kind of background?"

Nichols looked confused while Greenberg merely seemed amused. "He's a businessman," he said. "Of course he's a crook."

That was too pat-and explained nothing. Joe straightened, moved toward the door, and tried again. "Did he say he was the one who killed the store owner?

"Not in so many words."

Joe nodded. Naturally. He grabbed the doorknob and said, "Okay. Be right back."

In the outer room, the three attorneys faced him as he entered.

"He deal?" Kathy asked.

Joe nodded, still torn by his conflicting emotions. Greenberg's parting words had fulfilled all of Gunther's needs. To secure a nontestimonial court order for a DNA sample, all that was needed was something called "an articulable suspicion" that a crime had been committed. What Joe had now was in the suburbs of probable cause-far sturdier ground and a reason for true celebration. Except that now that he was closing in at last on his own personal Holy Grail, he had to wonder what might happen next.

"Yup," he told her. "He's giving up Bander, complete with motive."

Thomas Bander lived outside Brattleboro in an upscale neighborhood called Hillwinds. For the most part, the houses here hovered between upper middle class and the slumming wealthy, depending on whether the section was freshly developed or dated back twenty years, since Hillwinds continued to spread slowly like a living ink blot. Not surprisingly, Bander's house was off the beaten path, up a long driveway, and secure behind a stone wall and an iron fence-unusual affectations for an area that prided itself on being neighborly, if slightly a cut above.

In a roundabout fashion, the trip here had taken several days, even though, as the crow flies, the VBI office was barely ten miles distant. That was testimony to the lawyer's art, since the delay was due entirely to that.

Getting the nontestimonial court order had been as simple as expected. Getting Bander to comply had involved a series of grandstanding maneuvers by his attorney, including a press conference in which the police were accused of hounding a poor innocent man to distraction. As a compromise to Bander's delicate disposition, the order was going to be met, but only discreetly, at his residence, and would involve only a bare minimum of police officers.

In fact, there had also been a bit of back-and-forth on the prosecutorial side of the equation. What Greenberg had given Kathy Bartlett was actually enough to generate an arrest warrant for Bander, rather than a mere nontestimonial order. But just barely. As a result, Bartlett was in no mood to let a fish this size strategize after being prematurely slapped with a double murder charge. She far preferred to let him swim while she accumulated as much damning evidence as possible.

By the same token, and to stretch the metaphor, she wasn't beyond giving the line a yank or two to remind Bander of his position. Joe's desire for a DNA sample fit in nicely there. Her earlier proposal, that he not secure the sample surreptitiously, but hit Bander straight on, had now grown to a tactical gambit.

"Jeez," Sammie Martens said as Joe turned the last curve in the long driveway and came within view of the house. "I didn't know places like this even existed in Vermont."

"They exist," Joe told her. "You just can't see them from the road."

"Too bad," she murmured, craning to take it all in.

It was enormous: multistoried, shingle-clad, wrapped in a porch, and crested with beautiful eyebrow windows and complicated woodwork along a vast roofline. It was less than twenty years old-Joe remembered hearing about its construction at the time-but it had been built as an Adirondack throwback, albeit with modern trimmings.

They rolled to a stop by an expanse of porch steps leading up to a huge front door and got out of the car, their shoes crunching on the pea-size stones of the drive.

Joe gestured to Sam to precede him, bowing slightly.

She smiled. "Thank you, sir. It does sort of set a mood, don't it?"

"It do." He smiled back.

The levity died as they reached the top. Across the broad width of the porch the door opened, and Walter Masius III, Tom Bander's lawyer, stood before them in a three-piece suit with his telegenic mane of white hair. An unknown entity to Joe until Bander's appearance in this case, Masius had become its media darling in a scant few days-eloquent, dramatic, charismatic, and eminently quotable. The press had taken him to their hearts.