Archer Mayor - The surrogate thief

Dispatch to 0-30."

Officer Paul Kinney unhooked his radio mike and answered, "0-30."

"Domestic disturbance, 63 Vista Estates. Neighbor called it in. Address listed to a Linda Purvis."

"Ten-four."

Kinney replaced the mike and pulled into a smattering of traffic. It was almost midnight, and, even in a town of thirteen thousand like Brattleboro, it was still Vermont, where phoning people after nine and staying up past eleven remained unusual, even slightly inappropriate, behavior.

Kinney was feeling good. It was summer, two days ago he'd been released by his training officer to patrol on his own, and he was flush with self-confidence. To his thinking, all that remained was to learn the ropes thoroughly with the Bratt PD, establish a reputation, put out some feelers, and pick from a variety of plum federal jobs, from the FBI to Homeland Security to God knows what. He felt poised before a veritable trough of opportunities.

He headed west on Route 9 into West Brattleboro, the main town's smaller offshoot. Given its less urban makeup, West B played host to a choice of trailer parks, from the seriously upscale-expansive, complete with paved roads, car parks, and garages-to the barely solvent, where the odds favored Mother Nature repossessing her own.

Not surprisingly to Kinney, the loftily named Vista Estates fit the latter category.

He wasn't concerned. He didn't know this address specifically, but he judged himself pretty adept at handling domestics. He'd studied his FTO's style-an old-timer who'd been a field training officer for too many years-and, as a result, had mostly learned how not to behave. And even though he'd handled only a couple of domestics on his own, Kinney was convinced of the merits of his technique. People under stress didn't need a friendly ear. They were secretly yearning for the comfort of a little imposed discipline.

Vista Estates was to hell and gone, almost out of town, and proffering neither vistas nor estates. A trailer park whose assets were better known to the tax courts than to any Realtor, it was a threadbare clearing among some roughly opened woods, crisscrossed with narrow, root- tangled dirt lanes and populated with as many empty lots as decaying trailers.

The one thing the park owners had bothered with, Kinney noted gratefully, was numbering the addresses. He found 62/63/64 without much trouble, clustered together, although only after he'd used his flashlight to see better out his side window. Vista Estates had clearly deemed streetlamps a luxury.

Kinney drew abreast of the rough scratch in the dirt ser-ving as a trifurcated driveway, told dispatch of his arrival, and pulled himself free of the car. Before him were two distant trailers and an empty space for a third. The home on the left was blazing with light, its neighbor all but dark, save for a single curtained window.

He drew in a deep breath, both enjoying the cool summer air and preparing himself for the show of command he saw coming, and set off down the driveway.

He considered stopping by the neighbor's first. That was certainly protocol. But instinct and vanity pushed him toward the direct approach. Slipping between the pickup and the small sedan parked out front, without checking their registrations, he climbed the worn wooden steps up to the narrow homemade porch and paused at the thin metal front door.

He certainly sympathized with the neighbor's complaint. There was a knock-down, drag-out screaming match taking place inside, accompanied by the thumping of inner doors and the smashing of crockery.

Kinney passed on simply ringing the bell and removed his flashlight from the slim pocket sewn into his uniform pants.

He used it to smack the door three times.

"Brattleboro police."

The immediate silence was like pulling the plug on an overly loud TV set-utter and complete. In its sudden embrace, he felt abruptly and paradoxically defenseless.

The door flew open without warning, revealing a large man with a beard, a T-shirt, and an oversize revolver in his hand pointed at the floor. "You get the hell away from here or she's dead. Got that?"

Kinney felt his stomach give way, along with his bravado. Transfixed by the gun, he imagined himself as the human-size target he so frequently perforated at the range, and could visualize the barrel rising to the level of his eye, an enormous flash of light, and then nothing.

Instead, the door was merely slammed in his face.

"'You get away from here or she's a dead person.' That's all he said. He had a gun."

Ron Klesczewski closed his car door and leaned back against the fender. He rubbed his face with both hands, still chasing the remnants of a deep sleep from his brain, before peering into the wary, almost belligerent expression of the patrolman before him.

"You got the call? I mean, you were the one this guy talked to?" Ron spoke deliberately, hoping to project a calming influence. In fact, being the senior officer here, he felt his own anxieties beginning to roil inside him, a nagging insecurity he'd wrestled with all his life.

"Yeah. It didn't sound like a big deal from dispatch-a routine domestic. I knocked on the door, he opened up, delivered the one-liner, and slammed the door. There was a woman behind him, crying."

Klesczewski took in the tight shooting gloves, custom gun grips, and strained nonchalance and identified a neophyte's attempt to camouflage insecurity with accessories. "She look all right otherwise?"

To his credit, the patrolman became clearly embarrassed. "I guess. I was sort of looking at the gun. That's when I figured I better call for backup."

Klesczewski studied him for a beat before asking, "You okay? Did he point it at you?"

There was a moment's hesitation, as if Ron had asked a trick question. All traces of initial swagger vanished at last in the response. "No. I mean, yeah, I'm all right, but no, he didn't point it at me. It was a little scary, is all. Not what I was expecting. But I'm fine… And she's fine… I'm pretty sure… The woman, I mean."

Brattleboro's police department was known either as a lifer colony, where laid-back older veterans spun out entire careers, or as a turnstile agency, where baby cops hung around just long enough to decide between a flashier law enforcement job elsewhere and getting out.

Ron wondered if the latter option wasn't circling this one's head right now. As it was, he was so new that Ron couldn't remember if his name was Paul or Phil. His name tag just read "P. Kinney."

"How long ago did this start?" he asked him, deciding he looked like a Phil.

Kinney checked his watch. "Maybe half an hour ago." He keyed the mike clipped to the epaulet of his uniform shirt and muttered into his radio, "Jerry? It's Paul. You remember when I called for backup?"

"Twenty-three fifty-three," came the brisk reply.

Okay, Ron thought, so it's Paul. Things better improve from here. "The scene secure?"

Kinney nodded. "Only three sides to worry about. Jerry's covering the west and north. We're on the east, and Henry's got the south. Good thing the trailer park's half empty. Makes life a lot easier."

That last line was delivered with pale, leftover flair. Ron shivered slightly. Even summers in Vermont could get chilly, especially if you were fresh from a warm bed. "You've got more coming, though, right?"

"Oh, sure. The state police are sending a couple. The sheriff, too. I asked Dispatch to get hold of the chief and Billy Manierre, but no luck so far."

"They're both out of town," Ron said with some regret. He was head of a four-man detective squad and the department's only hostage negotiator, both positions that put him closer to the upper brass than to the uniforms chasing taillights-the latter of whom he envied right now.