The Company She Kept (14 page)

“You'll bust him later tonight?” Willy asked.

“Probably,” Bob said lightly. “We'll let him and the girlfriend he has in there get nice and sleepy first.”

Crawford placed the camera into the back and shifted more comfortably in his seat, at last making eye contact with his guest. “So—what
are
you after?”

“A way to trace dope,” Willy explained. “We found a lot of it when we processed Susan Raffner's two homes. I'm just wondering where it came from.”

Crawford studied him for a moment. “I thought that was a hate crime,” he said. “You guys shot someone and everything.”

“Looks that way,” Willy replied.

The drug cop smiled. “And looks can be deceiving. I get it.”

Crawford was enjoying himself. He glanced toward the motel parking lot, to make sure there were no unexpected movements. His own documented buy was concluded, but that didn't preclude someone else worth photographing dropping by for a score.

“Okay,” he said. “The feds have some detailed databases for tracking pot—brands, contents, level of THC, even packaging. Routine stuff, but sophisticated. But it's not like it is with heroin, where the dealers actually stamp their product like trademarks. Marijuana is tougher. It's grown locally, or it comes out of Canada or Mexico or who the hell knows where else, and it shows up in generic supermarket baggies. I have a long list of different types and origins that runs for pages. Still, you might be able to tell local from Mexican, if you're lucky.”

Willy pointed across the parking lot. “Does this guy sell it?”

“Most of them do. If you're in business to make money, you mix it up, right? Word on the street is that the drug you use is the drug you can afford. But why all this about the lowly marijuana plant?” He laughed. “If it's okay to ask.”

Willy shook his head. “The hate crime connection with Nate Fellows is wrong. We're either missing something, or we're being jerked around. Anyway, I took a step back, looked at everything we got so far on the victim, and began to wonder about the pot. She was a serious user. Not that there's anything indicating a drug angle here. There's not. But it is a curiosity, and right now, we don't have anything else to go on. You ever meet her, or see her in action?”

Crawford shrugged. “Raffner? More like read about her. Got the feeling she was a real fire-breather.”

“She was that,” Willy agreed. “But you know how it goes—you start looking at a frustrating case's bits and pieces, till you get stuck on the one that looks like it might have some meat on it.”

Crawford was nodding agreeably. “Cool. I know the feeling.”

“Well, with her,” Willy continued, “or maybe I should say, to me, it was her grass stash that struck a chord. Almost everything in her life was controversial, from her politics to her sexual orientation. But the grass was flat-out illegal. That struck me as an anomaly—not because it didn't fit her character, but because it introduced a different world from hers—of crooks, drugs, and illegal deals.”

Bob snorted. “It's just pot, Willy—it's not like she was shooting smack.”

Willy didn't react, staying on track. “It reminded me how in the old cocaine days, a huge number of U.S. dollar bills became tainted with minute traces of coke, regardless of whose pocket they were in—including little old ladies'. It was crazy how that shit got everywhere, just from money changing hands, day to day.”

“Okay,” Crawford said, by now mystified by his friend's line of thought.

“Well, what you were saying made me think: If a dealer peddles heroin and marijuana, both, is it possible that a trace of the first could end up contaminating the packaging of the second?”

Bob's expression cleared. “Which would give you a double trail to follow: the marijuana inside a baggie and a dusting of heroin on the outside. That's neat. You're saying she was maybe done in over a drug deal, and not over her politics at all. I didn't think of that. Never needed to, since we're not murder police like you boys. But I like it. And the contamination angle's very CSI.

“Of course,” he continued after a moment's reflection, “identifying that tiny amount of heroin—minus its own stamped packaging—isn't going to be easy. You'll have to focus on things like purity and adulterants before you can maybe guess where it originated. On the bright side, connecting that both marijuana and heroin came from the same place would make you more interesting to federal prosecutors and might help in identifying some of the people involved—or in ruling others out. Now
that
could be useful.”

“So it is possible?” Willy asked, sounding to Bob unusually tentative.

“Sure. Why not? These bozos aren't neat freaks. Most assembly spots I've seen have drug dust all over the place. I'd give it a try, if I were you.”

Willy nevertheless pressed what he sensed was a reservation. “You have a problem with it, though.”

“I wouldn't say a problem. Maybe I been spending too much time chasing morons, but I was just thinking there might be a simpler way: Why not just go after all of Raffner's friends till you find the one who smoked with her, or maybe even supplied her? Spare yourself all the super-scientific mumbo jumbo.”

Willy pulled a face and stared glumly out the window. “I thought of that. But her buddies're starting to get wound up, wondering why this wasn't solved three minutes after we found her. They're already growling about how we're trying to make Raffner the criminal instead of the victim. It's just paranoia, but it's closing the ranks of the faithful.”

“Ah,” Crawford muttered sympathetically. “And shooting that guy up in Newport didn't help, I bet. Assuming,” he emphasized, “that he's not your guy.”

Willy looked at him. “What makes you say that?”

“You told me as much, and I trust your instincts. Besides, if he had been, it would've been plastered all over the five o'clock news.” He paused before adding, “Something tells me you haven't been able to connect the dots—not to mention that you're sittin' here playing twenty questions with me. You guys are up shit creek without a paddle.”

Willy wasn't going to argue otherwise. “We could do with a break.”

*   *   *

Sam checked the nightstand clock. Three-seventeen. She barely glanced across the bed, knowing that Willy wouldn't be there. He was sometimes, usually lingering after they'd made love. But generally, he wandered around the house like a cat or dog, finding opportunistic spots to make a temporary bivouac. That's how she'd known to find him beside Emma's crib.

It was part of the PTSD—what he called his “war thing.” It made him restless, a poor and sometimes terrified sleeper, and directed him to sit with his back to all walls, to work alone if he could, to avoid creating predictable habits, which in turn dictated that he almost never slept twice in a row in the same place. Those and about fifty other eccentricities.

Tonight, they hadn't started out in bed together anyhow. He'd left home earlier to do “some poking around”—his favorite pastime. The Raffner killing had made him more restive than usual.

Sammie rose, not feeling like returning to sleep, and slid into a long, warm, flannel robe. She didn't worry about waking him up, wherever he was. The nearly inaudible sounds that she'd made getting out of bed were guaranteed to have alerted him.

Perhaps it was an indicator of the many quirks that kept them together, but she enjoyed the occasional night when she went hunting for him, trying to figure out where to start. Surprise was clearly not a factor—all the better since he never went anywhere without a weapon, including to the bathroom—so the challenge boiled down to determining his predictability. She gave herself bonus points for locating him on the first try—almost as much as he saw it as a sign of personal weakness.

This time, however, she didn't stand a chance. She hadn't reached the end of the hallway when his quiet voice crept up behind her. “Got the midnight munchies?”

She turned to find him leaning against the wall, a shadow in the distant night-light's glow. He had a pickle in his hand. She walked up to him and took a bite.

“Why not?”

“That's what I thought.”

Perhaps disturbed by their quiet voices, or more probably because she was due, Emma began crying softly from down the hall. Both parents moved into her bedroom.

“Hey, little girl,” Sam cooed as Willy picked the child up. He shifted her expertly to the changing table against the wall, and swapped out her diaper with practiced skill—all with one hand.

“Wanna spoil her a bit?” he asked her mother, tucking Emma into the crook of his arm. “A few minutes on the couch?”

Sam, always impressed by his easy dexterity, led the way to the living room.

“You got something on your mind,” she stated as they all three settled down. Through the broad window facing the street, they could see snow falling under the streetlamps posted along the horseshoe-shaped street outside their home. “I can hear the gears going 'round. You find anything interesting on your outing?”

She drew a blanket from the back of the sofa to cover their shoulders, bringing them under a tent. This was a proximity she knew he never would have tolerated a couple of years ago.

“I went to see Bob Crawford,” he said. “To spitball a few things.”

She nodded, letting Emma curl her fingers sleepily around her extended thumb. She trusted Willy to explain when and if he was ready. “He doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he replied distractedly, before asking, “You're the air traffic controller on this case. Where do things stand?”

“Not good. We either have no planes to land or they're all crashing like in Newport. The press hounding us and interviewing everybody before we can get to them isn't helping, either.”

“What about any Raffner-related evidence?”

She leaned into him slightly and looked him straight in the eye. “No change, as you very well know. Everybody's still digging through it like tunnel rats. What're you really after?”

He liked that. “You
are
getting to know me.”

“I better be. Spill.”

“Such a hard-ass. You hear of anybody looking at the drug angle?”

She smiled broadly and poked him, making Emma gurgle happily. “Aha. Bob Crawford. Things're coming clear. Do tell.”

“The dope Raffner had in Montpelier and Brattleboro. There was a major bag of low-grade marijuana in her apartment and what looked like a travel supply in her love nest at home. Got me curious about how she scored her stash, and who from. Old-time doper like her probably had a regular supplier. I wanted Bob to give me an update on the state of the trade, just in case it could give us a trail to follow. God knows, a little progress would be nice.”

Sam had been nodding throughout. “I made sure we got the baggie and both samples up to the lab, but I'll ask 'em to step up the pace a bit. Given all the headlines around this case, they'll probably cooperate—happy to see the last of us, sooner the better.”

Willy extended the pickle to her for a second bite, which she accepted. “Thanks.”

She spoke again as she chewed. “One thing you might want to consider.”

“Yeah?”

“The governor coming out at the memorial'll mean we'll have to watch our step more than ever.”

“Why do we give a rat's ass about that? We knew she had no taste in men after she dumped the boss.”

Sam burst out laughing. “Well, I'll be damned. He'd take that as a total compliment, if I repeated it to him.”

“Which you won't, knowing me to be the vindictive, unstable person I am,” he said in a threatening tone.

She shook her head. “God, do I ever. I am serious, though. Zigman doing what she did makes Raffner a romantic partner, which for us means that what's good for the goose might've been good for the other goose, too.”

Willy gave her an appreciative look. “You're saying the governor of our fair state and her girlfriend smoked dope together.”

Sam went further. “I'm saying that's what the tabloids, the talking heads, and the headlines'll be screaming if we don't keep this little inquiry under wraps.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “I'm saying, Willy, that for once in your life, keep an eye on the politics here. We're the governor's special unit. If she's part of this somehow, and we make that connection—and I mean more than sharing a joint in bed—then we better make damned sure we have a rock-solid case, 'cause our employment could be on the line.”

This time, he leaned over carefully and kissed her cheek. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

“You hearing me, Mr. Kunkle?” she asked, her expression serious.

He saw the look in her eye. “I hear you, babe.”

But the look wasn't reserved solely for him. His mention of the marijuana and wanting to chase down the connection between it and Susan Raffner had revived a ten-year-old, still-open wound in Sammie's history—which made her think that Willy might not be the only one on the team who should start indulging in a little freelance investigating.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Across the board, there are roughly eleven hundred fully certified police officers in Vermont—compared to some sixteen thousand in Massachusetts and sixty thousand in neighboring New York. It's the lowest number among all fifty states. Even largely rural New Hampshire has over twice as many cops.

That boils down to the Vermonters being a pretty tightly-knit group, regardless of uniform.

Sammie Martens counted on that when she traveled to the state's forensic lab in Waterbury a few days following her late-night conversation with Willy. Given the above statistics, it wasn't long before every plainclothes investigator got to meet at least a few of the crime lab scientists.