Scent of Evil, page 38
part #3 of Joe Gunther Series
Brandt’s voice: “Nobody’s at the door. He’s still inside. I found Dennis. He was knocked on the head but he’ll be okay.”
“Switch frequencies and call for backup.”
“Ten-four.”
I moved to the entrance of the crooked hallway and waited for Sammie and J.P. to join me. “Okay, remember the layout?”
“Isolated two-story segment, about nine rooms downstairs, same above, two staircases, hallway like this upstairs.”
That, in Tyler’s staccato nutshell, was it. This was the only two-story section in the school’s southwest corner, which meant the upstairs windows gave out onto a lot of flat, open roof.
I looked at their two sweat-sheened faces. Both of them held handguns pointed safely up, ready for use. “Okay. Brandt’s got the exit. You two work the downstairs. I’ll go up. Remember, he may have a key, so don’t trust a locked door. And take your time; I’d sooner let him get away than have one of you killed. Deal?”
“Deal,” Sammie muttered, her voice half strangled by adrenaline.
I began working my way up the near staircase, feeling the risers with my toes and keeping my eyes, and my gun, trained up above to where the stairs doubled back on themselves to link up with the top landing. I took my time, moving slowly and quietly, my concentration not only on what I was doing, but also taking in what I could glean from the radio. In the back of my mind, I wondered what Kunkle was up to.
I reached the top without mishap and moved quickly to the angle where the landing turned the corner into the hall. There I removed the earphone to better concentrate and found myself suddenly alone.
I strained to listen for anything unusual, and heard nothing but distant sirens fast approaching; movements from Sammie and J.P. downstairs; and the distinct rasp of a chair being pushed, ever so slightly, out of the way, as by somebody groping in the dark.
That last one grabbed my attention. It had come from nearby.
I wiped my forehead with my sleeve. The additional disadvantage of my position, aside from being far removed from everyone else, was that the entire second floor of this small section was dark. There were no vending machines, no exit signs, and no windows, since the hallway was lined with classrooms. The doors leading to those rooms, however, did have windows, and gradually, as my pupils adjusted, I could just grasp the outline of the corridor from the dimly filtered streetlights outside.
That allowed me one discovery: There were no chairs in the hall, so the sound I’d heard had come from one of the rooms.
Whoever I was stalking knew the building. The door he’d entered hadn’t been jammed, but it had been left locked so as not to appear suspicious. Since Dennis had been put out of action just seconds before Pierre had been shot, no time had been wasted picking a lock. Therefore, the gunman did indeed have at least one of the building’s four passkeys. In addition, he’d known that particular door led to the most discreet approach to the cafeteria, and that McDermott’s arrival through the main entrance would encourage us to face in the wrong direction at just the right time. Ironically, had Pierre not lost his cool, it might have worked.
But what did all that tell me? That he had to be in one of the north-facing rooms, the only ones which gave out onto the roof, and which were invisible from the ground level.
I looked out into the corridor again. Using that logic, I had two choices, both of them almost directly facing me: the two doors of the only classrooms whose windows afforded the access my quarry was seeking.
Crouching, I slipped across the hall and placed my hand very gently on the doorknob of the first door. Slowly, hoping that perhaps in his haste he’d forgotten to lock it behind him, I twisted the knob. The sweat began to pour off my forehead, stinging my eyes.
The knob fully over now, I positioned myself on the balls of my feet and gave a little push. As I did, the door released a loud mechanical snap.
I instantly yielded to instinct. Rather than pulling back and surrendering my hard-won surprise, I threw my weight against the door and dove in to one side of the room, covering my head with my arm to ward off any chairs or tables that might be in the way. The room blew up with the sound and light of a single gunshot, and I heard the sharp splat of a bullet hitting the door I’d just used.
I rolled on the floor, trying to find a target against the slightly pale windows lining the opposite wall, but my eyes were still blinking away the white star left behind by the muzzle flash. There was the sound of glass shattering, of feet scrambling for a toehold, and of a distant thump as something heavy landed on the roof outside.
I staggered to my feet and punched the button on my microphone. “He’s on the roof, he’s on the roof.” Against the night sky, I could see a shadow running and hear his feet slamming on the gravel as he made for a distant rooftop greenhouse.
Not wanting to fire indiscriminately, I made to follow and placed my hand right on a jagged shard of glass. I swore and stepped back, using my gun barrel to sweep the window frame clean. “He’s making for the greenhouse. Close in on him from downstairs.”
I tried again and this time jumped cleanly to the roof. It was higher by two feet than the pale rubber-coated roof on which the small greenhouse stood, so I quickly moved to the lower level where my footsteps would make no sound.
There I paused to reassess. The greenhouse, a small fifty-by-thirty-foot student research facility, was a penthouse of sorts, with an interior metal staircase leading down to a cavernous forestry and horticulture classroom, a part of the career-training school. I couldn’t see the door of the greenhouse from my vantage point, but I was betting that was where the gunman had been heading. Unfortunately, if he was on his toes, he now knew what I knew and had therefore probably changed his plans; that meant I was either staring at an empty structure and he was long gone in another direction, or he was waiting around the corner to plug me as soon as I became visible.
I began circling the small glass building from a distance, my eyes on its sharp-edged silhouette, watching for any crouching form, waiting for an ambush. As the narrow end came into dim view, I could see the flimsy metal door was half open. Encouraged, I began closing in, slowly, cautiously, still balanced and poised to duck to either side. The first three feet of the greenhouse walls were aluminum, so I kept almost on hands and knees for cover as I peered around the edge of the doorway and looked down the short cement-floored aisle. Warm, fetid air hit my face, tinged with the slight sweetness of confined vegetation and damp earth. I listened and heard only the faint hum of some overhead fans, along with voices and the sounds of people gathering down below, no doubt preparing to make an assault up the narrow stairs.
From where I crouched, I could see a light switch just inside the door. I reached in quickly, turned it on, and slipped back to see what would happen. The building lit up like a jewel in the night, but not a sound or a movement followed suit.
I gingerly poked my head back around the corner. What I saw made me laugh. I straightened up, crossed the threshold, and after a brief final glance around the place, walked to the middle of the aisle, keying my radio as I went. “All clear. I’ve got him in the greenhouse.”
Stretched out before me, spread-eagled and unconscious on the floor, his gun several feet beyond his reach, was the inert body of Selectman Luman Jackson.
Willy Kunkle, his part done, was nowhere to be seen.
35
“THIS IS AN OUTRAGE. Take these off.”
Sammie Martens checked Jackson’s handcuffs and gave him a contemptuous shake of the head. “I don’t think so.”
She crossed the room to where Brandt and I were talking with Billy Manierre. “He’s still bitchin’.”
“Okay, thanks Sammie. Did you read him his rights?”
She nodded.
“Great. Why don’t you pile him into your car and take him downtown, but don’t bring him into the building till we get there. I want to keep this under wraps for a while.”
We all waited until she’d escorted Luman Jackson out the door, ignoring his protests as he passed. “What’s your game plan?” Brandt asked.
We were still in the high school, off the cafeteria in a small, windowless dining room. Jackson had been checked for the thump on his head, which all but Brandt assumed I had given him. The troops had been sent home with no explanations and without having seen either McDermott or Jackson. Brandt and Billy had been concocting a properly vague press report to explain all the lights and sirens. The shots were now firecrackers, the whole affair ascribed to “probably teenage vandals,” pending a further investigation.
I answered Brandt with a smile, lightly fingering the bandage I’d wrapped around my cut hand. “I’d like to talk to both of them tonight, before they start thinking too much. Maybe put Jackson in Dunn’s office, for privacy, and have Fred cool his heels in Interrogation. Is Dunn coming himself, or sending a deputy?”
Brandt chuckled. “Not hardly; he’s hooked on this case. Said he’d meet us at the Municipal Building.”
I looked around at the empty room. “Then I guess it’s show time.”
· · ·
Brandt was driving while I looked out the passenger window at the still city passing by. We were rolling down South Main Street, toward the center of town, following the patrol car carrying Fred McDermott. When I’d been on the graveyard shift, many years back, this had been my favorite time of night—the long quiet pause between the last of the rowdies packing it in and the first stirrings of the early-morning crowd.
Brandt cleared his throat. “So, any wild guesses?”
“I have a question first: What happened to Dennis?”
“Someone snuck up behind him, slapped a black cloth bag over his head, brought him down like a ton of bricks, and tied his hands and feet with wire, all in seconds flat.”
“Just as he was about to report someone coming in the side door.”
“Yup.”
I let that rattle around my head for a minute. “If you were riding shotgun for a buddy on a break-and-enter job, knowing the place was guarded, you’d try to nail the guard before your buddy was spotted, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure, unless I’d had trouble finding the guard.”
“But you’d take the time to find him; otherwise you’d be risking the whole thing. That’d be stupid.”
“Not if there was a timing problem.”
“Like Jackson having to appear at the back hallway just as McDermott walked in the front?”
“Yeah, especially if each didn’t know the other was there. McDermott sure looked like Mr. Innocence himself.”
I mulled that over. “He told me he showed up because someone had phoned him and told him I wanted a meet. That’s possible. Jackson obviously had a fairy godmother watching his back. I wonder if he knew about it?”
Brandt pursed his lips, as interested as I was to kick a few ideas around before interrogating our two suspects. “So, you have two people showing up for a meeting because they were both invited by a third.”
“That looks like it, although ‘invited’ might not work in Jackson’s case. He had a gun, and I suspect Dennis was taken out so he’d have an opportunity to use it.”
· · ·
Dunn was waiting for Brandt and me on the third floor of the Municipal Building, in the reception area of his small nest of offices. Despite the hour, he looked as dapper as if we’d called him out of a banker’s meeting.
He looked at us without expression. “I gather you hooked a curious fish.”
Brandt smiled. “You could say that.”
“Where is he?”
“In a car downstairs,” I answered. “I wanted you to call the shots on how big we should play this.”
Dunn smiled thinly. “Very diplomatic of you. Why don’t you give me some background before we invite him in?”
Bringing James Dunn up to date, and determining what interrogation strategy to use on Jackson, consumed about twenty minutes, during which the State’s Attorney sat at his polished antique desk and covered the top sheet of a yellow legal pad with small, carefully scripted notes.
Only when he was thoroughly satisfied with what we’d told him did he give me the go-ahead to radio Sammie in the car and have Luman Jackson brought upstairs.
What arrived on the SA’s threshold three minutes later was not an attractive sight. Jackson was disheveled, red-eyed, and oddly out of sorts, as if torn between being angry and frightened. I hoped we could use that displacement to our advantage.
Dunn bowed slightly and waved to a small conference table surrounded by hard, wooden chairs. “Please, Mr. Jackson, have a seat.”
Jackson twisted his body around, showing his manacled wrists. “For God’s sake, James, these handcuffs are completely unnecessary.”
Dunn made a conciliatory gesture. “Of course—a necessary formality. Lieutenant?”
I pulled a key from my pocket and set Jackson free. He made a theatrical show of rubbing his wrists as the rest of us gathered around the table. Dunn pointed to one of the chairs and placed a tape recorder before it. “Luman?”
Jackson stared at the recorder as if it were a snake and gingerly sat before it. With a loud click, Dunn turned it on and announced the date, the time, the location, and the identities of the other people in the room.
Then he sat at the end of the table and nodded to me, directly opposite Jackson.
“Would you please state your name?” I asked.
Luman’s face darkened. “Luman J. Jackson.”
“Mr. Jackson, have you been apprised of your rights?”
“Yes.”
“And you fully understand those rights?”
“Of course I do. Look, this is absurd—”
“Do you wish to speak with us now, or do you want an attorney present?”
“I don’t need an attorney, for Christ’s sake. This whole thing is a misunderstanding.”
Dunn spoke up. “I guarantee you, Luman, before this is over, you will need legal representation.”
“However,” I added, I hoped not too hastily, “if you do wish to talk to us now without a lawyer present, you’ll have to sign a waiver.”
I slid the waiver across the table to him and waited, holding my breath. There were times I had no doubt of the outcome of this ritual legal dance, but this man, normally so belligerent, was muted and confused enough to keep me guessing.
He signed the waiver.
I glanced at it before sliding it over to Dunn. “Thank you. What were you doing at the Brattleboro Union High School tonight?”
Jackson glanced across the table at James Dunn briefly and then concentrated on staring at his knuckles as he clasped and unclasped his hands.
“Mr. Jackson?” I repeated.
He sighed and wrestled some more internally. “I went there to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“I… I can’t say.”
“You were carrying a gun. Do you do that normally?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why tonight?”
“I was nervous.”
“I noticed that you had the gun already drawn as you appeared from the hallway; that’s how you got the drop on Officer Lavoie. Why was your gun out and ready to fire?”
Jackson opened his mouth to speak, thought a moment, and then closed it again.
“You entered the building through a locked door. How did you do that?”
A flash of the old Luman crossed his face. “With a key, of course. I had it from when I used to teach there.”
“You were last employed by BUHS five years ago. Weren’t you supposed to hand in all your keys on your last day there?”
He hesitated. “Technically, I guess. I forgot.”
“Were you alone tonight?”
“Of course. Look, instead of all this back and forth, why don’t you just let me tell you what happened?”
“Please do.”
But having made the offer, Jackson looked momentarily stuck. “Well, I… I was supposed to meet someone—a private meeting, perfectly legal—but the time and the location made me… nervous, so I took my gun along, for security.”
His voice slowly gained confidence as the tale weaved itself in his mind. “As I entered the building, I heard voices, and since I was only supposed to be meeting one person, that made me very uneasy, so I drew my gun from my pocket. Then, as I turned the corner, there was a man aiming a gun at me. Naturally, I fired in self-defense, after which, seeing several more people in the room, I fled for my life.”
“You didn’t recognize me?” I asked.
“Of course not. All I saw were guns.”
“If your meeting was perfectly legal, Mr. Jackson,” Brandt interjected, “then why won’t you identify the other party?”
Luman looked around at us, the coy smile on his face contrasting with the sweat on his upper lip. “It’s a matter of discretion. A romantic situation. I’m sure you understand.”
“Your date showed up. Didn’t you see Fred McDermott by the front door?” I asked.
Jackson’s face turned livid. “That’s disgusting.”
“You’re denying you were there to meet with McDermott?”
“Of course I am.”
He was full of bluster, but I thought I’d heard a catch in his voice. “Mr. Jackson, at the moment, we’re considering charging you with at least illegal trespass, reckless endangerment with a firearm, and attempted murder. This is not a great time to get cute. It is up to the State’s Attorney here to determine what we do with you tonight. Your cooperation will play a large role in that decision.”
There was a moment’s silence in the room. Jackson finally muttered, “I am cooperating.”
“Then tell us who you were planning to meet.”
I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head, considering the options, weighing the risks. It proved to be more than he could handle on short notice. “I refuse to answer.”
I glanced at Dunn and raised my eyebrows. He nodded slightly. I switched subjects. “In your years as a teacher, did you ever have Charlie Jardine as a student?”
