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Authors: Archer Mayor
Tags: FIC022000
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Unfortunately, the emphasis right now was on the “perhaps,” since Joe’s digging hadn’t revealed much about the man.
Armed with a name and a birth date, most cops in Vermont could search a single widely shared database called Spillman and find out if the individual sought had been even peripherally involved in any shenanigans. It was an advantage most other states lacked, since the majority of departments nationwide, although computerized, worked with closed systems. There were so-called national data banks, like the famous NCIC, but your information had to qualify in order to be inserted, and Newell Morgan didn’t reach that standard.
Which was the bad news, in terms of research—in Vermont, Morgan had surfaced in connection only with a few traffic stops, a check fraud case, and two neighbor disputes. He’d also been the complainant a half-dozen times in situations ranging from someone not cleaning up after their dog to a neighborhood teenager playing the radio too loudly. A pain in the ass, in other words, but not a Dillinger. As to what he might have done outside the state, nobody knew—and nobody would unless they could build a bigger case against him.
Gunther pulled up opposite the address Sam had recited, and waited while she radioed their arrival to dispatch. Over the few short years of the Bureau’s existence, niceties such as office space, basic equipment, and communications had been slow and cumbersome in coming, if they came at all. A smoothly working radio system had been a recent arrival only, obviating the need to rely on either the state police or a cell phone system that both Vermont’s topography and its cranky antitower regulations made spotty at best.
Not that Joe minded the deprivations as much as some. He got a perverse kick out of being considered among the profession’s elite while simultaneously being underfunded and ignored. There was a puritanical element lurking there that helped him feel he could keep pridefulness at a safe arm’s length.
“You want company?” Sam asked as he unlatched his door.
“Oh, you bet,” he said, smiling to himself at her predictable politesse. “That’s why you’re here.”
He had wanted her along as a witness and a possible sounding board later, but as their feet touched the lawn, he thought the additional role of backup might also come in handy. They hadn’t advanced two yards before the house’s front door banged open and a large man in a bulging T-shirt stepped out onto the porch with a querulous expression on his face.
“Who’re you?” he asked.
Not for the first time in such situations, Joe was instantly grateful he hadn’t asked Willy along. He pulled out his identification as he continued toward the porch steps.
“Joe Gunther. Vermont Bureau of Investigation. This is Agent Martens.”
The man sneered. “Big surprise. You guys all drive the same cars.”
Joe paused with his hand on the railing. “You Newell Morgan?”
“Yeah. What d’you want?”
“Talk about Michelle Fisher a bit.”
“She’s dead.”
It was Joe’s turn to smile. “Yeah.” He dragged out the word tellingly, allowing the ensuing silence between them to speak for him.
Morgan got the point. He scowled. “Oh, for Christ sake. Fucking woman’ll never let me go.” He turned on his heel and added wearily, “Come on in.”
Joe climbed the steps and opened the screen door that Morgan had let slam behind him. He and Sam entered a freezing air-conditioned living room clearly decorated by a woman. Only a single La-Z-Boy planted before a flat-screen TV set of Olympian proportions and brilliant clarity had escaped her touch. Running soundlessly across its surface, pumping the air with one fist, was an overweight baseball player trailing a mane of greasy hair. The TV and chair made the scene appear farcically lopsided, the former’s robotic sleekness and size making the room’s array of 1950s china figurines crowding every flat surface look like
Armed with a name and a birth date, most cops in Vermont could search a single widely shared database called Spillman and find out if the individual sought had been even peripherally involved in any shenanigans. It was an advantage most other states lacked, since the majority of departments nationwide, although computerized, worked with closed systems. There were so-called national data banks, like the famous NCIC, but your information had to qualify in order to be inserted, and Newell Morgan didn’t reach that standard.
Which was the bad news, in terms of research—in Vermont, Morgan had surfaced in connection only with a few traffic stops, a check fraud case, and two neighbor disputes. He’d also been the complainant a half-dozen times in situations ranging from someone not cleaning up after their dog to a neighborhood teenager playing the radio too loudly. A pain in the ass, in other words, but not a Dillinger. As to what he might have done outside the state, nobody knew—and nobody would unless they could build a bigger case against him.
Gunther pulled up opposite the address Sam had recited, and waited while she radioed their arrival to dispatch. Over the few short years of the Bureau’s existence, niceties such as office space, basic equipment, and communications had been slow and cumbersome in coming, if they came at all. A smoothly working radio system had been a recent arrival only, obviating the need to rely on either the state police or a cell phone system that both Vermont’s topography and its cranky antitower regulations made spotty at best.
Not that Joe minded the deprivations as much as some. He got a perverse kick out of being considered among the profession’s elite while simultaneously being underfunded and ignored. There was a puritanical element lurking there that helped him feel he could keep pridefulness at a safe arm’s length.
“You want company?” Sam asked as he unlatched his door.
“Oh, you bet,” he said, smiling to himself at her predictable politesse. “That’s why you’re here.”
He had wanted her along as a witness and a possible sounding board later, but as their feet touched the lawn, he thought the additional role of backup might also come in handy. They hadn’t advanced two yards before the house’s front door banged open and a large man in a bulging T-shirt stepped out onto the porch with a querulous expression on his face.
“Who’re you?” he asked.
Not for the first time in such situations, Joe was instantly grateful he hadn’t asked Willy along. He pulled out his identification as he continued toward the porch steps.
“Joe Gunther. Vermont Bureau of Investigation. This is Agent Martens.”
The man sneered. “Big surprise. You guys all drive the same cars.”
Joe paused with his hand on the railing. “You Newell Morgan?”
“Yeah. What d’you want?”
“Talk about Michelle Fisher a bit.”
“She’s dead.”
It was Joe’s turn to smile. “Yeah.” He dragged out the word tellingly, allowing the ensuing silence between them to speak for him.
Morgan got the point. He scowled. “Oh, for Christ sake. Fucking woman’ll never let me go.” He turned on his heel and added wearily, “Come on in.”
Joe climbed the steps and opened the screen door that Morgan had let slam behind him. He and Sam entered a freezing air-conditioned living room clearly decorated by a woman. Only a single La-Z-Boy planted before a flat-screen TV set of Olympian proportions and brilliant clarity had escaped her touch. Running soundlessly across its surface, pumping the air with one fist, was an overweight baseball player trailing a mane of greasy hair. The TV and chair made the scene appear farcically lopsided, the former’s robotic sleekness and size making the room’s array of 1950s china figurines crowding every flat surface look like
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