Smugglers Notch Page 8

  Jeffcoat’s hand clung to the holster that lay like a vestigial appendage against his thigh. “We’ll find out soon enough,” he answered with too much swagger.

  “Wally, just say yes or no.”

  “Yeah,” Jeffcoat chirped. “You bet. I’ve been waiting forever on this.”

  The bullpen was still deep in accident reports when St. Germain returned a few minutes before four-thirty. Jeffcoat was nowhere around. St. Germain checked the cells, but saw only Silas Cumming, one of Tremont Center’s habitual drunks, charged with malicious mischief for tossing a bottle through the window of the Smart Tavern after a bartender refused him service and eighty-sixed him for life. A container of steaming coffee beside a cigarette burning down to the filter on one of the desks hinted at a calamity so sudden that St. Germain was reminded of pictures of Pompeii in his eighth-grade history text. The newer calamity he blamed on his deputy’s cold feet. He was trying to remember Dick Vann’s home number when Jeffcoat came in, cradling a silver thermos bottle.

  “Thought you’d found something else at the last minute,” St. Germain said, relief disguised as mild amusement. “Where were you hiding?”

  “Shep’s Diner. Missing dinner’s no big deal, but if I can’t tank up on coffee when I want it, you’d be surprised how cross it makes me.”

  “Guess I would.” St. Germain dusted off the billed cap with badge 138 stuck in the tan fabric and spun it around his finger. “Got everything you need?”

  “Let’s see.” Jeffcoat patted down his pockets, automatically caressing his holster. “I think so.”

  St. Germain pressed his hands against the smaller man’s shoulders and eased him toward the corridor. “Then say goodbye to Silas and let’s get going.”

  He stayed behind the deputy all the way to the parking lot, cutting off every opportunity for retreat. Outside, Jeffcoat hesitated and wedged the thermos under an arm.

  “Why you stopping here?” St. Germain asked.

  “You didn’t say if we’re taking your car or Joe Louis.”

  “We’ll need both of ’em. If you want to talk on the way, flash your lights and I’ll pull over.”

  “What about the Chittenden deputies?”

  “I’ve decided not to—” St. Germain began. “There’s been a change in plan. They’re tied up with a major investigation of their own and can’t spare the men. We’re going to have to tackle this by our lonesomes.”

  “Whatever you think’s best,” Jeffcoat said, and remained where he was.

  “Move, Wally. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, Lieutenant. I just wanted to thank you for going out on a limb for me, using me in a big case. This really is something, putting a murderer under arrest and all.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” St. Germain filled his lungs with cold air. “God, I love being a cop.”

  They walked between the rows of cars to the Brown Bomber, the hand-me-down cruiser that had been Jeffcoat’s own since he joined the department. The deputy tossed his thermos on the seat as St. Germain unlocked the new turbocharger Marlow had ordered especially for him and that had caused a near rebellion in the squad room when it was still just a rumor. When he twisted the key, the engine roared as if it were being let out of a cage. Jeffcoat was on his bumper as he led the way to the interstate.

  The sun was flaming out behind the Adirondacks, backlighting the high peaks in an orange glow that boiled out of hidden valleys. St. Germain groped for the visor and shifted it over the tinted glass. In the mirror a Chevy with sandblasted paint was nosing ahead of the Brown Bomber. St. Germain touched his brakes, rode them lightly until the intruder was squeezed out from between the police cars and Jeffcoat’s boyish features became distinct again.

  He cut his speed some more at the Burlington bypass and halved it for the ruined road to Malletts Bay. Behind him the Brown Bomber dropped back again, headlights blinking furiously. St. Germain ignored the signal until they reached the summer colony and he had circled out of sight of the Conklin place to a cove where Canada geese hunkered down for the night. At the water’s edge a shantytown of ice fishing shacks waited for winter’s hard freeze. A shack of his own stood beside Long Lake in the mountains. First thing back from Florida, he would move in with his Coleman stove and his Watchman, hardly see Annie for two months except when she came by to tell him to grow up and come in out of the cold.

  He parked behind twin cedar trees, wondering why police cars weren’t equipped with camouflage netting. The Brown Bomber crept alongside and Jeffcoat stepped out, adjusting his holster on his hip.

  “I’ve been flashing you ever since we came off the highway,” the deputy said, crankiness masquerading as professional concern. “You didn’t see?”

  “We were too close to Conklin’s place to risk stopping. What’s on your mind?”

  “Nothing now. You were driving so fast I was bottoming out trying to keep up. You know what Joe Louis’s suspension is like. I was afraid I’d scrape off my muffler and they’d hear us all over the lake.”

  “It never occurred to me.”

  “I hope that’s all that—” The tone of his own voice brought Jeffcoat up short. “Well, no harm done,” he said. “Which house is his?”

  “The bungalow in the pines, the red one. See it?”

  Jeffcoat shielded his eyes against reflected light that seemed to sizzle in the snow. “The one with the van in front?”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll drive down and say he’s wanted at headquarters for something or other concerning his truck. We can tell him later we think he killed a girl in it.”

  “What’s my job?”

  “Conklin’s got an older brother who could make a pain of himself without too much encouragement. I don’t see his Jeep around, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to daydream. If he jumps on my back, I’d appreciate it if you’d come down and pull him off. If I need you for anything else, I’ll wave my arms over my head.”

  “That’s it?” Jeffcoat asked. “That’s all I have to do?”

  St. Germain appraised the deputy and then reached out and straightened his collar. “Better comb your hair, Wally.”

  “What’s that got to—”

  “And learn to smile.” He pinched Jeffcoat’s cheek. “You want to look your best for the cameras when we bring him in.”

  With Jeffcoat stashed where he wouldn’t trip over his feet, St. Germain backed into a U-turn. He killed his lights, picking out the way with the dregs of the sun. In Chimney Corner, across the bay, the big waterfront homes glowed like beacons in the growing darkness—Burlington’s new money getting an early start on a weekend in the country. Skating on frozen slush, the cruiser cut across the summer colony to Sturgeon Cove Road and followed it onto the Conklin property. Woodsmoke swirled over the redwood’s roof in yellow light rising like warm air. St. Germain swung around the van, demolishing a powdery hill beside the remains of a paper sack.

  He came out in a hurry, slamming the car door, using up what little surprise he had left. The air was flavored with greasy meat frying, a barbecue he was glad to have missed. It made him hungry just the same. Though he had warned Jeffcoat to have a big lunch, he could remember eating only four doughnuts since a breakfast of apple pie.

  A track in the slush ended at three stairs and a porch. A brown mat thinned by lug soles extended a conditional welcome in faded letters as he hunted for a doorbell. Not finding one, he pounded the redwood with the side of his hand and checked to see if the color had come off.

  He waited half a minute and banged again, harder, then peered through a window. Smiling back was the chubby weather gal from the Plattsburgh TV station framed by the lower forty-eight on a twelve-inch screen. He knocked one more time and tried the knob, surprised when the splintered wood didn’t rattle. Angry, but not sure why, or at whom, he went around to the back.

  The path was littered with old engine blocks and washing machines, rusted refrigerator motors, three ’57 Chevies cannibalized for parts—Appalachian megalomania sp
illing into the tony Champlain Valley. He walked through the junk into a yard doing double duty as a stunted baseball diamond. The rear of the bungalow was unpainted, the redwood stuff an affectation for salesmen and passersby. The windows were insulated with heavy sheets of plastic that were secured around the frames with duct tape. St. Germain tried to see inside, but it was like looking for goldfish in a bowl that needed a change of water. There was a dark green door that seemed wedged into the jamb like a cork hammered in a bottle. With his knuckles he played it like a drum.

  He heard footsteps, thought he did, light ones like stocking feet on a carpeted floor. But no one came to let him in and the sound went away. He moved along the cluttered porch to the side of the house and peeled the tape from a double window, allowing a clear view of a box spring upright against the glass. He pressed the plastic into place again and retreated into the snow.

  The moon was rising out of the mountains, a brass button among pinheads in a velvet sky. St. Germain looked for the cove where Jeffcoat was supposed to be keeping an eye on things and felt queasiness come over him when he easily spotted the Brown Bomber between the cedar trees. He went to one of the old Chevies and glanced in. Other than torn cushions leaking brown batting, the interior was picked clean; even the knobs had been plucked from the dashboard. As he was straightening up, he backed into something hard, something that hadn’t been there a moment ago and that began inching along his spine. Cold metal made his flesh creep as it traced a circle in the back of his head. A confident voice he had heard not many hours before warned, “Use it or lose it.”

  A shudder ran through his body, but he made no other motion. He was trying to concentrate, to remember what the training manual said about being caught in a spot like this. But what came to mind was that old radio comedian, Jack Benny he thought it was, and the mugger with the voice like Bugs Bunny who was always saying, “Your money or your life,” and Jack not answering right away, then getting the big yucks when he’d finally say, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

  St. Germain already had thought it out. As soon as he had the upper hand, he was going to break someone’s head.

  “What was the choice?” he asked, as Jack would have, but holding himself rigid, making it plain that he knew he had no choice.

  “I’ve got a twelve-gauge shotgun aimed where it’ll break you in half,” Paul Conklin said. “Cuts a real tight pattern. The choice is, you do what I say or we’ll see exactly what you’re made out of, Mr. Muscles.”

  St. Germain raised his hands above his shoulders.

  “Did I tell you to do anything?” Conklin asked.

  Cautiously, St. Germain lowered his arms.

  “Put your hands up,” Conklin said. “And keep them there till I tell you not to.”

  St. Germain complied. It was going to be a long night, and he hoped to be around when it was over.

  He felt the boy’s fingers at his holster. A part of his body seemed gone as they came away with his revolver. Then the fingers found his pockets and removed his wallet and car keys.

  “Take off your gun belt,” Conklin said. “Let it drop on the ground.”

  St. Germain tugged at the strap and the holster fell into the slush. His head didn’t move. He was trying not to look anywhere, especially not in the direction of the Brown Bomber. He was wondering if Jeffcoat had seen the boy set his trap and how he would respond. Then Conklin ordered him away from the car, and as he moved into the shadow of the house he realized the scene was screened from the deputy’s view.

  “Now your other belt,” Conklin was saying.

  “My pants’ll fall down.”

  “Your problem. Take it off.”

  St. Germain opened the fancy brass buckle with the Cabot County seal that he had made up special for everyone in the department on a trip to Boston the year he was promoted to lieutenant. The stiff leather was comforting in his hand. If the boy came near enough, he would use it to whip out his eye.

  “Drop that,” Conklin said.

  St. Germain pulled the strap through the loops, felt his pants slide down to his hips. He let go of the buckle and grabbed for the waistband.

  “Stay like that,” Conklin said. “It’ll give your hands something to do. Now let me see your face.”

  Tamping a circle in the snow, St. Germain turned around. Paul Conklin was in his checked jacket and twill pants, his hair in spiky tufts as if he had just rolled out of bed. Binoculars hanging from his neck and the pistol in his fist reminded St. Germain of a bird-watcher out for blood. At his feet was a thin metal rod. He laughed as he ground it into the slush.

  “Yeah,” he said, “look at it, look at it good. Bang bang bang. There’s my shotgun.”

  St. Germain felt the skin on his face tighten.

  “I could shoot you just like that.” Conklin snapped his fingers, the popping sound like handmade gunfire. “Say I thought you were a prowler.”

  “You could,” St. Germain said. “But you wouldn’t get anybody to believe you.”

  “Let me worry about that part. Why’re you snooping around my house?”

  St. Germain pinched his waistband against his midsection. He brushed his knuckles against his forehead and brought them away, clammy.

  “I asked you—”

  “You know what I’m doing here, Paul.”

  Conklin’s hand began waving as though he had forgotten there was a gun in it. St. Germain couldn’t forget. “Your truck,” he said quickly, ceding the first round to the boy.

  “What about it?”

  “Day before yesterday, a van like yours was in a hit-and-run accident on Main Street in Tremont Center. Somebody owes five thousand dollars to the owner of a green Ford.”

  The construction of a sloppy smile seemed to exhaust Conklin’s anger, and the gun stopped waving. St. Germain smiled, too. If he could keep the bullshit flowing, the boy probably would invite him in for a beer.

  “That’s all?” Conklin said and lowered the weapon. “Just a car wreck?”

  “It’s why I pulled you over this morning. If you can prove you weren’t near Tremont Center, I’ll have to let you go.”

  “Let me go?” Conklin jabbed his hand for emphasis, then stared at it as if he were surprised to find the revolver there. “You’re gonna let me go? That’s a laugh.”

  “Well, Paul?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Were you in Tremont Center with your truck?”

  Conklin’s eyebrows came together and he shook his head.

  “Then why don’t you give back my gun and we can forget this ever hap—”

  “I know I wasn’t,” Conklin said, “’cause I’ve been keeping prett’ much to home since I killed that girl last week. Rebecca something or other, wasn’t it?”

  The sweat turned to ice on St. Germain’s forehead. “What are you talking about?”

  Conklin pushed the gun out in front again. “You think you’re talking to some kind of simpleton or something? You think I didn’t know what you were up to when you flagged my truck? One more day and you wouldn’t have found me here. I was heading …” He stopped, picking a destination. “It doesn’t matter. The thing is, I would have been gone. And now look what you’re making me do.”

  “I’m not making you do anything, Paul,” St. Germain said in the firm but nonthreatening voice the training manual advised.

  “Another thing, you’re not my pal, so stop Pauling me. From now on, it’s Mr. Conklin to you, got that?”

  St. Germain nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lawrence St. Germain. Lieutenant, Cabot County sheriff’s office.” Expressionless, like a prisoner of war.

  “I’ll call you Larr, if that’s all right with you.”

  Sure, St. Germain wanted to say, but it’ll cost you, on top of everything else. But what he said was, “You’re the one with the .38.”

  Conklin tilted the gunsight at his head and scratched the side of his nose with it. “You don’t have to remind me, Larr.”<
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  “What are you planning to do with it?”

  “Bang bang bang,” Conklin said again.

  St. Germain felt the stripped Chevy press against his hips, although he didn’t remember backing into it. He came forward slowly, inching over the iron bar, hoping the boy wouldn’t notice.

  Conklin moved in step with him, following his lead. “You’re standing on something that belongs to me,” he said. “Let me have it.”

  “If you say so, Mr. Conklin.”

  St. Germain burrowed in the neutral ground between them, the metal so cold he felt white heat in his palm. Suddenly, Conklin stepped on the bar, pinning his hand, and the gun barrel crashed into his head.

  “You shouldn’t strain yourself thinking,” Conklin said sternly. “You figured you could break my knees and get back your gun. I can read minds, Larr, the easy ones.” The revolver came down again and the cylinder collided with St. Germain’s cheek. “Pick yourself out of the snow. You’re disgracing your uniform.”

  St. Germain touched numb fingers to his jaw. Mashed bone stretched the skin where swelling soon would begin; if he stayed cool enough to get out of this alive, he’d be sipping soup through a straw for months. He pulled himself up against the Chevy. More than the pain he was troubled by an unfamiliar feeling in his guts, which he suspected was the onset of panic.

  Conklin bent for the gun belt and slung it over his shoulder. He went to the corner of the house and raised his binoculars toward the cove where Jeffcoat waited in the Brown Bomber. “Tell your partner he’s invited, too, Larr.”

  The panicky feeling spilled over and St. Germain hooked his fingers in the door handle to keep from sliding off the car. “The hell are you talking about?” he tried.

  Conklin walked back smartly with the pistol at his knees, then brought it up without warning. St. Germain heard himself cry out loud as his body jerked back. He ran his tongue behind his lips, snagging a jagged nub where a tooth had shattered. He tried to say something, but the frosted air sent a shiver of pain through his body and he clamped a hand over his mouth and turned away so the boy wouldn’t see.