Joey Warnecki - Eight Days Page 3

Chapter 3

  This Thanksgiving Day, the personnel of the Rock Harbor Police Department not scheduled for the day off were assigned split shifts or reduced hours in order to allow maximum time with their families. The duty roster had been devised months before so that people could arrange their holiday meals and family meeting times. The storm, of course, threw the careful planning to the wind. Knowles, who had seniority in the department, was to have had the entire day off, but had been called in early, along with Sims and others, to deal with the fender-benders and downed power lines brought on by the storm. Sergeant Clarkson, to whom holidays meant little or nothing, was back at work by one a.m., calling out the troops as they were needed to cover the streets of his town. The department was his one true calling and he believed, perhaps rightly, that it could not function without him.

  The storm blew itself out by nine in the morning, leaving behind perhaps a foot of snow, the actual amount difficult to ascertain since it was so heavily drifted. The sun reasserted itself with a vengeance, blinding those unfortunate souls who were attempting to drive the streets without sunglasses. Sims was one of the them. He stopped at home to pick up a pair and to give Armstrong a call. Snowplows had been by and pushed up a bank of snow for him to clamber over. Entering his house at ten in the morning, after six hours in the car, he couldn't see his wife standing before him in the kitchen. He could hear her greeting as he stood just inside the door, but only saw light from the window over the sink, squinting and waiting for his eyes to readjust. She laughed at him.

  "It's not funny," he said, "I can't see a damn thing."

  "I know, I'm sorry," she apologized, still amused. "You just look so silly, standing there with your eyes all screwed up. Want some coffee?"

  "Yeah." He was beginning to be able to make out her silhouette. She led her blind husband to the table, putting his hand on a chair back. He sat. "Thanks," he said, as she placed a steaming mug before him. "Kids up?"

  She sat opposite him. "They were up when the wind stopped. Grabbed their cross-country skis and took off to get in some miles before the streets are all cleared. Are you going to be off work soon?"

  "Be nice if they dug out the driveway, instead. Maybe in a few hours. What time were you planning to eat?"

  "I was going to put the bird in the oven early, but decided to wait to hear from you." She looked at the clock. "Can you be home by four?"

  "Definitely." His vision had returned for the most part, though the colors were still flat.

  She took a sip. "How is it out there?"

  "Lot of lines down. The trees loaded up with ice and then snow and the wind brought them down. Gonna be a lot of people postponing their Thanksgiving dinner. Streets should be cleared up pretty soon, power's gonna take longer." He set his cap on the table and rubbed his head where the hair had matted down under its rim. He yawned. " 'Scuse me. I've got a few things to do yet. Want to see if I can talk to Armstrong this morning." He pushed back his chair and rose, carrying his mug with him to the phone.

  Louis answered after a dozen rings. "I was digging out," he offered as an explanation. "You find him?"

  "No. Not a trace, yet." Sims had kept an eye out for Joey in his morning travels. "Must have found somewhere to hole up through the storm."

  "Hope so." There was half a minute of uncomfortable silence.

  Sims broke it. "Can you spare some time for me this morning? Like to drive over and talk to you."

  "Maybe. Far as I'm concerned, talk's gotta be a two-way street."

  Sims deliberated only for a few seconds before agreeing. He told Louis to expect him within the half hour. He pecked his wife on the cheek. Halfway through the door he said, "See you before four. Try to get the kids to do some shoveling."

  "Fat chance," she replied, and added, "You ought to grab some sunglasses." He returned briefly to grab a pair from a drawer below the counter and left.

  .

  Louis' kitchen was devoid of the aroma and disorder that was taking place in the thousands of other homes preparing for the holiday feast. The only steam in the room arose from his sweated clothing, damp from strenuous, outdoor work. Louis' driveway and walk had been shoveled clear, as well as the walk and driveway belonging to Joey Warnecki. Sims' trousers were damp below the knee from climbing through the snowbank between his home and the patrol car. The two men stood a few feet apart, like men preparing to spar, but unwilling to throw a first punch. Louis had already gone a full fifteen rounds fighting the heavyweight snow and he was exhausted. His shoulders slumped and he said, "Why don't we sit down."

  Sims began. "There was no cocaine in the place where it was eventually found when I first went through the house." He paused. "I'm sure about that." He paused again. "I don't know when or how it got there. It's been causing me a lot of grief trying to figure it out." He met Louis' eyes.

  "Man, ain't that a pile of shit." Louis was feeling a different kind of heat now, and struggled to rein in his indignation. "If that shit didn't happen, Joey wouldn't have ..." He lost the words.

  Sims didn't approach the job with an us-verses-them mentality. He saw himself as a part of the community and acted accordingly. Still, he knew he was taking a chance with Armstrong. Many police officers had crossed the line, given something up to persons not in the uniform, and been burned badly. It said something about him, that he was willing to take a chance on Louis, and Louis was savvy enough to understand this. It defused any expression of his outrage toward Sims and returned his mind to coherence.

  "Okay," he said, settling down, "here's the story..." And he related everything Joey had told him during the prior evening. Sims sat without moving or saying a word until Louis had finished speaking. Then the two men sat to digest this unholiday-like meal of circumstance.

  "Alright," Louis said, "here's how I see it: The shooting and the drugs are connected, but not the Wojciehowski thing, probably. Joey didn't have anything to do with the drugs, so the drugs are connected to the guy who did the shooting." He stabbed a finger in Sims' direction. "That's the core of the situation."

  Sims settled back in his chair. "I buy the connection between the shooter and the drugs, but I'm going to withhold judgment on any relationship to the false i.d. I don't care for coincidence.

  "It don't sound right to me." Louis shook his head. "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to keep on looking for Warnecki. He's got to hold the key to this thing. He had to have done something, seen something, heard something, that made someone feel the need to kill him. Or then, when that failed, to discredit him in the eyes of the law by making it look like he was dirty."

  "Have you been able to make any progress at all on that?" Louis leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table.

  "Not much," Sims said, and crossed his arms over his chest. "There's a few things to look into yet. Did you get to talk to him any more about what he did on Monday"

  "No, why?" Louis put more weight on his forearms.

  Sims shrugged. "Need to fill in some blanks, is all. Listen, if you see him before I do, will you convince him to call me?"

  It was Louis' turn to shrug. "Maybe. Probably. Tell me what kind of trouble he's in for using somebody else's name."

  Sims rolled his eyes. "No way around it, that's going to be a mess, even if it isn't tied up with anything else criminal. There will be problems on every level: local, state, and federal. He's been using false i.d.'s for Social Security, Motor Vehicles, state and federal income taxes, and from what you told me, it's likely that his aunt's estate was never probated. I'm not even going to speculate on the outcome. At the very least, to put the best light on it, he's going to be tied up in every bureaucracy I can think of. And still, those are the least of his problems right now."

  .

  Mary Hartz was at her mother's, furiously mashing potatoes while being interrogated. Standing next to Mary, her mother looked like a small bird wearing big glasses. She was a widow, living in an adult community an hour's drive inland from Rock Harbor. Littl
e bits of mashed potato were flying from the bowl and spattering Mary's sweater.

  "So," her mother said, "have you heard from Tom at all?" Her hands were clasped in front of her against her checked apron. She was dressed in her holiday best and stood too close to her daughter, so that her little head, covered in wiry gray curls, was tilted far back.

  "No, mom, I haven't been in communication with Tom since the divorce. Not for years. You know that. You want to step back a foot or two? You're going to get potatoes on you." Her mother had not yet given up hope of a reconciliation. She wanted grandchildren. Mary turned up the speed of the hand-held mixer a notch.

  "Oh, that's okay, dear." Instead of retreating from the spray, she raised her voice to carry over the mixer noise. Small white specks appeared on the lenses of her glasses. "Have you been meeting any nice young men, lately?" She asked the same questions on every visit.

  Mary turned off the mixer, popped the beaters into the sink and faced her mother. "Mom, my life is a never ending social whirl. Men call me every night, asking for my hand in marriage. There are too many candidates for me to chose just one, so I tell them I can give them only one night apiece, out of fairness to the others."

  Her mother's eyes blinked behind the huge lenses. "Sarcasm isn't necessary, dear. And it won't increase your chances for finding a good mate. I'm just trying to help."

  Mary wrapped her arms around her diminutive mother and hugged her, almost hiding her from view. She stepped back and said, "I know you love me, mom. I love you too. Let's declare a truce for the rest of the day, alright? I won't bait you, you won't solicit for grandchildren. Okay?"

  "Oh, I suppose." She forced a weary smile. "We'll have a nice dinner together before you have to go back." Besides being opposed to Mary's marital status, she disapproved of her occupation, feeling that police work was not a suitable job for a lady. The small, efficiency apartment grew smaller through the course of Mary's visit, until she was able to escape in the late afternoon, having been able to arrange her holiday schedule to require her presence at work that evening.

  .

  "How are we doing?" Sims was standing in front of Clarkson's desk, trying to get the sergeant to tell him when he could go off shift.

  Clarkson didn't look up from the papers spread across his desk. "Nothing's happening. You're off at two. Chief wants to see you in his office."

  "He's in today?" A holiday appearance by the chief of police was unusual.

  The sergeant glanced up briefly under lowered eyebrows. "In his office," he repeated, without inflection.

  "Okay, Sarge, I'm on my way. But listen, when I'm done with the chief, I've got some new information to share with you on the Warnecki thing. You going to be around for a while?

  "Corporal Eddy's due to relieve me at eight."

  .

  Sims knocked and entered Sloan's office where the chief was in conference with Sergeant Clifton LeBeau, apparently micro-managing the marine unit's patrol schedule. A large-scale map of the harbor and its surrounding waterways was spread over the mahogany desktop. A tide table rested on top of the map. The long-suffering sergeant was resigned to the chief's excessive control over his unit, but had never been happy with it. His strategy was to outlast the old bastard, confiding his hopes to his wife and no one else. He greeted Sims' entrance with a nod of his head.

  "Hi Cliff, Chief," Sims said. "You wanted to see me, Chief? Shall I come back when you're done?"

  "We're done," Sloan said, dismissing LeBeau with a nod. LeBeau left the room, grateful to escape. Sims advanced to stand before the desk.

  "I want you to get a warrant to arrest Warnecki on the fake i.d.'s. Call the prosecutor, Daniels. He'll get through to Biederman."

  Sims had expected to get flak from the chief about his report written the evening before, but apparently Sloan was ignoring the drug issue for the moment. Judge Samuel J. Biederman of the Superior Court was an old crony of the chief, belonging to some of the same service clubs and civic organizations. They were both political animals in the Old Boy Network of the North.

  Sims took a moment to look around the room while he thought. The walls of the room were covered about half-and-half with political memorabilia and marine artifact. Photos of Sloan with unremarkable notables and locally historic fishing vessels. Plaques for the recognition of longevity of service to various organizations and polished brass ship fittings. Sloan was the son of a son of a fisherman and a son of a bitch of a networker. Trying to reconcile the two sides of the man was like attempting to reconcile land and sea. Of course, the two met at the shore, but that was a shifting locality

  Something was missing in the room. Sims realized what it was. "You don't want Brulick to get the warrant? He got the search warrant."

  "I want you to do it." Like Lord Admiral Nelson, the chief's motto was 'never explain.'

  "Do you think either one will be available today?"

  "Try," the chief said. He sat back in an antique, mahogany captain's chair, salvage from the wreck of a British luxury yacht that had foundered on the rocky coast of Maine one hundred years earlier. The weathered grain of his face seemed sprung from the same ancient wood.

  Sims nodded his assent. "Okay, that all?"

  "No. You want to tell me if you've had any success in locating Mr. Warnecki, yet?" The chief had intense blue eyes, and they bored in on Sims.

  Sims wore his own integrity like armor. "No," he answered, "we haven't been able to find him." He was a righteous cop. He felt no need to be defensive and though Sloan was able to cow less self-confident officers, Sims was immune to bullshit and intimidation. There had always been a barely perceptible antagonism between the two men, and an uneasy truce had developed over the years, Sims doing his job, trying to stay out of Sloan's way. And Sloan, for his part, was wary about pushing Sims too far. They avoided one another as far as was possible in the small department, using Sergeant Clarkson and the lieutenant as buffers between them, never approaching a point where something destructive might ignite. But the potential was always there. Both recognized it, both skirted around it. Sharing territory, steering away from confrontation. They both had power. Sloan had the power of his position and Sims had the power of scruple. These would ever be in conflict, waiting for circumstance to bring the pot to a boil.

  "Anything else?" Sims asked.

  "That's all," Sloan answered.

  Sims turned away and started towards the exit. He stopped short of the door and turned again. "By the way," he said, "I understand you were at the Lion's Club on Monday evening, when Charles Adams chewed out Warnecki for sleeping on the job."

  "Where'd you hear that?" The chief's tone was flat.

  "I spoke with Letitia Adams. She mentioned a meeting of a fund raising committee. Were you there?" Sims tone was casual.

  "I was, as a matter of fact." Sloan wasn't volunteering anything extra, but that was his style.

  "Was anyone else present?"

  "Mmmm. May have been. Don't recollect who, at the moment. I'll think on it, get back to you." Sloan looked like he was searching his memory.

  "Maybe Dick Wiltse or Jim Laird? Mrs. Adams said they are both on the committee."

  "Mmmm. Not sure. Don't think so. Someone else maybe, you'll have to give me some time to think about it. Why? You don't imagine the committee had a gripe against Warnecki, do you? Or that Adams was pissed off enough to shoot him, do you?" Clearly, ridiculous ideas, was the connotation.

  "No, of course not," Sims scoffed, "It's just that I'm trying to get a clear picture of the day preceding the shooting. Warnecki's state of mind. His agenda. You know, put everything into context."

  "Well," Sloan allowed, "don't waste your time with that scene. It was just what you'd expect when someone who's hired to do a job takes too much advantage. I suspect that Warnecki was trying to pad his time, get a little extra. Adams called him on it. Don't read any more into it than there is. Move the investigation along, get to the false identity, the cocaine. Look for connections there or
you'll just be spinning your wheels." The chief busied himself with folding the charts, apparently preparing to leave. He checked his watch and looked up, surprised to see Sims still standing in his office. "Well? What are you waiting for? Move along, get on it."

  Sims watched him straightening his desk for another few seconds and then left to get ahold of the prosecutor, Daniels. He hadn't brought the chief up to date on what he had recently learned concerning the Wojciehowski identity, and he wasn't sure why he hadn't.

  .

  "Are you nuts? You call me away from the dinner table where I'm chowing down with my in-laws and other, legitimate, company, and you want me to call Biederman away from his dinner to issue a warrant about a bad driver's license?" Henry Daniels' laugh was not a humorous one. Sims could picture him with a gravy-spattered bib, holding the phone in one hand and waving a turkey drumstick in the other. His manner was ever theatrical, in court and out. Truth be told, he didn't mind being called away from his holiday dinner. The intrusion would make him seem more vital to the justice system for his guests, especially his in-laws.

  "I'm sorry to bother you with this. It's just that Chief Sloan ordered me to contact you, now. I've got to do what he says, you know. I'm sure it can wait for tomorrow. I'll get back to you at a better time." Sims was conciliatory. He knew that a warrant would not be forthcoming on anything less than a homicide on a holiday, but had to cover his ass with Sloan. He allowed Daniels the opportunity to rant on for a while, he owed it to him for interrupting his dinner, and then they both signed off.

  It was about two o'clock, and Sims was preparing to go home where he expected to have to shovel out the driveway before being able to park his car. He was thinking about this, pulling his rubber boots from his locker, when Cliff LeBeau opened his own locker, a few feet down the row. "How you doing, Cliff?" Sims asked. "You don't have the day off?"

  "Aw, you know how it is, John, crime never takes a holiday." LeBeau spoke ironically, and with resignation. The sergeant, head of the eight man marine unit, was short and tough. His rolling, bow-legged walk and tanned, weathered face with squint-lines radiating from the corners of his eyes marked him as a waterman. His forebears had long-lined for cod in dories on the Grand Banks for generations, and he had retained his family's connection with the sea after the water was fished out. Both of his grown sons were lobstermen and his daughter was the wife of a lobsterman.

  "Are you going to get time off today to do a Thanksgiving dinner with your family?" Sims asked.

  "I'm supposed to be off at six. Marianna and the kids are cooking up a big turkey and everyone's gonna be there." Marianna, Lebeau's wife, was Portuguese, with her own familial connections to the sea. In her case, being a woman in a family of fishermen meant waiting to see if the sea allowed your loved ones to return from work and she had tried to steer her progeny toward inland occupations, without success. The fact that her husband was rarely out of sight of land was bare consolation to her. She'd prefer him to drive a bus, but a love for the sea seemed to run in the family bloodline, and he refused to consider any occupation that would take him away from it. In compensation, she decorated the walls of her home with pictures of farming scenes for pastoral assurance, and shrines to the saints for spiritual insurance.

  "Is your crew doing a full patrol schedule today? The chief seemed to be taking a special interest." Not that the chief's preoccupation with the marine unit was unknown to Sims, but he liked Clifton LeBeau, and even though the sergeant would never complain about the chief's excessive supervision over his command, Sims gave him the opportunity to talk about it from time to time. It seemed to help.

  "Oh, you know how it is," Lebeau allowed, "Sloan's got an obsession with the boat crew, wants to have my job, I guess. But no, we're not running a full schedule tonight. Cut in half, about. In fact, and this is a little odd, he wants us to patrol west of the town beach later. Said he thought some kids might get into some mischief there. Where do you suppose he got that idea?" LeBeau's perpetual squint grew even tighter with his question.

  Sims shrugged and shook his head. "Just no way to figure what the man is thinking. His mind's a closed book."

  "He's inscrutable!" LeBeau laughed. His good humor went a long way in keeping morale high in his unit. Sims smiled back at him and the two men went on their way, LeBeau to post the chief's orders to his crew, Sims to go home and shovel out his driveway before dinner.

  .

  Joey drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep. Sometimes shivering with chills, sometimes throwing off the bed clothes in a sweaty fever, he concluded that he had come down with the flu. Cuts on his right hand had scabbed over, but not before staining the bedding with his blood. Both hands suffered with mild frostbite and the water of his bath had been too hot in thawing them. Looking at them, it was difficult to recognize them as his own. They were swollen and red except for whitish patches about the knuckles. And they ached. He tucked them gently under his armpits and tried not to think about them. If he hadn't felt so bad physically, he would have regretted the mess he had made of another person's home, but he put those feelings away for the time being, concentrating on his own recovery.

  Around six o'clock in the evening, he awoke to the sound of steam rising in the pipes to the room radiators. Electrical power had been restored to the house. Rising in the darkness of the cold room, he pulled the quilt from the bed, draping it over his shoulders and wrapping it the best he could around himself. He walked hunched over like a feeble, old man into the bathroom, where he picked up his wet clothes from the floor and deposited them into the tub, along with the towels he had used. Then he carried another towel downstairs to plug the window frame where he had broken into the house. That was all he could manage for the moment and he went back up to his bed and slept for several more hours. In uneasy dreaming, he walked. When his body was overcome by chills, he trudged through snow and sleet. When overtaken by fever, he slogged hot city streets in August. Always, sinister figures pursued him, shadows without faces, stalkers without names.

  .

  Mary Hartz arrived at the police department at six o'clock, exactly, after stopping at her home to feed her cat and put away the Tupperware containers and plastic-wrapped parcels her mother had insisted that she take away with her. It was enough to feed her for about a week, she thought. A phone message awaited her at her department desk, requesting that she call a Dr. David Pym as soon as possible. She put it off for the moment, and walked into Sergeant Clarkson's office to pick up her assignment for this evening.

  The sergeant greeted her with a grunt. He was watching the evening news report on a small, black and white television that perched atop a file cabinet in the corner. For someone who hates the media as much as he does, she thought, he sure keeps a close eye on it. Aloud, she said, "Keeping tabs on the enemy?" He didn't respond. It was clear that she would have to wait until the first commercial to get his attention.

  Tina Bronki was holding the evening anchor slot, a position available to her only because of the holiday, when the regular anchor had the day off. Mary knew that Tina would willingly forego any holiday time of her own to get this exposure. Tina was finishing up the report on the unexpected snow storm.

  ".... and power company crews expect to have all remaining downed lines repaired by midnight tonight." She shifted papers in her hands. "In other news, police sources report a new wrinkle in the investigation of Monday night's shooting of Rock Harbor carpenter, Joseph Warnecki. Papers were found in a subsequent search of his home that point to Warnecki's having assumed a second identity. This new evidence, along with the discovery of cocaine in his home, is causing a step-up in the search for Warnecki. A warrant for his arrest is being sought and citizens are urged to report any sighting of the suspect to the police." The reporter smiled into the camera that carried her image into thousands of mid-coast Maine living rooms and segued into the first commercial break.

  Clarkson was working his lips together and glaring at the screen, which now carried a com
mercial promising relief for the sufferers of migraine headache. Mary thought the sergeant might be working at developing one for himself.

  "So, Hartz," he said, pleasantly enough, "I don't recall releasing that particular information to Channel 26 News, do you?" He appeared thoughtful, not angry at all.

  Mary decided to assume the same attitude. "No Sarge, can't say as I do. Must have been someone else, just trying to help. You know, take some of the burden from your shoulders."

  "Yeah," he said, pleased that someone was thinking of his welfare. "Let's see," he wondered, tapping his lip with a fingertip and gazing at the ceiling, "couldn't be the lieutenant, 'cause he's got the day off, and doesn't even know that we're getting a warrant. Sure would like to know who it is, just so I could thank him in person, express my gratitude." He smiled at Mary with his mouth, but not his eyes.

  "Sarge?" His smile was unsettling and Mary wanted to change the subject. "What's the warrant going to read? Is it for the cocaine, too?"

  "I suppose the chief would want it to be all-inclusive, don't you?" His attitude remained scarily upbeat.

  "Did you read the report that the lieutenant got from Sims?"

  "Why yes, I did indeed."

  Who was this creature sitting before her? "Then you know that the drug count is bogus. It was slipped in after Warnecki was taken away in the ambulance."

  His unnatural placidity evaporated into the air and the familiar hardness returned to the sergeant's features. "And what does that fact suggest to you, Officer Hartz?" he delivered, flatly.

  Mary leaned forward and put her palms flat on his desk. "I can't draw any conclusions about the origins of the drugs, but I do know that someone is using it to manipulate both the media and this department. And it's going to come back to hurt both, but mainly the department. And that pisses me off." She held his gaze.

  "And what would you propose to remedy the situation, Officer Hartz?" Clarkson's face was rigid, and darkening.

  Mary felt the heat and stood up straight, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. She wasn't ready to fully retreat, however. "There's nothing I can do," she said, "and far be it from me to suggest anything radical for you to do, but it seems that if some of the truth of the matter were given to the media, some of the fallout might be avoided, and maybe the source of the leak might be discredited." She didn't say that another kind of fallout could be expected after taking such steps. She didn't have to.

  Sergeant Clarkson retreated into himself, leaving Mary feeling like she was alone in the room. She began to feel a slight regret for having been so outspoken. She waited silently for him to return and give her hell. She steeled herself for it.

  Instead, he simply looked up at her and said, "You're on stand-by, here at the department, until twenty-four hundred hours. Then you're back on your regular shift tomorrow morning. Dismissed." He went back to his private thoughts and Mary left to work at her desk.

  .

  Mary was about to hang up after calling the number and waiting for a dozen rings when a man answered, saying simply, "David here."

  "Good evening, sir, this is Officer Mary Hartz of the Rock Harbor Police, returning your call. Is this Dr. David Pym?" She used her official police voice.

  "Yes, yes, yes, thank you for calling back. I've been anxious to talk to you." His voice was a high tenor.

  Mary pictured a tall, thin man in a white lab coat, stethoscope around his neck, talking on the phone at the nurses' station in a hospital. "And what can I do for you, doctor?" she asked.

  "David, call me David," he said, "I'm a professor of chemistry at UMaine and I've been doing a research project that seems to concern your department."

  Mary took away his stethoscope and put him at a lab bench, beakers boiling over a Bunsen burner. She waited for him to explain, and when he didn't, she prompted him. "A research project that involves us? How so?" Apparently, he needed a straight man for his act.

  "Well, let me explain," he said, pleased that she was so interested. "I've been doing a project for the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration." Mary waited, but he didn't go on. He wanted another prompt. She rolled her eyes and caused the beakers to boil over onto the table.

  "I see," she said, "go on."

  "I was given a grant to develop a process to fingerprint substances, so that they might be traced to their origin, and patterns of distribution might be plotted." He waited for her enthused reaction to his project. Mary made the over-boiling beakers burst into flame. She pictured his family waiting for him to show up for dinner at home, forks and knives at the ready, a turkey drying out in the oven.

  "Please, continue," she offered. She was a practical person and the pedantic mind bored her to distraction. She began to slump in her seat.

  "I've had some modest success in my research, and I'd like to know if the sample I received from the state lab, submitted to them by you, could possibly have been contaminated somehow, in the process."

  Mary's pique at the slur to her investigative technique was tempered by interest in a reason for his odd question. "Our lab here is very basic, I'm sure, by your standards, but I can assure you that I follow a very careful protocol in my procedures." She pressed on. "What is it, that makes you ask? And what have you found, that makes the sample unique?" Mary was attentive now, and sitting up straight.

  Pym was apologetic. "I certainly did not mean to demean your professionalism, Officer Hartz. It's just that this sample will be of particular interest to the DEA officials to whom I report, and I wanted to make sure that my findings would not be suspect to any alternative speculation. You understand, I hope?" He waited for absolution.

  "That's okay, Dr. Pym. What exactly did you find?" Get to it, was her unstated wish.

  Never one to take the short road when a longer one was available, he went on: "My process is unique in that I can combine both spectrography and electrophoresis on extremely small amounts of substances to determine batch origination. The fingerprint resulting from this process will enable the law enforcement community to track a drug unit, or particular mix of drugs, through the different levels of distribution, and their concomitant "cuttings", so to speak, and create a map, which appears in a somewhat irregular funnel shape, as you might expect, —"

  Mary suspected that he might go on interminably, if she didn't stop him, so she did. (She'd been practicing on telemarketers.) "Wait," she interrupted, "I understand completely." She offered him a bone to soothe any hurt feelings. "I think your work is a great advance in law enforcement and drug interdiction. I, for one, want to offer my appreciation for your efforts." Two bones. "Tell me about our sample."

  He hesitated. "Well, the DEA might consider it proprietary information. I'm not sure if I should ..."

  Time for another bone. "Your work is so vital, so important, is would be a disservice to limit it. It deserves a broader scope, assistance to more levels in the entire system of law enforcement. So please, help us, as only you can." She was afraid that she might have overplayed her hand, but never underestimate the ego of the professorial class.

  "I believe you're correct. I will give you the information." He took a breath. "The sample I tested from your department's search tests out to be part of a cache impounded at Logan International Airport in August of this year, and stored at the DEA facility in Boston. Approximately four pounds of the substance disappeared from the storage facility in September, and this is the first of it to surface anywhere in the sampling area. Needless to say, it's causing quite a stir at the DEA. I expect that you will be hearing from them very soon."

  Mary was silent for a moment, absorbing this information. "Were there any arrests made at the time of the seizure, in August?" she asked. She was taking notes now.

  "My information is that the contraband came in on a plane loaded with fresh flowers from South America. I haven't been made aware of any arrests, but I know that the DEA has been investigating quite vigorously. The total weight of the original shipment was over seventy-five kilos, or one
hundred and sixty-five pounds. I suppose the thief thought that taking just four pounds wouldn't be readily noticed. Indeed, it did go undiscovered for a month."

  "So, the DEA is sharing some information with you, Dr. Pym," Mary observed.

  "David, please. Yes, they are, a bit. I'm also working with colleagues here in the computer science program to create a statistical model that incorporates mapping overlays for the tracking of drug distribution. So we need to be fairly well informed to create adequate parameters. It's quite exciting, really." The ivory tower was a safe place to observe more dangerous elements of society, apparently a titillating experience for David Pym, PhD. "Will you share with me the circumstances surrounding your collection of this evidence? I promise to be discreet," he added.

  Mary decided that she could tell him what was already on the news, anyway, and she did. "However, Dr. Pym, don't take the information at face value. It would definitely screw up your model. There are anomalies in the investigation that have yet to be explained," she cautioned.

  "Anomalies, yes, of course. Ha,ha, the little bastards are everywhere, aren't they?" He was delighted to hear it. "Well, thank you very much for your time, Mary. May I call you Mary? I should ring off now, I believe my family may be awaiting my arrival for a grand feast. Bye-bye, now." And he hung up.

  Mary sat at her desk, doodling on the page of notes she had made of her conversation with the ebullient chemist. She wanted to think about it for a while before giving Clarkson a heads-up on the new information and the impending descent of federal investigators.

  .

  "This is Sergeant Clarkson of the Rock Harbor P.D. Let me talk to Tina Bronki." He'd gotten through to the news director at the television station.

  The news director was taken aback by the call. He'd never spoken with the sergeant, but was aware of the enmity Clarkson held for the news media. "Hold one second, Sergeant, she's just getting finished up on the set. I'll try to patch you through." He put Clarkson on hold and yelled over to Tina, who was having her lapel microphone removed by a technician. "Tina! Sergeant Clarkson is on line two. Want to take it there?"

  Tina figured the sergeant was calling to ream her out for her latest, unofficially sanctioned news report. What the hell, she thought, if I can't get anything out of him, I'll take what I can, where I can. He can screw himself. And she stabbed the button that connected her phone set to the sergeant. "This is Tina Bronki," she said, "what can I do for you, Sergeant? Got a tidbit of news for me?"

  Clarkson didn't respond right away. He'd considered hanging up while waiting for the connection to be made, but hadn't, and now her defiant attitude kept him on the line. "Ms Bronki," he began, "You've been airing news reports that are not necessarily factual. Your source is using you for his own means."

  "Well, I would appreciate it if you could set the record straight for me. I'd prefer to get it right the first time, but haven't as yet gotten the cooperation I need to do my job." She got her digs in first to let him know that she wasn't afraid of him. "You got something for me?" Sugar had never worked with this man, she may as well be blunt.

  "Actually, I may. I don't generally have much regard for television reporting, but ..."

  "No kidding," she cut in, and regretted it almost immediately. Did he actually say he had information for her? She hadn't expected such a thing could happen and it slipped by her. "Sorry, Sergeant, didn't mean to interrupt. Go on."

  He continued without the disclaimer. "I am informing you, officially, that Mr. Warnecki is not wanted on a drug charge. Also, that a warrant has not yet been issued on any other charge. And that's all I have to say at this time." He was about to hang up, but she spoke quickly, trying to get a little more.

  "Sergeant, wait a minute. What is wrong with the drug charge? If you want me to correct myself on the air, you've got to give me enough to keep me from looking like a fool. I have to cover my own ass, too, you know."

  Clarkson thought for a moment. "Due to the press of time, a complete report from the investigating officer was not available until you had, apparently, been given improper information from an unauthorized source." He paused another moment to compose his next line. "In point of fact, the investigating officer noted that the substance was not present at the time Mr. Warnecki was taken away by emergency medical personnel. So you can see, Ms Bronki, that your source —"

  "So who dropped the ball, Sergeant? The first officer? Sims was first on the scene, wasn't he? Where are you speculating the cocaine came from? How'd they get in to plant it?" Give her an inch...

  Clarkson, who up to now had thought he was handling his breakthrough appearance with the media very well, was having second thoughts. He could retreat to his fallback position, the stonewall, but sensed it was too late for that. He looked for a third position. Innovation had never been his strong suit, but he tried it anyway. "Hold up, Ms Bronki, take it easy on an old man, you're asking me too much at —"

  "Ha, ha, ha," she pealed, "That's good, Sergeant, you may get the hang of this yet. A little more practice and you could get the board of selectmen in the palm of your hand, get some more money out of them." She sobered up. "All right, in deference to your age, take your time and just give it to me straight." She was offering neutral ground.

  "Okay, fair enough. The investigation is on-going, and I can't tell you everything you would like to know. I've given you a good piece of it, so don't push. I will say that Officer Sims has acted properly in the matter, no fault should be attached to him. He's a good officer."

  "Well, that's a start, Sergeant. I know this is new ground for you, so I won't use the full force of my personality on you. I hope we can expand our professional relationship based on this one, small step."

  "No doubt. So who's been your source on this? I think it only fair that a relationship work in both directions, don't you?"

  "Better and better. You're a fast learner. However, we can't reveal everything on a first date, especially something as confidential as my source."

  "Even a source that burned you?"

  "Even that, for now. I will take everything from him with more than a grain of salt from now on, though, and not trust it out of hand. Sometimes a liar reveals more than he intends to. Watch me do damage control tonight, Sarge. You can evaluate our new-found love. Bye, now."

  .

  Mary entered Clarkson's office to find him staring distastefully at the phone receiver, which he held in his hand. "Something wrong with your phone, Sarge? Or did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"

  He looked up at her and set it down. "Yeah," he said, "tastes like crow, or maybe my hat. I don't know." He waved it away. "What do you want?"

  "Mind if I sit down for a minute?" She took a seat in front of the desk without waiting for a reply. "I just had an odd phone call, too." She settled herself in, crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands together in her lap. She proceeded to relate the information she had received from Dr. Pym and then waited for his response.

  "DEA's gonna be down here, huh?" Federal agencies generally took more than they gave in dealings with local law enforcement. He didn't relish the prospect of working with them.

  "Well, yeah," she replied, "but what do you think about the origin of the cocaine? Can you imagine? Right from under the DEA's noses. They must be going bullshit. Man, I wish we had Warnecki here."

  Clarkson had gone inside his head. Something about the DEA and Boston had struck a chord, and he strove to bring it closer to his consciousness.

  "Sarge? You with me?" She was leaning forward, elbows on her knees.

  "Huh?" He returned to the present, leaving his brain to bring up the information on its own. Sometimes you had to just leave it alone for a while, let the deep stuff float around in the mental stew. Sooner or later it would pop up, just like the answers that appear in the window of those black plastic ball things. "Yes, having Warnecki around would be a help. Maybe less than we would want, though. Bits and pieces, bits and pieces. We get one piece to fit an
d another bit flies in, knocks it all apart again. You talk to Sims at all today?"

  Mary thought Clarkson was oddly distracted. "No, we haven't crossed paths today."

  Clarkson looked at his watch. "He should be through with dinner by now. Give him a call, he picked up a piece of the puzzle today, too." When Mary left him, he was looking at the papers on his desk without seeming to see them.

  .

  All officers involved in the Warnecki case watched the ten o'clock report on channel twenty-six that evening. Tina Bronki began the show with a piece on the storm damage, which included a remote spot with a breathless reporter standing near a crew of linemen rehanging some of the last wires to be repaired. After a commercial break, she went on to the next item: "Here's an update on a story we've been following this week. If you've been following the story along with us, you will remember that Joseph Warnecki, a Rock Harbor carpenter, was shot on Monday night from outside his home. He was treated and released from Regional Hospital a day later and following an initial interview with the Rock Harbor Police, disappeared from town and hasn't been seen since. We subsequently reported that the police were seeking him in regard to another matter, when a quantity of cocaine and false documents were found during a search of his home. This reporter spoke with an official representative of the Rock Harbor Police Department this afternoon and learned that though they are indeed searching for Mr. Warnecki, a warrant for his arrest has not been issued as yet. And, though the illegal drugs were found inside his home, it is now believed that they are not directly connected with Mr. Warnecki, and were placed there by an unknown person or persons after Mr. Warnecki was removed to the hospital. Keep following this story with us on Channel 26 Action News as we follow the news, when it happens, where it happens." Dissolve to another commercial.

  Mary Hartz was watching the news with her feet up. She sat relaxing in her small living room, a plate of microwaved leftovers on her lap, her cat watching her and the plate, hoping for a scrap to fall. "Son of a gun," she told the waiting cat, "will wonders ever cease." It was a rhetorical question and, in any event, the cat was concentrating on a different matter. Mary went on as though the cat was interested. "I didn't really think he'd do it, you know? No wonder he was so out of it, he'd just sold his soul to Satan." She peeled off a little piece of white meat and gravy and dangled it for the cat. "Come on, take it before it drips on the floor." He did, but in his own sweet time.

  Clarkson watched from the privacy of his den, in the finished basement of his home. The space was a model of his office, complete with desk and file cabinets. Since much of the paperwork on his desk at home came with him from the department, it was like he had never left work. It was quieter at home, though, with less distraction. Since his wife had died, four years earlier, he spent more and more of his time down there, visiting the upstairs only to eat and sleep. His life had become the job, and vice versa. After the segment of news he had been waiting for, he simply nodded his head in a qualified approval, and then called the lieutenant to discuss the day.

  After four hours of sleep, which was as much as he ever needed, he awoke with the connection.