Brattleboro is a standard hub town on one hand, and a quirky cultural oasis on the other. Housing some twelve thousand people by night, it swells considerably during the day, inflated by commuters from surrounding villages, including nearby New Hampshire and Massachusetts. But, in part because its three interstate exits are the first in a state famous for independent thinking, social activism is valued as one of the town’s dearest assets. In the sixties, when both I-91 was being laid down and the counterculture was escaping the cities for visions of a sylvan paradise, the combination of Vermont’s Bing Crosby beauty, its Ethan Allen outspokenness, and its sudden, easy access made it almost irresistible to a legion of urban dropouts.
However, other things were happening now—so many decades later—less amusingly anthropological, and more in common with a host of other erstwhile New England industrial beehives. Brattleboro had lately become as buffeted by tough times as many of its less lively and opinionated ilk. The middle class was struggling to hang on, while the poor—once cared for and comforted by Brattleboro’s socially conscious soldiers—were growing to stretch the limits of the town’s hospitality. It had gotten to where the have-nots were threatening to outnumber the haves, causing the old-time altruists to groan under the weight.
There was an interesting by-product to this—a blurring of rich and poor neighborhoods. In modern times, Brattleboro had always bragged of some societal blending—it had been a source of pride that such disparates could live cheek-by-jowl. But now the crowding was involuntary and more noticeable, the crime rate more pointed, and the tolerance becoming frayed.
Manor Court was an example of this: an entire street given over to the marginally solvent. The apartment that Wayne Castine had once called home was another. Perched high above Main Street—with its traffic, commerce, and upbeat pedestrian bustle—his one-room efficiency was an unqualified dump.
Joe found it after climbing several floors, engulfed by the day’s escalating heat. He also found it under guard, at the end of a long, empty, evil-smelling hallway, by a single perspiring Brattleboro beat cop, who was clearly wondering why he’d spent half a year at the police academy preparing for the likes of this.
“You the VBI?” he asked as Joe approached.
Joe opened his jacket to reveal the badge clipped to his belt. “One of them. Joe Gunther.” He stuck out his hand for a damp shake.
“Officer Nelson,” the cop said, as if still trying out the name.
Joe raised his eyebrows. “No shit. Your parents named you Officer?”
Nelson stared at him for a short take, unsure of how to react. “Oh, right,” he finally managed. “It’s Gary. Sorry. That’s a good one. I heard about you.”
“But not for my sense of humor.”
Again, the pause, punctuated by a blink. “You used to work for us.”
“For about seventy-five years. Good ones, too.” Joe pointed at the door over Nelson’s shoulder. “That Castine’s home-sweet-home?”
Nelson stepped aside as if the floor had suddenly softened beneath him. “Not what I would’ve called it.”
“You been inside?” Joe asked, surprised.
“No, no. I meant the whole building. Kind of a shit hole.”
Joe laughed. “Now I know why your folks didn’t name you Realtor.”
He fished out the key he’d secured from the landlord, and stepped up to the door.
“The crime lab ever get to the scene?” Nelson asked.
Joe paused, impressed that the man even knew the lab had been called. “About fifteen minutes ago, from what I heard. Bet you wish you were there.”
Nelson looked embarrassed. “I’m okay doing what I’m told.”
“It’s all right,” Joe reassured him, unlocking the door. “You’re entitled to a little ambition. The PD should treat you well—it’s that kind of department.”
He paused a moment before leaving the cop to the hallway’s pressing silence. “You hear or see anything or anyone since you got here?” he asked.
Nelson shook his head. “It’s been quiet. Just the usual sounds through the walls.”
“Why don’t you knock on the other doors up and down the hall, collect people’s names and DOBs, and ask them if they knew this guy, or anything about him?”
Nelson’s face brightened. “Sure. Thanks.”
Joe stepped inside the apartment and closed the door behind him. He had considered inviting Nelson, to show him the ropes, share the case a little, and feed the kid’s enthusiasm for the job. But at the last minute, he’d demurred, assigning him the mini-canvass instead, less because of Nelson than for his own reasons. On a straightforward murder case, he would have been more inclusive and tutorial, but a gut feeling about this one was already warning him to pay closer attention. Something offbeat was afoot here, and he wasn’t sure what.
He stood with the closed door to his back, motionless, surveying the single room.
It was an awful place—small, dark, foul, looking like the aftermath of a Kansas twister, minus the missing roof that would have only improved things. Instead, it felt like the den of some creature, custom-made from a child’s nightmares.
Slipping on a pair of latex gloves, Joe reached out and switched on the overhead light. A bare bulb hanging at the end of a wire illuminated the room’s center, casting an angular glare into all four corners. The single window was closed and covered with cardboard, duct-taped in place. The heat and stench made Joe’s nose tingle. He carefully removed his jacket and hung it on the doorknob, already feeling the sweat trickling between his shoulder blades and down the backs of his legs.
He mopped his forehead with his forearm and pulled out a small flashlight. Distracted as he was by the clutter and his own wandering thoughts, he would need the bright halo of light to focus his concentration. He had to survey the room methodically, like an archaeologist, scrutinizing one square of an imaginary grid after another.
It was onerous work, time-consuming and mentally taxing. As he pawed through discarded, soiled clothing, rotting food, child pornography of all kinds, and unsettling discoveries like a stack of children’s underwear, still in its original packaging, he became aware of a man whose entire life had been given over to the exploitation of the very young in any number of perverse ways.
Joe Gunther by now was at least aware of most human depravities. But this stuff got under his skin.
There was a computer, of course. Nowadays, that was a given, like oxygen. He wondered, as he often did, if the people who’d first conjured up a fully computerized world had ever imagined that their machines would be so routinely used for such pursuits.
It was a laptop, which he didn’t bother turning on. He knew what it contained, and only hoped that it might also provide insight on Castine’s recent movements and interactions. There, computers provided some redemption for the abuse they were put to: They remembered their instructions, and could often be used to thrust their erstwhile masters into the limelight, like unseen and unappreciated servants of old.
But there were less exotic methods of tracking people, too. Everyone had to eat, for example, and few people of Castine’s habits bothered to cook. They bought fast food and junk; they were given receipts that ended up crumpled in plastic bags or stuck to damp bottles found thrown in the odd corner. And that’s where Joe located them and placed them into a careful pile, arranged by date and time stamp, including two from the day before.
He found a phone—and noted to get a warrant for its records—two pistols and a hunting knife, a few bills addressed to a post-office box, and a pay stub from the lumber mill Ron had mentioned. He uncovered the quasi-obligatory stash of bagged marijuana, alongside a Band-Aid box full of Ecstasy pills. In the bathroom—moldy, stinking, and humid—he discovered tubes of K-Y Jelly that made him shudder, and a scattering of prescription pills without a bottle.
Significantly, he hoped, he also discovered a receipt from an area psychologist named Eberhard Dziobek. He would certainly merit a conversation. Not only did folks of his calling generally keep records in some detail, but with a patient like Castine, he probably also had a list of people—family and others—who knew and interacted with him.
Because that was the primary goal right now. In a vague imitation of the old TV show This Is Your Life, the strategy was to dredge up as many players who knew Wayne Castine as possible, and to grill them about every detail they could recall—not just about the star of the hour, but about each other, as well.
He made one last find, mundane in itself but unusual in this context: he came across a large box of rubber bands balanced on top of the TV set, which—not surprisingly in his experience, especially in such surroundings—was a high-end plasma unit.
He picked up the box and examined it carefully, wondering if it camouflaged some more telling contents. But it simply contained the rubber bands pictured on the lid. Nowhere else did he find any stationery supplies, apart from a few scraps of paper and a couple of pens. He made a mental note of the discovery and moved on. The garbage he left for someone else down the line. This was a preliminary search—not the end-all, be-all. Ron’s people would be following up.
Over an hour later, soaked through with sweat, Joe retrieved his jacket from the doorknob and reemerged into the hallway. As before, Gary Nelson was standing alone, looking forlorn.
He gave Joe an appraising glance as the latter locked the door. “Wow. You got trashed.”
Joe stood holding his jacket away from him, sparing it from getting wet.
“Find anything?”
“I got a start on a few things. How ’bout you?”
Nelson’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, right.” He quickly extracted a notebook from his rear pocket and consulted it as he spoke. “I found two people on this floor. There was no answer at the third apartment. You want their names?”
“Just give me the Reader’s Digest version. I gotta get back to the scene.”
“Right—neither one of them knew him personally, but they met him once or twice, in the corridor or on the stairs. They both said he made their skin crawl, and one of them added that she wouldn’t have wanted to be ‘that guy’s niece.’ When I asked her what that meant, she said she’d bumped into Castine in the stairwell about a month ago with a young girl—maybe twelve or so—who he introduced as his niece.”
“Coming up or going down?” Joe asked.
“Up,” Nelson answered, looking grim.
“Any names?”
“No. I mean, there was a name, but the woman couldn’t remember it.”
Joe let out a sigh. “I guess I better talk to her.”
Nelson shook his head. “I told her you’d want to, but she said she had to go grocery shopping before she went to work—that you could talk to her later.”
He ripped out the page he’d been consulting and handed it over. Joe was impressed by the man’s careful handwriting.
“That’s a copy of what I got on both of them,” he explained, adding, “The second witness didn’t have much to say.”
“What was the body language of the twelve-year-old?” Joe asked.
The young cop’s face was animated, apparently grateful to have an answer. “I asked,” he said. “The lady said the kid just stood there. The two of them were holding hands—or Castine was holding the girl’s, I guess—but there was no emotion, not a word, nothing. She stood there—period.”
Joe waved the notepad sheet in the air. “Either one of them ever hear anything from the apartment? Crying, screaming, loud music to cover up noises?”
Nelson shook his head again. “Nope. And Castine kept to himself. That’s what they meant by his making their skin crawl: he never said anything when he was greeted, never made eye contact, always seemed bummed out when anyone caught him in the open—like a rat in the sun.”
Joe stared at him. “One of them said that?”
Nelson flushed slightly. “Not exactly. That part’s mine. Sorry.”
Joe kept after him. “He never said anything, and yet he introduced his so-called niece?”
There, Nelson was prepared. “That was the point—he wasn’t asked. He just volunteered, like he was feeling guilty.”
“He have any regular habits?”
The other man finally had to admit defeat. “I didn’t ask. It sounded like he was a night owl.” He pointed at one of the names on the page. “That one said that he came and went at all hours of the day and night.”
Joe wiped his forehead again with his sleeve. “I better head out. The lab guys’ll probably be wrapping things up. You got relief coming soon?”
Nelson checked his watch. “Another hour or so.”
Joe patted him on the shoulder. “I appreciate your help, Gary. I’ll make sure Klesczewski and your supervisor get told.”
Nelson waited until Joe was about halfway down the hall, heading for the top of the stairwell, before he asked, “Mr. Gunther, do we know who did it?”
Joe stopped and looked back at him. “Not right now.” He then added, more hopefully, “Not yet.”