“So, do you think overeating is worse for you than over-drinking?” Harry asked after both of them had ordered a humongous breakfast at the Oaktree Diner.
“You get in less trouble overeating,” Cirba said, sipping his coffee. “Nobody loses his driver’s license for overeating.”
“Maybe I should invent a breathalyzer that detects garlic.”
“We have one of them, it’s called a nose. Please, Harry, don’t lobby for a new law where I have to smell the breath of everyone I pull over. Some of these hillbillies haven’t brushed their teeth since the Carter administration. We got enough laws. Too many actually.”
“You think there are too many laws?”
“I sure do and so does every cop. Don’t you? Thou shalt not steal and kill is plenty to keep me busy. Where in the bible does it say, ‘Thou shalt not smoke a spliff’?”
“You’re in favour of legalizing drugs?”
“What I’m not in favour of is fucking politicians getting tough on crime by voting for mandatory sentencing for drug offenders. Say a kid who likes to smoke a little weed saves up his seeds and plants a field of pot in a cornfield. If the kid gets caught you know what happens to him?”
“No.”
“Three years in jail. No ifs ands or buts. No leeway, even if he’s supporting his mom or that he just did it for himself and his buddies and didn’t sell it. Might as well have a robot on the bench. And you know what it costs taxpayers to keep him in there? $120,000. I just think for 120 grand a year we could think of something better than turning these poor kids into exercise-yard bitches.”
“My god, Cirba, you’re a-a liberal.”
“Shhh,” the statie said. “Don’t let that get out.”
Two mountains of food arrived and conversation was reduced to grunts and moans. When all that was left was maple-syrup-drenched crumbs, Harry said: “You know what? I think the drinking heavily idea is better. Now I just feel like having a nap.”
“No,” Cirba said seriously. “We gotta think. There has to be something we’re missing. This case feels like it should be easier than this. This ain’t Son of Sam, this killer is killing for a reason. There has to be a way to catch him.”
“What did they tell us about murder in forensic science class?” Harry said.
“I never went to a forensic science class.”
“EMO – Evidence, Motive, Opportunity. If you get stuck, you go back to the beginning and do it over.”
“OK,” Cirba said. “Big Bill was shot.”
“What did you find?”
“No signs of struggle, shotgun wounds to the knees, and a double barrel to the head.”
“Time killed, time found?”
“It was late morning in broad daylight. He was still warm when Ryan found him.”
“Suspects with motive?” Harry asked like a schoolteacher giving an oral test.
“There is a money motive,” Cirba said. “The money that would have been made from the land deal. Benefactors of that were brother Frank and Mayor Charlie. Now it looks like maybe Di Angelo or his bosses would benefit if the Thomson land was sold. And Di Angelo was heard threatening Big Bill. Then there is the stripper, Harmony.”
“Sara Snook.”
“Yes, Ms Snook. Girlfriends don’t always need a good motive to go crazy and kill their hairier half.”
“Suspects with opportunity?” Harry continued.
“The kid who found him: Ryan. Frank, Feather, and Di Angelo don’t have an alibi.”
“What about the lawyer?”
“It was midnight; nobody has an alibi for that.”
“Who wanted the lawyer dead?”
“Unless the paralegals find anything, Di Angelo is our main suspect on that. Him and the Russian Mafia guy.”
“Kozlov. God help us if he’s involved.”
They stared at each other for a moment until Cirba said: “What are we missing?”
“We’re not missing any calories. I’ve eaten enough for the week. Once again let’s go back to fundamentals. If you think you missed something – do it again.” Harry flipped open his notebook and ripped out a page. “First, let’s each of us talk to the people that the other interviewed. I’ll take the kid, Ryan, and you call Harmony.” He handed over the stripper’s number. “Then we’ll go down the list. You re-interview Frank. I’d like to avoid another bar-room brawl.”
“It’s the stuff of legends.”
“I like my anonymity.”
“Then I think we both should re-interview Di Angelo, but I can’t see that changing much.”
“What if we threaten to tell his bosses he was trying to buy the land?”
“And then what? He confesses? I can’t see that happening.”
“OK, we go back to school,” Cirba said as he extracted himself from the booth.
“Oh God,” Harry said following him. “I hated school. Mean kids stuffed me in lockers.”
* * *
Harry knocked on the door of one of the snazzier houses on the lake. It was built on a hill sloping towards the water. The large dark wood deck that wrapped around the property was ground level at street-side but elevated lakeside. There were two big SUVs in the driveway, and inside Harry could see a huge central fireplace and smart modern furniture. An attractive middle-aged woman with short white hair answered the door.
Harry showed his temporary state police ID card and asked for Ryan.
“What has he done?” the woman said, more annoyed than demanding.
“Nothing, ma’am. This is just routine; we’re double-checking all statements. I’m Harry Cull.”
“Oh, you’re the nice cop who helped Ryan.” She reached out and enthusiastically pumped Harry’s hand. Thank you so much. He was getting to be like a zombie before he met you. Saying that, now he’s all hopped up on this anti-fracking thing.”
“Can I speak to him?”
“Sure, come in. He’s up on the third floor. Tell him the grass needs cutting today. Maybe from a cop he’ll listen.”
Harry walked up the open-plan wooden steps to the third floor and knocked on the only door.
“What, Mom?” said an annoyed voice from inside.
“Not your mom,” Harry said to the door. “It’s Harry Cull from the state police.”
There was the sound of rushing around in the room before the door opened a crack. Ryan was dressed in a T-shirt and gym shorts, his red hair stuck up with the symptom of that dreaded disease – bedhead. “Mr C… Harry, what are you doing here?”
“It’s nothing, really; I just need to go over your statement about finding Big Bill’s body.”
“Why”
“It’s just routine. Can I come in or should we go downstairs?”
Ryan looked conflicted but then opened the door and said: “Come in.”
Inside almost every inch of the walls was covered with newspaper clippings and articles about fracking. The floor, too, was littered with topographical maps and environmental study reports. Hanging from a coat rack was a tangled mess of ropes and climbing harnesses. Harry’s eyes went to a large refrigerator-sized box in the corner that seemed to be filled with rubber doves. Ryan followed his eyes and quickly folded over the flaps, hiding the contents.
“Holy cow,” Harry said. “This room is like fracking central.”
“It’s bad stuff, Harry. Somebody’s got to stop it from ruining the Poconos.”
“And that somebody is you?”
“‘Any man more right than his neighbours constitutes a majority of one’.”
“Wow,” Harry said. “I wasn’t expecting a Henry David Thoreau quote this morning. Shall we rename Ice Lake – Walden Pond?”
“I don’t care what we call it as long as we don’t ruin it.”
“And so you’re planning a little civil disobedience?”
“I don’t have to answer that question.”
Harry smiled. “No, you do not. Do me a favour though, will you? Think your actions through. Not everyone will see how just your cause is. Civil disobedience often gets mistaken for criminality, and people get hurt.”
“OK,” Ryan replied sheepishly but then straightened his back and said: “But this is a just cause. This is bad crap. By their own estimates they’re going to screw up over 150 water supplies this year. How can we let them do that?”
Harry started to say something but Ryan was on a roll.
“And the idea that natural gas is better for the environment is oil company crock. Sure when you burn it it’s cleaner, but methane is a way worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The gas leakage at these fracking pods makes this natural gas as bad or worse for global warming than coal.”
Harry held up his hands and said: “Breathe, Ryan.”
Ryan slouched and turned back into the teenager that he was. “Sorry, I can get a bit obsessed.”
“Obsession is not necessarily a bad thing but it can make you sloppy. Make sure you do some critical thinking, OK?”
He nodded.
Harry went over Cirba’s notes from his initial interview with Ryan. The teen answered everything the same as before and didn’t ping any warnings in Harry’s suspic-o-meter.
As he left Harry asked the boy, “What are the rubber birds for?”
Ryan was a little shocked at first but then smiled. “What rubber birds?”