The Surrogate Thief

Book 15: Joe Gunther

by Archer Mayor

Genres: Police Procedurals; Suspense

Synopsis

Over the years investigator Joe Gunther has battled drug pushers and corporate swindlers, grappled with environmental conspirators, and foiled gangs and home invaders. But while usually successful in his fight for the future of the small town of Brattleboro, Vermont, Gunther hasn't always come out on top.

Thirty years earlier, store owner Klaus Oberfeldt was robbed and beaten senseless. When Klaus died six months later, a case of assault and battery became first-degree murder. The guilty man eventually appeared to be a well-known, small-time crook, but enough time had elapsed for him to vanish. Gunther, distracted by his wife's losing struggle with cancer in the same hospital where Klaus was slipping from life, did something that would plague him for the rest of his career: He let the case go cold, burying it in the past along with his private sorrows.

Now serendipitously reopened, the Oberfeldt investigation forces Gunther to revisit ancient history and open old wounds. Torn between righting the past and confronting his demons, the veteran cop faces the most personal and dangerous case of his career. For somewhere on the idyllic Brattleboro streets stalks a long-lost murderer who never quite disappeared — and with Joe's renewed interest, now has good reason to kill again.

Release date: July 31, 2007

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 336

Sample

“Mayor’s unassuming voice and down-to-earth style stamp his regional crime novels with a sense of integrity… [His] strengths are his profound understanding of the region and his hero’s ability to relate to the people who live there.”

—MARILYN STASIO, New York Times Book Review

“Engrossing stuff. Only K. C. Constantine rivals Mayor in his mastery of the small-town procedural.”

—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A real brainteaser… Archer Mayor [is] a favorite mystery novelist.”

—Concord Sunday Monitor (NH)

“The story is quick-paced and well written with a satisfying conclusion… Mayor has the ability to paint a scene and draw the reader in using very few words… Archer Mayor can really tell a story. This is a book well worth reading.”

—ILoveaMystery.com

“Mayor is a gifted writer with a straightforward, accessible style… From first to last, his novels are page-turners, and each page resonates with the author’s authority… His storytelling talents and his sheer craftsmanship combine to make his Joe Gunther books hard to put down.”

—Tampa Tribune

“Archer Mayor is one of today’s most reliable—and most underappreciated—crime writers. His low-key police procedurals, which utilize their off-the-beaten-track setting to great advantage, are always entertaining, and his protagonist and iconoclastic supporting cast are unfailingly good company.”

—San Diego Union-Tribune

“Mayor’s skills are equal to the vigor of his imagination, and we take his every word for every twist, every turn, every thunderbolt.”

—The New Yorker

“A Mobius strip of crime and time… The setting of a Gunther novel is always an added pleasure.”

—Barre Times Argus (VT)

“Vivid… This series is a winner, and THE SURROGATE THIEF is its best to date.”

—Kingston Observer (MA)

“Mayor’s Joe Gunther novels are among the best cop stories being written today.”

—Booklist

“The writing is strong, with sharp social observations throughout… Gunther grows on you from novel to novel.”

—Washington Post Book World

“One of the best contemporary American mystery writers.”

—Providence Sunday Journal

“One of the sharpest writers of police procedurals.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Mayor keeps getting better with age… Few writers deliver such well-rounded novels of such consistently high quality.”

—Arizona Daily Star

“Mayor’s strength lies in his dedication to the old-fashioned puzzle, brought to a reasonable conclusion.”

—San Jose Mercury News

“A great storyteller.”

—Maine Sunday Telegram

“Lead a cheer for Archer Mayor and his ability not only to understand human relationships but to convey them to his readers.”

—Washington Sunday Times

“Mayor’s major strength is his ability to etch personalities in their settings so that they are as vivid as a video.”

—St. Petersburg Times

Dispatch to 0-30.”

Officer Paul Kinney unhooked his radio mike and answered, “0-30.”

“Domestic disturbance, 63 Vista Estates. Neighbor called it in. Address listed to a Linda Purvis.”

“Ten-four.”

Kinney replaced the mike and pulled into a smattering of traffic. It was almost midnight, and, even in a town of thirteen thousand like Brattleboro, it was still Vermont, where phoning people after nine and staying up past eleven remained unusual, even slightly inappropriate, behavior.

Kinney was feeling good. It was summer, two days ago he’d been released by his training officer to patrol on his own, and he was flush with self-confidence. To his thinking, all that remained was to learn the ropes thoroughly with the Bratt PD, establish a reputation, put out some feelers, and pick from a variety of plum federal jobs, from the FBI to Homeland Security to God knows what. He felt poised before a veritable trough of opportunities.

He headed west on Route 9 into West Brattleboro, the main town’s smaller offshoot. Given its less urban makeup, West B played host to a choice of trailer parks, from the seriously upscale—expansive, complete with paved roads, car parks, and garages—to the barely solvent, where the odds favored Mother Nature repossessing her own.

Not surprisingly to Kinney, the loftily named Vista Estates fit the latter category.

He wasn’t concerned. He didn’t know this address specifically, but he judged himself pretty adept at handling domestics. He’d studied his FTO’s style—an old-timer who’d been a field training officer for too many years—and, as a result, had mostly learned how not to behave. And even though he’d handled only a couple of domestics on his own, Kinney was convinced of the merits of his technique. People under stress didn’t need a friendly ear. They were secretly yearning for the comfort of a little imposed discipline.

Vista Estates was to hell and gone, almost out of town, and proffering neither vistas nor estates. A trailer park whose assets were better known to the tax courts than to any Realtor, it was a threadbare clearing among some roughly opened woods, crisscrossed with narrow, roottangled dirt lanes and populated with as many empty lots as decaying trailers.

The one thing the park owners had bothered with, Kinney noted gratefully, was numbering the addresses. He found 62/63/64 without much trouble, clustered together, although only after he’d used his flashlight to see better out his side window. Vista Estates had clearly deemed streetlamps a luxury.

Kinney drew abreast of the rough scratch in the dirt serving as a trifurcated driveway, told dispatch of his arrival, and pulled himself free of the car. Before him were two distant trailers and an empty space for a third. The home on the left was blazing with light, its neighbor all but dark, save for a single curtained window.

He drew in a deep breath, both enjoying the cool summer air and preparing himself for the show of command he saw coming, and set off down the driveway.

He considered stopping by the neighbor’s first. That was certainly protocol. But instinct and vanity pushed him toward the direct approach. Slipping between the pickup and the small sedan parked out front, without checking their registrations, he climbed the worn wooden steps up to the narrow homemade porch and paused at the thin metal front door.

He certainly sympathized with the neighbor’s complaint. There was a knock-down, drag-out screaming match taking place inside, accompanied by the thumping of inner doors and the smashing of crockery.

Kinney passed on simply ringing the bell and removed his flashlight from the slim pocket sewn into his uniform pants.

He used it to smack the door three times.

“Brattleboro police.”

The immediate silence was like pulling the plug on an overly loud TV set—utter and complete. In its sudden embrace, he felt abruptly and paradoxically defenseless.

The door flew open without warning, revealing a large man with a beard, a T-shirt, and an oversize revolver in his hand pointed at the floor. “You get the hell away from here or she’s dead. Got that?”

Kinney felt his stomach give way, along with his bravado. Transfixed by the gun, he imagined himself as the human-size target he so frequently perforated at the range, and could visualize the barrel rising to the level of his eye, an enormous flash of light, and then nothing.

Instead, the door was merely slammed in his face.

“ ‘You get away from here or she’s dead person.’ That’s all he said. He had a gun.”

Ron Klesczewski closed his car door and leaned back against the fender. He rubbed his face with both hands, still chasing the remnants of a deep sleep from his brain, before peering into the wary, almost belligerent expression of the patrolman before him.

“You got the call? I mean, you were the one this guy talked to?” Ron spoke deliberately, hoping to project a calming influence. In fact, being the senior officer here, he felt his own anxieties beginning to roil inside him, a nagging insecurity he’d wrestled with all his life.

“Yeah. It didn’t sound like a big deal from dispatch—a routine domestic. I knocked on the door, he opened up, delivered the one-liner, and slammed the door. There was a woman behind him, crying.”

Klesczewski took in the tight shooting gloves, custom gun grips, and strained nonchalance and identified a neophyte’s attempt to camouflage insecurity with accessories. “She look all right otherwise?”

To his credit, the patrolman became clearly embarrassed. “I guess. I was sort of looking at the gun. That’s when I figured I better call for backup.”

Klesczewski studied him for a beat before asking, “You okay? Did he point it at you?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, as if Ron had asked a trick question. All traces of initial swagger vanished at last in the response. “No. I mean, yeah, I’m all right, but no, he didn’t point it at me. It was a little scary, is all. Not what I was expecting. But I’m fine… And she’s fine… I’m pretty sure… The woman, I mean.”

Brattleboro’s police department was known either as a lifer colony, where laid-back older veterans spun out entire careers, or as a turnstile agency, where baby cops hung around just long enough to decide between a flashier law enforcement job elsewhere and getting out.

Ron wondered if the latter option wasn’t circling this one’s head right now. As it was, he was so new that Ron couldn’t remember if his name was Paul or Phil. His name tag just read “P. Kinney.”

“How long ago did this start?” he asked him, deciding he looked like a Phil.

Kinney checked his watch. “Maybe half an hour ago.” He keyed the mike clipped to the epaulet of his uniform shirt and muttered into his radio, “Jerry? It’s Paul. You remember when I called for backup?”

“Twenty-three fifty-three,” came the brisk reply.

Okay, Ron thought, so it’s Paul. Things better improve from here. “The scene secure?”

Kinney nodded. “Only three sides to worry about. Jerry’s covering the west and north. We’re on the east, and Henry’s got the south. Good thing the trailer park’s half empty. Makes life a lot easier.”

That last line was delivered with pale, leftover flair, Ron shivered slightly. Even summers in Vermont could get chilly, especially if you were fresh from a warm bed. “You’ve got more coming, though, right?”

“Oh, sure. The state police are sending a couple. The sheriff, too. I asked Dispatch to get hold of the chief and Billy Manierre, but no luck so far.”

“They’re both out of town,” Ron said with some regret. He was head of a four-man detective squad and the department’s only hostage negotiator, both positions that put him closer to the upper brass than to the uniforms chasing tail-lights—the latter of whom he envied right now.

“You better show me around.”

Paul Kinney stumbled over an exposed root as he turned, increasing his awkwardness. “Watch your step,” he said needlessly. “It’s just around the corner, past that fir tree.”

They weren’t using flashlights. The moon supplied enough light to see by, and they didn’t want to stir up the man in the trailer in case he was looking out.

Kinney lowered his voice as he drew abreast of the tree. “There it is.”

Klesczewski peered into the gloom. Looking slightly deflated, like a small grounded blimp needing air, the trailer sat alone in the middle of a narrow hardscrabble yard. To one side of it was a blank rectangle showing where a similar home had once stood. To the other was a second trailer, some twenty feet away, lights blazing from every window. In the distance, a row of trees and a hill blocked off the scene like a set piece on a stage. A sway-backed pickup and a rusty compact were parked next to the home they were interested in.

“Jerry’s out behind?” Ron asked, pointing at the trailer.

“Right, and Henry’s alongside the other one.”

“Why’re all the lights on in there? Are the neighbors still inside?”

Kinney answered more emphatically than the question deserved, making Ron think he might have addressed this problem later than he should have. “No, no. We got them out. And I talked to them, too. Got some good information. I guess we forgot about the lights.”

“We can turn them off after the tac team gets here,” Ron placated him, noticing that the primary trailer had only one lighted window, its curtains drawn. “How did this go down?”

“Neighbors complained.” Kinney explained. “Said they were screaming at each other next door and breaking things. That’s sure what they were doing when I arrived.”

“We know who ‘they’ are yet?”

“Linda Purvis is the owner of record, and according to the neighbors, the man sounds like her ex, Matthew. That matches the two vehicle registrations and the physical descriptions I got.”

“Any kids?”

Kinney’s face turned toward him in the half light, looking blank. “I don’t know,” he stammered. “I didn’t ask.”

“So, there may be others in there.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” the younger man admitted. “I guess so. If it helps,” he added, “Dispatch said this wasn’t the first time. Purvis is in the computer for prior domestics here, complete with a restraining order issued yesterday.”

Which was probably what triggered this, Ron thought. One of the hallmarks of these kinds of situations, taught during his negotiator’s training, was the so-called precipitating event. Almost without fail, it was lurking somewhere, usually acting as the proverbial one straw too many. In the worst cases, you got what they called the triple—three cataclysms striking virtually at once, like a freakish planetary alignment.

“You smell liquor on his breath?” he asked.

Kinney nodded. “Big-time.”

Such as a drinking binge, Ron thought. He turned away and looked down the rutted road leaving the park. He saw the twinkle of blue strobes approaching in the distance.

“Get on the radio and tell everyone to respond Code Two. I don’t want to crank this guy any tighter than he is.”

Kinney did as asked, and they both watched the strobes wink out moments later, while the headlights kept bouncing toward them over the uneven ground.

Klesczewski didn’t look at Kinney as he continued, “As soon as everyone gets here, I want those smaller tire spike kits quietly placed under both Purvis cars, all other trailers within easy shooting range evacuated, and a perimeter established and sealed.”

“Who’s the shift commander tonight?” he finally asked.

“Captain Washburn. It was supposed to be Lieutenant Capullo but he’s out sick.”

Ron looked up at the night sky, dread settling in. That made Washburn top dog for the duration, since the chief and his second in command, Manierre, were out of town. Negotiation by its nature was tough enough, especially when you had as little experience as Ron had. Adding Washburn’s built-in animosity for him wasn’t going to make it easier.

The only missing stressor now was a gung ho tac team, champing at the bit to turn that trailer into the Alamo. And that much was a given with the team’s new leadership—a transplanted Boston cop named Wayne Kazak. Ron smiled at the irony. Now he had his own triple to deal with.

He sighed softly and said, “Okay, let’s get the van down here and set up a command post. Better count on this taking a while.”

Two hours later, Ron Klesczewski was sitting in an airless van, headphones binding his ears, his eyes half closed in concentration, listening to Matthew Purvis ranting on the other end of a dedicated line. This last detail was actually the PD’s “throw phone,” which Ron had managed to get him to accept after forty-five minutes of persuasion, using the ruse that Ron’s cell, which he wasn’t actually using, was running low on power.

The advantage of the throw phone over a standard line was being revealed right now, since Purvis wasn’t actually talking to Ron, but yelling yet again at his estranged wife. Since the unit was unfamiliar to him, he’d merely put it down instead of hanging it up as he might have normally.

Which in turn was helping to enhance one of the pillars of good negotiation: information gathering. Anything the negotiator could learn about the subject, using all available methods, gave him something extra with which to defuse the situation.

“It’s sounding like Linda thought Matt was cheating on her with her own sister,” Ron murmured, still eaves-dropping. “Either that or she’s deliberately heating him up.” Directly across from him, a whiteboard was mounted on the van wall, attended by a patrolman who now carefully wrote down, “Matt slept with Linda’s sis?” and added the exact time.

Already there was quite a lot on the board, acquired from Ron’s observations; computer searches; interviews with neighbors, friends, and family; and anecdotal tidbits from any officers who’d dealt with either Linda or Matthew Purvis in the past. Despite the hour, all across town, Ron had people digging for more. Even the town clerk was awakened for access to any records she might have.

Ron waited for a pause in the argument before punching the button on his console that made the throw phone ring whether it was off or not, noting in the back of his mind that Linda was standing her ground, giving as good as she got.

The phone rang twice before Matt picked it up.

“What?”

“It’s Ron, Matt. I was a little confused when you put me down just then. I thought we were working a few things out.”

“Like what? Like how you’re going to blow me away as soon as I shoot this bitch?”

“That’s not what I was hearing,” Ron said quietly, knowing that the man’s emotions needed to resettle after his last screaming match. “Before we were interrupted, we were talking about what you’ve just been through—how we might be able to put your life back together.”

There was a third man in the van with Ron: an official liaison with the incident command post outside, equipped with a pair of headphones connected to the ICP, and assigned the task of passing notes to and from the negotiator as directed. The notes were color coded according to their urgency. The one he placed before Ron now was purely informational. Klesczewski glanced at it and passed it along to the officer at the board, who wrote, “Fired from job two days ago.” With this morning’s restraining order and his by now admitted alcohol dependence, that earned Matt Purvis the “triple” designation Ron had mused about earlier.

“There’s nothing left to put together,” Purvis was yelling. “Don’t you get it? I’m not fucking around here. I will kill this bitch because she’s world-class evil, and then I’ll kill myself to save you the trouble.”

“Jeez, Matt. I’m hearing a lot of frustration.”

“No shit, Sherlock. You’d be frustrated, too, all the crap I have on my plate.”

“Maybe you’d like to get some of that out of your system.”

There was a pause, then a tentative, “What’re you saying? More talk? I’m sick of talking.”

The liaison handed Ron another, higher-priority note. Ron silently read “Let’s get moving”—clearly Washburn’s words—crumpled it up, and dropped it on the floor. There were others like it already scattered about, making him ever more grateful for the protocol prohibiting all but a select few from entering the van. The incident command post was only fifteen yards away, near the trailer park’s entrance.

“I’m talking about blowing off a little steam. You ever scream at the night sky? Just let her rip?”

“Everybody’s done that.”

“That’s all I’m saying. Maybe it’ll help a little—clear your head some.”

Matt Purvis was incredulous. “What? Step outside and start yelling? That’s crazy. You’ll shoot me.”

“Why would we do that, Matt? You haven’t done anything to us.”

“I’m in here with a gun, for Christ’s sake.”

“Every Vermonter I know has a gun,” Ron countered.

“I’m threatening to shoot my wife.”

“Matt,” Ron persisted, “I hear you telling me you want us to kill you, but we’re not going to do it. We’re here to see you and Linda both end up safe. So you can step outside and scream your lungs out. We’ll just watch.”

Purvis was clearly baffled by this turn of events. “You’re crazy.”

Ron laughed. “You’re not the first to say that. Go on—give it a try.”

“Just step out and yell?”

Ron could hear the fascination growing in the other man’s voice. He glanced up at the whiteboard as if for confirmation and read what they’d learned earlier from one of Matt’s drinking buddies: “Acts out in public.”

“Sure,” he suggested.

The regular phone rang inside Matt’s trailer.

“Hang on,” Purvis said, and put Ron down with a bang, again not actually severing the connection.

Ron killed his mike switch, swore softly, and said to the note taker, “He just got a phone call.”

He hunched over, listening carefully.

“Who?” he heard Purvis say. “A reporter? I don’t… What?” His voice grew. “A nut with a gun? Who the fuck told you that?… Yeah, the cops’re here… It’s none of your business… I got fired, all right? I got fired and my bitch wife slapped a restraining order on me and I’m about to be thrown out of my house for back rent and life is shit. Is that what you want to hear?”

Klesczewski punched a transmit button on his console, switching his line over to the incident command post. He slipped one of his earphones off so he could listen to Purvis and the ICP at the same time.

“Washburn.”

“He just got a phone call from a reporter.”

“What?”

“I think we should cut the trailer’s phone line. It might be somebody from the Reformer, but whoever it is, is working him up all over again.”

“Goddamn it, Ron, let’s give Kazak and his guys a shot.”

Ron grimaced at the last word. Wayne Kazak was Washburn’s kind of action-oriented guy. “It’s your call, but I’d like to hold off on that for a bit. Before the phone rang, I almost had him out the door.”

He refrained from detailing that overly rosy bit of fiction.

As intended, his phrasing put Washburn on the spot. Were the incident commander to choose a possibly bloody assault over a negotiator making progress, heads would roll, especially in a town as prone to argument—and suspicious of its police department—as Brattleboro, a famous bastion of liberal debate.

“All right. We’ll cut the line. How fast do you think you can get him out?”

“You know I can’t answer that, Ward. But I’m making progress.”

“Right.” Washburn hung up.

Ron readjusted his headphones. Purvis was still talking on the other phone, but now Linda was throwing her oar in, yelling at him to stop jerking himself off and make up his mind, calling him a loser and a dickhead who couldn’t even make a standoff with the cops work. Ron could almost feel the tension building in Matt’s head as the latter’s responses, to both reporter and estranged wife, became increasingly terse.

Come on, Ron began repeating to himself, cut the goddamn wire. He hesitated pushing the button triggering the throw phone’s ringer, unsure whether he’d be giving Matt a calmer harbor that way or merely adding to the pressure.

Just before he was about to go ahead, a shot went off, sharp as a whip’s crack, audible even through the van’s wall.

All hell broke loose. The note taker whirled around at the whiteboard, dropping his marker, Linda let out a scream over the headphones, and Washburn’s voice yelled through the van’s override speaker, “What the Christ happened, Ron?”

Ron could hear Kazak outside, shout. . .