The Surrogate Thief(2)

“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 taillights—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 swaybacked 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?”