Chat - Archer Mayor [35]
To many observers—and many in law enforcement—the setting and history of this halfway house for the unfortunate was apt for both the town and the state in general, given Brattleboro’s and Vermont’s reputation for being less than draconian in their treatment of the legally wayward.
That said, the facility’s interior was pretty standard office building, and nothing about its layout or the attitude of its occupants implied any coddling of the clientele. This was immediately demonstrated by the receptionist behind the bullet-resistant window when Sam and Willy walked in—especially after she caught sight of the latter and leaped to a reasonable conclusion.
“Sign in and have a seat.”
Sam smiled brightly and flashed her badge. “Understandable mistake. We’re here to see Dave Snyder.”
The receptionist reacted with a deadpan “Don’t sign in and have a seat.”
Snyder, when he appeared a couple of minutes later, was a small, intense man with a hard handshake and a ready smile, who ushered them down a tangle of narrow hallways, up a half flight of stairs, and finally into a truly minute office with not even an air vent for circulation, much less a window. So much for the Italian villa.
The three of them conducted a facsimile minuet getting seated without bumping into each other, after which Willy, with his usual grace, opened up with a small conversational ice breaker.
“Christ. Either somebody really hates you or you need lessons on sucking up.”
Snyder laughed. “I spend about an hour a day in here. It’s actually kind of restful. And nobody ever bothers me.”
Even the walls were blank, completely free of pictures, calendars, or a bulletin board.
“Go figure,” Willy agreed.
Snyder fired up the computer monitor on his desk and addressed Sam. “You wanted to know about Andy Griffis?”
“Yeah,” she told him. “He was arrested by the Brattleboro PD, but then we let him drop off the radar—until we heard he’d committed suicide, of course,” she added quickly, addressing Snyder’s look of surprise.
He nodded. “I was going to ask if you knew.” He waved a hand at the screen. “Well, I don’t know. To be honest, the guy who actually handled this case is gone, so I’m pretty much the tour guide here. I never met Griffis. What’re you after?”
Sam took pity on the man, since she was in much the same boat, given Joe’s vagueness. “Tell us the overall first, then maybe we can get more specific.”
Snyder slowly began scrolling down and reading, highlighting his findings in a descriptive monologue. “Okay. Let’s see. Wow. Talk about no luck—first-time offender and he goes straight to jail. Oh, okay. I get it, kind of. Proprietor gets hurt during a burglary, and she’s an old lady to boot. Media must’ve been all over that. Still, tough for him. Got five to ten with all but three suspended. Bet he wasn’t expecting that.”
He hit a few more commands and moved elsewhere within his database. “Started out jail in Springfield,” he resumed, “then got moved to St. Albans. Indicators are he was generally compliant and cooperative. In her notes, the prison case worker mentions a depressive period toward the end, basically lasting till he was released. Don’t know what that was about. Probably just bummed. Our interactions with him afterward were routine. He got a job working up north first, around Thetford. His family has a bunch of businesses there. Says here he was a mechanic. Wasn’t long before he headed back to Brattleboro, though, which is how we wound up with him. According to this, he said things weren’t working out in Thetford. That happens often enough, where the family shakes out after one of them comes back from inside. Maybe that’s what happened here.”
He started reading more carefully, his own interest growing. “We picked up his check-ins,” he resumed, “which he seems to have met. His conditions weren’t too onerous—pretty much the usual. Oh, I was wrong; he did miss a check-in, right at the end. After that, nothing. He was found hanging from the crossbar in his apartment closet after he failed to show up at work two days