Chat - Archer Mayor [5]
“You find anything up that way, Jeff?” Joe asked as he drew near.
The young man shook his head before reporting in a soft Southern accent. “A couple of houses about a third of a mile up. One’s empty; the other had no idea—older couple that keep to themselves. They told me the road dead-ends about a mile up, at least in the winter. The town doesn’t plow it. I didn’t see any tracks by the side of the road along the way that told me anything.”
Joe nodded. “Thanks. You got their names and information?”
Dupree tapped his chest with a heavily gloved hand. “Sure do.”
Joe smiled at the sight. His own jacket was unzipped and he was without gloves, considering this an unusually warm day. He returned to watching the diver below.
He and Sam were the only representatives from the Vermont Bureau of Investigation, the state’s independent major-crimes unit. The others, and there were five of them by now, were all from the state police. It hadn’t always been so. In the not so distant past, the troopers would have owned this scene and been led by detectives from their own BCI division. But, recently, by a governor’s signature, the VBI had been put in charge of all major cases, the only concession being that, generally speaking, the unit should be invited in by the initial responders rather than simply take charge.
It had been an awkward arrangement at first, and not just with the state police but the large municipal forces as well, with considerable grumbling from all sides. But since VBI was composed of the best from all departments, and since Gunther, as field force commander and number two in the bureau, had bent over backward to be accommodating, supportive, and self-effacing, relations were improving all the time.
It also didn’t hurt that a majority of the new VBI was made up of old BCI members who loved the increased autonomy and lack of heavy-handed structure.
Below them, the diver slowly waded into the dark water, eddies collecting around his calves as he picked his way between unseen obstacles. The body floated spread-eagled, as if snorkeling, about ten feet out.
“Any theories yet?” Joe asked more generally. Sam had been here an hour already, ever since a 911 cell phone call from an out-of-town jogger enjoying the sylvan isolation had gotten everyone moving.
She shook her head. “The road’s been plowed, the snowbanks don’t show anything, there’s nothing lying around like a wallet or a bag, there’s no car parked nearby, and Jeff just told us what he found—or didn’t—up the road. I don’t know what the hell happened. If this guy’s a drunk who missed his footing, what’s he doing way out here? We’re fifteen miles from Brattleboro. If he drove here, where’s his car? If he was driven here by someone else, what’s the story with that?” She glanced over at him, clearly frustrated. “I sure as hell hope he has some ID, ’cause this could be anything. Maybe he fell from a plane.”
“You got a canvass going?” Joe asked.
“VSP did that right off the bat. There aren’t a lot of houses around here, but they’re spread out, so it’ll take a while to hear back from everybody. I’m not holding my breath. There’s something about this one that makes me think it won’t be a slam dunk.”
“Foul play, as they say?” he asked.
“Just a hunch.”
That counted for something. Sam Martens had been working for Joe a long time by now, dating back to when she was one of his detectives on the Brattleboro PD. Wiry and energetic—and as privately self-doubting as she could be forceful with others—Sam was a dogged, intuitive, natural digger. Joe had been delighted when she opted for the VBI, joining his own three-person, Brattleboro-based squad. This small group, while responsible for cases in Vermont’s southeastern corner, had also virtually become