Chat - Archer Mayor [93]
But he wasn’t moved to challenge Hillstrom’s findings. One thing she never did was stray too far into supposition. She always had the science to back her up.
He did see one loophole, however. “Doesn’t it sound like overkill to you, using both?”
She hesitated. “I know what you’re saying, Joe. I thought the same thing. You’re asking me to theorize, though, and I don’t feel comfortable doing that.”
“Humor me. I won’t quote you.”
He could hear her frustrated sigh in his ear. “It struck me like the belt-and-suspenders metaphor.”
“He wasn’t sure of just the fentanyl, so he threw in the DS . . .”
“DMSO.”
“Right . . . For good measure.”
“You asked what I thought,” she agreed halfheartedly. “But I have no evidence to back that up.”
He laughed at her predictable discomfort. “I know, I know. That’s my job.”
“Correct, Agent Gunther.”
“Doctor, as usual, one hell of a job. I have no clue what to do with this, but it’s got to be a smoking gun somehow. I just need to find which hand it fits.”
“Have fun, Joe. Glad I could help.”
“Thanks, Beverly. As always.”
This time, since Joe had called ahead, finding Rob Barrows at his Chelsea office wasn’t simply dumb luck. The deputy met him in the diminutive front lobby and led him back to the tucked-away basement corner they had used the time before.
Barrows cleared a guest chair of a pile of papers and offered Joe a cup of coffee—not quite to café standards but appreciated nevertheless. The younger man was in high spirits.
“I’m guessing you’ve been busy,” he said as they both settled down. “I heard half of Bellows Falls blew up last night.”
Joe laughed. “Hardly. The gas station owner’s going to get a couple of brand-new pumps, though.”
“But the bad guy,” Rob persisted. “Wayne Nugent—he ties into what we’ve been doing, right? I ran him through Spillman, soon as I heard, and made a bet right off with one of the other guys that I was right.”
Joe nodded—this was, after all, in large part why he’d made the trip. He owed Barrows that much. “Yeah. He was the one who did Andy in prison. One of my people dug it out and was trying to arrest him when he took off.”
Barrows shook his head. “Wow. That must’ve been something to see.”
Joe couldn’t argue the point, but he doubted that public opinion was going to be quite so appreciative statewide, especially in Bellows Falls, where sensitivities about police actions ran high.
“I also wanted you to know that I told E. T. about Nugent’s connection to his son—just so you aren’t blindsided later.”
“I appreciate that,” Rob responded. “Especially since we’re about that close to nailing his firstborn.” He held up his right hand with thumb and index finger a quarter inch apart.
“Really?”
“I got lucky with the hard drive we confiscated,” Rob explained. “Since you were focusing on the Internet porn material, I just went after the drug deal between CarGuy and SmokinJoe.”
“And you got something?”
“Oh, yeah.” He suddenly slapped his forehead. “Geez, what a dope. I’m really sorry. I forgot to ask how your brother was doing.”
Joe blinked at the interruption before murmuring, “Fine, thanks. Better. Doc is pretty confident.”
“Very cool,” Rob said, changing topics. “You know, I did hear back from the crime lab about those tools we seized. They got a positive match between a pair of Vise-grips and the nut we found in the snow. But there were no prints on the handle—too smeared. The only way I can think we can move forward there is to get somebody to squeal. That’s actually kinda why I put all my energy into the drug deal—figured if we could get somebody uncomfortable enough, we might get the information about the sabotage as a freebie.”
“And it looks like you’re almost there?” Joe asked, to bring him back on track. Not that he hadn’t been interested in hearing the lab results.
“I knew from the start CarGuy was probably Dan Griffis,” Barrows answered. “I mean, we both did, but I didn’t have any proof. It could have been Barrie McNeil, just pretending to be too dumb to operate