I nodded, and he looked at me silently for a long moment.
“She’s a little shaken up- no surprise- and a little tired, maybe, but even with that she’s real smart. I like smart people. I’m Barrento, by the way- Louis. I run the detective division in Berkshire County.” And then he asked his questions.
There were a lot of them, but none that I didn’t expect: who I was; what I did; why I’d come there; what I’d been looking for; how I got into the barn; if I had been in the house; if I had touched anything; who the big crazy guy was; why he was tossing me around like a rag doll; whose car was in the barn; whose body was in the car; what I knew about how it got there. He took me through everything I’d done at Calliope Farms several times, from several angles, and every time I told him nearly all of it, withholding only the actual breaking in and my examination of the red accordion file. He listened and nodded and gave nothing away. And when I thought he was through, he sighed and pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and looked at it.
“I read here you used to be a cop- a sheriff’s deputy over in New York- Burr County.”
I looked at him and said nothing.
“That’s not so far from here- three, four hours maybe. I remember that case from a few years back. I was working out of Springfield then, but I remember it.”
He studied my face and shook his head a little. “So you tell me, back when you were a cop, what would you have done in my shoes? What would you have done with an out-of-state private license you found prancing around a crime scene- a murder scene, no less? One who fed you some bullshit story about doors already open and locks already busted? One who claimed to be so worried about a missing guy thateven though his client had fired him- he had to drive all the way up from goddamn New York City to go looking. But who- even with all this worry- couldn’t be bothered to pick up the fucking phone and give the local cops a heads-up? I mean, hypothetically, what would you have done?”
Barrento didn’t raise his voice and didn’t take his eyes off mine. I sighed and ran my hand down my swollen cheek. “Hypothetically, I guess I’d be pissed,” I said. “But I’d also think about how long it might’ve taken me to find the body, if this private license hadn’t come along, and how long it might’ve taken to grab a suspect. If I thought he’d done me a little good, then, hypothetically, I might cut him a break.”
Barrento pursed his lips and ran a thumb and forefinger over his bushy mustache. “And if the case was a high-profile one? If you knew the press- the national press- would be all over it, along with every boss and politician in the commonwealth? You still think you’d give the guy some slack?”
“I guess I’d want to be sure that he was a right guy,” I said. “But if I was, then- on a high-profile case- I’d be happy not to waste my time on bullshit.”
Barrento smiled a little. “Thanks for the advice,” he said. He settled himself more deeply in the passenger seat and stroked his mustache and looked out the window for a while. Then he turned to me.
“Go sit with her,” he said.
Jane was still holding the white Styrofoam cup when I climbed into the Audi. She looked at me- at my face and my arm in its sling, at my clothes that were sodden and mud-covered- and then she looked away.
“Is it broken?” she asked.
“Dislocated. They can reset it in the ER.”
“Otherwise you’re… okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“That’s good,” she said softly. She was quiet for a while, watching troopers carry things to and from the barn, and then she told me what had happened.
It was a simple story. When she hadn’t heard from me for hours, and couldn’t raise me on the phone, Jane had grown worried and had driven to Calliope Farms. She’d parked on the road, and even through the rain she’d seen lights in the barn and a car- Cortese’s Chryslerin the turnaround, and her worry had grown larger still. And then she’d seen the lights go out and thought she’d heard… something, and she’d dialed 911. The emergency operator had been swamped with calls and skeptical, and it had taken a while for the sheriff’s deputies to roll up. When they did they were a minute behind Jane, who had waited as long as she was able and had driven up the hill with no plan in mind beyond honking her horn. She finished telling it and took a deep breath and drank the chilly dregs that were left in her cup.
Cars and trucks pulled in and out, and uniformed men came and went and milled around in the mud, and Jane and I watched them and were silent. Colored lights washed across the car, and Jane’s hands and face were tinted blue and white and red. The ice pack was spent and the pain in my shoulder was swelling. My stomach was empty and my eyes were gritty and hot. I closed them and kept very still and breathed very little. Thoughts careened in my head for a while, and slid and staggered, and then they stopped altogether.
Barrento rapped on the glass and I jumped. Jane ran the window down.
“You two can go for tonight. But I want you both at the Lee barracks in the morning, for formal statements.” He looked at Jane. “You should be out pretty quick,” he said. He looked at me. “You’ll be longer.”
Jane turned the Audi in a tight circle and headed slowly down the driveway. There were flares at the entrance, and state troopers. There was a van parked by the side of the road, a hundred yards from the signpost. It was white and had a large red number eight on its side and a satellite dish on its roof. There were men near it, with lights and a big video rig that they pointed at us as we drove past. Heavier weather was coming.
The ER at Pittsfield Hospital was clean and pleasant, and its array of vending machines was vast. Jane sipped a Sprite while we waited, and turned the pages of a magazine, and was quiet. I ate a chocolate bar and made phone calls.
My first was to Tom Neary. He listened silently while I told him what I’d found and what had happened afterward, and he sighed heavily when I finished.
“Murder and insider trading,” he said. “It’s a shitstorm all the way around. Unless there’s another war or something, the press will go nuts with this. There are probably cable news guys drinking your health right now. I don’t envy what’s-his-name- Barrento. You think he’s any good?”
“I think he’s plenty good. And he’s been around the block enough times to be expecting the worst on this thing.”
“With something this high profile, he’s right to. Everybody north of him on the food chain will be pushing for a fast close. At least he’s got hold of someone already.” Neary thought for a moment. “Will he and his boys know what to make of Danes’s file?”
“They’ll figure it out eventually, but it might be a while before they get to it. They’ve got to make a formal ID of the body first, and autopsy it, and then they’ve got a mountain of forensics to move.”
“But when they do-”
“Then Marcus Hauck will be scrambling a squadron of lawyers or else taking an extended vacation to points south. And all the folks at Pace-Loyette will be working on their rA©sumA©s.”
Neary laughed grimly. “I’m not sure it’ll sink them, but if it doesn’t they’ll be doing some serious housecleaning- which will no doubt include their security services.”
“Timing is everything,” I said. “I’m a little exposed with this file thing- I told Barrento it was all look-but- don’t-touch with Danes’s car. So you can’t know about the file until Barrento gets around to finding it.”
“Are you kidding? I plan to keep a healthy distance from Pace until this thing breaks. I’ll gladly take their money afterwardassuming there is an afterward- but I’d rather not get splashed with the first wave of sewage. You think Barrento will jam you up?”
“It seems to me he should have a lot of other things to worry about, but you never know.”
“You tell Sachs about this yet?”
“She’s my next call.”
“It’s tough for the kid.”
“Billy. His name’s Billy.”
“Right- Billy. And how are you doing?”
I looked over at the waiting area to where Jane sat with a magazine in her lap, looking at the wall.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”
I tried Nina Sachs but got only her machine and left no message. Then the man at the desk called my name. I was in and out in fifteen minutes, with my shoulder reset, re-iced, wrapped, and resting in a new sling. Jane was waiting in the car.
The streets of Lenox were quiet when we drove through town, and almost dry. The small parking lot at the
