Free Proof Positive: A Joe Gunther Novel (Joe Gunther Series) by Archer Mayor Page B

sorry. I know all this field and stream crap is supposed to make me feel good, but I think it’s … I don’t know … unnatural.”
    Frank Niles took his eyes off the road long enough to cast his partner a look. “You sure that’s the word you’re looking for?”
    Neil Watson pointed vaguely at the passing Vermont countryside, admittedly not at its best—stark branches stripped of colorful leaves, grass killed by night frosts, all ready for a face-saving blanket of snow that had yet to arrive. “Cute. Come on. Look at it. It’s a butt-ugly waste of space. Even worse than the last time we were up here, poking through that sick bastard’s House of Shit. They should do something with this real estate.”
    “You’ll like Burlington,” Frank ventured. “It’s got thousands of people. Traffic jams, pedestrians getting in the way, exhaust fumes. Maybe even manhole covers, just like New York.”
    “You’re a funny guy, Frank,” Neil grumbled. “I’m just sayin’, ya know?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How much longer till we get there?”
    “Burlington?” Frank asked, checking the dashboard GPS. “Another forty-five minutes.”
    Neil unholstered his gun and checked to see if a round was chambered. A nervous twitch, of course. He never carried it empty or uncharged.
    “I do like that they don’t have gun laws here,” he said. “I guess they’re not total losers.”
    “They’re hunters,” Frank told him. “Or at least that’s their culture.” He added cautiously, “Still, I don’t think it would be a great idea to be seen packing heat.”
    Neil replaced the gun angrily. “No shit, Frank. I got that. How long you think we’ll be stuck here, anyhow?”
    Frank tilted his head philosophically, personally enjoying what was parading by their windows. He liked mountains and sloping meadows and quaint farmhouses leaking plumes of chimney smoke. But unlike Neil, he also enjoyed reading and listening to music and even going to a museum now and then. “You know as much as I do. Kendall gave us diddly before he croaked. The museum Web site said nothing about him or who was behind getting his pictures on the wall, except for that ‘anonymous donor’ bullshit I showed you. Maybe it’ll all be printed on a plaque on the wall when we get there.”
    “And if it isn’t?”
    Frank smiled pleasantly. “Then we do what we do. Find out who’s got what we need and have a chat with them, too.”
    “That’s done us a lot of good so far,” Neil groused.
    Frank shrugged. “We’ll get what the customer wants. That’s what we get paid for.”
    *   *   *
    Lester Spinney awoke from his nap and sighed at the long line of traffic stretching ahead of their temporary hilltop vantage point. To him, it looked like an oversized boa, its scales comprised of shimmering blotches of colorful automotive paint. They were in New Jersey, on I-287, driving south at fifteen miles an hour.
    “Who are all these people?” he wondered aloud. “And why’re they out here, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week? It doesn’t make sense to me.”
    “I ask myself the same thing every time I come here,” Joe replied. “Rough night?”
    “Total waste. As a favor, I helped out a pal at the Springfield PD last night. A no-brainer, but it took forever.” Resigned to the wonder of so much traffic, Spinney reached into the back seat of the car to retrieve their case file, speaking as he did so. “Sam told me that McLarney had sent up something from Philadelphia, but you sprang this trip on me first thing this morning. I’m not complaining, by the way. But why’re we going there?”
    “Sorry ’bout that,” Joe said, keeping his eyes on the bumper four feet ahead. “I was planning to tap Sammie for this, figuring she’d like to stretch her legs a little, but I think she saw it as a chance for her and Willy to get a little private time in, away from us. Was Sue okay with the short notice?”
    “Oh sure,” Lester told