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rungs on the ladder, a connection I hoped would stand me in good stead.
    Since Davis was on duty, he’d told me he’d swing by the police department parking lot to pick me up. It seemed like driving around Bellows Falls was going to be my first day’s primary activity.
    “Sorry we’re meeting again under these circumstances,” he said after I’d settled into his passenger seat and exchanged greetings.
    “What do you make of all this?” I asked him.
    His answer was understandably guarded. “Suppose anything’s possible.”
    I looked out the side window at the parade of passing houses, and rephrased something I’d asked Tony Brandt. “Back home, we get a sexual harassment charge, we check it out first ourselves. It’s only after we think it’s real that we bring in an outsider.”
    There was a long pause. Davis pulled into one of the side streets and headed west. “What did the chief say?”
    The question brought back Latour’s defensive reaction when I’d asked him about Padget’s culpability. “He made hopeful noises that it was smoke with no fire.”
    Davis snorted. “Don’t I wish.”
    “He also said a few uncomplimentary things about Norman Bouch.”
    This time, the other man laughed. “Doesn’t
he
wish. Latour’s been grinding his teeth about Bouch for years. But he’s never been able to lay a finger on him.”
    “He made it sound more personal than that.”
    “Now that his fair-haired boy’s in a jam? You bet.”
    I chose from several questions triggered by that response. “Was it Bouch’s drug dealing that had him so worked up before, or something else?”
    Davis continued negotiating the back streets of the village, his eyes taking in alleys, parked cars, pedestrians, the doors and windows of residences and businesses. With the warm weather, the car’s air conditioning was on, but both windows were rolled down. Veteran cops did that sometimes—it allowed them to be comfortable, but without cutting off the sounds and smells from outside, two extra vital signs a good patrolman learns to appreciate.
    “Everybody likes Bouch,” Greg Davis answered. “He makes sure of it. That drives Latour nuts, plus the fact that Bouch goes out of his way to irritate the Old Man. He’ll have some of his teenage rat pack commit minor offenses, knowing we can only slap them on the wrist. Or he’ll slug his wife and get away with it ’cause she refuses to squeal on him. It’s not all calculated—he is a bad guy. But it is a way of gaining him prestige with the people he wants to control.”
    “Tell me about the rat pack,” I asked.
    “I shouldn’t have made it sound that organized. They hang around his house a lot, though, and I know goddamn well they run errands for him… It’s just another thing we haven’t been able to prove.”
    Davis slowed the car to a crawl, watching a group of kids huddled together under a basketball hoop, with no ball visible. The kids looked up as we drew near and sullenly dispersed.
    “I guess it’s like a basic morality issue. Latour was brought up on the straight and narrow, and people like Bouch piss him off. The Pied Piper angle gets to him, too. These kids have a slim enough chance as it is.”
    “You said Padget was Latour’s fair-haired boy.”
    Davis hesitated, but only momentarily. “Padget’s a rising star—everything Bouch isn’t, and probably everything the Old Man wished he’d been. He’s smart, ambitious, good-looking, idealistic, nice to be around. And not too goody-two-shoes, either, although he won’t drink even when he’s off duty. A lot of rookies have to strut their stuff, you know? Bust bad guys, put on an attitude, wear those short black leather driving gloves, supposedly so their hands won’t get messed up when they start pounding the shit out of people.”
    I laughed at the sadly familiar image.
    Davis joined me briefly. “Right. Well, Padget’s not quite a rookie by now, but he’s not too far from it, especially to an old fart