The Dark Root THREE MONTHS LATER, with the snow nestled only into those nooks and crannies where the sun couldn’t reach it, I got a call at home—our home, I was becoming used to saying—which Gail Zigman and I had recently bought on Orchard Street in the quasi-rural no-man’s-land between Brattlebo...
Bellows Falls FROM THE SIDEWALK, Burlington’s Flynn Theatre on Main Street is at best unprepossessing. One-and-a-half stories high, it is by all appearances solid and well-built, with a white stone facade demurely but elegantly carved with its name, but in that it is no different from an old bank...
There was a glitch in the system, and things were running slow. “You boys lay it on thick, don’t you? Connecting Gregory’s brother to a murder you have no clue he’s involved with.” Willy was dismissive. “We have a clue. We just don’t have the eviden...
They were both bland, straightforward responses to inquiries by Jean Deschamps. But I understood why he’d been happy to receive them. Unlike the disappointments from the Canadian Army and others, these two were from men who’d apparently been with Antoine right up to the end. And they both express...
Mark Mullen, Vermont’s speaker of the House, following his supportive and glowing speech about law and order and the Reynolds Bill, immediately set about taking the latter apart, piece by piece. He did this in time-honored fashion, spreading the responsibility far and wide...
It is not very large—a few short blocks of jam-packed restaurants, shops, association headquarters, Mah-Jongg parlors, and apartments, all as covered with colorful posters, signs, and neon advertisements as a newlywed with rice. The street, closed off as a pedestrian walkway, is filled with peopl...
I was lost in thought. An arm slipped through mine. “How’re you doing?” I looked down into Gail’s face. “Hey, there. I was just thinking I should be in an incredibly upbeat mood.” “Which you’re not.” “...
She'd arranged to have brunch with Debbie Holton an hour ago, and still the young woman hadn't appeared or left word. Gail was sitting at the window of Walker's Restaurant, on Brattleboro's Main Street—and once again had consumed enough coffee to set her nerves up for a week."More coffee?"Gail st...
Fortunately, he was an older man, a kitchen worker named Fred who didn’t favor loud music, didn’t snore too loudly, and wasn’t too much of a slob. He did come from the old school, though, that dictated regular bathing to be antithetical to proper thermal insulation during the winter. As a result,...
Climbing out of the dark embrace of the tree-shrouded road, I was so taken with the vastness of the shimmering, starlit sky that I killed my headlights halfway up to the house and continued the rest of the way without them. It was an almost mystical experience; instead of missing the intense brig...
TYLER, WILLY KUNKLE, and Ron Klesczewski found me pacing in front of the cottage a half hour later, boiling over with anger and frustration. “Where the hell have you guys been?” Each of them reacted true to form at my outburst. Tyler silently raised...