More specific credit for Brattleboro's stamina came from another unlikely flatlander source: back during the sixties, a small army of disaffected social dropouts, dizzy with blurry images of sylvan splendor and a thirst for isolation, barely crossed the state line to set up communes, natural food restaurants, and back-to-the-earth farms. Eventually, once the spiritual glow had either faded or aged, these erstwhile hippies amended enough of their more doctrinaire enthusiasms to become an integral part of an interestingly quirky, often contentious social fabric.

To the local police, however, Brattleboro's proximity to New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and the interstate had been slowly transforming the town from what the chamber of commerce called the gateway to Vermont into its doormat, a magnet for all the ills leaking out of the urban south-a cynical and narrow view, no doubt, but allowable given the source.

It also helped explain Willy Kunkle's presence here.

An ex-New York City patrolman, a Vietnam vet, and a dedicated alcoholic, Willy had ended up in Brattleboro first because he'd needed gas on his way to someplace- anyplace-he hadn't been to before, perhaps Canada. It hadn't been love at first sight or like having a revelation, but the double discovery of Brattleboro's busy downtown and a poster advertising openings at the police department had conspired to make him stay.

He'd begun by walking the streets, shunning patrol cars in exchange for the traditional beat, and had honed a talent for making contacts and connections in those parts of town few upstanding citizens cared to acknowledge. In the process, he'd become the one cop who most reliably could extract information where others came up emptyhanded.