Death at Fort Devens by Peter Colt
This is the Peter Colt’s second book featuring Boston-based private eye Andy Roark, a Vietnam War veteran with PTSD. In the previous book, he helped a restaurant owner who had fled from Vietnam after the war. Crooks were shaking down the he restaurateur. Andy convinced the bad guys to go away.
The author spent twenty years in the service and knows how important military experience is to those who served. His protagonist, Andy, saw lots of bad things as an Army Special Forces soldier in Vietnam, but being in a fighting unit provided a lot of structure to his life, something he misses as a civilian. Andy was a Boston cop after he returned home, but he had a problem taking orders and dealing with the bureaucracy, so he left to go off on his own.
The books are set in the mid-1980s, when the war was a fading memory but the PTSD stuck around. Most of Roark’s work involves routine divorce cases or insurance frauds, but he’s pretty good at solving the occasional mystery or finding a missing person.
The book begins when Andy gets a call from the officer he served under in Southeast Asia. First Lieutenant David Billings is now a lieutenant colonel who is stationed at Fort Devens in Central Massachusetts. Billings was a star in Vietnam and earned a lot of medals. He decided to make a career out of the US Army. He and Roark had carried out some very scary missions in the war. During a nasty firefight, Lt. Billings carried a seriously wounded Andy Roark to a waiting helicopter. Andy thinks the world of Dave Billings. The two men had not seen each other in 15 years and had a lot of catching up to do before Billings told Roark why he wanted to meet him.
Billings was married and had a seventeen-year old daughter, Judy, who had gone missing. She had been dating an army private, whose low rank somehow offended the lieutenant colonel. Judy had been acting out lately, missing school and staying out very late at night. Roark gets a picture and information about the girl from her father and then heads back to Boston.
Andy Roark had been living with Leslie, a graduate student, for a few months, but he had bad nightmares and a few other personality quirks because of his PTSD, which in the 1980s was not recognized as much of a problem. Leslie had moved on, so Andy was pretty much alone in his apartment. Tracking down Judy Billings would get him out doing interesting things so he looked forward to the case.
The next day, Roark makes the hour drive to Fort Devens. He liked Devens which was a real community of soldiers and their families. Many had been stationed all over the world, and their common service to the nation gave them a shared sense of values.
He makes a point of introducing himself to the provost marshal, the police chief of the base. Since Andy had served in Vietnam with Dave Billings, he’s welcome to talk to Private Derrick Page who may know something about the missing Judy.
Derrick is a tall Black soldier who is a mechanic in the motor pool. He is willing to talk to Andy but claims that he and Judy went out only briefly because Colonel Billings didn’t want his daughter seeing anyone on the base, especially a “brother from the motor pool” who was a lowly private. Page tells Andy that Judy liked to go to Boston and get someone to buy cocaine and champagne for her, neither of which Private Page could afford. The colonel did speak to Page and told him not to see his daughter, so they stopped dating. Andy gets the name of Judy’s best friend on base, Cindy, who works at the bowling alley.
Andy gets into his car, a Ford Maverick with a souped-up engine, but he stays on base, watching Derrick, who leaves the garage to make a call from a pay phone. Roark isn’t sure that Derrick and Judy have really broken up so the call is intriguing.
Roark heads off to the bowling alley to get lunch and talk to Cindy, Judy’s friend. Roark introduces himself as an investigator who’s trying to find Judy. At first, Cindy bristles and says that what Judy does is nobody else’s business. Cindy does come back on her break and talks to Andy.
The Billings home life is not idyllic. Mrs. Billings – Barbara – has a serious drinking problem. Colonel Billings (“Colonel Daddy”) ignores his wife (“Martini Mommy”) and has disdain for his daughter and doesn’t think that she’ll amount to much. Cindy’s an army brat but her parents are normal. Being in the military, they do move around a lot. Devens is one of the best places they’ve lived.
Cindy confirms that Derrick and Judy are no longer an item. The colonel scared the private away, and Judy was too much for Derrick to handle anyway. Cindy thinks that Judy is seeing a guy in Boston who lives in a rough neighborhood and is probably a career criminal. Cindy says that Judy’s new squeeze – street name K-nice – is not nice. He carries a gun and a straight razor. Cindy joined Judy one night at a Boston nightclub. A drunken patron was making passes at Judy. K-not-so-nice smashed his face and beat him up. Cindy no longer hangs with Judy in Boston.
PI Roark visits Dave Billings to tell him that his daughter is hanging out with a drug dealer in Boston’s Combat Zone, the seedy district where prostitution, strip clubs like the Pussycat Lounge, and drug dealing are the anchors of the local economy. The Zone gets its name from the fact that it attracted a lot of soldiers and sailors over the years, many of whom had seen combat. Colonel Daddy is not happy and wants to kill K-nice. Andy suggests that is not an optimal solution and assures Billings that, as a Boston-based investigator with good local contacts, Andy can figure out what’s going on with Judy.
When Roark had been a Boston cop, he worked in the Combat Zone and saw how easy it was for young girls to get involved in the sex trade. They became addicted to drugs and then had to work for their pimp to get their fix. Andy had to find Judy before she was sucked into the street life.
Judy did come home and, for a day or so, things were OK, but she and her father had an argument. She stomped off to her room. In the morning, she was gone, along with a lot of her clothes. She ran away.
Dave is panicked but Andy talks him off the cliff. When Andy searches Judy’s room he finds birth control pills and drugs hidden in a hollowed-out book. In the bathroom, he finds lots of pills prescribed to Barbara Billings. She does a lot of prescription drugs as well as imbibing to excess.
Andy heads back to Boston to the Greyhound Bus Station in Park Square where buses from Fort Devens would drop off their passengers. It was a hub for young runaways. Andy talks to the manager of the Burger King and to the police officers who are assigned to the station. He also talks to cabbies who work at the bus station. No one’s seen Judy. Andy goes to the Copley Square shopping district, the Downtown Crossing retail area, and Faneuil Hall, the tourist trap. He talked to dozens of merchants. No one’s seen the missing girl.
PI Roark gives the reader a history of Boston as he does his investigative work all over the city. He tells us that the Suffolk County Jail was once home to Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, and Malcom X.
The next stop is Harvard Square, home to many runaways. No one has seen Judy, which is not surprising to Andy since she is probably with drug kingpin K-nice.
Andy had dated social worker Sue Teller until she got sick of his antics, mostly induced by PTSD. She was a do-gooder who now ran a drop-in center for young women who had lost their way in the Combat Zone. These included folks who today would be called homeless but back then that term didn’t exist. Andy hasn’t seen Sue in a long time but the meeting is amicable. Sue does tell Andy that, given his risk-taking behavior, she thought he’d be dead by now.
Andy tells her about his interest in finding Judy. Naturally, Sue hasn’t seen her but she assures Andy that teenage girls run away all the time and generally resurface on their own. He explains that his kid is the daughter of a man who saved his life in Vietnam. She’s impressed that Roark opened up to her about that trauma. It explains a lot about their failed relationship.
Once Sue finds out that Judy is probably with K-nice, her attitude changes. He is a very bad dude and the kid could be in trouble. Sue will do some digging to try to figure out where Judy is. She gives Andy a kiss on the cheek as he leaves. That surprised him since they had had a miserable break-up.
Andy goes to his office which is above Marconi’s pizza shop that just closed because the owner had been diagnosed with cancer. A video store will occupy the space. Andy will miss Marconi and his pizzas.
That night Andy and Sue walk around the Combat Zone trying to find Judy. Sue knows a lot of street people and other folks but no one has seen the girl. Sue knows Sailor, the owner of an adult bookstore and peep show who has a pretty good idea of what’s going on in the area. He says he never saw the girl, but Sue thinks he may be lying. He is a jerk to her and Andy, who wants to punch him out. Sue reminds PI Roark that she has to be nice to everyone if she is to be effective in helping young girls who get trapped in the Combat Zone. Andy knows that his instinct to beat people up is a problem but he has trouble controlling it.
Later that night, Andy stakes out Sailor’s dirty book store. He sees people going in and out furtively. It looks like Sailor is working to help drug dealers ply their trade, no doubt in exchange for a cut on the deals. Andy talks to Sailor who still denies knowing anything about Judy but is irritated by Roark’s questions. They get into a fight with Sailor using a nasty leaded weight as a weapon that fortunately does not connect with Andy’s head. Sailor is down for the count when Andy leaves his store.
Andy goes back to his apartment and drinks a lot of whiskey. He’s having nightmares about Vietnam when someone knocks on the door. It’s Sue who is upset that Sailor is in the hospital. She is pretty sure who put him there. Sue is really ticked off because Sailor, a complete jerk, is one of her best sources to find girls who need help. Andy explains that Sailor attacked him with a potentially deadly weapon. She calms down a bit and they end up in the bedroom.
After they catch up on old times, Andy explains a lot of what happened to him in Vietnam. She had dated him seriously but had no idea what he had gone through.
In the morning after Sue leaves, Andy talks to a Boston cop he knows who tells him where K-nice hangs out and that he drives a blue Jaguar XJ6. Andy parks his car near K-nice’s club and goes in. He orders a beer and tells the bartender that he wants to talk to K-nice. After getting referred up the security ladder and tipping each person $20, he ends up in K-nice’s office upstairs at the club. Mr. Nice has two very young, scantily clad girls with him and is well dressed. He looks to be of Mediterranean origin. K-nice does not want to talk to Andy so Andy pretends to leave. Instead, he heads back to the office, knocks out K-nice’s bodyguard, and spirits Mr. Nice out of the building. Andy takes the Jag’s keys from his captive before stuffing him in the trunk. They head off in the XJ6.
Andy confronts K-nice about Judy, but the thug swears he hasn’t seen her in over a week. She just took off. Andy keeps beating him up but his story doesn't change so it's probably right. Andy feels bad that he beat up K-nice who didn’t know anything. He leaves the brutalized Mr. Nice in the Jag and moves on.
K-nice is a pimp and a drug dealer, but Andy’s behavior towards him wasn’t justified. Maybe the Boston PI needs to try to control his violent behavior.
Andy decides to visit Sailor, who is in the hospital recovering from the fight they had. They actually have a productive conversation. Sailor saw Judy in the Zone, but not with K-nice. She was in a Ford Mustang with a Black kid. Apparently Derrick Page had lied when he said that he was no longer seeing Judy.
Andy drives to Devens and confronts Derrick who says that he and Judy are no longer going out, but that she asked him for rides to Boston which he gave her. Derrick says that he’ll lead Andy to where he dropped Judy off in Boston, but he takes off in his car without Andy who chases him in his Maverick. Derrick spins out of control and is killed in the accident. So much for that lead. It’s also a needless death. Derrick certainly didn’t deserve to die.
Andy needs to report to his client, Colonel Billings, who is perfecting his parachuting technique on a sixty-foot jump tower on the base. Andy used to do that, something he doesn’t miss. He does miss the camaraderie of being in a tight military unit.
At first, Billings doesn’t believe that Judy is no longer hanging out with K-nice but eventually he comes around. Andy tells Billings that there’s not much more he can do but he’ll keep looking for Judy.
Sue calls Andy and invites herself over to his apartment for dinner. Finally, he has something to look forward to. They have a nice evening and morning after. At breakfast, Sue takes a birth control pill which makes Andy think about the fact that Judy left her birth control pills in her room at home, hardly the behavior of someone who is running away from home for fun and games.
It’s back to Devens to confront Dave Billings who lied about his daughter being a runaway. It turns out that Judy has been taken by an East German intelligence agent, Dieter, who wants to exchange Judy, who is addicted to heroin now, for classified material that Colonel Billings has in his possession. Billings is pretty sure that the blackmail won’t stop after the agent gets the top-secret material he’s asking for.
Billings says that when he called up Roark, he really thought that Judy had just run away. The spy stuff happened later. Dieter hangs out in Harvard Square. Andy will go after him and get Judy back.
Off to Harvard Square where Andy shows people and merchants a picture of Dieter. No one seems to recognize him. Our intrepid private investigator grabs lunch at the Wursthaus, a classic German restaurant that opened in 1917 and closed in 1996. After eating, Andy shows the photo to the waitress who recognizes Dieter. He met with a couple of men a few times at the restaurant. She said that Dieter had a Brooklyn accent with no trace of German. Andy Roark is confused.
Andy got a phone call at home from Brenda Watts, a special agent with the FBI who has worked with Roark in the past. She is wondering if he had anything to do with the fact that two lowlifes were beaten up in the Combat Zone recently. Andy feigns ignorance. Brenda tells him that the “victims” are under surveillance by the FBI. She won’t tell him why but does advise our boy to stay away from them. This case is getting really confusing.
Andy and Sue have a real date at Legal Seafoods restaurant in Park Square. Andy tells Sue that working at Fort Devens on the case reminds him that he missed working with a team in the military. Dave Billings suggested that he could get Andy back in Special Forces, perhaps as an officer. He’s thinking about it.
They go back to Andy’s place and have a great night. In the morning, Sue announces that she is engaged to be married. This was her last fling. Andy is flummoxed but wishes her well as she leaves. He is somewhat relieved that they never got into a real relationship. He’s not sure he could handle that.
Andy goes back to Devens, meets the colonel at a bar, and gives him a report. Since he’s gotten nowhere trying to find Dieter, he wants to have Brenda Watts try to find him. The FBI knows where everyone is. Billings is a bit leery but agrees that the feds might be able to help here.
Andy goes to his car and is knocked out as he opens the door. He wakes up on the rifle range at Fort Devens where he has been placed near the targets with the idea that he’ll be shot to death. There is live shooting going on. Andy remembers the one command that will stop any Army activity – “GAS, GAS, GAS” – which in this case works. The shooting immediately stops.
Andy sneaks away and hides in a field and sees that it’s 10 PM, two hours after he left the bar. He ducks as a routine military police patrol drives by. They leave and Andy notices a hand sticking out of the soft ground. He has found Judy Billings.
Perhaps Dieter killed Judy and brought her body back and buried it near the jump tower to implicate Colonel Billings. Andy thinks about it and then he’s off to Billing’s house to report.
No one’s home so Andy breaks in, cleans up a bit, and starts sipping good scotch. Andy’s finally figured things out. Billings shows up and Andy tells him that he can’t find Dieter because Dieter does not exist. The picture stamped with “Top Secret” was just a photo with a stamp on it. It wasn’t classified since there were no identity numbers on it.
The colonel admits that Dieter is not real. Andy then says that he found Judy’s body in a shallow grave where her father buried her. The MPs came by each night to check on the area for the colonel. They didn’t know about the body but Dave Billings felt better knowing that the military was looking after his dead daughter.
It turns out that Judy’s mother, Barbara, was off at a recovery clinic. She had been able to control her daughter, but once she left, Judy went out-of-control. She was confronted by her father as she was packing up to leave home and head to the Combat Zone and K-nice. They argued and as her father grabbed at her, she moved to get away and fell down the stairs. She cracked her head and died. Billings should have called the MPs but he didn’t. He brought her out to the jump tower area and buried her.
Andy had examined the body and knew that Dave was lying. Judy had been strangled.
Dave said that when he hired Andy, Judy had left home. However, once she returned to leave permanently, things went south. Dave killed Judy, invented Dieter, knocked out Andy and brought him to the firing range to be killed. Dave said that once going to the FBI was brought up, things changed. Andy became a loose end. The lieutenant colonel said that Andy didn’t have much of a life so no one would miss him. He was disposable.
Andy is getting tired as the dawn is breaking. He tells Dave that the next time they patrol, the MPs will find a note on the ground where Judy’s body is buried, telling them what happened. Dave has to turn himself in.
Andy gets in his car to go back to Boston. He hears a muffled shot from the Billings house.
Colonel Billings did the right thing.
Bob’s Take
Author Peter Colt spent over twenty years in the Army Reserve and was deployed to Kosovo in 2000 and to Iraq in 2003 and again in 2008, so he saw a lot of action. He probably has had first-hand experience concerning war horror and PTSD, a condition which is central to his lead character’s navigating through life.
There is a lot about the US Army in the book. Even the bowling alley is hierarchical and regimented. Rules are rules - bringing a gun on base, even a licensed one, will get you arrested. Achieving high rank is the goal of ambitious officers. That Colonel Billings has an alcoholic wife and a wild-child daughter will not help him get promoted to general.
Boston in the mid-1980s is a character in the book. Hip WBCN-FM was the radio station of choice. Cocaine was a very popular drug. Channel 38’s Movie Loft, hosted by Dana Hersey, featured great films every Friday night. And the Combat Zone, a centerpiece to the story arc, was thriving. Those things are no longer with us.
The book is pretty violent. Protagonist Andy Roark often fights first and thinks later. His behavior is probably because of his severe PTSD. Trauma victims aren’t good at making sound decisions and calibrating their responses to a situation.
Andy has a complicated life with PTSD, problems with authority, not being able to get into a stable relationship, getting into a lot of brutal fights, and completely misreading Colonel Billings, a man that he thought was very trustworthy and noble. Andy seems to be getting calmer and more anchored with each book. This is the second of four that the author has written. We shall see.
Having worked with Jim from Amherst to restore a 1956 Jaguar XK 140 drophead coupe (Jag-speak for a convertible), I am acutely aware of the mechanical challenges the Jaguar presents. It’s not the most reliable mode of transportation out there. K-nice drives a Jag, and the book ridicules the brand: “The running joke about Jaguars is that you have to have the money to afford two of them. One to own and one to drive when the other one is in the shop.”
