The Charity

by Connie Johnson Hambley

  She shoved her papers into her pack, tossed her red hair over her shoulder and strode out of the library with a purposeful gait. The men’s shoes on her feet clunked out the beat of her footsteps. The cold air braced her. She put on her dark sunglasses and walked down Boylston Street toward the Commons. It was an overcast day, and the gray sky did little to color the city streets. Dark glasses added hardly more than safety.

  Gradually, her body obeyed her commands and ceased its shaking. Walking helped to calm her and clear her head, but she was still shaky. The duck pond in the Boston Gardens soothed her with its serene appearance. Even on this dreary late November day, the Gardens held beauty. Women pushing baby carriages surrounded by laughing children strolled by. Young professionals dashed along the paved pathways on their way to some looming appointment or jogged after a day of work. She looked at the now empty pavilion where the Swan Boats carrying their peanut throwing passengers would be launched during the warmer months. The boats and the dock had been hauled out for the winter leaving the concrete boarding area and wooden pavilion as reminders of a summertime family tradition. Her mouth twitched into a smile as she remembered coming here with her mother and Erin.

  “Hello, Jessica.”

  Startled, Jessica looked in the direction of the voice.

  “We’ve missed you so much.”

  “Mom! Erin!” Jessica yelled, “Where are you?”

  “We’re here. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Jessica ran to the pavilion and looked into the shadows. Seeing nothing she ran to the right and followed the walkway under the bridge. Startled couples jogging along the path stopped and looked at her. She turned and looked back at the pavilion. She barely made out the willowy shapes of her family getting on a boat. A large swan with its arched neck bobbed in the water.

  Already weakened by the fading surge of panic, the force of her grief gave no warning. Tears streamed from her eyes and rubbery knees buckled under her weight. She hated this. Encircled by a place that held so many memories sharpened her sense of isolation and loss. Her family was gone from her life. Anything that had ever meant anything to her was either taken away or she had run from it. She curled up into a ball. Hugging her knees to her chest, she could not stop the deep sobs that filled her chest and threatened to consume her.

  Surrounded by people, but always alone. She despised what her life was and could no longer live like a nomad. But to lead a normal life she had to make sense of what happened to her.

  Passersby looked at the crying woman. Some steered a wide path around her and used the cloak of anonymity the city provided them to remain detached and uninvolved. A few nodded their heads in some form of understanding. Time passed and eventually Jessica stumbled the few blocks back to her room.

  The soreness of her mended ribs and the starched pain of the burns told her that in order to survive, she had to remember. At first, her survival depended upon running from her guilt and forgetting what she saw and experienced. Now, she was running toward the life she had been running away from. She grabbed the notes from her research and started all over again.

  Facts were put together in a way she could start to digest. Having few memories of her own, she tried to blend them with what the papers said. She was covered with Gus’ blood, and her footprints were at the scene. She closed her eyes and tried to add her own memories to it. She remembered going out to dinner with Gus and then waking up in her house to someone banging on her door. She recalled talking to the police and driving around trying to clear her head. She remembered being surprised by the creepy older cop at the tavern where he said she was the murderer. He left, and it exploded. She ran. Living without incident for many years, someone finally recognized her. Then her house was broken into, and her barn was burned down. She knew there was so much more to remember but could not. Yet.

  For years, she had accepted the fact that she was responsible for her family’s death. Being accused of causing Gus’ death was almost logical. She did feel responsible and did not question her guilt. The shock of being called a murderer terrified her but it did not seem far off base. It was the horror of knowing that she was supposed to have died in the explosion that propelled her into running. Having people think she was dead meant she did not have to explain her guilt to anyone. But why would someone want her dead then and now? Why didn’t the cops just arrest her and haul her off to jail? Somebody wanted her dead because of Gus, but why?

  Frustrated, Jessica sat up, rubbed her eyes and looked again at her notes. There was a spark of something when she was reviewing the names. She looked at her list again and tried to draw up the connection her mind was misfiring on.

  There! The name of the young police officer was Shea. Owen Shea. That was the name of the young Attorney General she read about a few weeks ago—the one that was so fired up about police corruption and organized crime—the one that paid such a terrible price for his knowledge.

  She decided to pay him a visit.

  Attorney General Owen Shea stood before the black-robed judge and pounded his fist down on the table.

  “If it would please the court, Your Honor, I offer to personally escort the Defendant’s witness to these proceedings if it would help to move along this trial.” His pale blue eyes shone like lasers as he looked at the team of defense lawyers huddling in their chairs. Without taking his eyes off them, he raised his voice, “Let the record show that the witnesses for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have been and are ready to give rebuttal testimony. These delays are placing an undue burden onto the Commonwealth.”

  The white-haired magistrate did not raise his head at the outburst. “Duly noted” was all that was uttered.

  Shea was having a bad day. The case he was trying was a low profile embezzlement case involving a few hundred thousand dollars from a manufacturer of doll clothes. He had presented his case and listened carefully while the defense presented theirs. Shea did not like the defense team. Two lawyers for MacCormack and Wood postured in expensive suits. He was not surprised when midway through the proceedings, two ‘new’ witnesses for the defense were ‘discovered’ shedding new light on the case.

  Shea’s associate counsel, a thin reed of a woman with stringy brown hair, pulled at his sleeve. That gesture from any other person would have earned them a withering stare from the attorney general but from Abbey it was different. Shea tolerated her directness, which often crossed into brashness, because it was her honesty that drove her, not ambition.

  “The Defense is trying to finagle a complete mud puddle,” she said in hushed tones. “C’mon. Look at it. Their first witness was intended to totally negate the testimony of our witnesses. You were one step ahead of them and were able to impeach that witness with the result being bolstering the credibility of our case, but it cost precious time. Their second witness promises to blow up our case again, and we know the testimony will be equally bogus. The defense’s strategy wants us to expend precious resources and time chasing shadows.”

  “Get to the point, Abbey,” Shea snapped with impatience.

  “You can’t hold on to our own key witness much longer. She’s getting nervous and said she’s not coming on Monday, subpoena or no subpoena. The delays are becoming fatal to our successful prosecution of a two-bit jerk. Why waste your time on a piss poor case?”

  “I need my witness’ inside technical knowledge of how the operation was run. Without her, the case will crumble. The defense knows it.”

  “No kidding, Sherlock. These delays are getting under your skin and are going to cost you your witness. You can’t afford to screw up these smaller cases. I know you’re trying to build a trail, a foundation, of precedents in the verdicts of these stupid little cases to help you win against the big fish. You’re going to need every bit of help you can get. One deposition was already thrown out on a technicality. You fought like hell to keep it standing, but the judge ruled against you anyway. Now, you
have this witness thing. It’s Friday afternoon. You’re sunk. What are you going to do?”

  He stood up and addressed the court. “Your Honor. I respectfully request that these proceedings be extended to give more time for the imminent arrival of the defense witness.” He did not hide his sarcasm.

  “I will give my opinion with or without any additional witnesses. Session adjourned until 9:00 a.m. Monday morning.” The judge hammered the gavel to punctuate his words.

  Abbey sat back in her chair, mouth open. “You’re nuts.”

  “Go home, Abbey. Get a life.”

  “Yeah. See ya Monday morning. In case you haven’t noticed, Owen, I’m not the one who needs a life around here.”

  The courtroom emptied quickly, and he remained slowly gathering up his papers. He thought about his work on the other, bigger, case. It would be harder to prove without this one as a precedent.

  Three soft bells sounded signaling that the courthouse was closing its doors for the day. A bailiff slammed into the room on his closing rounds and security sweep. “Mr. Shea! Courthouse is closing, sir. We’ve got to lock up.” They walked out into the corridor together and bid each other good-bye. Shea walked toward the exit, and the bailiff continued his sweep. In his zeal to check each room, the bailiff nearly collided with one of those oddly dressed bicycle messengers. Some young woman with red hair.

  Shea glanced at his watch. He would go back to the office and work for a few hours, grab something to eat, and work for a few hours more. ‘Why not?’ he thought wryly, it’s Friday night. Nothing else to do.

  Ever since his wife and daughter were killed, he had thrown himself into his work. Any moment he was not totally occupied, he was at risk of feeling the stark emptiness and the pain of his loss. He did not know which was worse—the loss or feeling responsible for their deaths. Their accident was on the first anniversary of his successful prosecution of Gwynda Murroney for illegally transferring—that is laundering—funds in an effort to purchase arms for a terrorist group in Ireland, the IRA. At first, he was too devastated to make the connection. It was only after the funeral home received thirty-six baskets of flowering clover, one for each count of the indictment, that he knew it was no accident that killed his wife and daughter.

  His friends and neighbors were a great help the first two years or so after their deaths. They were always around, inviting him places, trying to get him involved. He did a lot for the community, but lately he noticed some people did not come around as much anymore. It was just as well. The only thing that truly interested him was revenge. And that does not make nice dinner conversation.

  It was rush hour, and the rainy Boston street was crowded with commuters rushing to the subway, called by Boston locals ‘the T,’ or hurrying to catch their trains out of either North or South Station. They were all trying to escape from the city and live their lives for two days in the oases their hard work was paying for. Shea’s thoughts were too vivid for him to notice anyone or anything.

  The only thing his hard work paid for was a dead family, Shea thought as his mouth firmed into a straight line. He sprinted up the steps to his building, fought the onward rush of the human tide and jammed his index finger at the elevator control panel.

  He slammed his briefcase on his desk and looked at the people still swarming in the surrounding offices. The holidays were fast approaching, and everyone was trying to wrap up their cases and take a little time off. It was the classic ‘trickle down’ effect of workflow management. Cases would be assigned to Senior Staff Attorneys. They would pick the cases they wanted to work on directly and give the unwanted ones to the Junior Staffers. The Junior Staffers, in turn, would throw the really dry ones to the Associates. And all of them would delegate the monotonous research and standard brief writings to the paralegals, legal assistants and interns. That being the structure; the office was populated by ambitious associates and out-of-luck paralegals that had the misfortune of being assigned to them. Normal for a Friday night.

  He was no longer involved with a normal case flow. He now worked only with a team of dedicated people who volunteered to help him with full knowledge of what the risks might be, and Abbey was his right-hand man. She insisted on being on his team. He put her off until he was certain she knew what she was getting herself into. It was his way of not being responsible for anyone else’s death.

  Occasionally, he would use an additional paralegal to do some filing or research, but even then, he chose what he relinquished total control of carefully. Nothing but the most mundane tasks would get farmed out. If there were several items he needed help on, he made sure that no one could infer anything from the blended contents. He could not be too careful.

  He sat at his desk and pulled a long yellow legal pad from the top drawer and hastily scribbled notes on the day’s events in the courtroom. Many times it was his notes as to what happened behind the scenes that were more important than the official courtroom transcript. He had logs of what every defense attorney tried to pull in court so that the next time he went up against him or her, he would be ready with a counterattack and offensive strategy. He doubted that his notes would make any difference in this case. His witness would not show up in court on Monday, and that is when the defense would put up their ‘newly discovered’ witness. The defense knew he worked with a lean staff. Throwing curveballs was their way of trying to win.

  This case was important to him. While tracking the hundreds of transactions through the altered books to prove the embezzlement, he came across entries that were described as ‘bank error.’ Hundreds of thousands of dollars came into the account on several occasions and then were transferred out the same day or up to four days later. Other files showed letters of apology from the bank for their careless errors and expressed hope that nothing would impair their ongoing working relationship. All different banks. All different signatures.

  He was able to trace one transaction. It hit four different accounts in one day, at one point splitting into two transactions, but rejoining again the next day. It was finally transferred to the UK. He lost the trail after that. Never had he seen anything like it.

  It was not just the odd transaction path the money wove, it was the name associated with one of the companies involved with the convoluted wire approvals. What the hell did Magnus Connaught have to do with doll clothes?

  Jessica ran the three blocks to the T and took the subway to North Station. She was in luck. It was rush hour, and the station was crowded with commuters intent on catching their trains home. No one noticed the red-haired messenger pushing through the people.

  It had been her plan to talk to Shea right then and there at the Courthouse, but she had no idea how hard it was going to be facing him again. She had been standing by the door to the courtroom and the security guy or whatever barging in the way he did scared the hell out of her. It had taken her most of the day just to get up the nerve to even go near the courthouse. Now, sitting on the northbound train, she was mad at herself. The only thing she accomplished was confirming that the attorney general was the police officer she had a memory of.

  Well, maybe it was better that she did not speak to him. She did not even know what she was going to say. What she wanted to do was to find out what he remembered about Gus’ murder. She had tried to jump-start her own memories by reading the papers, but nothing was coming to life, and the process of remembering triggered painful and unwanted panic attacks. But when she went to the Boston Common something happened. Just being surrounded by scenes from her childhood, vivid memories surfaced. She could see Erin and hear her laugh and felt the warm embraces of Margaret and Bridget. The searing pain of their loss came back stronger than ever, and she felt the catharsis of sobs that emptied her, but things clicked together in a way they had not before. With everything becoming real in those moments, she determined that the only plan that made any sense was to talk to people who might help her remember and go back to her
farm, Wyeth’s Worldwind Farm. That way, maybe being surrounded by all of her past would force more memories to gel.

  Lulled by the sound of the tracks clicking by, she put her head back and thought about her next two days carefully. She doubted that she would be recognized by anyone with her appearance as different as it was now. Even if she went storming back there looking like she did when she graduated from college, no one would truly think they saw a ghost. Hamilton natives were far too conservative to think that.

  The conductor called out the names of the towns as they headed north. Lynn, Swampscott, Salem, Beverly, and finally, Hamilton. Jessica leaned her head on the smudged window and tried to drink in every detail of the town. A collection of well-coiffed wives in Volvo station wagons and Saabs waited to pick up their husbands, weary from a day at the office. Headlights flashed to gain the attention of one person or another. Jessica stayed on the train until the next stop. At Ipswich, she eventually secured a cab and settled in for the quick ride to the motel.

  The familiar sights and smells of Massachusetts’ North Shore washed over her. There had certainly been some changes and growth over the past seven years, but they were minor in comparison to the old sameness which surrounded her. Her taxi drove past homes that bore painted plaques stating the years they were built and the occupation of the original owner. She saw “1620—Ezekiel Todd, shipwright” and “1728—Joshua Cooper, builder.” Years just could not change the pattern of life and settlement in these old towns.

  The area was rich with history. America’s earliest settlers found the natural bays and inlets perfect for establishing ports for trade in wool and farm products. The rivers inland brought the settlers to rolling hills and suitable soil for supporting the growing towns. But even in the first tenuous years, the settlements that took hold in the growing country did not collapse. Instead, merchants, shipwrights, and fishermen supported the hamlets and towns, and various industries grew. The larger Merrimack River just to the north brought products made on the sweat of immigrants from the mills and factories in Lawrence and Haverhill to Newburyport for shipment. The harbor there eventually proved to be too shallow for the draft of larger vessels needed to carry the goods, so the growing port of Boston slowly siphoned the North Shore’s industrial trade. Once the great immigration wave of the 19th century hit, laborers looking to escape the hell of the inner city filtered outward. Many found the North Shore comfortably similar to their homes of England, Ireland, or Europe. Industry may have left the North Shore, but the money, people, and traditions did not.