Quick Pivot

by Brenda Buchanan

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Wednesday, July 16, 2014

  Riverside, Maine

  An idling car fifty yards from my Subaru left in a hurry when I emerged from the alleyway that led from Earl’s backyard to the weedy parking lot behind the defunct church. Its engine roared when the driver made a left at the end of the block, heading back toward Main Street. High-end black sedan. Maine license plate.

  It could have been anybody, but Earl was scared witless Leo would find out he’d been talking with me, and he believed he was watching. Chewing on that as I drove from Riverside to Portland to write up the casino debate story, I found myself glancing in my rearview mirror, watching the cars following me in the late-afternoon traffic. Paranoia was infectious.

  Leah was tied up in a meeting when I walked into the newsroom. Given that my conversation with Earl wasn’t something I could share, I was relieved not to have to make up a story about where I’d been since noontime. The electronic story budget showed fifteen inches had been allotted for coverage of the debate. Having already composed the lead in my head, it took less than an hour to bang out a story replete with colorful quotes. The Chronicle’s readers would come away knowing Jay Preble had prevailed but hadn’t quite mopped the floor with poor Charlene Goodnought.

  Gene was running the copydesk. He waved in my direction when my story found its way onto his screen, gesturing for me to sit still while he gave it a read. I used the time to shoot a text message to Chief Wyatt, asking if we could meet for coffee. She wrote right back, saying she happened to be in Portland. We agreed to meet in twenty minutes at the Legal Fix, a coffee joint near the courthouse. Next I called Tom MacMahon, who welcomed my offer to take him out for dinner. Glancing at my watch, I said I’d pick him up about six-thirty.

  As soon as Gene signaled that my story looked good, I took off. No sense sitting around until Leah emerged from her meeting with a new assignment in mind. I was sitting in the back booth at the Fix when Chief Wyatt came through the door, wearing her trademark dark pantsuit.

  “Thanks for meeting me on short notice,” I said as she slid in across from me. “I thought it was time for a mutual debrief.”

  “You look like a man with information to share,” Wyatt said.

  “Questions to ask, really.”

  She sighed. “Fire away.”

  “DNA test results in?”

  She didn’t say yes, but gave me the slightest of nods.

  “Confirms it’s Desmond, right?”

  She nodded again.

  “Can I print it?”

  “If you can get Rigoletti to tell you on the record.”

  “C’mon.”

  “I’m no good to you if they think I’m leaking.”

  “Okay. New subject. Do you know a retired state police detective named Thomas MacMahon?”

  “He was a contemporary of my father. Old-style cop. Intimidated the hell out of me when I was a child. Met him again when I was a rookie. He didn’t much like the idea of female cops and said so, using some choice words to make his point.”

  “Let me guess. He used profanity the way some people use punctuation?”

  Her laugh said she’d put the old hurt into perspective. “That he did. But he was a good investigator. Had a lot of solves in his day. Big cases too.”

  “He didn’t solve the Desmond case, and it’s bugged him ever since,” I said. “I tracked him down at a senior housing complex in Kennebunkport. Met with him Monday afternoon.”

  “Tom MacMahon talked to a reporter? He must have mellowed in his old age.”

  “He’s not mellow. He’s pissed. Says the FBI botched the case. He’s nursed a grudge against them ever since. Before he goes to the big cop shop in the sky he wants Desmond’s case to be in the solved column.”

  “What good is it going to do for him to talk to a reporter? If he’s got information that’ll help solve this case, he should be talking to the police, not the press.”

  I held up my hand to slow her instinctive dash toward media distrust. “Our deal was we’d keep each other informed about what we were doing. I’m doing that.”

  “You’re not a cop, Joe.” Her voice was calm, but her posture had tightened.

  “I’m not trying to be. I’m gathering information. That’s what reporters do. Now I’m sharing it with you. Why don’t you dismount from that lofty steed of yours and listen for a minute?”

  Chief Wyatt leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  By the time I finished filling her in on my conversation with MacMahon, she’d let go of her irritation. While most of MacMahon’s report was consistent with her understanding of what happened in 1968, Wyatt was surprised when I told her the retired statie fingered Ken Coatesworth as a suspect.

  “You sure MacMahon hasn’t lost a step along the way?”

  “Still as sharp as a sushi knife. He said Coatesworth has a dark side, or did, back in the day. Apparently Ken hung out with some tough guys who were entirely capable of murdering Desmond in cold blood and burying his body behind some bricks.”

  “Tough guys like your buddy Mike Thibodeau?”

  “Could be. Speaking of Thibodeau, what’d you find when you checked him out?”

  “Nothing recent, but when he was a young man, he was on southern Maine law enforcement’s frequent flyer list.”

  “What’s on his sheet?”

  “Bunch of arrests for brawling. He beat the rap most of the time, the kind of cases where all the witnesses were drunk, leaving the DA with lousy evidence. But in 1964 he spent thirty days in the county jail on an assault conviction. Punched a guy’s lights out in the parking lot after a hockey game, failing to notice two cops were standing right there.”

  “When did he clean up his act?”

  “I’m not sure he did, but he stopped being stupid enough to get arrested by the late sixties.”

  “Who’d he hang out with?”

  “It was hard to tell from the cold files. He might have been running with an organized group, but I couldn’t see any pattern in the names of codefendants or witnesses.”

  I drained my coffee cup. “What’s it all mean?”

  “My read? He was a young man with a hot temper and good fists. He won himself a reputation and hung on to it for close to fifteen years. After that he either learned finesse or found Jesus.”

  “Or maybe a woman.” I pictured Mrs. Thibodeau watching her soap opera. “Now we need to figure out whether there’s anything in your files connecting Mike Thibodeau to Coatesworth, or maybe Leo Harding.”

  “Harding? The golf oaf who talked my ear off?”

  “That’s the one. Turns out he was Coatesworth’s protection when the mill started going to hell after Desmond disappeared.”

  “Protection against who, creditors?”

  “Creditors don’t toss pipe bombs on your lawn if you miss a payment or two.”

  “Pipe bombs? In Riverside?”

  “At the time, it was thought to be disgruntled millworkers. MacMahon’s information makes me wonder.”

  “When was this?”

  “My source didn’t know the specific date. Can you check it out for me, scan the Riverside PD files between ’68 and ’72?”

  In a blink, Chief Wyatt’s face morphed from interest to irritation. “Even if I had files to review, I’m not your damn research assistant.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. Maybe it was a delayed caffeine buzz, whatever part of my brain was in charge of making obvious connections finally linked fact one with idea two. “I’m going to see MacMahon again tonight. I’ll ask him if he remembers a pipe bomb incident, or knew of a connection between Thibodeau and the mill muckety-mucks.”

  Hands flat on the little table, Chief Wyatt’s face w
as reddening. “You’ve got a follow-up interview with MacMahon scheduled for tonight?”

  “We’re planning to go through his files. Did I mention Lieutenant MacMahon took his files with him when he retired? He still has copies of all the reports. Background information on various people. A veritable treasure trove. I’ll bet the files Wrecker Rigoletti’s been hiding from you aren’t half as detailed.” I picked up my empty cup. “I should hook you two up.”

  Wyatt actually laughed. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

  “People tell me that every day.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “When I see him tonight, can I let him know you’re my cop source?”

  Wyatt tapped her right thumbnail on the table while she considered my request. I knew what was going through her head. MacMahon had known her since she was a colleague’s little girl. He’d been critical of her decision to follow her father into law enforcement. Now I was proposing to out her as a cop who talked with the press. Wyatt’s answer would tell me a lot about her priorities.

  She stopped her tapping.

  “Let’s get this straight. I’m not your cop source.” Her mouth was a straight line, as if she was biting back sharper words. “Tell him I’m in the same position he was in back in 1968. The state police are marginalizing me just like the fibbies marginalized him. Find out if he’ll talk to me without mentioning it to his former colleagues.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I can go to him or he can come to me. His choice.”

  “He’s eighty-three years old and in a wheelchair,” I said. “You’ll need to go to Kennebunkport.”

  * * *

  Even though it was nearly six o’clock, I decided to call Joan Slater before leaving to meet MacMahon for dinner. Her businesslike answering machine message gave way to a live hello. Sometimes caller ID worked to my advantage.

  “I’ve been hoping you’d call,” she said. “What’s the latest? I’m sure there’s something. Paulie always seemed to know so much more than what was actually published.”

  “I don’t know what’s being reported in the New Hampshire papers, but even though the state police haven’t officially confirmed the remains were George’s, everyone is treating that as a given. Technically, though, they’re still waiting for DNA results.”

  “I’m up to speed on the official line,” she said. “I check the Chronicle website a dozen times a day. Since our conversation on Sunday night, I’ve known in my heart it was him. George being killed right there at the mill makes sense. The FBI’s theory never did.”

  “Speaking of theories, I’ve reconnected with one of the original investigators.”

  “Not Wellington, I hope.”

  “Nope. Tried to track him down on the internet, but found nothing.”

  “He’s probably living somewhere under an assumed name,” she said. “Probably made a pile of enemies along the way. Who’d you did you track down?”

  “Detective MacMahon from the Maine State Police.”

  “Huge man with red hair?”

  “His hair’s white now, but that’s the one. For what it’s worth, MacMahon shared your view of Wellington. He says the FBI immediately pegged George as an embezzler who fled town, refusing to look at conflicting evidence gathered by the state police. According to MacMahon, Wellington was downright hostile to anyone who suggested an alternate theory.”

  Through the phone I could hear Joan exhaling smoke.

  “I can attest to that. He was more about intimidation than investigation.”

  “Helena Desmond tells me that too. I had supper with her last night.”

  “Helena must be devastated to know that George was murdered.”

  “She’s handling the news pretty well, given the circumstances. She has a tight community supporting her. She was happy to hear I’d tracked you down.”

  “I’d like to see her,” Joan said.

  “Helena said the same thing. She also said you’d done some nosing around and developed evidence on your own. You didn’t mention that the other night.”

  “Our conversation on Sunday was kind of surreal. I felt yanked right back to all the emotional ups and downs of 1968.”

  Her voice wasn’t defensive, so I rephrased the question and tried again.

  “Do you have any recollection of the evidence you came up with?”

  “I’m sitting here surrounded by it. When I moved down here from Riverside I took my notes with me. While I waited for the baby to be born I had a lot of time on my hands. Ever the good secretary, I typed it up and organized it into folders, working around my pregnant belly. For years the file’s been sitting on the shelf of the closet in my spare room. I hauled it out Monday morning. Been going through it on and off ever since.”

  “Does anything jump out at you, now that we know George was murdered?”

  I heard the scrape and hiss of her lighter.

  “There are a lot of details that I’m turning over in my mind, trying to see them through the lens of knowing what happened to George.”

  “Can I come see you again? Go through the file with you?”

  She paused for about ten seconds. “Doesn’t it make more sense to turn them over to the police?”

  “It might, but the lead investigator for the state police is as arrogant and uncooperative as Wellington was in 1968, so if you’re going to give your notes to anyone, it ought to be the investigators who are most dedicated to solving this murder.”

  She exhaled a lungful of smoke. “And who would that be?”

  “Detective MacMahon. And Chief Wyatt of the Riverside PD.”

  “Why them?”

  “MacMahon still has his files too, and he’s determined to solve this case. It may be that he has some of the puzzle pieces and you have some others, and between you, a clear picture will emerge. Chief Wyatt’s new to the case and a woman, which may explain why the staties are so intent on hiding the ball from her.”

  “Riverside, Maine has a woman police chief? Things must have changed a lot up there.”

  “She’s respected within her department, but I’m sure she gets a lot of attitude from other cops—especially Rigoletti, the head guy for the state police.”

  “So you want to bring MacMahon and this woman chief down here so you can get the story, right?”

  I paused, weighing my words. “This has become about a lot more than me getting the story. Someone got away with murder. Like you, I want to make sure justice is done.”

  “Paulie used to say that kind of thing. I was never sure if he was telling the truth or trying to sound noble.”

  “Maybe it was both.”

  There was a long pause.

  “C’mon down for another visit tomorrow evening. I’ll be home after five,” Joan said. “If you want to bring the old cop and the new chief with you, that’s okay with me. But have them drive an unmarked car, will you? I’d rather keep my neighbors’ noses in joint.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Saturday, June 1, 1968

  Riverside, Maine

  Paulie’s fury didn’t diminish over the weekend, but he got a handle on it. When he was a month out of basic training, a very big, very tough Coast Guard chief petty officer had taught him a lesson about surviving in a top-down world: shut your mouth, keep your head down, and if you’re going to keep doing what got you shitlisted, be quiet about it.

  After Friday afternoon’s dressing down, he called Joan, told her something had come up, and broke their date for the evening. Then he took himself to the liquor store, bought a fifth of bourbon and went home. Stripped to his skivvies, he got stinking drunk while half listening to the Red Sox beat the Orioles 3-0.

  Saturday morning he stared at his bedroom ceiling, wondering when his headache w
ould ebb, pondering his next move. The Chronicle brass expected him to break up with Joan and stop covering the Desmond story. He was willing to meet them halfway.

  An uncrowded parking lot allowed Paulie to ease his car into a prime space next to the picnic grove at Crescent Beach State Park. It was a sunny day, summerlike enough to sit on the beach but not to wade into the ocean unless you were a temperature-oblivious little kid or a surfer wearing a wetsuit. Joan put a hand on Paulie’s right arm when he reached into the backseat for the lunch he’d brought.

  “Let’s walk first,” she said, buttoning up her jacket.

  They strolled the mile-long beach for an hour, combing for treasures. Joan spotted several well-worn pieces of sea glass. Paulie snagged a sand dollar and a piece of driftwood curved like a saxophone. Their minimal conversation focused on the sights and scents they experienced as they walked.

  By the time they returned to the car, Paulie was struggling with his mission. While Joan brushed off a picnic table and unwrapped the food—ham sandwiches, cole slaw, dill pickles—he jogged to the snack bar to buy sodas.

  “Like Tommy MacMahon said, don’t think with your dick,” he muttered to himself as he walked back to their lunch spot under the trees. “You can’t lose your job over a woman.”

  The impending conversation weighed on him, stealing his appetite. Joan watched his face as he picked at his food, making his stomach churn all the more.

  “Have a toothache?” she asked, halfway through her sandwich.

  Paulie shook his head.

  “Sour stomach?”

  “Nah. Just not hungry.”

  They sat in silence, listening to the seagulls complain.

  “Tell me what you’re fretting about.” She reached across the table for his hand.

  He squeezed it then let it go. Took a deep breath.

  “I need to end this,” he said, looking into her wind-kissed face.

  Joan set her sandwich on her napkin and sat up very straight.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t think we should continue dating. I like you. A lot. We’ve had a lot of fun. But it can’t go on.”