“I always welcome a road trip,” he said.
Linking MacMahon up with Joan Slater was the easy part of my mission. He was acquainted with her back in the day and was interested in whether she had any information he didn’t have. Moving his trust meter to the zone where he’d be willing to consider sharing his files with Chief Wyatt was a more delicate matter. Just as a reporter doesn’t want to be scooped, a cop doesn’t want to lose a collar, even a cop who’s been retired for twenty years.
Over dinner I eased into it, telling MacMahon his old colleagues were playing the same one-way street game the FBI had played back in ’68, this time the staties keeping the local cops in the dark. As luck would have it, he’d been around the block a few times with Tony Rigoletti.
“That’s bad news for the Riverside boys if they’re expecting any role in the investigation,” MacMahon said, sprinkling pepper into his lobster stew. “Tony’s a goddamn credit hog. He steps all over local cops, state police colleagues, everybody. In Rigoletti’s book, there’s never enough glory to go around.”
I reminded him that police departments are no longer solely the province of boys.
“Jesus. I forgot Riverside’s got a skirt running the department these days. Tony must be having a field day playin’ games with her.”
“She’s a good cop,” I said. “You might have known her father, Dave Wyatt? He was deputy chief in Portland when he dropped dead.”
“A hell of a detective before they pulled him in off the street.” MacMahon leaned back in his chair, letting his stew cool. “Me and Dave worked a lotta cases together. He was a tough man, but soft for his kids. I knew that one who’s running Riverside PD when she was wearing pigtails.”
I decided not to mention that Barb Wyatt remembered him as well. “One of the state police detectives told her confidentially that the official files from 1968 were either misfiled or destroyed. He said Rigoletti’s furious about it.”
“Don’t be giving me that look,” MacMahon said. “What you saw in my apartment are my personal files. It was my habit to keep a dupe of everything. I’ve got no idea what happened to the master file.”
“Having been on the receiving end of the deep freeze yourself, you willing to share your file with me and my inside source at the Riverside PD?”
“Who in Riverside’s talking to you?”
I smiled when I said it. “Chief Wyatt.”
“The chief herself?”
I nodded and drained my beer.
“Her father must be rolling in his grave.”
“She’s never worked outside official channels with me before,” I said. “If your buddy Rigoletti wasn’t so determined to prove his dick’s bigger than hers, I’m quite sure she wouldn’t be talking with me now.”
MacMahon picked up his spoon and ate a mouthful of stew. “Rigoletti must be at his asshole best for a police chief to be leaking to the press.”
“You talked to Paulie when you were heading up the state police investigation in 1968.”
“Wellington was actively ignoring evidence,” MacMahon said. “I can promise you Rigoletti’s not doing that. He’s just cutting Wyatt out of the action.”
“You won’t know that for sure unless you talk to her. Will you?” I held his gaze for a full ten seconds before his mouth twitched at its corners.
“You gonna ask her to come on our little field trip to New Hampshire?”
“I might.”
“I can see Paulie taught you the finer points of the business,” he said, spooning up another mouthful of lobster stew.
* * *
Back in Riverside, I swung into a gas station near the turnpike exit. Leaning against the Subaru’s right flank, my mind working through the angles of the Desmond story, I watched Leo Harding pull his big black SUV into a parking space beyond the pumps.
“Gale, you got a minute?” His voice boomed like a late-night television pitch man.
“What’s going on, Leo?”
Harding maneuvered his bulging belly between the pump and an oversized trash can. He put out a meaty hand, forcing me to let go of the gas nozzle to shake.
“I’m heading over to Bear’s for a quart of chocolate chip. The missus likes her ice cream on a hot summer night.”
I knew Harding hadn’t stopped at the gas station and climbed out of his air-conditioned SUV to jaw at me about ice cream. Arranging my face into a patient expression, I looked at him without saying a word.
“You’re all tangled up in that Desmond story, aren’t ya?”
“Busy with a bunch of different things this week.”
“I heard you were right there when the remains were found.” He lowered his voice a decibel, as if in respect for the dead.
The gas pump signaled that my tank had its fill. I thunked the nozzle onto the pump and replaced the cap. When I turned my attention back to Leo, he’d removed his garish tartan golf cap and was running his hand over his bald head. The florescent lights under the gas station canopy made his fleshy face look pale green.
“So much water over the dam. I’m sure you’re hearing no shortage of opinions about what happened back in 1968.”
“What’s your opinion?”
“Blackmail.” Leo snugged the cap back on his head. “Some slick player must’ve caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, screwing somebody’s wife or something like that. Held the information over George’s head while he diverted some money, then knocked him off rather than share it with him.”
“Any thoughts about who that slick player might have been?”
“Shit, no. When George went missing I was working on the mill floor, just another lunchpail guy on the second shift. Wouldn’t have been in a position to know who was moving in and out of the finance office.”
I pulled my keys out of my pocket. “You’d better get over there to Bear’s before they close up at ten o’clock. Your wife will be disappointed if you come home empty-handed.”
“Right-o. Gotta keep the old girl happy.”
He walked back to his fancy wheels and hoisted his bulk into the driver’s seat. When I drove past, he was punching numbers into his cell phone.
Five minutes later I was home rubbing Lou’s belly just as lovingly as Leo Harding had stroked his own head. There was a message on the machine from Nate Kimball, saying we could get back into the mill at noon the next day. Good news, but the internal politics at the Chronicle meant I couldn’t count on page-one play. Still, I’d be damned if I missed a chance to get back inside the Saccarappa. I called back and left a message on Nate’s cell phone, saying I’d meet him in the parking lot at the appointed time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Riverside, Maine
Before I left the house that next morning I’d worked myself into a lather about having to get Leah’s permission to follow my nose back inside the Saccarappa. At least that was what I told myself I was pissed about.
Christie picked up on my mood before my butt was in its usual seat at the Rambler.
“You’re in a bad mood. Comfort food coming up. Pancakes and bacon.” She stepped away from the grill to pour my first cup of coffee.
“How do you know?”
“Woman’s intuition.”
I was unable to force a smile. “Nothing’s easy these days.”
She gave me a look that was somewhere between sympathy and pity before ladling batter onto the griddle. By the time my breakfast was ready, the stools on either side of mine were occupied. Ever-respectful of my privacy, Christie set down my plate and went about her business. The pancakes—chock-full of Maine blueberries—were wonderful. So was the fact that Rufe didn’t come in. Like Christie, he would have known at a glance I’d woken up feeling lonely for Megan. But I couldn’t afford to spend
the morning in emotional quicksand. I had too much to do.
My first order of business was to find Chief Wyatt and convince her to join me and MacMahon on our trip to Durham that evening. The whole cooperation-with-cops thing was new to me and I knew she was equally uncomfortable sharing information with a reporter. I was formulating my pitch when I bumped into her on the sidewalk outside the diner.
“Morning, Gale.” She didn’t break stride.
“I was about to go looking for you.”
She turned, weighing the politics of chatting with me in public. Meeting for coffee in the relative anonymity of Portland was one thing, but we were standing on Main Street in everybody-watches-everything Riverside.
“Can I grab a coffee to go and meet you someplace?”
“Sure. Name it.”
“Let’s rendezvous behind the high school in five minutes. I’m in the unmarked. You can leave your car and hop in with me. I’d rather ride around than sit still.”
The fact she seemed almost keen to meet with me was encouraging, indicating she was eager to hear more about MacMahon and his forty-six-year-old files. She may have been wary of being on my team, but she’d get used to it if it gave her a fresh angle on the case.
I sat inside my car in the deserted high school parking lot until Wyatt’s Caprice appeared. At her nod, I hopped out and climbed in to her dark gray sedan, which had the advantage of tinted windows. Ten seconds later we were rolling.
“MacMahon let you see his files last night?”
“Change of plans. We’re going to have a big old note swap tonight at five o’clock.”
“Note swap? What do you have to offer?”
“Paulie Finnegan’s notebooks from when he covered the story in 1968.”
Wyatt took a sip from a large cardboard coffee cup, then squinched up her mouth, as if she were having an internal debate about whether the meeting would be worth her time.
“Oh, and it’s not going to be in Kennebunkport, after all,” I said. “We’re going to New Hampshire.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Desmond’s secretary, Joan Slater? Like I told you the other day, she’s living in Durham. Turns out she’s got a trove of information to share as well.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, ma’am. When I called to follow up on our Sunday night chat, she said she’d dug out her old files.”
“What, like a scrapbook or something?”
“Sounds like a lot more than that. Apparently she did her own quiet investigation after the disappearance, motivated in large part by her hatred of the FBI guy, Wellington.”
We rode in silence for a full minute. We were passing fields in the rural section of town, away from prying eyes. I lowered the window a few inches and inhaled the scent of a high summer morning.
Finally Wyatt spoke. “You want me to huddle with you, an elderly woman who used to be the dead man’s secretary, and a retired cop who’s had a hard-on about this case for the past forty-six years?”
“That’s the plan. And just so you know, Joan Slater wouldn’t appreciate being called elderly.”
While she sipped her coffee, I moved in for the kill.
“Rigoletti has maybe half the evidence collected by the state police in 1968, and he isn’t letting you anywhere near it. So you can stay here in Riverside, waiting for someone who’s been sitting on their hands for more than four decades to drop a dime, or you can work with me, MacMahon and Joan Slater to fit the puzzle pieces together.”
“I hate this idea.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll still respect yourself in the morning.”
* * *
Leah wasn’t in the newsroom when I sidled in at nine, allowing me a few uninterrupted minutes to check the news budget. She’d slotted me to preview an upcoming zone change request from a church that wanted to convert a warehouse into a preschool. The assignment was a gift. I’d done most of the research a couple of days prior to the discovery of Desmond’s remains. The only thing left to do was contact the city attorney with a few technical questions. Before I could pick up the phone, Leah strolled in and caught my eye. I took that as a request to approach the city desk.
“Sorry to show up empty-handed this morning, boss,” I said. “I should have at least brought you a scone or something.”
“In gratitude for that cushy little assignment?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be glad to spend my day writing that zoning story.”
“You’re as transparent as Scotch tape. Are you going to fill me in on the latest developments with the Desmond story or are we going to pretend you’re leaving it alone?”
“I didn’t promise to stop working on it, just to start working on other stories too.”
“What’s that mean? You’re working around the clock, getting by on caffeine and Paulie Finnegan-style passion?”
“More or less. You want the latest?”
“More than I want a scone.” She spun around in her chair and motioned Gene to join us.
In the world of journalistic no-nos, trusting the police was high on the list, so I girded myself for a raft of ridicule when I told them about my expanded deal with Chief Wyatt. But Gene—who’d done his share of selective information-trading in his years on the cop beat—began nodding his approval before Leah got indignant.
“Barb Wyatt’s as good as her word,” Gene said. “She won’t promise if she can’t deliver.”
Stressing that I was getting more than I was giving, I outlined the plan to convene at Joan Slater’s place that night at 5 p.m. Gene whistled between his teeth. Leah wasn’t smiling, but she’d dropped the irritated expression.
“You’re driving down there with Chief Wyatt, I suppose?”
“We’ll pick up MacMahon on the way.”
Despite herself, Leah liked idea of an elderly state police lieutenant with a score to settle. “MacMahon’s the real deal?”
“A dream source. Still sharp, an investigator through and through.”
“You obviously see this as quite a coup, getting him, this Joan Slater woman and Chief Wyatt to agree to team up with you and share notes. Promise me that you’ll keep it in the front of your mind that the point is to write about what you learn?”
“Will do. As soon as possible, we’re going to break this wide open.”
That difficult topic out of the way, I tiptoed into Nate’s invitation to go back inside the Saccarappa with him. Either the pressure from Upstairs had abated or Leah had grown a backbone, because she was downright enthusiastic.
“That’s real progress—an honest-to-God news story.” She called up the news budget on her computer screen. “Bring a photographer with you. I’ll see if we can get it on page one.”
Strolling back to my desk, I allowed myself a deep breath. Not only did I not have to sneak off to meet Nate at the Saccarappa, I’d have space in Friday’s paper to describe the scene, plus photographs to illustrate the story. That kind of package might bring a phone call from someone in the know.
On the fly I decided to tell Helena I was going back inside the mill, calling her from the car as I drove from Portland to Riverside. For reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, I wanted her to know I wasn’t just after a story. I was going to the mill to pay my respects to her brother. She listened, then spit her fury into the phone.
“I couldn’t make myself step foot inside that goddamn place. Not ever.”
The edge in her voice knifed through me, bringing to mind one of my first front-page bylines, a drug-related double murder. I’d stood outside in a snowstorm for three hours to get the scoop. When I returned to the Chronicle stiff-legged from the cold, juicy details in hand, Paulie took the shine out of my eyes with a simple statement: They may have not have been model citizens, but the two guys who died have mo
thers who are grieving. Make sure you don’t get too caught up describing their scumbag sides.
Desmond was a victim, not a scumbag. But the lesson was the same and Helena’s enraged voice snuffed my instinctual big-story giddiness. Instead of sidestepping her anger, I told her she had every right to be pissed as hell. That calmed her right down.
“I know you have a job to do,” she said before hanging up. “Don’t let me make you feel like you shouldn’t be doing it.”
As I was pulling into the weed-choked parking lot, the photographer who’d been assigned to shoot the scene called to report she was stuck waiting for a long train at a railroad crossing. Remembering that my cell phone didn’t work underground, I told her to bang hard on the door when she arrived because I’d be two floors down.
Nate was leaning against the hood of his car, dealing with a call of his own. He waved his left hand, index finger raised, signaling that he’d be done soon. While I waited, I studied the place.
The day was what meteorologists call mostly sunny but it didn’t feel that way in the shadow of the Saccarappa. Sagging with age and neglect, the accumulated soot on its brick face leached the light out of the sky. Mismatched additions hunched on the north and south flanks of the original four-story structure, meeting the front door at asymmetrical angles. The idea must have been to create a courtyard. The effect was a claustrophobe’s bad dream. I felt hemmed in even though I was outdoors.
Despite a decade of overgrowth, the shrubs on the parking lot’s perimeter couldn’t conceal years of accumulated detritus. Moldering plywood. Half-composted coffee cups. Plastic shopping bags. What had once been an asphalt surface was pocked with cracks and potholes, choked with weeds and broken glass.
The day I’d first set foot on the Saccarappa property, I’d been willing to see it through Nate’s eyes—a neglected gem in need of some polish, an aging beauty deserving loving attention. Six days later, waiting to get back inside, all I could see were its faults. Converting old and grimy to new and sleek was going to be a gargantuan undertaking.
Quick Pivot Page 20
