My eyes went to the cardboard box holding Paulie’s stuff. It was still next to the refrigerator, where I’d left it Wednesday night. I hauled it up onto the kitchen table and undid the flaps. The notepads appeared to be stacked the same way, but it was impossible to know if they were all still there. Even though the ones pertinent to Paulie’s extracurricular investigation were safe in my car I felt compelled to inventory the box.
Three-quarters of my way through the pile of notebooks—flipping through each one to verify when it had been used by Paulie—a full-size sheet of paper folded in thirds slid loose from a pad containing mundane notes from April 1968. Unlike the notebook jottings, the notes were typewritten. I read it three times, my stomach doing flips worthy of a high diver. It was essentially a memo from Paulie to himself, summarizing an interview with Jay Preble from the fourth of June, 1968, about the time the FBI left town. Narrative in form, it laid out in complete sentences facts I already knew about when Desmond was last seen and who was saying what to who about his disappearance. But it also contained a bombshell: Ken Coatesworth had been an FBI informant.
For several minutes I sat and thought about that, laying facts one against the other to see if they lined up. When I thought I understood, I grabbed Lou’s leash off the hook by the door.
“You’re coming with me,” I said. “I’m not leaving you home alone until this gets resolved.”
* * *
MacMahon picked up on the first ring when I called him from the car. It turned out Gene’s prediction was on target.
“Whaddaya know?” His voice was a growl. “Every one of those weasels lawyered up.”
“I hadn’t heard, but can’t say I’m surprised. People with enough money usually want legal counsel at their elbow before they allow themselves to be grilled by the police.”
“In my experience, only guilty bastards want a shyster with ‘em.”
Stopped at a red light, I pushed the on button for the erratic air conditioner in an effort to get ahead of the building humidity. Cool air came out. A miracle.
“Delaying the interviews may be a good thing. I have some new information to add to the mix and it might change your strategy.”
I could almost hear him sitting up straight. “What new information?”
“It appears there was an important detail no one told you back in 1968. Paulie heard from a reliable source Coatesworth was an FBI informant.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Could be, but I found detailed notes Paulie made after he’d had a sit-down with Jay Preble on June 4. Like a memo to himself.”
“Preble was probably talking out his ass. He only knew what Wellington told him, and a lot of that probably was disinformation.”
“I’m not so sure. Preble and Coatesworth were personal friends then, and remain so until this very day. You want to hear what Preble told Paulie, or don’t you?”
“Spit it out.”
“Preble confirmed Coatesworth lied to you guys the first time he was interviewed. He said Kenny was trying to hide the fact he was in a big mess because of his gambling. When he realized no one bought his initial story, he came clean to Wellington himself. Just as you said, his gambling habit had him in deep shit with some mob dudes. He extricated himself by becoming an FBI mole.”
“Coatesworth an informant? A fucking informant?”
“Look, I’ll get you a copy of Paulie’s notes, then we can talk it through. I know you don’t have a computer, but how about a fax machine?”
MacMahon rattled off a phone number.
“It’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said.
“You sure it’s authentic?”
“No question about it.”
“You know anybody who can shed some light on this?”
MacMahon was quiet for a moment.
“Fax me the damn notes,” he said. “I’ll make some calls.”
* * *
In the Chronicle newsroom I walked directly to the fax machine and shot the notes off to MacMahon before anyone knew I was there. Cup of coffee in hand, I rounded up Leah and Gene and told them the story of my morning. The fact that an unknown person had entered and searched my house freaked Leah out. I dodged her demand that I report it to the police by handing over Paulie’s typewritten narrative of his interview with Jay Preble. That shut her up.
Gene speculated that Paulie wrote detailed notes in case something happened to him.
“Think about it,” he said, tapping a pencil eraser against Leah’s desk in a staccato rhythm. “Paulie confirmed the mob was on the periphery of Desmond’s disappearance. That conversation probably convinced him organized crime was somehow behind the embezzlement. So he wrote it all out, just in case.”
“And like MacMahon said, he didn’t let the story go, not even after he was yanked off the crime beat.”
“Exactly,” Gene said. “By continuing his own quiet investigation, Paulie was risking two things: the wrath of his bosses here at the paper and a reckoning of his own with whoever killed Desmond. This memo was Paulie’s sixth sense. He knew he was in danger.”
Lou settled between us. Leah reached down to scratch her head.
“You think Preble was warning him to chill out before someone made him disappear?”
“Could be,” I said.
Leah turned to Gene. “You knew Paulie longer than either of us. If Preble told him continuing to dig at the story could get him killed, would he have backed off?”
“The Paulie I knew would die before he’d bail out of a story. He was a goddamn bulldog.” Gene paused a moment. “Maybe this case is what made him so stubborn.”
“Like a guy trying for the rest of his life to catch the fish that got away?”
“Just like that.”
Leah’s phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID readout, she let it go to voicemail, turned her attention back to me. “How did Preble act when you bumped into him this morning over at the Mill Stream?”
“Completely unaware his golf buddies were on the hot seat and running to their lawyers to protect them from the police.”
“What did Preble say when you told him?” Gene asked.
“I didn’t. I know Harding, Coatesworth and Thibodeau are persons of interest only because I’m on the inside of MacMahon and Wyatt’s shadow investigation. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything.”
Leah frowned and took a swig of coffee. “See what happens when you get too tight with the cops? Everything gets very blurry.”
I ignored her automatic wrist slap. We both knew my quasi-partnership with the investigators was positioning us to dominate coverage of what would be a huge story. I described my parking lot conversation with Preble.
“When I brought up the Desmond story in a general way, he was visibly nervous. He’s a guy who puts the cool in cucumber, but I thought he was going to wet his pants. When I pushed him to talk, he agreed to meet me this afternoon.”
“Thanks to Paulie’s detailed notes, you know what to ask,” Leah said.
“Right. Either he was telling Paulie the truth or he concocted a story that effectively put his friend Ken Coatesworth off-limits for journalistic inquiry. I’m going to find out which.”
She swung around in her chair to face her computer and began tapping the keys. “I’ll tell them at the budget meeting that page one of the print edition should be held open for as long as possible. But we’ll be up on the web as soon as it breaks. You want my suggestion? Open your chat with Preble by telling him it’s time to stop keeping other people’s secrets.”
Once again Gene agreed to do double duty, being my newsroom-based sidekick while handling his usual duties on the copydesk. As he outlined a plan, I clipped Lou’s leash on her collar.
“I’ll track Chief Wyatt down, see if she’ll confirm who’s being quest
ioned today,” he said. “I’ll call you on your cell if she gives me the word, then you can drop that on Preble. He might be less worried about badmouthing Coatesworth if he knows the word’s out that the cops are onto him.”
“Speaking of which, the cops should at least know about this conversation between Paulie and Preble back in 1968.” I cut my eyes sideways to watch Leah’s reaction.
She waved a dismissive hand in my direction. “Go ahead. You’re in so deep with this cooperation shit there’s no backing out now. Just bring me back a page-one story.”
* * *
Before I wheeled out of the Chronicle parking lot, I dialed Jay Preble’s home number. A polite message greeted me, classical music playing in the background. After a muted beep I left my message.
“I’m headed to Riverside to have lunch at the Rambler. Come find me or give me a call when you can.”
Sitting at the counter, putting away a turkey club on homemade oatmeal bread, I thought I was the picture of calm, but Christie thought otherwise.
“Why are you so jumpy?”
“I’m not jumpy,” I said, savoring a bite that had a nice balance of bacon and tomato.
“Not until the door opens, then your head swivels around like a mechanical toy. Who are you expecting?”
“The crusading Jay Preble.”
“That pain in the ass.” She refilled my coffee mug and rolled her eyes at the same time. “I always get stuck waiting on him because the rest of my staff refuses. He may be the biggest philanthropist in town but here at the diner he doesn’t give much away. Why do the affluent think tipping is optional?”
“A question for the ages.” I stood and tossed a ten on the counter to cover a six-buck tab. “If he comes in, please remind him I’m waiting to talk with him today. Give him my cell phone number if he’s lost it.”
“Will do.”
“Oh, and can I drop Lou at your house? Long story, but someone was messing with her at my place this morning and I want her safe.”
“Sure. Theo should be kicking around the house. He’ll keep an eye on her.”
I leaned over the counter and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for having my back.”
* * *
It was ten past one when I pulled into the Holy Martyrs parking lot, taking care to back my car in the shadow of a tree a hundred yards from the alley that led to Earl’s backyard. With twenty minutes to kill, I put down the windows before turning off the ignition. Listening to the engine tick as it cooled, I thought about my mentor’s approach to the Desmond story.
Paulie Finnegan’s credo was as straightforward as he was: reporters worthy of the name stuck with difficult stories. They dug deeper. Worked later. Refused to take no for an answer. I’d heard the lecture more times than I could count. Paulie didn’t originate the old saw about a reporter’s job being to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, but he sure believed it. With the Desmond disappearance, the powers that be forced him to stop covering a story that he knew in his gut needed to be covered. He would have kept at it, even if he perceived trouble. Like MacMahon, he’d probably thought about George Desmond’s disappearance for years afterward, wondering if he’d have figured out what happened if he’d only come at it from a different angle.
My cell phone rang. It was Gene calling to say he’d reached Barb Wyatt. Backpedaling on the boldness she’d expressed the previous night, the chief was happy to verify off the record that high-retainer lawyers from two prominent Portland firms had called the Riverside PD within a half hour of Coatesworth and Harding learning the spotlight was on them. It took Mike Thibodeau’s guy a full hour to get in touch, and interestingly enough, he was from Boston. Unfortunately, Barb was unwilling to say any of that for publication.
“This is when a female chief may be at a disadvantage,” Gene said. “She hasn’t got the latitude a guy would have.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s bull. But it’s damn disappointing after what you said about last night’s meeting.”
Disappointed wasn’t the word I would have chosen. I was out-and-out pissed, but knew I had to squelch my anger. There’s no arguing with a source who’s decided to clam up.
“Even if Wyatt’s nervous about taking the lead, this story’s going to come to a head today,” I said.
“Your Paulie sense tingling?”
“Something like that.”
It was a few minutes before one-thirty when I tapped on Earl’s back door. No response. Parking myself in a folding chair on the narrow back porch, I watched heavy clouds advance from the west. Thunderstorms were brewing. The air was heavy and still but I knew the leaves would be rippling Earl’s maple trees before long.
When he hadn’t shown by two o’clock, I decided to go to the Mill Stream. With storms on the approach, Earl might have been stuck moving carts inside or clearing the course of oblivious golfers. With all that was going on, I couldn’t sit still and wait. As soon as I turned the key, four bleats and a high-pitched whine on the car radio signaled a weather alert. A mechanical voice gave the details.
“The National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine, has posted a severe thunderstorm warning for Cumberland and Oxford counties. Wind gusts in excess of fifty miles an hour and damaging hail have potential to cause power outages and damage to crops and property.”
Waiting at a traffic light on Main Street, I thought about panic, how it caused people to act in unpredictable ways. Whoever had been in my house—or whoever he worked for—was nervous about the facts I was digging up. A panicking man was a dangerous man, willing to do pretty much anything to save his ass.
As I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, impatient for the light to change, Rufe’s baby blue truck pulled up alongside. Remembering Leah’s theory about Paulie’s sixth sense, I turned down the radio and pointed at the parking lot next to the library. Chances were Earl was simply working overtime. But if Rufe wasn’t busy, this might be the time to take him up on his offer to ride with me.
When I said I needed a wingman, he climbed into my car without hesitation.
“What’s up?”
“Maybe nothing, maybe something. An unidentified asshole tossed my house early this morning. Put Lou outside and barricaded her door so she’d stay there, then went through my house looking for God knows what. Now my buddy Earl St. Pierre isn’t where he’s supposed to be. I’m worried both things are tied to the Desmond story, which is coming to a head in a hurry.”
“Do you mean the Earl who runs things over at the Mill Stream?”
“Yup. We’re headed there to make sure he’s okay.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, as loud as a motorcycle three blocks away.
“What’s Earl’s connection to the Desmond thing?”
“He and George Desmond grew up together, close as brothers. Earl worked at the mill, in machine maintenance, not in the office like Desmond. Still, he says after the disappearance, certain people kept a close eye on him, apparently believing he knew more about Desmond’s last days than he was saying.”
“Cop type people?”
I shook my head. “The people the cops were focusing their attention on, now that it’s clear Desmond was murdered.”
“Anybody I know?”
I hesitated, weighing the implications of sharing confidential information. Chief Wyatt would have a fit if she knew I was talking outside the newsroom before she gave the word. But she hadn’t held up her end of our deal, and Rufe was riding shotgun, making this a need-to-know situation.
“Ken Coatesworth,” I said, turning onto Mill Stream Road. “Leo Harding.”
“No shit?”
“Also, a semi-retired mason from over in Scarborough named Thibodeau.”
“The Thibodeau who runs Casco Bay Stonework?”
“You know him?
“His son Dave used to be a friend of mine.”
“What was your impression of him?”
“I barely knew him, but Dave sure as hell lived in fear of his temper.”
“I’m not sure if he was working for Coatesworth and Harding back in the day, or if he was doing somebody else’s bidding, but I’m convinced Thibodeau was involved in the murder somehow. His name came up one too many times to be coincidence. Don’t underestimate Ken or Leo, either. Especially Leo. There’s reason to believe in their youth they were neck deep in George Desmond’s disappearance.”
More thunder sounded, closer this time. The sky in front of my car was still blue, but a glance in the mirror showed storm clouds pressing in from the west.
“So what’s our plan?”
“Earl drives an old Ram pickup. Two-tone, dark and light blue. If it’s not in the parking lot, I’ll run into the pro shop to find out when he left. If it is there, he’s probably just working overtime, meaning this is a false alarm.”
“What if his truck’s here but he’s not?”
We were one bend in the road from the parking lot.
“In that case,” I said over another growl of thunder, “we’ll go looking for him.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Friday, July 18, 2014
Riverside, Maine
Earl’s truck was in the parking lot but not in its usual place. Rufe spotted it under a weeping willow, half-blocked by the dumpster. Only two other cars were in the lot, an old minivan with a flat tire and a shiny black Cadillac Escalade.
“Leo Harding’s here.” I walked around and opened my car’s hatchback, motioning to Rufe as I yanked the eight iron from my golf bag.
“Get yourself a club.”
“Seriously? Harding’s gotta be close to seventy.”
“And a big son of a bitch. I’m not walking in empty-handed.”
Rufe shrugged and grabbed an iron for himself.
The clubhouse was locked.
Course Closed—Thunderstorm Danger, said a handwritten sign taped to the front door. I cupped my hands and peered through the glass. The interior was dark and appeared empty. We jogged around back and found the pro shop was shuttered as well.
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