“Arn bounced back and forth between surprise and excuses. Then he did the whole bargaining thing, you know, ‘if you’ll give me a chance I’ll be more attentive, less crabby, more fun.’”
“And?”
“No way. Tonight wasn’t the first time I’ve told him I was unhappy. He even admitted that. He just didn’t think I was unhappy enough that he needed to shape up.”
“So it’s over for good?”
“Yep, I’m a free woman, and that feels great. No more navigating around Arn’s bad moods, explaining his sarcastic remarks, or waiting for him to pull his attention away from his precious spreadsheets to spend a little time with me between the sheets.”
“It’s good to hear you sounding so happy. A happy Christie is a good thing.”
“So is a happy and healthy Joe,” she said. “Watch yourself, and come home in one piece, okay?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Monday, January 12, 2015
Keyed up and ready for action, I was showered and in the breakfast room the next morning at quarter to seven. Bagels of unknown provenance were flanked by local smoked salmon, not thin-sliced lox but moist hot-smoked chunks, which paired nicely with the traditional cream cheese, red onion and capers. I poured myself coffee and settled at a table in front of the window with the morning Bangor paper. No story by Andrea Veloute and not much other news, either. When Emma arrived I was contemplating another bagel. She looked sleepy and out of sorts, and when she pulled up a chair my impression was confirmed.
“I don’t think I ever fell into a solid sleep,” she said. “After talking with you I buried my head in work for a couple of hours. By bedtime, I’d pretty much wound myself up like a top. It took me almost till daylight to wind down.”
“Not me.” I poured her a cup of coffee and refilled my own mug. “I slept like a baby. I have the feeling I’m going to see this trial with fresh eyes today.”
She rolled hers at me without comment but agreed to my proposition that we split a bagel with cream cheese and salmon, which I got up to fix. Some other guests came into the dining room while I was toasting the bagel so our conversation for the rest of breakfast was desultory. Had anyone been listening in, they’d have thought us a young couple grown boring before our time.
When we finished she excused herself and sleep-walked back to her room to get ready for court. I tossed back another half-cup of java and headed out. Maybe it was eating fish for breakfast, but I was so full of energy I felt like running around the block a few times on my way to the courthouse. I contained myself, being a professional, and arrived at the courtroom a few minutes after the court officer unlocked the door. A smattering of spectators had staked out seats, including the Peabody sisters, who were already in the front row, going to town on their knitting projects. We traded stories about the snowstorm, but I didn’t take off my parka and settle in next to them. Trulette noticed, and asked why.
“I’m going to try a different perspective this week.”
“Shucks,” Arlette said. “I hope it wasn’t something we said.”
Until I caught the exaggerated batting of her bifocaled eyes, I thought I’d hurt her feelings. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I think people are starting to talk about the three of us.”
“People are too darn provincial in this town,” her sister said.
I went to the rear of the courtroom and hung out inside the door, watching the crowd filter in. The cast of characters was much the same as the previous week. Jackson Harrison nodded at me, his usual frown creasing his brow. Claude and Dolores LeClair slid into a bench on the window-side of the courtroom without so much as a nod in my direction.
At five till eight Tom O’Rourke—who I thought of as the nice brother—came through the back door. Without looking left or right he walked down the center aisle to the next-to-the-front bench. He sat at the far end, spreading his coat alongside him. After a minute I eased down the aisle to claim a seat in the third row, sliding in about five feet so I’d be right behind the O’Rourke boys. Sure enough, the other two arrived before court was called to order, first a scowling Patrick, then the Speaker, making an entrance at the last possible moment before we all stood on order of the court clerk to greet Justice Herrick. As the jury was escorted in, I settled back against the wooden backrest, smack behind the powerful men I believed were the likeliest candidates to have sicced a mad dog on me.
Before the day’s action began, Justice Herrick told the jury Lieutenant Shaw was out of state at a long-planned conference so wouldn’t be available for cross-examination until the next day. I suspected Cohen was relieved to have more time to pull together a motion requesting the actual Dispatch tape, evidence that would impeach the big shot statie’s direct testimony if it turned out Leslie was telling the truth.
Instead, we heard the direct testimony of the state’s next witness, a DHHS supervisor named Darren Anderson. A middle-aged guy with a pot belly and hair like steel wool, Anderson told the jury it was his job to keep track of open child protective cases and the social workers who staff them. He testified that he’d supervised Frank O’Rourke for the two years prior to the murder.
“How would you describe Mr. O’Rourke’s approach to his job?” Mansfield asked.
“He was passionate,” Anderson said. “Passionate about kids. About supporting them, and building rapport with them. He worked a lot of overtime, meeting with children at risk, children in foster care.”
Not what Angel Marie said, I thought.
As Mansfield warmed into his direct examination, I watched the Speaker’s body language. Eddie O’Rourke leaned forward in his seat, hanging on every word, like a top in the hands of an eight-year-old, being wound tighter by the second.
Mansfield asked Anderson about Frank O’Rourke’s typical work day.
“Usually he’d come into the office first thing, and if it wasn’t a court day, we’d sit down together for a half hour or so and talk about the cases he was working on and set the priorities for the day. Then he’d hit the road, visiting schools to talk with the teachers of kids on his caseload, meeting with parents and other relatives to discuss how the children were doing.”
“Did you meet with Mr. O’Rourke on the morning of May 22, last year?”
“We met at the office at eight thirty.”
“What was his plan for the day?” Mansfield walked around the courtroom, the cadence of his words matching the pace of his steps. On the bench in front of me, all three O’Rourke brothers tensed, as though bristling for a fight.
“He had a nine o’clock meeting at Washington Academy with a guidance counselor who’d reported a truant student. Then he planned a series of home visits. He had one family where three kids were sleeping together on one twin air mattress. Frank had arranged for a local church to donate bunk beds. He wanted to verify that the beds had been set up, that they had sheets and blankets and such. At another family’s home there was exposed wiring throughout the house, and their athletic three-year-old had taken to swinging on anything he could grab. Frank had told them to get the wiring out of his reach and he wanted to make sure that’d happened.”
“Where were these home visits?” Mansfield asked.
“I believe they started in Cutler and ended in Lubec. And once he was all the way down there in Lubec he was going to spend some time at the elementary school, where there’d been a report that two children from the same family had come to class with bruises on their arms and legs.”
“Sounds like a difficult day.”
“A pretty typical day in the life of a caseworker. You see a lot of things most people don’t see, or don’t want to acknowledge. It’s your job to determine if the families have the capacity to put their children first, to keep them safe and protect them from harm. When they don’t, you have to intervene.”
Anderson’s mouth tightened and a muscle in his j
aw jumped, his expression an echo of the suppressed emotion I’d seen during my conversation with the angry giant, Roland Little. Mansfield didn’t interrupt Anderson’s reaction, pausing long enough to make sure the jury saw him struggling to control his feelings.
“It’s a hard job, and a dangerous one. You do things that have to be done, but unlike a police officer you’re unarmed. That can put you in real danger.” Anderson paused again. “It cost Frank O’Rourke his life.”
The Speaker slumped back against the seat of the bench, running his hand over his face. Patrick shook his head as he slung an arm around his shoulder, his left hand clenched into a fist.
Mansfield could have stopped there, with the jury feeling the pain of Anderson and every one of his colleagues. But he kept on, painting Frank as a grown-up altar boy who might have been a mentor to local Eagle Scouts had he not been so busy picking up roadside litter day and night. The Speaker had his eyes closed during the laudatory narrative. Tom wore a neutral expression. Brother Patrick stayed coiled like a cobra.
* * *
Leaving the courtroom at the break, I discovered a peppy Emma, who’d snuck into the courtroom sometime after Anderson took the stand. She credited caffeine for her brighter mood, then took off for the restroom. I leaned against the wall, trying to look nonchalant. In truth, my senses were as tuned as a bird dog’s, hoping I’d catch someone watching me. It was a challenging little exercise, broken up by Jackson Harrison before I noticed anyone paying attention.
“Sounds like they’re trying to induct Frank O’Rourke in the Good Guy Hall o’ Fame.” Harrison was on my left, muttering out of the corner of his mouth.
I recalled our conversation at the bar. “You told me the other night you knew another side of the guy.”
Harrison’s face reddened. “I knew him as a guy who pushed people around, people who he considered beneath him.” He grinned at me, or at least I thought it was a grin, even though it looked more like a grimace, given his furrowed brow. “I was one of those little people. One of the many he shit on.”
Tom O’Rourke walked by. Harrison watched him with contempt so palpable it almost had an odor. He fished in his shirt pocket and headed toward the front door. “Gonna grab a smoke.”
Harrison’s badly suppressed fury put me on high alert. I remembered the ease with which he’d lifted huge rounds of oak onto his chopping block and split them in two with a sledgehammer and a maul, making it look easy. I pictured his house, which was visible through denuded winter trees from Danny’s front porch, and wondered if there was still a sightline between them in late May. And I pondered the intense, almost venomous expression on his face when he talked about Frank O’Rourke.
I didn’t remember seeing any toys or other evidence of kids in Harrison’s dooryard, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had a professional run-in of his own with Frank O’Rourke, perhaps losing a child to state custody in the process. I made a mental note to find out the backstory on Harrison.
Emma snapped her fingers in front of my face, interrupting my reverie.
“Earth to Joe. From the look on your face, I’d give a whole nickel for those thoughts.”
“Later,” I said. “I’m still cogitating.”
As we walked down the hallway Emma announced that she planned an after-lunch nap back at the inn. “The coffee fixed me up for now, but if I don’t lie down for a while I’ll be a wreck by suppertime.”
“Still planning to come to Cohen’s office this afternoon?”
“Sure. I’ll set my alarm. If I sleep more than a couple of hours, I’ll have more insomnia tonight.”
We went our separate ways inside the courtroom, Emma to a seat under the windows and me to my post behind the O’Rourke boys. Cohen was pacing back and forth like a chained hunting dog raring to be let loose. I settled back into my seat and flipped my notebook open to a fresh page.
Five minutes in, it was clear Darren Anderson had limited experience testifying in cases where his credibility was in question, and Mansfield hadn’t prepared him for what was to come. First Cohen delved into Frank O’Rourke’s professional history, making sure the jury knew Machias was Frank’s fourth posting as a DHHS caseworker, and that he hadn’t distinguished himself in any of the previous places. Introducing the dead man’s personnel records as an exhibit, Cohen had Anderson tell the jury that O’Rourke’s longest stint was in Lewiston, where he worked for almost three years, and the shortest was Skowhegan, where he’d lasted less than one.
“Is it fair to say Frank O’Rourke developed a reputation as a guy who had difficulty following the rules?”
Anderson was flustered by the question and it showed, rendering his stammered denial unconvincing.
“I understand you don’t want to say things that may tarnish Frank O’Rourke’s memory, but a man’s on trial for murder here, and the jury deserves to know all the facts.”
Mansfield objected to the little soliloquy, complaining that Cohen was testifying when he should be questioning. The judge agreed, and the defense attorney resumed his interrogation.
Had Anderson been warned that Frank O’Rourke needed close supervision when he joined the Machias child protective team?
“I supervise all of our caseworkers, especially when they’re new to the office,” Anderson said.
Was he testifying that O’Rourke’s arrival was not preceded by any special discussion of his particular history?
“When a caseworker is transferring into our office, we always review their past performance in other divisions.”
On and on it went, Anderson attempting to parry every one of Cohen’s interrogative thrusts, until it was obvious to everyone in the courtroom that Frank O’Rourke’s past was as checkered as a NASCAR finish flag. On the bench in front of me, the Speaker’s neck reddened and the muscles in Patrick’s back grew so tense I thought he’d split the seam of his sport coat.
When the stage was set, Cohen eased over to his table and picked up a couple of documents. They turned out to be written reprimands issued to Frank O’Rourke in the three years before his death. The first explained his short stint in Skowhegan—he’d showed so much interest in the personal life of a just-out-of-college coworker that she’d obtained a protection from harassment order against him, forcing his abrupt transfer. The second had been issued by Anderson himself after O’Rourke ignored repeated verbal warnings about meeting with minor children without a parent or guardian present. When Cohen probed the circumstances that led to that particular reprimand, Anderson sat up straight in the witness chair.
“It can be difficult to find backup here in Washington County,” the DHHS supervisor said. “Towns are far apart. We’re often short of staff, and so is the sheriff’s department. Cell phone service is erratic.”
“Last May 22, Frank O’Rourke went to the defendant’s home with the intention of taking Corrine Boothby into state custody, is that correct?”
“That’s correct. He notified Dispatch of that fact when he called to ask for backup. The backup didn’t arrive because of the accident with the bait truck.”
Cohen nodded once, as if placing a mark on a checklist, noting that Anderson had committed himself to the same story Shaw had recited. I assumed Cohen was holding off filing his motion to hear the actual tape. No sense tipping off the prosecution that he doubted a key part of its narrative.
“When you met with Frank O’Rourke on the morning of May 22, did he tell you he’d be going to the Boothby home to remove Corrine to state custody?”
“It wasn’t part of the plan that morning. But child protective work is dynamic. Conditions on the ground change all the time.”
“Can caseworkers decide to remove a child from his or her home without consulting their supervisors?”
“If in the caseworker’s judgment a child is at immediate risk of serious harm, yes. In most cases, the decisio
n to remove is made in conjunction with a supervisor, but a caseworker can act on his own if the circumstances warrant.”
Cohen walked right up to the witness box, his eyes fixed on Anderson’s.
“When on May 22 did Frank O’Rourke decide to go to the Boothby home?”
“I don’t know. Sometime prior to his call to Dispatch.”
“What would make him decide on the spur of the moment to go to a home and take a child into state custody without consulting his supervisor?”
“During the course of the day, he must have learned something that convinced him she was at immediate risk, that an emergency removal was justified.”
“Did Mr. O’Rourke inform you—by phone, text, email or any other means—about the facts he’d learned that required removing Corrine Boothby from her home that day?”
“No, he did not.”
“To your knowledge, did Mr. O’Rourke contact another supervisor, or even another DHHS caseworker, to review the facts that he thought justified emergency removal of Corrine Boothby from her home?”
“To my knowledge, he did not.”
“Since Mr. O’Rourke’s death, have any facts come to your attention that explain why he believed there was an emergency?
“No.”
“Was any evidence found in his car—notes, computer files, cell phone messages—that explained his spur-of-the-moment decision to take Corrine from her home?”
“No, but the lack of a report wasn’t surprising because he was on the move.”
“I didn’t ask if an actual report was found, my question is whether there was any evidence—anything whatsoever—indicating what motivated Mr. O’Rourke’s actions that day.”
“The answer is no, and to go back to what you said before, it would not have been a spur—of-the-moment decision to remove the Boothby girl from her home. I’m sure he had a good reason to go there. But we’ve been unable to determine what it was.”
“So when Mr. Mansfield told the jury in his opening statement that Mr. O’Rourke quote—found out information he believed justified emergency removal of Corrine Boothby from her home—unquote, to what information was he referring?”
Cover Story Page 22
