Willow promised not to tell anyone—not Billy, none of her friends—about our conversation, agreeing it wouldn’t be good for my health if word got back to Mick LeClair that I was fingering him as my assailant. I hoped like hell she’d be as good as her word.
Emma and I went back upstairs so I could call the Machias PD detective who’d interrogated me at the ER the previous night. She’d said I should call if I remembered anything that might help the investigation, and she sounded sincere when she said it, so I dialed her home number and got a grumpy greeting.
“Detective MacVane, it’s Joe Gale.” I realized as the words were coming out of my mouth that if she worked the night shift, she probably hadn’t been asleep long. I kept going so she wouldn’t hang up on me. “I think I figured out who assaulted me last night. I think it was Mick LeClair.”
MacVane cleared her throat, and I could picture her up on one elbow, blinking herself awake. “Mick LeClair? You didn’t mention him last night.”
“I didn’t know his name last night,” I said.
“Where are you now?”
“At the inn. In a few minutes I’m going over to Marcus Cohen’s office.”
“I’ll meet you there,” she said. “In the meantime, don’t be talking to anybody else about this. You can tell Cohen, but keep your mouth shut otherwise.”
It was clear from her tone she wasn’t asking, she was ordering.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Cohen looked ready for the day, wearing a charcoal suit, pale blue Oxford collar shirt and navy—blue-and-green-striped necktie. When he came downstairs to let us in, Emma remarked on the fact that he’d begun locking his door. He shrugged.
“With all that’s going on, I’m being careful. My wife packed up the kids and took them to her mother’s place. They’ll stay there till the trial is over.”
We climbed the stairs, me doing a fine impression of a ninety-year-old man. Emma got me situated in one of the client chairs. Cohen sat behind his desk and picked up an oversized mug of coffee.
“Would you be more or less worried if I told you I think the guy who came after me last night was Mick LeClair?”
Cohen sat back and crossed his arms across his chest. “I’d say that’s an intriguing thought.”
There was an assertive knock on the downstairs door. Emma ran down to answer it. “That’ll be Detective MacVane,” I said. “I woke her up to tell her my Mick LeClair theory, and I could practically hear her stepping into the shower before we hung up.”
Sure enough, MacVane’s short blond hair was still damp when she pulled off her knit cap. I explained in detail the altercation in the bar, my olfactory memory of the muscleman’s cologne, and Willow’s knowledge of Mick’s identity.
“I’m certain it was the same smell.”
MacVane leaned forward in her chair, her blue eyes intense. “Mick’s a rough character. Given his history of violence, and the fact that the trial you’re writing about involves his family, it’s worth my time to drop in on him this morning to have a little chat.”
“He’s living in the basement at his parents’ house. Claude told me that a few days ago.”
“I know where to track him down.” MacVane stood up and pulled her hat down over her ears. “I’ll be knocking on his door before he hauls his ass out of bed. In the meantime, keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.”
Cohen, Emma and I spent the next half hour playing beat the clock, bouncing theories off each other in rapid succession, aware that at eight thirty Cohen would have to take his place at the defense table, Danny Boothby’s fate ever heavier in his hands.
Operating on the assumption that the person who killed Frank O’Rourke was the same person who was after me, our list of potential alternate suspects now held two names: Jackson Harrison and Mick LeClair. With Harrison, we agreed there was potential for the means-motive-opportunity axis to be in alignment. For LeClair, those elements were less clear. Even if Mick didn’t like his brother-in-law, why would he kill a guy and put him on Danny’s front porch? And we didn’t even know if Mick knew Frank O’Rourke.
“We’re not going to figure out the answers this morning,” Emma said. “Let’s stop spinning our wheels.” She turned to Cohen. “We’ll leave you to get your game face on, okay?” She held her fist up until he got the drift and put up his own for a good-luck bump.
I was glad Emma had insisted on taking her car, allowing us to drive from Cohen’s office to the courthouse. The pain meds were dulling the ache in my ribs and back, but they made my stomach queasy. Emma detoured past the convenience store to score another cup of coffee for herself. I called Leah, who took a moment to ask how I was before asking what happened. I didn’t envy her morning. In addition to telling Jack Salisbury and his team of anxious folks Upstairs that I’d once again become the target of a faceless criminal, Leah had to get the story itself up on the web.
“Any minute the Free Press is going to do its morning police check and find your name,” she said. “As much as the big shots are going to hate this story, they’re going to hate it even more if we get scooped.”
I promised to call her from the courthouse at the first break. “In case anyone Upstairs has a notion to order me back to Portland, tell them there’s plenty of security there.”
Emma and I entered the courtroom and walked down the center aisle, having decided without discussion that unlike every other day of the trial so far, we’d sit together. When we joined the Peabody sisters on the front bench, I introduced the twins to Emma. Arlette shot me a curious look, her eyes asking if Emma was a colleague, a girlfriend or what. But before she could find a well-bred way to ask, Trulette spotted the bandage on my head.
“I slipped on an icy sidewalk last night,” I said. “Fell down, conked my head, ended up spending the evening with some good-looking ER nurses.”
“That’s not exactly what the grapevine is saying,” Arlette said.
She was interrupted by the heavy rear door banging open. Dolores LeClair strode down the center aisle, wearing a bulky cardigan sweater and a distressed look on her face.
“Arl, True, I need you.” Her voice was shaking. “Can you come out in the hallway?” Nodding in the direction of Emma and me, she stuttered out an apology. “No offense, it’s personal.”
I grabbed my parka and stood up. “We can sit someplace else.”
“I can’t talk here.” She was gulping air like a fish on a dock, tears brimming her gray eyes.
The Peabody sisters sprang to their feet and left the courtroom on either side of their friend, leaving their identical camel coats behind. As they passed through the door, Dolores’s heaving shoulders gave away her sobs.
Moments later, the O’Rourke brothers entered, looking as pissed off as Yankee fans after a Red Sox sweep. I’d watched the O’Rourkes a lot over the previous week. Not once had they seemed to be in the same emotional place. Patrick always looked peeved. The Speaker veered between earnestness and distraction. Tom seemed sad. But that morning, all three of them radiated fury.
While I was watching their body language, the front door banged open and Geoff Mansfield stalked into the well, not bothering to hide a scowl. He leaned down and spoke into the ear of his assistant, who’d been bustling around moments earlier, pouring water and arranging files. I wasn’t near enough to hear the exchange, but from the look on Mansfield’s face, it was not a happy morning.
By contrast, Cohen’s entrance was low key. Face impassive, he lugged his big box of files to the defense table. He remained standing until the court officers brought a pale Danny Boothby to his side. Cohen never looked our way. That fact—more than the fuming O’Rourkes and the irritated Mansfield—told me there’d been an early-morning chambers conference. My guess was Cohen had made his motion for the actual Dispatch tape. If I was ri
ght, it looked like Leslie’s tip was right on.
My stomach was pitching like a small boat in a gale, but I resisted making a trip to the bathroom because I didn’t want to miss whatever was coming. We waited five minutes more—a period marked by lots of whispering and shuffling in the cheap seats—before the court officer entered and commanded us all to rise. It was the first time Justice Herrick had been late to the bench. Before saying a word, she took a full minute to run her eyes around the courtroom.
“It’s come to my attention that serious threats have been made outside of this courtroom that may have a bearing on this case.” Her voice was strong, her tone level. “I will not say more than that at this time, but want to assure you that these threats are being investigated. This court will not tolerate any attempt to tamper with witnesses or others involved in this trial.”
My stomach continued to churn. Could she be alluding to my recent troubles? I hoped to God that wasn’t the case. Justice Herrick’s eyes scanned the courtroom a second time. “I’m suspending testimony until law enforcement can assure me of the safety of parties, jurors and every other person with any connection to this matter. I’m hopeful I’ll get that assurance very soon. Until then, this court will stand in recess.”
“All rise!” the court officer ordered, and Justice Herrick disappeared through the door behind the bench. For a few seconds the courtroom was silent, then the speculative buzz began, increasing in volume like cicadas on a summer day. Swinging around in my seat, I saw the Peabody sisters standing shoulder to shoulder inside the rear door, their indistinguishable faces wary.
I caught Trulette’s eye and motioned for them to come forward. After a peek out the door and a whispered exchange, they marched down the center aisle, poker-faced. Arlette slid down the bench and leaned her head next to mine.
“The threats she’s talking about have something to do with Dolores,” she said.
“Dolores?”
“Or her family.” Arlette pressed her slender body against the back of the bench so that her twin could lean in and join the conversation.
“Joe, I know we’ve become friends, but if we talk to you, can you keep it—what’s the expression—off the record?”
“I won’t quote you in any story I might write, if that’s what you’re asking.” I knew what she actually wanted was for me to take off my reporter hat and talk with her as a friend rather than a potential source of relevant facts.
“But can we talk to you in confidence?”
My professional obligation was to get the story, and if the Peabody sisters had information that would help explain why the trial had been suspended, it was my job to get that information, using guile, if necessary. But they were bedrock in the Machias community and genuine friends of Dolores LeClair. If I burned them, there’d be a price.
“I can promise you two things. I won’t quote you in a story, and if you tell me something that leads me to information that I write about, I won’t identify you as the people who pointed me in the right direction.”
They nodded in unison.
“If there’s something you know that’ll help me understand what’s happening this morning, I hope you’ll tell me.”
They exchanged a look. After another ten seconds of silence, I tried again.
“I’m not going to try to sweet-talk you. If you think it’s important for me—and my readers—to understand all the aspects of the story that’s unfolding here, and you have some information that will help me see all those dimensions, great. But if it seems to you that by talking to me, you’d betray your friend, that’s your call.”
For a moment I thought they were going to lapse into the secret language twins are reputed to share, but they communicated with their eyes instead.
“Dolores’s son Michael appears to be in the middle of something dangerous.” Trulette’s voice was brittle with tension. “The police went to her house this morning looking for him. Dolores thought he was downstairs asleep. He must have heard the police upstairs talking to his parents, because he ran out the back door.”
My stomach lurched. The Peabody sisters didn’t know that I’d identified Mick LeClair as my likely assailant. I shot a look at Emma, willing her to keep still.
“Does Dolores have any idea why he’d run from the police?”
“Michael had some trouble a while back, but he’s paid his debt,” Arlette said. “This morning the police said they wanted to question him about something new. When they realized he was gone, the first two officers called for reinforcements and made Dolores and Claude leave the house. So whatever’s going on, it’s serious.”
Arlette raised her eyebrows at her sister as if to say “Shall I tell him?”
Trulette nodded, her eyes unreadable.
“Dolores said the police asked if they could account for all of the guns in the house.” Arlette’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Claude went to the basement to check, and when he came back upstairs the poor man was almost crying. A handgun was missing. The police are saying Michael is armed and dangerous.”
My stomach was doing flips. Mick LeClair was on the loose with a gun in his pocket, knowing the cops were looking for him, probably guessing I was the reason why. I inhaled a deep breath, hoping I wouldn’t have to hobble for the men’s room.
“Where’s Dolores now?”
“Claude wanted to go to the barbershop. He didn’t want to be here, where everyone’s caught up in gossip and speculation. She went with him, of course.”
The deep breathing wasn’t slowing the heaving in my stomach. I shuffled toward the aisle.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to get some air.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
I entered the men’s room at an agonizing jog, grateful that it seemed to be unoccupied. I realized I was wrong the moment I flushed my breakfast down the toilet.
Mick LeClair announced his presence by kicking me in my aching back, slamming my kneeling body up against the commode. When I jerked my head around, his outsized body filled the stall’s doorway. His hands were on either side of the frame, bracing as if to kick me again, but he didn’t.
“I told you to get the hell out of town.” His voice was raspy.
I twisted around and pushed myself up from the floor, using the toilet seat for leverage. We stood nose to nose for about five seconds, me inside the stall, him blocking its door. I looked into his black eyes, fighting to keep my face expressionless. A sheen of sweat glistened on his acne-scarred face.
“Step back, Mick.” I was surprised at the steadiness of my voice.
Survival messages were rocketing through my brain. Had he found a way to beat the courthouse security screening? If there was a gun tucked in his parka pocket, I sure as hell wanted to be outside the confined space of the bathroom stall, where my sole defensive option was to shut the door and crouch on the toilet. If this was going to be ugly, I didn’t want it to be that ugly.
Mick shuffled backward a few steps, his empty hands falling to his sides. I stepped out of the stall in the direction of the door.
“It’s locked,” he said.
My eyes fell on the horizontal position of the deadbolt, and my streaking mind wondered why the door of a communal men’s room even had a lock. But it did, and Mick had locked it after he followed me into the can, apparently wanting a private chat.
“You hungover?” He motioned with his head toward the stall where I’d just thrown up.
“They don’t serve drinks at the emergency room. That’s where I spent most of the night after you kicked the shit out of me.”
He shrugged his lineman-sized shoulders and pulled a semi-automatic pistol out of his pocket. “I kept tryin’ to send you a message, but you wouldn’t listen.”
I glanced again at the door. This
time my mind registered a half-open transom over the frame. My airway felt constricted by fear, but I spoke in the strongest voice I could manage.
“Put the gun away, Mick. The last friggin’ thing you need is to be charged with another felony.”
“Why’re you writing bullshit about my family? You should have left us alone.” His voice was a flat-out whine.
“I haven’t written anything critical about your family. I’m here to cover your brother-in-law’s murder trial. I think the evidence against him is weak, and I’ve said as much in my stories.”
Mick rubbed his left eye with his left hand, causing me to wonder which hand he used for things that required dexterity. Shooting a handgun, for instance.
“Danny Boothby ain’t my family. He married my sister, that’s all.”
“Whatever he is, I don’t think he’s guilty. I don’t know who killed Frank O’Rourke, but I don’t think it was Danny.”
“It don’t matter who killed O’Rourke.” Mick backed up a couple of steps, keeping the gun trained on my face as he moved. “The guy was a first-class jerk. Somebody had to protect the little girls of the world from him.”
“You’re right about that. Pretty much everyone except his boss and his brothers say he was scum.”
We both jumped when someone rapped on the bathroom door.
“Who the frig locked the men’s room?” A man on the other side was angry.
Figuring I had an audience, I projected my voice toward the door.
“If you shoot me, you’ll be the next one to stand trial. And there’ll be all kinds of witnesses.”
Mick stared at me, but didn’t respond, so I kept talking.
“Put the goddamn gun back in your pocket, Mick. I like your family. Your father cut my hair last week. I bought him lunch yesterday. I don’t actually know your mother, but people say she’s amazing.”
“You’ve got no idea about my mother, how rough her life’s been, how strong she was when my sister died. You got no idea how good she is, how much she matters to everybody.”
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