by Gerry Boyle
“Yeah, they must have thought accountants have cash. These kids aren’t all rocket scientists.”
“They take much?”
“Some petty cash. A computer. A very nice laser printer.”
“They get in here?”
“No, which is funny. People don’t realize it, and this isn’t for print, but dentists do use some pretty powerful painkilling drugs. In their work, I mean.”
He grinned at his bit of humor.
“Can you develop a Novocain habit?” I asked.
“No, but there are other things we use that would have a street value. All they had to do was walk through that door.”
Pelham looked toward a door on the side wall, behind the counter.
“It was unlocked,” he said.
27
They were all there. J. C. and Darrin. Sue and Kathy. Roberta. Sam had brought his son.
We sat at the same big table where I had met with them before. With Melanie and Bobby and Coyote there, we’d been jammed in. Now we had room to sprawl.
I put my notebook and tape recorder on the table. The waitress poured coffee all around, except for Kathy, who asked for two cups, one with hot water, one empty. When they came, she took a plastic bag from her canvas tote, scooped some sort of herb stuff from the bag, and dumped it in a small filter contraption with a handle. Everyone watched as she poured the hot water over the filter and herb stuff and steam wafted from the cup.
It smelled like air freshener.
I opened the notebook, hit the button on the recorder. Sam looked at the recorder, swallowed, and started us off. It seemed he’d rehearsed.
“Bobby Mullaney’s death is ultimately, umm, prima facie evidence of the corruption that is the very foundation of the criminal justice system in this country. Bobby fought that corruption and he paid with his life.”
“How was he fighting corruption?” I asked.
“Bobby Mullaney was not a drug trafficker,” Roberta said, her walker parked next to her chair. “Bobby’s growing marijuana on his very own private property was civil disobedience. You know. Gandhi and all that. Martin Luther King?”
“Thoreau and all that,” I said. “I know. But you guys are losing me a little here. How is selling pounds of pot to drug dealers civil disobedience?”
“He gave his life,” Kathy said calmly. “He attempted to right this terrible injustice and they took of his life.”
Took of his life?
I looked at her.
“Like you know who?”
“I didn’t say that. But the Lord Jesus was also branded a criminal by the authorities.”
“Bobby Mullaney was fighting for me,” Roberta said, suddenly angry, her open hand slapping the table. “He was fighting for my right to live in peace. He was fighting for my right to try to sleep for more than an hour at a time. And this is what they did to him.”
“Who’s they?”
“The system. The system in this country that has made this medicinal herb an outlawed drug,” Roberta said. “They’re in with the drug companies, they’re in with the booze makers, they’re in with big business. Who do you think elects the politicians in this country? Who elects the president?”
Sam held his hand up to get my attention.
“Mr. McMorrow, what would happen if cannabis was legalized in this country? What would happen to Budweiser’s sales? What would happen to Gallo wine? You can go to the store and spend six bucks on a six-pack, or you can partake of a natural, native plant that is free and people have used for centuries. The choice is—”
“Big business does not want this to happen,” Roberta interrupted. “And the system won’t let it happen without a fight. That’s what this drug war really is all about. They’ve got to lump us in with the cocaine and the heroin because if we win, big business loses. It’s money, money, money.”
“Makes the world go ’round, doesn’t it?” I said.
They talked for forty minutes without coming up for air. The gist of their argument was that the system had banned marijuana, and if marijuana hadn’t been banned, Bobby wouldn’t have been forced to sell to murderous drug dealers, and if he hadn’t been forced to sell to murderous drug dealers, he’d still be alive.
It was a bit of a reach, but I could see what they meant—although if Bobby had chosen not to sell pot at all, he’d be just as alive, albeit still living in this far reach of the backwoods, with no electricity or running water, writhing under the tyranny of big business.
A minor flaw in the argument.
They talked as we left the restaurant, and talked as we walked to the cars. I got in my truck and followed them in their two cars, both beat-up, and we drove to Florence, past the store and out to the cemetery, just before the Mullaney driveway. We all got out and Sam opened the trunk of his white Ford and lifted out a simple white cross. It was three feet high and carefully constructed, notched together so the pieces were flush. Sam brushed it off with his hand and we started across the grass.
I didn’t know where we were going, but they did. I brought up the rear, pausing to read the lichen-crusted headstones. Most of them went back to the early 1800s. There were many children. Infants. Toddlers. Young mothers and older brothers.
BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD, the inscription on one stone said.
I wondered what that meant for Bobby Mullaney.
They stopped near the rear of the cemetery under a massive old maple, which streamed orange-yellow foliage against the blue sky. Someone had already dug a small hole, like a hole for a fence post. We stood around it and were suddenly somber and quiet. Sam leaned the cross against the tree and we stood and waited, and then there was a rumble from the woods, the squeaking of springs, and Bobby’s truck jounced into view.
It pulled up on the grass fifty yards away. Melanie got out first, dressed in a denim skirt and a heavy black sweater. She came toward us, weaving through the stones, and Stephen finally got out and followed, grudgingly it seemed. He was wearing his customary camouflage.
It was only his stepfather.
The group greeted Melanie. I nodded. Kathy embraced her. Roberta, with her walker, clumped over and took Melanie’s hand. Sam touched her shoulder shyly. Melanie looked drawn and drained. Stephen stood ten feet away, alone. His face was blank, without expression.
As they hugged and held, another truck pulled up, a Ford with a cap. A big bearded guy got out and strode toward us. He was wearing a worn tweed jacket over a sweater and green work pants. He was holding a black book. We all watched him and when he reached us, Melanie stepped forward and shook his hand.
“Let’s begin,” the guy said. “I’d like everyone to stand in a semicircle. And join hands.”
I stood between Sam and Kathy. Kathy’s hand was cold and Sam’s was sweaty. The bearded guy was a minister or some rough equivalent, and he stood and meditated for a minute while we stood and stared at the posthole as if it were Groundhog Day and we were waiting to see if the critter would appear.
The bearded guy opened his book and cleared his throat.
“ ‘Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house there are many mansions. Were it not so, I should have told you, because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there you also may be. And where I go, you know, and the way you know.’ ”
He paused.
“Amen,” he said.
“Amen,” we said back.
Stephen said nothing and looked away.
“You may get the cross,” the bearded guy said solemnly.
Sam broke free and went and got the cross and walked over and thrust it into the ground, as if claiming the cemetery for Her Majesty, the Queen. Melanie stepped up to the cross and turned toward us.
“I’d just like to say that if Bobby were here with us today, he’d probably thank you for being so brave and sticking together and everything. And,
umm, you’ve been good friends to him and I’ll never forget that. I really won’t. So, thank you, I guess. And thanks for coming.”
Kathy squeezed my hand, moved by the eulogy, if you could call it that. It was more like a going-away party, which was curious. But then Melanie hadn’t been blessed with Bobby’s gift of gab. If it had been Bobby up there in front of the cross, we’d have been there all morning.
The group stood awkwardly and there was a little more hugging and touching. Kathy had tears in her eyes, but Melanie didn’t. Roberta looked angry, her constant state. Sam knelt and pressed earth around the bottom of the cross, and J. C. and Darrin, in their jeans and work boots, looked like they wanted to go home.
Stephen stood alone.
I walked over to him.
“How are you doing?” I said.
He looked at me.
“Great.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Gimme a break.”
I looked at him. He stared straight ahead, his face fixed in a glare. Melanie looked over at him, and looked concerned.
“What are you and your mom going to do?”
Stephen still hadn’t looked at me.
“Live friggin’ happily ever after,” he said, and he turned away and started for the road to the house.
I stood there alone for a moment, like a newcomer to a cocktail party. Sam and Kathy were by the cross, Kathy kneeling and praying and Sam inspecting his own handiwork. The minister, or whatever he was, got in his truck and left. Melanie saw Stephen leaving and started after him. I intercepted her.
“Melanie, I’m sorry,” I said, falling in beside her.
“Thanks.”
“I know this is a bad time, but at some point I’m going to have a few questions. Little things. Bobby’s background and yours. What you’re going to do now.”
For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Just kept walking through the gravestones.
“Yeah, okay. Maybe when my head’s cleared a little.”
“You may be hearing from a guy named Joe Mendoza. He’s a reporter from Valley.”
“He called last night. Stephen talked to him.”
“Oh?”
“He swore at him and hung up.”
“Oh, well,” I said.
We came to the edge of the cemetery and stopped by Bobby’s truck. Stephen had disappeared into the woods.
“So our deal still stands?”
Melanie stopped and looked at me. “The story?”
“Yeah.”
“Umm, I guess. I don’t know. Yeah, I guess so.”
“I’d like to use names.”
“What? Real names? Bobby’s name?”
“Yeah. I pretty much have to, now. With what’s happened.”
Melanie thought.
“Everybody’s gonna know now anyway,” she said. “So what’s this gonna be? The life and times of Bobby Mullaney?”
“Something like that. Does that bother you?”
She gave a little sniff.
“No. I mean, me and Stephen are leaving anyway. Go someplace and get a job. I can’t make it out here all by myself. Don’t like to admit it, but it’s true. Without Bobby, it won’t be any good anyway. And we don’t have anything. Bobby liked living hand to mouth, but I can’t stand the stress. I’ve got to make some real money. You’re not going to make him look bad, are you, McMorrow?”
“I’ll just make him look like he was.”
“There was a lot of good in the guy. You talked to him.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, he was very funny. All this energy. And coming up here, it was, like, it was this big adventure. When we first got here, we had some funny times. We were so big-city, trying to figure out the locals. I mean, some people, we couldn’t even understand what they were saying.”
Melanie smiled.
“I heard about some of the things that happened before you came here,” I said.
She turned, her mouth a hard straight line.
“It was a long time ago.”
“I know that.”
“Why do you have to bring that up?”
“Because it’s part of the story. It’s part of the story of who Bobby was.”
“It’s a very small part.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“Then why do you have to bring it up?”
“Because it’s true. I can’t leave it out.”
“It was ten years ago. That’s gonna make everybody think—”
“That he was a drug dealer.”
“Yeah,” Melanie said.
“By some definitions, he was. Selling pot. Arrested with eight ounces of cocaine.”
“That’s ancient history, McMorrow. We were kids.”
“But it’s part of your history.”
“Not anymore.”
“Is that why you came up here? To get away from the dealers down there?”
“We had to leave. I mean, it was either go or die. Half the people we knew from those days are dead now. I had Stephen. I had to—McMorrow, why do you have to trash him? He’s dead, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not going to trash him. I liked him in a lot of ways.”
“But, Jesus, going back ten years?”
“It’s part of the picture. All the little pieces. On the way here, I stopped in Madison and talked to all these guys. They said good things about Bobby, about how he was really trying to help them, how he was a victim of the system. Roberta and her condition and all that. I stopped and talked to the dentist. He told me how many times he’s had to do this. It all goes in. It’s all part of—”
Melanie had looked away. She was swallowing hard, like her mouth was dry and gummy.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure. It’s just—the dentist, McMorrow? I don’t know. I’ve still got to go to him. He’s gonna think I’m the worst—”
“No, he won’t. He was a very nice guy. Very chatty. He didn’t seem to be judging Bobby at all. We talked, he told me about how somebody broke into the office next door—”
Melanie’s face suddenly paled. She turned and lifted herself up into the truck and said, “I gotta go,” and started the motor. Then she turned the wheel hard and wrenched the truck through a U-turn and drove off.
I walked to my truck and got in and sat there and didn’t feel so good myself.
28
Sitting in my truck on the cemetery grass, I pictured it again and again. One moment Melanie had been holding her ground for Bobby, saying I shouldn’t trash him, and then the blood had drained from her face like it had been sucked out with a syringe.
No, I had been talking about Sam and Roberta and the dentist when something had pulled the plug.
Melanie had been physically overcome, but not by grief. She seemed more concerned about preserving her husband’s reputation than about mourning his death, or the last gruesome hours of his life.
Did they hold him down and break his arms and legs with a baseball bat? Had they strangled him and then beaten him? Did they pound him and then just toss him in the backseat and torch the car? Did Bobby scream and writhe in terror as the flames crawled over him?
If the answer was yes to any of the above, where was the horror? Why did Melanie act as though her husband had been hit by a truck while walking the dog?
I didn’t know.
The funeral broke up like a softball game and everyone retreated to their respective nooks and crannies of Somerset County, Maine. I drove east, up and over the hills and across the Kennebec River and back into Madison. At the light on the end of Main Street, I stopped and sat, my conversation with Melanie replaying in my mind.
I’d told her I’d talked to Roberta. I’d told her I’d talked to the dentist.
The light changed and I turned left, drove as far as the dentist’s building, and pulled up across the street and stopped. The dentist’s sign loomed over the sign for the accountant, which said MARION TOOSE, CPA. The accountant’s sign was small and unde
rstated. Why would anyone break into an accountant’s office? What small-town punk would have been in the accountant’s office to know about a computer or a printer? Why haul all that stuff out and not even open the door to the dentist’s office?
If that was true.
I drove down the block and turned around and headed back toward Main Street. On the right was a low brick building, the town office. A sign on the side said the police station was in the rear. I drove around back and parked and went inside.
There was a small gray-haired woman sitting at a desk behind a wooden Dutch door, the bottom of which was closed. Behind her was a display case full of drug paraphernalia. I said hello and she asked if she could help me. I said I was a reporter and needed information on a burglary. She asked if I was from the Bangor Daily or the Morning Sentinel and I said, no, the Boston Globe. She gave me a closer look.
“You’ll have to talk to the chief,” she said.
“Is she available?”
I smiled. She looked even closer.
“He’s on the road.”
“Could you call him?”
“I think he’s out of the car on an investigation. I could have him call you.”
I thought for a moment.
“I’ll be on my way back to Portland. Maybe you could just tell me something. Just to confirm what I’ve been told.”
She didn’t say yes but she didn’t say no.
“The dentist. Dr. Pelham. He was telling me about the break-in at his building. How they broke into the accountant’s office but didn’t even come into his. Does that sound right?”
The woman wavered.
“I’m not going to quote you. I just don’t want to quote him if he’s got it all wrong. They took a computer. A printer.”
“And some change,” the woman said.
“But they didn’t bother with the dentist’s office?”
“That sounds right. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Of course not. That’s fine; I just needed to know that he got it sort of straight. It’s not that important. I was talking to him about something else and it came up. You know, crime in a small town.”
“We keep busy. Chief’s right out straight.”
