December Boys (Jay Porter Series)

by Joe Clifford

  “Hello,” he said, reaching over the table for a respectful handshake. “Fisher.”

  I was relieved they didn’t already know each other, given the conspiratorial vibe enveloping the table.

  “Just Fisher?” she responded, teasing. “No first name?”

  “Nah, when you’re this big, the one is enough. I’m like Sting.”

  Nicki returned a dumbfounded stare.

  “He’s a singer—”

  “I’m messing with you. I know who The Police are.” Then she turned to me. “And I’ve seen Fatal Attraction.” Her voice went up a shrill octave. “I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan.”

  “Okay, Fisher,” I said. “What’s this all about? Charlie dragged me out here. There’s a storm blowing in. I had to call Nicki for a ride—”

  “That case you’re looking into,” Fisher said.

  “I’m not looking into any case. In fact, I’m not even working at NEI anymore.”

  “Neither am I.”

  I looked to Charlie, who shrugged.

  “Since when?”

  “I don’t know. Last summer?”

  “No one told me.”

  Fisher snorted. “Why would anyone tell you, Porter?”

  Good question. We weren’t close, almost never spoke. We worked in different locations, hours away. Our paths seldom crossed, our mutual friend Charlie is all we had in common. Still, Charlie might’ve mentioned it. Maybe he had. Given my recent move and marriage, Charlie and I hadn’t been spending as much time together, this past week notwithstanding. And it seemed whenever we did meet up copious amounts of alcohol were usually involved.

  Fisher nodded at me. “Fired?”

  “I assume so. I told Andy DeSouza to get fucked.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “Did he actually say you were fired?”

  “I hung up before he had the chance.”

  “And you didn’t quit?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Fisher brushed me off. “Like you’re the only one to tell Andy DeSouza to get bent. Porter, if they canned everyone who did that there wouldn’t be anyone left to work up there. Trust me, DeSouza’s a babysitter. A minor league manager. Concord knows what you did. Hell, I heard about it. I still have friends there.”

  Nicki acted impressed, like Fisher’s props improved my status in her eyes. Why did I care what this college girl thought of me?

  “I didn’t do anything,” I explained to everyone at the table. “Brian Olisky blurted out he’d been behind the wheel.”

  “Yeah, and you saved NEI like ten gee.”

  Funny how that number kept going up. “Doesn’t matter. Whatever good grace I banked, I’ve pissed away. I shouldn’t have been up at North River in the first place. DeSouza forbade me from looking further into the Olisky case.”

  “Andy DeSouza is a pussy. I’m telling you. You want Concord, it’s still a possibility.”

  “How do you even know about any of this? I thought you left NEI. Why do you care?”

  Both Fisher and Charlie had the same shit-eating grins on their faces. I hadn’t been imagining it. Something was up. “Okay, spit it out. What’s going on?”

  “So remember last year,” Fisher said, “at your brother’s funeral, how you told me to drop investigating Lombardi?”

  “Yeah.” How could I forget?

  “I didn’t.”

  Fisher dug around in his satchel and retrieved a rubber-banded binder. Like my own collection of clippings and chicken-scratch. Only his was bigger. Fisher had clearly been doing his homework. He dropped the stack with authority on the countertop, parting papers earmarked with color-coded Post-its.

  “I was talking to Charlie this afternoon,” Fisher began, focus waning as he multi-tasked. “He told me how you two had been chased off by security guards at North River. Something rang a bell. Knew I’d seen that name before.”

  “Hold on,” I said.

  He stopped riffling and peered up at me through his round, hippy lenses.

  I pointed at his pile of papers. “What is all that?”

  “Research. Since leaving NEI, I’ve devoted a great deal of time to this.”

  “This being investigating the Lombardis?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When I’d asked you not to?” I turned to Charlie, who refused to meet my eye. He’d known all about Fisher’s continuing to dig around and hadn’t said a word.

  “So I didn’t listen to you, Porter. Shoot me.”

  I made to stand up, an empty threat, since Nicki had driven me. Boxing me in, she wasn’t budging.

  “Hold on,” Charlie said. “Hear him out.”

  I reluctantly sat back down.

  Fisher found his damning evidence, slipping the page, a cheesy entertainer in Atlantic City plucking the perfect card. He tapped the magic word.

  There it was, clear and bold: UpStart.

  “What’s UpStart?” Nicki asked.

  “You never told her about Lombardi’s charity project?” Fisher said.

  “No,” I answered without looking at her. “Why would I? We’re not dating.”

  “Last year,” Fisher explained to Nicki, “we—Charlie, Jay, and I—had a run-in with a family up here. The Lombardis. Very influential.” Fisher glanced my way. “Some crazy stuff happened—I’ll let Jay fill you in on the rest since it involved his brother—but UpStart’s their baby. The organization is presently financing a campaign, funneling a great deal of money your way.”

  “Whose way?” I said.

  Fisher motioned at Nicki. “She works at the Longmont County Courthouse, right?”

  Nicki nodded, omitting the minor detail that she, too, had recently been canned. “What kind of charity?” she asked.

  “UpStart’s a nonprofit for at-risk youth up here,” I said. “This guy Gerry Lombardi ran it. Before my brother died, Chris accused Gerry of some pervy shit with kids. Said he had pictures.”

  “Did he?” Nicki asked. “Have pictures, I mean.”

  “My brother was pretty far gone by then, but yeah. Blurry ones on a stolen computer. Couldn’t prove jack.”

  “Sure looked like Gerry,” Charlie muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Gerry’s dead.”

  “Right,” Fisher said. “And now UpStart belongs to his sons, Adam and Michael.”

  “You know Adam doesn’t even live up here anymore?” I said, parroting what Charlie had told me. “Relocated his whole family south. Sold the business.”

  “No shit,” Fisher said. “I live in Concord. Who do you think told Finn that?” He pointed at a sheepish Charlie, before deciding he’d have better luck with Nicki. “In terms of detention centers, North River’s a gray area, right? Stuck between private and public? The state pumps in some money, matching family obligations, the rest comes via donations, local nonprofits, etcetera.”

  She nodded.

  “How do you know about any of this?” I asked him.

  “I told you,” Fisher repeated. “I’ve been investigating. It’s in my files.”

  Charlie flapped his arms, trying to flag down a waitress.

  “Your files,” I said. “So what? You turned pro?”

  “No,” said Fisher. “I am taking a few journalism courses over at Tech, though.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. But you asked what I was up to.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about some community college class you’re enrolled in. I mean why do you care about North River? You’re not at NorthEastern Insurance anymore.” I stopped. “And even if you were, this doesn’t concern NEI anyway.”

  “UpStart,” Fisher said.

  “What about them?”

  “They bankroll diversion programs. And one of the big ones is North River.”

  “Big deal. It’s nonprofit. No one’s making money. That’s what nonprofit means.”

  “That’s not true,” Nicki said.

  “Hu
h?”

  “Nonprofit. The term doesn’t mean what most people think it does.”

  “I know you can’t turn a profit or you start paying taxes.” I might not have had a business degree but I knew that much.

  “Right,” said Nicki. “And one of the ways a place like North River doesn’t turn a profit is by paying their officers and staff exorbitant salaries.”

  Fisher reached into his bag of goodies and plucked another page, sharing it with the class. Nicki staggered over the six-figure salaries, whistling low.

  “Just gotta stay out of the black,” Fisher said. “Any money you make, you funnel back in to the product. Trick is to always be losing.”

  “Like Brewster’s Millions,” Charlie said, proud of himself for having contributed to the conversation.

  “Plenty of other ways to keep cash off the books,” Fisher said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Old-fashioned kickbacks.”

  “Bribes? To who?”

  “Judge Roberts, for one,” Fisher said.

  “Wait. You’re telling me you have proof UpStart is paying off Roberts? For what? To send kids to a facility that they pay into? How is that a sustainable business model?”

  “Yes. And no,” Fisher said.

  “Yes and no what?”

  “No. I don’t have proof connecting UpStart to Roberts. Not directly. Adam and Michael Lombardi are too smart to leave behind blatant paper trails. If there’s bank records or wire transfers connecting payoffs to judges, you better believe that money has been funneled six ways to Sunday. They’ll launder that shit until every dime sparkles and not a cent can be traced back. But I can tell you why UpStart would be so interested in increasing enrollment—”

  “They want to drum up public support for a new private juvenile facility,” Nicki said.

  “Glad someone is following along.”

  I stared at her.

  “It’s been the talk of the courthouse since I signed on. The drug epidemic out of control and all that. Some very vocal proponents want to privatize. Think about the revenue stream. You’re always assured customers.”

  Charlie wrinkled his brow like he understood what was going on. Even if he had been listening to Fisher behind the scenes I knew he was as lost as I was. The waitress stopped at our table and Charlie ordered a basket of wings. His coping mechanism for confusion: eat through the uncertainty.

  “The way these places work,” Nicki said, outlining North River’s enrollment figures on a spreadsheet, “diversion programs are, like, alternative sentencing, right? Kind of state-funded. Kind of privately financed. Families kick in, but they still get a huge chunk from investors. According to your friend Fisher, UpStart is one of those investors.”

  “We’re not friends.”

  Fisher appeared hurt.

  “And so what?”

  “Don’t you think it’s weird?” she asked.

  “What? That UpStart, one of New Hampshire’s biggest organizations dealing with at-risk youth, would support a residential facility that houses at-risk youth?”

  All eyes fell on me. But Charlie was the one who spoke up. “Jay, you’ve been hoping for proof that Lombardi’s guilty.”

  “Yeah. On molestation charges. Not creative bookkeeping. I’m not interested in revisionist history. Besides the old man is dead. And you, Charlie, told me I was nuts any time I brought it up.” I could already see Jenny’s eyes rolling if I pressed the need to pursue this further.

  “It’s not just North River,” Fisher said, taking another crack. He laid out names and numbers on Excel sheets, northern New Hampshire divided up by county and jurisdiction. Courthouses and judges on one side, sentences meted out on the other.

  Nicki grabbed the page and spun it in her direction, pointing at a line item halfway down. “These are the figures from the district, how many kids Longmont—and in particular Judge Roberts—has sent away to the North River Institute. Look at this, Jay.” She kept her finger on the line. “Can you see the increase in the last six months alone? The uptick over the past year is insane. Read those charges. Public intoxication? Truancy? Loitering? Possession raps tacked on to slap-on-the-wrist tickets, and those kids end up behind bars. They are padding numbers, big time.”

  I saw that Roberts’ conviction rates had skyrocketed of late, a majority sentenced to North River, and over nothing much at all—but one and one wasn’t amounting to jack shit. Not without some endgame prize.

  “You’re telling me the Lombardi brothers are financing this whole project, trying to sell out seats at North River. Okay. Why? What’s their play?”

  Fisher cast a knowing glance. This was the news he’d been waiting to spring, the real reason he’d summoned me on a dark and stormy night.

  He pulled out a folded newspaper, the late edition I hadn’t gotten around to reading. He pushed it across the table to me.

  Law to Privatize New Hampshire’s Prison System Expected to Pass.

  I skimmed the article. The proposed facility would cover more than just New Hampshire; the rest of New England’s most dangerous weed-smoking scourge would be housed as well. I got to the meaty section: the who, the what . . . the where.

  UpStart headed a group of investors preparing to build the state’s largest private prison. And the proposed site for the massive juvenile detention center? The newly available TC Truck Stop on the edge of my hometown.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “THIS IS JUST like Big Daddy,” Charlie said.

  He was behind the wheel of his old Subaru hatchback beater, half maroon, half-rusted piece of shit with long gashes and cigarette holes in the upholstery. The car belonged to his mom before she died. When Charlie lost the phone company gig, he lost the company van too, dragging this monstrosity off the automotive graveyard and back into action.

  The latest forecast didn’t have the blizzard wreaking havoc until much later. We had plenty of time to get out in front of the storm. I argued that as long as we were here, might as well check out the families in town. Nicki and Fisher went to call on a couple kids on the other side of the mountain, while Charlie and I paid a visit to the parents of Wendy Shaw, the sixteen-year-old girl who’d been locked up over a year for defending a gay classmate. One of the things I’d gleaned from my year as an investigator: people have a much easier time hanging up a phone than they do slamming a door. Plus I knew if we called it a night, Nicki would be the one taking me home to Plasterville. Empty house. Late at night. The heels of rejection on the precipice of a disaster, I didn’t want to deal with temptation. Fat guys on diets don’t walk past the cake shop.

  “Remember, from The Simpsons?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you are talking about, Charlie.”

  “The fake spin-off featuring Chief Wiggum as a private investigator in Louisiana?”

  I tried to read route numbers as we snaked through the twists of the mountain. Fat flakes started to fall, lullabying through headlights. The engine was hot enough to melt them on impact, but the soft, fluffy down had begun to slick the roadways. Still several hours till midnight, I wondered if the forecast had gotten it wrong.

  “The Simpsons,” Charlie said. “It’s a cartoon. Been on television over twenty years—”

  “I’m aware of The Simpsons, yes. What the hell does that have to do with any of this?” I’d grown up in these mountains. You’d think I’d be able to find my way around in the dark by now. The Ashton foothills were nothing but a labyrinth of secret alcoves and hiding spots.

  “It’s an episode. On The Simpsons. ‘Chief Wiggum, PI.’ But a pretend show. It’s not real.”

  “None of it’s real. It’s a fucking cartoon.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Charlie said, growing exasperated. “You remember Chief Wiggum? Y’know, the fat, dumb Springfield cop?” He chuckled to himself. “Kinda like Turley.”

  “Make your point, man.”

  “It’s a spin-off, dude. Troy McClure hosts. Principal Skinner is ‘Ski
nny Boy.’ Wiggum’s kid—what’s his name? Wrote the Valentine’s Day card to Lisa—I choo-choo-choose you? Ralph!” Charlie chuckled over the funny memory. “Every week’s episode features the same villain, this New Orleans kingpin, Big Daddy. Get it?”

  “No.”

  “Lombardi is Big Daddy.”

  “You’re an idiot, Charlie.”

  The inside of his car smelled like a rat had died in a bag of McDonald’s french fries. At least we could smoke. I lit a cigarette with an old Zippo I found in the ashtray.

  “It’s a good analogy,” Charlie said, softly. “Why are you so pissy?”

  “I don’t know, man. How about because you’ve been busting my balls a whole year? Anytime I’d mention the Lombardis, you’d give me hell, while the entire time you knew Fisher was playing Hardy Boys on the sly, investigating shit I’d asked you to drop.”

  “I wouldn’t call it investigating. More like—”

  “What?”

  “A hobby.”

  “A hobby I asked you both to drop.”

  “Like you dropped it?”

  “You didn’t have to make me sound nuts any time I brought it up.”

  “I didn’t want you driving yourself crazy. Last winter tore you up, man. I saw how rough that was on you. Sure, I knew Fisher was still poking around, but not the extent of it. Obsessing over this wasn’t helping you any. I didn’t want you blowing a good thing. You had the family. A good job.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I figured if Fisher ever stumbled on something worthwhile, I’d bring it to you then. Until that time well, y’know.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Before North River popped up on the map, I honestly didn’t think he’d find anything.” Charlie dug out a cigarette. “I’m never getting those things.”

  “What things?”

  “A Jenny. An Aiden. A family.” He squinted to find a path in the darkness. “I see the way people look at me. At the Dubliner. Around town. You.”

  “Forget about it, man.”

  “I’m never leaving this place. I’m getting fat, losing my hair. I drink too much. Shit, I know I peaked in high school. It’s cool. But I’m not meeting a nice girl at the bar and settling down. I’ll die alone.”