EQMM, Sep-Oct 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I wasn't sure what I was looking for. Maybe a pile of bones. Maybe a series of graveyards. Maybe a signed confession in a bottle sitting on top of a rock. You never know. But all I saw was a beautiful New Hampshire field and in the distance, the eastern peaks of the White Mountains.

  I was admiring the view so much that I didn't look where I was going, so of course I tripped over something and fell flat on my face.

  I got up, cursing some at the cuts and scrapes on my hands. Grass is delicate and beautiful, except when it's long and when you fall into it. Then it can be as sharp as razor blades.

  I looked at what had tripped me up, and found an old concrete post, sticking out of the ground about two feet. In the center of the post was a square section where I poked at a chunk of rotten wood. Interesting. I got up and walked some more, and damn if I didn't trip again and fall down. I stayed there for a moment, to see if anyone was around laughing at me, but all I heard were birds and the low whirr of insects, so I got up. Post number two looked exactly like post number one. I got back down on my hands and knees and went exploring.

  In less than five minutes, I had found a dozen such posts, located in a rectangle.

  Making my way to the woodline, I snapped off a piece of pine branch and swept the grass in front of me, and in another hour on Shay's Meadow, I found about a dozen rectangles, each made up of a dozen concrete posts.

  I sat on one of the posts and thought for a while, wondering about mass murder and this peaceful place. I stared at the slow-moving river for quite a while, until the mosquitoes finally drove me home.

  * * * *

  The next day I waited in the bureau until deadline had passed and Rita Cloutier had gone out for lunch. That left me and Monty Hughes. Monty was somewhere between forty and fifty and lived alone in an apartment on the north side of town. He had a good-sized beer gut and wore black slacks and white long-sleeve shirts in winter and white short-sleeve shirts in summer. His black hair was slicked back and never touched his shirt collar, and the color of his hair matched both his moustache and frames of his eyeglasses.

  Each morning and each afternoon he would smoke a single cigarette at his desk, as he worked on audit numbers or made phone calls. Not once had I ever seen him get upset, and believe me, newspaper circulation manager is another description for lightning rod. Dealing with irate customers, lazy paperboys and papergirls, and irritated parents who can't believe that their hardworking sons and daughters would dump newspapers in shrubbery instead of doorways would drive many a man to shaky hands and blurry eyes. But not Monty. He'd just nod and listen to all the rants and raves, and go about his business.

  His business included more than just the Granite Times. Monty was one of those unsung and nearly invisible people who keep a small town like this one alive. He served on the conservation commission, the zoning board, the local Boy Scout council, and for my purposes today, he was head of the Boston Falls Historical Society.

  When Monty had snubbed out his single cigarette of the afternoon, I called over to him. “Got a sec for a question, Monty?"

  "Sure, sport, go ahead,” he said, going through a handful of papers on his desk.

  "Got a question about something historical, thought it might be right up your alley."

  "And what's the question?"

  "Shay's Meadow, out by the gravel pit on Timberswamp Road. What was there before?"

  Monty kept his eyes on his papers. “Before what?"

  "Before all that was left was the concrete posts. I was up there yesterday and found all these concrete posts, in some sort of pattern. They looked like footings for buildings. What kind of structures used to be there?"

  Monty's voice didn't change. “And why were you up on Shay's Meadow?"

  Voice change or not, I didn't like the question. “Just wandering around. So what was there? Buildings belonging to the town? A farm? A business?"

  A small shake of the head. “Don't rightly know, Jack. Sorry, I can't help you."

  I leaned across my desk. “Oh, come on, Monty. You've grown up here, you know everybody in town, you've been with the historical society for years. What do you mean, you don't know?"

  "Just what I said. I don't know."

  "Monty..."

  He looked up at me, his face expressionless. “Tell me, sport. Who killed JFK?"

  "Hunh?” By now I was equal parts confused and frustrated, a mixture I didn't like.

  "You heard me. The most powerful man in the world was shot and killed before a movie camera and dozens and dozens of witnesses, including Secret Service agents, government officials, and members of the news media. All of this took place on November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three. So tell me. Who killed him?"

  I said, “Lee Harvey Oswald."

  Monty nodded. “An easy answer. But you know the truth. Hundreds of books and dozens of TV specials and movies have all been made around that single question: Who killed the President? And despite all that occurred, despite the movie camera and all those witnesses, nobody can agree on who did the shooting, why the shooting occurred, and how many shots were fired."

  "Nice little lesson, Monty, but—"

  He interrupted me. “So listen here, sport. If all that's true, that something so violent could happen in public to such an important man, then don't go telling me that I should know everything here in Boston Falls. Small towns like their secrets and they manage to keep them nice and tight. Which means not everything's out there for answers."

  I had a thought. “Are you telling me you don't know what's out there, or you do know and won't tell me?"

  Monty went back to his paperwork. “Don't be offended, sport, but what I'm telling you is that you're just like every other young man and woman who's sat at that desk. You roll in here with your college degree and fresh ideas, full of energy and enthusiasm, and you go through this town, stirring things up and writing your stories. Not a problem, if any of you would learn what this town is about and how the people live here, year after year. Nope, all you reporters care about is making your mark and then moving on."

  "That's the way the business is, Monty. You know that."

  "Yeah, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. Rita's been here ten years, I've been here eleven. You know the longest duration of any reporter that's stayed here? Ten months, that's all. Not even a full year. Not even time to learn enough about the people here and show the proper respect. So there you have it, sport. Anything else?"

  "Yeah,” I said, turning to my computer terminal. “Don't call me sport anymore."

  For a moment it looked as if he might smile. “All right, Jack."

  * * * *

  Later that night, after having dinner by myself in my apartment in Boston Falls, I went out on the tiny rear deck that probably added about fifty dollars a month to my rent. In Manchester, I had lived in a condo complex downtown, where the old mill buildings were being rejuvenated with fresh money and fresh people. I hardly ever ate dinner by myself back then. My usual schedule included drinks and get-togethers after work with my fellow reporters, editors, and whatnot from the paper. Sometimes, if I was very lucky, one of those fellow newspaper types would come back and visit me at my rented condo, with its high cathedral ceilings and great views of the renewed waterfront.

  Here, my colleagues were Rita and Monty, neither of whom seemed particularly interested in seeing me after work—and to be truthful, I shared their disinterest. Now dinner was a frozen pizza, cooked in an oven that had to be nursed along, since its temperatures varied widely according to the time of day. My apartment was one of four in a building that had been built in the early 1800's, before the concept of insulation and soundproofing. The apartment next-door was occupied by a mother and daughter on public assistance who seemed to get great joy from yelling at one another. One of the apartments downstairs was rented by a little old lady who loved action movies, and since she was hard of hearing, she liked to play them so loud that each explosion and machine gun burst would make the walls shake
. The other apartment downstairs was rented by a young couple with three children, trying to make a go of it by working at the mills, and while they were fine, children can be children.

  Which is why I spent a lot of my free time at home sitting on the tiny rear deck, looking at the dirt parking lot that abutted Tony's Towing and Auto Salvage. A funny thing: often I would do a story about a car accident and see the crumpled remains on one of the town's twisty roads, and by the time I got home, Tony would be there, backing in the same crushed debris.

  But there was no such entertainment tonight. Just me, sulking, nursing a Sam Adams beer. Earlier today, after my frustrating conversation with Monty, I had made phone calls to other people I knew in Boston Falls. The town clerk. The three selectmen. Members of the zoning board and planning board. Other members of the town's historical society. And it was like a computer virus had suddenly spread to all of them, affecting their memories. Not one knew anything about what had been up at Shay's Meadow. Not one.

  So what was going on?

  I took a swallow of my brew. Let's look at the facts. Our mysterious Tuesday caller claims that he's responsible for killing a number of people. This week, however, he slips in an extra piece of information. That this dreadful event had occurred up on Shay's Meadow. On Shay's Meadow are the remains of what look like concrete footings for structures of some kind. But the police chief and about every other breathing individual in this town claims no knowledge of what had been up there.

  Yeah, right. Facts.

  There were other facts as well, a little voice inside of me said. Right? Right. Like the boxes of books, clothing, and other personal belongings piled up in my spare bedroom. No time to unpack since moving here, or no interest? Monty was right. We're here to make our mark, make the editors down south forget about the foul-up that exiled us here. We're not here to serve the people in this town, to learn who they are or what they do. Nope, we're here to feed off of them, until we can go back to an office with a door and a condo with a swimming pool in the complex.

  And while we're looking at facts, Mr. Drinking-a-Beer-All-Alone, how many of your wonderful friends and acquaintances down south have been up here to meet you since your exile?

  Easy answer: none.

  Exiled from what you thought was your home, and ending up at a place where you didn't fit in. I finished my beer and thought some more, as the mother-and-daughter team next-door started yelling about whose turn it was this week to clean the bathroom.

  Facts. Didn't mean I particularly liked any of them.

  The next day at my desk, I sent off an e-mail before I did anything else, and then did the usual grunt work of the morning: calling the fire departments and police departments in the local towns as well as the county dispatch center to see if anything interesting had happened overnight. The first few weeks after I arrived in Boston Falls, I insisted on driving around and looking at all of the logs myself, because I couldn't see trusting any of these people to tell me what was going on. I quickly found out how stupid I had been: The people in these towns are proud of what their departments do, and they want stories about them to appear in the newspaper. Not like other places I'd worked, where it sometimes took a court order and a crowbar to get information.

  After writing a small piece about a chimney fire that night in Denson and a car accident involving a deer and a pickup truck (score: truck 1, deer 0), I found a reply to my e-mail. And this reply actually frightened me for how simple it was:

  * * * *

  FROM: mwilliams@granitetimes.com

  TO: jspooner@granitetimes.com

  SUBJECT: Re: Your tenure—You wrote: Dear Mindy, Jack Spooner up here in Boston Falls. Hope you're enjoying your time in Manchester. Quick question. While you were up here, did you get any odd phone calls on a weekly basis? Thanks, Jack—

  Jack—

  * * * *

  Do you mean my Tuesday killer? Yep, every Tuesday, some wacko would call, saying he had killed a bunch of people. Spent a few hours trying to track him down, gave it up after a while. Just hung up on him when he called. Sorry about how you got up to my old job. Tell Rita I said hi. If Monty remembers who I am, tell him I said hi as well.

  —Mindy

  * * * *

  So. I quickly deleted the message and pretended to look through my desk drawers for something as I thought about what I had just read. Simple and to the point. I hadn't been the first recipient of the phantom caller's confessions. My predecessor had received his calls as well.

  I looked up at Rita, busily typing up classified ads to send south, and over at Monty, on the phone with some subscriber upset at some damn thing. Rita and Monty. I had been here four months and thought I knew them both pretty well. Monty and his whole history of being a townie and the circulation manager. Rita, of an undeterminable age, widowed when her husband got caught in some machinery at the leather mill a few years back. Didn't seem to mind being a widow, and told me once that she started dating enthusiastically exactly one year after the funeral of her husband. Rita and Monty were friendly enough to me, gave me news tips, even sometimes intervened when something delicate came along—like the time a promising high-school boy got killed in a car accident and I needed a picture for the paper, and Monty took care of it.

  I'd thought I knew them both pretty well. But now I knew I didn't know them one damn bit.

  * * * *

  Later that day I went to the Boston Falls Free Library, just up the street from the town hall and police station. It's open from noon to five, Tuesday through Saturday, and struggles along by the generosity of the town's taxpayers and those who donate books. I'm slightly embarrassed to say that this particular visit was only my second since moving to town; the first was the week I arrived in Boston Falls, when I came by to get a library card.

  Today I went to the card catalog and identified the book I was looking for, and went to the shelves. I checked the Dewey Decimal number that I had written down on a paper scrap, and checked again. Gone.

  At the front table an older gentleman looked up at me from his copy of National Geographic magazine. Nate something or other, the town librarian.

  "Yes?” he said, pulling his glasses up to his eyes.

  "I'm looking for a copy of a book,” I said. “It's called Boston Falls, 1700-1970: A History."

  "Ah yes,” he said, smiling slightly. “I'm afraid it's been checked out."

  "The card catalog said there were two copies available. Have both been checked out?"

  "Yes, it does look that way, doesn't it?"

  I tried to keep my voice even. “Any idea when either of them will come back?"

  A slight shrug of his thin shoulders. “This is a small-town library, son. Nice, friendly place. I guess those books will come back when the people that have them are finished."

  Then he went back to his magazine, and I went outside. Strange that both copies of the book that I was looking for had disappeared.

  Almost as strange as the town librarian knowing what books had been checked out without looking at his own card system.

  * * * *

  I had a drink with the police chief after my interesting visit to the library. It sounds quite delicious and intriguing, a drink with the police chief, except it was a can of Diet Coke for her and a real Coke for me while we sat in her police cruiser, running radar on Route 4, the only state road through town.

  It was warm and I noticed how thin strands of Connie's hair were escaping from her short ponytail to delicately adhere to her smooth cheek. But I kept things under control and asked her, “Why did you come back here?"

  "What do you mean?” she said, balancing the can on her knee. Her uniform pants leg stretched up and I caught a glimpse of tanned shin and had a quick and enjoyable thought of how she might have looked in a bathing suit while on vacation.

  "I mean, you told me you went to college down south at UNH, got a degree in sociology, and then entered police work. With a good record and with a lot of departments in this state tryin
g to hire more women, why come back to Boston Falls?"

  She grinned at me. “Because it's home, silly."

  Well, duh. “I know it's home, but there has to be more than that."

  "Really? Jack, tell me more of how you became a reporter and how you ended up here. Without telling me the dark secret about your exile."

  I rubbed my thumb across the metal top of the can. “Not much to say. Grew up an only child in one of those northern suburbs of Boston. Majored in English at UMass Amherst, found out quickly that teaching English to kids more interested in dating or the Internet wasn't my bag. Worked a few more years as a tech writer for a couple of companies, and found out that trying to turn engineering English into real English also wasn't my bag. Then I thought I'd try my hand at newspaper work. Worked on a couple of weeklies and small dailies, and then ended up at the Granite Times. End of career story."

  "So,” she said, “how many places have you lived since college?"

  I shrugged. “Eight, maybe nine."

  "Are your parents still in Massachusetts?"

  "Both retired, living out in Arizona, enjoying their second or third childhood by now. I've lost count.” Then, I don't know why I said it, but I did. Maybe it was her interrogatory skills. “Truth is, Connie, I think they're quite glad that I'm out and about and on my own, and that they have no other children to care about. It's like I was a mistake or something, or that after I came along, they decided parenthood wasn't for them. In any event, we all seem quite content with the occasional postcard and letter, and phone calls on Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Christmas."

  "Uh-huh,” she said, and a car sped by and her radar detector bleeped, but she didn't bother looking at the numeral readout to see if the car had in fact been speeding. “Let me tell you my own story, for comparison's sake, nothing else. I grew up here and knew the names and backgrounds of all my neighbors and relatives, including third cousins. I can go into High Point cemetery and find the graves of my ancestors who came here in the 1700's. I could go to the Founder's Day Festival and know the name and address of everyone there. That's what it was like, growing up in Boston Falls."