by Bryan Gruley
Joanie stood and reached for my mother. “That’s enough,” she said.
My nerves felt as if they might poke through my skin. What could I tell them that would make them all happy? What did I really know that they didn’t know already? Nothing had changed since Dingus marched me into that cell. Except, perhaps, this thing about Dufresne. I couldn’t get that signature-Francis J. Dufresne-out of my mind.
“You’re wasting your time,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Stop being sorry,” Mom said. “Everyone is sick of it.”
Darlene held the door for Mom. Joanie stayed.
“Remember that priest at my high school?” she said.
“What priest? What about him?”
“Here.” She pulled a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and set it on her chair. “Not that any of this matters anymore,” she said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I said, but Darlene took Joanie by the sleeve and ushered her and Mom away.
I lay back on the slab and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t sleep. Soon Joanie and Tawny Jane would be opening those FedEx deliveries. I wondered if Tawny Jane would come to the jail looking to interview me. Maybe I’d be gone to Detroit by then.
I sat up and grabbed the paper Joanie had left. It was a photocopy of a story that had run in the Daily Press of Escanaba, Michigan, three months earlier:
“No way,” I said.
“What?” Darlene said. She was still standing outside.
“Nothing.”
I understood that the suspect was the very same Jeff Champagne who had played for the River Rats. I did not want to believe that the cop was Billy Hooper. There had to be a lot of William Hoopers in Michigan.
Darlene opened the cell door and stepped inside. “Come on, Gus,” she said. “You don’t really want to go back to Detroit.”
“Call off the state boys.”
“It’s not up to us, it’s up to you.”
“I’ve done what I can. You’ll see. What time is it anyway?”
She looked at her watch. “Time to go.”
“Go where?”
“Leo’s funeral.”
“Right. Tell everyone I said hello. And to watch for the Pilot tomorrow.”
“You can tell them yourself. Let’s go.”
She was serious.
“Come on, we’re going to be late.”
“Dingus said I could go?”
She came over and seized me by the elbow. “The hell with Dingus,” she said.
She steered the sheriff’s cruiser along Route 816 away from town and turned north on Ladensack Road. I sat in the backseat and gazed out the window. Darlene had squirreled me out of the jail and grabbed a sheriff’s parka for me out of another car. As we passed Jungle of the North, I remembered turning there to go to Perlmutter’s place and asked where we were going. Darlene didn’t so much as look at me. Another mile ahead, she pulled onto the shoulder, stopped, and shut off the ignition. Seven or eight other cars and trucks were parked there, including my mother’s Jeep.
Darlene got out and came around and opened my door.
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” I said.
“Not if you do the right thing.”
She yanked me out and told me to wait on the shoulder. “Darlene,” I said, “what’s going on?” But she ignored me again and got back into the driver’s seat and snatched up her radio transmitter. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but there was something urgent in the way she shook and nodded her head. She hung up and got out and came around to me with a key in her hand.
“I’m going to take the cuffs off for now,” she said. “Don’t blow it.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Maybe I’m giving you one last chance.”
We crossed the road and followed a path of freshly trod footsteps that wound through the woods. We emerged in a clearing where a dozen people stood in a circle around a patch of frozen brown earth from which the snow had been dug away. At the center of the patch lay a crude red-and-white container that I would later learn had been fashioned from a scrap of steel cut from the bumper of Ethel, Leo’s Zamboni. It was filled with Leo’s cremated remains.
In their search of Leo’s home, the police had found another, typewritten note in which he had requested that his ashes be scattered on the spot where he and Blackburn had built their midnight bonfires. Leo wasn’t an ironic man, and I couldn’t imagine now that his nostalgia for those nights had been anything but bittersweet. But Blackburn had been his best friend, after all. So there we were: Wilf; Zilchy; Tatch; Elvis Bontrager and Floyd Kepsel and their wives; Francis Dufresne; Judge Gallagher; and my mother, leaning against Joanie. Darlene steered me to the side of the circle facing Elvis and Dufresne. Every one of them looked me over.
“Sorry,” Darlene said. “Please continue.”
“No trouble, darling,” Elvis said. He scowled at me while producing a Bible from under his arm. “We were just getting started.”
If Leo had claimed a denomination, it would have resided in the church of the recovering addicted. He had insisted that no clergy officiate at his funeral and that the service be limited to the reading of a single Biblical passage.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven…”
The reading finished, Elvis made a few remarks. He called Leo a “pillar of the community” for the many services he had rendered and said his death marked the “passing of an era,” Starvation’s “last days of glory.” Floyd Kepsel talked of how Leo’s gentle nature had complemented Jack Blackburn’s competitive intensity and praised Blackburn for recognizing that Leo could “bring something more to our boys than just the desire to win.” Neither Elvis nor Kepsel alluded to the circumstances of Leo’s death, how he had put a pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. It was as if Leo had died in his sleep.
Francis Dufresne stepped forward. He clasped his hands atop his gut as he spoke in his hand-me-down brogue.
“This is another terrible day in our great town,” he said. “A good friend-a good man-has fallen. Now I say ‘fallen’ because of course we all know the unfortunate details of Leo’s death, how it shocked us all, how it grieved us to the very core. In a town like this, everyone knows the Zamboni driver, am I right?” A few heads slowly nodded. “But apparently, folks, none of us knew Leo Redpath well enough. And for that we have no one to blame but ourselves. I know I blame myself.”
A sob tried to push up from deep in my belly, but I forced it down and stared hard at Leo’s makeshift urn. I wasn’t thinking about Leo, though. I was thinking about Jeff Champagne, sitting in a jail. I was thinking about that twelve-year-old boy in Escanaba. I was wondering if he played hockey, as Champy did when he was a skinny winger in Starvation Lake trying to land the last spot on the River Rats roster. I was imagining whether that boy looked up to his phys-ed teacher the way Champy once had looked up to Jack Blackburn.
But of course he did.
“It was ten years ago, almost to this very day,” Dufresne was saying, “that we lost our dear friend Jack Blackburn-another good, good man-in a different but equally tragic situation. With due respect to all of you and to the deceased, I would argue, dear friends, that we would not be here today if we had taken better care of our friend Leo in the wake of Jack’s passing.” He paused to look around at the gathering. “In the past week, we have heard much theory and speculation about what happened to Jack and Leo all those many years ago-spurious theory and speculation, if you ask me. Now, I’ve gone back and forth on this, as Augustus here can tell you, and while I appreciate that he has a job to do, and that you, Darlene, and your boss have a job to do, I simply cannot for the life of me see what good any of this prodding and poking of the past has done. Indeed, I’d say it has brought us nothing but grief. I’d venture that we would not be standing here today, with Leo reduced to ashes and Augustus like that and the Campbell boy in jail and Theodore in the hospital if we’d all just left well enough alo
ne.”
“Amen,” Elvis said.
What did Elvis know? Nothing. What did anyone in Starvation Lake really know? I couldn’t blame the people of my hometown anymore than I could blame myself. Most of them were guilty of nothing more than ignorance. They wanted to go on with their lives and hope for the best. Did my father know where his thousand dollars would wind up? Maybe. Maybe not. But I couldn’t save him anymore.
Dufresne unclasped his hands and raised them in front of him. “So now, my friends, I’m imploring you, and everyone in the good town of Starvation Lake, to honor the memory of Jack Blackburn and Leo Redpath by letting them rest in peace. They lived their lives, they were good men-not perfect men, mind you, but good men-and now they are dead and gone.” He looked, in turn, at Judge Gallagher, at Darlene, and at me. “Wherever they are, I am sure they would ask the same simple favor. Let us bury them once and for all today.”
I took a step forward.
Wherever they are, he’d said. I knew where Leo was. At this moment, I had no idea what had become of Blackburn. There was a truth I had been selfishly trying to deny: Blackburn was still out there, he would not be deterred because he was powerless to deter himself, there were many who would help him carry out his missions, and the terrors he wreaked would be repeated again and again and create more and more ruined boys like Champy and Teddy and Soupy.
“No,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Elvis said. “Deputy, can you control your prisoner?”
“Sometimes,” Darlene said.
“No, by all means, let the boy speak,” Dufresne said. “Augustus knew these men well. Please. Son?”
He held his hand out to me, throwing a shadow across Leo’s urn. I did not take it. He knew where Blackburn was. He had known for ten years.
I looked directly at Dufresne. “What happened to Leo was not our fault,” I said. “It was not the town’s fault. You know that.”
“Well, son, I suppose we can agree to disagree.”
“No. It’s not a matter of opinion. You know.”
“What is it that I know?”
“You know Jack Blackburn was not a good man.”
“What the hell is this?” Elvis interrupted.
“Quiet, Uncle El,” Darlene said.
“Gus Carpenter has had it in for Jack ever since-”
“Shut your fat mouth, Elvis Bontrager,” Mom said. “Do you hear me?”
“Augustus,” Dufresne said. “I thought we were friends. I tried to help you as best I could, didn’t I?”
“Sure. Like you told me to look at the minutes of the meeting where the town council decided not to dredge for Coach’s body. Then you had your bartender-Loob, for Christ’s sake-go take the minutes so I couldn’t see them. I guess you think I’m pretty stupid, huh?”
“Not at all, Augustus.”
“How about that old calendar in your office?”
“A calendar? My God, what of it?”
“You got it from your bank, First Fisherman’s of Charlevoix. Then they got bought by First Detroit. And you stayed with them, right?”
“What in the world? We’re at a memorial service. This is no place for business.”
Judge Gallagher spoke up. “Why don’t you answer the question, Francis?”
Dufresne turned to him, unable to hide his surprise. “Ah,” he said. “Well, all right. Sure, I stayed with the bank, why wouldn’t I?”
“You wrote a check on that account in April of 1988, just a few weeks after Coach’s”-I hesitated-“incident. April twelfth, to be exact. For twenty-five thousand dollars. To Angus Campbell.”
“I’ve written a lot of checks to a lot of people.”
“Not for twenty-five thousand dollars in hush money.”
Dufresne folded his arms. “Excuse me?”
In the distance a siren wailed.
“I’ll show you,” I said. “Joanie, somewhere in that backpack I’ll bet you have a copy of that marina receipt we talked about.”
“Sure,” she said. It took her a minute, but she dug it out and handed it to me.
I held the receipt up for Dufresne. “See?” I said. “It says, paid in full, check 5261, written on First Detroit Bank. It’s your handwriting, Francis, not Angus’s. I guess you didn’t trust him.”
He chuckled again. “If that’s my signature, I’ll eat the receipt.”
“The signature’s smudged,” I said. “But look here.” I moved closer to Dufresne and pointed. “I’ll bet you didn’t think a word like ‘Jerryboat’ could give you away.”
It had come to me in the jail when my mother showed me the copy of the check signed by Francis J. Dufresne. The J on Dufresne’s signature looked like an F. It had a little tail on it like a fishhook.
“I’m sorry,” Dufresne said. “I don’t follow.”
“Yes, you do.” The siren was upon us now, just beyond the trees ringing the clearing. “How about your buddy Clayton Perlmutter? You helped get him a bunch of state money to stay quiet, too, didn’t you, Francis? You paid a lot of people to keep quiet.”
“Clayton Perlmutter? I haven’t spent more than five minutes with that old hermit in my life.” He looked at Darlene. “I think this foolishness has gone-”
“You were there, I mean here ”-I pointed at the ground-“you were here that night at the bonfire.” Some of the onlookers gasped. “There was Blackburn and Leo and Soupy and you. You were here the night Jack Blackburn supposedly died.”
“Supposedly?” Elvis said.
“You waited in the woods until Soupy ran away. Then you made Jack Blackburn leave Starvation Lake forever. You told him he’d gone too far, Francis. He’s not in any lake. He didn’t commit suicide. You kept him alive. And he kept you in the porn business.”
“Oh, my God,” my mother said.
“This is insanity,” Dufresne said.
“Sure as hell is,” Elvis said. “But it’s over now. Looks like you’re going back to jail, Gus.”
Everyone turned to see Dingus emerge from the snow-laden trees, trailed by Catledge and D’Alessio. The circle parted and the sheriff stepped into the middle. He gave Darlene a look, then addressed me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Thank God, Dingus,” Dufresne interrupted. “Augustus must have gone stir crazy in jail and now he’s dishonoring a good man-two good men-with a lot of crazy talk.”
“I see,” Dingus said. He plucked a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Like what?”
“Francis,” I said, “who owns the controlling interest in Richard Limited? Why has that company been paying the taxes on the old Blackburn estate?”
“Dingus,” Dufresne said. Now I heard fear in his voice. It felt good.
“Where’s Blackburn, Francis?”
“Get him out of here, Sheriff, so we can finish paying our respects.”
“Where is Jack Blackburn?”
Dufresne took a step toward me. His eyes went cold.
“I don’t know where he is. And neither do you. You don’t know a damned thing, do you, Augustus?” He turned to Dingus. “Sheriff?”
Dingus moved between us and slapped on the cuffs.
thirty-two
With Dufresne in custody, Judge Gallagher issued more pieces of paper that prevented the state cops from collecting me. After a couple of loopy hearings in his courtroom, they, and Superior Motors, gave up.
Joanie and I wrote front-page stories about Blackburn and Dufresne every day for the next three weeks. Soon the networks had camera trucks crowding Main Street. Reporters from across the country were lining up for interviews with Dingus and egg pies at Audrey’s. But the Pilot owned the story.
Darlene hadn’t really snuck me out of the jail; Dingus was in on it all along. She’d listened carefully to my talk with Mom and, on a hunch, pleaded with Dingus to search Dufresne’s home. Judge Gallagher came through with a quick warrant. Then Darlene left her walkie-talkie on as we stood at Leo’s gravesite. Dingus heard everything. In the trunk of his cruiser w
ere boxes of confiscated photographs and videotapes, labeled with the same cryptic markings I’d seen on Blackburn’s bookshelves.
For years the legend had gone that Dufresne took five thousand dollars he inherited in the late 1960s and, by investing wisely time and again in real estate, turned it into millions. The truth was that he’d taken a thousand dollars from my father and a few other unwitting investors and, with the help of Jack Blackburn, turned that stake into a child pornography business. With Dingus’s help, Joanie and I uncovered a far-flung network of pedophiles buying and selling films and photographs, largely via the Internet. Dufresne was at the center of a loose but sophisticated web of suppliers, distributors, and consumers. The FBI hauled him away on charges of mail fraud, income tax evasion, and possession of child pornography.
Agents found Blackburn, Dufresne’s most reliable supplier, at a highway rest stop near Jacksonville, Florida, sitting on a picnic table eating a bag of fried pork rinds. He’d colored his hair and his beard a garish shade of red. He told the agents he was a recreational-vehicle salesman named James Graham, even producing genuine-looking identification. A cardboard box hidden in the spare-tire well of his Camry contained half a dozen videotapes and three manila envelopes stuffed with photographs.
The town council declared the day of Blackburn’s arraignment an official day of atonement. More than five hundred people piled onto school buses to make the two-and-a-half-hour trip to the federal courthouse in Grand Rapids. An hour before the arraignment, they assembled along both sides of the sidewalk leading to the courthouse door. They stood in icy silence as federal marshals ushered Blackburn past, his head down, his eyes on the ground.
After Soupy was released from jail, he holed up in his marina office, shooing reporters away, too ashamed to talk. I left him alone. But that summer I returned to Grand Rapids and took notes as he gave testimony that would help send our old coach to prison. On the third morning of the trial, I spotted Dingus and Barbara Lampley at a coffee shop nearby, holding hands.