Cover Story

by Brenda Buchanan

  “What can you tell me about Frank O’Rourke?”

  She shrugged. “He had a big caseload, like the rest of us. Drove all over the county—being from Portland you probably have no idea how huge Washington County is—trying to keep kids from getting hurt or worse.”

  “But what was he like? As a person?”

  She hesitated. “We didn’t socialize,” she said finally. “Didn’t have time.”

  “I met one of your colleagues at the Old Fort Pub last night. Roland Little.”

  “Rollie talked with a reporter? That’s a surprise. He barely talks to people he knows.”

  “He wasn’t exactly forthcoming.” There was no need for her to know he’d essentially told me to fuck off.

  A faint smile passed over her face. “When you work for the state you learn to keep your opinions to yourself.”

  “If I don’t quote you, will you tell me what your days are like?”

  She appeared to be considering my request when a stout woman with jet black hair marched up.

  “What the heck are you doing, Leslie?”

  “Yvonne, meet Joe Gale, a reporter from Portland who’s here to cover the murder trial. Joe, this is Yvonne Fredette, my supervisor.”

  Yvonne pushed herself between me and Leslie. “You can’t print anything she said. Talking with the press is forbidden.”

  I put up my hands. “I was asking her if she could suggest a good place to eat around here.”

  Leslie flicked a grateful glance my way.

  “You must be the jerk who hassled another one of my caseworkers at the Old Fort last night. Too embarrassed to go back there, are you? Well here’s the deal in words even an idiot can understand. Stay away from my staff. They have nothing to say to you. If you want a comment, call the commissioner’s office.” She took Leslie’s arm and led her down the hall, away from the likes of me.

  Chapter Four

  Monday, January 5, 2015

  Marcus Cohen’s farmhouse had once been a New England classic. In the thin light of a January afternoon it was hard to tell if the place was on its way down or headed back toward respectability. At least a hundred years old, its once-whitewashed clapboards were gray, contrasting with dark green shutters that needed a fresh coat of paint. The attached two-story barn was clad in weathered cedar shingles. I knocked on the barn’s glass door before stepping inside and calling hello.

  “I’m upstairs,” Cohen said. “Come up if you want.”

  An open reception area fronted a conference room with a big table and six chairs. I crossed the room and mounted a stairway to my right. Unlike the downstairs walls, which were decorated with buttoned-down botanical prints and a University of Maine Law School diploma indicating Cohen was a member of the Class of 2008, his working office was an explosion of color. Large modernist paintings were interspersed with framed photographs and political posters.

  End This War! read one.

  No Censorship in Our Schools said another.

  “Be with you in a sec.” Cohen glanced up as his fingers chattered away on a desktop computer.

  I looked around, noting a cork board covered with construction paper art. Cohen finished typing after a couple of minutes. He picked up an oversized coffee mug and came around the desk.

  “Coffee?”

  “I never say no to coffee.”

  He filled a cup from a thermal push pot on a table behind his desk. He handed it over and eased down onto an ancient leather couch with a precarious stack of files on the far end. “So what do you want?”

  “To get acquainted a little bit. Hear about your case. It helps me to know the players when covering a trial.”

  “You cover a lot of trials?”

  “It’s been a major part of my beat for several years.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m not a regular reader of the Chronicle.”

  Unsure why we were volleying, I decided to rush the net. “Maybe my pretrial research wasn’t thorough enough, but I couldn’t find any stories about other murder cases you’ve defended.”

  “That’s because this is my first one.”

  “Really?”

  “I was second chair on a murder trial last year. The defendant pled guilty at the eleventh hour. The lead attorney was from Bangor, a very experienced criminal guy. I learned a lot, even though the case ended in a plea.”

  “But you’ve never tried one yourself.”

  “Not a murder case,” he said. “But I’m ready for it.”

  Cohen couldn’t be any older than my thirty-two, and the diploma downstairs told me he’d been practicing maybe six or seven years. Danny Boothby’s future had to feel heavy in his hands.

  “I know enough to keep the theory of my case to myself.” He propped his feet on the coffee table.

  “I’m not asking for an outline of your strategy, but it’s obvious the local reporters pretty much have been printing what the state’s handed to them. I’m guessing that’s far from the whole story.”

  He shrugged, but a flush in his cheeks betrayed him.

  “Lazy press a problem around here?”

  “The Bangor reporters do a pretty good job, but with staff cutbacks, they don’t show up half the time. The local weeklies think it’s their job to be a mouthpiece for the prosecution.”

  “I’m here with open ears.”

  He put his feet back on the floor, leaned forward and looked me in the eye, his mouth taut. “I’m not going to say anything unless we’re off the record.”

  “I told you, I’m only looking for background.”

  “So what’s that mean? You don’t quote me exactly, but print the gist of what I tell you?”

  “Look, Cohen, I don’t know how much experience you have talking with the press, but there’s a protocol for this sort of thing. If you don’t want to talk with me, say so. But if you want to be sure the state’s biggest newspaper understands the backstory, this is your chance. If you say it’s for background only and off the record, I’ll respect that. If you say it’s not for attribution, that means you don’t want your name connected with something, but you don’t care if I say it.”

  This isn’t fucking rocket science. I didn’t say it, though I wanted to. Cohen was young, and scared, unsure if he could trust me. But I wasn’t going to beg him to give me information that would make my readers more sympathetic to his client.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. Everything I say to you has to be strictly off the record. I’m not about to blow up his case because you want to be the big shot from Portland who has the scoop.”

  Oh give me a friggin’ break. “Fair enough.”

  “What I tell you here in the privacy of my office will come out at trial. But I don’t want to tip off Mansfield to what’s coming.”

  “Understood,” I said.

  He took a deep breath. “For Danny’s story to make sense, you need to know a bit about Frank O’Rourke. In a phrase, he was an arrogant jerk. I thought so and anyone in Washington County who had more than passing contact with him thought so, too.”

  Cohen took a gulp of his coffee.

  “Frank was one of those guys who thought the rules didn’t apply to him, and in truth, they didn’t. His political connections insulated him from the kind of trouble other caseworkers would have faced if they ignored the DHHS procedure manual the way he did. And he flaunted his untouchability.”

  I nodded but was careful not to interrupt, pegging Cohen as the type of lawyer who’d forget his professional reticence as soon as he got warmed up. A lot of them are that way—closemouthed until they’re not.

  “Lawyers complained every time O’Rourke interviewed a kid without a parent in the room, or when he didn’t bother to document the progress a parent was making on whatever problem caused them to lose their kids to fo
ster care. But it didn’t make a dent, whether you called him on it formally or informally. He’d apologize, but there’d be a smirk on his face the whole time.”

  He paused, seeming to search for words.

  “I think in the Boothby case, his arrogance might have gotten him killed.”

  Cohen’s body language screamed his awareness that he was approaching tricky waters. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so I sat there with my mouth shut until I realized he needed a prompt.

  “Tell me about Danny. What kind of guy is he?”

  “Before his wife got sick, he was a pretty typical local guy, worked a variety of jobs—fishing, digging worms, tipping fir during the run-up to wreath season. Kind of directionless, but a nice enough guy. Karen—that was his wife—she was his anchor.”

  Cohen got up and walked back to his desk where he flipped through a file. He extracted a photograph and handed it to me. A pretty woman with flashing eyes and sun-streaked blond hair smiled a confident smile.

  “When Karen got sick, Danny grew up pretty quick. For about two years, they teetered on the brink of the reality that they weren’t going to have a good long life together, it was going to be Danny and Corrine on their own, unmoored. Then Karen died, and the community rallied around, helping out with meals and child care and emotional support. But that petered out after a while, and the strain of the whole experience began to show.”

  “Is that when DHHS got involved?”

  “Yeah. Danny got stopped one night because his truck was weaving along Route One. The cops knew who he was, that he had a young daughter at home who’d just lost her mom. The DA’s office called the school social worker, who started meeting with the girl once a week. At some point Corrine opened up and said she was worried about her dad because he was so lonely. She either volunteered or admitted under questioning that more nights than not he drank enough beer to numb himself out. Pretty soon after that, Frank O’Rourke opened an official DHHS file.”

  “Was there any evidence Boothby was neglecting or abusing his daughter?”

  “None. She was going to school neat and clean and functioning pretty well, considering. But Karen’s father, who never thought Danny was good enough for his daughter, made trouble when Danny didn’t turn into an absolute rock after Karen died.” He shook his head. “Claude did some judicious bad-mouthing from his pulpit in the local barber shop, and his trash talk about Danny found its way to DHHS.”

  “How would that help the girl?”

  “Claude probably assumed DHHS would give custody to him and his wife.”

  “So O’Rourke was assigned to the case, and he and Danny didn’t hit it off?”

  “Right. O’Rourke treated Danny like he treated most parents,” Cohen said. “Like they’re scum, not confused people who need some help navigating life. He marched into their life and started lording over Danny, who—to his credit in my opinion—didn’t stand for it.”

  I paused, realizing we’d circled back around to Cohen’s earlier comment about O’Rourke’s arrogance leading to his demise.

  “So Danny stood up for himself—with help from you?”

  “Yeah, he came to see me the day he found out DHHS had opened an investigation. I’d represented him on the drunk driving charge a couple of months before, so I guess he considered me his lawyer. He wanted to let me know what was happening and find out if he had to let O’Rourke pry into his life. I told him to some extent, yeah, he did, but that there were rules O’Rourke had to follow, too. The most important one is that DHHS caseworkers aren’t allowed to go to a home to talk to a child when their parent isn’t there unless they bring the law with them, and that pretty much only happens if they’re planning to take the child into custody.”

  “Is that how it works?”

  “Yeah. A caseworker can talk to the child in school with a teacher present, or at church with a minister present, but they can’t come to the house to interview a kid unless a parent or guardian is there, except if it’s the day they’re going to take the child, and then they have a deputy along.”

  “In this case, is that one of the rules Frank O’Rourke figured didn’t apply to him?”

  “One of the many.” Cohen closed the informational spigot as abruptly as he’d opened it, jumping up from the couch and looking at his watch. I got the drift.

  “Time for me to go write about jury selection. I appreciate the background.”

  “Remember, every word of it off the record.”

  “I heard you the first time, Counselor.”

  * * *

  In less than an hour I had a tight story describing the jury, the political overtones in the selection process, and the fact the jurors would be sequestered. My email inbox held a bunch of messages I ignored while I dashed out an email to Leah and attached my story. As soon as I hit the send button I called the newsroom to let her know it was on its way.

  “So is it all over but the shouting?” she asked.

  “It’s hard to tell before the opening statements, but I’ll be surprised if this is a slam dunk for the state. I chatted up the defense attorney after court recessed for the day. He’s wary of the press, but seems like a reasonably competent guy who believes he’ll be able to challenge enough of the state’s evidence to get a not guilty verdict.”

  “Don’t they all think that on the eve of the opening statement?”

  “Sure, and a lot of them are blowing smoke, but something tells me Boothby’s lawyer is going to put up a good fight.”

  “I just hung up from someone who was in a fighting mood. The DHHS supervisor who you argued with in the hallway this afternoon.” I could hear Leah tapping at her computer keys.

  “Let me guess, Yvonne Fredette.”

  “Why’d you get in her face?”

  “I didn’t. As a matter of fact, she got in mine.”

  “Explain please. I’m writing a memo about it in case she goes up the ladder, so I need to know your side.”

  I told her about my afternoon’s interaction with caseworker Leslie and the previous night’s kerfuffle with Roland Little before asking for Fredette’s story.

  “She said the guy in the bar last night is a longtime caseworker who put you in your place, but today you were right back at it, pumping an inexperienced caseworker about internal DHHS policies regarding child protection.”

  “Didn’t happen.”

  “She also said you muttered ‘bitch’ under your breath when she interrupted your interrogation of her young charge.”

  “Didn’t happen. I never said that word or anything similar. And the caseworker was not particularly young, either.”

  “The last damn thing we need is for this Fredette woman or her boss to call Jack Salisbury. You know he’s looking for ammunition.”

  “Last night I asked typical questions and got under Mr. Little’s skin. Fine, that happens sometimes. Today, I’d barely said hello to the caseworker at the courthouse—I didn’t even know her name until Fredette said it. What she told you happened did not friggin’ happen.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  I visualized the rapidly emptying courthouse. “I don’t think so.”

  “How about you steer clear of the local DHHS people? If we need an official comment, someone here in the newsroom will call Augusta.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It’s the new reality around here, so if you see Fredette or the pretty, not-so-young caseworker again, I want you to smile and keep on walking.”

  “How’d you know the caseworker was good looking?”

  Leah laughed. “Because I know you, Joe Gale.”

  * * *

  I stayed put until Leah texted me that my story was good to go. While I waited, I scanned my email and found an odd message sandwiched between a software ad and a financial come-on from a Niger
ian stranger. The subject line said scoop for you and the message was terse: Lots about Frankie O’Rourke you should know. Sleazy dirtbag, u have no idea. Email me if you want the truth. When I tapped the cursor over the sender’s email address—scrapper64@hotmail.com—no actual name was revealed.

  Guessing the email was from somebody who read my pretrial piece in Saturday’s paper, I hit the reply button. Hello, scrapper64. I would like to hear whatever you know about Frank O’Rourke. Do you live near Machias? Can I meet you someplace to talk?

  If the guy was like most of the anonymous emailers who contact me, I’d never hear another word from him, but it cost me nothing to bounce a response back out into cyberspace.

  Because I hadn’t, in fact, asked sweet-faced Leslie about the Machias dining scene, I hit the Yelp app on my phone and found two options on Main Street in Machias—pizza and Chinese. The reviews said the pizza tended to be greasy, so I opted for the latter. After hiking back up the hill with a couple bottles of Shipyard ale and takeout containers of pork fried rice and cashew chicken, I sprawled in an easy chair and watched a rerun of Law & Order.

  “So this is what passes for nightlife in Machias, Maine,” I said aloud, and opened the second beer. After a while I called Christie and got her answering machine. I left a message for my dog, imagining that even with her almost-deaf ears, Lou somehow could hear my voice telling her I missed her.

  There was nothing on the bookshelf next to the door that interested me, so I went downstairs and found a collection of E. B. White essays in the library. Resettled in the easy chair, my eyes grew heavy as I read White’s lyrical story about the death of his beloved pig. It was past nine when I was awakened by the chirp of my cell phone. Christie began needling me as soon as she heard the grog in my voice.

  “So, big-shot reporter with the corporate expense account, what have you been doing this evening in Machias? Dining on locally poached venison and hand-harvested seaweed salad after enjoying an aperitif of coffee brandy with organic milk?”