I laughed. “Would you believe takeout Chinese food from a joint with a menu exactly the same as the Chinese joints in Presque Isle, Brewer and South Paris?”
“Ah, but was it as good as the Chinese food in Presque Isle, Brewer and South Paris?”
“Oh, better. And the beer, too. Everything tastes better in the salt air.”
I filled her in on the jury selection, including my meetings with Mansfield and Cohen. She had gone to a Planning Board meeting at the Town Hall after supper to get the skinny on a new condominium to be built in a field next to our favorite U-pick strawberry operation. The developer had shifty eyes and a broad Boston accent, she said.
“That ought to make him a popular guy around town,” I said. “That and the fact that he wants to bulldoze the best firefly field in the county.”
Riverside is a former mill town a few miles west of Portland, but the downtown quickly gives way to countryside, where a number of productive working farms remain. About a year after I met her, Christie, Theo and I had a picnic on the edge of that particular strawberry field on an early-July night when it was too beautiful to go inside for supper. We’d lingered for hours watching seven-year-old Theo leap through the air, trying to catch the flitting lightning bugs. While he stalked around with a glass jar trying to sneak up on his prey, Christie and I lay side-by-side on our backs, shoulders and arms barely touching, pointing out constellations to each other. I wondered if she noticed that I was using my left hand to guide her eyes to the star clusters I was picking out so as not to break the contact between our bodies.
Despite having learned as a young man the folly of wanting what I couldn’t have, it was a struggle not to lean over and kiss her laughing mouth. But I was well aware she was keeping steady company with a guy named Arn Giroux, so I held myself in check. After a while, that began to feel more bad than good, so I rolled away and stood up.
“I could get used to lying next to you,” I’d said, striving to keep my voice even. “But I’m sure Arn would have something to say about that.”
She’d scrambled to her feet and offered a crooked smile.
“Time to go, Theo,” she called into the darkness. Then she turned back to me.
“I’m sorry, Joe. I hope you don’t think I was leading you on.”
Not wanting to put pressure on our friendship, I’d assured her we were cool, but it wasn’t that simple. It took a long time for me to accept that she was truly unavailable.
I eventually extinguished the Christie torch but never settled down. Finally, in the summer of 2014, I was shocked to find myself wanting to do just that with one Megan Pratt, a stunning, spunky nurse practitioner who stole my heart when I wasn’t paying attention. Our short but intense affair ended when Megan moved to Cameroon on a long-term Doctors Without Borders gig. I’d been digging myself out of an emotional ditch ever since.
Remembering the firefly field brought Theo to mind, so I asked Christie if he’d worked out whatever he was working out.
“His aura was more tired than hostile at dinner time. Didn’t have much to say for himself. Picked at his supper. Rinsed his plate, stuck it in the dishwasher, went up to his room.”
“At least he’s home tonight.”
“It’s small consolation,” she said. “You’re lucky you only have a dog to worry about.”
Chapter Five
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Operating on a hunch that the jury would be given a view of the crime scene after opening statements, I decided to drive the two blocks to the courthouse parking lot so I’d be positioned to tag along. With the thermometer showing three degrees, I left the inn early and drove around town for ten minutes to charge up the Subaru’s aging battery. It had been sitting since Sunday evening, and I knew from frustrating experience that the short hop from the inn to the courthouse wouldn’t do it any good.
By eight forty-five I was in my spot next to the Peabody twins, watching the courtroom fill up. Clad in matching cardigans with pearl buttons—one in navy blue, the other pale gray—Arlette and Trulette complimented my jury selection story, which they’d read that morning online.
“Of course, we still buy your paper every day, but it doesn’t get delivered until ten o’clock,” the one in the blue sweater reassured me. “We couldn’t wait to read your story, now that we know you.”
There was a big crowd of locals again, a few familiar faces from the day before. Tom O’Rourke was saving seats on the left side. Mansfield’s assistant was bustling around the prosecution table. About two minutes to nine, a striking woman with hair the color of a bonfire walked in. She unzipped but didn’t take off a bright purple parka and sat a couple of rows up from the back, among the locals. When no one greeted her, I knew she wasn’t a local herself.
Cohen and Mansfield both looked pumped up. Danny Boothby—dressed in the same khakis and sport coat he’d worn the previous day—looked tense. The back door thumped shut and the harried Free Press reporter Andrea Veloute sidled into the courtroom. Perhaps the previous night’s Planning Board meeting had run late.
At nine o’clock sharp everyone rose as Justice Herrick entered the courtroom and told the court officer to bring in the jury. Mansfield stood up first and walked to the lectern that faced the jury box. Wearing a well-cut gray suit and a green tie, his teeth gleamed when he turned on his big smile.
“I’m Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Mansfield. It’s my job to represent the people of the state of Maine in this case. But before I tell you how I expect the evidence to unfold, I want to thank you for your service on this jury. Our system of justice depends on people like you doing this important job, and we appreciate your willingness to participate.”
Mansfield paused and smiled again, taking a moment to look into the fourteen sets of eyes in the jury box. Then his face went serious as he explained the facts of the case. A good man died while doing his duty, he said. The work of a child protective worker is not easy, and often dangerous. In this case, it turned deadly.
“It was Frank O’Rourke’s misfortune that on the day he learned information he believed justified emergency removal of Corrine Boothby from her home, there was a major accident on Route One a hundred yards south of the road where the Boothbys lived. The accident involved an eighteen-wheeler carrying bait. It jackknifed across the road, making a heck of a mess. Frank O’Rourke had called for a deputy sheriff to meet him at the Boothby house, but that didn’t happen. Mr. O’Rourke was ahead of the bait truck accident and therefore oblivious to it. Tragically, he had no backup.
“By the time law enforcement officers arrived at the Boothby house, it was not to help Frank O’Rourke remove a child from her dangerous home. It was to arrest the girl’s father for the murder of Mr. O’Rourke.”
Mansfield told the jury that the evidence would show that the murder weapon was a knife of the sort used to clean fish, and that Boothby didn’t deny having stabbed O’Rourke on his front porch.
I wondered if the jury caught that. Mansfield didn’t claim Boothby admitted it, but said he didn’t deny it. Two different things.
“The defendant may claim he had an excuse for stabbing Frank O’Rourke, but that couldn’t be true. There is no reason for a parent—no matter how upset about the prospect of losing custody of a child—to attack and kill a DHHS worker. Mr. Boothby, you’ll hear, was a man who often tried to justify his bad behavior. He’s not a man who’s in the habit of taking responsibility for his actions. Once you hear the evidence in this case, it will be your job to determine if he should be held responsible for the murder of Frank O’Rourke, and I believe you won’t have a difficult time doing that.”
Mansfield gathered up his notes and walked back to his seat at the counsel table. The look on his face was that of a man in the midst of a huge adrenaline rush.
When Marcus Cohen stood the look on his face was confiden
t, but his hands shook as he set down his notes. He grabbed the lectern’s sides and hung on tight. Like Mansfield, Cohen opened by thanking the jurors for their participation in the case. Ignoring Mansfield’s bait, he emphasized the tragedy of Karen Boothby’s death and portrayed Danny as a determined—if flawed—single parent.
“After his wife died, was he a perfect dad? Danny Boothby himself would tell you no. He found it challenging to be both mother and father to his adolescent daughter. He’s strong on clamming but weak on cupcake baking. He dried Corrine’s tears when she wept about her mother’s death, and sometimes numbed his own despair with too many beers. But it’s a big leap from being a less-than-perfect parent to being a killer. Daniel Boothby’s personal struggles should not be used to buttress a homicide charge.”
The jurors seemed to be paying attention as Cohen segued into a discussion of the state’s burden of proof.
“A criminal trial is about testing the state’s case,” Cohen said. “Our jury system places in your hands the awesome power to take away another person’s freedom. In order for you to exercise that power, you need to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the evidence supports only a guilty verdict—that the evidence cannot be understood in any other way. It’s a high burden of proof, and the state bears that burden. Danny Boothby does not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is not guilty. The state has to prove to that high standard that Danny Boothby killed Frank O’Rourke for no justifiable reason. When the facts come out, I ask you to measure them conscientiously against that high burden of proof. Before you can convict Danny Boothby of murdering Frank O’Rourke, you must be convinced this terrible and sad incident could only have happened the way the state says it did.”
I studied the faces of the jurors, wondering if they were able to take in the competing stories being told in the opening statements without feeling whipsawed by the disparate predictions of what would unfold once witnesses took the stand.
“When you listen to the evidence, please remember that it’s your job to evaluate with utmost care the evidence Mr. Mansfield presents. Think critically. Weigh the evidence. Decide if witnesses are telling you the whole truth. And if you’re not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. O’Rourke’s death happened as the state claims it did, have the courage to do justice. Let Mr. Boothby go back home to raise his daughter, work hard and continue to be a productive member of this community.”
Cohen looked into the faces of the jurors for a few seconds and nodded his head before taking his seat. I tweeted: Opening statements yield no solid clues about trial strategy—unclear if Defendant will testify. #Boothbymurdertrial
* * *
Justice Herrick had the jury escorted out of the courtroom before taking up the discussion of a view. Both lawyers thought it would be helpful for the jury to see the lay of the land, but the judge wasn’t about to let them run the show. She called Mansfield and Cohen to the bench for an off-the-record sidebar where she did all the talking and they did a lot of nodding. When they resumed their seats she announced that the trial would be in recess until two o’clock.
I caught Mansfield’s eye as he packed up his briefcase. The prosecutor jerked his head in the direction of his borrowed office, where I met him moments later.
“Good opening statement,” I said. “I thought you had the jury engaged there.”
“Hope so. A lot’s riding on them doing the right thing.”
“What’s the deal with the view?”
“A bus is waiting outside to bring the jury to Boothby’s house. The judge will also be on board. The jurors will be instructed on the bus that they can’t talk to anyone, not even each other.” He paused. “We have to drive out there in our own cars.”
“Is it going to be a problem for me to tag along?”
“Deputies will be there to keep rubberneckers away,” Mansfield said. “Her Honor made it clear that she doesn’t want anyone else to be there when the jury is taking its view. If you want to go out there after they’ve left, I’ll ask a deputy to stick around so you can take a look.”
“That’d be great.”
Mansfield’s phone rang before I could ask about the order of the state’s witnesses, so I grabbed my laptop bag and left his office, almost colliding with Shirley, the super-secretary.
“Hiya there, Mr. Reporter,” she said with a smile. “Can I help you?”
“Yup, you can give me the inside scoop on takeout lunch joints in this burg. What’s the local dining dish?”
“Well that’s an easy question because there’s not a heck of a lot to choose from,” she said. “The pizza place is okay, but the owner puts garlic in everything—even the tuna salad—so be forewarned. You can get a good burger and fries at Jonesy’s Diner, but you’ll have to drive because it’s a couple miles up the road. Or you can go to the Java Nook, where they have pretty good soup even though it’s often got stuff in it that I am not sure I’d otherwise like.”
“Tofu type stuff?”
“And other mysterious soy-based products. But they often have normal kinds of soup, and homemade bread.”
“Overall, how many stars would you give it?”
“Three, three and a half,” she said. “But watch out for those granola girls who work there. They could distract a handsome fellow like you from his work.”
* * *
I called Leah from the courthouse steps. She was in a meeting, so I texted her a two-sentence update and promised my story by 6:00 p.m. As I was stowing my cell phone in my parka pocket, Andrea Veloute stepped out the door.
“The opening statements were better than the jury selection,” she said with a nervous grin. “At least I’ll have something to write about for tomorrow’s paper.”
“Both lawyers were into it, I thought.”
She hoisted her computer bag higher on her shoulder. “I’m hitting the road.” She rolled her eyes as if we were old pals. “I’m gonna feel like a yo-yo if I have to drive back and forth from Bangor every day this week.”
“Why doesn’t the paper book you a room? It’d be cheaper than paying you mileage.”
“Yeah, but that would mean this would be the only story I covered all week, and we’re short-staffed. At least I got some fresh news about the trial this morning. Now I’ve got to go to Orono to interview a professor who invented something to do with lobster processing.”
“No rest for the weary.”
“Something like that.” She shuffled toward the parking lot.
On my first trip to the Java Nook I’d been focused on the coffee, but the lunch offerings turned out to be terrific—tomato basil soup, a hunk of local cheddar and a couple thick slices of anadama bread. I consulted my Maine atlas before turning the Subaru north. Only one wrong turn later I crested a hill and saw a deputy’s cruiser parked on the right next to what turned out to be the Boothby driveway. If they hadn’t posted someone out there I’d have had no idea which of the rutted paths through the trees was the right one.
I nodded at the officer as I coasted past, then turned around and pulled in on the opposite side of the road. I lifted the lid off the hot soup as soon as I turned off the engine, and chewed on the bread between spoonfuls. As I was finishing my lunch something thumped against the back of my car. I swiveled my head around and saw a man wearing a New England Patriots cap. When I scrambled out, I expected to be face to face with the guy, but he turned out to be a little bantam, no more than five foot four. Despite the cold, he was wearing an unbuttoned plaid jacket over a gray undershirt. The odor of sweat radiated from his wiry body.
“You got a reason to be here?”
“I’m a reporter covering the Boothby trial.” I jerked my head toward the driveway. “The jury’s up there now, looking at the scene. Sheriff’s Department makes the press wait till they’re gone before we can go up for a look.”
He looked around and raised a bushy pair of eyebrows. “Where’re the other reporters?”
“Hell if I know. Who are you?”
“Name’s Harrison. Jackson Harrison. Not Jack, either. Jackson. I live next door.” He waved his left arm in the direction of a mailbox at the next driveway.
“You must know Danny Boothby pretty well.”
“We’re neighbors, but not exactly friends. His wife was awful nice. Sad for everyone when she died.”
“Were you around the day of Frank O’Rourke’s murder?”
Harrison blew air through his lips, making a farting noise. “I don’t think of it as a murder. I think of it as the day that Frankie O’Rourke finally got himself killed.”
He nodded at me, an inscrutable look on his face. Before I could ask again if he’d been home that day he’d turned on his heel.
“Gotta get back to work.” He strutted down the road like a guy who’d just made it clear what was what.
My car was already on its way back to refrigerator temperature so I turned on the engine to generate some heat. Ten minutes later a cruiser led the jurors’ bus out onto the road. Once the entourage was out of sight I nosed my car down a narrow driveway with trees growing close on both sides. After a hundred kidney-jolting yards I reached a small unlandscaped clearing—what Mainers call a dooryard—in front of a small Cape-style house. Its clapboards were shedding white paint. A female deputy stepped out of a running cruiser and motioned for me to stop.
“Can I see some ID?” she said.
I fished out my press pass and handed it over.
“You can look around for a few minutes, but I’ve got to hustle back to the courthouse, so don’t dally.”
“Okay if I take some photos?”
“Nobody told me you couldn’t,” she said.
As I photographed the exterior, I could hear the muted clang of a maul striking a wedge. Jackson-not-Jack Harrison was visible through the winter-stripped trees, splitting wood with an easy rhythm, his sinewy body torqueing as he drove the wedge far enough into each log that it exploded into two neat pieces. No wonder the guy seemed impervious to the cold. The adage about the efficiency of wood heat came to mind. It warms you three times—when you split it, when you stack it and when you burn it.
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