“Well, I wasn’t there with the jurors, but I saw what they saw, and it was sad. You kind of get the sense of the life that was lived there, but it’s like looking at old, faded photographs. The energy of the place has pretty much ebbed away.”
“Well it’s good and you get a gold star for filing early. One of the photos captures the feel of the sidebar, so we’re going to use that, too.” She told me to hang on a minute and I overheard a muffled conversation with another reporter, then she was back on the line. “So what is there to do at night way the heck Downeast in January?”
“I’m going to have supper with a psychologist who’s working with Corrine Boothby.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Maybe. She’s skittish about having dinner with a reporter, made sure I knew we wouldn’t be talking about her client or her thoughts about the trial, but it might be a fruitful connection.”
“Well, have a good dinner then, and no matter how many times she says she can’t talk to the press, don’t take your reporter hat off.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s too damn cold to take anything off.”
* * *
The pub was three-quarters full when I arrived. Emma was sitting at the bar watching a Red Sox-Yankees rerun, popular winter entertainment in New England. It was an old game, because Pedro Martinez, wearing long sleeves under his uniform shirt, was throwing a high fastball past Derek Jeter. I slid onto the barstool next to hers.
“I remember this game like it was yesterday,” she said. “Third game of that sweep in New York early in the 2004 season.” She swung her body sideways to face me, her sea-green eyes shining against the red of her cheeks. “I neglected to mention I’m an unrepentant Red Sox fan.”
I shrugged out of my parka. “You’re not alone. Ten years later families still submit obits to the Chronicle saying the 2004 World Series was the peak experience in the deceased person’s life.”
The bartender I’d chatted with Sunday night asked for our drink order.
“I swear I wasn’t setting you up the other night,” he said. “Sorry it went south. First drink’s on me tonight.”
Emma asked for a Dewar’s and water. I asked for a Coal Porter draft.
I shrugged off her question about the bartender’s comment, and we continued to watch the game, chatting about prospects for the coming season.
“Always been a Sox fan?”
“I grew up in New Hampshire with three brothers, one older and two younger. We were all jocks, so dinner hour was like SportsCenter. And yeah, the Sox have always been my team.” She shook her head. “A few years ago I got involved with someone who had the misfortune of being from Long Island and therefore was a Yankees fan by birth. It was a terrible mistake. How about you?”
“How about me what?”
“Did you grow up in the grip of Boston sports mania?”
“I was raised in western Massachusetts—Northampton—and we always pulled for the Sox and the Celtics and the Bruins. But I never went to any sort of pro game till I was in college. I’m an only child, and my dad is into birding more than baseball.”
“How’d you wind up in Maine?”
“Went to school here. Bowdoin. Graduated in ’04. Couldn’t bring myself to leave.”
She nodded. “Not the most happening place on the planet, but it sure is beautiful.”
I suggested we snag an open booth on the far wall. Having eavesdropped on more than a few conversations in my day, I’m well aware of how sound travels over a bar and didn’t want Emma to feel constrained if, despite her earlier bluster, our conversation worked its way to the topic of Corrine Boothby. We made small talk until the server showed up with our drinks and took our order. “Was your appointment with Corrine?”
Emma frowned. “I told you I can’t go there.”
“I understand your ethical line. But after being out there at the house today, I found myself wondering if she’s okay.”
Emma made a ritual out of taking the first sip of her scotch. When she looked up, her eyes were guarded. “Are you planning to write about her?”
“I hadn’t planned to. I wrote a story tonight about what the house was like, but I hadn’t considered writing a piece about Corrine.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Don’t get me wrong. When you figure out that I’m a stand-up guy, I’ll be glad to hear any information that’ll give me insight into this trial. If it needs to be on background, that’s fine with me. I’m only asking about Corrine because it was hard to be out there walking around in that house today, thinking that three or four years ago, the Boothbys were a normal family—mom, dad and little girl—laughing, playing and eating supper together.”
“I know what you mean. For what it’s worth, I felt sad when I was out there, too.”
When the server showed up with our dinners I ordered a second beer and started to dig in to my Shepherd’s Pie before realizing the spuds—which were the real deal—were hot enough to blister my tongue. I tried not to drool while I waited for the molten potatoes to cool.
“Where are you staying?”
“Up the hill at the Easterly Inn.” She signaled the server to refill our water glasses.
“Me too,” I said. “Second floor, front.”
“I’m on the third, facing the side yard. I think we both lucked out. The only other options in town seem to be motels that look like they’d have frost inside the windowpanes in the morning.”
“And hot water on alternate days,” I said. When I finally dug in I was pleasantly surprised. “This is almost as good as my Aunt Gert’s. She makes a mean Shepherd’s Pie.”
“The lasagna’s pretty good, too. Way better than my mother’s. She doesn’t get the spice thing.”
“My Aunt Gert—my Dad’s sister—could put Betty Crocker to shame. Not Julia Child, mind you, but Betty for sure. I grew up on her roast chicken and baked fish and pot roast. If I had a choice for a last meal, I’d want Aunt Gert to cook it.”
“Not your mother?”
“I never knew my mother.” I took care to keep my tone casual so she wouldn’t feel like she stepped in it. “She was killed in a car accident shortly after I was born.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was just something that happened.” Like I always do when someone who’s hearing my story for the first time gropes for something to say, I jumped in to ease the awkward moment. “My dad raised me, with a lot of help from his older sister. Aunt Gert lived around the corner from us, and was in and out of our house every day. She didn’t have any children of her own, so I was kind of like her kid.”
Emma took another bite of her supper. “No siblings?”
“Nope, me and dad and Aunt Gert. Kind of like Opie in those Andy of Mayberry reruns, and my hometown is even sort of like that.”
Emma laughed. “I’ve spent some time in Northampton, and it’s pretty different from Mayberry. I don’t remember there being many lesbians in Mayberry, for one thing.”
“You’re right. There are plenty in Northampton, and have been as long as I can remember. But if you’re from there—the town, not the college—you know most everybody, and most everybody knows you. So it’s sort of Mayberry-ish.”
“Kind of like this place.”
“This town is even smaller, and I suspect it’s far more claustrophobic. I’ll bet it’s impossible to have any privacy here.”
“Not a bet I’d take.” She started working on her salad.
“I hear the O’Rourke brothers are staying in a private home in Machiasport.”
“The O’Rourke brothers? I didn’t know there were multiples.”
“You know that the victim’s brother is the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, right?”
“I read that. But you said ‘
brothers,’ making it sound like there’ll be a bunch of toughs on the front steps of the courthouse waiting for Danny Boothby if the jury finds him not guilty.”
I thought of the Speaker’s bodyguard and his quick foot. “Frank O’Rourke had three big brothers, all of whom are here to watch the trial. They’re not the kind who’d retaliate with their fists if Danny were acquitted. But make no mistake, they’re serving notice that they’re paying close attention to how justice is served in Washington County.”
“I’ll look for them in the courtroom tomorrow.”
“Speaking of toughs, I met Corrine’s grandfather on my way out of the courthouse today. He’s a barber who doesn’t much like longhairs like me.”
“Did he say that?”
“Left no doubt about it. Ordered me to report to his barber chair tomorrow at high noon.”
“Are you going to show up?”
“Sure. I haven’t gotten around to getting my hair cut for a few months. The hat thing doesn’t help, either. So I’ll walk down there tomorrow when the trial breaks for lunch and maybe I’ll pick up some insights while he cuts my hair. Or I may be in for a rant. He sure was wound up when I met him today.”
“About your long hair?”
“No, about Danny Boothby. Claude—that’s the grandfather—doesn’t seem to like him. At first I thought he actually was saying he hoped Danny would be convicted, then he contradicted himself. Meanwhile, his wife stood by silently, looking like she was trying to figure out what to make for supper.”
Emma resisted my smooth attempt to move the conversation back to the trial by motioning for the check.
Chapter Seven
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Standing in front of my window the next morning I watched a bundled-up guy across the street scrape frost off his windshield. Great billows of his breath were visible from where I stood in my boxer shorts, hopping from one bare foot to the other on the cold floor. I turned on the TV and climbed back under the covers to watch the morning news, which in Maine-speak means watch the weather report. Perhaps people in the big farm states are similarly fanatical, but Maine people talk about the weather incessantly. Rain, snow, sleet, sunshine, wind or humidity, people are obsessed with the forecast. I’d picked up the habit in college, and like a ballplayer addicted to chewing tobacco, I needed a meteorological boost to start my day.
The weather guy offered a mixed prediction. By midafternoon, the frigid air mass would be pushed off by a low pressure system coming from the south, bringing relatively warmer air to Downeast Maine. But a big batch of moisture also was steaming into the Gulf of Maine. As Aunt Gert used to say, “It’s going to warm up so it can snow.”
It had been too late to call Christie the night before, but I knew where she’d be at seven thirty on a Wednesday morning. I clicked off the TV and dialed the diner, where a rotary dial phone hung on the wall outside the walk-in refrigerator. Christie must have been standing right next to it because she picked up in the middle of the first ring.
“I hear you deliver.” I spoke in an accent I thought sounded French.
“You’ve heard wrong.”
“I can’t live without your hotcakes.”
“You’d be surprised what you can live without, Joe Gale.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
She sighed. “Hot date last night? I stayed up late thinking you’d call.”
“I had dinner with a woman, but it wasn’t a date.”
“A fisherwoman?”
“Nope.”
“A farmer woman?”
“Nope, a psychologist woman.”
“Thank God you’ve decided to get some help.”
“She’s working with the daughter of the man who’s on trial, you know, counseling her.”
“Why’s she talking to you?”
“As outsiders, we stick out in this town like a pair of pine trees on a clam flat.”
“Well she’s good company then,” Christie said. “Whatever her name is.”
“Emma. Emma Abbott. But on to important things. I’m watching the morning weather report out of Bangor. It seems a nor’easter’s on its way.”
“That’s the story here, too. All the guys have plow blades on their trucks this morning.”
“I’m not sure how the judge is going to handle it, seeing how the jury’s sequestered. If it’s a big enough storm, court could be cancelled Thursday and Friday, which will make for a hell of a long weekend in a motel with no TV.”
“Make sure you get yourself home ahead of the snow. I’m counting on you to spend some time with my sullen son, make sure he hasn’t committed an axe murder or joined a cult.”
“I’ll throw my stuff in the car and hightail it out of here as soon as I see the first flakes. I have no intention of spending my weekend in Machias.”
* * *
Medical Examiner Bud Troost was summoned back to the stand and Cohen began his cross-examination. He went through the autopsy report in meticulous detail, asking Troost to verify that the stab wound in O’Rourke’s chest was the only wound on his body other than bruises sustained when he fell to the ground. He also got the medical examiner to describe the angle of the wound in great detail and to estimate that death occurred within moments of the fatal thrust. Cohen then spent some time underlining the message he’d telegraphed with his objections the previous day.
“From the condition of the body, can you say for certain what the victim was doing when he was stabbed?”
“Well, I could say for certain he was standing up,” Troost said.
“Okay. Standing up. Can you say for certain where he was standing?”
“I think there’s a high degree of probability he was on the porch,” Troost replied.
“But you can’t say that for certain?”
“He might have been in the doorway, or even a step or two into the house,” Troost said. “As I explained yesterday, there wasn’t much blood loss, so the fact that we didn’t find blood inside the house or on the threshold doesn’t rule out the possibility that he was stabbed someplace other than the porch. But given the nature of the injury, it sure wasn’t far from the porch.”
I wondered if Troost realized he was rambling, something a legion of prosecutors must have warned him against over the years.
Cohen kept probing. “Can you say for certain which way the victim was facing?”
Troost admitted he couldn’t.
“It’s helpful to know the technical cause of Mr. O’Rourke’s death, but if I understand your testimony, it is not possible to tell from the condition of his body what the circumstances were at his death.”
Mansfield jumped to his feet.
“Your honor, I object. Mr. Cohen is arguing, not asking questions.”
Justice Herrick sustained the objection. “Is there a question in there, Mr. Cohen?”
Cohen was now standing sideways to the witness box, facing the jury. “No, your honor. I’m finished with my examination of the witness.”
And a damned good job you did mucking up the neat little story Mansfield elicited from the medical examiner yesterday, I thought.
Because Cohen had been so successful at raising questions about how the stabbing took place, I was surprised when Mansfield opted not to ask any questions on redirect. Bud Troost left the courtroom through the center aisle, passing near enough to me that I could smell his Old Spice.
Next up was JoAnn Francis, the chief evidence technician for the state police. Francis, who looked to be in her late thirties, spoke in a clear, deliberate voice as Mansfield walked her through her background and education. Born and raised on the nearby Passamaquoddy reservation, she held bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Criminal Justice and had run the technical evidence team for eight years.
Francis testified she was at the Boothby house for more than seven hours on the night of May 22 and described the evidence-gathering procedure in minute detail. A state trooper and several deputies from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department were on the scene when she arrived, and the county’s evidence tech and four other ERT technicians showed up within the hour.
“We divided up duties,” she said. “The county tech and two deputies combed the house for evidence and me and my guys set up portable lights and searched the dooryard.”
A jolt of electricity shot through the courtroom when Mansfield produced the murder weapon. “Can you identify this object?” He handed the plastic-bagged item to Francis, who looked at the label on the bag.
“It’s the knife that was embedded in the victim’s chest when I arrived at the scene.”
“Did you take it out of his body?”
“That’s the medical examiner’s job, during the autopsy.”
“Have you been permitted to examine this knife before today?”
“After the autopsy, I was allowed to see it—handle it—because it’s evidence that needed to be processed.”
“So you measured it, and weighed it, and all of that, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please tell us what you learned about this knife.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket so I’d be ready to tweet if the testimony indicated something about the knife was the key to the case.
“It’s a filleting knife,” Francis said. “Some people would call it a gutting knife or a boning knife. It’s made of stainless steel, with a curved blade, six inches long. It’s a fixed blade knife, meaning it doesn’t fold closed. It was made by R.H. Forschner, which is associated with the Victorinox line of knives, commonly called ‘Swiss Army knives.’”
“Is it a knife a fisherman would carry?”
Francis considered the question. “It’s a knife you would use to clean or fillet fish, but it doesn’t have a sheath, so a fisherman wouldn’t carry it around. It’d be something you might use on a fishing boat if there was a bait cutting table, but it might also be used at home to clean the fish you caught.”
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