Pot Shot

by Gerry Boyle

  Praise for Gerry Boyle

  “Fans of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser will love McMorrow, a quintessential male who’s tough, funny, macho, and intelligent.”

  —Booklist

  Praise for Lifeline

  “Jack McMorrow, seen before in Bloodline and Deadline, is a former New York Times reporter now working for a small paper in Maine. Covering the courthouse, he senses a good story in Donna Marchant, a young woman complaining of domestic abuse but ignored by the autocratic assistant district attorney . . . McMorrow writes about Donna’s plight, arousing the wrath of her loutish boyfriend, Jeff Tanner. When Donna is murdered, suspicion falls not only on Tanner but also on McMorrow . . . Boyle, a Maine newspaper writer himself, makes McMorrow a credible crusader, equally comfortable in the quiet woods and small-town courthouses. The narrative moves briskly as McMorrow eliminates several suspects on his way to a surprise solution.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  POTSHOT

  A JACK MCMORROW MYSTERY

  GERRY BOYLE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  POTSHOT

  First Islandport edition/March 2015

  Printing History

  G.P. Putnam’s Sons hardcover edition/1997

  Berkley Prime Crime edition/March 1998

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 1997 by Gerry Boyle

  ISBN: 978-1-939017-55-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014911184

  Islandport Press

  P.O. Box 10

  Yarmouth, Maine 04096

  www.islandportpress.com

  books@islandportpress.com

  Publisher: Dean Lunt

  Cover Design: Tom Morgan, Blue Design

  Interior Book Design: Teresa Lagrange, Islandport Press

  Cover image courtesy of Blue Design

  Printed in the USA

  For

  Jeanne Carew McGowan Boyle:

  a bright light, always

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks go to the news staff of the Lowell Sun, to acquaintances on both sides of the marijuana debate, to the people of western Maine, a wild and welcoming place, and especially to Brent Smith, who graciously and patiently drove me in circles.

  INTRODUCTION

  There was no Colorado back then. Not in a marijuana sense. No marijuana stores, no medicinal use.

  In the backwoods of Maine, where I spent some time a decade or two ago, it was just the pot growers versus the cops. The cops had planes and helicopters and informants. The growers had woods smarts and thousands of acres of forest and field in which to put those smarts to use. As I plied the towns and back roads for newspaper columns, I turned that grist into this novel.

  Pot growers Bobby and Melanie Mullaney, their mysterious and ominous outlaw friend Coyote, their son Stephen—they were drawn from myriad encounters I’d had in small towns in the western part of the state. Home-built houses tucked into the woods. People sitting around kitchen tables, beers in their hands, guns leaning in the corner.

  So this is a tale of drug runners, but it’s also a story about something else that fascinated me about those encounters. Some of the people I met were locals, born and raised, but some were “from away,” as we say in Maine. From where, exactly? It was hard to say. In this neck of the woods you don’t ask too many questions. It’s a rural thing . . . maybe a Maine thing. This place gives newcomers a chance to reinvent themselves. New name. New backstory. New start, with a clean slate.

  Upon meeting someone new, I would often ask myself if they had come to rural Maine to get back to the land, or if perhaps they’d come from a place where there were warrants out for their arrest?

  These questions are at the heart of Potshot.

  Jack McMorrow, who drives into the backwoods to meet emerging marijuana activist Bobby Mullaney, prides himself on being a good judge of character. Reporters, like cops, have been lied to so often that they develop a sixth sense. But in the dark reaches of western Maine, Jack may have met his match.

  The Mullaneys live in the town of Florence, off the grid and out of reach. In the course of his investigation, McMorrow follows a drug trail to Lewiston, Maine, and Lawrence, Massachusetts, where he finds himself up against criminals and cops alike. Both environments are tough, but the odd thing is, while rereading the book to write this, I found the Maine woods even more ominous than the gang-filled Massachusetts mill city. It took me a while to figure out why.

  The fact is, we’re threatened by the evil we know and can identify: gangbangers on city streets; a drug dealer’s enforcer chasing McMorrow down a stairwell. But we truly fear the evil we feel but cannot see. What is more terrifying: someone shouting in your face, or the sound of footsteps behind you in the woods at night?

  In Potshot McMorrow is chased and beaten. With Clair at his side, he gives as good as he gets, including one scene that has Clair stepping up like never before. When I reread those few pages again, I smiled. Let me know if you can guess which scene I mean. If you’re right, I’ll send you my latest book.

  McMorrow is jailed, holds people hostage to get his story, and manipulates their emotions as—in this novel more than others—he blurs the line between right and wrong. In the end, there is only one object to McMorrow’s fateful search: the truth.

  But where does the truth lie: Are people what they seem? Who can be trusted? Who are the bad guys, and who is on the side of good? On whom does McMorrow dare to turn his back, and if he does, will someone stick the knife in?

  In the end, this is a story about dreams—about people who want to get ahead. But in hindsight, I see that it’s also a story about the guises we take on as we pursue our objectives. Even McMorrow, chasing the story, is a chameleon who has to adjust to the situation and subject at hand. Once he figures it out, will he survive to tell the tale?

  For McMorrow in Potshot, guessing wrong can be pretty damn dangerous.

  —Gerry Boyle, March 2015

  1

  It was raining—not a deluge, but a cold, resolute drizzle that turned the pathways at the Country Life Fair into muck and drove the fairgoers into the animal barns, where they looked with wonder at cows and goats and strange fluffy chickens.

  “This one’s for sale,” I said, peering into a cage where a white snow-shoed hen peered back. “We could have chicken salad tonight.”

  “Jack,” Roxanne said. “Please.”

  “You’re right. She’s small. I guess we’d better buy two. Which job do you want? Lopping off the heads or pulling out all the feathers?”

  Roxanne rolled her
eyes and chewed. She was eating an eggplant sandwich, which looked as good as it sounded. The cold autumn air had rouged her cheeks and the mist had waved her hair.

  “You’re beautiful when you’re chewing,” I said.

  Roxanne swallowed. She was beautiful when she was swallowing, too.

  “God, I hope you didn’t try that line on anybody over dinner,” Roxanne said.

  “You don’t like it?”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “I’ll go find a hippie who appreciates me,” I said.

  “Tell him I said hello.”

  “No, I mean a woman hippie. You know. With low-cut Birkenstocks. Underwear made out of natural fibers. I miss the free-love days, you know?”

  “They weren’t what they’re cracked up to be,” Roxanne said.

  “How do you know? You weren’t born,” I said.

  Roxanne gave her best imitation of a lascivious leer.

  “I’m living proof of the wonder of monogamy.”

  “You win,” I said.

  Roxanne smiled.

  She finished her eggplant and walked over to a recycling bin and tossed her paper napkin in. I walked over with her and looked out at the rain. People in expensive mountaineering gear trooped by triumphantly, knowing their five-hundred-dollar all-weather outfits, field-tested on K-2, would keep them safe and dry on their trek to the craft tent across the fairgrounds.

  “What’d you do with your french fries?” Roxanne said.

  “I couldn’t eat ’em. The ketchup was weird.”

  “That’s because it doesn’t have sugar.”

  “What’s so bad about sugar?” I said. “I think these people ought to lighten up.”

  “You tell them, then,” Roxanne said. “You hear that drumming? What’s that?”

  “West African drums. Down behind the grandstand. I was down there before. There was a tribe of upper-middle-class white people, dancing up a storm.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. I think they’re getting back to their roots.”

  “What roots are those?” Roxanne said.

  “Toms River, New Jersey. Pound Ridge, New York. Ridgefield, Connecticut. A lot of big heartless corporations put these people through college.”

  Roxanne smiled at me.

  “You’re being too hard on them,” she said. “They’re like you. They like Maine and living in the country and all that.”

  I thought for a moment. Watched a guy who had his hair in a long braid and a ring through his upper lip.

  “I know,” I said. “But you know what gets me a little? I guess it’s the idea that they’re biting the hands that raised and fed them. They should, I don’t know, show some appreciation, don’t you think? Their parents didn’t like to go to the office every day, but they did it anyway. How are these people going to put their kids through college?”

  Roxanne put her arm around my waist, her hand on my hip.

  “Financial aid. But I saw some beautiful sweaters, hand-knit by your hypocritical hippies. I’m going to go back.”

  “Don’t try to pay with plastic.”

  “What are you going to do?” Roxanne said.

  “I don’t know. Wander around. There was a guy selling yurts over by the ox-pulling. I think I’ll check them out.”

  “You mean those tent-looking things?”

  “Yeah. I think they come with yaks. You know. Mongols and the steppes and all that.”

  “What would you do with a yurt?”

  I stepped closer to her. “I don’t know, but I know what we could do in one.” I raised my eyebrows knowingly.

  “Oh, Jack, you are sick.”

  Roxanne grinned. She was beautiful when she grinned. She was just plain beautiful. I grinned, too.

  “I’ll meet you in a half-hour,” she said. “Where do you want to meet?”

  I gave her the look again.

  “Oh, Lord,” Roxanne said. “Just meet me at the front gate. I want lots of people around in case you get any ideas.”

  “I’m full of ideas.”

  “Front gate. Half-hour,” Roxanne said, grinning at me. “You’re lucky I love you.”

  “Very,” I said.

  Roxanne walked one way and I walked the other. The path was slick with mud and people were picking their way around the puddles. Even with the rain, the place was teeming, both with the hippies, who worked here, and with fairgoers, who were more mainstream; handsome, healthy, prosperous-looking couples herding handsome, healthy kids. The kids wore yellow slickers and tall rubber rain boots. The fathers wore baseball hats that advertised programs on public radio or universities with industrial-size sports teams. The mothers were attractive and outwardly well-adjusted, the kind who made sure everyone wore seat belts in the Volvo.

  They were here to give their children the opportunity to see a cow, close up.

  And there were cows. Lots of them. I cut through one of the livestock barns, where the cows reclined in stalls bedecked with the banners of their respective farms. The names of the farms were meant to sound idyllic: Pumpkin Hill, Salt Marsh, Windy Hollow. The cows were big and placid. Like kids these days, they were identified by stuff worn on rings through their ears and noses.

  I walked out of the back side of the barn and continued on, my boots sticking in the mire. Beyond the barn I saw men standing beside pickups that cost half as much as a house. The pickups pulled matching trailers that carried oxen to the fair. When all of the machinery was parked and the oxen unloaded, the men and oxen would move massive loads of wood and stone, in the manner of the desperate, dirt-scraping pioneers who, if they’d had a four-wheel-drive truck, would have eaten their oxen for supper.

  The fair was billed as a celebration of rural life, and tens of thousands of people joined the party every fall, linked by the common bond of being able to come home from work every day without being shot, stabbed, or terrorized by the threat of either, or both. This was a legitimate reason for celebration, I thought, but not a reason for smugness.

  “Lighten up, McMorrow,” I said aloud to myself.

  “I’ll try,” myself said back.

  So I continued on. I saw booths where people were selling honey and dry beans and giant squash. A kid selling towels purportedly made by the indigenous people of Guatemala wore a sweatshirt that said PRINCETON LACROSSE. A preppie-looking guy with gold-rimmed glasses stood and watched the judging of Percheron horses, their manes and tails braided with ribbons.

  “Bizarre,” he said.

  “Why’s that?” I said, standing beside him.

  He looked over at me, startled.

  “You into this?” the guy said.

  “No, but it probably beats staying home and polishing your BMW.”

  I looked at him and grinned. He looked back, then walked away.

  No social graces.

  In the next row was the political wing. A banner proclaimed EXTINCTION IS FOREVER. Another said PEACE IS PATRIOTIC. I strolled along, eyeing the literature, listening to the boom box music, which was obscure reggae and ska.

  “Hey, man,” a voice said. “You like the music of the islands?”

  I looked over. He was on the small side, lithe and dark, but white. More Brooklyn than Barbados. He stopped and put a clipboard down in front of him and me.

  “If it wasn’t for this herb, that music would never have been created, man,” the guy said.

  “If it weren’t,” I said.

  “Exactly right. We’re putting the question to the people. Legalize hemp. You registered to vote in Maine?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Then put yourself on the list, man. End the double standard that has beer companies sponsoring sports on TV while people who use hemp get locked up, have their houses seized, their cars taken away. If the people have a say, all that’ll end.”

  He held out a pen. I gave him a quick glance. Early thirties. Dark curly hair. A gold stud in his left ear. A confident, bemused look about him, especially
around the eyes. An accent that said Boston or points south.

  “Bobby Mullaney,” he said. “Florence, Maine.”

  “Jack McMorrow. Prosperity, Maine.”

  “Prosperity? I’ve never been to Prosperity.”

  “I’ve never been to Florence.”

  “Man, nobody’s been to Florence. That’s why we’re there. It’d be God’s country if God could find it, you know what I’m saying? It’s beautiful. No tourists. No jobs. No money. No nothing.”

  He grinned at me, cocky and disarming, in a big-city, fast-talking sort of way.

  “Paradise,” Mullaney said.

  “So there must be something up there.”

  “Woods. Beauteous hardwood hills, man. Trout streams. You spent much time in western Maine?”

  “Some,” I said. “Place called Androscoggin.”

  “Oh, that’s the other western Maine. Industrialized. I’m talking about the end of the earth, the sleepy hollows. Reminds me of West Virginia. Been to West Virginia?”

  “Been through it.”

  “That’s what Florence is like. Me and the old lady, we came up from Valley, man. Valley, Mass. Old beat-to-shit pickup. Didn’t have a pot to piss in. But we’d saved up thirty-five hundred bucks, and the ad in the Globe said we could get a hundred acres for twelve thousand. They’d finance. I said, ‘Shit. Why the hell not?’ We drove up—her kid was just a rug rat—and we seen this land, I mean, trees as far as you could see. Man, we were renting four rooms with a view of an alley where there were skaggy old hookers and crackheads. It was the walking dead, no shit. And man, we saw all those woods and trees and we said—it was this old guy who owned it—we said, ‘We’ll take it. Here’s the down payment. Where do we sign?’ You know what I’m saying? We felt like the friggin’ settlers, you know? Forty acres and a mule.”

  “That was ex-slaves, I think,” I said. “President Andrew Johnson.”

  “Right. ’Cause, man, we were slaves down there in the city. Slaving away. Getting nowhere. Barely surviving. The old lady, her name’s Mel. For Melanie. She said she felt like she’d been emancipated. No shit. She said that.”