Fatal Harbor (3 page)

I got dressed in my clothes from the day before, spent a second or two looking at the mirror, and then picked up my cell phone. No missed calls, no texts, no messages. I dialed a number from memory, where it went straight to voice mail, and after Annie Wynn’s recorded voice warmed me, I said, “Just checking in. Off to work again. Hope you’re hanging in there. Will try later.”

Then I tried the phone of Kara Miles, Diane Woods’s fiancée, and found that her phone was busy. I left a message with her as well, and then went out to the living room.

Felix was sitting on one of the overstuffed couches, reading that day’s
Wall Street Journal
. He looked up. “What’s the plan for the day?”

I sat down across from him. “The plan is . . . the plan is we’re going to change things up.”

“Fair enough. What do you have in mind?”

“We’ve been skulking around, planning to . . . entice the good professor to join us, where we’d have what the diplomats call a ‘frank and open discussion.’ I still want the discussion, but I’m tired of skulking around. I’m looking for a direct approach this time.”

“Why not?” Felix asked, folding his
Wall Street Journal
in half. “So, when do you want to go?”

“Still have your laptop?”

“Unless Aunt Teresa’s checking out Chippendale models, yeah, I still have my laptop.”

“Let me do a little research, and we’ll be on our way.”

An hour later, Felix dropped me off at 226 Bay State Street in Boston, near Storrow Drive and the Charles River. The street was narrow and tree-lined, with a narrow grassy median strip with trees growing in the center. The buildings up and down the street all belonged to Boston University. He pulled the Cadillac to the side of the street. “Got your cell phone?”

“As much as I hate the evil device, yes, I do.”

“Carrying?”

“Felix, I’m going on a college campus. What, you think I’ll get assaulted in the faculty lounge?”

Two young coeds with long brown hair ambled by, stopped, looked at Felix, and then hesitantly regained their step. If Felix noticed it, he kept it to himself. Instead, he said: “You’re setting to confront a guy who’s supposedly helped and supported the low-life who’s pretty much killed off your best friend. You better keep that in mind.”

“She’s not dead.”

Felix sighed. “My friend . . . where she is and what happened to her, it might be merciful to let her go. Otherwise she has long decades ahead of her . . . not knowing who she is, not recognizing friends and family, and—”

“I’ve heard enough, thanks.”

Felix said, “Yeah, I’m sure. Look, I’ll be right out here waiting for you. Okay?”

I looked at the parking signs. “But you don’t have a university parking sticker.”

“No, but I got my winning attitude. What can possibly go wrong?”

The fall air in the city was so different from what I was used to. There was no smell of ocean, or autumn leaves, or seaweed and wet stones tossed up by my house. There was just the stench of exhaust and the continuous hum of traffic, punctuated by horns and sirens.

The sidewalk was made of brick, with attractive shrubs and plants at the base of the buildings, but to me it all looked too enthusiastic, as if some designer was desperately trying to soften the hard edges of this city.

I went up the steps to 226 Bay State Street, to a wooden front door with a large glass window. To the right of the door, bolted to the concrete wall, was a gold-and-red sign that said, in descending order:

226
BOSTON
UNIVERSITY
AMERICAN
STUDIES
PRESERVATION
STUDIES

And underneath, in a much smaller typeface:
RAMP
AT
REAR
OF
BUILDING
.

I opened the door and went inside.

I meandered my way through the corridors, past wall decorations and bulletin boards with lots of flyers and posters pinned up. There were small clusters of students talking, and I could sense them checking me out as I went by. Some decades ago, I had been one of them, planning and hoping to change the world. Then I had left and gone to the place where I thought I
was
changing the world, and was then dismissive of the innocence and high thoughts of my college years.

Now I didn’t have such complicated thoughts. Now I just wished these young people the very best, for what their supposed elders and betters were leaving them: lots of IOUs and trouble spots in the world that always flared up and never quite went away.

Outside the office of Professor Heywood Knowlton, a young man with a tan knapsack at his side was sitting on the floor, back up against the wall. He was busily texting someone with a pair of very dexterous thumbs, and he had a thin beard and very thick brown hair.

“Hey, buddy,” I said.

He glanced up, still texting. Impressive.

“Yeah?”

“You have an appointment to see Professor Knowlton?”

“So?”

So far, so good, even with the one-syllable responses. I took out my wallet, passed over a fifty-dollar bill. “This is for you if you let me have it.”

He looked confused. “You mean you want to take my appointment?”

“That’s right.”

He reached up, snapped the fifty-dollar bill from my hand. “Shit, bud, I would have done it for twenty.”

The next generation gathered up his belongings and, with a wide smile on his face, trotted down the corridor.

I took his spot, leaning against the wall instead of sitting on the floor. Checked my watch. At the top of the hour, the door to Professor Knowlton’s office swung open and a female student walked out, face clenched red, her knapsack clutched to her chest with both hands. She stifled a sob as she went past me.

After a second or two, I swung around and entered the office. It was large enough but cluttered, with a wide oak desk piled high with papers and folders. A window overlooked the street I’d just been on. Crowded bookshelves graced both walls, and in some of the spare wall space hung framed diplomas for Professor Knowlton, along with some interesting mementoes: a framed front page from
The New York Times
of August 8, 1974, stating
NIXON
RESIGNS
; a copy of the famed Che Guevara print that has promoted the Marxist revolutionary over the decades by being used to sell everything from T-shirts to purses; and a photo of planet Earth, taken by one of the moon missions, with a caption stating
DON
’
T
TREAT
YOUR
MOTHER
LIKE
A
TOILET
.

Behind the desk a squat man sat, with a thick fringe of light brown hair about a bald head, eyeglasses perched up over his forehead, and a finely trimmed brown beard that was missing a moustache. He had on a black turtleneck, and both sleeves were rolled up. He was reading a stapled sheaf of papers when his glance shifted and took me in.

“You don’t look like Don Oliphant,” he said, his voice gravelly.

“I’m not, Professor Knowlton,” I replied, stepping in front of his desk. “My name is Lewis Cole, and Don graciously allowed me to take his appointment.”

He turned in his chair, dropped the papers on his desk. “Have a seat. You look too old to be a student, Mister Cole, so what brings you by today?”

I sat in a solid but comfortable wooden chair. “I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.”

“For what purpose?” he asked sharply. “Are you a lawyer or a member of law enforcement, Mister Cole?”

“Worse,” I said. “I’m a writer.”

That brought a laugh. “What kind?”

“Well, freelance right now. I used to be a columnist for
Shoreline
magazine, based here in Boston.”

“What did you write for them?”

“A column about the New Hampshire seacoast. Called ‘Granite Shores.’”

“You said you’re no longer with them. Quit?”

“Fired.”

He tidied up some of his papers. “Economic problems?”

“Let’s just say a personality conflict,” I said. “I had one, and my editor didn’t.”

Another laugh. “Okay. So what kind of story are you working on?”

“Research, right now. About the demonstrations up at the Falconer nuclear power plant.”

He frowned. “Nasty business.”

“Certainly was,” I said. “I was there in the crowd when Bronson Toles got shot.”

He shook his head. “No, I meant the entire power plant up there being nasty business. Should never have been built. But the corporations and their enablers in the NRC and Congress swept aside people’s concerns and had the damn place built. So nobody should have been surprised when the people finally spoke up and violence broke out.”

“I think a lot of people were surprised, starting with Bronson Toles. And the other people who got killed and injured when the Nuclear Freedom Front folks stormed the plant site.”

“That’s what happens when you give poorly trained security personnel firearms. The innocents get killed.”

“I think the forensics is still up in the air over who fired the fatal shots.”

He laughed again. “Some writer you are, taking the company line. Don’t worry, you won’t be contradicted. Enough people will get the word, and the right paperwork will get shuffled around, so those who got killed actually committed suicide. Or some gunmen on some grassy knoll somewhere opened fire. But whatever it takes, the ones in power won’t get blamed. It’ll be just like the Little Big Horn rebellion back in 1976; scores of Native American activists were later found dead, and most of them supposedly died of exposure or suicide. I’ve read some of those autopsy reports. Funny how government doctors missed a bullet in the head when they diagnosed some woman activist as having died of exposure, and another one who was found in a bathtub with numerous knife wounds supposedly died later of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

When I was in college, I wasn’t too fond of professors who prattled on and on, and I found that my dislike hadn’t gone away over the interceding decades.

“That’s quite fascinating, Professor Knowlton, but I was hoping we could steer the conversation back to why I came here today. I also realize you only have a fifteen-minute block before another student comes knocking at your door.”

He raised a hand. “My apologies, Mister Cole. Research, you said. For a freelance article, then?”

“That’s what I’m hoping for. And I’m also hoping you could assist me in locating Curt Chesak, the head of the Nuclear Freedom Front. I’d like to talk to him about a proposed book project about the demonstrations at the power plant.”

He said nothing and continued looking at me, and I looked right back at him. Finally he said, “You’re certain you’re not a law enforcement official?”

“Positive.”

“Could I still see some ID, please?”

Feeling generous, I opened up my wallet, passed over my New Hampshire driver’s license, as well as my official press pass, issued by the New Hampshire Department of Safety. He examined them both and gave them back to me.

“What makes you think I know anything about Curt Chesak?”

“I was led to believe that you were an associate of his.”

“‘An associate of his.’ And who said that, someone whose dad worked for Senator McCarthy back during the Red Scare?”

“No,” I said. “A source I know, a source I can trust.”

“From the news accounts of what happened at Falconer, you must know that lots of cops are looking for Curt Chesak. Some of them have actually paid me a visit.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yeah, right, luck,” he said. “And you know what I told each and every one of them? That even if I knew where Curt Chesak was—which I’m not admitting—I wouldn’t even consider turning him in. Because he’s a true believer, a fighter for the people, an organizer who has made a difference. To lots of people, he’s a damn hero, and I’m not in the business of turning over heroes to the police.”

“To lots of people, he’s a damn thug.”

Knowlton raised a hand. “Of course that’s how the corporate-powered media are going to portray it, and—”

“I saw what he did,” I said sharply, interrupting him. “I saw him at the Falconer plant site last week, where he took a length of pipe and nearly beat to death a Tyler police officer.”

“Price of progress.”

“The price of. . . .” I couldn’t go on anymore. I wanted to reach across that academic desk, pick up his coffee mug, and crack it against his skull just to give him a taste of his blessed progress.

“Absolutely. The Tyler police officer who was allegedly injured by Curt Chesak wasn’t a person anymore. He—”

“She,” I corrected him.

“He, she, does it make a difference?”

“Makes a difference to some. Including me.”

“Whatever,” the professor said. “That police officer was more than just a police officer. She was a symbol of the corporate oligarchy that has been running this country for decades and, in the spirit of self-defense, what happened to her was a just response to oppression.”

Focus, focus
, I thought to myself. “So, when was the last time you saw Curt Chesak?”

A slight smile. “Not going to happen, sorry.”

“But you do know him.”

“I refer you to my earlier statement.”

“Ah, even if you did know him, you wouldn’t admit it.”

“True, because you know, when it comes to—”

“Excuse me, I think you’ve misunderstood why I’m here.”

“Oh?”

I stood up. “I’m not paying tens of thousands of dollars per semester to listen to stuff I can hear for free at 2
A
.
M
. on Newbury Street, when the bars close.”

His lips pursed and his eyes flared. “You can leave.”

I headed for the door. “I don’t need your permission.”

Outside, I was hoping the air would freshen and cheer me up, but it did the opposite. The air was thick and oppressive, and the constant drone of nearby traffic seemed to burrow inside my skull, like a dull drill bit trying to fight its way through something unyielding. I got out on Bay State Street, looked up and down, and saw Felix’s Cadillac at the intersection with Granby Street, partially parked up on a sidewalk.