Chapter 24

	Such is the daily news … a parasitic growth…. I would not run around a corner to see the world blow up The morning and the evening were full of news to you.
	HENRY THOREAU

The newspapers called it “The Minuteman Murder,” and they celebrated it swiftly. There were so many charming things about it. For one thing it had happened on Patriot’s Day at the Birthplace of American Liberty, and for another it had apparently been committed by a reincarnation of Paul Revere (this universal error brought joy to the heart of the Governor of the Commonwealth). How much juicier could a story get? the A.P. man wanted to know.

“Well, the victim could have been a shapely blonde draped in the American flag,” said the reporter from the Globe.

For a week or so the story stayed on page one in the Boston papers. The inquest in the District Court helped it along.

INQUEST FINDS MURDER
Widow Insane With Grief

“Ernest Goss met his death at the hands of a person or persons unknown.” This was the finding of Judge Harlow Murphy this morning in Concord’s District Court. His decision was based on the report of District Medical Examiner Walter Allen and on an autopsy performed by Dr. Warren Betty of Harvard’s School of Legal Medicine.

The nature of the wound, Dr. Betty said, was such that it could only have been inflicted from a distance of approximately six to ten feet. The angle of passage of the fatal ball through the body indicated that the weapon from which it was fired was held at a height. It could have been fired, said Dr. Betty, either from horseback or from the rise of ground below the obelisk in front of the bridge. Dr. Allen declared the time of death, one P.M., compatible with a shot fired about five minutes earlier, i.e. about the time Boy Scout Arthur Furry heard such a shot.

Mrs. Elizabeth Goss, widow of the murdered man and mother of Charles Goss, has been pronounced incapable of participation in the investigation, said Psychiatrist David Marks of the Massachusetts General Hospital. On the advice of Dr. Marks, Mrs. Goss, who is said to have lost her reason as a result of the tragedy, will be removed from her luxurious Concord home to McLean Hospital in Waverly.

That was the Herald. The Every Morning went in more for sex and sentiment. Chief Jimmy Flower looked at the picture on the front page with distaste. There was Arthur Furry, almost life size, upholstered in merit badges, looking prim and fat. SCOUT CONFRONTS SUSPECT. The account was highly colored. Jimmy read it aloud to Bernard Shrubsole, and got mad.

… and the brave lad paused. “Perhaps if he would just make his horse jump the fence,” he said. The lip of Concord Police Chief James Flower tightened. “All right, lad, anything you say …”

(“I—did—not! I’ve never called anybody ‘lad’ in my whole entire life!”)

He gave the order for Charles Goss, dressed as Paul Revere, to jump his horse over the fence to the rear of the Minuteman. “It’s him!” cried the Honor Scout, as the great beast leaped the fence.

Questioned by Lieutenant-Detective Homer Kelly, Arthur admitted that he could not rule out the possibility that Philip Goss, brother of Charles, might have been the original horseman. “I’m sure as anything it was one of them,” said the boy.

Philip Goss was not present during the re-enactment. Homer Kelly asserted that Philip was acting within his legal rights in refusing to take part.

Kelly also pointed out that Charles Goss had taken his horse over the fence with a fine display of horsemanship, whereas the escaping murderer had fallen off, demonstrating clumsiness.

On the editorial page of this newspaper a columnist gave the District Attorney of Middlesex County a hard time, remarking with thinly veiled candor that his pursuit of criminals had been lackadaisical to say the least.

“Oh, bah,” said Jimmy Flower. He rolled up the newspaper and bounded around his office with it, swatting nonexistent flies.