Trell

Except we couldn’t find Travis. Ma had the church ladies trying some more, but they were truly stumped. Clemens contacted a source he had at the Department of Motor Vehicles to see if Travis Golson ever had a driver’s license. If so, it would have an address listed on it. But no. Travis apparently never drove, at least not legally.

No one had a clue. When it came to the star witness Frank Flanagan had used against Daddy at his trial, the entire neighborhood of Roxbury was left scratching its head.

The summer days dragged into August. I fell into a pretty deep funk. We couldn’t visit Daddy; he still had two more weeks in solitary before he got out. I tried tackling my summer reading, but that only reminded me I had to make up my mind one way or another about returning to the Weld.

Ma said she was getting letters from the school. She tried talking to me about it, but I wasn’t ready. I was in a crazy kind of limbo, a limbo that seemed multiplied by two. I was in limbo about school, and we were in limbo about Travis Golson and our story. When Ma was talking about school, I talked about the case.

Even my workout runs didn’t help much. My whole life, running had been a way to clear my head. I still went out every day, but now the runs were sluggish. My legs felt heavy, and my head was more foggy than clear. That just put me in a deeper funk.

Then Paul Parish called. He asked what I was up to and if I wanted to see the new Spider-Man movie.

“What about Men in Black II?” he said. “My cousin says it freaks you out.”

I mostly wanted to stay home. I was doing a shut-in thing. Reading some poems, a bit of James Baldwin, and listening to music. One song got stuck in my head, Shaggy’s “Angel,” which featured Rayvon singing the hook.

Girl, you’re my angel, you’re my darlin’ angel.

Closer than my peeps you are to me, baby.

Shorty, you’re my angel, you’re my darlin’ angel.

Girl, you’re my friend when I’m in need, lady.

The lyrics made me think of my parents, made me imagine when they were young and first got together. If Daddy could carry a tune, it could have been him singing instead of Shaggy.

Life is one big party when you’re still young.

But who’s gonna have your back when it’s all done.

It’s all good when you’re little, you have pure fun.

Can’t be a fool, son, what about the long run.

Looking back Shorty always mention.

Said me not giving her much attention.

She was there through my incarceration.

I wanna show the nation my appreciation.

I liked the lyrics enough, but it was more the reggae beat that stayed with me, a rhythm breaking like a gentle wave, mixed with sadness. It sounded like how I was feeling. The song played over and over in my head.

Each day during my run, I swung by Clemens’s apartment and checked in. I always found him at his laptop. He said he was going over his memos and roughing out what he called a foundation for the story.

“I know, I know. But I’m trying to see if we can work around the Travis problem.”

Then, one Saturday morning, I was getting ready to head out for a run when Clemens met me at the door. “Get changed,” he said. “We’re going to the Globe.”

“Yep,” he said. “We have a meeting. It’s at eleven, so we better hurry.”

“That’s who. I wrote a draft, he’s read it, and he called. He wants to talk.”

Being in a hurry, Clemens pulled into a parking space in front of the Globe, not bothering with the employee lot on the roof deck in back. It meant we entered the building through the front lobby, which meant going through security. Tommy O’Donahue was the guard on duty. He looked up from behind the security desk as we hustled up the granite steps. His eyes popped open once he saw me, and his mouth dropped. I hurried alongside Clemens and made sure to give Tommy O’Donahue the widest grin I could summon, as if to say, No stopping me now. Wordless, Mr. O’Donahue buzzed us through.

“I want to tell you about Jack Morin,” Clemens said as we stepped onto the escalator to the second floor. He was talking fast, like we didn’t have much time.

“He might seem — well, it’s hard to put a finger on it exactly, but he might seem mean. Or maybe unfriendly is better. Or cold. You know, remote.”

“Yeah.” Clemens frowned. “You’re probably right. Let me see . . . It’s a personality thing — he’s a flat line, if you know what I mean.”

“The way he talks, for example — a monotone. No feeling, no emotion. He’s not into small talk, either. Nothing like, ‘How’s the family? What about those Sox? Celtics? Bruins?’ Nothing. You just don’t get much, whether anger, joy, whatever. The man sits at his desk, you wonder if he even has a pulse. For him, it’s all business.”

“That’s what I’m getting at — it’s how most of us reporters regard him. Desktop computer. It’s like he’s built from the neck up. The joke is you could situate his head on a stand on his desk and there you’d have it, Jack Morin.”

“Well, maybe a little. But he knows his stuff, and he’s really smart. I just don’t want it to surprise you, the way he seems so detached, almost not human.”

On the second floor, we walked down a long corridor to the newsroom — a sprawling open space filled with desks for reporters and copyeditors. Glassed-in offices lined one wall. They were for top editors. We stopped at the counter where telephone operators worked. I recognized Rose seated at one station.

I smiled. Clemens craned his neck, looking across the room to the largest glassed-in office in the far corner. It was Editor in Chief Jack Morin’s office.

The words rushed out — and caught me by surprise as they did. I hadn’t felt any excitement when Clemens came by to get me and said we were meeting the editor to go over the story. It was like I wouldn’t let myself go there. But now, suddenly, I felt it. I was really pumped up. I think seeing Rose did it. She reminded me of earlier in the summer — and how far we’d come since then. The funk I’d been in all week, I could feel it passing. I had an urge to tell Rose everything we had uncovered, but I knew we didn’t have time.

I caught up to Clemens. “Jack Morin, he’s got the largest glass house,” he said, nodding toward the corner office that we were fast approaching.

I looked through the glass into other offices we passed, catching glimpses of editors working behind their desks. Some noticed us, and looked up. Others never stirred. “Fishbowls,” I said. “More like fishbowls.”

Jack Morin’s office was big enough to hold a large oak desk on one side, a sitting area with a couch and chairs, and also a round conference table. The office looked out onto the rear parking deck, and to the Southeast Expressway beyond it. Jack Morin and another person, a woman, were seated together at the conference table. I guessed she was one of the paper’s editors, too.

“Hi, Clemens,” she said. The two shook hands. The woman was dressed in green khaki slacks and a matching gray top that perfectly fit her tall, lean build. I thought she looked pretty cool and wondered if she was a runner. Then she turned to me and put her hand out. “I’m Helen Mulvoy,” she said.

Jack Morin said, “I thought it would be good if Helen joined us.” He lowered his head so he could look over the top of his thick-framed reading glasses. He was looking right at me, and his brow furrowed. “Clemens?” he said.

“Trell’s been helping me,” Clemens said. “Her father’s Romero Taylor.”

Jack Morin sat there. Clemens was right. The editor in chief’s voice was flat, and he hadn’t moved more than an inch since we’d arrived. He wore a crisp white shirt and a navy-blue tie, and his skin was a pasty white, as if he never went outdoors.

Jack Morin sat still for a few more moments and finally shifted in his chair. “Well, then.” He cleared his throat again. “Clemens, first off, let me say how happy I am to see you back working the big story. Back from the grave, so to speak.”

Back from the grave? I almost gasped. Jack Morin was actually smiling. It was a strained, thin smile, but a smile. He thought he’d been clever, playing off slang for the overnight shift Clemens was no longer working. As if he was cracking a joke to get everyone relaxed. But so totally clueless, missing the reason entirely why Clemens was buried on the graveyard shift in the first place: his son.

“Jack,” he said. “I know you probably thought that was funny. It wasn’t. But, it’s true — about being back.” Clemens turned to look at me. “Trell here, she’s been instrumental with that, too.”

The room fell silent. Jack Morin had a blank look, like he didn’t know what to say next. I looked around and noticed the office was filled with newspaper awards, commendations, and plaques honoring the Globe. Framed on one wall was a poster-size replica of the First Amendment, written in the fancy script they used in colonial times. Important front pages from the Globe lined another wall, and I spotted the one featuring Clemens’s story that set Tony Rosario free. I couldn’t help but wonder if there would be enough space for my daddy’s front page.

The silence grew uncomfortable, and ended only when Helen Mulvoy began shuffling the papers she was reading when we’d first entered. “Jack?” she said.

“Yes, let’s get started.” Jack Morin adjusted his glasses and looked at the papers in front of him. It was Clemens’s draft. “Clemens,” he began. Then he paused, and added, “and Van Trell.” The moment Jack Morin began to talk about the story he was different. Nothing awkward like before. With the copy in hand, he took charge, talking expertly about words, sentences, paragraphs, and overall content.

“You’re on to something, no question,” he said. “You’ve got good information — new information — to challenge the validity of Romero Taylor’s murder conviction. The new alibi information, for example, is real good. Two women saying they were with Romero when the little girl was shot — that’s compelling.” Jack Morin used his finger to run down the page. “Tracey Dailey and —”

Jack Morin nodded slowly. “Yes, Boo. Tracey and Boo. But, reading the draft, it’s not clear to me whether you plan to use their names. Can you?”

Jack Morin studied me. On purpose I’d used the newspaper term Clemens had taught me. I wanted to show the editor in chief I knew what I was doing. When people are quoted by name in the newspaper, it means they are on the record. Clemens taught me that a story is stronger when people are identified by name. It’s more believable that way, a point I got right away: a story quoting Tracey Dailey saying she was with Daddy when Ruby was shot on Humboldt was way better than having it come from “a Roxbury woman who wished to remain anonymous.”

“Let’s do that, then,” Jack Morin said. “Get them on the record.” He made a checkmark in the margin of his copy. Then he flipped to the next page, and I could see that some words in the middle of the page were circled with a red pencil.

“Now, in the section here where you summarize the heart of the prosecutor’s case against Mr. Taylor — and, before I get to that, let me say, Clemens, the writing is terrific. Clear and concise — a truly readable account of a complicated case.”

“In the summary then, you explain to the reader that it was testimony from three witnesses — all teenagers at the time, in 1989 — that proved crucial to Frank Flanagan being able to win a murder conviction against Mr. Taylor.”

Jack Morin looked at the copy and read their names. “Monique Catron, Juanda Tillery, and Travis Golson. Do I have that right?”

“The new information about Monique Catron’s brain cancer is certainly revelatory,” Jack Morin said. “Casts doubt on whether her testimony at the trial was reliable. The jury should have known her condition. That’s strong stuff.”

Jack Morin put the copy down. “But my question for you: What about the other two? Why aren’t they in the story? According to your reporting, you have determined that all three teenagers were crucial. So, Juanda Tillery, where’s she?”

“We had a great interview with her,” Clemens said. Calmly, he described Juanda telling us about how she was pressured into saying things at the trial to make Daddy look guilty. “She said she lied, said she was so scared at the time she would have said anything the prosecutor and police wanted her to say.”

Jack Morin looked straight at Clemens. “That’s good, real good,” he said. “But I don’t see it here in the story, where it belongs. Why not?”

I was beginning to feel like I was in the principal’s office getting bad news.

Clemens sat forward. “Okay, the draft’s got some gaps — I get that. But hear me out. Of course we want to get Juanda Tillery to go on the record. Find Travis Golson. Sometimes, in stories like this, you get lucky and hit all the bases in a single shot. But here’s my strategy for this story — we start off with a first installment revealing the alibi and Monique Catron’s cancer as big new developments, and then we keep working to get Juanda and Travis, and we use them in follow-up stories.”

“Jack, it’s strong stuff as it is — you already said so,” Clemens argued. “We get the ball rolling, and then we leverage the first story to spring loose the rest.”

“I hear you,” the editor said, “and sometimes we do use an approach like that in an ongoing investigative story, publish each major piece of news as we get it.”

“But not on a story of this scale,” the editor ruled. “Ruby Graham’s murder is one of the most notorious in our lifetime, if not in Boston’s history. She was so young, and it was a time of unprecedented drugs and violence. People thought the city was going to explode. When police arrested Romero Taylor, and when Frank Flanagan — the same Frank Flanagan who’s running for mayor, I don’t have to remind you — when Flanagan put Mr. Taylor away, people thought they’d saved the city and done God’s work. My point is you don’t challenge that legacy piecemeal. It’s got to be airtight, and, from what I see here, you don’t have critical mass.”

“We’re going to hold the presses on this one — for now,” he said. “But Clemens — and you too, Van Trell — as disappointing as this news is, I want you back out there. This kid Travis, he seems huge. Find him and it’s a new ballgame.”

As if we didn’t already know Travis Golson was huge. We left the corner office, and the thought crossed my mind that there wasn’t going to be a framed front page of the Boston Globe with Clemens’s Romero Taylor story. Not ever.

Clemens and I barely said a word during the ride home. When he pulled up at my house, he turned off the car’s engine. “Okay, Trell, we got our work cut out.”

“He’s a good editor,” Clemens said. “Story like this, the stakes are huge. You’re asking readers — the public — to correct their understanding of a major event: who killed Ruby Graham. You don’t want any gaps, give the police and Flanagan any opening to refute the story. I tried, but Jack’s got a point.”

“I know. It’s just — with the draft, and with what we’d found, I thought we were there. In that office, I saw those framed front pages on the wall. I saw your story about Tony Rosario. I started to picture our story up there, too.”

We talked about Juanda Tillery and how best to go back at her. We decided going to the Salon de Paris again was not a good idea. Instead, I would write her a note asking her to reconsider. Not come on too strong, but start with the note, then ask her again to help us. I could drop the note off during my run.

I closed the car door and walked to my apartment. Clemens pulled away from the curb and beeped the horn a couple of times, in a cheerleading kind of way. Inside, I got a piece of paper and wrote Juanda Tillery something that was short and simple. I sealed it inside an envelope, and while changing quickly into my running clothes, I thought of something else. I thought of Paul Parish. I felt bad for the way I’d treated him when all he wanted to do was hang out. I’d told him I’d get him the catalog for the Weld School, but then never did anything about it. I decided this was as good a time as any. I pulled together the school materials from my closet and stuffed them into a running backpack. I called Paul to make sure he was around.

“That’s kinda mysterious,” he said. “But okay. You know the alley that runs next to the house? There’s a gate in the wall my uncle built when he bought the place. Meet me there.”

I pictured the massive ten-foot cement wall surrounding Thumper’s fortress and knew where Paul meant. “That works,” I said. “I got to do one errand, so let’s say forty minutes or so.”

I raced out the door. For the first time in days, I had a bounce in my step; I was on the run again. In twenty minutes, I reached West Selden Street and Juanda Tillery’s front door. The dog inside began barking like crazy. I slipped the envelope through the mail slot and hoped for the best. Hoped the dog wouldn’t eat it and that Juanda would find it. Then I took off for Castlegate Road. I started feeling shaky the closer I got. It had been two weeks since Thumper had chased me from Tracey Dailey’s place, and I’d been avoiding going anywhere near his turf. When I got close, I slowed way down and practically tiptoed to the alley alongside his house.

I was a few minutes early. Even though the wall was ten feet high, the house rose up tall on the other side. It really was gross, the way Thumper had painted the house a deep green with neon-orange trim and black iron bars in all the windows. Thumper wasn’t very original, either. I could hear The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ready to Die” blasting from a front room on the second floor. The album had been around forever. I’d grown up listening to Biggie’s gangsta rap that so many boys in the neighborhood tried to imitate. “You better grab your guns ’cause I’m ready, ready, I’m ready to die!” Someone upstairs belted out the lyrics along with the song, and I figured it must be Thumper himself. Terrible voice.

I hugged the wall as I made my way down the alley, as if that would keep me hidden, until I reached the wooden door. I heard rustling on the other side, then Paul’s voice. He was calming the guard dogs, the ones Thumper owned to roam the grounds. I could tell Paul was ushering them into a pen. Then I saw the latch move up and down. The door rattled, like it was stuck. It suddenly popped open.

I had thought I’d make a quick drop and be off. Maybe plan to meet another time to talk about the Weld. Even if we were out of sight in the alley, I still felt jumpy.

“Fine,” I said, and I told him. I told him Clemens and I had been working on my daddy’s conviction, uncovering new information to show his innocence. I told him his uncle had found out, and didn’t like us poking around, though I didn’t know why. I told him his uncle came looking for me at Tracey Dailey’s, real angry.

When I finished, Paul looked stunned, the words hitting his head like a wooden bat. He didn’t say anything, and after a few seconds, he turned his head toward the second-floor window where the music was coming from. Then he looked back at me, but still didn’t say a word. He just stared off into space.

“Lately my uncle’s been really spazzing.” Paul began to pace. “You remember that guy, works for my uncle, the one who rode in Vinnie’s Van to Water Country with all us kids a few weeks ago? Remember him?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. The scar guy. My uncle’s driver. Gofer. Errand boy. My uncle treats him like a slave.”

“Yeah, well, you’d hate it even more now. My uncle’s been in this guy’s face like never before. Won’t let the guy go anywhere. Ordered him not to leave the grounds. Actually told the guy that for the ‘foreseeable future,’ he was not even supposed to talk to anyone. He’s just stuck in his shack out back. It’s like he’s in lockdown.”

“What Travis is dealing with isn’t anything like your dad. I’m not an idiot.”