Jim Thorpe is famous for a lot of things. The town, originally two towns called Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, was founded in 1818 and rapidly became a major railroad and coal shipping centre. Due to its picturesque scenery, mountainous location, and architecture, it was known as both the “Switzerland of America” and the “Gateway to the Poconos”. It was also the site of America’s first roller-coaster. What Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania didn’t have any relationship to was – Jim Thorpe.
Jim Thorpe was an athlete, and pro-footballer, and he toured with the New York Giants in the 1913 World Series. Half American Indian, half Irish, he won gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, and returned stateside to a New York ticker tape parade in his honour. Wide World of Sports named Jim Thorpe “athlete of the century ahead” in 2000.
Following his death, in 1953, Thorpe’s widow and third wife, Patricia, was angry when the government of Oklahoma would not erect a memorial in her late husband’s honour – some have said she also needed money. When she heard that the boroughs of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk were desperately seeking to attract business, she made a deal with civic officials.
The Pennsylvania borough bought Thorpe’s remains, erected a monument and underneath it buried the athlete’s bones with soil brought from his home in Oklahoma and Swedish dirt from the site of his Olympic triumph.
Thus the towns of Mauch Chunk and East Chunk, Pennsylvania, became Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
This story, told to Harry by Trooper Cirba on their long drive to Jim Thorpe, forced Harry to utter the USA’s most common cliché, “Only in America”.
Cirba also spent the drive updating Harry on new developments in the case – which were few. The lab had finally come back on the laptop that was found at Big Bill’s apartment. Bill stayed rent-free in a ski condo in the summer as part payment for his work for the mayor. The laptop was password-protected but when the IT boys in Philadelphia finally cracked into it they found that the hard drive had been wiped clean, making it unreadable. Cirba asked who would have the kind of knowledge to do that and the lab boys said that programs for just this purpose come free with almost every month’s edition of computer magazines.
“What about a Google search history, or emails,” Harry asked.
“He didn’t have Internet at his house so all of his browsing must have been done in places with free Wi-Fi. No one has an email address for him.”
As they turned into Main Street Harry relayed the story of his morning’s farm tour.
“Is this fracking stuff really that bad?” Cirba asked.
“I don’t know,” Harry said, “but I have a theory. All of this technology comes from Texas oil wells. Out on the prairie there was nothing around but hard dirt so these oil companies could do as they pleased. Nobody gave a damn. Then they come to Pennsylvania, act the same and are surprised that feathers are ruffled. The fracking industry is going to have to wise up and realize they ain’t in Texas no more or they’re gonna get a lot of resistance.”
* * *
Kevin Sweeney, attorney at law, had offices on the second floor of a period office complex across the street from the courthouse. Cirba and Harry were buzzed in and entered a deserted reception. Sweeney, a tall lanky man with unkempt sandy-blond hair, appeared in the uninhabited secretary’s alcove. He stuck his head through the opening and said: “What can I do for the men in big hats?”
“Mr Kevin Sweeney?” Cirba asked.
“That’s me.”
“I’m Trooper Edward Cirba. This is my consultant, Harry Cull. Can we have a word?”
“Sure, come on in.”
Sweeney disappeared from the glassless window and opened a door that led to his office.
There are two kinds of lawyer’s offices. One is neat, always with a bookshelf containing leather-bound law books, and then there are offices like Sweeney’s that are just piled with files and stuffed with papers trying to escape the industrial-sized rubber bands that encircle them. Sweeney was one of those guys that didn’t file, he just remembered where he dropped things. If he had a heart attack and died tomorrow, no one would be able to find anything. His office was not only a warehouse for files it was also a repository for dust. Sweeney knew where everything was as long as no one cleaned.
“I’d apologize for the mess,” the lawyer said, “but I gave that up long ago.” He motioned Cirba into the chair on the other side of his desk and moved a stack of files from the second chair to the floor so Harry could sit. “What can I do you for?”
“We came to talk about William Thomson.”
“Big Bill? What about him?”
“We understand he came to see you not long ago.”
“And I’m sure you understand, trooper, that anything between Billy and me is confidential.”
“Mr Sweeney, William is dead.”
The lawyer looked at Cirba as if he had said night is day. “D… dead?”
“Murdered.”
Sweeney covered his mouth with his hand and leaned back on his chair, upsetting a pyramid of papers behind him. “I-I just saw him, like a month ago.”
“We know. Could you tell us what you two talked about?”
Sweeney regained some composure and said: “Even if he is dead, attorney client confidentiality still applies.”
Cirba leaned in: “I would be very interested to see if attorney client confidentiality applied when your services were paid for in illegal drugs. I have a judge on speed dial and a trooper waiting in the diner around the corner from your house. I’m pretty sure I could get a warrant before you could get home and flush your shit down the toilet.”
Sweeney put his palms on his desk as if trying to stop it from spinning. “Woah, woah. What’s going on here?”
“We have information that Big Bill acquired drugs to pay for your services. We want to know what Big Bill needed a lawyer for.”
“Is this a drug investigation?”
“This is a murder investigation, Mr Sweeney.”
Sweeney took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the base of his palms. “Even so, if I tell you what you want to know I can get disbarred.”
“You don’t think they will disbar you for being paid in dope?”
“Slow down. Can we talk off the record?”
Cirba nodded, and then the lawyer looked to Harry, who nodded too.
“OK, do you give a shit that I got Billy to get me a little weed? I mean, is this about grass?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So you’re just using the weed to shake me down for information?”
“Those aren’t the words I would use,” Cirba said, “but as long as we’re off the record – yes.”
“OK, as long as you don’t tell anybody I told you, I’ll be happy to let you know what Billy and I talked about. There was nothing sinister about it.”
“Go on.”
“Billy wanted to know if any of his previous arrests would disqualify him from getting a real estate license.”
“A ‘real estate license’?”
“Yeah, he said he was taking night classes at Luzern Community College and was about to take the real estate license exam. I looked into his arrests and, since the ones that stuck all happened when he was a juvenile, I told him not to worry.”
“Did he mention anything about selling any land?”
“Oh yeah, he did say something about his brother wanting to sell some of the family land but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go through with it. I told him I’d help with that too if he needed me to.”
“For your usual fee?”
“Hey, I like a little smoke once in a while. I’m a respected man around here. It’s not like I can go down to Walker Street and buy something on the corner. I went to school with Billy and Feather. They are honourable guys – even Feather in his way. We weren’t planning a bank heist or anything.”
“You know why anybody would want to shoot Billy?”
“Nooo. He was a sweetheart. I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“So the last time you saw him was… ?”
“About a month ago.”
“And before that?”
Sweeney leaned back in his chair. “Many years. I don’t get to the lake anymore. As much as I’d like to. I miss the Toad’s donuts.”
“‘The Toad’?” Harry asked.
“Yeah, old man Todd; we used to call him the Toad.”
“One last thing.” Cirba said, interrupting the lawyer’s reminiscence. “Where were you Wednesday around 11 a.m.?”
Sweeney looked as if he had been slapped in the face, then reached for his computer mouse. “I was in court.” A smile crossed his face. “Defending a marijuana charge.”
Harry asked: “Did you get your usual fee?”
* * *
Harry buckled his seatbelt and said: “You were a bit rough on that guy. Did your first wife run off with a lawyer or something?”
“Lawyers,” Cirba snorted. “With a few words they undo what took us cops weeks to figure out. I know it’s their job and that it’s necessary to keep us clean but it’s shit. Watching a perp, that everybody knows is guilty, walk because I forgot to dot an i…” Cirba waved his hand in front of his face. “Just ’cause they are necessary don’t mean I have to like ’em.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there. Do you really have a judge on speed dial?”
Cirba pulled out his phone and showed the speed dial list to Harry. It contained only one number – his wife. “She is my judge, jury, and executioner.”
* * *
Cirba dropped Harry off at the lake house. As he got out Cirba said: “Oh yeah, I got some good news and some bad news for you.”
“Gimme the good first.”
“Mrs Cirba wants to invite you to dinner this week.”
“Really? Great. What’s the bad?”
“Mrs Cirba is cooking.”
Harry laughed but the trooper didn’t.
“And if you tell her I said that, or if you mention any of our other little secrets, you know what will happen to you.”
“Is it the same thing that would happen if I diss the hat?”
“I’m glad we understand each other,” Cirba said as he put the car in gear. “I’ll call you if I find anything.”
* * *
Harry fried up a Spam sandwich and ate it on his porch. It was extremely pleasant but he resisted the temptation to spend the afternoon sipping tea and admiring his view. He got into his car and traversed the Five Mile Road into Oaktree.
* * *
Both of the computer terminals at the Oaktree library were in use so Harry killed some time with a stroll through the back streets of the borough. Oaktree is built on a hill that slopes down to the Susquehanna River. As he passed up the streets parallel to the water, Harry noticed that aesthetics, and probably property value, dropped the higher he got. He was in what he later learned was the part of town known as Hillbilly Haven. Here the owners cared little for manicured lawns or new coats of paint. There were no friendly hellos, only suspicious stares.
The barking dog helped him realize he was on Feather’s street. Harry said a little prayer of thanks to whoever it was that invented the chain-link fence, because the beasts imprisoned in most of the yards acted like they wanted to tear him to pieces.
He heard Feather before he saw him. He was trying in vain to keep his three Dobermans quiet.
“Hi, Feather,” Harry shouted over the din.
Feather puzzled as he tried to remember where he had seen Harry before. When the recognition struck, he said: “Aw shit,” in between shouting at his dogs. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” Harry said, holding up his hands as if someone was pointing a gun at him. “I’m just takin’ a stroll.”
Feather relaxed and said: “Well then, could you do me a favour and take off your hat.”
It was Harry’s turn to be confused but he reached up and took off his Phillies baseball cap. The effect was instant. The dogs fell silent and began to wander around the yard as if they were a small herd of sheep.
“Wow, that’s impressive. What just happened here?”
“They’re kinda trained not to like people in hats.”
“Let me guess, like hats with big wide rims?”
Feather smiled. “Especially them.”
“Hey, I ran into an old schoolmate of yours today. He said you were an honourable man.”
“Who the fuck said that?”
“Kevin Sweeney.”
“The Sweenster. Well Sweeney’s an idiot. How he ever passed the bar I’ll never know.”
“He was the lawyer that Big Bill paid with your dope. But you knew that, right?”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. I don’t care how friendly the conversation is, I prefer not giving lists of my end users to the cops.”
“Fair enough,” Harry said but he was annoyed with himself that he hadn’t picked it up. “So how’s business?”
“Really?” Feather said, wrinkling his brow. “You want me to give a rundown of the local dope trade to a guy who was introduced to me by a statie?” Feather was getting worked up. “But now that you mention it – it’s crap. Here, look at this.”
He walked over to his gate and opened it. Harry shot a quick glance to the Dobermans but they didn’t even seem to notice. Feather strode past Harry and then from the gutter across the street, he picked up a two-litre plastic soda bottle. The bottle was deformed as though it had been heated, and the insides were coated with a white film so that you couldn’t see the contents that Feather was shaking around.
“This is it. This is that Shake ’N Bake shit I was telling you about. The fuckers have the nerve to park outside my house and fucking shake and bake meth. And if that’s not bad enough there’s all this new junk comin’ in from New Jersey.”
“What kind of junk?”
“Crack,” Feather said matter-of-factly. “I haven’t seen anybody selling it but I’ve been seeing their baggies kicking around on the ground.”
“Their baggies?”
“Oh, those Jersey City boys love giving their smoke fancy names – they stencil it on the baggies.”
“Who’s bringin’ that stuff in?”
“Well, we never had any of that shit up here until the fucking fracking camp opened up. I suspect it’s coming from there.”
“And you’re not of the opinion that competition is good for the consumer?”
“Look man. I’m a small-time dealer. I say that ’cause I ain’t telling you nothing you don’t already know, right? But I ain’t no bad guy and that’s no lie. If somebody owes me money, I don’t break legs, I just don’t sell to him till he pennys up. I don’t hang around schoolyards or pimp. I sell dope ’cause I like dope. It’s a product I believe in. I make good money and I get cheap dope for myself, ya know?”
“You are an honourable man.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Feather said, missing the sarcasm. “I spent a little time in Philly and the Jersey Shore. Those dudes are serious. It ain’t about the dope, it’s about the money. I couldn’t care less about competition but if those guys get roots up here they ain’t gonna want me around.” Feather lit a cigarette and then shook off his mood. “Hey, this is just me guessin’. Don’t go around telling people I said this.”
“I’m just taking a walk, Feather. I’m not even here.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t be shooting my mouth off about shit I know nothing about. It’s just, the mountain air is smelling funny up here at the moment.”