December Boys Part 15

"Neither am I."

I looked to Charlie, who shrugged.

"Since when?"

"I don't know. Last summer?"

"No one told me."

Fisher snorted. "Why would anyone tell you, Porter?"

Good question. We weren't close, almost never spoke. We worked in different locations, hours away. Our paths seldom crossed, our mutual friend Charlie is all we had in common. Still, Charlie might've mentioned it. Maybe he had. Given my recent move and marriage, Charlie and I hadn't been spending as much time together, this past week notwithstanding. And it seemed whenever we did meet up copious amounts of alcohol were usually involved.

Fisher nodded at me. "Fired?"

"I a.s.sume so. I told Andy DeSouza to get f.u.c.ked."

"When?"

"This afternoon."

"Did he actually say you were fired?"

"I hung up before he had the chance."

"And you didn't quit?"

"Not exactly."

Fisher brushed me off. "Like you're the only one to tell Andy DeSouza to get bent. Porter, if they canned everyone who did that there wouldn't be anyone left to work up there. Trust me, DeSouza's a babysitter. A minor league manager. Concord knows what you did. h.e.l.l, I heard about it. I still have friends there."

Nicki acted impressed, like Fisher's props improved my status in her eyes. Why did I care what this college girl thought of me?

"I didn't do anything," I explained to everyone at the table. "Brian Olisky blurted out he'd been behind the wheel."

"Yeah, and you saved NEI like ten gee."

Funny how that number kept going up. "Doesn't matter. Whatever good grace I banked, I've p.i.s.sed away. I shouldn't have been up at North River in the first place. DeSouza forbade me from looking further into the Olisky case."

"Andy DeSouza is a p.u.s.s.y. I'm telling you. You want Concord, it's still a possibility."

"How do you even know about any of this? I thought you left NEI. Why do you care?"

Both Fisher and Charlie had the same s.h.i.t-eating grins on their faces. I hadn't been imagining it. Something was up. "Okay, spit it out. What's going on?"

"So remember last year," Fisher said, "at your brother's funeral, how you told me to drop investigating Lombardi?"

"Yeah." How could I forget?

"I didn't."

Fisher dug around in his satchel and retrieved a rubber-banded binder. Like my own collection of clippings and chicken-scratch. Only his was bigger. Fisher had clearly been doing his homework. He dropped the stack with authority on the countertop, parting papers earmarked with color-coded Post-its.

"I was talking to Charlie this afternoon," Fisher began, focus waning as he multi-tasked. "He told me how you two had been chased off by security guards at North River. Something rang a bell. Knew I'd seen that name before."

"Hold on," I said.

He stopped riffling and peered up at me through his round, hippy lenses.

I pointed at his pile of papers. "What is all that?"

"Research. Since leaving NEI, I've devoted a great deal of time to this."

"This being investigating the Lombardis?"

"Yeah."

"When I'd asked you not to?" I turned to Charlie, who refused to meet my eye. He'd known all about Fisher's continuing to dig around and hadn't said a word.

"So I didn't listen to you, Porter. Shoot me."

I made to stand up, an empty threat, since Nicki had driven me. Boxing me in, she wasn't budging.

"Hold on," Charlie said. "Hear him out."

I reluctantly sat back down.

Fisher found his d.a.m.ning evidence, slipping the page, a cheesy entertainer in Atlantic City plucking the perfect card. He tapped the magic word.

There it was, clear and bold: UpStart.

"What's UpStart?" Nicki asked.

"You never told her about Lombardi's charity project?" Fisher said.

"No," I answered without looking at her. "Why would I? We're not dating."

"Last year," Fisher explained to Nicki, "we-Charlie, Jay, and I-had a run-in with a family up here. The Lombardis. Very influential." Fisher glanced my way. "Some crazy stuff happened-I'll let Jay fill you in on the rest since it involved his brother-but UpStart's their baby. The organization is presently financing a campaign, funneling a great deal of money your way."

"Whose way?" I said.

Fisher motioned at Nicki. "She works at the Longmont County Courthouse, right?"

Nicki nodded, omitting the minor detail that she, too, had recently been canned. "What kind of charity?" she asked.

"UpStart's a nonprofit for at-risk youth up here," I said. "This guy Gerry Lombardi ran it. Before my brother died, Chris accused Gerry of some pervy s.h.i.t with kids. Said he had pictures."

"Did he?" Nicki asked. "Have pictures, I mean."

"My brother was pretty far gone by then, but yeah. Blurry ones on a stolen computer. Couldn't prove jack."

"Sure looked like Gerry," Charlie muttered.

"Doesn't matter," I said. "Gerry's dead."

"Right," Fisher said. "And now UpStart belongs to his sons, Adam and Michael."

"You know Adam doesn't even live up here anymore?" I said, parroting what Charlie had told me. "Relocated his whole family south. Sold the business."

"No s.h.i.t," Fisher said. "I live in Concord. Who do you think told Finn that?" He pointed at a sheepish Charlie, before deciding he'd have better luck with Nicki. "In terms of detention centers, North River's a gray area, right? Stuck between private and public? The state pumps in some money, matching family obligations, the rest comes via donations, local nonprofits, etcetera."

She nodded.

"How do you know about any of this?" I asked him.

"I told you," Fisher repeated. "I've been investigating. It's in my files."

Charlie flapped his arms, trying to flag down a waitress.

"Your files," I said. "So what? You turned pro?"

"No," said Fisher. "I am taking a few journalism courses over at Tech, though."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Nothing. But you asked what I was up to."

"I don't give a rat's a.s.s about some community college cla.s.s you're enrolled in. I mean why do you care about North River? You're not at NorthEastern Insurance anymore." I stopped. "And even if you were, this doesn't concern NEI anyway."

"UpStart," Fisher said.

"What about them?"

"They bankroll diversion programs. And one of the big ones is North River."

"Big deal. It's nonprofit. No one's making money. That's what nonprofit means."

"That's not true," Nicki said.

"Huh?"

"Nonprofit. The term doesn't mean what most people think it does."

"I know you can't turn a profit or you start paying taxes." I might not have had a business degree but I knew that much.

"Right," said Nicki. "And one of the ways a place like North River doesn't turn a profit is by paying their officers and staff exorbitant salaries."

Fisher reached into his bag of goodies and plucked another page, sharing it with the cla.s.s. Nicki staggered over the six-figure salaries, whistling low.

"Just gotta stay out of the black," Fisher said. "Any money you make, you funnel back in to the product. Trick is to always be losing."

"Like Brewster's Millions," Charlie said, proud of himself for having contributed to the conversation.

"Plenty of other ways to keep cash off the books," Fisher said.

"What are you talking about?"

"Old-fashioned kickbacks."

"Bribes? To who?"

"Judge Roberts, for one," Fisher said.

"Wait. You're telling me you have proof UpStart is paying off Roberts? For what? To send kids to a facility that they pay into? How is that a sustainable business model?"

"Yes. And no," Fisher said.

"Yes and no what?"

"No. I don't have proof connecting UpStart to Roberts. Not directly. Adam and Michael Lombardi are too smart to leave behind blatant paper trails. If there's bank records or wire transfers connecting payoffs to judges, you better believe that money has been funneled six ways to Sunday. They'll launder that s.h.i.t until every dime sparkles and not a cent can be traced back. But I can tell you why UpStart would be so interested in increasing enrollment-"

"They want to drum up public support for a new private juvenile facility," Nicki said.

"Glad someone is following along."

I stared at her.

"It's been the talk of the courthouse since I signed on. The drug epidemic out of control and all that. Some very vocal proponents want to privatize. Think about the revenue stream. You're always a.s.sured customers."

Charlie wrinkled his brow like he understood what was going on. Even if he had been listening to Fisher behind the scenes I knew he was as lost as I was. The waitress stopped at our table and Charlie ordered a basket of wings. His coping mechanism for confusion: eat through the uncertainty.

"The way these places work," Nicki said, outlining North River's enrollment figures on a spreadsheet, "diversion programs are, like, alternative sentencing, right? Kind of state-funded. Kind of privately financed. Families kick in, but they still get a huge chunk from investors. According to your friend Fisher, UpStart is one of those investors."

"We're not friends."

Fisher appeared hurt.

"And so what?"

"Don't you think it's weird?" she asked.

"What? That UpStart, one of New Hampshire's biggest organizations dealing with at-risk youth, would support a residential facility that houses at-risk youth?"

All eyes fell on me. But Charlie was the one who spoke up. "Jay, you've been hoping for proof that Lombardi's guilty."

"Yeah. On molestation charges. Not creative bookkeeping. I'm not interested in revisionist history. Besides the old man is dead. And you, Charlie, told me I was nuts any time I brought it up." I could already see Jenny's eyes rolling if I pressed the need to pursue this further.

"It's not just North River," Fisher said, taking another crack. He laid out names and numbers on Excel sheets, northern New Hampshire divided up by county and jurisdiction. Courthouses and judges on one side, sentences meted out on the other.