The next morning, Juliette Rose called in sick again to her regular job stirring up trouble in places other than Wilbur and headed the battered old VW microbus for Boston. She was meeting an old friend of hers on the Cambridge bank of the Charles River for lunch. In Wilbur, it was another beautiful spring day, warm and sunny, so naturally she threw her winter parka on the back seat and wore thermals under her jeans.
She met her friend, Maggie Halloran, on the river wall next to the Harvard Boathouse with her parka zipped and the hood up. As she’d expected, the breeze coming off the water was fierce and as cold as a north wind in January.
“Couldn’t we have met somewhere civilized?” she griped as she lowered herself onto the thick wool blanket Maggie had spread for their picnic.
Maggie just laughed. “And hello to you, too. Juliette Rose, you are the only human being I know who never fails to replace the standard greeting common to everybody on earth with a complaint.”
“I have a lot to complain about. It’s freezing out here, and not half a mile away are some of the best restaurants in the world. What’s wrong with you?”
“And I always thought you were one of those tough, pioneer-type mountain women who catches rabbits in her teeth and climbs snow-covered peaks in shorts and jogging sneakers. Now I find out you’re just another wuss after all. Color me disappointed.”
“I’m not a wuss, I’m just not stupid or a masochist. I had enough cold this winter.”
“Alright, I’m sorry for calling you a wuss. Do you want to leave, wuss?”
“Shit. You promised me a picnic, at least you could offer me a sandwich.”
“Good. Eat. It will help you stay warm. Besides, you could stand to put a little meat on that absurdly skinny frame of yours. We’re offering homemade egg salad, ham and cheese with the works, and poppyseed chicken.”
“Which one’s less likely to be laced with ptomaine?” Juliette scowled.
If you’d seen Maggie Halloran on the street, you’d probably have guessed that she was a young suburban housewife with 2.5 children and a husband she didn’t know was cheating on her, the kind who spent their time cleaning house and taxiing their kids from soccer practice to ballet lessons, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that even though you’d be wrong. That’s sure enough what she resembled. Just past 30 and attractive in the mousy style suburban housewives have made their signature look, Maggie exuded the competence of someone who lives in a closed loop and knows every inch of her narrow territory.
Except for the last part, she was nothing like that. She was a reporter for Boston’s infamous alternative newspaper, The Gryphon, and one of the most feared investigative journalists in New England – which, given that New England grows fearsome investigative journalists like Georgia grows peaches, is saying something. She was single, had fire-red hair cropped so close she looked bald from a distance, stood damn near six feet in flats, dwarfing Juliette’s normally intimidating 5-9, carried a pocketbook only slightly smaller than a steamer trunk, and knew the terrain of Boston politics like a quarterback knows a football field. Most of the time she was calm and mild-mannered, but she was also Irish and a redhead – a lethal combination when she was crossed or stonewalled. The Governor himself had compared her to Helen Thomas, “only prettier”, before running for cover.
