1
Bobby Moncrief
Two men entered Lucky's bar, introduced by a light bell in the front of the bar, one man wore a suit and the other wore jeans, and a plaid dress shirt and a black beanie. The man in the jeans looked like a fisher or a worker on a boat in the docks. Stewart Oliver made a wager with himself that the man in the suit was a relative from the city visiting.
In the neighborhood of Charlestown, Boston, Massachusetts, there was a bar right on the docks off the Charles River. The neighborhood best known for being across the monument of Bunker Hill, the end of The Freedom Trail and the burial ground of John Harvard. It was also known for The Irish American demographic and the still presence of the Irish mob.
Irish mob presence was very present in this particular bar. Stewart Oliver owned the bar, a man who had been in the neighborhood since 1940 and knew everyone. He was friends with the cops, families and those who were in between and below.
Oliver looked back to his work of cleaning the bar. It was the bar first opened by his father back in 1934 as a "slap in the face" to the government when prohibition was repealed in 1933, when his father passed away Oliver took over the business and intended to hand it off to his son when he passed. Almost reaching seventy though he still didn't see that happening anytime soon.
The bell introduced another guest and Oliver looked up from his work to see who it was. It was a tall woman who Oliver had seen several times in his bar before.
"Marion, how are you?" Oliver almost shouted to the woman coming into the bar. The woman smiled, hanging up her coat. She then walked up to the bar and gave Oliver a kiss on the cheek.
"I'm doing great Stewart."
"Haven't seen you in a while I thought you left town. Lawsuit gone wrong." Oliver joked. Marion giggled and responded,
"Not exactly, just haven't gotten out to the docks lately. It's about time I got some actual fresh air from all the lawyers in this town. How are you Stewart?" She lightly touched his forearm.
"As good as the economy." Oliver said quickly with a smile on his face. He retreated back to the bar and grabbed a glass from a cabinet below. Marion smiled back with a sad smile.
"I'm sorry to hear that." She tried to comfort him with some better news. "At least your business isn't gonna be going under anytime soon. Sailors and fishermen always need a pint." Marion discreetly pointed to the man in the plaid and the jeans sitting with the man in the suit. Oliver smiled and poured her a martini on the rocks, Marion's regular order.
"How's the firm?" Oliver said changing the subject to something he thought would be more up beat. His intuition was right.
"We're just coming up with a new case. I can't say too much but our client is a large corporation that will pay handsomely if we win this." Marion said excited.
Just as she finished her sentence, the bell dinged in another guest. Oliver looked up and another smile came on his face.
"Bobby! Bobby, come here I'd like to introduce you to someone." He called to the young man who had just entered the door. The young man had short brown hair and a little taller than Marion. He wore similar cloths to the sailor who was sitting with his alleged relative. His plaid shirt was buttoned up enough so you could still see the white shirt he wore under it.
"Marion this is Robert Moncrief a Charlestown local. He helps me around the bar. And the full time designated driver at the staff parties." Oliver cracked at the young man. Bobby smiled and shot back.
"A party I've never been to. Now I've been to Oliver drinking his brains out, but was that a party?" Oliver responded with a laugh.
"Bobby this is Marion Kane he best damn lawyer in Boston." Marion blushed and shook her head modestly. Bobby smiled and said,
"I'm sure Oliver isn't exaggerating." He looked as though he wanted to continue the conversation but then there was a beeping from the watch on his wrist.
"Oh shit. Oliver." He pointed over his shoulder towards a door to the back. "Truck's comin in tonight." Oliver had a surprised look on his face as he looked at the clock on the wall too. But before Oliver could say anything Bobby interrupted back in. "Don't worry I'll take care of it. You two keep talking I'll take care of truck."
"You sure kid?" Oliver asked. He wanted to keep talking but at the same time he felt the obligation to help Bobby.
"Don' worry about it. I'll take care of it. I'll come back out when I'm done. Marion, if you don't take a long time to finish that drink, I will see you later. It was a pleasure to meet you." Marion giggled with a blush and returned the gesture.
"He likes you." Oliver said bluntly when Bobby left the room. Marion looked at him shocked. Not at what he said, that he said it. She lightly hit him and said,
"Stop it Stew."
"What I'm just telling the truth. What's wrong with that, he's got a thing for you." Oliver just kept going.
"He's a local?" Marion said after a moment of her taking an embarrassed drink of her martini.
Oliver smiled mischievously and answered, "Yeah, mom lived in suburbs across the river. Mom got knocked up by some crooked cop on a business trip. Mom is having troubles financially, the dad's not there. Mom ends up falling into the river after shooting herself. Kid got thrown into the system and never stayed in one place for too long. He got thrown around foster homes all over the state until finally he was sent to a prison out in New Jersey when he was 18."
"What'd he do?" Marion said leaning forward. Oliver had the strange feeling that she was interested in him too.
"I don't know he got mixed in with the wrong crowd. A few graffiti offenses around Boston and he may have stolen a car or two." Oliver said as if he believed that Bobby was innocent as Marion was. Marion was caught off guard by the easiness of admitting this. "He spent three years in there in there and you know what that bastard did?"
Marion shook her head, immersed in the story.
"The kid finished highschool in that prison then applied for college in prison. This is the same kid who spent his highschool years running around Boson with gangs and drugs. Warden of the prison sees this and throws the kid out of there for good behavior a year early. The next four years of that kid's life is spent at the closest college that was willing to admit an ex-con. Graduates at the top of his class three years later." Marion gave a confused look and Oliver nodded.
"Yes I said three." Oliver said raising a glass, half full of beer. They laughed and then Marion asked,
"Whatever happened to his dad?"
"Old man returned home. From what I remember, he may have had some relatives living on this side of the river. Irish boys, from what you're saying not your type." Marion smiled. She knew the old man's humor. "But he went back to whatever hell hole he came from."
"So what's Bobby doing here? I mean no offense but couldn't he be doing something else besides working at a bar." Oliver lowered his glass and frowned.
"That I can't answer. I asked him the same question a while ago but I never got an answer. I just stopped asking a while ago. There are several things very strange about Bobby Moncrief. For example, his entire college tuition was paid for by an anonymous source. Everything just paid for without anyone on the sending end."
Marion took another sip of her martini with a confused look on her face.
"I think Bobby is looking for something here in Charlestown. I just don't know what."
Marion frowned. It wasn't quite the answer she was looking for but she let it be. She took one last sip of her martini and placed it gently on the bar. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her blackberry. She showed a distraught look upon her face then she looked at Oliver.
"Stewart, I'd love to stay but I just got a message saying that we've got a witness who's willing to testify for us but from what I've seen he's not worth much to us. I gotta go check him out." She looked over to the door leading to the back. She thought for a moment then she reached for a napkin on the bar.
"This is my cell phone number. Give it to Bobby, if he wants to call tell him he can." Oliver grinned and once she was done writing it down, he slipped the piece of paper in the front pocket of his shirt.
"I'm sure you'll be hearing from him soon Marion." Oliver walked around and out of the bar and walked straight up to Marion and embraced her. "Don't be a stranger Marion."
Marion smiled and once the embrace was over she walked up and out of the bar. Oliver sighed and he then walked back to the door leading to the back of the bar.
The door to the back alley was open and a man in jeans and a blue t-shirt was wheeling in a cart full of alcohol and other things. Bobby was standing near the entrance with a clipboard and a pen.
"Did our friend leave?" Bobby said once he noticed Oliver approach.
"She did my boy." Oliver said stepping forward and grabbing the cart from the man and telling him to go back and grabbing another one. The old man bustled into the cooler for a moment then reappeared and walked straight up to Bobby and pulled the slip of paper from his shirt pocket.
"She left a number." Oliver said in a high-pitched voice. Bobby glanced away from the clipboard and looked at the slip of paper. "Stew, c'mon did you really?" he rolled his eyes and snatched the paper from the old man's hand.
"Why shouldn't she? You're both adults, you can go and have fun if you want to." Oliver said poking Bobby. Bobby smiled and poked him back.
"Well stop being a matchmaker and do your job as a bartender. Aren't you a little too old to be switching careers."
"Bobby my boy, we're Irish, we can do whatever we want," Oliver said as he made his exit back to the main room and back to his bar.
That night, Bobby walked a wobbly Oliver back to his house not far from the bar. He then started to walk in the opposite direction of the bar. But he wasn't heading towards his house.
The Boston Public Library wasn't open when Bobby got off work and since he wasn't a morning person he needed to work something out to get in there past hours.
"Hello?" a tired, annoyed voice answered after a few seconds after Bobby had pressed the buzzer at the front door of an apartment building.
"Hey open up it's me." Bobby said with a mischievous smile on his face.
He was met with a sigh as if the voice had seen that smile. "When I said you could do this, I wasn't expecting this at a quarter to three. C'mon up." As soon as the sentence was over, it was followed by a buzz. Bobby grasped the door and went on in.
When he finally reached the door he knocked again. After the clinking and sliding of locks the door opened and a short black haired woman appeared behind the door. She was dressed in a pair of black pajama pants and a grey tank top.
"Hey Jamey." Bobby said with a smile. "You ready to go?"
Jamey rolled her eyes with a smile then she poked her head back into the apartment and reached back. She came back up with a pair of keys.
The two walked out of the apartment and entered a banged up sedan in front of the apartment in a parking space.
"So how long have we been doing this Bobby, two or four weeks? How long is this gonna be going on? Cause I might have to rearrange my sleeping schedule if this is gonna go on for too long. " Bobby laughed but he still remained very coy about his business that he did at the Boston Public Library.
"You still have the file?" Bobby asked changing the subject fast. Jamey shook her head, her smile still in tact.
"It's under the back seat if you wanna grab it." Jamey said. Bobby reached back and grabbed a manila folder from under the seat.
"I'm assuming you'd be lying if you told me that you didn't take a look at it."
"Yes I would. Who is Amelia O'Shaunacy?" Jamey said very shyly as if what she was asking was forbidden. Bobby, still wanting to act coy, looked outside the window of his side of the car. It took him a few moments to answer her but he finally answered solemnly.
"She's my mother." Jamey couldn't contain herself. She quickly burst out with a laugh.
"You do know Bobby that there is a department that has that information and if that information is about you which this is, you can get it for free during the day, not in a library at three o'clock in the morning." Her laugh was more annoyed than Bobby had ever seen her in these trips to the library.
"I already checked that. This is who that department said is my mother." Bobby said. He held up a picture of a teenage girl with a black eye. It was a victim's record picture but it looked more like a mug shot. "Paula Leighton, a teenager out in Cambridge who got knocked up and gave me up for adoption before she was killed by a drunk driver on a road trip to Vermont."
"Okay so Amelia's not your mom?" Jamey said. Her laugh disappeared. All she was now was confused. Bobby was no longer shy about his research; he was angrily excited about it.
"Here's the newspaper article about Paula's car crash, they never once state the name of the girl who died in that crash." Bobby said putting a clipping of a newspaper in front of Jamey so she could see. "I brought this to the Boston police department. They only had a death certificate, no police report, or any record beyond the death certificate. If somebody wanted to find Paula, nobody would. They would only find a name printed on an official looking piece of paper. But the thing is, nobody would look for Paula, cause she doesn't exist. No census ever picked her up; no school had record of her, nothing. The only record is that death certificate. All they have is record of a corpse buried under a Wal-Mart now."
Jamey finally stopped the car in front of the Boston Public library and looked at her partner sitting in the passenger seat. "So how did you get the name Amelia O'Shaunacy?" She asked.
"A friend of mine who used to know her." Bobby said referring to Oliver. "Once I got the name, that's when I needed your pass into the library and I've already picked up some information about O'Shaunacy."
Jamey nodded. She seemed to be satisfied with the story. She looked at the library then she looked back at Bobby.
"You ready?" Jamey asked with a sad grin. Bobby smiled and opened his door. Jamey stopped him quickly and lightly touched his forearm. "Bobby, listen, I make it sound like these trips are torture but I'm really glad you called me a few weeks ago."
"Don't mention it Jamey." Bobby was sincere but he was too distracted to get too sentimental.
The two left the car and walked up to the library. Jamey walked up and pulled out her keys. Though she was calm she looked as though she was doing something wrong, as if she was part of a crime. Bobby looked very calm but he himself even looked around very discreetly to make sure nobody was suspiciously around.
They finally entered the library and Bobby almost forgot that Jamey was with him. He got a head start into the library while Jamey was locking the front door. He was starting straight towards a specific place.
Bobby finally reached his destination and he looked up at the bookshelf to the right of him and he looked up. The bookshelf was pull of large rolls of paper rolled up and wrapped in thin plastic bags. Bobby muttered to himself as his finger ran across the ends of those wrapped up pieces of paper. Finally he stopped and so did his finger until he reached what he needed. He pulled the long rolled up paper out of the shelf and then brought it over to a table not far away.
Jamey found Bobby standing leaned over the table with the long paper rolled out over the table. In her hands she had two cups of old coffee but still hot enough.
Jamey looked down at the large blueprints laid out on the table and stopped drinking her coffee.
"Bobby, why are you looking at that?" Bobby barely acknowledged her. He sat entranced by the blueprint he was looking at. His fingers ran from one end of the paper to the other end then crawled under to the paper below it then back up. It looked as though he was guiding a mouse through an invisible maze. "Bobby!" she cried shaking his shoulder. He finally came out of his trance and looked at her.
"It's not as bad as you think." He tried to assure her with his hand resting on her shoulder.
"Do you miss jail or something Bobby? Cause this will put you right back there." Jamey said putting her coffee down on the edge of the table as if she was setting it up for a drop.
"Jamey, it's just a plan B if you will. Don't worry. The less you know the better."
"Bobby! You expect me to just look the other way when you start looking at blueprints of the Boston Liberty Savings Bank?"