Page 60 of The First Gentleman

GAGNON:If you were making so much money for such a simple job, why would you risk it by drinking before you started your trip?

[Pause in audio]

GAGNON:Mr. Lucienne?

LUCIENNE:Because I was being stupid, that’s why. I had a couple of cold ones before I left.

GAGNON:How many is a couple, Mr. Lucienne? Your blood alcohol level was point one six.

LUCIENNE:Maybe more than a couple. I guess I was celebrating in advance.

[Pause in audio]

GAGNON:And where were you taking the car?

LUCIENNE:Up to a cottage on Lake Marie, near Meredith.

GAGNON:And then what were you going to do?

LUCIENNE:I was supposed to drop the car off and walk to a local motel about a mile away. Come back the next morning to get the other half of the cut-up hundred-dollar bills. Then drive the car back to where I found it.

GAGNON:And you never saw or spoke to anybody about this little mission? No phone calls? No texts? No secret meetings?

LUCIENNE:Nope.

GAGNON:Do you know who gave you the money and instructions?

LUCIENNE:Nope.

GAGNON:Were you aware of the contents of the trunk?

LUCIENNE:No! Why would I look? Shit, if I’d known there was a bag of bones back there, I wouldn’t have touched that car. No way.

GAGNON:Mr. Lucienne, you’re being charged with aggravated DUI, which carries a two-month jail sentence. You’re also going to be charged with New Hampshire statute six forty-four colon seven, abuse of a corpse. Do you have anything else to tell me?

LUCIENNE:Hell yes! Look. I got a record. Not proud of it. And I drink sometimes. I admit that. But I’m no grave robber!

[End of partial transcript]

CHAPTER

53

Seabrook, New Hampshire

Screw Reginald Hamilton! If Nottingham won’t publish our book, we’ll find somebody who will. Or we’ll publish it ourselves. Or we’ll do a podcast. Or we’ll call Anderson Cooper. Or maybe Oprah Winfrey.

Garrett is a lot cooler and more composed than I am. I admire that about him. He just squares his shoulders and keeps working.

Right now, he’s headed back down to Boston in a new rental car. He wants to talk to his buddy Detective O’Halloran and see if he’s heard anything about the Amber Keenan case. And about Tony Romero. Garrett wants to follow up on the lead we found, that the FBI and Providence authorities have been interested in Tony for years.

I’m thinking about all the enemies we seem to be making, but I’m determined not to be scared off. The more forces there are against us, the more solid I get.

Maybe it’s genetics.

I think back to my grandfather, nearly beaten to death on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. I think of Mama and Pops talking about the discrimination they suffered at their jobs.

I can’t lie. The slights hurt. Always have. I overheard people at Dartmouth calling me a “quota gal,” suggesting that I hadn’t been good enough to get there on my own merits. But it’s also toughened me up and made me sensitive to injustice, no matter where it lives.

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