Free Speak Ill of the Living by Mark Arsenault

the file; a myth from his childhood had been proven true. Henry Bourque was real. It was like seeing the Loch Ness Monster at the aquarium.
    The stories had been filed in chronological order, starting with the earliest:

    ARMORED CAR ROBBED Three Guards Missing $600,000 in Cash Stolen
    The
Daily Empire
had done a competent job on deadline covering the morning robbery. From the story, told in straightforward, declarative sentences, Eddie learned that the armored truck from Solomon Secure Transport Company had reported by radio that a broken-down car was blocking its path on a back road in Tyngsboro, the tiny town to the north, on the New Hampshire border.
    That was the truck’s last message.
    When the transport company couldn’t raise the driver by radio, it called the police.
    The cops found the truck in a hayfield two hours later. The armored car’s guards, locked in back with the money, had been under a policy to never open the truck in a robbery, but the truck was empty. The driver, the two guards and the money were gone. The paper reported the names of the missing men: Dumas, Forte and Nicolaidis.
    The names had long been out of the news, and they meant nothing to Eddie.
    His eyes lingered over one detail in the story—the police had found blood in the back of the truck.
    Oh Jesus, Henry.
    Henry’s crimes had always been an abstract. Now they were becoming real. Eddie felt a nervous flutter. He suddenly noticed that Durkin kept the basement too warm. He unbuttoned his shirt collar.
    God, I need coffee.
    â€œDurkin? Hey Durk!”
    He heard clip-clop, clip-clop in the darkness, and then Durkin appeared. “Done already?”
    â€œYou got any of that industrial waste you like to brew?”
    He chuckled. “Didn’t learn your lesson last time, eh? Fine. I can make a pot.” He went off. Eddie left Henry’s file alone while Durkin brewed the java. He had decided not to look at the file alone. On his expedition into his brother’s criminal past, Eddie wanted somebody with him to watch his back.
    Durkin returned in a few minutes with two paper cups of steaming black sludge. “Don’t spill any,” he said. “This stuff stains.”
    Eddie sipped and flinched at the bitterness. “Like licking a car battery,” he said. “I love it.”
    Durkin laughed and turned to leave.
    â€œHang on a sec,” Eddie said. “This murder case—my brother’s case.” He sighed. “I guess I could use a hand going through this stuff.” He smiled. “I could take your crutches away, I suppose. But I’d rather you just offered to help.”
    Durkin looked at him. Eddie readied himself for more verbal combat. But Durkin didn’t want to fight. He sat at the edge of the desk and flipped open the file.
    â€œWhat I remember best is that they never found the money,” Durkin said. He searched through the file, pulled out a story about the missing money and flipped it on the desk for Eddie. “And they never found the guards’ bodies, either.”
    Eddie blanched. “Three murders? I didn’t know it was three.”
    â€œNaw, just two,” Durkin said. “Nicolaidis survived.” He tugged out another story for Eddie:

    MISSING ARMORED CAR DRIVER ALIVE
    Ralph V. Nicolaidis escapes captors
    â€œThe guards were tied up in a basement somewhere,” Durkin explained. He gestured to a head and shoulders photo of a thick-necked man with heavy black eyebrows. “They blindfolded this guy, Nicolaidis, and brought him out into the woods, out in Tyngsboro somewhere, probably to shoot him. But he managed to run off.”
    Eddie scanned the story. The driver told police he had escaped in darkness and wandered through the woods for hours, until he heard the sound of traffic and staggered out onto a road.
    Eddie was thrilled to learn that Ralph Nicolaidis had lived. Nicolaidis was just twenty-two, the paper had reported at