Seventh Enemy
Authors: William G. Tapply
A Brady Coyne Mystery
William G. Tapply
For Sarah
Foreword
O
N MAY 5, 1994,
Congressman Douglas Applegate (D-Ohio) voted aye, and by the margin of that single vote the United States House of Representatives passed a bill banning the manufacture and sale of nineteen specified semiautomatic assault guns.
The battle to control paramilitary weapons such as the Uzi and the AK-47 had been waged for years in American governments at all levels. Before Congressman Applegate voted “aye,” the gun lobby had won every skirmish.
My own education in the politics of gun control came two years before the passage of the House bill. It began on a quiet Sunday evening in May when my boyhood chum Wally Kinnick called me from Logan Airport, and I have to believe that the events that ensued in Massachusetts in 1992 helped to inform the debate in the United States Congress in 1994 and contributed to Douglas Applegate’s historic “aye” vote.
Brady L. Coyne
Boston, Massachusetts
December 1994
by
Alexandria Shaw
Globe Staff
H
ARLOW—THE SILENCE OF
the public library in this little central Massachusetts community was shattered by gunshots on Wednesday afternoon. Maureen Burton, 32, a part-time librarian, was pronounced dead at the scene. Two others are in intensive care at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
According to eyewitnesses, David Burton, 37, an unemployed electrician and the estranged husband of the librarian, entered the building at approximately 3:45 in the afternoon carrying an AK-47, commonly known as a “paramilitary assault weapon.” Witnesses report that Burton approached the desk where Mrs. Burton was seated, shouted, “I’ve had it!” and opened fire.
At least three bullets struck Mrs. Burton in the chest, killing her instantly. Police estimate that twelve to fifteen shots were fired altogether, some of which struck two bystanders.
Burton’s body was later found in his pickup truck on the outskirts of town, dead of a single gunshot wound to the head, apparently self-inflicted.
According to state police records, the incident in Harlow marks the fourteenth death in Massachusetts this year directly attributable to semiautomatic assault weapons such as the AK-47, which are characterized by their capacity to fire a large number of shots as rapidly as the trigger is pulled.
Six of those victims have been police officers.
Massachusetts has no restrictions on the purchase or ownership of assault weapons beyond those that apply to target or sporting weapons. “If you have an FID [Firearms Identification Card] you can walk into a gun shop and buy an Uzi,” says State Police Lieutenant Victor McClelland. “It’s as easy as that.”
Neighbors of the Burtons report that the couple were often heard arguing and had not been living together for over a year. Mr. Burton, they say, had recently been despondent over losing his job.
“Maureen had no children of her own,” Geri Hatcher, sister of the victim, told the Globe, “which was one of the reasons she loved to work at the library after school. David refused to have children, and they argued about it a lot. That’s why she left him. She planned to get divorced. I guess he couldn’t stand it.”
The names of the other two victims have not been released.
I
WAS SITTING OUT
on the steel balcony that clings to the side of my apartment building and savoring the evening air, which was warm for early May. It was an excellent evening for balcony sitting, and I had left thoughts of newspaper reading and television watching inside. A skyful of stars overhead and a harborful of ship lights six stories below me mirrored each other. At Logan across the Inner Harbor a steady stream of airplane lights landed and took off, and I could see the streetlights from East Boston and, way off to my left, headlights moving across the Mystic River Bridge. Harbor smells wafted up, seaweed and dead fish and salt air and gasoline fumes diluted and mingled by the easterly breeze—not at all unpleasant.
I had tilted my aluminum lawn chair back on its hind legs. My heels rested on the railing of the balcony and a glass of Jack Daniel’s rested on my belly, and when the phone began to ring I contemplated letting the machine get it.
I knew it wasn’t Terri. It had been six months. Since Terri, I often found myself watching the harbor lights with a glass of Daniel’s.
But it could have been one of my boys. They often call on Sunday evenings, Billy from U Mass needing money or Joey from his mother’s home in Wellesley just wanting to chat with his dad.
So I unfolded myself and padded stocking-footed into the kitchen.
“Brady Coyne,” I said into the phone.
“Hey guy.”
“Wally,” I said, “What hostile wilderness outpost are you calling me from this time?”
“About as hostile as you can get. Logan Airport.”
“Just passing through?”
“Actually I could use a lift,” he said. “I’ve been waiting here for an hour. The guy who was supposed to meet me didn’t show up.”
“Need a place to crash for the night?”
“If you don’t mind, it looks like I do.”
“Hey,” I said, “that’s what lawyers are for. Cab service. Emergency accommodations. Sharing their booze. What terminal are you at?”
“Northwest. I’ll wait at the curb.”
“I can practically see you from here,” I said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
There’s always somebody from our childhood who becomes famous, about whom we say, “I knew him—or her—when we were kids. You’d never have predicted it.” It’s the skinny girl in seventh-grade geography class who always kept her lips clamped tight over her mouthful of braces, and who ten years later smiles dazzlingly from the cover of
Cosmopolitan.
Or the stumbling overweight grammar school boy who goes on to play linebacker for Notre Dame, or the computer nerd who gets elected to Congress.
Most of us knew a kid who became an author or athlete or politician or actor or criminal, and we feel a kind of pride of ownership, as if we were the first to recognize his talent.
Wally Kinnick was that kid from my youth.
Nobody would ever have predicted fame for Wally. He was a quiet, unambitious teenager, a modest student with a very short list of activities on his college applications. He preferred hunting and fishing to playing sports or running for Student Council. Hell, he wanted to become a forest ranger. A more anonymous career I couldn’t imagine.
After high school, I lost track of Wally for a while. When he popped up again he was famous. Outdoorsmen knew him as an expert. To environmentalists he was an ally.
Politicians considered him a nuisance.
It started with an innocuous local Saturday morning cable television program out of Minneapolis. At first it was called simply “Outdoors,” a derivative good-old-boy hunting and fishing show featuring Wally and his guest celebrity of the week. But as Wally refined his television personality and style, he became “Walt” and his show became “Walt Kinnick’s Outdoors.” ESPN picked it up and sent him on hunting and fishing excursions to remote corners of the globe. He used the show as a forum for taking dead aim at the enemies of wildlife and their habitat.
Nobody could figure out whether Walt Kinnick was a liberal or conservative. Democrat or Republican. He defied labels. He sought the truth. He cut through the bullshit. He stepped on toes. Indiscriminately.
Walt Kinnick’s name and face and voice became as well known—though certainly not as beloved—as that of Julia Child.
By the early 1990s, Walt Kinnick had become the Ralph Nader of the environment. He submitted to questioning by Larry King, traded jokes with Letterman, testified before blue-ribbon commissions, wrote magazine articles. He even endorsed an insect repellent on television commercials.
He made enemies. He got sued. I was his Boston lawyer. He had other lawyers in other cities.
He had a cabin in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts near the Vermont border, a retreat where he went to fish and hunt and escape the rigors of public life. He’d invited me out several times, but our schedules never seemed to mesh.
Like most of my clients, Wally was also a friend. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been so willing to go pick him up at the airport at eleven o’clock on a Sunday evening in May.
When I got to the Northwest terminal. I spotted him instantly in the crowd that was clustered by the curb. He was wearing a sportcoat and necktie, his idea of a disguise. On television he always wore a flannel shirt and jeans with a sheath knife at his hip. But Willy Kinnick stood about six-three and sported a bushy black beard, and he would have been hard to miss regardless of what he was wearing.
I parked in the no-stopping zone, got out of my car, and walked up to him. I grabbed his shoulder.
He whirled around. “Oh, Brady,” he said. “Thank God. Let’s get the hell out of here. I hate airports.”
He was bending for the overnight bag that sat beside him on the pavement when a man appeared behind him. He touched Walt’s shoulder and said, “Walt Kinnick? Is that you?”
Wally turned. “McNiff?”
“God,” said the man, “I’m sorry I’m late. My kid had the car this afternoon and left the tank empty and I had to drive all over Clinton to find a gas station that was open on a Sunday night and there was a detour on Route 2…” He flapped his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“Sure,” shrugged Willy. “It’s okay. Oh, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Brady Coyne, Gene McNiff.
I shook hands with McNiff. He was a beefy guy with thinning red hair and small close-set eyes.
“Gene’s the president of SAFE,” said Wally.
“SAFE?”
“Second Amendment For Ever,” said McNiff. “We’re sort of the New England arm of the NRA. Walt’s here to testify for us.”
“We need the Second Amendment to keep us safe,” said Wally. “SAFE, get it?”
I smiled. “Cute.”
“Brady’s my lawyer,” said Wally.
McNiff arched his eyebrows. “Lawyer, huh?” He nodded. “Well, it’s always good to have a lawyer, I guess. You’ll be there tomorrow, then, Brady?
“Oh, sure,” I said, wondering what the hell he was talking about. “Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good, good,” he said. He turned to Wally. “Look, I’m really sorry I was so late. You must be pooped. So shall we…?”
Wally glanced at me, then turned to McNiff. “I figured we’d gotten our signals crossed, Gene. So I called Brady. He invited me for the night. You don’t mind, do you?”