Breaking Blue by Timothy Egan

Author:Timothy Egan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-fiction, History
ISBN: 9781570610608
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 1992-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

14.

A Stirring

AT HOME in his daughter’s rambler, Dan Mangan sometimes would open the photo album, looking for back-door relief from the pain that accompanied the last days of his life. For an hour or more at a time, he left his bent and broken body and returned to those days when his back was straight and his fist was unchipped and he walked through the Stone Fortress with a proprietary swagger. He looked at pictures from the newspaper, half-dissolved clips showing Mangan inside a new police car in 1938, or the front-page photo of him after he captured Alfred the Hunchback. He pulled out pictures from hunting trips—smiling drunks, Spokane’s Irish Mafia on holiday. He stared at the young man in uniform, his high forehead, resolute gaze, and then he would start to cry. On more than one occasion, he fell asleep with his face still wet with tears.

In the final week of March, a second story about Bamonte’s master’s degree appeared in Spokane’s morning newspaper. This piece told how the project had gone from academic curiosity to a renewed investigation. The headline read: FAMILY FINALLY LEARNS DETAILS OF ’35 MURDER. The story centered on the Conniffs, and their surprise at hearing about police involvement in the killing of their father. It detailed Sonnabend’s attempt to unburden himself, the memos Bamonte had found from 1955 and 1957, and the search for a Sergeant Mangrin and a Clyde Roston. But the story said the new investigation, only a few weeks old, was already running into dead ends. “It apparently will go nowhere because all those involved are dead,” the story said. “Investigators say they can’t locate personnel records confirming when or if the detective suspected of involvement in the Conniff murder worked for the Spokane police department.”

The day the article appeared, Rosemary Miller received a call at home from an old acquaintance, a widow of a Spokane policeman. “Rose, did you see that name in the paper today, a Sergeant Mangrin?”

“I don’t remember much about it,” Rosemary said. “Why?”

“That’s your dad they’re talking about,” she said. “ ‘Mangrin’—they mean Mangan. That’s your dad.”

Rose hung up and went to see her father, who was asleep. When he awoke, she gave him the paper. He read through the story, slowly, then again. The color drained from his face, and his eyes went off in the distance. He said nothing for several minutes.

When he spoke, his voice was like a gavel on a judge’s bench. “Hell, I know all about that,” he said.

“You what?” Her face flushed, Rose moved closer to her father. She was angry, close to losing her temper.

The old man did not back off. “I said I know all about that.”

“Look at me!” Rose demanded. “What exactly do you know?”

“I know who did it.”

“God damn you!” Rose could barely control herself. She always knew her father was a collection of mildewed secrets, but this was a new low. “You mean to tell me you’ve known about this killing for fifty-four years and you never told anybody?”

“Well … yes.

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