Chapter 11: A Proper Casket

By a/k/a Simon
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Putnam looked the same. Years had passed since Megan had last driven these streets, but there wasn’t even a pause when it came to navigating about town. The Kroeger house was at the top of a hill, at the end of a side street that emptied into a main road, that went directly through the center of town. Trafalgar Brothers Funeral Home was on a street off the southwest corner of the square, after the antiquated firehouse that had been turned into a pet supply store and before the mall on the near side of the highway, as opposed to the mall on the far side of the highway.

Megan had mixed feelings of nostalgia when passing her old haunts. Just before the north entrance to the square was Hadley Park, where she had played soccer for one year, softball for two, and half a season of field hockey before an unfortunate incident with a stick landed her in the hospital receiving sixteen stitches to seal the gash in her lower lip. She still had the scar.

It was the end of summer, the beginning of the school year, and a group of young boys were running laps around the park as part of football practice. There were maybe two dozen total, a large group leading the pack and three strays struggling further back. The windows of the Impreza were down and Megan could hear the screams of the coach berating the trio of stragglers, using taunts and insults as his mean-spirited, not-so-unique brand of inspiration. At that point Megan remembered why she’d given up sports after the field hockey accident. She pictured in her mind the throngs of parents reliving their youth vicariously through their children, sharing the joy of each victory and pretending not to be embarrassed by each defeat. Putnam was a town where people had trouble giving up things from the past.

The fact that Putnam was even still a town was living proof of that fact. Compared to the four cities that bordered it, Putnam was almost equal in area to all of them combined. It laid claim to centers of commerce and industry for a region ten miles in diameter. The town had an industrial park, two malls, a long strip of warehouse stores, the largest reservoir on the North Shore, and, at one time, a nuclear power plant, not to mention being adjacent to the highway leading straight into Boston, a half hour to the south. Over the last fifty years Putnam had gone from a large sprawl of farmland to the richest community around. And yet, as other places became cities and descended into a collection of rundown takeout shops and low-income housing projects, Putnam remained a town and continued to prosper more with every year.

The locals will claim that it’s because of two things. First off, everything that pulls a profit in Putnam is owned by families with at least three generations having lived in the town. Unless your grandparents and parents were citizens before you, there was little chance you’d be able to open up a Target or a TJMax and see it become successful. It wasn’t so much about who you knew as it was who knew you that would get the word out that your business had received the thumbs up from the Townies. And secondly, in order to even open a new business in Putnam you had to get the approval of the Board of Selectmen. Depending on your status you could get that blessing in as little as a few hours, thanks to an informal meeting held over the phones or at the local roast beef restaurant, or as long as a few years, because maybe someone better connected had mentioned something about opening a store similar to the one you proposed and the board was waiting to see if their friend decided to go ahead with his idea. Growth was encouraged, because growth meant more money. But growth was closely monitored so that the money went to the proper people.

The Kroeger family was one such clan that benefited from the Putnam system. Almost fifty years ago, when the country was still crazy about the glimmering hope of nuclear power, Aldus Kroeger, father of Greta and Murphy and an avid reader of Popular Science magazine, easily convinced the board to back his idea to build a plant in the town. With their go ahead a matter of public record, Aldus had no trouble getting massive loans from the local banks and obtaining a large tract of land on the southern shore of Lesterton Lake. Everyone was happy to back such a magnificent enterprise, one that was sure to make Putnam the talk of the Greater Boston area. It was on this enthusiasm that Aldus eventually made the fortune that would soon be such a hotly disputed subject amongst his grandchildren.
Megan was extremely hesitant to broach a conversation with Greta involving her mother’s will, or lack thereof. Since breakfast she had been picturing the storm clouds, already gathered from the matriarch’s death, rapidly blackening once money was involved. She wasn’t after any of the cash herself, but her spite couldn’t help but make her a little resentful that her two brothers, both of whom had no doubt helped exacerbate her mother’s condition, and didn’t give a damn about their deteriorating father locked away in a nursing home, would conspire with the best lawyer in town to split the estate between them and keep her as far away from any of it as possible. The idea of such an outcome made her irate. She wanted to talk about it with Greta, but didn’t want to come off as money-grubbing, so chose to stay silent.

Greta, however, was having similar thoughts, and didn’t have quite as much trepidation about the matter. “This whole thing with the will,” she began, breaking the silence as the Subaru turned into the town square. “It reminds me so much of the all the problems with Murphy and Peter.”

“Who’s Peter?” Eddie asked from the backseat, suddenly distracted from the seemingly quaint scenery.

“You mean Uncle Peter?” Megan asked. Greta nodded.

“Peter is my older brother,” she said, turning up her head so her voice would carry back to Eddie. “It was Peter, then me, then Murphy, Megan’s father. Those two never got along. I had some moments with both of them over the years, but nothing like when Pete and Murph got into it. It wasn’t unusual to see them out on the lawn, trying to bury each other into the dirt with their fists. Hot-blooded is an understatement. Even when they got older, grown men, they still carried on like that. And it’s not like they were a couple of roughnecks. Murphy played football and Peter played baseball, but they weren’t exactly professional athletes. They were both intelligent. Peter worked at the plant doing research and Murphy was an administrator. They just had a really tough time getting along. I suppose Murph becoming Pete’s boss didn’t help things any.”

“Plant…?” Eddie prodded.

Megan was aware of some of the details about the nuclear power plant’s history, she knew the family fortune had come from it, but for the most part she was vague on the specifics. Greta elaborated for them both. “My father opened the Putnam Nuclear Power Plant back in the late fifties. It was his dream, maybe even the love of his life, and he hoped his children would one day join him in its operation. Not so much me, really. My father was an Old World type and thought I should just marry well and get to making babies. Wouldn’t he be disappointed to see me now, divorced and childless at my age? Anyway, Peter was always more book smart, whereas Murphy had a head for business and was a natural leader. So my father put Peter to work in the lab, while he groomed Murphy to be his successor in leading the company. Things were fine, for a little while at least. But as the science of nuclear power progressed Peter became more interested in finding ways to make the plant run more efficiently, more cleanly, providing safer power for a lower cost. Of course, a more efficient plant meant fewer workers, and cheaper rates meant less revenue. My father was closely tied to the community and his obligations didn’t allow him to be laying off local workers. Murphy sided with him, which didn’t make things any better between him and Peter. So fast forward about a year, Peter had been trying to make the best of the situation, or so we thought at the time. He had continued his research and experiments and had started leaking his findings to nearby plants, basically helping the competition. Murphy found out and warned him to stop. But, just days after their confrontation, there was an explosion at the plant. Dozens of workers were either injured or killed. I was working as a nurse by then and helped out on some of those men. It was horrible, the things the radiation had done to them, it was hard to image and even worse to witness firsthand. Later it was discovered that the accident was the result of outdated equipment, machines and safety measures that should have been replaced years before. Our father was in a tough spot, about to be held responsible for the worst catastrophe in Putnam history. But then he found a report from Murphy about Peter’s leaking information. It made him so mad that he twisted things around, rewrote history and put the blame solely on Peter. Peter was the head of Research and Development, it was suddenly his responsibility to monitor the equipment and report when things needed to be updated. The town demanded Peter’s resignation and Peter, feeling betrayed, was more than happy to give it. He left town soon after that and I’ve barely heard from him since. My father died a few years later and Murphy assumed control of the plant. Later on, when Murphy went public with his Parkinson’s, the town forced him to retire and replaced him with a board of directors. That didn’t last long and, eventually, the plant was closed down.”

“I never knew that,” Megan said, her head swimming with information about a close relative that she’d never met. “I never knew that that was why Uncle Peter left town. Dad’s side of the story didn’t give much detail. He just kind of made the guy sound like a jerk.”

“Well, I’m not going to say your uncle was the easiest guy to get along with,” Greta confessed. “I think he spent too much time in his own head, expected the world to bend to his will or something. But he had his moments. My father cut him out of the will because of what he called espionage. I didn’t totally agree with it, but Peter never seemed to show any interest in the money anyway.”

“So you and dad ended up splitting it?” Megan asked.

“Not evenly,” Greta rolled her eyes. “Murphy was clearly your grandfather’s favorite. Add to that the fact that I didn’t have a part in the family business and I sympathized with Peter’s opinions about efficiency and safety and…let’s just say my slice of the pie was significantly smaller than what your dad walked away with. It’s enough that I can devote a good amount of my time to volunteer work, so that’s enough for me.”

Megan wondered, had she known all of this years ago, would history be repeating itself now?


Trafalgar Brothers Funeral Home looked almost like any other house in Putnam, white clapboard siding, perfectly trimmed shrubbery, and a cul du sac driveway of dark tarmac leading you from the street to the steps of the front porch and back to the street. The only indicator of something out of the ordinary was the unavoidable brick and bronze sign resting dead center on the lawn in the middle of the driveway announcing the business conducted inside.

Megan put the car in park and the trio filed out and into the lobby of the mortuary. A black board stood next to a wide set of stairs with rich, red carpeting. It had detachable letters giving the information of the services in progress. The first listing read:

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