Now there were three dead men who shared more than the grisly fate of being shot in the head and found splayed in their cars. They had all become enemies of Whitey Bulger.
Huff had seen Callahan as the key to the Wheeler murder. But Huff, a straightforward midwesterner, felt patronized every time he came to Boston. A weak smile, a pat on the shoulder, and then the door. The only time Huff felt he was talking sense about the case was when he got together with Connecticut and Florida homicide detectives. They began to entertain dark shapeless thoughts about what was happening in Boston. But in truth, they didn’t even know who to be mad at.
Within the FBI Connolly hung tough against all comers on Halloran. He helped set up the long-overdue interrogation of Bulger and Flemmi about Wheeler that finally took place two years after the murder. The FBI report on the meeting records a speech by Bulger. He told agents that he was only consenting to the interview so he could put all the baseless accusations to rest. He sounded like his brother Billy talking to the State House press corps. Everything was done on Bulger’s terms. He announced that he would not take a lie detector test, and it would take a court order to get his mug shot. And that was that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bulgertown, USA
Julie Miskel Rakes and her husband Stephen were like a lot of other couples from the old neighborhood—family-oriented, hardworking, and determined to make their own modest way in life. They’d grown up in Southie. Julie was from the projects, just like the Bulgers and John Connolly, and her family belonged to the same parish as the Bulgers, St. Monica’s, situated at the outer boundary of the Old Harbor housing project and across a rotary from another, the Old Colony housing project.
Though only two years apart, Julie and Stephen did not really know each other while at South Boston High School. They met later when Julie was twenty years old and Stephen was twenty-two and operating the first of his many business ventures—Stippo’s Sub and Deli. Stippo was Stephen’s nickname, and the popular corner store sold coffee, donuts, and groceries. It was open from dawn to midnight, with Stephen’s brother, sister, mother, and father all working shifts. Stephen’s father was a particularly loyal employee. Unable to sleep, he’d go over and turn on the lights at 3:00 A.M. “We used to make jokes because he opened up at three o’clock in the morning, but he didn’t have to be open until six o’clock,” Julie recalled. “But he wanted to be ready.”
Julie began working at the store in 1977. Stephen was the owner and manager; he was in charge of ordering the stock, handling the banking, and pricing and shelving the inventory. Soon enough the couple began dating, and then, in 1978, the Rakeses and the Miskels gathered with their friends to celebrate the marriage of Julie and Stephen Rakes. It was a South Boston family affair.
Stephen was no stranger to trouble; in the past he and his brothers had tangled with police. But with Julie, he was going to make a go of it. Two years after marrying their first daughter, Nicole, was born, and a second daughter, Meredith, was born in November 1982. During this time Stephen sold the deli and became a partner in a liquor store, but by 1983 he and Julie had decided they were ready to go it alone again. Stephen preferred owning his own business. The work pace might be punishing, but the rewards would be theirs alone. Julie suggested a video rental store, but Stephen persuaded her that a liquor store was more profitable.
Hunting around, Stephen spotted an abandoned Texaco gas station right at the rotary near St. Monica’s Church. It was a prime site on a main street, Old Colony Avenue. Traffic was always flowing down Old Colony and around the rotary out front, and the property had a rare commodity in the compact business districts of South Boston—a parking lot. Together they researched Boston property records to identify the owner. The deed belonged to a woman, Abigail A. Burns. Julie Rakes had trouble keeping the woman’s name straight. “I used to call her Abigail Adams.” She was confusing the owner with one of the nation’s first families: the wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States. It was an amusing mix-up that became one of the couple’s inside jokes.
“We were going to make it big,” Julie recalled. “This was going to be our source of income that was going to give us the lifestyle that we wanted—for the rest of our lives.”
But in spite of all their hopes and hard work, there was a problem. Whitey Bulger had been chased out of the Lancaster Street garage, harassed by state troopers in his black Chevy, and, most recently, hounded as a murder suspect. The time had come for him and Flemmi to quit all their running around and find a new home office. The way Bulger saw it, why not the cozy confines of the old neighborhood? There was no substitute for the familiar and insulated feel of South Boston. The Rakeses, unfortunately, knew none of this, and their modest ambition was about to collide with Whitey Bulger’s desires in a town where whatever Whitey wanted, Whitey got.
THE FALL of 1983 was a mad scramble for the couple, who were trying to accomplish all that was necessary to open in time for the holiday season. In a relatively short period of time things had actually gone pretty smoothly, beginning with their successful bid for a liquor license at an auction during the summer. Watching for legal notices appearing in the newspaper, Stephen had spotted the auction of a license from a liquor store that was closing, displaced by construction. The eager couple dressed up one Saturday and went downtown to the law firm overseeing the sale.
“I was nervous,” said Julie Rakes. “It was my first auction.” Stephen was more used to the particulars of operating a liquor store, having been a partner in another one, but the couple decided Julie should do the actual bidding. “He was saying, ‘Go ahead. You can do it,’” said Julie, “and I was saying, ‘What do you do? What do you do?’ It was fun. Exciting. He said, ‘Go ahead. Raise your hand. Raise your hand!’” Julie did. The bidding opened at $1,000. There was other interest, but Julie kept going. Suddenly the bidding ended, and the Rakeses walked away with a liquor license for the relatively cheap price of $3,000.
It was a great start, possibly a good omen. They created a business corporation, Stippo’s Inc., that consisted of an all-family lineup of corporate officers. “I was president,” said Julie, “and we made jokes about it.” Stephen took the title of treasurer and clerk and also director. Then came some other good news: Julie was pregnant with their third child. At the end of September the couple got in touch with a contractor, a friend from the neighborhood, Brian Burke. Burke started on the toughest part of the project—converting a gas station into a liquor store. The ground had to be dug up and the huge gas tanks removed, all in accordance with state environmental codes. Burke cleaned up the lot, replaced the roof, and applied a new look to the building’s exterior. “Lots of cement,” said Julie. The Rakeses were not out to break new ground in design or aesthetics. Their pockets were not deep. The goal was a basic renovation that achieved functionalism: a clean, well-lighted, cement-block building with glass windows. The couple felt a rush of excitement after the sign was hoisted into place on the front—Stippo’s Liquor Mart.