MARLBORO — Although he wasn't the one to die, I find myself recalling the last time I saw Richard Gagnon as if he had.
My husband and I had stopped at the Co-op to get a bite to eat before catching a movie at Latchis, and we were delighted to find a wine and cheese tasting going on. We dashed off to the bathroom first, where we waited in a painfully slow line, and then made our way eagerly around the corner toward the brie and crackers.
“What are you pouring, Richard?” I asked giddily, looking up to him in his office booth above the department. He quietly shook his head. The tasting was over, he told me, even though I could clearly see wine remaining in the bottles.
Richard explained that he had to end promptly at 6:30, as scheduled, due to liquor control regulations or something to that effect.
That was the last time that I distinctly remember connecting with Richard, a little over a week before the Co-op tragedy; but it's just as likely that I saw him again, at South Pond, as I often did throughout the summer, with a tennis racket in his hand.
What strikes me now is how closely Richard observed rules - those on the court, and those of wine serving regulations - only to break a cardinal rule so shortly thereafter.
Richard Gagnon never looked like a man who would take a gun into the Co-op to shoot someone. He simply looked like Richard Gagnon, the wine guy, leaning against the frame of his slender office inside our community-owned store.
Richard was the guy who taught us about reds and whites, about the shape of a glass and how it enhances or detracts from flavor, about how to keep the flavor fresh with a vacuum stopper. During the holidays, he would point us to the bottles that would make the best gifts and offered us free wrapping to adorn them.
Years ago, the Co-op suffered another loss when Henry Tewksbury, the beloved cheese guy, passed away. The cheese department was never the same without him, but we who had embraced his passion for Vermont cheeses were soothed in our loss until we grew accustomed to it.
Now I can't imagine shopping for wine where Richard used to be. It's as if it's all been tainted. The grapes soured. The vines withered.
I think back to the last time I saw Richard and try to remember whether I saw something different in his eyes.
Maybe he was a bit quieter.
Maybe not.
What I do know is that I can't get his face out of my mind. I return, again and again, to the last time I saw Richard. Now, on vacation 300 miles away, I even see him as I pass the shelves of wine accessories in a department store. I flinch when I hear the manager called over the loudspeaker, and I mistakenly refer to an old friend as Richard.
My mind insists on reworking this tragedy, but there is no bending of the rule that Richard broke. (If only he would have poured me a glass of wine.)
* * *
Dear Richard,
Despite the truth that you have stolen something precious from all of us, I grieve for you.
Though I have been wronged many times in my life and never chosen murder, still, I ache for you.
You must have lost your mind and your heart and your soul to proceed the way you did.
No doubt “the issues” that provoked you triggered some unhealed trauma inside of you.
Your vision must have narrowed so tightly around an “enemy” that you did not see Michael's wife Jennifer, or the rest of his family, or the rest of his days.
But what about your co-workers? What about Ian, who spoke with you just before you entered Michael's office?
What of Diane, who found you out back behind the Co-op after the shooting?
What about all your fellow staff members present that morning?
What about all of us who have ever worked at the Co-op, or shopped there?
Did you want to rob us all as well?
Did you know that your act would be felt as far away as Thailand, and in every co-op around the country?
Did you know that you would steal sleep from strangers, summer vacation days from children, romantic getaways from couples?
Did you want blood spilled in the place that has fed so many so well?
As I read the expressions of support on the Co-op's Facebook page, I am stunned by how many people have been affected by your choice. I don't think any of us, including you, could have imagined it so.
Because I didn't know Michael, it is you for whom I grieve when I see you in the courtroom, locked in shackles, instead of on the tennis court at South Pond with a racket in your hand.
And what about Meg?
You must have considered your beloved wife.
Michael Martin lost his life, but you lost... everything.
You have given it up to rage.
You have given up your wife, your community, your sense of who you are and who you can be.
My 11-year-old now knows a killer. He has collected the balls that you have hit into the water where he swims.
Last night as I tucked him into bed, 300 miles away from you, he said,
“Mom, Vermont doesn't have the death penalty, right?”
* * *
Stripped of the shock and horror that clouded my thoughts for days, I awake to the naked truth that a killing has taken place, that a man has lost his life. That a family has been forced to bear not only a devastating loss, but a violent one.
I've lost loved ones to tragedy, but never to homicide. The compassion I felt for Richard turns toward anger for the desecration he has made of life, and community, and the cooperative. Truly there has been infinite beauty in the collective response to this loss, but there is no escaping the ugliness of it.
My anger quickly melts back into grief, however, as I view the recording of Richard's arraignment.
I hold my breath while the camera focuses in on the door from which he will enter the courtroom. I turn my head away, unable to bear his transformation from the wine guy to the accused criminal.
When Richard finally does make his way through that door, my hand flies to my mouth.
It's not just the grey sweatsuit that is two sizes too big, or even his hair, typically worn neat, that is now wildly disheveled, as if he spent his first night in jail ripping through it.
What truly breaks my heart and brings me to tears is both his frame - bent and shuffling -and his face - ashen and lost. He looks up toward the courtroom for just a moment, and his bottom lip droops as if he is about to crumble into tears.
And now I am angry at all of us. How could we have protected this man from this self-inflicted hell? How could we have spared these families the loss of their loved ones?
Relieved to be 300 miles away, I share this new wave of grief with my friends at the shore. In their faces, I see a mix of shock and compassion and fear.
But surprisingly, the fear is not of someone like Richard, but of themselves. Fear that they, too, have a murderer inside. Fear that they might someday be stripped of their senses by rage.
I begin to wonder how there aren't more murders like this, and then I feel a tiny sliver of hope that our tragedy would prevent others.