A Stain on Utopia: A Mitch and Al Mystery

By Glenn Ickler

A nationally-known historian has disappeared while on a research mission in a small Massachusetts town that was born as a utopian religious community, and the St. Paul newspaper reporter-photographer team of Warren “Mitch” Mitchell and Alan “Al” Jeffrey is sent by their editor to cover the manhunt. Dr. Pinchas M. Butz, who was studying the life of 18th-century utopian minister Adin Ballou in the tiny town of Hopedale, has not been seen for several days when Mitch and Al arrive on the scene. When the wrapper from the professor’s favorite candy bar is found in a wooded hiking area, the missing person search turns into an all-out hunt for a body. The body is uncovered in the woods and the search for Dr. Butz twists to a hunt for his knife-wielding killer. Mitch needs to get home soon because his wife, Martha, is being stalked by a mysterious stranger on the streets of St. Paul, but when he and Al come face to face with the professor’s killer, they are left stranded in a snowstorm, searching for a way to get in out of the cold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Dec 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781977260284

Glenn Ickler

GLENN ICKLER has had a long career in newspapers as a reporter, feature writer, theater critic, columnist and editor in Minnesota and Massachusetts. He was the leader of an editorial page staff that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and has won numerous awards for his writing. A native of Minnesota, he now resides in a tiny and historic town west of Boston and takes occasional cruises on the scenic and historic rivers of Europe. 

Book preview

1

UTOPIA BOUND

The air in the landing pattern over Boston had more ups and downs than a rutty and rocky off-road trail for all-terrain vehicles, so I stepped onto solid concrete with a feeling of relief as I walked away from Delta Airlines flight 284 at Logan International Airport on a Saturday afternoon in mid-November. The actual touch down on the runway was so violent that it felt more like a crash than a landing, but I had learned as a flyer in the Navy that the definition of a good landing is any landing that you can walk away from, so I had to mark this one in the positive column.

A couple of steps behind me, my best friend Alan Jeffrey was muttering something about this having been one hell of a ride as we reached the stability of the terminal. After collecting our luggage at the carousel, we hustled to the closest car rental desk to obtain a means of transportation to a small Massachusetts town called Hopedale, where we were going to join the search for a prominent Minnesota professor who had vanished while researching the history of a progressive nineteenth-century minister. This was business—not a pleasure trip taken by two long-time buddies.

At the rental car counter, I asked the shaggy-haired young man with the silver stud in the left side of his nose if he could direct us to Hopedale.

Never heard of Hopedale, he said. Is it on the Mass Pike?

Never heard of the Mass Pike, I said. Is it some kind of fish?

Mr. Nose Stud stared at me as if I were a green-skinned man from a different planet. The Mass Pike is the biggest and most famous highway in the country, he said. It goes all the way from Boston to the west coast, I think, where it actually ends up at an ocean in Montana or someplace like that.

This bit of twisted geography did not shock me because I’d been told that many Bostonians believe that American civilization ends at their city’s western border. Truncated as it was, at least this guy’s version of the country stretched as far as the Rocky Mountains. Still, I felt a need to make him aware of seventy-one thousand square miles of land known as the state of Washington that lay between Montana and the breaking waves of the Pacific Ocean.

Montana’s not quite on the west coast, I said. You’re about one state short.

And I’ve always thought that Route 66 is the most famous highway in the country, Al said.

Mr. Nose Stud shook his shaggy head. Anyways, it’s the big Interstate highway that goes west out of the airport, he said. Most of the major towns are on it.

I don’t think Hopedale is a major town, I said. Does the car we’re renting have GPS?

Course it does, he said. Everything you need comes with all of our vehicles.

Then we’ll get on your big, famous Mass Pike, which goes all the way to the Pacific Ocean in Montana, and we’ll find a way to get to Hopedale, I said. Just give me the keys and the paperwork.

Our unexpected journey to Hopedale was launched, like so many of our travels, by a phone call to my desk at the St. Paul Daily Dispatch, where I have worked as a reporter for nigh onto twenty years. I answered, "Daily Dispatch, Warren Mitchell, as I always do, even though I’m better known as Mitch."

Mr. Mitchell, this is Rosemary Butz, said the caller. You’ve worked with my husband on a couple of stories for your paper.

Indeed, I had worked on a couple of stories with Dr. Pinchas M. Butz, PhD, in his capacity as a history professor at the University of Minnesota. He was an internationally-known scholar, a prominent figure on the campus and a frequent go-to source for reporters in need of historical background for their stories. He also had written occasional historical perspective op-ed pieces for the Sunday opinion sections of our paper and for that of our competitor in Minneapolis.

What can I do for you, Mrs. Butz? I said.

You can call me Rosie, she said. And I’m calling to tell you that Pinky—Doctor Butz—is missing. What a couple: Rosie Butz and Pinky Butz. I silently thanked the gods of journalism that I was working in a form of printed media and did not have to recite those names verbally for a television or radio audience.

Missing where? I asked. Dumb question: If she knew where, he wouldn’t be missing, would he?

In Massachusetts, Rosie said. He was working in a little town called Hopedale, and he was calling or texting me two or three times a day. Then for two whole days I didn’t get any kind of message from him, and he didn’t return my calls, so early yesterday morning I called the desk at the motel where he’s staying and asked them to check his room. They said he wasn’t in his room, but that his personal belongings were there, and he hadn’t checked out.

Have you reported this to the Hopedale police? I asked.

I have, and today they told me that when they questioned some people that he’d been working with they said they hadn’t seen him since Saturday, which was the last day I heard from him. This conversation was taking place on Tuesday afternoon.

What is Dr. Butz doing in, uh, Hopedale, Massachusetts?

He’s researching the life of a religious leader named Adin Ballou, who founded Hopedale as a Utopian community back sometime in the middle eighteen-hundreds. He’s been planning to do a research paper and a book about Ballou, along with some similar charismatic ministers of the time.

The fact that a person of Dr. Pinchas Butz’s status was missing from a small town in New England certainly warranted a story in the Daily Dispatch, so I quizzed Rosie on the details. After he’d been in Hopedale for four days, Pinchas Butz had told Rosie that he was planning to wrap up his research and return to his home in St. Paul no later than the end of the current week. He had been in fine spirits and good health, and he seemed to have been enjoying his visit to the tiny once-upon-a-time Utopia. Then silence for what was now the third day.

I thanked Rosie and asked her to call me at once if she heard anything from either Hopedale authorities or her husband. She said she would do that, gave me her phone number for reference and ended the call. I went to the city desk and told City Editor Don O’Rourke about our conversation. He told me to write the story, omitting the rubicund nicknames of the couple, and find out if we had a photo of Professor Butz on file. We did, in fact, have several, most of them taken by Alan Jeffrey, who was the staff’s most proficient photographer in addition to having been my best friend since we met as freshmen at the University of Minnesota almost thirty years ago. Al has joined me so frequently on Daily Dispatch assignments that Don has labeled us the Siamese twins.

Don says that Al and I are joined at the funny bone, which in our case is the skull. I’ve been trying to convince Don that he should use the current politically correct term, which is conjoined twins, but he says he will not change what he calls us until he gets a written complaint from the king of Siam. This is highly unlikely, since Siam now calls itself Thailand and is no longer a monarchy.

My story about Dr. Pinchas Butz’s disappearance appeared on the front page of the local section on Wednesday morning. The Minneapolis Morning Sun carried a similar story, with almost identical quotes from Rosie Butz. Apparently, she’d felt the need for a two-pronged publicity campaign that didn’t play favorites. The major difference in the two stories was an editor’s note at the end of the Morning Star report, telling readers that the writer would be traveling to Massachusetts for on-scene coverage of the search for this prominent Minnesota history scholar.

Don O’Rourke saw this as a challenge. He summoned both Al and me to his desk and told us to pack our bags for a couple of days in Utopia. Who could ask for anything better than that? We’d already been booked on an early Thursday flight to Boston, from where we would find our way to the once Utopian land of Hopedale.

A couple of days? said my wife, Martha Todd, after I told her of my upcoming journey when I arrived home at our rented duplex on Lincoln Avenue that evening. What makes Don think it will only be a couple of days?

I guess it’s because he’s ever the optimist, I said. This was meant as a joke; Don is noted for expecting (and we sometimes think hoping for) the worst possible outcome in every hard news story.

Martha did not laugh. Better pack enough undies and socks for at least a week, she said. How often have you seen a missing person found in a couple of days?

I couldn’t imagine the Daily Dispatch footing the motel and restaurant bills for Al and me for more than a couple of days, but because Martha is usually right, I decided to take her advice and pack for a longer term. My faith in Martha’s wisdom eventually saved me a trip to the laundromat.

2

UTOPIA FOUND

Here we go into Utopia, I said, as I turned right at a sign that said Hopedale. Driving a bright blue, late-model Chevy Trailblazer, we had followed the Mass Pike, which turned out to be Interstate 90, which passes through southern Minnesota on its way to the Pacific coast city of Seattle, Washington (not Montana), to a beltline freeway dubbed I-495.

While on the supposedly world-famous Mass Pike, we’d seen a sign that said: USE YAH BLINKAHS. What language is that? Al had asked.

Don’t know, I’d said. Possibly Pidgen?

We’d driven for several miles on I-495 before exiting in a town called Milford, where we’d followed the GPS directions through bumper-to-bumper traffic-clogged streets until seeing the Hopedale sign, which, thankfully, was written in standard English.

Taking note of the heavy traffic we encountered during what normally were the hours when most people were at work, Al said, Doesn’t anybody have a job in this state? It looks like everybody who owns a vehicle of any kind is on the road in the middle of a workday.

Maybe people are hired to drive on the highways and streets all day so that the state looks prosperous, I said.

The other thing we’d noticed as we traveled on Interstate 90 was the absence of snow. We’d left Minnesota with a about a foot of snow (the Daily Dispatch forbade calling it the white stuff) covering our lawns, but here in Massachusetts the ground was bare, even though the November temperature was appropriately in the middle twenties.

Appropriately for our mission, the street we turned onto was named Adin Street, which I pointed out to Al.

Do you think they have a Ballou Boulevard? he asked.

Wouldn’t surprise me, I said.

I had learned from Wikipedia that Adin Ballou and a small group of his followers, called Practical Christians, established a Utopian commune, based on Christian and socialist ideologies, within the town of Milford in 1842. They named their settlement the Hopedale Community, and Ballou served as minister until the commune went bankrupt in 1856. The commune’s remaining assets were purchased by Ebenezer and George Draper, who built a huge brick building to house a loom manufacturing business on what became known as the Mill River.

Hopedale was officially separated from Milford in 1886, and the Draper Manufacturing Company grew to become the largest manufacturer of textile looms in the United States. During World War II, the production lines were switched to the manufacture of howitzers for the Army. After the war, business declined, and the company was sold to Rockwell International in 1967. Rockwell closed the factory in August 1980, leaving the sprawling three-block-long brick building unoccupied. According to Wikipedia, the current owner of the property began demolition of the building in 2020, the same year that Hopedale’s population was listed as 6,017 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

We drove along Adin Street for several blocks, passing some huge houses, an elementary school on the right and the town’s high school on the left. Adin Street ended at a stop sign and a street sign that said Hopedale Street. We saw the town’s post office in front of us and a gray, one-story wooden building with a triangular hump on each end off to our right on the far side of the street. On our immediate right was a church made of large gray blocks of stone with a sign that identified it as Unitarian-Universalist.

Let’s check out that building with the humps, I said. I turned right and when we were almost in front of the building we saw a sign that said Hopedale Police.

That looks like a good place to start, Al said, pointing toward the sign. I parked the Chevy beside an open, grass-covered block across the street from the station. We got out, crossed the street, and went in the door at the center of the building, between the two humps. Inside, we encountered the standard police station front desk. Behind the desk, a blue-uniformed officer whose name tag said OSWALD was tilted back in a swivel chair, reading a paperback novel.

As we approached the desk, Oswald straightened up in the chair, laid the open book facedown and asked, Can I help you gentlemen?

We introduced ourselves, displayed our press credentials and asked if we could speak with someone in the missing persons department.

That would be Detective Morgan, Oswald said. But he’s not here just now.

Missing persons is missing? Al said.

Oswald frowned. Detective Morgan is out of the office working on a case, he said.

Probably the case we’ve come to cover, I said. Is the missing person named Butz?

I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not authorized to talk to the press, Oswald said.

Could we speak with someone who is authorized? I said.

That would be Chief Iandoli, but she’s not here right now, either.

She? You have a woman police chief? I asked.

Yes, sir. Chief Iandoli has been in charge here for more than a year now.

Progressive, Al said.

Utopian, I said. Do you know when the chief will be in, Officer Oswald?

She said late in the afternoon, Oswald said. Maybe like four-thirty or so.

Thanks, I said. We’ll be back then. Meanwhile, here’s my card with my cellphone number where the chief can reach me when she gets back. I’d appreciate a call.

Oswald took the card and laid it on the blotter in front of him. We said goodbye, and as I closed the door behind me, I saw that he’d already gone back to reading the paperback novel.

Now what? Al asked as we reached the sidewalk.

My digital watch, which had automatically adjusted from Central Time to Eastern Time, read 3:48 p.m. Let’s get a lay of the land while we wait for the chief, I said. This seems to be the main drag through town. Let’s see what’s up that way. I pointed to my left and we walked in that direction.

We meandered past a pizza shop and a small, empty-looking strip mall, and came upon a huge, white stone carving of a woman standing on an elaborate pedestal beside a 19th-century building that turned out to be the library. The woman appeared to have been carved from the same kind of stone as the giant Indian warrior that towers above the foyer of the St. Paul City Hall and is unofficially and affectionately known as Onyx John.

Do you think that lovely lady could be related to Onyx John? I said.

There’s a definite resemblance, Al said. Do you suppose they call her Onyx Jane?

Another question to ask the police chief, I said.

Half a block after passing the library, my eyes turned to the other side of the street, where I saw a life-size statue of a man, who stood facing toward the street at the back of an open, grass-covered block that also contained one leafless deciduous tree.

I pointed to the statue and said, Could that be the great Utopian himself?

Let’s go look, Al said. We crossed the street and found ourselves in Adin Ballou Park. The base of the statue was adorned with copper plaques. The first one we read said:

ADIN BALLOU:

PREACHER, AUTHOR, REFORMER

PHILANTHROPIST,

APOSTLE OF CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM

AND

FOUNDER OF THE HOPEDALE COMMUNITY

1803-1890

Blessed are the peacemakers

Not disobedient to the heavenly vision

Another plaque said:

This Monument is erected and these grounds are set

apart as a Memorial of Adin Ballou—a tribute of affection,

gratitude, and honor, from many friends.

On this spot he spent the greater portion of his life;

Where he wrought his chief work and entered into rest.

Dedicated and presented to the

TOWN OF HOPEDALE

October 27, 1900

Looks like Professor Butz came to the right place, Al said.

Makes me wonder why he left it, I said.

And where he went, Al said.

Ah, yes, the four W’s of journalism, I said. We know the who and the what. It’s the why and the where that we need to find out.

Whatever, Al said.

He hauled out his camera and took some shots of the statue and closeups of the plaques. A little something to go with the story that I assume you’ll be writing soon.

You assume correctly. I suggest we go back and see if either the absent chief or the missing missing persons officer is now available to provide me with some official substance for said story.

We were half a block from the police station when a black SUV with the silver label Boston Globe on the left front door pulled to the curb and stopped six inches behind our Chevy. A young man wearing a dark gray suit got out, crossed the street at a brisk, strictly business pace, and went into the police station.

Looks like we’re not the only act in town, Al said.

Let’s go join the party, I said. And into the station we went for the second time that afternoon.

The brisk young man in the dark gray suit was standing before the desk, engaged in an animated conversation with Officer Oswald. The latter was shrugging and shaking his head, apparently explaining that neither the chief nor Detective Morgan was in the building, while the former was gesturing and posing like a guy who’d been stood up by his junior prom date. Oswald was saved by the opening of a door behind him and the emergence of a woman wearing police blues and a chief’s hat.

What have we here? asked Chief Iandoli. She was a sturdily-built woman, nearly six-feet tall, with broad shoulders, an almost perfectly round face, and a snub nose. The ends of her straight black hair were showing beneath the rim of the hat, and I guessed her age at either just below or just above fifty. She stood straight as a Marine drill sergeant and reminded me of a strict, no-nonsense math teacher I’d had in high school.

"I’m Dan O’Conner from the Boston Globe, the young man said. I’m here to get some information about the missing professor from Minnesota."

I’m Chief Iandoli, the woman said, as if her status wasn’t obvious. She looked past O’Conner at me, and I introduced both myself and Al, and said we’d just arrived in town and could use a briefing on the search for Professor Butz.

A briefing? she said. It’ll be brief, all right. The man is missing and we’ve been looking for him with negative results. End of story.

Oh, great! A woman of few words. For this we’d flown from Minnesota to Massachusetts.

Can you give us a rundown on when you started searching and where you’ve searched? I said, trying to coax a few quotable sentences from her.

Chief Iandoli looked me in the eye for a full minute before responding. She folded her arms across her chest and said, "Very well, Mr. Mitchell, here is the record of the case to date. Hopedale Police received a phone call on Wednesday, seven November, from a woman who identified herself as Mrs. Pinchas Butz, who stated that her husband, Doctor Pinchas Butz, who was visiting Hopedale on a research project involving the town’s historical founder, had not contacted her for two full days and part of a third. She said that when she contacted the motel where he was staying, she was told that her husband was not present but that his personal belongings were still in the room. Police Detective Stanley Morgan was assigned by me to investigate the situation. Detective Morgan visited the hotel on that same day and confirmed the fact that the professor’s belongings were still in the room and also learned that the rental vehicle he was using was parked in the hotel parking lot.

Detective Morgan then contacted a local historian, who he thought might have known about Doctor Butz’s project, and was told by the historian that she had worked briefly with the professor but had not seen or spoken with him since Saturday, three November. This was the same day that Professor Butz had last spoken with his wife. The historian gave Detective Morgan the names of two other Hopedale residents that the professor had interviewed. When interviewed by Detective Morgan, both of those persons said that they had not seen or spoken with the professor during the week in question.

The chief stopped talking, unfolded her arms and appeared ready to exit the scene.

Can you fill me in on some names? I asked. The historian and the other two contacts?

I’m not sure that any of them would wish to see their names in the newspaper, she said.

I’d just like to talk to them, I said. If they choose to stay off the record, I’ll respect their wishes.

The chief refolded her arms and stared past me, into space. I’ll give you the historian’s name because it’s public knowledge in this town. If you want the others, maybe she’ll give them to you. Anyway, her name is Valerie Hanover and I assume she’s in the phone book.

What motel was the professor staying at? the Boston reporter asked.

The Best Western in Milford, Chief Iandoli said. She unfolded her arms again and turned toward the door from whence she’d entered.

One more little detail, Chief, I said. What’s your first name?

She stopped, looked at me over her shoulder, and said, Shannon.

That caught me off guard. "Shannon Iandoli?"

This brought a slight upward curvature to the outermost edges her previously impervious lips. My father came to America from County Cork. Iandoli is my married name. It’s one of those improbable Irish and Italian marriages that songwriters wail about.

I couldn’t help asking, How’d your Irish father feel about it?

Again the lips curled slightly. He said, ‘Well, at least the man’s a Catholic.’ With that, Chief Shannon Iandoli turned away, opened the door, strode through the opening and closed the door firmly behind her.

3

A NEW SURPRISE

The inner door had barely closed behind the chief when the outer door opened and a young woman wearing black slacks, a heavy blue knit sweater and a Red Sox cap with a brown ponytail sticking out of the opening in the back walked in. She scanned our three-man lineup from end to end and said, "Hi, I’m Laura Black from The Milford Times."

Too late, Al said. You just missed the big news conference.

You didn’t miss a damn thing, O’Conner said. She didn’t tell these guys anything that hasn’t already been in your paper.

You read our paper? Laura Black said. How nice to meet you.

I could have rewritten your last story and had more news than I got from the chief just now. He walked past her, briskly, of course, and went out the front door.

Laura stood staring at us. So, who are you and who was that? she asked. I introduced myself and Al, and told her who O’Conner was.

He seemed kind of pissed, Laura said.

Actually, he’s probably right, I said. I guess he’s pissed because he drove all the way out here from Boston to get an on-scene report from the chief and even Al and I already knew pretty much of everything she said. But at least I did get a name of somebody else to talk to.

Valerie Hanover. Right? Laura said.

How did you know that?

Everybody in town knows Valerie. She’s a fanatical history buff. Has a blog and is on Facebook with little tidbits every now and then. She can tell you anything you want to know about the early days of Hopedale, Milford and Mendon, with even a little bit of Bellingham thrown in. She was acting as sort of a guide for the professor.

I have to meet this woman.

You’ll love meeting her. So, I take it the chief is in?

Definitely she is in, Al said. "Way in." He pointed at the door through which the chief had made her exit.

"And I don’t think she’s