Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [5]
But the beach house wasn’t the answer. It was nothing but a pipe dream without her husband’s help. She knew she could never afford it on her own. That’s all right, she figured. One way or the other, she’d find a place of her own by the water. And when she did, she’d leave Jorsz.
Any hope of landing near the water rested in New London, one of the oldest cities in America. Established in 1658 and named after Great Britain’s main city, New London, at the juncture of the Thames River and Long Island Sound, thrived as a colonial port. Whaling made it a commercial power in the 1800s. In the twentieth century, though, New London was transformed into a blue-collar, industrial city, with the defense industry exploiting the city’s seacoast for U.S. Navy and Coast Guard installations. But as the cold war wound down and the defense industry cut back, New London’s unemployment rose, and its property values fell.
Susette’s EMT unit had its home base at New London’s city hospital, where Susette spent most of her weekends. A few weeks after her husband insisted he’d never leave Preston, Susette and Jeff Douchette got called to an emergency at New London’s Naval Undersea Warfare Center, a thirty-two-acre vacant campus of buildings and laboratories on the banks of the Thames. The call turned out to be a false alarm. As they left the base, Susette asked Douchette for the keys and suggested a scenic route back to the hospital. Douchette agreed.
Susette exited the base onto East Street, which ran between the base and a civilian neighborhood settled by Irish and Italian immigrants in the early 1900s. Some homes on East Street had views overlooking the base and the water. Susette coasted to a stop sign at the end of the street.
“Wow, look at that house,” she said, pointing at a two-story Victorian that occupied the corner of East and Trumbull streets.
Douchette was not impressed. The house looked abandoned and had no yard or driveway.
Susette parked the truck to get a closer look. Vines and overgrown brush concealed a set of brick steps leading from the street to the front door. Dreary beige paint, cracked and peeling, covered the exterior. A weathered “For Sale” sign dangled from a fence.
“I think I’d like to buy that,” she said.
“Are you crazy?” Douchette said.
“No, I’m serious.”
“You gotta be out of your mind.”
The front of the house’s foundation abutted the cracked sidewalk on East Street. The left side of the house went right to the edge of Trumbull Street. Fewer than ten feet separated the right side of the house from an almost identical Victorian that also had a “For Sale” sign on it.
Susette didn’t care. The place had a water view. The fact that it needed work convinced her she just might be able to afford it. She jotted down the phone number and the address “8 East Street” on a scrap of paper and stuffed it in her pocket.
2
BIG AMBITIONS
John G. Rowland had reason to smile. The Republican governor’s polling numbers had top Democrats backing off from challenging him in his upcoming bid for reelection. Rowland had strung together an improbable series of convincing victories at a remarkably young age. After winning election to the state legislature at age twenty-three, Rowland had become a U.S. congressman at twenty-seven. Then in 1994, the state had elected him governor at age thirty-seven. Handsome, charismatic, and immensely popular, the governor had established dominance in a blue state in the heart of the northeast.
His meteoric rise had not gone unnoticed by the Republican National Party. Another four-year term as the state’s chief executive would solidify his hopes of reaching the national stage. In this campaign, however, Rowland had more in mind than just winning: he also wanted to carry some of the state’s most Democratic cities.
No Connecticut town voted more Democratic than New London,