Archie Goes Home

Chapter 37

As of this writing, the cases against both Donna Newman and Katie Padgett are still slowly wending their way through the Ohio court system, and from the reports that I have been getting from my mother, a certain amount of sympathy has been generated for Donna, who, according to her lawyer, was defending herself against the advances of Logan Mulgrew when she shot him in self-defense. Whether this strategy is effective remains to be seen.

Katie Padgett has fared less well in the court of public opinion. She of course lost her job at the Trumpet immediately, and she has been seen by many in the community to be an overly ambitious schemer who misused her position on the newspaper to enhance her career. This comes from my mother, as told to her by — who else? — Aunt Edna.

Martin Chase, the hard-charging young editor of the Trumpet, either was fired or quit the paper after the Mulgrew episode, and following its brief flirtation with tabloid journalism, the publication has returned to being what it was before — a sober and noncontroversial community newspaper that concentrates its reporting on the activities of local schools, women’s clubs, Little League games, and city council meetings, making sure to get as many local people’s names as possible into its columns.

Among the unresolved elements surrounding the life and death of Logan Mulgrew are: (1) the question of whether Sylvia Mulgrew was poisoned or accidentally gave herself an overdose; (2) whether Eldon Kiefer’s daughter, Becky Kiefer, had been impregnated by Logan Mulgrew, and if so, what was the result of the pregnancy; (3) what the extent of Carrie Yeager’s relationship with Logan Mulgrew was; and (4) who filed the lawsuit against the Trumpet. My guess would be Eldon Kiefer, although it does not matter anymore, as word got around that the suit had been dropped.

As Wolfe has said on several occasions, loose ends that never get tied up often exist in many investigations, as long as the major issue gets resolved. So it was in this instance.