In the months and years after his release from prison and an inpatient drug treatment program, I was able to spend countless hours with DJ. He was back living with his mother in their duplex apartment, and we often talked there. Other times we got in the car and visited the haunts of his past, including Deer Island. Along the way, I got to know his family and friends. Eventually, though, I told him there was someone else I needed to talk to, and I asked for his help in connecting us. He agreed, reluctantly.
On a cold winter afternoon at the start of 2011,1 followed DJ into a swank hair salon in the shadow of Fenway Park. A blonde stood at the reception desk, wearing her coat and holding her purse, giving an employee some last-minute instructions before heading out the door. As she looked up and her eyes met DJ’s, she unleashed a big smile. “You’re not seriously showing up here when I have to leave, are you?” she shouted, then charged over to him to deliver an exuberant hug and a kiss.
“How are you, Lisa?” DJ said, returning her welcome with a broad smile and warm hug of his own. The nervousness he’d had about how he would be greeted, showing up here after so many years, instantly evaporated.
Lisa looked to the back of the salon, where a black-haired stylist stood cutting a client’s hair, and shouted, “Dana! Look who’s here!”
Dana walked toward DJ slowly and also leaned in for a hug, though hers was more restrained than her sister’s.
Dana and Lisa were still working together at their uncle’s salon, and Dana was still single, though she now had a young daughter. Lisa had to leave for an appointment, but she and Dana both agreed to meet with me later, and they both exchanged numbers with DJ.
That night Dana called him, and she called him every night after that for several weeks. She told him that seeing him walk into the salon reminded her how much she missed and loved him. After the accident, his intensifying addiction had scared her. So she had left. But, she said, she never stopped caring about him. Soon she came over to his mother’s place to visit, bringing along the engraved Jesus medal she’d bought him for his thirtieth birthday. Now she handed it back to him. Within a few weeks, DJ and Dana were once again dating.
Other reunions didn’t go as well. During DJ’s wild period, his son’s mother had understandably shut off DJ’s access to Cody. She continued to refuse him visitation now, although she did allow Lorraine to have contact with her grandson. Since Cody was now a teenager, DJ worried that the window on rebuilding their relationship was closing fast. He sometimes found himself dejected at essentially having to start from scratch around the age of forty, with no job, no car, no house of his own, and a past that always demanded an explanation. At one point, he let self-pity get the better of him, leading to a failed drug test that landed him in a halfway house for a spell. But he forged ahead, returning to Local 56 as a union diver. Most days he’s able to remind himself of his good fortune. Yes, he was forced to start his life over. But there were two men he thought about every day who would never have that chance.
Appendix
DJ Gillis continues to work as a diver, pile driver, and welder. His renewed relationship with Dana lasted nearly two years, before she once again broke it off.
Dave Riggs remains a certified welding inspector in California. He and his wife, Karen, divorced in 2011.
Donald “Hoss” Hosford travels the globe working as a saturation diver and superintendent. He and Karolina married in 2010, but later divorced. In between jobs, he returns home to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Judy Milner continues her child psychiatry practice in Washington. For several years, she traveled extensively to countries ravaged by war and natural disasters, volunteering her services. More recently she has focused on working with veterans who have PTSD. She has dated, but not seriously, realizing how hard it would be to find what she had with Tim. When his parents, Bob and Shirley Nordeen, visited her in 2011, they all found a beautiful spot in front of a lighthouse near Puget Sound. There they finally scattered Tim’s ashes, along with those of his dog Shackles. The closet where Judy still keeps some of Tim’s clothes remains their cat Matta’s favorite spot.
Michelle Rodrigue earned her college degree and now works as an X-ray technician at a hospital in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Like Judy, she has dated, but not seriously. She treasures the bond she had with Billy, and works with Deb and Ken Jones to keep his spirit alive through the nonprofit William “Billy” Juse Memorial Fund, which supports community projects and awards scholarships to local students. (For more information, write to the fund at P.O. Box 1482, Wolfeboro, NH 03894.)
Tap Taylor, who is also involved with the memorial fund, still runs Black Dog Divers. But he says Billy’s death forced him to reevaluate his priorities. He drastically cut back his hours to spend more time with his kids.
Olga Juse and Jolene Juse-Paige visit New Hampshire every July 21, attending a memorial mass for Billy, leaving flowers at his gravesite, and sharing a meal with Michelle. During their visit to Billy’s grave in 2011, Jolene called her father, Bill Juse, with good news. At age forty-three, she was pregnant. In February 2012, Jolene delivered her first child, a six-pound, ten-ounce boy. His middle name is Billy.
Doug MacDonald left his MWRA post after nine years to become secretary of transportation for the state of Washington. The highlight of his tenure there was the construction of the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension bridge built in the United States in more than forty years. The project, structured as a design-build contract, came in on schedule, a hair under its $850 million budget, and without a single worker fatality. The contractor was a Kiewit joint venture. At the ribbon cutting, he posed for photos with his old sparring partner, Kiewit chairman Ken Stinson. Both MacDonald and Stinson have since retired.
Dave Corkum became a partner with the law firm that represented his former employer on the Deer Island project. The former engineer was part of a team that received the 2001 NOVA Award, a prestigious honor presented by the Construction Innovation Forum, for the design and execution of the tunnel’s “steel straw” vent solution. In 2014, he returned to engineering for a new tunnel project.
Mary McCauley was transferred in 2007 to a special state police detective unit attached to the attorney general’s office. Promoted from detective to sergeant the following year, she now works for the narcotics and organized crime unit.
Joan Parker, following her resignation as the attorney general’s director of safety, worked for a while as a consultant. In 2007 she returned to her horticulture roots, opening her own landscaping business, Parkwood Garden Restoration.
John Prescott, Nina Pelletier, and Bob Norton continue their law work, though Prescott is now general counsel for a private company.
Dan Kuhs, who became a regional manager for the union356, vigorously lobbied Massachusetts lawmakers to follow the lead of twenty-seven other states and add a criminal negligence statute to the books. Had that lesser charge been available at the time of the tunnel investigation, he argues, there would likely have been a successful prosecution. In July 2004, on the fifth anniversary of Billy and Tim’s deaths, Kuhs testified before the legislature’s joint committee on criminal justice. The bill died. “This kind of accident could happen again tomorrow,” he says. “No laws have been changed.”
356 (Appendix, note 1)
for the union: Kuhs is the regional manager for the specialty trades of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters.