I walked past my usual Berklee-area dry cleaner today and noticed it was empty. Signs in the win­dows said “THIS BUSINESS IS CLOSED PER COURT ORDER #…” They listed a phone num­ber for a court appointee who would assist in reclaim­ing gar­ments. It’s a good thing I didn’t drop off my sweaters last week as I intended.

I was about to dis­miss the clos­ing as just another failed small-business ven­ture when I spot­ted a dif­fer­ent sign taped to the out­side of the door.

“LYNDON LAROUCHE WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY,” it began. Other words included “liar,” “cheater,” “cult,” and “beware.”

Imme­di­ately I found myself piec­ing together a pos­si­ble time­line of events in my head. While there is lit­tle that can be done to help the naive, I feel pretty sorry for my dry-cleaning guy now.