Blunt Darts (20 page)

“Practicing for the eulogy?” I asked.

The judge looked at us as if we’d entered the Debutante’s Ball naked.

“Sit down,” I said. “We want to have a little lobby conference with you.”

Kinnington blinked, then glanced at the telephone on his desk. Stephen briskly walked over to the wall and pulled the plug from the jack. The judge moved unsteadily toward his desk chair. I took an easy chair and tried to maintain my smile as I lowered my ribcage and me into it. Stephen sat to my right and a little behind me, keeping yours truly between him and his father.

It was a beautiful room, with carefully polished wainscoting and natural-wood bookshelves. I would say “restored” wood, but I doubt that particular wood had ever been allowed to deteriorate. The books whose spines I could read were mainly law titles, with some leather-bound, gold-lettered fiction classics by Defoe, Dickens, and assorted others sprinkled around.

Kinnington slumped into his chair and then tried an arrogant recovery.

“Mr. Cuddy, I must say I underestimated you. My gratitude for returning Stephen to his home.”

“Aren’t you even a little curious about Gerald Blakey?” I asked.

The judge lost a bit of his regained color. “What about him?”

“He didn’t fare too well after calling you yesterday.”

Kinnington started, then must have inwardly cursed for confirming my suspicion about the call.

“What did Blakey do some years ago, Judge? Happen on the scene as you dumped your wife in the river?”

Kinnington tried a snarl that queerly came off as a smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I intend to call—”

“Or more accurately, as you dunked your wife’s car?”

Exit the smile.

“Where did you bury her, Judge?” I asked.

“We know,” said Stephen, his voice even flatter than at his mother’s grave.

Kinnington looked from me to his son and back again. “Officer Blakey will deny every one of your rid—”

Stephen said, “Blakey’s dead,” still in the flat voice.

The judge jerked violently.

I leaned back farther into my chair. “That’s what I meant by ‘eulogy.’”

Kinnington said, “Blakey wasn’t there. Blakey only helped me afterwards. After he—”

“It’s too late to deny things,” said Stephen, changing his inflection to a sing-song, as though he were an adult explaining the world to a dull child. “I told Mr. Cuddy everything.”

The judge’s eyes went wide in terror. “Where’s the gun?” he whispered to me, like an aside in one of Shakespeare’s plays.

“The twenty-two?” I asked.

“Yes, yes!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s the one thing that can clear me, you idiot! I thought Stephen had been cured after he came back from Willow Wood. I couldn’t have the publicity, the madness in the family and all. I wanted to be elevated to the superior court, but I had to protect myself. The gun had his fingerprints on it. I hid it so well, I thought he’d never find it—so well, I thought he’d given up looking for it.”

Then, turning to Stephen, “But you never did, did you? You found it, and I realized that Blakey missed you here in Meade, and you ran, you sick little bastard. I authorized the absolute minimum search possible. I prayed to God that some hobo would slit your throat in a ditch.”

The conversation had taken a confusing turn. “Judge, maybe if you told me what—”

“I
have
to tell you, can’t you see that? With Blakey dead, I have to.” Kinnington was becoming unglued. Stephen remained silent.

“Diane wouldn’t shut up that night, drunk and vile as ever. About how much she’d enjoyed making love with my brother, Telford. About how proud she was, having his baby and making me act the father. Then, after Stephen was born, him being so much like Tel, even down to the … Ah, but ‘my son’ didn’t tell you that part, did he?
Did
he!”

I began to feel weak in the gut. I glanced back at Stephen. He was staring straight ahead, his face unsmiling but the eyes twinkling.

I turned back to the judge. “Tell me what?”

Kinnington began to shake. “Where’s the gun?” he demanded again.

“Stephen buried it. After he killed Blakey with it.”

The judge shook more violently. “Did you
see
him bury it?”

“No.”

“Dear God, first his mother, now Blakey, and I can’t—”

“Are you trying to tell me that Stephen—”

I heard the zipper sound but didn’t turn immediately. By that time Stephen had my .38 Chief’s Special out of the crotch of his pants, its muzzle leveled at the judge. The kid must have hidden it under the passenger side of the front seat when he found my car at the ranger station and then retrieved it when he “stumbled” out at the beginning of the path back here in Meade.

In my peripheral vision I caught Kinnington standing up too quickly as he yanked open the middle drawer of his desk, banging his knees on the drawer as he did so. Then the first shot, in closed—and close—quarters like a mortar round detonating.

The slug knocked the judge back into a bookcase niche with a brandy decanter and crystal snifters. Stephen probably wasn’t expecting the greater kick of a more powerful weapon. His second shot just ruined a painting above the niche.

My rib was screaming as I dived at Stephen, my left fist cocked for the middle of his face. The boy ducked as he swung the muzzle toward me. Already deafened, I felt more than heard the third blast as a sledge hit my left shoulder.

The follow-through on my punch dropped me into Dreamland.

I
’VE ALWAYS SUSPECTED THAT
patients could go snow-blind in hospitals. They’re among the very few, semi-public buildings still glaringly white and usually clean.

The last few times I’d opened my eyes, I’d been surrounded by blurry polar bears growling and grunting and poking at me. Now I could narrow my focus down to two of their kind, a nurse and a doctor.

The latter spoke first. “Can you hear me, Mr. Cuddy?” she asked, her concerned expression now something I could appreciate.

“No,” I replied.

The doctor mumbled something to the nurse, who nodded and left the room.

“Mr. Cuddy, do you have any pain?”

“Doctor,” I said as sweetly as possible, “any gunshot-wound always imparts a numbing effect.”

A smug smile. “With your problems, you’d better be nice to me. The school teacher and I seem to be the only friends you’ve got right now.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve been instructed not to talk with you about anything beyond your medical condition.”

Uh-oh. Cops, or—worse—lawyers. “Then send Valerie in.”

“If that’s the teacher, I can’t.”

“Why?”

“District Attorney’s orders.”

Well, at least my judgment seemed intact. I turned my head a millimeter at a time. There was a uniformed police officer with a notepad sitting on a chair in the corner and scribbling furiously. No other people—nor any further beds—in the room. There were, however, some trees outside my window.

“If I’ve been here more than ten minutes, this private room has bankrupted me.”

The doctor laughed. “The county’s paying the tab.”

A second bad sign. In fact, a very bad sign.

I tried to hunch up in bed. The doctor stifled another laugh as I yelled. The officer jumped up. The doctor placed her hand lightly on my left shoulder as I decided the supine to be a far better position to maintain. The cop looked at his watch, sat back down, and returned to scribbling.

I couldn’t remember how hard I’d hit Stephen. As far as I could gauge, my memory was otherwise okay.

“Can you at least tell me how Stephen is doing?”

“The Kinnington boy?” she said. “Remarkably well. The X-rays say a broken jaw, but he’ll be going home soon, and—”

“Home!” I thundered as the door burst open. The cop half-rose and reached for his gun. Into my room came a man recognizable from both posed campaign photos and prosecution candids in the newspaper.

Stanley Brower, Esq. The district attorney of Norfolk County.

Behind him in the corridor, the Boston-area strain of
paparazzi
pushed against a phalanx of three uniformed police officers. A young man carrying a briefcase who looked a year or so out of law school trailed in Brower’s wake.

The district attorney gave my guard a dirty look and beckoned to him. The cop released his gun back into the holster. His notepad fluttered as he followed Brower and the assistant into the far corner of my room. The assistant dipped into his briefcase, hefted a tape recorder, and clicked a button on it as the cop began speaking rapidly to Brower. A question from the D.A., a negative shake of my guard’s head. Brower disgustedly waved him back to his chair. After a brief, hushed exchange with his assistant, the two of them approached my bed.

“Mr. Cuddy. I am Stanley—”

“I know who you are, Mr. Brower. What’s this I hear about Stephen Kinnington going home soon?”

Brower waited me out. “Mr. Cuddy, you have the right to remain silent. If you do speak, anything you say—”

“… can and will be used, and I can have an attorney, or one will be appointed for me if I can’t afford one, thanks to Messrs. Miranda, Escobedo, and Gideon. Now, why are you releasing Stephen?”

Brower regarded me. “Why are
you
so interested in him?”

“I’ll be happy to speak to you, but only on a number of conditions. Condition number one is that attorney Tommy Kramer, a college classmate of mine, be representing me, in the room with a stenographer of his choice. The other conditions will be explained to you after he arrives.”

Brower seemed to think it over. Tommy, the lawyer I had called about my Empire firing, was the most respected attorney in the city of Dedham, the Norfolk County seat. “Your ‘classmate’ doesn’t practice criminal law, Mr. Cuddy.”

“I know, but no lawyer’s going to persuade you that I didn’t do whatever you’re here for. I just want a fair witness present.”

Brower spoke to his assistant. “Call Mr. Kramer and see if he’ll come down.”

“Please be here when Tommy arrives,” I said. “Meanwhile, I’d like lunch.” I glanced out my window and tried to assess the angle of the sunlight. “Or is it still breakfast?”

“Early supper,” said Brower as the doctor hit the nurses’ call button at the side of my bed. “But I’m afraid you missed the July Fourth barbecues. You’ve been unconscious for over a day and a half.”

Tommy Kramer came into my hospital room with a young woman carrying a stenographer’s black case. The cop chivalrously relinquished his chair, and Stanley Brower stepped aside as she set up her equipment. When the stenographer nodded to Tommy, he said, “Stan, I’d like to speak to Mr. Cuddy alone first.”

“No,” I said. “I want everyone here to realize that I’m speaking without advice of counsel.”

Tommy began perspiring. “John, I have to warn you—”

“No, my friend. I’m being set up, and not by Mr. Brower’s office.” I checked the woman sitting behind her tripod. She was massaging the keys of a little black box. “My only conditions beyond your presence and your stenographer’s taking notes are three. One, that nothing of what we say will be off the record. Two, I will be allowed to speak in a narrative style instead of answering questions. And three, nothing we say will be communicated to any of the Kinnington family by anyone except you, Mr. Brower.”

Tommy looked at him.

The D.A., poker-faced, said, “Agreed.”

Then Tommy took in the young assistant with the tape recorder. “Stan?”

Brower sighed, but he said to the kid, “Doug, please leave us.”

The young D.A. started to open his yap, then closed it. He handed the tape recorder to Brower.

“You, too,” said Brower to the cop.

“Chief Smollett told me—”

“I said leave,” Brower using the same tone.

When both were on the other side of the door, the D.A. had each of us identify ourselves and our voices for his tape and Tommy’s stenographer. Next, Brower recited some background on time, place, and purpose. The last was “our investigation into the deaths of Gerald Blakey and the Honorable Willard J. Kinnington.”

My turn. “I assume that you’ve spoken with Stephen Kinnington, and he’s told you that I killed either Blakey or the judge.”

“Actually,” Brower said, “The boy told us you killed both of them.”

I drew a long breath. “Stephen is lying. He’s a psychopath. Or a sociopath, I’m no expert. His father had him institutionalized in a sanatorium four years ago after Stephen shot his mother to death. The judge covered-up the killing to protect his own ambitions and got Gerald Blakey to help him pull it off. Stephen killed Blakey at an abandoned ranger station in the Berkshires, and the judge in the library of the family home in Meade. The kid’s some kind of insane, but he has an incredible intellect, and therefore you must have him examined by at least three of the smartest psychiatrists you can find, because I’m betting he’ll fool at least one. What I’d like to do now is tell you what really happened.”

I then droned on for two hours, going through the entire chronology of the case, both before and after I entered it. When I wasn’t sure what really happened, I stated that I was assuming facts. The only parts I deleted were my meetings with Nancy DeMarco in the bar and with Thom Doucette in the park. I also held back a few of Kim Sturdevant’s statements.

“Accordingly,” I finally concluded, “it’s vital that you protect the following pieces of real evidence: Stephen’s fingerprints on the plastic phone jack in the judge’s library. Stephen’s fingerprints on the metal frame of my thirty-eight. The gun-oil traces that should be inside the crotch of Stephen’s pants and will match the oil from my revolver. The trajectory paths of the bullets in the judge’s body and his library wall, which will show they were fired from Stephen’s chair, not mine. Oh, and,” extending my hands, “the rope burns on my wrists. And ankles. Add these to the fact that, with a broken rib, I could never have handled a bruiser the size of Blakey. Add them also to the fact that if I were going to kill Blakey and the judge, I’d need a motive. And tell me why I’d try to pin the murders on a fourteen-year-old and do such a damned poor job of framing him.”