Blunt Darts (21 page)

Stanley Brower had taken a seat at the foot of my bed about fifteen minutes into my monologue. He listened with his arms folded across his chest.

“Are you finished?” the D.A. finally asked.

“Yes.” I’d been fighting my sleep reflex, probably partly from the drugs the medicos must have given me.

Brower made some concluding remarks for his tape and Tommy’s stenographer. Then he turned off the machine, and the stenographer disassembled her equipment and exited.

When it was just the three of us, Brower studied first me, then Tommy. “Two days I’ve been chewing on this case,” the D.A. began. “No motive for Cuddy past a routine pissing contest with Blakey. An angelic little kid with the kind of home life belongs on a soap opera. Guns galore. Deputies digging by a ranger station in the forest. And a flower bed Stephen told us about behind his family’s mansion. It didn’t add up to me, Tommy, but I had to be awfully sure before I acted. I couldn’t afford to be wrong here. Not with this family.”

Brower turned to me. “Nancy DeMarco called me before lunch and told me she’d talked to you. DeMarco corroborated enough of what you just told me for my office to overlook what you
didn’t
tell me just now. She’s also bringing in a letter that you sent her, spelling out where you were going and why. Not how a murderer pre-memorializes his crimes. Chief Cal Maslyk from Bonham called me with similar support. I did enough other checking on you to be pretty sure you wouldn’t master-mind something like this. However, keep in touch with my office toward testifying.”

Brower headed for the door.

“By the way,” I said, “Nancy DeMarco is likely to be back in the job market soon. You’d do well to give her a shot with your office, even if she’s not a state trooper.”

Stanley Brower squared himself to face the press and replied to me over his shoulder. “Thanks, Cuddy, but I didn’t get where I am today by following staff advice from private eyes who get taken—
twice
—by fourteen-year-olds.”

I looked over at Tommy Kramer, who’d been sweating bullets almost since he arrived.

Tommy said, “John, I will never forgive you for shaving a year off my life these last few hours.”

T
HE GOOD DOCTOR FELT
that my marathon with Brower had weakened me so much that she shouldn’t release me from the hospital for at least another day. She also increased the sedative-painkiller for the hole in my shoulder. The nurse gave it to me, then said, “The schoolteacher is here to see you. I told her you’d be sleeping again in about fifteen minutes.”

“Please. I’d like to talk with her.”

The nurse left.

Moments later, Valerie Jacobs edged in. We exchanged the sort of treading-water pleasantries you hear at high-school reunions between classmates who don’t see anyone else to talk to. There really was nothing there for Valerie and, sensing that, she left.

I drifted off.

Something woke me. The nurse stuck her head around the door. “Still awake, bright eyes?”

“Yeah.”

“More visitors.”

“Do they have an appointment?”

She looked behind her. “One of them has probably never needed one.”

I blinked my eyes. “Send her in first.”

The nurse beckoned to somebody and held open the door. Eleanor Kinnington came over the threshold on her braces like a crab on stilts. Mrs. Page followed and arranged the chair for her boss talking distance from me. Mrs. Kinnington leaned the braces against the side of my bed frame. The housekeeper displayed the same look she’d greeted me with that first day and then exited in front of the nurse.

“Mr. Cuddy,” said Kinnington, “you’ve accomplished that which no one else was able to do. And for that, I am grateful.”

“Much better, thank you for asking.”

She dropped her eyes to her purse and opened it. “Could we perhaps eliminate the sarcasm? My grandson has been all that matters to me, and he still is. I’m sorry you were injured, but,” Kinnington extended a check-like piece of paper to me, “I am also sure that this will cover all expenses and fees.”

I took it face down from her and folded it three times without looking at the thing. “I’m sure it covers even the speech I’m about to make. Mrs. Kinnington, there was never anything between Blakey and your grandson, was there?”

“I certainly hope not, but as I explained to you, I have no way—”

“Mrs. Kinnington,” I interrupted, “I’ll ‘eliminate’ the sarcasm if you’ll cut the bullshit. That ‘relationship’ was a spark in Miss Pitts’s imagination that you fanned to advance your own agenda.”

“I’ve no time to indulge drug-addled ravings from the likes of you.” Kinnington reached for her braces.

In a desperate lunge, I got to them first and flung both into a corner. My left shoulder seared, then simply throbbed as her metal aides clattered against the wall.

“You unspeakable bastard!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kinnington, but I’m not finished yet. Stephen is a very sick boy in a whole lot of trouble.”

“If you mean the nonsense that Brower man—”

“It is no nonsense,” I said. Keeping my eyes closed helped a little. “Your grandson has, by my unofficial count, violently killed three people, two in my presence. The third was his mother, after she drunkenly provoked Stephen by telling him he was illegitimate. Your grandson may be an intellectual prodigy, Mrs. Kinnington, but he desperately needs professional help. For his mind. And not just Willow Wood with its—”

“Mr. Cuddy, Stephen has told us that
you
killed Blakey. Stephen has told us that the
judge
killed his mother. Stephen has also told us that his father was reaching for a gun in that desk drawer, giving you no choice but to—”

“Mrs. Kinnington, District Attorney Brower doesn’t believe that, and neither, I hope, do you. Stephen does not know—or care about—the concepts of right and wrong. He regards lying as a tool to get him through the day, and he doesn’t understand that most killing is wrong. Just like his father.”

“I won’t have that kind of talk about Stephen or my son!”

“Which son do you mean?”

Eleanor Kinnington seemed knocked back. “I don’t … intend to listen—”

“Mrs. Kinnington, you damn well will listen. While I was lying here, thinking this through, something finally hit me. Stephen had planned to go to that ranger station. Hell, he had photocopied the article
after
he found the gun, but
before
Miss Pitts saw Blakey chasing him. It took me a while to figure that out, but you should be able to see where it leads. Stephen had long intended to take off, maybe hoping the judge himself would follow the trail to somewhere that Stephen could control the action. Blakey’s incompetent ‘chase’ was just the immediate trigger for Stephen’s leaving Meade.”

“I refuse—”

“Look,” I interrupted again. “When I found your grandson at the ranger station, Stephen couldn’t chance believing that I was working for you. He figured—reasonably—that I might have had a partner with me, so he checked around the ranger station and eventually must have spotted Blakey. Stephen then left me tied up to lure said ‘partner,’ Blakey. And, lo and behold, Stephen ‘happened’ to get back in time to see us fighting and to drill about six well-placed holes in the back of Blakey’s neck and wrap my hand around the gun. Stephen would have killed me then, too, if he hadn’t needed somebody to—”

“I will not—”

“Shut up, Mrs. Kinnington, or I will
shut
you up. Stephen figured I was hurt badly enough that, after using me as the fall guy for killing the judge, your grandson could take me, too, back at your house. With my own gun. But I was able to knock Stephen cold before he could properly arrange the frame and before he could finish me off in our ‘struggle’ after I allegedly shot the judge before his horrified, sheltered, fourteen-year-old eyes. And because Stephen couldn’t arrange the frame properly, there are half a dozen facts that he can’t change, Columbo-like facts that point to him as damningly as holding the proverbial smoking gun.”

Eleanor Kinnington seethed. “The judge persecuted Stephen because he was afraid of him.” She was yelling now. “My grandson will never go to trial.”

“Mrs. Kinnington,” I said softly, “your grandson will go to trial, unless the D.A.’s psychiatric experts testify that he is unable to aid in his defense by reason of insanity.”

Somebody started tugging down on my eyelids. Mrs. Kinnington glared back at me, but with tears in her eyes. She was trying to stand up.

“I think I know what’s best for my grandson.”

“So did … the judge,” I mumbled, at which point I sensed polar bears bustling back into my room.

T
HE SUMMER RAIN IN
Boston is somehow dry. It’s made of water and falls from the sky in the usual way, but it never soaks you through. It’s more like a refreshing breeze that clears any mugginess from the air.

“Funny, they take the carnations but leave the roses.” I lifted the withered, crackly flowers and replaced them with fresh ones, yellow this time. I had to work with only one hand and slowly; my left arm was still in a tight sling, and the rib wouldn’t hear of quick movements. I’d dragged a light, folding beach chair from my car and down the path with me. I set it up with the help of my right foot. Easing into it, the light rain dimpled my forehead, nose, and cheeks.

“Yep,” I said, pitching my voice older, scratchier. “Sure is good to rest the weary bones.” Off to the left I noticed the elderly man again. He still wore the old gray suit, no raincoat, and held the Homburg. He was straightening back up with difficulty after laying some flowers near his headstone.

I dropped the imitation from my voice.

“Suicide, Beth,” I said, a little thickly. “Remember how we would talk around it, the last few weeks? When I wouldn’t leave you alone? Well, somebody left Stephen alone. Two days after the D.A.’s third psychiatrist agreed that Stephen couldn’t stand trial, the kid tore open a pillow and shoved the stuffing down his throat. Kept packing it in until he choked. Eleanor Kinnington had just arrived at the hospital to visit him, special arrangements and all. Given her status, I mean, despite Stephen’s. Brower told me she saw her grandson being rushed to a resuscitator. Mrs. Kinnington suffered another stroke, and the D.A. doubts she’ll last the week.”

I paused. “Especially if the woman is told that the last of her bloodline has died by his own hand.”

The tissue paper around the roses was beginning to flatten here and bulge there from even the gentle rain. We watched the power launches and a few maverick sailboats slap against the light storm chop in the harbor below. And we talked. It was my first day back in quite a while, so we had a lot to catch up on.

After a time, I found myself not just noticing but actually watching the elderly man nearby. He was still standing over his place, the Homburg clenched in his fingers and his head bowed. His shoulders were shaking now, almost shuddering, and every once in a while his torso would heave up, rocking him forward a little.

I decided it was time to go, before the weather started getting to me, too.

-The End-

Turn the page to continue reading from the John Cuddy Mysteries

I
SWATTED THE SNOOZE
button on my clock radio twice. The ringing noise didn’t stop, so I picked up the telephone.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Shouldn’t you be answering ‘John Francis Cuddy, private investigator’?” A gruff, hearty male voice.

I blinked at the time. “Not at 7:05 a.m. Who is this?”

“Or, at least, ‘Captain Cuddy, Military Police, retired’?”

“In a minute you’ll be talking to yourself, my friend. Who is this?”

“Christ, John,” said the voice through a deep laugh, “you always were a pleasure to wake up in the morning.”

“Al?” My head began to clear. “Al Sachs?”

“The one and only.”

“It’s been …”

“Actually, that’s not true, not anymore. You know Martha and me got married four years ago? Well, I’m no longer the one and only, being the proud father of Alan G. Sachs, Junior, age two-point-eight years.”

“Al,” I said, getting upright and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, “you’re Jewish. You’re not supposed to be naming your children after somebody still living. It’s bad luck.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Al, “but Martha, she’s Lutheran and my folks are all gone, and I’ll bet you’ve been to Temple more than I have since we got back to The World. Hey, remember that time in ’Nam, when you were going to some feast-day Mass to get out of being duty officer? I went to tag along and when the old man tried to stop me, you told him I was your technical advisor on the Old Testament readings.” Al laughed for me. Kind of nervously, I thought.

“So, what are you doing in Boston?”

“Making my fortune, John, making my fortune. I had a lotta luck with the B’s last night.”

I had watched the game on television. “Al, you’re crazy to bet on hockey in this town, even in favor of the Bruins.”

Another nervous laugh. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Listen, John-boy, I’m a manufacturer’s rep now for Straun Steel. They’re a Pittsburgh outfit that fabricates little steel gizmos for building construction, and I gotta go, I got an eight-fifteen appointment at a jobsite. Listen, whatsay we roll for drinks and dinner tonight, maybe eight-thirty, nine o’clock?”