And, I gathered, if she did know anything, Mrs. Page wouldn't tell me.
I said goodbye and went out into the hall. I retraced my steps down the stairs, and as I reached the front door I was aware of Mrs. Page behind me. At least she hadn't frisked me to check for the family silver. I smiled at her, and she shook her head. As I went through the door, she began closing it behind me.
"Blakey's gonna eat you alive," she said in a tsk-tsk whisper.
I considered knocking on the door, but I didn't think she'd elaborate even if she opened it again. I got in the Merc, drove down to the main road, and swung back toward Boston and opposite the first straining of the westward commuter traffic. Almost immediately, a black sedan swerved into my lane and I had to cut onto the shoulder. I glared over at the driver. My eyes caught about one frame of a beefy, stupid face before he was past me. I wrestled my car back onto the roadbed.
I got to Route 128, but instead of turning north toward Mass Pike and the fast way into Boston, I turned south and picked up the usually mis-named expressway, which leads into the city from the southeast. This looked as if it was going to be an effort-intensive case, and I wanted to pay a visit first.
FOURTH
– ¦ "Just carnations." I set them down and stepped back. "Mrs. Feeney said the roses at the flower market were tired-looking." I felt too distant standing up, so I squatted down on my haunches.
"Remember Valerie Jacobs, Chuck Craft's friend? Well, she's brought me a case, and it's a beaut! Rich family and all kinds of troubles. The grandmother, you'd like. Good Yankee, you'd call her. The grandson I haven't met yet, and won't, if I don't roll pretty hard and fast on finding him. Still, he sounds like the type you'd have liked too. Serious, studied, and quiet. Just like me." We laughed.
I stared at the carnations for a while. I began blinking rapidly. We talked inside for a bit.
"So. I'm afraid I won't be back for a while. I'll see you when the case is over. Or sooner, if I hit a problem. Just like always."
I straightened up and turned around to walk back down the path. A teenager holding a rake and wearing a maintenance shirt and dungaree cut-offs gave me a funny look. I didn't recognize him. Summer help, probably, and young. Too young to know anything. Especially anything about cemeteries.
When I got back to Charles Street I put the Merc up at the garage on the riverside and grabbed a steak at the charcoal place that was then near the intersection of Beacon. In the apartment I made a screwdriver (the orange juice makes me feel healthy) and played back my telephone tape. The only caller was Valerie. She wanted me to call her back and tell her about my interview with Mrs. Kinnington. Instead, I dialed Chief Maslyk's home number in Bonham and asked him if he'd like to fire a few strings with me at the range tomorrow. He said he couldn't but would be available the next day, around 9:30. He'd meet me there.
After I hung up, I thought about Valerie. I downed the second half of my screwdriver and left the telephone on tape rather than on ring for the rest of the night.
FIFTH
– ¦ I got up at 6:30 on Thursday morning and did what I call my double-declining calisthenics. I start with fifty push-ups, one hundred arm rotations, and one hundred fast-flapping over-and-under motions. For the last, I stand, swing my arms horizontally forward with fists clenched until they pass each other. Then I swing them back hard, trying to touch them behind my back. Then I swing them forward again, and so forth.
After I finish, I repeat the series, halving the number of repetitions of each exercise. I then did a fast (for me) three miles along the river and wolfed down the "farmhand breakfast" (three eggs, four sausages, hash browns, toast, juice, coffee, parsley, oregano, and God knows what else) at a luncheonette on Cambridge Street.
I got back to the apartment and cleaned up. I checked the phone tape. Valerie had called again and said that the reason I couldn't reach her last night was because she and a girlfriend had gone to a drive-in and she was leaving for the beach and wouldn't be in until six and would I please call her then and she… at which point, mercifully, the tape's maximum run was reached. Feeling vaguely relieved, I reset the tape, dressed in a conservative dark suit as the concerned father of an accused delinquent might, and set off for Meade District Court.
As I turned into the court parking lot, I noticed it was almost three-quarters full at 8:30 A.M. I wanted to at least get a look at His Honor before I started after his son. Also, because of my understanding with Mrs. Kinnington, I thought I ought to do my observing before I did any poking around that would identify me for him.
The courthouse looked spanking new. It was red brick and from the exterior had some stylish peaks that implied cathedral ceilings inside. As I walked from the lot toward the door, I caught a glimpse of a court officer with a hand-held metal detector at the entrance, thoroughly going over an obvious lawyer type carrying an attache case.
I immediately spotted a terrible scuff on my right shoe, whipped out a handkerchief, and failed miserably to remove it. Nervously shaking my head, I walked quickly back to my car, where I opened the trunk, reached in for an imaginary rag, and slipped my wood-handled. 38 Smith amp; Wesson Chief's Special and clip-on holster from over my right hip. I fussed with my shoe and then tucked the pistol and holster completely under the plastic rug in the trunk before closing the lid and retracing my steps toward the courthouse door. Ever since the bombing at the superior court in Boston several years before, varying degrees of security had been imposed on entry to the commonwealth's courthouses, but virtually none included checking out well-dressed, distinguished-looking, mature men. Apparently Judge Kinnington's building, which he ran as presiding judge, was the exception.
I passed inspection and milled around with the crowd inside the lobby of the courthouse. As I bumped my way up and down the broad corridor, I realized there were two courtrooms on the main floor and at least one other (based on signs at the staircases) on the second floor. I drifted into the clerk's office and casually asked who was sitting in the First Session (Massachusetts legalese for courtroom number one, which is usually the courtroom to which all cases report and from which all cases are assigned to other courtrooms for hearing). A faded disco queen behind the desk said "Judge Kinnington, of course," and I thanked her and went back into the mob just as a short, elderly court officer began shrieking.
"First Session, First Session, court is coming in. All criminal business. Court is coming in." The doors of the First Session swung open, and an architectural vacuum cleaner sucked virtually all the inhabitants of the corridor inside. The only exceptions were a few lawyers who looked well-to-do and vaguely uncomfortable, which probably meant they were out here defending General Motors or Boston Edison on some minor but time-consuming civil matter.
I became part of the wedge cutting its way into the First Session. The courtroom was like a church, with one of the cathedral ceilings I'd spotted from the outside. The doors opened onto a wide center aisle, and the seating for the public was on high-backed benches, rather like Catholic pews without the kneelers. The center aisle ended at a gateway in a fence. The fence is the bar enclosure, so-called by lawyers because usually only members of the bar may sit within it. The fencing reminded me very much of a half-scale model of the balustrade on the stairway in the judge's house. Past the bar enclosure, which was sunken like a split-level living room, was the bench, raised like a pulpit.
I spotted two especially scuzzy-looking early-teenaged boys sitting near the aisle. I sat down next to them. I practiced a concerned glance in their direction. They returned a disgusted look, probably thinking that I was there on a morals charge.