by Joe Flanagan
He had set a pair of planks on some sawhorses to use as a work surface and was sorting through his drill bits when he remembered that he had to install a new switch on his drill because the thing had been giving him trouble. As he was looking through his toolbox for the new switch, the children came out for their ten o’clock recess, each carrying a half-pint container of milk with a straw. They came down the back porch steps tentatively, watching Warren. Father Boyle came out and put a hand on a little girl’s head, saying something to her in passing. He watched Warren arrange his things on the bench, distracted and self-conscious. Suddenly, Warren said, “Somewhere along the line I heard that people like this—retarded people—are incapable of sin.”
Father Boyle did not respond.
“I was told they’re guaranteed a place in heaven. Do you think that’s true?”
“I don’t know. Why does God allow them to endure cruelty in life? You would think they would have nothing but mercy after death.”
“I keep thinking that they’ll come up with something. Medical, scientific, or something. Some kind of operation or a drug. I don’t know. Maybe it would take a miracle.”
“He’s the miracle.”
“Who?”
“Your boy. He’s guileless. He’s full of love. The miracle is your boy.”
Warren grabbed his drill and began taking a screwdriver to the handle. “God’s will,” he said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Father Boyle said, “His mother . . .”
“He doesn’t have a mother.”
“She is deceased?”
Warren looked at the priest. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Father Boyle watched Warren disassemble the drill. He looked at the partially built swing set and the lumber lying in neat piles. “How do you know how to do this? I know nothing of these things.”
“When I was a kid I took a job on a framing crew up in Boston. It was during the Depression. I lied about my ability but they kept me on and I learned.”
Father Boyle walked over to the partially constructed braces for the swing set and looked down in the holes filled with concrete. After a few minutes he came back to the workbench. “I don’t pretend to know about God’s will,” he said. “An honest man should refrain from speaking about it, other than to say it is unknowable.”
“But you’re a priest. Aren’t you supposed to know these things?”
“A common misconception, Mr. Warren. What is wrong with your drill?”
“The switch is bad. I’ve had this since 1946. Sometimes the switch just goes.”
“Are you finding enough work?”
“No. I could use a lot more.”
Father Boyle said, “I only heard about your resignation a few days ago.”
Warren nodded. He was tired of talking about it.
“I’m surprised, frankly, that they didn’t choose you,” Father Boyle said. “I don’t know the other man but I do know that you are highly regarded.”
Father Boyle watched him separate the small pieces of the drill on the plywood, his hands quick and sure but his face troubled.
“How are you adjusting to things, then?” Father Boyle asked.
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure it out as I go.”
“Mike is aware of the change.”
Warren didn’t know how to take this. Was the priest assuming a knowledge of the boy superior to that of his own father? Was it a reprimand?
“He’s quite perceptive,” Father Boyle said. “The sisters will let you know, of course, if there’s anything to be concerned about, but for now he seems to be just feeling things out.” Father Boyle looked at the boy and laughed. “He’s quite a little gentleman.”
At Nazareth Hall, Sister John Frances sat at her desk checking her appointment calendar when one of the other nuns appeared in her doorway. “He’s coming to the door,” she said.
“Ah,” said Sister John Frances with some relief. It appeared that the man who had been sitting in a parked car in the shade of the maples across the street while the children were at recess was, in fact, her ten o’clock appointment. Soon, the doorway to her office was occupied by a large, bald man in a tan suit, white shirt, and lavender tie. “You must be Doctor Hawthorne,” she said. “Please sit down.”
Hawthorne explained that he was in the early stages of a research project and wanted to compile profiles of a number of mentally retarded children with a history of seizures.
“Is your research funded?”
“I’ve a grant application pending with the Luxor Foundation.”
“Hm. I haven’t heard of it. But that’s not really surprising. Our doctors tell us that research labs are springing up like mushrooms all around Boston. I understand they’ve even built one in a meadow out in Lexington. A big white laboratory out in the middle of a field. It’s remarkable. President Eisenhower and Congress love the NIH, which is wonderful. They say this will be called the ‘pharmaceutical century.’”
Dr. Hawthorne gave a thin smile. “One of the conditions of getting institutional backing is having a study population identified, which is why I’m here.” His eyes went to the file drawers behind the nun’s desk, where the records on the children were kept. “You can contact Dr. Karl Althaus at the Luxor Foundation. He’s handling my grant application.”
“Very good. You’ll want to speak to our doctors. They’ve done work on this very subject. They come down from Children’s Hospital twice a week. I can give you their names and phone numbers.”
Hawthorne seemed to show no interest in this. “There are two things I would need, actually, for my research. One would be an opportunity to examine the children’s medical information. The other would be to set aside some time to observe them.”
“The files, I’m afraid, are confidential. As far as observing the children, that would best be done in the presence of our doctors, and they won’t be coming down again until next week. I’ll get in touch with them and see about you meeting with them. How’s that?”
Hawthorne was in the act of assuring her that he had worked out this type of arrangement with other institutions in the past, but the woman had risen from her seat and was summoning someone from out in the hallway. A young woman appeared in the door. “Sister Julia, would you show Dr. Hawthorne around the school?”
As they walked down the corridor, Hawthorne said, “Can you tell me, Sister, how many children in your care suffer seizures?”
Sister Julia considered this. “Probably half a dozen. That’s kids that have them regularly. There are others where it’s episodic and we don’t necessarily see it while they’re here but they do have them.”
In one of the classrooms, an elderly nun was showing a child in leg braces how to make change, a scattering of coins on the table between them. The old nun had cataracts and was hard of hearing; she strained to lift her face toward Hawthorne as she said, “We pray to St. Jude for all the children.”
Children came out into the hallway as Sister Julia led Hawthorne along. They swarmed around her and touched her arms. They took her by the hands and said her name. Hawthorne watched her as she greeted them. She bent and took the face of a tiny Downs girl in both her hands. She engaged in a brief pantomime of roughhousing with one of the boys. When the children had passed and they were alone in the corridor, Hawthorne said, “The therapeutic role of sentiment. I don’t see that much in the journals.”
She turned to him. “There is nothing sentimental about what we do here. These children have no hope for a normal life. We know that the best we can expect for them is likely very little. And if all they can ever enjoy is very little than we will make sure they get no less than that.”
Hawthorne stepped back slightly and looked at her, his eyebrows arched.
“We’re not dupes, Dr. Hawthorne, is what I’m saying. We know what’s what as f
ar as these children go.”
Hawthorne regarded her with such candid assessment that the young sister shifted on her feet. “What is your age, if I may ask?”
“I’m twenty-six.”
“You are a young woman. No husband, no domestic riches, no home or children of your own? I would say that the lesser sex is missing out on a rare specimen, if you’ll excuse my frankness. Such passion and charisma.”
“I chose this life because I’m happy in it. There’s a lot more possibility in it for me than in those things you just mentioned.”
“One day places like this will be run by people like yourself. You’ll bring your dedication, your sense of possibility to the work. It will be a new day.”
“I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on it right now, Dr. Hawthorne.”
“It is admirable, what you’re doing here. St. Jude and secrecy aside.”
“Secrecy?”
“Maybe that’s too strong a word. I, too, have great faith in what is possible, especially in this day and age. But I encountered some reluctance with your colleague, Sister John Frances. I’m only asking for a chance to look through your files.”
“We’re like any institution, doctor. We’ve got rules.”
“Which I’m asking no one to break. This is what I’m proposing in my study: A weekly session of observation for eight or so of your children at a place convenient to the parents. And very likely, intervention. Preference, in fact, for any kind of new treatment that shows promise and with which my funding institution is involved. That’s the possibility you’re talking about. If I haven’t misread you. If the young firebrand isn’t, in fact, what she’d have me believe.”
When Dr. Hawthorne had gone, Sister Julia began preparing for her reading class. Sister John Frances found her in the front hallway where the workbooks were stored in wooden crates along the wall. “How was the doctor?”
The younger woman shrugged.
“He wanted access to the files,” said Sister John Frances. “To the kids, too. I suggested he consult with our doctors from Children’s Hospital but he didn’t seem terribly interested in that. Professional jealousy, I suppose.”
Sister Julia said, “Why was he sitting in his car like that?”
“He must have gotten here early.”
“Anyone with an ounce of common sense should know not to do something like that right now.” Sister Julia picked up an armload of workbooks from a wooden crate in the front hallway and started off toward her classroom. Sister John Frances thought she looked uncharacteristically gloomy and preoccupied. She would have to ask her young friend if everything was all right.
Back in his car, Hawthorne looked at the old house. It was not isolated and yet it had some quality of isolation about it. There was no activity on the street, the houses still and silent behind barricades of privet, boxwood, and rhododendron. He looked at his watch. There was little traffic on the street this time of day. In his rearview mirror, he watched the road, long and straight, narrowing with distance and disappearing into the shadows of the big arching maples. A panel truck slowly emerged from a side street, crossed the road, and vanished on the other side. Hawthorne read the sign affixed to its side: “Taggert & Sons.” His hand froze at the ignition switch as he recognized the name: The remodeling outfit Edgar was currently working with. But hadn’t he said they were doing a job in Brewster?
A coincidence that the truck would turn up in the same neighborhood. For a moment he considered following after it but then decided that a coincidence was all it was.
43
The Sea Mist backed up onto a brackish swamp that stunk at low tide. Agent Baldesaro led Warren to a bare room on the ground floor of the run-down motel where a group of agents was gathered, their eyes impassive and unreadable. He wondered if Baldesaro was the only one of them who thought it was a good idea to include him.
“Besides what I’ve told you,” Baldesaro began, “what do you know about Dale Stasiak?”
“Aside from the fact that he’s unstable, not a whole lot that I could prove. His methods are unconventional, to say the least.” Warren gave an account of his interactions with the state trooper. One of the agents got a map out and spread it across the table. Warren saw that it was heavily annotated with different colored markers. There was a circle around the location of Stasiak’s house and another around the state police barracks in Yarmouth. Various routes were drawn out and dozens of points marked and dated.
Baldesaro asked, “Where have you seen him?”
Warren pointed out the places on the map where he had tailed Stasiak and lost him.
“Do you have any indication whether or not he’s figured out you were following him?”
“I don’t know. But he must know that someone is, because he uses evasive tactics when he drives.”
“That’s because of what he was involved in up in Boston,” Baldesaro said. “He expects to be watched. Now, why were you watching the Elbow Room?”
Warren related the story. Baldesaro scribbled notes as he spoke. When Warren got to the part about recruiting Wilson Hayes, the agent stopped him. “Wilson Hayes?” he said.
“Yes. Did you know him?”
“We know he was shot outside the Gillette Company’s headquarters. That’s the guy you sent into the Elbow Room?”
“Yes.”
“I’d say maybe Hayes screwed you,” Baldesaro said. “But the fact that he wound up dead tells me different.”
“Hayes could have double-crossed him and wound up dead,” one of the agents said.
Warren said, “As I understand it, he went back up to Boston and started asking about some of the guys we connected to the Elbow Room and the other places. His opinion was that this is being operated by the Irish mob.”
Baldesaro turned to one of his men. “Find out who’s running the Hayes murder investigation. See where they are with it.”
The agent got up and left the room. Baldesaro quizzed Warren on Hayes’s report on the Elbow Room and what he’d seen inside. “Are you aware of Brinkman’s Brake & Lube?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What about a place in Chatham called the Bilge?”
“We know about it. There’s a house in Harwich we were watching.”
“Depot Road.”
“That’s correct.”
“What do you know about Detective Dunleavy?”
“He went behind my back and got himself appointed chief over me. He’s no good if you ask me. I believe he was following me around there, at the end. Is he involved in this?”
“We’ve seen him, Stasiak, and Heller together a fair amount.”
Warren asked, “Do you know of a man named Fred Sibley? Reporter for the Boston Globe?”
“Yes,” said Baldesaro. “We know him from the Attanasio case and we know he’s conveniently locked up at Walpole.”
“I visited him not long ago.”
“Really. What brought that about?”
“He kept calling me. I never took his calls. Then one day I decided to talk to him and he told me he knew things about Stasiak. He wants to trade the information for help with his case.”
“What did he tell you about Stasiak?”
“He substantiated a lot of the things you’ve told me only he has specifics, which he’s not giving up. And I think he knows the names of a lot of people you should be talking to.”
“Sibley’s a hophead.”
“Maybe. He says he was set up.”
“Interesting. He became a security risk during the Grady Pope investigation. We figured he knew there was more to it than us chasing Pope. He’s smart. We didn’t even know he’d shown up down here until we found out about the drug arrest at the East End Lodge. If you hadn’t locked him up, we would have found a way to take him out of the picture. He was going to compromise us with his nosing around.”
“He believes the state police planted the marijuana in his room for the same reason,” Warren said. “I think he’s been on to Stasiak longer than you have.”
“Have you ever seen Stasiak or Heller at the Elbow Room?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen either of them at any of the other locations we’ve discussed?”
“No.”
“Have you seen either of them with any of the people we’ve mentioned here?”
“No.”
“Let’s talk about the Weeks case.”
Warren recounted the tale, from the first call from the DuPonts’ attorney to the morning he got the call from Jenkins at the town dump.
“You say Russell Weeks’s brother claims he was never contacted by the state police.”
“That’s right.”
“But Stasiak claims to have spoken to him.”
“He claimed that, yes.”
“You’ve confirmed Russell Weeks called one of the illegal lines at the Elbow Room.”
“Yes.”
“And Stasiak warned you to stay away from the Weeks investigation.”
“In the strongest terms.” Warren looked around the room at the radio equipment, the cameras and lenses in their black cases, at the men in shirtsleeves leaning forward in their chairs, watching him. He shook his head slowly. “Why would a man . . . Stasiak has the career I wish I had. How do you explain it?”
“It’s not our job to explain it,” Baldesaro said. Then, as if reconsidering, he indicated the annotated map on the table. “What you’re seeing here . . . What we know, apparently, it’s not the entire truth. Stasiak has—had—good qualities. He was fair to the people in Charlestown. He took care of them, in his way. Whatever that took. Some of the things he did I didn’t have a problem with. And when he worked with us on the Attanasio case, our guys loved him. He was really good with the new agents who were trying to learn their jobs. But this . . .” Baldesaro put a finger on the map. “This is the truth that matters the most right now. And we’re here to do something about it.”