“Now,” he sighed, “what’s your story, Mr. Coyne?”
I told him. I told him about George Gresham’s apparent suicide, Harvey Willard’s plagiarized paper, and the phone call I had received from him the previous day. Once he interrupted to say that he would want me to make a formal statement later.
When I had finished he said, “So what do you make of it?”
I spread my hands. “I don’t know. I thought I knew. I figured Harvey had something to do with George’s death, that somehow the suicide maybe wasn’t suicide at all, that Harvey had been caught cheating, and that he had—well, murdered George.” I shook my head. “Doesn’t look like we’ll ever know now, does it?”
Shanley’s thick black brows twitched. “Let’s go down to the station so we can take your statement,” he said.
CHAPTER 14
I RECOUNTED MY STORY to Captain Shanley and a detective named Rossi. I was barely aware of the tape recorder on the table in front of me. They questioned me closely, and when Rossi said, “Where were you last night?” it occurred to me that I was being regarded as some sort of suspect. Despite my legal training and clear conscience, I felt the muscles in the back of my neck twitch and tense.
“I watched some TV and went to bed,” I said.
“What time was that?”
“Ten. Ten-thirty, I guess.”
“Anybody with you?”
“I live alone. I told you.”
“Anyone call you on the phone last night?”
“No.”
“What’d you watch?”
For an instant my mind saw only fog. I squeezed my eyes shut. “The news,” I said. “The Channel 2 news. It’s on at ten.”
Shanley and Rossi were staring at me.
“You think I did something to Harvey Willard?”
Shanley grinned at me. “I doubt it, Mr. Coyne. Why? Did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay. You can go. I appreciate your cooperation. If anything comes up, we’ll want to know where to reach you.”
I gave him my business card, scratched my home address and phone number on the back, and walked out of the police station into the May sunshine. I felt inexplicably elated, giddy. I paused at the bottom of the steps to light a Winston and savor the warmth of the sunshine.
A hand touched my arm. I whirled around. A young police officer stared into my eyes. He wasn’t smiling.
“Mr. Coyne?”
I nodded.
“Captain Shanley asked me to drive you back to your car.
I grinned stupidly, embarrassed at the relief I felt. These guys could make you feel guilty for something you didn’t do. They were very good at their trade.
“That’s fine,” I said. “Very thoughtful. Thank you.”
He turned out to be a pleasant guy, a rookie on the force who was accustomed to assignments like patrolling school dances and directing traffic and operating speed traps. And driving people to their cars. “It’s the shit work,” he said as he drove, “but somebody’s got to do it. Six years at Northeastern. I got a master’s degree in Criminal Justice, for God’s sake. And I get to help the cars out of the Itek parking lot at four-thirty in the afternoon. Know what I was doing while everyone else was looking at that kid’s dead body? I was on the switchboard. Master’s degree!”
I clucked sympathetically. My mind was elsewhere. I wanted to make sense of it all. Harvey’s death could have been an accident, a malicious trick of fate, I knew. But the logical part of me had to reject that, and I needed to give my mind some space to operate. I resolved that when I got back to Ruggles I would climb into my BMW and drive straight home to my cell at the Harborside apartments. I would pour some Jack Daniels into one of my square, thick-glassed tumblers with three or four ice cubes and put my feet up on the rusting wrought-iron railing of my little balcony and watch the sailboats slide across the ocean.
I’d probably do that for a long time.
And then, if I had any sense, I’d go out and grab a Big Mac and a shake with large fries to go, lug it all back home in a bag, turn on the tube, and watch a Kojak or Columbo rerun and try to get it through that lead-lined cranium of mine that I was a lawyer, not a detective. I would resolve to let the cops do their job, and I’d do mine. And when I went to the office the next day I’d get back to my work. I’d call Jenny DeVincent’s husband’s attorney and we would settle once and for all the matter of the custody of the Labrador retrievers.
And I’d erase from my mind the image of Harvey Willard’s dead, staring eyes and rigid, gaping jaw and the purpling bruise on his cheek. I’d try to forget the glossy eight-by-tens of George Gresham laid out on the chrome table.
I’d return to what made sense to me: the law.
I envied the chattering young cop beside me. Directing traffic seemed to me just the thing to keep a man’s emotions on an even keel.
Sooner or later I’d have to call Florence Gresham. It would have to wait. I didn’t know what I could tell her.
I took my copy of Moby Dick and a tumbler of Jack Daniels out onto my little balcony. I skimmed the book for the technical discussions of whales and whale hunting. I found the story of Ahab unbearably bleak. I watched the little sailboats and a couple of monstrous oil tankers move slowly across the harbor, and found it hard to imagine the days of the Nantucket whalers.
When I had sipped the last of the whiskey and crunched the last ice cube between my molars, I decided to do what I realized I had wanted to do ever since I had seen Harvey Willard’s dead eyes staring into the sky. I called Rina.
It took them several minutes to get her to the phone, and when she answered she sounded as if she’d been running.
“This is Miz Prescott,” she said.
“Hi. This is Brady.”
There was a pause. “Oh. Well, hi.”
“I hope you don’t mind my calling you…”
“No. No, that’s fine.”
“… but I was at the school this afternoon, and—well, I imagine you’ve heard about Harvey Willard—I was there. I saw him.”
Rina didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said, “We’re all in shock here. I’ve just been with his girlfriend. I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job of consoling her. Fact is, I could use a little consoling myself.”
“Me, too, I guess,” I said. “And I thought of you.”
“Well, okay,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Hey. I’m glad you called. I’ve been thinking of you a little bit, too.”
“You have?”
“Yes. Matter of fact, I was thinking I might call you. To tell you it would be okay with me if we saw each other again.” She hesitated. “Hell, I was going to tell you I wanted for us to see each other again. Is that too audacious of me?”
I laughed. “Audacious? No. Hell, no. That’s what I called you for.” I remembered the feel of her cold skin against the front of my legs.
“They’re saying he got picked up hitchhiking and somebody killed him. My God! Isn’t that awful?”
“Whatever happened, it’s awful.”
“Do you think it was something else?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, Rina. I’m just a poor country lawyer. Listen, how’s Friday?”
“Friday’s good. Great.”
“Dinner?”
“Wonderful. My treat this time, okay?”
“No way. There’s a limit to how much of this equality and liberation stuff an unreconstructed old chauvinist like me can take. Anyway, I’ll call it a business expense and write it off.”
“Can you do that?”
“Sure I can.”
“No, I mean, is that what it’ll be? A business expense?”
“We can talk about George a little, and we’ll try to figure out how Harvey’s death fits into it. I’ll tell you the story of George’s dead brother. You can tell me some more about the Ruggles folks. Then it’ll be a business expense. Get it?”
She paused. “I see.”
“Look,” I said. “
I didn’t mean it that way. I want to see you. It’ll be good to see you. Very good.”
“That’s better. Much better. Where shall we meet?”
“I’ll pick you up. Okay?”
“Sure. I’ll be free around seven.”
“Seven it is, then.”
Her voice softened. “Sire?”
“Yes, my lady?”
“I’ve missed you.”
“Me too,” I said.
After I hung up the phone I poured myself another generous shot of Jack Daniels, dropped in a couple of ice cubes, and resumed my seat overlooking the harbor. I was glad none of the sailors far below me could see the silly grin on my face.
The next morning when I arrived at the office, Julie said, “My turn,” and brought me a mug of coffee. She even withheld her standard forecast of medical doom.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Right. Want to tell me about it?”
I told her, and when I finished she said, “Wow!”
“So now,” I said, “it’s in the hands of the police. Where it belongs. They know everything I know, and are a hell of a lot better equipped to handle it.”
She smiled. “I’m not sure they agree with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You had a phone call before you came in.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Clapp. The Medical Examiner.”
I felt my resolve beginning to drain out of me. “No kidding! What did he want?”
Julie cocked her head and grinned at me. “You’re leaving it all up to the police, right?”
“Ah, you know me. Anyway, he’s probably just going to rehash what I told the cops yesterday. What did he say?”
“You know they never tell me anything. Wants you to call is all. Shall I try to reach him?”
“Hell, yes.” The Labrador retrievers could wait.
There was something in Dr. Milton Clapp’s voice, a hint of urgency when he said, “Thank you for returning my call so promptly, Mr. Coyne,” that made me sit up straight.
“That’s okay, Doctor. What is it?”
“Something I think might interest you. I received a report this morning on an autopsy performed yesterday afternoon. Imagine my surprise when I read that the deceased was a student at the same school where your Mr. Gresham taught. Reminded me of you and the Gresham case immediately, of course.”
“Of course,” I said. “Harvey Willard. I knew about that.”
“I know you did. But you aren’t aware of the autopsy report, I don’t think.”
“No.”
“Mr. Willard was murdered.”
I found myself nodding. “Are you sure?”
“We can say that it’s my professional opinion. I would judge that he was murdered with clear intent by someone who knew exactly what he was doing.”
“How…?”
Dr. Clapp cleared his throat. I waited for his discourse. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. “His larynx was crushed by a sharp blow to the throat. Right below the hyoid bone—under your jaw, Mr. Coyne—there are little cartilaginous horns. Delicate little things. They were broken, as was the hyoid bone itself. What happens is this: A blow sharp enough to produce that kind of damage will overstimulate the carotid arteries, which are extremely sensitive to that sort of thing. They’re like little pressure gauges. They send messages via the vagus nerve in the neck to the heart via the brain. What happened to Harvey Willard was that because of this sharp blow to the throat, his heart received an explosive set of nerve impulses. Cardiac arrest. Sudden, silent, absolutely deadly. We call this ‘vagal inhibition.’ I expect the boy was dead before he hit the ground.”
“Good God!”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see…”
“The police are quite convinced that the boy was picked up while hitchhiking, and that whoever picked him up drove him to that rest area beside the highway and tried to rob him, or maybe made a sexual advance, and when he resisted, well, a man who knows his karate makes a quick jab with the tips of his fingers…”
“All right, but…”
“But I’m not completely convinced that that theory is accurate.”
“You’re not.”
“No. I may be wrong—it’s what we call an inductive leap—but I think there’s a connection between the two deaths. Between this one and Gresham.”
“Well, I wondered,” I said.
“Yes. You may remember one of the several injuries Mr. Gresham suffered. The burst testicle.”
I shuddered. “I remember. You said it was consistent with the fall.”
“I said it was consistent. It’s equally consistent with a karate blow. Or simply a hard kick to the testicles. Immediately and totally disarming.”
“I should imagine so,” I said. “So you think this same person…?”
“A distinct possibility, yes. And in the case of Harvey Willard, he transported his body to the highway and rolled him down the slope. The body could well have gone undetected for a month. That’s how often the highway department mows the grass.”
“So if we find who killed Harvey, we’ve got George’s murderer as well.”
“Oh, it’s not that simple, of course.” The doctor sighed. “It’s speculation. A theory to pursue—a useful theory, I think. Maybe the best theory, at this point.”
“Except for coincidence.”
“You’re right, of course. The odds never favor coincidence, by definition. Yet they happen all the time. The police are following the principle that the commonest things most commonly happen. And that principle still suggests that Mr. Gresham committed suicide and the Willard boy’s murder is unrelated to it, and that the possibility of a karate injury to each constitutes no more than a coincidence. And the scientist in me is obliged to agree, or at least to look at both sides of the sheep.”
“The sheep?”
Dr. Clapp laughed. “One of those apocryphal stories laboratory scientists like to tell. A scientist is driving along a country road with a friend when they come upon a flock of sheep grazing on a hillside. ‘Those sheep have been shorn recently,’ observes the friend. ‘On one side, anyway,’ says the scientist.”
“I get it,” I said.
“That isn’t to say that the good scientist doesn’t think that the sheep are shorn on both sides. He just recognizes that he doesn’t know it, that it’s a theory, a hypothesis, based on evidence, that remains to be proved. I want to see the other side of the sheep in this case.”
I thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure why you’re calling me,” I said.
“Because I think you know who did it.”
“Oh, wait a minute,” I said. “I don’t know who did it. I don’t know who did anything. I thought I knew who killed George Gresham. If he was killed. I thought it was Harvey Willard. I was obviously wrong. The sheep aren’t shorn on the other side. I don’t know any more about this than you do.”
“I didn’t say you knew that you knew, or that you even knew what you knew. If you follow me. But you’re the one with all the pieces to the puzzle, I think, now that I’ve given you this last one. The solution is there, on the table in front of you. If there’s a solution. Move those pieces around. Make sure they’re all face up and start trying to fit some of them together.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“You start with a couple of premises. They are, of course, just premises. But it’s what we have. One, George Gresham and Harvey Willard were both murdered. Two, they were murdered by the same person. That, so to speak, puts the border on the puzzle. Fill in the inside with the pieces you have. If the premises are reasonably accurate, the picture will emerge.”
“I see,” I said.
“You’re an attorney. Use your training.”
“Sure. I’ll try.”
“Call me any time, if I can help you move around the pieces that I’ve given you.”
“I will,” I said. I thoug
ht for a minute. “One thing.”
“What is it?”
“This murderer—this alleged murderer. What do we know about him? What have your autopsies told you about him?”
“Two things, I think. One, he is obviously trained in karate or one of the martial arts. Knows that a blow to the testes is one of the most dependably disabling maneuvers one can make at close range. Knows that a thrust to the hyoid can kill, and will certainly render a victim unconscious.”
“The second thing?”
“The second thing is that he has killed twice. That he has inflicted unthinkable pain on two men, and has, with cold malice and very possibly with clear-headed premeditation, killed them.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yes,” said Dr. Clapp. “Obviously.”
“Okay.”
We said good-bye and hung up. I buzzed Julie and told her that under no circumstances was I to be disturbed, and would she mind terribly bringing me the coffee pot because I didn’t want to stop when I needed a refill.
I had to figure out how to climb up that hill and steal a look at the other side of those sheep.
CHAPTER 15
MUFFY TAYLOR, HARVEY WILLARD’S girlfriend, sat with me in Bartley Elliott’s office, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap. Her eyes were red, and her face was puffy. She was a tiny little thing, with a little, pointed nose, and a pointed chin, and small, pointed breasts. Cute, as my mother used to say, as a button.
“They’re having a memorial service for Harvey,” she was telling me. “At the chapel. Day after tomorrow at four. I don’t know if I can take it.”
Her inflamed eyes appealed to me.
“It’s been rough,” I said. I tried to imagine Harvey, all two hundred and twenty-odd pounds of him, making love to this child. He would, I thought, have riven her in twain.
“They’re saying someone might have killed him,” she said. “Who’d want to hurt Harvey? He was gentle, Mr. Coyne. A very kind, gentle person. Everyone liked him.”
Okay then, I thought. If he was so gentle and kind, maybe he wouldn’t rive her in twain. I said, “Muffy, that’s the question. Who would have wanted to hurt him?”
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