Blunt Darts - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  BLUNT DARTS

  Jeremiah Healy

  1984

  To Bonnie, who is Beth

  FIRST

  -♦-

  "Name?"

  "Cuddy, John Francis."

  "Address?"

  "74 Charles Street."

  "In Boston?"

  "In Boston."

  "Social Security number?" ·

  "040-93-707l ."

  "Date of birth?"

  I told her.

  She looked up at me, squeezed out a smile. "You look younger."

  "It's a mark of my immaturity," I said. She made a sour face and returned to the form.

  "Occupation?"

  "Investigator."

  "Previous employer?"

  "Empire Insurance Company? I wondered whether Empire had to fill out a form that referred to me as "Previous Employee."

  "Reason for leaving previous employment?"

  "I have a letter." I took the letter from my inside coat pocket and handed it to her. Opening it and reading it slowed her down. I looked around the big, clattering room at the thirty or so other metal desks.

  Each had a woman filling out a form and an applicant answering the same questions. Most of the applicants were men. I wondered why we applicants couldn't fill out at least the first few lines by ourselves.

  The man seated at the desk next to me sneezed.

  Brittlely old and black, he looked as though he should have been applying for Social Security instead of unemployment. He wiped his nose with a clean handkerchief that had a hole in one corner. When he was finished he folded it so that the hole didn't show.

  "Mr. Cuddy, if you'll pay attention to me, we'll finish this procedure much more quickly."

  I turned my head to face her again. "That's all right," I said. "I've got time."

  She fixed me with the sour look again and tapped her index finger on the paper before her. "This letter from your previous employer is beautifully drafted, Mr. Cuddy, probably by a company lawyer. It nicely provides every fact the regulations require. Accordingly, I have no choice but to recommend you for benefits. I must say, however, that seeing a man of your obvious abilities here instead of out in the world earning his way makes me sick."

  "I didn't think you were looking too well. Would you like me to complete the rest of the form myself?"

  "No!" she snapped. I thought I heard the man next to me stifle a chuckle. She and I operated as a much more efficient team after that.

  "Education?"

  "High School, then Holy Cross. One year of night law school."

  "Military service?"

  "Military Police, discharged a captain in nineteen-sixty-eight."

  "Employer prior to Empire Insurance Company?"

  "Just the army."

  She looked up at me again. "Do you mean you worked for Empire since nineteen-sixty-eight?"

  "Since nineteen-sixty-nine. I traveled around the country for a while after the service."

  She shook her head, and we completed the rest of the form. I signed it and got a brochure explaining my benefits and rights. I also received a little chit that entitled me to stand in a slow-moving line ten or twelve people deep in front of a window like a bank teller's.

  * * *

  I had to hand it to Empire. They really knew how to deal with someone like me. After nearly eight years with them, I became head of claims investigation in Boston. It meant my own office, with a window. Beth and I were just this side of ecstasy. We'd married during my first year with Empire and had always lived in apartments in Back Bay, a quiet part of the city within walking distance of the office. With the promotion, we decided we could finally plunge for a three-bedroom condominium there. We moved in during the hottest week in July. Four months later, the doctor told us what Beth had inside her head.

  The insurance covered eighty percent of the medical expenses, and a second mortgage on the condo covered most of the rest for the first nine months. I would have sold the place, but it was in both our names, and Beth refused to give it up until the beginning of the last month, when she finally admitted to herself (but never once to me) that she wouldn't be coming home. I sandwiched selling the place between trips to the office and the hospital. I turned most of our furniture over to an auctioneer and moved the rest into a small one-bedroom apartment on Charles Street at the foot of Beacon Hill.

  Three weeks later, Joe Mirelli, the priest who'd grown up with us in South Boston and married us there, helped me ease Beth into a small piece of ground on a gentle slope overlooking the harbor.

  Two months to the day after Beth's funeral, the head of Boston claims walked into my office. I had my window open a crack, and I could hear Christmas carols carrying from some store's outside stereo speakers. He handed me an investigation report and told me to sign it. I read the report, which substantiated a five-figure jewel-theft claim from an affluent bedroom community just west of Boston, and looked up at him. "This may win this year's award for best short fiction, but I'm not going to sign it."

  "Sign it."

  "No."

  "John, please—just sign it."

  "Phil, nobody from this office ever investigated this claim."

  "John, I've been told to tell you to sign it."

  "Phil, you've also just been told that I'm not going to."

  Phil took the report back and left my office.

  The next day the head of claims investigation and the head of the claims division, both from home office, were outside my office with Phil when I arrived. It was a cold December day, but at 8:15 A.M., Phil already had patches of sweat in the armpits of his button-down shirt.

  "Sign it," said Head of Claims.

  "The investigation was never done," I replied.

  "It was done by an independent outfit without your knowledge," said Head of Investigation.

  "Fine. Let me talk to him, her, or it."

  "That's not feasible," said Head of Claims.

  "Then let him, her, or it sign the report."

  Phil picked up the report and shook it at me.

  "Christ, John, will you please sign the goddamned thing?" He was squealing.

  "No."

  "Well," said Head of Claims as he plucked the report from Phil's hand and tamped it into his inside pocket, "that's certainly clear enough." Head of Claims walked out the door followed by Phil, who said, "'Bye, John."

  "'Bye, John," mimicked Head of Investigation as he followed them out and closed the door.

  Fifteen minutes later I called Tommy Kramer. He was a college classmate of mine and the best lawyer I knew who had no connection with the company. I explained what had happened. He said to wait and see what developed. I didn't have long to wait.

  Two days later, Head of Boston Office called me into his office. His window was closed, but I imagine we were too high up to hear Christmas carols anyway. He was in his early sixties and Ivy League. He came from a Pilgrim-tracing North Shore family, though by the time his generation arrived, the bloodline had run a bit thin. After a few minutes of uncomfortable small talk, he allowed as how my senior investigator, Mullen, was due for a promotion. He also allowed as how I'd gone about as far as I could with the company and should consider seeking "lateral-level" employment elsewhere, toward which I'd receive only the highest references. He had never heard of any five-figure claim or investigation report. When he added, jokingly, that I could, of course, be terminated in such a way as to qualify for unemployment compensation, I took him up on it. He was shocked and tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted. He reluctantly agreed to get the inhouse attorney started on it.

  When I got back to my office, I called Tommy Kramer again. I told him what I'd just done, and he advised me that if I st
uck to my present course, I could kiss goodbye to any lawsuit against Empire for wrongful termination.

  I said that was fine with me, and asked him to send me a bill, which, knowing about Beth, he never did. Aside from his kindness, I had a lousy Christmas.

  * * *

  I came to be only four people away from the cashier in the line at the unemployment office. The lady in front of me shuffled forward. She was dragging a shopping bag along the floor. I glanced into the bag. It . looked like a condensed version of somebody's attic.

  * * *

  There was a while there after I left Empire when I thought I might be in trouble. While Beth was sick, I'd started running in the early mornings to try to work off my anxiety. After she died, I stopped jogging and started drinking. After I left Empire, I really started hitting it, leaving unopened most of the packed boxes in the new apartment. Then one January night, driving home from a bar, I missed a kid on a bike by about half a Scotch.

  When I got to the apartment, I threw up twelve or fifteen times and tried to drown myself in the shower. I climbed out and looked at myself in the mirror. I began taking stock. Thirty-plus, six-feet-two-plus. Unemployed and rapidly approaching unemployable. I'd spent most—hell, all—of my adult life in investigation work for Uncle Sugar or Empire. Six years earlier Empire had required all of us to obtain and maintain private-detective licenses from the Department of Public Safety. I knew three or four semireputable guys in the trade who could tell me how to get started and maybe even refer me a few clients. I decided it was time J. F. C. became his own man. With a little interim help from the unemployment-

  compensation folks.

  * * *

  The shopping-bag lady waddled past me. I reached the window, collected my $106.25, expressed my gratitude, and went home.

  SECOND

  -♦-

  The bouncy voice on the other side of the fire alarm said, "Hi, John. This is Valerie Jacobs."

  The clock radio said eight-thirty; the sun in my bedroom window said A.M. Unfortunately, I had decided to cut back on my drinking slowly, and the Red Sox game on TV the night before had gone thirteen innings.

  "Hi," I said quietly. "Who are you?"

  "Fine, thanks," she replied, I guess because she thought I'd said "how" instead of "who." Maybe I had. "The school year's over, and I'm hoping this will be my best summer of all."

  "That's nice," I said.

  "Listen, John, I can tell I woke you up, and I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you about a problem, but when I called Empire, they said you'd left the company. I'm not seeing Chuck anymore, so I didn't know."

  Valerie. Valerie and Chuck. Sure. She was a teacher who'd been going out with one of the claims adjusters in the office. Beth and I had met her at a few company functions. In fact, I remembered she'd sent a condolence card just after Beth died.

  "I'm a private detective now. In Boston."

  "Oh, John, that's perfect! I know this is short notice, but so much time has gone by already. Could you meet me for lunch today? Around one?"

  "Sure."

  "How about L'Espalier?"

  "Fine. You buyin'?"

  "Put it on your expense account," she laughed, and hung up before I could tell her she definitely had overestimated my status in the profession.

  I got up, vacillated over running, then finally laced my Brooks Villanovas. I pulled on a fading Tall Ships T-shirt from the Bicentennial summer and a pair of black gym shorts. I warmed up with loosening and stretching exercises for ten minutes and then went outside. It was a glorious June day, and the sidewalk was frying-pan hot. In Boston, we don't have spring; at some point in May, we jump from March to August.

  I crossed over Storrow Drive on the pedestrian ramp and did a fairly leisurely two miles upriver and two miles back. As I recrossed the ramp toward Charles Street and the apartment, I watched the commuters inch by below me.

  It had been only five months since I'd missed the kid on the bike, but I wasn't really struggling. In terms of conditioning (or reconditioning, if you insist), I'd been running three times a week, three to six miles each time. I'd been doing push-ups, sit-ups, and a little weight lifting. To try to regain some dangerousness, I began relearning jukado (a combination of judo, karate, and a number of other disciplines) which I'd picked up in the army. I even persuaded a police-chief friend of mine from Bonham (pronounced "Bonuhm," if you please), a town south and west of Boston, to let me use his department's pistol range.

  In terms of business, the advent of no-fault divorce in Massachusetts had cut back considerably on that aspect of private investigating, which was line by me. A friend in the trade had told me that the secret of survival was keeping the overhead down. He suggested I use a tape device on my telephone instead of an answering service, and he was proving to be right. I also operated out of my apartment, so I had no office expense.

  A retired Boston cop who'd known my family was a security director for a suburban department store. He had thrown a few "inside-job" surveillances my way, and on one we'd actually nailed the dipping employee. I had been quietly blackballed in Boston insurance circles, which kept my unemployment compensation coming. However, one maverick investigator had brought me in as a consultant on a warehouse security problem, and I sewed it up nicely in enough days to pay the next three months' rent. In other words, although I wasn't exactly pressed for free time, I was getting by.

  I stopped at the grocery store on the corner and bought a quart of orange juice, some doughnuts, a Boston Globe and a New York Times. I politely stayed downwind (actually down-air-conditioner) from the cashier. After I climbed the three flights to my apartment, I duplicated the pre-run exercises. I showered, shaved, downed my doughnuts, and dressed in my only gray slacks and blue blazer. I even wore a regimental tie. Peter Prep School goes to luncheon.

  I sat in Public Garden for two hours, reading my papers thoroughly in a way I'd never seemed able to while I was working. Funny, with my time my own and only food, shelter, and car insurance to worry about, I couldn't really look on my present occupation as working. By the time I finished the Times, it was 12:45, and I'd been panhandled three times. I walked down Arlington Street and toward the restaurant. L'Espalier was then on the second floor of a building between Arlington and Berkeley streets on Boylston. It has since moved to Gloucester Street between Newbury and Commonwealth. It has also ceased serving lunch, to allow concentration on the magnificent dinner menu. The couple who own and manage the restaurant had lived above Beth and me in the condominium building. After Beth died, I'd wasted some beautiful afternoons over a carafe of house bordeaux while Donna and Moncef patiently looked on.

  Donna greeted me at the entranceway and gave me a table for two in the corner. I'd just ordered a pina colada (without the kick) when Valerie walked in. I recognized her, but I realized I would have been hard put to describe her beforehand.

  She stood about five-seven without the heels. She had long, curly-to-the-point-of-kinky auburn hair, a broad, open face, and a toothy smile. That may sound unkind; I don't mean it to be. Let's say she resembled Mary Tyler Moore in her late twenties. Her sundress hinted at small but nicely shaped breasts. The dress also hid most of her legs, which were slightly heavier than I would have recalled but appeared, thankfully, to be shaved. She was burdened with at least four store bags.

  From the door, she gave me a wave that was a little too much I'm-meeting-someone-in-a-nice-Boston-restaurant" and therefore not entirely for my benefit. She smiled at and said something to Donna and strode over toward me. I noticed that Donna was giving me a sardonic grin. I also noticed, as Valerie cleared the table before mine, that the bags she carried were from Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue labels out. I stood up.

  "John, you've lost weight," she exclaimed.

  "And teaching must be fairly profitable," I replied, nodding at her packages.

  "Oh," she said with her smile, "this is my annual showboat excursion into the Big City. Usually. I just barter my wares for dry goods at the
general store."

  She giggled, and so did I. Despite her first appearance, I remembered her as a pretty regular kid, and I decided she hadn't changed.

  She declined a cocktail. We ordered a bottle of white wine to be followed by a chicken luncheon for two. She said what she had to about Beth, and I did the same. The waiter brought and poured the wine. We talked about classrooms, the declining birth rate, and teacher lay-offs.

  "So how goes the private-eye business?" she asked.

  I exaggerated a little. I was relieved that she didn't ask for details.

  "I'm sorry," I said finally, "but I don't recall exactly where it is that you're teaching."

  A flicker of disappointment at the comers of her eyes? "Um," she said, "Meade, the Lincoln Drive Middle School. And that brings me to what I wanted to see you about. Do you know where Meade is?"

  I did. "It's right next to Bonham, isn't it?"

  She nodded as the waiter arrived with our chicken.

  "If it's particularly gory, why don't we wait until after the meal?" I said.

  "Oh, it's not," she replied quickly, and glanced down at the waiter's tray. "But let's not be rude to the chicken." I laughed and motioned to the waiter to begin serving.

  The entrée was delightful, punctuated by few words. Valerie finished a bit before I did and fixed me with dark, dark brown eyes. "I can't really start at the beginning because I didn't know the family then," she said. "But this past year in class—I teach the eighth grade—I had a boy named Stephen Kinnington in my homeroom and English classes."

  "Familiar name," I interjected as I finished the last of my chicken.

  "I'm not surprised. His father, Judge Kinnington, was one of the youngest men ever to go on the bench, and his family has sort of, well, ruled Meade since long before I arrived. Anyway, Stephen's mother, Diane Kinnington, killed herself about four years ago by driving her Mercedes off a bridge and into the river. Apparently she boozed it up a lot, so no one knows whether it was accidental or intentional. It hit Stephen pretty hard, as you can imagine. I've talked with his fifth-grade teacher, Miss Pitts, who's retired now, and she said that his mother's 'activities,' as Miss Pitts put it, had appeared to be affecting Stephen for a long time prior to Mrs. Kinnington's actual death. I got the impression from Miss Pitts that by 'activities' something more than simple alcoholism was involved, if you know what I mean."