Blunt Darts

by Jeremiah Healy

  Stein came to his decision and swung his desk chair and the folder around sideways. “Let’s go through the file.” I hitched my chair around so that we sat side-by-side at the narrow end of the desk.

  The file was in reverse chronological order, so that you had to read from the bottom of the lower page to the top of the higher page. That awkwardness mastered, it took relatively little time to review.

  Stephen was signed into Willow Wood by his father within twenty-four hours of his mother’s death. He was diagnosed catatonic upon his arrival, and was treated with half a dozen drugs over the first two months. He slowly came out of the trance, showing exceptional manual dexterity and imagination.

  Group therapy efforts were aborted nearly as soon as they began, Stephen preferring individual sessions, though not really coming around to any one analyst or therapist. The entries suggested Stephen most enjoyed outdoor activities and the library, shunning team sports and leadership roles.

  “What kind of place is Willow Wood?” I asked.

  Stein shrugged. “It’s a low-security, very prestigious facility. In the old parlance, it would have been a sanatorium. It is set on the grounds of a beautiful estate about eight miles from Tanglewood. A friend of mine from medical school is head of staff there. Quite a plum position, but she was a superior doctor at a time when few women were entertained in medical school. She refers me all her discharging patients who are returning to the Boston area.”

  “There doesn’t appear to be any indication of who referred the judge to Willow Wood.”

  “No, but any knowledgeable psychiatrist would know of Sarah—that’s my classmate. Sarah might have a recollection of it, but surely it would be easier for you to just ask the judge.”

  “Right,” I said, hopefully not too quickly. “Tell me about the course of care at Willow Wood, generally.”

  “Well, the course of care varies, of course, with the condition being treated. Willow Wood specializes, so to speak, in difficult, long-term cases of seriously ill, but not, dangerous individuals.”

  “Arts, crafts, and canoeing versus straitjackets and shock treatment?”

  Stein actually harrumphed. “In a blunt sort of way, yes.”

  I returned to the file. Stephen seemed to improve month by month, if you compared a given week’s entry to one four or five weeks later. The drugs dropped off, and the assessments of his progress steadily rose. About eight months after his initial admission, he was released to his father, with a forwarding referral to Dr. Stein.

  I looked up at him. “Doctor, I don’t quite understand something from the records here. What exactly was wrong with Stephen?”

  “Well,” said Stein, clearing his throat and shuffling through the file, “it’s often difficult to diagnose exactly what is ‘wrong’ with a patient. One treats the apparent condition, or symptom, if you like, and then varies the treatment if earlier efforts prove unsuccessful. As you can see, Stephen was catatonic upon arrival at Willow Wood. Then slowly, by an evolving alternation of drugs, counseling, and therapeutic activities, he came back to us, so to speak.”

  “In layman’s terms, you varied your prescriptions until he seemed to come out of it.”

  “Yes, but that can pretty generally be said about any patient.”

  “Then you can’t really be sure of what was wrong with him to start with.”

  “Well, not in some microscopically, conclusively proved sense, no. When Stephen arrived at Willow Wood, he was literally in a trance. One can only identify the symptom or condition. One can’t, despite magazine and television to the contrary, ever be sure of what’s ‘wrong with him,’ in the sense I think you mean it.”

  I let that lay there while I returned to the file. The remaining pages were pale blue. “Are these blue pages yours?”

  “Yes,” Stein said, hopscotching with a pointed finger. “I first saw Stephen there, then a week later, then two weeks later, then one month later.”

  I read his entries. To me they seemed the sort of bland evaluation an assistant principal might give an above-average kindergarten teacher. Stein’s notes indicated good re-adjustment to home life, eagerness to return to school, intellectual curiosity, etc.

  “I take it you came to no independent diagnosis of Stephen’s illness.”

  “Well, no, but perhaps for a different reason. You see, by the time he came to me, Stephen was no longer exhibiting any symptoms of any condition. He appeared to be a normal, well-adjusted boy of”—Stein consulted his entries—“ten, nearly eleven years old. Since he wasn’t sick, so to speak, there was nothing to diagnose. Hence only the few, increasingly spaced visits.”

  “Do I understand then, Doctor, since neither Willow Wood nor you determined what was wrong with him, you don’t know for sure that his mother’s going off the bridge caused it?”

  Stein blinked several times, and his mouth opened before he began to speak. Then he lapsed into a smile and gave me a patronizing look. “Given the chronological proximity of the event and the onset of the condition, what else could have caused it?”

  I thanked Dr. D. Stein, M.D., for his time and left.

  Eight

  I DROVE INTO downtown Boston and parked on the fourth floor of the Government Center Garage. I walked through the new Faneuil Hall Market area. Although the renovated space opened in 1976, I grew up in old Boston, so I’ll probably always call it the “new” market.

  A stop at my camera shop, where Danny promised me he’d have fifty copies of Stephen’s photo for me within an hour. Then I moved down State Street.

  Sturney and Perkins, Inc. was in a traditional, tasteful building near the waterfront. I took the elevator to the tenth floor. Sturney and Perkins occupied about half of it, the kind of offices a good, medium-sized Boston law firm would have had twenty years ago, before the glass-eyed skyscrapers opened.

  “John Francis to see Ms. DeMarco.”

  The receptionist gave me an uncertain look and dialed two digits. Her telephone had a cover on the mouthpiece, which prevented me from hearing what she said into it. She hung up.

  “I’ll take you myself.” As we wound down a labyrinthine corridor, I thought it odd that she would leave her post. The receptionist showed me into a spacious, leather-done corner office with a harbor view. A tall, graying man who looked like an ex-Navy commander stood from behind an expensive desk.

  “Mr. Cuddy, this is Nancy DeMarco. I’m Charles Perkins. What can we do for you?” he asked without extending his hand beyond waving the receptionist away.

  As the door clicked shut behind me, Ms. DeMarco stood up. Nancy DeMarco. Medium build, Harpo hair, and late of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Empire Insurance “enjoyed” one of the worst sex-discrimination-in-promotion records in the Northeast, and Ms. DeMarco had been the one who crammed it down the company’s throat. I’d met her once across a crowded conference-room table. Aside from an Empire stenographer, she had been the only woman present. And DeMarco won.

  “Mr. Cuddy,” she acknowledged.

  I stopped at a leather chair, and we all sat down together. “Well,” I said, “this doesn’t seem to be my day for surprise attacks.”

  Silence from them.

  And from me, too.

  Then Perkins: “Why are you here?”

  “You must have discovered that in the process of finding out who I am.”

  “Amateurish, Mr. Cuddy. That phone call, I mean.”

  “Look, Mr. Perkins,” I said, “let’s stop the urinating contest. Notice I avoided ‘pissing’ out of respect for your decor. You’re one of the best in Boston at what you do. You’ve been asked to find Stephen Kinnington. So have I. He appears to have run away, so there is probably no criminal element behind the disappearance, and therefore no bad guy to tip-off. Why don’t we share information and coordinate those efforts?”

  “Our client does not appreciate your involvement, Mr. Cuddy.”

  “Does the judge appreciate that every hour we don’t find Stephen increas
es the chances that we won’t find him?”

  “We will find the boy—and, as soon as this conference is over, Ms. DeMarco can resume her efforts in that direction.”

  I looked over at Ms. DeMarco. She was looking at Perkins without expression.

  I rose and sidled toward the door. “Mr. Perkins, I guess I can understand why you don’t want to tell me what you know. What I can’t understand is why you don’t want to find out what I know.”

  I turned the knob. “Amateurish, Mr. Perkins. Or worse.”

  Nine

  I HAD A DRINK at P.J. Clarke’s while I waited for my photos to be finished. They were ready as Danny had promised.

  When I arrived at the apartment an hour later, the red light on my tape machine told me I’d had some calls. The first message was from Valerie. The usual you’re-a-tough-man-to-reach-but-I-forgive-you. Then there were three dial tones, meaning that whoever had called had hung up instead of leaving a message. Then there was this:

  “I don’t like leaving messages, even for a discriminating man like you. Meet me at Father’s First at eight P.M.”

  I might have had some question about the voice, but not the “discriminating” tag. I wondered if she’d wear a disguise.

  I dialed Eleanor Kinnington’s number. Mrs. Page answered, grumbled, and told me to hang on.

  “What have you to report?” asked my client.

  “Precious little. Everybody but the psychiatrist is slamming doors in my face.”

  “Does that mean my son is aware of your efforts on my behalf?”

  “It does,” I said, and I summarized my day for her.

  Mrs. Kinnington sounded like a little girl when she spoke again. “I should have realized that your prediction about his discovering you would prove accurate. I am an old woman, Mr. Cuddy, autocratic and perhaps even cranky. Stephen is all I care about anymore. I will pay you to search for him until you advise me it’s hopeless.”

  “I’ll call you again when I know more.”

  “By the way, I was never contacted by this DeMarco girl regarding Stephen.”

  “That’s odd. Maybe she thought it best not to disturb you.”

  “Perhaps that’s what she was told to think.”

  I was nodding as I hung up. I drummed my fingers on the tape machine, then dialed another number.

  Valerie picked it up on the second ring.

  “It’s John Cuddy,” I said.

  “Oh, John, how are you doing? What have you found out?”

  “Not too much. I’d like to ask you some questions about Stephen.”

  “Oh, I’m ten minutes late for a tennis match now, and Marie will have to give up the court if I’m not there in five minutes. How about meeting me for a drink tonight.”

  “Sorry. Prior engagement.”

  “Oh.” I could hear her frown over the phone.

  “I’ll be in Bonham early tomorrow morning. How about lunch?”

  “Terrific. I’ll pack a picnic basket and we can go down to a great swimming beach, and we—”

  “Slow down. You’re on vacation. I’m working.”

  The frown-pause again. “Well, you still have to eat lunch, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Pick me up at my place. Seventeen Fordham Road, first floor. Eleven-thirty. I’ve got to run. Bring your trunks. ’Bye.”

  “Val—”

  Click.

  Annoying woman.

  Ten

  IF FATHER’S FIRST WERE located in a poorer neighborhood than Beacon Hill, it would be a dive. Being on Charles Street, it’s a charming institution. It’s dark, dingy, and jukeboxed, with a mixed bag of gays, MBTA motormen, nursing students from Mass General, and law students from Suffolk University. I spotted her near the corner. She was wearing a disguise, sort of.

  I slid in next to her. “I like your fatigue jacket,” I said.

  Nancy DeMarco looked down into her beer. “You realize that this could cost me a job I’ve worked toward for six years?”

  I ordered a screwdriver. “If it makes you meet guys like me in places like this, it can’t be such a great job.”

  DeMarco looked up, but her hands kept toying with her beer mug. “It’s not, really.” She reached into a big leather tote bag and withdrew a file folder. DeMarco passed it to me. “Read. No notes. No copying.”

  It took me all of three minutes. “This is everything?”

  “Yup.”

  “After two weeks?”

  Just a nod now.

  “What’s going on, Ms. DeMarco?”

  “Nancy, please,” she said, more I thought from anonymity than cordiality. She took a sip of beer and began. “The case came in through Perkins himself on the thirteenth, the day after Stephen disappeared. I was assigned right away. Perkins handed me the police reports, which he’d already had copies of. After I read them, he told me I’d be on my own because the judge wanted a quiet, accent quiet, investigation.”

  “How can you find a fourteen-year-old under that kind of restriction?”

  “You can’t. Look at the file. Initial police report. Five-minute call to the housekeeper. Follow-up police report. Alert calls to airport and train-station security. One leg visit to the bus stations. End present efforts.”

  “Amateurish.”

  DeMarco grimaced. “Like you said back in Perkins’ office, worse. Perkins himself has loaded me with other files. I’m not complaining, but I was the operative with the most cases pre-Stephen, and I’ve gotten more than my share since. Every time I try to do something on Stephen, Perkins boosts the priority of some other case I have. I’d be embarrassed to talk with the judge—assuming my boss would let me.”

  I confirmed that Smollett’s signature was on both the initial and follow-up reports before I closed the file and passed it back to her. “What do you suppose your ‘boss’ is trying to tell you?”

  DeMarco put down her beer. “He’s an uber-professional. Which means minimal effort is intentional. And that probably means pressure from the client to keep it that way.”

  I took a sip of my screwdriver. “You know anything about the judge’s wife?”

  DeMarco looked surprised. “Perkins told me she was dead.”

  I nodded. “Years ago. It pushed Stephen off the deep end. I was wondering if something similar pushed him again.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. But then, what I don’t know about this case could fill a mini-series.”

  I smiled sympathetically. “It’s not your fault, you know. You’re a professional who’s being reined in.”

  “Yeah.” DeMarco finished her beer and slid off the stool. “If you need to talk to me again, which I hope you won’t, telephone me at the office and identify yourself as ‘Mr. Pembroke.’ But don’t leave a return number.”

  “By the way, why did you decide to call me?” I asked.

  A grim smile as she slung her bag over a shoulder. “What our agency is doing stinks. And in the office you didn’t refer to him as ‘the kid’ or ‘the boy.’ You called him by his name, Stephen.” Now the back of Nancy DeMarco’s other hand swiped quickly across her eyes. “Poor little son of a bitch.”

  Eleven

  THE NEXT DAY WAS bright and clear, only one cruiser in the range’s parking area. Cal was waiting for me inside the wire enclosure. He waved at the stubby wooden tower, centered just inside the range. The tower man buzzed me in through the gate. Bonham may not be a big-budget town, but Chief Calvin Maslyk knew where the money he did get was best spent.

  “Been a while, John.”

  “Nearly four weeks.”

  We picked up some sonic muffs and wad-cutter cartridges and moved to the firing bench at the seventy-five-foot line, just left of center. Cal had already set up some traditional bull’s-eyes downrange, one target easel apart. We adjusted the muffs over our ears, and the tower man clicked on.

  “Gentlemen, load five rounds.” We did so. Then the tower again. “Is there anyone down range?” A pause. Then again. “Is there
anyone down range?” Another pause. “The range is clear. Ready on the right? Ready on the left?” Cal and I waved to him. “Ready on the firing line.” A pause. Then, “Fire.”

  We each discharged five rounds, single-action.

  “Clear your weapons.”

  The chief and I opened our cylinders, ejected the expended shell casings, and slid our fingers into the gun frames so the cylinders could not close back into our revolvers.

  “Is the firing line clear?” intoned the tower. Cal and I held up our weapons, cylinders out, fingers in. “The firing line is clear. You may now proceed downrange.” We began walking toward the targets.

  I liked Cal, and I liked the way he required his range to be run. I’d read about a chief on the South Shore who hadn’t taken those precautions. A nine-year-old, playing “army,” had crawled onto the range. A rookie cop who never saw him hit him twice. The boy died the next day, and the rookie resigned the day after that. The chief was forced out the following week by the board of selectmen, the governing body of the town.

  Usually Cal outscores me. This time, though, he slaughtered me. “Something on your mind, John?”

  “Have you got any unbreakable vows toward Meade?”

  He measured me evenly. “None past neighborliness.”

  “I’m trying to find Stephen Kinnington, the judge’s son. It looks to me like the judge has told the present searchers to stand down and has sealed the case against outsiders like me.”

  “Unfortunate family, the Kinningtons.”

  With a pencil Cal marked our bullet holes on the targets so we’d know any unmarked holes came from our next string. We walked back to the firing line.

  “Feel like talking about them?” I asked.

  He rubbed his chin as we approached the bench. “The judge’s brother, Telford, was killed in ’Nam, oh, 1969, maybe. The wife died four or so years ago. Went off the Swan Street bridge into the Concord. I suspected the booze caused her crash.”

  “No autopsy?” I said as the tower told us to load five more.