“Sorry,” I said. “Go on.”
“When I heard Gerry’s call, I pulled on a slicker and some boots and drove there. It was a terrible night to be out and about. Still, the police station is in Meade Center and my parents live just off Swan, so I had as much as a mile or so lead on the rest of the cops. I got to the bridge first—that is, Gerry was the only one there when I arrived.”
“Go on.”
“It was raining so hard as I arrived that I’m not sure he heard me coming. When I slammed the car door, though, Gerry turned around. He was down at the foot of the bridge, near the riverbank.” Doucette paused. “John, have you seen the bridge?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, it’s on Swan Street, as you drive toward Bonham. The bridge is maybe half a mile, I don’t know, before the town line. Anyway, I angled in alongside Gerry’s cruiser on the Meade side of the bridge.
“When he saw it was me, he came scrambling up the bank, which was quite a sight, between him being so big and the bank so slippery. Gerry Blakey was cursing at me when he got to the top. That surprised me, because I hadn’t done anything.
“Before he could say anything specific, another cruiser roared up, lights flashing but no siren, and then Chief Smollett in his own car behind it. I remember there were two cops in the cruiser, one with a rope who ran up to Gerry and one who opened the trunk and started yanking scuba equipment out. Smollett came up and asked me what the hell I was doing there. Before I could tell him, the cop who’d been with Gerry rushed back and said, ‘Chief, Blakey says it’s Mrs. Kinnington. In the water, the judge’s wife.’
“Smollett left us and headed toward Blakey, who now had the rope, down on the riverbank. The other cop ran back to the cruiser to help with the scuba gear. I heard an ambulance siren. It looked pretty crowded near the water, so I ran out onto the bridge.
“Some of the railing was broken away, and you could just see the driver’s side of the car, from about the middle of that window up, and the hood ornament pointing away from the bridge.”
“How far from it?”
“Maybe twenty, twenty-five feet? There’s a big boulder with the Mercedes sort of slanting up on it, like the car had tried to drive over the rock and got stuck partway. Then I—”
“Just a second, Thom,” I said. “From where you were on the bridge, could you tell it was a Mercedes?”
“From the hood ornament, but it was raining and blowing so hard, I might be remembering more the later TV coverage.”
“Could Blakey have identified the car from his angle?”
“No. I looked as closely as I could. That rain was really coming down, and anyway, Gerry, on the bank, was off to the side. In terms of perspective and line of sight, he was directly behind that car’s trunk.”
“In those days, cars had license plates both front and rear. Could Blakey maybe have seen a registry tag from where he was?”
“No. Nor could I. Both were below water. You couldn’t even tell what color the car was, the rain was blowing so hard.”
“Go on.”
“Let’s see.” Doucette counted on his fingers. “I tried to take a few pictures with my thirty-five millimeter, but the conditions were pretty hopeless, and none of them came out. I was just putting my camera away when the ambulance finally arrived. Also right about then, the cop with the SCUBA gear got into the water, and he swam out with a rope around his waist.”
“Did the diver struggle with the current?”
“No. But he was swimming hard, and I’m guessing he’s pretty strong in the water, given his job and all. Then he got to the car, grabbed hold of the door on the driver’s side, and yanked on it. Took a few times before that door opened.”
“Wait a minute. The driver’s door was closed?”
“Well, it was hard to tell from where I was. I mean, you really couldn’t see whether the door was closed, but that diver did seem to be tugging on the handle for a while. And, like you asked me before, the river didn’t seem to have much current. Still, I suppose the door could be pushing a lot of water in front of it.”
“Go on.”
“After the diver got the door open, he swung his head and shoulders inside, then he turned to the chief and the others on shore. He took out his mouthpiece and yelled, “Nobody, Chief. No body inside.” Smollett waved his hand in a circle over his head, and the diver replaced the mouthpiece and went under. Despite the rain, you could follow his progress by watching the rope. After the diver zigzagged back and forth on the bridge side of the car a few times, he circled around the car, kind of jump-roping his line over the top of it. But then he finally came up, shaking his head, and Chief Smollett waved him in. The diver swam ashore, and then—”
“Any trouble with the current this time?”
“No.” Doucette stopped for a moment. “No. In fact, this time the guy was swimming pretty effortlessly.” Doucette blushed a little. “I remember thinking, ‘No rush on the way back in. Nobody to save.’”
“What happened then?”
“When the diver got to shore, Smollett seemed to ask him a few questions, then motioned everybody to climb up the bank. I trotted to the cars. Gerry was the first one back. He waved off the ambulance guys, who waited for the chief to tell them to pack it in. I went up to Gerry as he reached his cruiser, and asked him what happened.
“He said ‘The judge’s wife, Mrs. Kinnington. Her car went into the river.’
“Then I said to him, ‘Did you see it happen?’
“Gerry replied, ‘No. I was driving across the bridge when I noticed its railing was broken through, and then I saw a car in the water. So I hit reverse, got out, and went down the bank. I couldn’t see anybody, so I came back up just as you pulled in.’”
I tried to picture it. “Did you ask Blakey about his identification of the car?”
“Yes.” Doucette grinned. “I asked him how he could tell it was her car, since it was already covered with water. He turned around, looked at the car, turned back, and grabbed my slicker like this,” Doucette clutched and twisted his shirt front, “and slammed me into the side of the cruiser. ‘If you ever say a fuckin’ word about this, or print one, you’re dead.’” Doucette grew still. “I think Gerry Blakey really meant it.”
“Anything more?”
Doucette closed his eyes. “Smollett came up and told Gerry he should check on the other side of the bridge—another car had stopped—to make sure there weren’t more ‘vehicles’ involved. Gerry whispered to me, ‘Remember,’ and sort of sloshed off. Smollett gave me his usual disgusted look, but he walked back to the other cruiser, where the diver was putting his equipment back in the trunk.
“John, I got into my car and drove home. Gerry’s threat had really shaken me. I was just pulling out my house key when I heard a honk behind me. I turned, and it was Gerry in his cruiser. He rolled down the window and said, ‘Remember,’ again. Just the one word, like that. Then he drove off. I went in and didn’t fall asleep till nine or ten in the morning. I never wrote the story. I never really saw Gerry Blakey again, either, because I moved to Boston a little while after that.” Doucette paused. “I think that’s about it.”
He made a great, credible witness. “Ever talk with anyone else about what you saw and Blakey said?”
Doucette’s palms pantomimed shoving me away from him. “No way, John. Oh, my parents knew the Kinnington incident was what pushed me to move out. It hit Mom hard.” Doucette cleared his throat and voice. “You’ve met Gerry. He and I are the same age. We went to high school together. He was always so big, but never good at athletics. Not well-coordinated enough, I guess. Just big. And aware, painfully aware, of his hair. He started to lose it when he was a sophomore, and it was pretty well gone by our senior year. Anyway, one day he and I were walking home from school, and we started talking, and well, we went into the woods and gave each other sex. He was real nervous, I think it was his first time ever, and I wasn’t exactly experienced. Anyway, we left the woods separately.
“The next day, I was walking to school, and a lot of guys suspected—funny, I still think of it that way, it’s certainly the right word for back then—‘suspected’—I was gay. One of them was jibing me that morning. He was a lot bigger than I was, but—like everybody else—a lot smaller than Gerry. So, I went up to Gerry between classes and asked him if he could please tell the other guy to lay off me. Well, Gerry grabbed me by the collar and slammed me against a wall of lockers, my books flying all over the place. Then he hissed at me like a snake, ‘I don’t protect faggots. Now stay away from me.’ A bunch of other guys and girls turned around to stare, and Gerry huffed off. I was so embarrassed. It was so bad that the other kids didn’t even bother to make fun. I gathered up my books, got to the boys’ room, and threw up. Then I cried.
“A few weeks later, I was walking home from school alone. I heard somebody running behind me. I turned, and it was Gerry. He apologized for embarrassing me, and then he asked me to go into the woods again. We did, but this time because I was scared of him. When we finished, Gerry said, ‘You know, cock-breath, if you ever tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you. Remember.’ He used the same word as that later time—‘remember’—like maybe his parents laid it on him when he was young, and he believed it had some kind of magic.”
I thought back to Gerald Blakey saying that to me as I left Judge Kinnington’s lobby, but decided it wouldn’t help Thom Doucette any. “Did you ever learn anything more about Diane Kinnington’s death?”
A firm shake of his head. “No. I mean, I read the newspaper account in the Banner, which was just a neutral rehash of a police report. I also read the Globe article, which wasn’t much more elaborate. And I did know about Mrs. Kinnington’s, ah, social life? But Gerry’s threats pretty much blanked me out on her death. In fact, I probably haven’t spent as much time on it in the last four years total as I have with you on this bench.”
I stretched my legs and stood up. “You’ve been a big help.” Doucette stood, and we shook hands. “And no one will ever know I spoke with you.”
“One last thing,” he said as we walked from the park. “As you know, I guess, Mrs. Kinnington’s body was never found. After talking to you today, giving you answers and listening to them myself, I’m pretty sure of something else. I think you already figured it out, but you weren’t there that night, and I was.”
We’d come to our parting spot, me for my car and Doucette for his office. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked me straight in the eye. “Mrs. Kinnington wasn’t in her car when it went off that bridge. And, from square one, Gerry Blakey knew it.”
Thom Doucette turned and trotted, despite the heat, back toward his newspaper’s office.
Sixteen
I DROVE BACK TO the apartment house and double-parked out front. I took the steps two at a time, and just caught the tail end of a dial-tone noise as I opened my apartment door. Someone’s time for a message had just run out. I waited until I heard the machine turn off with a click, then rewound the tape to PLAYBACK. There were two messages, the first from Val:
“John, I’ve arranged to have us meet Kim at two o’clock at the Sturdevants’. You’ll never find it without me, and, anyway, Mrs. Sturdevant wouldn’t talk to you without my being there. I don’t know how much time I have left—I hate these machines—so pick me up at one-thirty here. I mean here at my house. Remember, 17 Ford …”
One admirable thing about the tape. It cuts everyone off equally. The second message, after two hangups, was too concise to be affected by the machine’s intolerance for talking.
“I regret to report there has been no progress at this end, Mr. Pembroke. You need not contact me.”
I thought of Nancy DeMarco and wished that someone would make some progress toward finding Stephen.
Apparently, however, I thought and wished too long. By the time I got back downstairs, an orange parking violation card fluttered between my windshield and wiper. I put it in my pocket, stopped at a steak house on the way to Meade, and picked Valerie up at 1:35.
The Sturdevants lived on Fife Street, a string of large, split-level homes about half a mile long on one side of the road. On the other side of the road was apparently untouched forest. Val said that it was “conservation land,” which sounds ecologically advanced but which really means that the town fathers and mothers had voted to buy up vacant land to ensure it would not be developed into new homes or businesses. It also meant that the Sturdevants and other home owners could enjoy in perpetuity gas-fired barbecues and sun decks in their back yards and views of a forest primeval from their front yards.
We stopped the car at 9 Fife, distinguishable from the other splits only by its mailbox label and a bright-green upper story over a flat-white lower story. I’m sure that the Sturdevants thought the color choice enhanced the “country” look of their neighborhood. To me, their house looked like a giant 7-Up can somebody had tossed out a car window.
The flagstone path led in a straight line from the edge of the road slightly upgrade to the front door. The neighborhood was sans sidewalks, another favorite, faux-rural affectation.
A woman of perhaps forty answered Valerie’s ring. She frowned as she recognized Val. An invisible puff of air-conditioned atmosphere wafted past her to us.
“Hello, Mrs. Sturdevant,” began Val. “This is—”
“My husband and I had a talk after I spoke to you, Miss Jacobs.” Mrs. Sturdevant was slim and ash-blonde, but with a pinched face and eyes that flickered nervously from Val to me and back again. “Her father is not at all sure that you should talk to Kim about all this. We’re afraid it might upset her.”
Val looked taken aback, so I slipped into the conversation as gently as I could. “Mrs. Sturdevant, I’m John Cuddy, a private investigator looking for Stephen Kinnington. If I were in your position, I think I’d have the same hesitation. But a boy your daughter’s age has disappeared and,” I embroidered a bit, “the family is frantic to find him. If we could just come in and talk with you for a few minutes, we’ll abide by whatever decision you reach.”
The wheels were turning in Mrs. Sturdevant’s head. I had the feeling that they turned infrequently, and even then, slowly. “Well,” she began before pausing. She seemed to have been prepared by her husband to defend against a frontal assault, but not to decline an invitation to diplomacy.
“Please?” said Val in a soft voice.
Mrs. Sturdevant blinked and relented. “All right, come in.”
We followed her. The house was dark and quiet inside as well as cool. We turned left and climbed eight low steps to the living-room level. A large picture window provided a striking view of the conservation land across the street. In a corner of the room squatted a twenty-five-inch color console television (I believe RCA calls the cabinet “Mediterranean”). The sound was off, but the video displayed some sort of game show. An overweight woman in a red dress was hugging a slim, middle-aged host who smiled enthusiastically. Mrs. Sturdevant took a chair with her back to the TV. Valerie and I sat on the couch. Although there was a remote control device on the coffee table between us, our hostess made no effort to turn the set off. Perhaps she had become oblivious to it.
“Would you like some coffee and cake?”
Val, remembering my awkwardness at Miss Pitts’ house, was about to decline for both of us. I cut her off and said we’d be pleased.
“I’ll just be a minute,” said Mrs. Sturdevant, who had barely disappeared around a corner before Val turned to me.
“But I thought—”
“You were right,” I said, my hand up in a stop sign, “but I wanted a word with you before we tried persuading her.”
Val nodded and smiled.
“Now, as I see it, Mr. S. probably gave her some marching orders, and we’ve altered the conditions. However, we have to get to her without giving her a need or opportunity to call Mr. S. for further instructions.”
“Agreed,” said Val, “but in the kitchen she could—”
“Right again. She could call him now. But I’m betting that Mrs. Sturdevant has a one-project-at-a-time mindset. Accordingly, I think it’s safe for now.”
“Safe from what?” spoke a new voice.
Val and I both swiveled around. A much younger version of Mrs. S. stood in the foyer. She had the ash-blond hair and slim figure, but her ’do was kept in place with a yellow band, and her face was open and relaxed. Her eyes only momentarily went toward me before fixing on Valerie.
“Hi, Ms. Jacobs. Safe from what?”
“Hi, Kim,” covered Val. “We’re talking about Stephen.”
At the mention of his name, Kim started running up the stairs toward us and talking at the same time. “Have you heard from him? How is he? Where is he?”
She reached us at the couch just as Mrs. Sturdevant came bustling into the living room, carrying one full coffee cup and one empty one.
“I thought I heard your voice, Kim. We haven’t reached a decision yet,” she said, parroting my earlier phrase. “Please go to your room.” Mom was nervous still.
“I want to find out about Stephen,” said Kim, her eyes steady.
I decided that the mother probably hadn’t won many of these contests recently. “Mrs. Sturdevant?” I got up and walked over to her. Val joined us. I lowered my voice with my back toward the daughter. “The main concern here is not to upset Kim, right?”
Mrs. Sturdevant looked confused, but she nodded, if hesitantly.
“Well,” I said, “it seems pretty clear that Kim is going to insist on finding out what I can tell her about Stephen.” I paused just a beat. “She doesn’t strike me as a girl who’s going to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
Mrs. Sturdevant nodded again. The cups were rattling against their saucers in her slightly trembling hands. “She is a very determined girl sometimes.”
I gave Val a gentle nudge, a signal we’d worked out on the drive over.
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