“Or,” Hawk said, “I see there only be three or four of them and figure I like your odds, and I drive back to Boston.”
“I prefer the wolf upon the fold,” I said.
Hawk shrugged. “Okay,” he said.
“If there will be shooting, we need to do this where a couple dozen college kids won’t get cut down in the first volley.”
“Don’t make no difference to me,” Hawk said.
“I know that.”
We sat some more. The Chevy sat some more. The touch football game flourished on the lawn. I’d spent some time at Taft with a power forward named Dwayne Woodcock, and again looking into the murder of a girl named Melissa Henderson. I thought about how the campus was laid out.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get out here and walk down that hill past the pond toward the field house. You pull away up past the library and into the quadrangle. Park on the other end, closest to the field house, and see what’s up. If they come after me, you come lippity-lop to my rescue.”
“Lippity-lop?”
“Yeah. Like Br’er Rabbit. I’m trying to bridge the racial gap.”
“Let it gap,” Hawk said.
“You got anything but the handgun?” I said.
“Usual selection in the trunk. You carrying that little .38?”
“No need to be offensive,” I said. “It’s got a two-inch barrel.”
“Yeah. You Irish. You think that’s long.”
“Long enough,” I said.
“Sho,” Hawk said. “Can’t miss from three feet.”
I got out of the car and closed the door behind me, and Hawk drove off. There was a long, grassy slope ahead of me with a pond to the left, where some kids lay on blankets, drinking beer. A portable radio was playing music I didn’t recognize. On one blanket, the kids were necking. College is great, except for the classes. Behind me, I heard a car start. I kept walking, not in a hurry, but as if I had a destination. I heard tires crunch on the roadside gravel behind me. Hawk, of course, was right about my gun. I was wearing a short-nosed Smith & Wesson .38, butt forward on my left side. It was a comfortable gun to wear and effective at close range. But from where I was to where they were, I’d be lucky to hit the car. Left of the pond, back up the slope, was the library end of the quadrangle. I was careful not to look for Hawk. Past the pond and to my right stood the field house where Dwayne Woodcock had shaved some points and Clint Stapelton had practiced his big serve. It seemed quite still on the warm June day. Behind me, a car door slammed, and then another and a third. One front seat, two backseat, I thought. We had some distance on the college kids now. I slowed down a little. I could hear my breath going in and out. I could smell the pond smell now. The muscles across my shoulders were tightening, and I couldn’t make them stop. I bore right, skirting the pond, strolling on the campus, unaware and free of care. I was aware of my heartbeat. Near the edge of the pond, I stopped for a moment and crouched down to tie my shoe. While I was down there, I took out the .38 and cocked it and palmed it. I have big hands. When I straightened up, the gun was barely visible. I was at the far end of the pond, almost to the field house, when they caught up with me. I could hear their footsteps. Then the footsteps stopped, and I heard a thud and a grunt and simultaneously from up the hill the sound of a rifle. I dropped to my knees and spun in the same motion with the .38 out in front of me. There were two standing uncertainly, and between them on the ground, a fat guy in dark pants was sprawled facedown with his arms stretched out as if he had started to dive. A foot from his open right hand lay a 9mm Glock with a silencer screwed into its nose.
“Freeze right there,” I said.
Both men had guns out, but they were in a crossfire and hesitated. Then one of them raised his gun and I shot him. The third man threw his gun away and sank to his knees with his hands in the air.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t.”
The car that had parked at the roadside spun gravel as it pulled away.
“Facedown,” I said. “Lace your fingers behind your head.”
“Absolutely,” he said, as he flopped facedown. “Absolutely.”
I looked up the hill. The blue Chevy was gone. I glanced toward the back of the library. Hawk’s car was gone. I bent and patted down the guy who was still alive. He was clean. I put my gun away. Then I picked up his gun and the silenced Glock and the Colt 9 that the third guy had been carrying, and, one by one, threw them into the middle of the pond. At the top of the hill, Hawk’s car appeared. I went to the prone guy and put my foot in the middle of his back.
“Tell Sonny that he’s starting to annoy me,” I said.
Then I turned and went uphill to the car. I ran up to show that I could, and maybe somebody had called the cops. Hawk must have thought the same, because he roared away while I was still closing my door, and in ten seconds we were doing 50. I buckled my seat belt.
“What’d you use?” I said. “Model 70,” he said.
“Winchester,” I said, “five-round magazine, bolt action?”
“And a scope,” Hawk said.
“Oh, hell, a scope. That’s no fair.”
“No,” Hawk said. “It ain’t.”
35
According to the papers the next morning, two men had been shot at Taft University and two getaway cars were being sought. Two other men were said to have escaped on foot as police searched the campus and surrounding woods. Both were described as white males, as were the victims.
“For crissake,” I said to Hawk. “Nobody even saw you.”
“I run off lippity-lop,” Hawk said.
“You ready to make another try at Taft,” I said, “in your car?”
“Be a number of policemen still around,” Hawk said.
“Got nothing to do with us,” I said. “I’m working on a case. You’re my trusty sidekick.”
“Long as I don’t have to call you Kemo Sabe.”
“Ever wonder what that meant?” I said.
“I always thought it meant Paleface Motherfucker,” Hawk said.
“That’s probably it,” I said.
No one followed us this time when we drove out to Taft. There was some crime scene tape down by the pond and several state police cars parked near the administration building. Hawk stayed in the car. I got out. Nobody paid much attention to either one of us.
Inside the registrar’s office, I had to ratchet up my virile charm a little to get past the grim woman at the counter. But I did, and she took my card in and came back and said I could go into the inner office.
“I’m Betty Holmes,” she said. “Are you involved in the investigation?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you have any idea who shot those men?”
“We have some possibilities,” I said.
She was maybe fifty, a tall, pale blonde woman with a strong nose, her hair pulled back tightly, and a gleam of intelligence in her eyes. She looked at me silently for a moment. I could see her thinking.
“Who’s we?” she said.
“Me,” I said. “I was trying to deceive you.”
“How charming,” she said. “What is it you are actually doing?”
“I’m investigating the death of a woman who went here probably in the late 1960s.”
“Which has nothing to do with the recent shootings,” she said.
“I don’t know what has to do with what,” I said. “But I’m not here to investigate the shooting.”
“Well,” she said, “good. At least now we know what we’re talking about.”
“Sort of,” I said. “Could you see if you have any record of Emily Gold? Or a woman named Lombard.”
“If they attended, we would have a record. What is Ms. Lombard’s first name?”
“I don’t know. She’s been referred to as Bunny Lombard, but I assume it’s a nickname.”
“One would assume,” she said. “But, working here, I’ve encountered some unusual names.”
She wrote the names on a piece of paper.
“What was the second one?”
“Fancy,” I said. “Abner Fancy.”
She smiled but didn’t comment. “Why do you want these names?” she said.
“Emily Gold is the victim. Others are names associated with her at the time of her death.”
“She would be,” Betty Holmes did some brief addition in her head, “in her fifties.”
“She was murdered, probably in her late twenties,” I said. “In 1974.”
“And you’re still working on the case?”
“On behalf of her daughter,” I said.
She thought about it for a little while. I sat and waited quietly, shimmering with virile charm. It worked again, as she summoned the grim woman from out front and dispatched her to find the names.
“Have you always been a private detective,” Betty Holmes said.
“I was once a cop,” I said.
“And?”
“And I’ve always been inner-directed,” I said.
“But you still wanted to be a detective.”
“I’m good at this,” I said.
“And one can make a living?”
“I can,” I said.
The grim guardian returned with some computer printouts. She looked at me with disapproval. I did not stick out my tongue at her. Betty Holmes looked at the printouts for awhile.
“Emily Gold enrolled with the class of 1967 in September of 1963. She left school in June of 1965 at the end of her sophomore year. We have a Bonnie Lombard in the same class. She left school in January of 1965. We have no Leon Holton or, sadly, an Abner Fancy.”
“Addresses?”
“Yes. Nearly thirty years old,” she said.
“Got to start somewhere.”
“Here,” she said.
I took the printout. Emily had an address on Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla. In her final semester she’d gotten four D’s and a C. Bonnie Lombard had an address in Paradise.
“How do I get the names of some classmates?” I said.
“Why?”
“I’m floundering,” I said. “I have lots of information and no proof. Rule Seven of the inner-directed sleuth operating manual says, when you don’t have enough proof, learn anything you can.”
“Rule Seven,” she said.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She smiled. “Our alumni secretary should be able to help you with that,” she said.
“Could you direct me to him?” I said. “And maybe make a phone call to get me by the Gorgon at the gate.”
“Gorgon at the gate,” she said and laughed and reached for her phone. “Do all detectives talk that way?”
“Most of them are less inner-directed,” I said.
36
There were 3,180 kids in the class that started at Taft in September of 1963. Hawk lay on the couch in my office with his ankles crossed and a Homestead Grays cap tilted down over his eyes, while I went through the list. Emily Gold was there among the G’s. Bonnie Lombard was there among the L’s. I recognized no other names.
“If we divided this list equally between us,” I said to Hawk, “we’d each have only fifteen-something-hundred people to interview.”
“One thousand five hundred ninety,” Hawk said. “And who gonna keep them from shooting your ass while I’m off chatting with my half?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I forgot about that.”
“You want to be the one tells Susan I let them kill you?”
“There’s something wrong with that question,” I said. “But no, I don’t.”
“So maybe you need to winnow the list,” Hawk said.
“Winnow?” I said.
“Glean.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I could winnow geographically, and glean all the names in the Boston area.”
“You know,” Hawk said, “we checked out Bonnie Lombard we might not have to winnow and glean no more.”
“Why didn’t I think of that,” I said.
“You white,” Hawk said.
“I do the best I can,” I said.
It was hot enough for air-conditioning as we drove along the North Shore toward Paradise and turned off into the old part of town. Paradise was a fishing town gone upscale. There were still fishing boats in the harbor, but the pleasure boats now outnumbered them, and Paradise Neck, across the causeway, was some of the most expensive real estate in Massachusetts.
“Don’t appear that Bonnie Lombard be going hungry,” Hawk said, as we drove across the causeway with the harbor on our left and the gray Atlantic ocean rolling in to our right.
“Probably had her own room, too,” I said.
“How many brothers you think I going to see out here?”
“Well,” I said. “These people might have servants.”
Seventeen Ocean Street was a rolling lawn behind a fieldstone fence topped by a big gray-shingled Victorian house with a slate roof. There was no gatehouse, but a black Chrysler was parked at the foot of the driveway, its nose toward the street, effectively blocking the way. When we pulled up, a hard-looking guy in a black suit got out and walked over to us.
“That be the chauffeur?” Hawk said.
“You bet,” I said and rolled down my window.
“How you doing?” I said.
“Can I help you?” the chauffeur said.
It wasn’t unfriendly. It wasn’t warm. It was flat and neutral and told me nothing.
“I’m a detective,” I said. “I’m trying to locate a woman named Bonnie Lombard.”
“Nobody here by that name,” the chauffeur said.
“Who lives here now?” I said.
“None of your business,” the chauffeur said.
Again, neither threatening nor friendly, simply a statement.
“Okay,” I said. “How long have they lived here.”
The chauffeur didn’t even bother to answer that. He simply shook his head.
“Well,” I said. “Nice talking with you.”
As we drove away, Hawk said, “Maybe he wasn’t the chauffeur.”
“What the hell was that all about?” I said.
“There another guy in the car,” Hawk said.
“I know.”
“Seem kind of unfriendly for a nice suburban family,” Hawk said. “Even a rich white one.”
“Makes one curious.”
“It do.”
We drove back across the causeway and found the town library and went in. In the reference section, we found the town directory, which listed residents by address, and found that the property at 17 Ocean Street was owned by Sarno Karnofsky.
“Would that be the elegant and charming Sonny?” I said.
“I believe it would,” Hawk said.
Curiouser and curiouser.
37
Pearl II was tearing around in Susan’s backyard with an azalea bush she had uprooted. Hawk and Susan and I were having an entirely delicious sangria, which I had made, and eating cheese with French bread and cherries.
“What am I going to do,” Susan said. “She uproots my shrubs, eats my flowers, digs huge holes.”
“I could shoot her,” Hawk said.
“Shush,” Susan said. “She’ll hear you.”
“Just a thought,” Hawk said.
He held out a small slice of cheese, and Pearl came to inspect it. She sniffed carefully, took it gingerly in her soft mouth, chewed it once, and spit it out. She looked at it intently for a moment and then rolled on it.
“I was thinking she might just eat it,” Hawk said.
“That would be common,” Susan said.
“Maybe she needs more exercise,” I said. “Tire her out.”
“I run with her every morning along the river,” Susan said. “And Ann takes her to the woods at noon and lets her run with the other dogs. And Susanna comes around four and walks her for an hour.”
“And she’s not tired,” I sai
d.
“Not tired enough,” Susan said.
“Ah, sweet bird of youth,” I said.
“You’re both making light of this, but I love my yard, and she’s ruining it.”
“She’ll outgrow it,” I said. “She’s just a puppy, albeit a large one.”
“Baby Hughie,” Hawk said.
“I know,” Susan said. “But by that time, I’ll be living in a patch of arid wasteland.”
“When this Emily Gold thing is over, maybe she can come stay with me for awhile,” I said.
“That’s Daryl’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find out anything useful at Taft?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Was Hawk with you when you went to Taft?”
“We’re inseparable,” I said.
“I read in the paper that there was a shooting,” Susan said.
I smiled at her and nodded. She looked at Hawk. He smiled at her and nodded. Susan sat quietly for a moment, without anything showing in her face except being beautiful.
Then she said, “What did you find out?”
I told her. Pearl had discarded the azalea bush and was now digging intensely near the back steps.
“You mean Bunny Lombard gave an address now occupied by this Karnofsky person?”
“If Bunny is the same as Bonnie,” I said.
“Did he live there when she gave the address?”
“Don’t know yet,” I said. “But among the things Sonny told me to lay of off was his family.”
“You think she’s his family?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Susan watched Pearl dig. I knew she was deeply distracted, because she didn’t tell Pearl to stop.
“I assume that Karnofsky made another attempt at Taft,” Susan said.
I nodded. The hole Pearl was so industriously digging was now deep enough to contain all but her rear end.
“And it hasn’t deterred you.”
“It has increased my anxiety,” I said.
“Really?” Susan said. “I’m not certain you feel anxiety.”
“I try not to dwell on it,” I said.
“But you are frightened sometimes.”
“Of course.”
She looked at Hawk. “Are you ever scared?” she said.
Back Story Page 10