Flynn

by Mcdonald, Gregory, 1937-2008

  "Amen," Flynn said.

  "Now, eat," she said.

  The children moved closer to the table. Todd took a piece of toast.

  Despite her speech, Elsbeth continued to sit back from the table a moment, looking at her empty plate.

  "Speaking of matters closer at hand," Flynn said, wincing, "we don't seem to have a spare piece of glass for the kitchen window in either the basement or the garage."

  "I'll get a piece of glass/^said Elsbeth. "The kitchen is cold. We're heating the outdoors."

  "The point," said Flynn, "is that I expect the local supply of window glass will be exhausted by ten o'clock. If the explosion broke one of our windows, it doubtlessly broke hundreds of other windows."

  "I know how to stand on line," said Elsbeth.

  Flynn said, "You're not taking your own advice."

  "I know. I'm sorry. It takes a moment for wisdom to sink in. Especially when you make it up yourself."

  "You're not eating," Jenny said.

  "I nibbled in the kitchen."

  Randy passed her the plate of toast and she took a piece.

  "While you were out in the yard, the Commissioner called, Frannie."

  "He's up early."

  "He said he's at the office already. He wants to see

  you immediately. Sergeant Whelan also called. He heard from the Commissioner, too. He's on his way over to pick you up. He should be here."

  "The Commissioner," said Flynn, "can eat applesauce."

  "You have something better to do," asked Elsbeth, "other than keep your job?"

  "I thought I'd tell Grover to drive me over to the boys' school."

  "Cartwright School? When the Commissioner calls before seven in the morning saying he wants you?"

  "I want to make sure the Case of Randy's Violin is being looked into."

  "The Mysterious Disappearance," said Todd.

  Winny said, "The Violin Case."

  "It's a terrible thing, stealing a violin," said Elsbeth. "It's almost like stealing a person. Who would do such a thing?"

  "That," said Flynn, "is what I mean to find out."

  "You said last night the Boston Police couldn't do anything about it unless the school asked," Todd said.

  "I mean to interview your headmaster," Flynn said. "What's-his-name, Doctor—?"

  "Jack," said Todd.

  "Jack?"

  "Jack Lubell."

  "You call your headmaster 'Jack'?"

  "Some of the kids call him 'Ding-Dong-the-Bell.' *

  " 'Ding,' for short," added Randy.

  "Or 'Dong,' " amended Todd.

  Flynn said, "In a private school, where I pay tuition on top of taxes, you call your headmaster 'Jack'?"

  "Or 'Ding-Dong,' " said Jenny.

  "This is a democracy, Da," said Randy. "Everybody's equal."

  "If your headmaster's your equal, then why is he your headmaster?"

  "Pilpul," said Elsbeth.

  "No," said Winny. "Pupil."

  "You go to a private school, dressed in blue jeans and sneakers like shoeshine boys—"

  "They have nice sweaters," said Elsbeth.

  "You're fifteen years old, you don't know how to tie a necktie, you couldn't spell your way out of a flower garden, and you call your headmaster 'Jack'!"

  "Or 'Ding-Dong-the-Bell,' " said Jenny.

  "Everyone dresses this way," said Todd. "And Jack tells us to call him 'Jack.' "

  "Furthermore," said Randy, "they're not called 'Headmasters' in this country, Da. They're called 'Principals.' Spelled p-a-1. Your principal is your pal."

  "Oof," said Flynn. "If he's my pal, then why does he keep sending me tuition bills?"

  "Speaking of your natural sense of aristocracy," Elsbeth said, "the man who starches your shirts has gone out of business. Second one this year."

  "There's no respect," said Flynn.

  "You just told the Police Commissioner to go eat applesauce," said Jenny.

  "That's another thing," Flynn said to Elsbeth. "Did you see what that indecent man sent Jenny?"

  "Yes. The pin."

  "Sending a thing like that to a twelve-and-a-half-year-old girl."

  "It's beautiful," said Elsbeth. "Priceless."

  "It's indecent!"

  "Mister I. M. Fletcher was very nice to send me such a nice pin," said Jenny, carefully picking a scab off her elbow. "I intend to marry him."

  Flynn heard the front door open and close.

  "What? Marry that rubber band?"

  Sergeant Whelan came through the door from the front hall.

  "And what," said Flynn, "are you doing in my dining room at eight o'clock in the morning?"

  "Good morning, Inspector."

  "Good morning, Grover."

  "The Commissioner wants to see you immediately."

  " The Commissioner,' is it? Shouldn't we call him 'Eddy'?"

  "You can, if you like, sir."

  "Would you like some coffee, Sergeant?" Elsbeth asked.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Flynn, but we haven't time."

  "Indeed, we haven't," said Flynn, standing up with his shoe box. "We're driving the boys to school, on the way."

  "But, Inspector—"

  "Grover, I have had quite enough debate since I entered this house six hours ago, and not one wink of sleep. I'll have no debate from you."

  "My name's not Grover."

  Flynn handed him the shoe box.

  "Here, let me give you a hand."

  Three

  "Come in, Frank."

  Police Commissioner Edward D'Esopo stood up behind his desk and held out his large hand.

  "Good of you to come as quickly as you could."

  It was ten minutes past nine.

  "I was obliged to drop the kids off at school," Flynn said. "It took only a moment."

  He put the shoe box on the Commissioner's desk and shook hands.

  The Commissioner was almost as big as Flynn, bull-chested, with lively brown eyes under brown curly hair that dripped onto his forehead. However, his midsection suffered from too many hours behind the desk, and too many long dinners in behalf of department public relations.

  "Would you like some coffee?"

  "I've had my cup, thank you."

  "You know Captain Reagan, of course."

  Reagan, a man near retirement, sat in the full costume of a Captain of Police in a side chair. He could either lead a parade or be laid out, altering nothing but his posture.

  "Morning, Frank."

  Flynn sat in the hard leather chair facing the desk.

  "I suppose you know what you're here for?" The Commissioner's question appeared rhetorical.

  "Rotation," answered Flynn.

  "What's rotation?" the Commissioner asked the Captain.

  "Never heard of it."

  "Whatever you'd call it," Flynn continued to answer. "Getting that benighted son of childless parents, Grover, out from under me and providing me with an assistant who has at least mastered the alphabet in English."

  "Grover?" the Commissioner asked the Captain.

  "Sergeant Whelan," Reagan answered. "Now, look, Frank. Sergeant Whelan is a competent policeman, a basic nuts-and-bolts cop who did well at the Academy. He was born and brought up here. You come from somewhere outside the city—Washington, was it? Chicago?—and even though the record of arrests and convictions you've had while you've been with us has been astounding, we all know, despite the uniqueness of your rank—arranged for you by the Commissioner himself, here—and your independent little office over in the Old Records Building, that you haven't had that much actual police training or experience, you don't know the city—"

  "Is Grover also the nephew of Captain Walsh?"

  "He's a good cop, Frank," Reagan said. "A while with you will make him a terrifically valuable man to the Force—"

  The Commissioner glanced at his watch.

  "I don't want to talk about this. Frank, what were you going to do this morning?"

  "Take a nap."

&n
bsp; "What?"

  "I got home at two-thirty. The airplane explosion had us up all night—"

  "That's right. You live in Winthrop, don't you? How's Elizabeth?"

  "Fine."

  "The kids?"

  "Fine."

  "It's the airplane explosion I wanted to talk to you about. Do you have anything, any other cases you can't put aside?"

  "Just a matter of theft," Flynn answered. "A violin."

  "What?" Captain Reagan said. He jumped forward in his chair.

  "I was up late last night sitting shiva with a poor wee man who mercifully had suffocated his ancient, dying, pain-wracked mother with a pillow."

  The Commissioner looked at him sideways.

  "It doesn't sound like a major case."

  The Captain slapped his knee and laughed. "And tell me, did 'Reluctant Flynn' have the heart to arrest the bugger?"

  "I left it to Grover," answered Flynn. "He derives a satisfaction from muscling the momentarily errant."

  "Christ." The Commissioner rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands. "When what's-his-name learns the alphabet to your satisfaction, I'm going to have to ask him to teach it to me. I have no idea what you just said."

  "His name is Sergeant Richard T. Whelan," Flynn said. "Due for promotion. Out from under me."

  "Frank." The Commissioner's tone of voice was of one who had abandoned rhetorical questions forever. "A Zephyr airliner blew up last night over Boston Harbor. It had just taken off from Logan Airport."

  "At ten minutes past three this morning, to be more precise," Flynn said.

  "What else do you know about it?" the Commissioner asked.

  "I saw it. I heard the noise and looked. I am, therefore, at least a partial witness."

  "Good," said the Commissioner.

  "Not at all good," said Flynn. "What else is known about it?"

  "Not much else. It was a flight to London. A passenger flight. A 707. That right, Captain?"

  The Captain blinked his red-rimmed eyes.

  Commissioner D'Esopo said, "We threw everything out in the harbor first thing, Harbor Patrol, fire boats. The Coast Guard was there immediately, although I understand there wasn't a chance of survivors. Already this morning I've arranged for professional divers to be flown up from an oil rig off Nantucket. In fact, they should be out there working by now. I've told them to bring up everything they can find."

  "God." Captain Reagan rubbed his eyes. "Horrible thought."

  "They might find some old cases of tea," smiled Flynn, "on which His Majesty's tax has not yet been paid."

  "The Navy is sending a full crew of divers up from Florida. They should be here later today."

  "The Navy is very excited," said Reagan.

  "Shit," said the Police Commissioner. "Some damned wire service reported this morning the possibility the airplane was shot down."

  "Shot down?" said Flynn.

  "By a rocket," laughed Captain Reagan. "Fired from a submarine."

  "Some old boy out too late in Dorchester says he saw a red streak come up from the surface of the water just beyond the harbor mouth and hit the airplane," the Commissioner said. "Why the hell the press feels it has to print everything every half-assed inebriate says—"

  "The Navy's got submarine chasers strung out from Newport, Rhode Island, to Bath, Maine." Captain Reagan's red eyes were wet with mirth. "They're having a high old time. Ah, well," he said. "Any excuse for a serious drink ashore. I was in the Navy once myself."

  "Somehow," Flynn said, putting a match to his pipe, "this doesn't sound a matter for the Boston Police."

  "It isn't," concurred the Commissioner. "The possibilities are too many and too big. To this point we had to be Johnny-on-the-spot."

  "Then what could you possibly want from me?" asked Flynn, lowering his soft voice to the nearly inaudible.

  The Commissioner said, "We don't want to end up on the spot, if you get me. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is sending in a team this morning. So is the Civil Aeronautics Board. They're on their way now, all on the same airplane."

  "Sure, it's imprudent to put that many important people on the same aircraft."

  Frank Flynn and Eddy D'Esopo grinned at each other.

  "Frank, you've had experience with the federal types before."

  "I know you think so," Flynn said.

  "Well, whatever it was you were doing before you became ours, you have more experience with the federal types than us poor slobs who worked our way up from the beat. You speak their language."

  "You mean, they speak German with a lilt?" asked Flynn.

  "I think they do," said Reagan, stretching out his legs. "I think they do."

  "You want me to be a baby-sitter," said Flynn.

  "I want you to be liaison for the Boston Police Department." The Commissioner looked at his watch again. "The first wave of feds is arriving at Logan Airport at ten-twenty. I said you'd meet the plane."

  "I see."

  "Zephyr Airways has arranged for a hangar so the bits and pieces taken out of the harbor can be laid out for examination. The hangar is already under tight security."

  "Although nothings in it," said Reagan.

  "Zephyr has also arranged a conference room at the airport for use of the investigators. That also will be under tight security. The Airways' liaison man's name—" the Commissioner referred to a piece of paper on his desk—"is Baumberg. Nathan Baumberg."

  "Is Nathan Baumberg a public relations man?" asked Flynn.

  "No. He's a vice-president of the airlines in charge of airplane maintenance or something. An engineer. On the phone this morning he sounded young and badly shaken."

  "Good," said Flynn.

  "I've asked the Massachusetts Port Authority to take care of the press. They've been given a room fairly far away from both the hangar and the conference room. As yet, they don't know where the hangar is."

  "You're obstructing the public's right to know," said Flynn.

  "I'm just protecting our right to find out first," said the Commissioner. "You'd better be off."

  c Tm off."

  Flynn stood up and headed for the door.

  "It's time I had an easy assignment like this."

  "Captain Reagan will make sure you're not bothered by any other cases while this is going on."

  Rising from behind his desk, the Commissioner picked up the shoe box.

  "Frank. You forgot your shoes."

  From the door, Flynn said, "That's not my shoes."

  "Your lunch, then."

  The Commissioner opened the shoe box.

  His mouth and his eyes opened wide, simultaneously.

  He dropped the box.

  It landed on an edge and the human hand flopped onto his blotter.

  "Christ!"

  "Who'd have such a thing for lunch?" Flynn ambled back across the large room. "A little something I found this morning in my backyard."

  He replaced the hand in the box, and tucked the box under his arm.

  Crossing to the door again, he said, "Grover should have had it at the lab by now. I remember giving it to him once."

  Four

  "Airport," Flynn growled.

  "Oh, no."

  Behind the wheel of the black Ford, alarm replaced the usual expression of general distaste on Grover's face.

  "Oh, yes."

  Flynn settled in his seat.

  "The Commissioner didn't assign the air crash to you, did he?"

  "It was a midair explosion, not an air crash," said Flynn. "And he did."

  Grover's face worked only when it was taut with anger, yelling at someone, usually as close to the other person's nose as possible. Normally, it looked like an eaten half-grapefruit in a kitchen sink, "He wouldn't do that."

  "He did."

  "Oh, no."

  Flynn said, "I think maybe it's time you started the car."

  By fighting his way into the speed lane, Grover put them into the thickest traffic and immediately had to stop.

&n
bsp; Flynn said, "We're meeting a gaggle of FBI's. By the way, do you call them Tibbies'?"

  "No," said Grover, staring at the license plate of the car stopped in front of them. "We don't."

  "You should," said Flynn. " Tibbies' and 'Cabs.'"

  " 'Cabs'?"

  "Civil Aeronautics Board."

  "Oh." Grover blew the horn. "We don't call them that, either."

  "I thought you wouldn't."

  "What's the first thing we should do on a case like this, Inspector? Where do you think we start?"

  "Well, now, I was hoping you'd ask. The first thing I want you to do is get me a map of Boston."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then I want you to put a red dot on the map for every pawnshop in the north and what they call the east sides of the city."

  "Pawnshop?"

  "I want you to locate every pawnshop precisely on the map. And I want you to draw a blue circle around each red dot representing every pawnshop nearest a bus stop or a subway station. Have you got that?"

  "What have pawnshops got to do with an air crash?"

  "You'll see."

  The car went forward a length.

  "What time are we supposed to be there?" Grover asked. "I mean, at the airport."

  "Twenty minutes past ten."

  Grover looked at his watch.

  "Good God!" He flicked on the siren and jounced the car over the curb onto the road divider. "It's ten-fifteen."

  "I thought you'd do that," said Flynn.

  "What?"

  The car slammed off the divider and darted through the red light at the intersection.

  "Turn it off!" shouted Flynn.

  "What?"

  "Turn the damned thing off. That's an order!"

  Grover turned off the siren. The car slowed to a more sedate pace.

  "The noise," said Flynn, "is painful to my ears as well as to my sense of dignity. It is neither my purpose nor my intention to allow myself to be dragged through the city in a vehicle screaming like a cat with its fur afire!"

  "You've said all that before," said Grover.

  "Have I, indeed?"

  "You have."

  "Then it's time my sentiments regarding the siren were seared on your soul! You flick the damned thing on every time your blood pressure approaches vitality. Watch that truck!"

  They swerved.

  Grover said, "I wouldn't have to 'watch that truck* if the siren was on!"

  "I know," said Flynn. "He'd have to watch out for you, and him I don't trust at all."