"Before the plane exploded?"
"Yes."
"Will he verify that?"
"He has."
"Well," said Flynn, "I suppose I should ask you what you did next."
"We turned around, hit the siren, and headed for Logan Airport."
"Why did you do that?"
"I drive an ambulance, Inspector."
"Ah! Thick of me. But the explosion was over the harbor."
"I know. I guess it was just instinctive. We saw a
plane blow up, so we headed for the airport. In fact, we did make an ambulance run."
"From the airport?'*
"A girl, you know, the girl who took the tickets for that flight—what do you call them, stewardesses?— went into extreme shock. She kept fainting. She kept saying, 'Daryl Conover, Daryl Conover.' "
"Probably the only passenger she recognized.' ,
"We ran her to Mass. General. I think they put her under sedation. I don't know."
"Okay, Mister Wiggers." There was the sound of a vacuum cleaner operating upstairs. "The Civil Aeronautics Board told us this morning they have complete confidence in their evidence that the plane was blown up from inside. Inside a cargo hold."
Wiggers looked steadily, evenly at Flynn without saying anything.
Flynn said, "What do you say to that?"
"Nothing," Wiggers said evenly. "Inspector, I don't know about rockets, and I don't know about airplanes."
"You only know what you saw, is that it?"
"I only know what I think I saw. The mind can play funny tricks. There are people who insist they've seen flying saucers, too."
"Have you ever seen a flying saucer?"
"Nope."
"Tell me, Mister Wiggers, how did the newspapers get ahold of this story, that you'd seen a rocket?"
"At the airport. There were reporters there. We were all talking. I said the plane had been hit by a rocket. I thought other people had seen the rocket. And they all jumped on me."
"And the United States Navy had ships at sea within the hour."
"In the last—what's it been?—twenty-four, thirty-
six hours I keep expecting someone else to say he saw the rocket."
"Do you feel foolish?"
"Well, you feel foolish when you're the only person in the world who saw something. I mean, I feel like one of these people who reports seeing flying saucers."
"I expect so."
Wiggers rubbed his whiskers and shrugged,
"I saw a rocket."
Seventeen
"Well, Cocky." Flynn settled down behind his desk. "So far today I've smoothed Grover's feathers, as much as he'd let me, visited a few pawnshops, examined bits and pieces of an airplane, interviewed a Zephyr Airways passenger representative, a Broadway producer, and a perfectly sober man who insists he saw a rocket rise up from the sea and hit a 707. At least we won't be bothered by Grover fetching us a gratuitous lunch today. I sent him home, hoping he'll get the idea of staying there for good and all."
Cocky handed Flynn an unopened telegram.
"What's this, now?" Flynn opened it. "Such shyness on your part? I expect you've had the message over the telephone anyway."
Cocky grinned.
"Ah, I see." Flynn read it: "meet with frings
MATTOCK WINTON KASSEL WINTON THREE THIRTY BANK
today rome cool rain — nno. You didn't understand the message, so you choose not to know about it. You're a shrewd, diplomatic man, Cocky."
Flynn was spared the silence of Cocky's not inquiring (and the silence of Flynn's not answering) by the ringing telephone.
"Frank?"
"Himself. Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn here, the Boston Police Department, Old Records Building, third floor, Craigie Lane, Boston, Massachusetts, New England, U.S. of A., deliveries at the rear, if you please. And who might you be?"
"Tim Reagan, Frank. Captain Reagan."
"Ah! For some reason I was expecting a Fibby named Hess."
"Frank, has anyone ever told you that some of the things you say don't make sense?"
"I think I've heard my wife mention that. Once or twice."
"I mean, you're brilliant, Frank, but—"
"I know the frustration, of trying to understand. My best advice to you is simply to sit back and let it roll over you."
"Sergeant Whelan is here. At headquarters."
"Old Grover? I thought he was spending the day quietly in his kennel."
"What happened to him, anyway, Frank? He's all beat up."
"What happened to him, did you ask?"
"He won't tell us. Black eye, cut cheek, swollen lips—"
"Ah, that! He mentioned, obliquely, mind you, something this morning about being attacked by a couple of violinists in Harvard Square last night."
"Violinists?"
"Yes. Now, who in his right mind would take on a couple of violinists, tell me that. But what's Grover doing at headquarters?"
"Trying to book someone for mass murder. For the airplane explosion the other night. I thought if you don't know what he's doing, or trying to do, you should."
"I ought. Whom is he trying to charge this morning?"
"Mrs. Charles Fleming."
"Sassie Fleming?"
"The Judge's wife."
"Grover arrested Sassie Fleming?"
"Handcuffs. The whole bit."
Flynn said, "Great! I'll be right over."
"You mean you are charging her?"
"No," said Flynn. "I'm taking her to lunch.'
Eighteen
"Really, Inspector, if you wanted to have lunch with me, a simple invitation by telephone would have caused me to give the request full consideration. It was not necessary for you to send half the police force of the City of Boston and the Village of Kendall Green to bang down my door, frisk me, read me my rights in a loud and unintelligible shout, handcuff me, and whisk me, sirens blaring, into your jurisdiction. I'll have the escargots." Elbows on the white tablecloth, Sassie Fleming folded her hands primly in the air. She had handcuff marks on both wrists. "You might have more confidence in your personal sexual magnetism. Of course, you may have felt that to invite me to lunch within twenty-four hours of my learning of my widowhood would be improper, as, indeed, it would be. But surely it would not have been as unconscionable as this grievous aggression against my person, my privacy, and my mourning. And, I think, a green salad."
"Is that all?" asked Flynn.
"No," said Sassie. "A glass of the white table wine would be nice, too."
Flynn told the waiter their needs.
Sassie said, "Tell me you had nothing to do with having me arrested."
"I had nothing to do with having you arrested. I had
sent Grover to his kennel to lick his wounds on his straw pallet—which is what I thought he was doing."
"How did he get so beat up, anyway?"
"Oh, that. Grover has a spectacularly unsuccessful arrest record."
"I didn't mind him appearing at the door, writ in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other, but Kendall Green being out of your jurisdiction, he had to be accompanied to my house by a Kendall Green policeman. There are only two. I found it all rather embarrassing. Especially after my efforts this last year to get a motion through the village council to get new uniforms for both of them."
"I can't apologize," Flynn said. "I didn't do it. I didn't know he was doing it. How are things otherwise?"
"I'm better than I might be. I borrowed somebody's horse yesterday afternoon, after you left, and had a lovely, long, hard ride by myself."
"Is that what you do to make yourself feel better?"
"One has to do something, Frank. One can't sit in a dark corner and cry to oneself. I'll go back to work next week. Monday. And then it will be spring, and I can get the garden going."
"How long were you married to the Judge?"
"About five years." They had been served, and they were eating. "Now you're going to give me a lot of dime psychoanalysis about my marry
ing someone old enough to be my father,"
"I'm not."
"I have not suffered the lack of a father. My father is alive, well, working. We're very close. Charlie and I were real lovers. His being twenty-two years older than I necessarily took some of the edge off it, of course. I mean, we knew that I would be more sexually interested than he, as time went on, but we never thought I should give up my sexual independence. Although I virtually did. Charlie was so exciting intellectually, and as a person, that—"
"Eat your snails. I didn't have you to lunch to grill you."
"You didn't?"
"No."
"Then why did you?"
"You should have more confidence in your sexual magnetism."
"Really?" Sassie's laugh was a little confused, a little embarrassed. "You're just trying to buck up an early widow."
"Maybe."
She said, "Inspector Francis Flynn. Married. Four children—"
"Five. Jeff is ten months old."
"In love with your wife."
"Deeply," said Flynn. "Totally."
He sat back from his omelette, holding his napkin in his lap.
"For all that," he said, "a man has a natural instinct, against any woman's compulsion to comprehend him totally, however indebted he may be to her, however loving he is of her, however fast friends they may be, against her thinking she knows all about him, can record every moment of his day and night, capture him, pin his wings against a board. He needs himself, some sense of himself beyond her, his own self. It's hard for a man, when he loves deeply and well. But for her sake, as well as his own, he is himself, and has a private self; he does love, and play, individually. No matter how close she is, he has to die alone. For this good reason, if for none other, no man, no woman, however much in love, ever gives up being alone. He never gives up individuality. He never gives up privacy. He lives, for the best of everyone. This must be true of woman, as well, God love us all."
Sassie looked at her plate a long time.
"At least your psychoanalysis is kindly," she said. "And I expect it's worth more than a dime."
"At least eleven cents," said Flynn.
"You're really very reassuring. In the right, odd way."
"I'll include it in a little book of sermonettes," Flynn said, "called Yes, There Is a World Out There."
"Do," said Sassie. "Send me a copy."
"I might even hand-deliver." Flynn ordered tea for them both." I take it you haven't heard much from your stepson. Charles, Junior. Chicky, is he called?"
"Chicky. I haven't heard a word from him. Is there any way he couldn't know his father was killed?"
"Everyone in the world knows it."
"I guess he's been mourning in his hole, and I've been mourning in mine. I guess I should have called him."
"I guess he should have called you," said Flynn..
"Death in the family is no time to draw lines," Sassie said. "Be stand-offish."
"Then why haven't you called him?"
"I just— I don't know. I just haven't wanted to get Into that whole Chicky-thing."
"Which is what?"
"Charlie's death is hard enough to take, without surrounding myself with Chicky immediately. Am I being selfish?"
"I don't know. What's wrong with Chicky?"
"He has his problems," she said. "He's a gambler. Compulsive. Gets into these gambling fevers. Nothing can stop him. God knows we've tried. Married young. She walked out on him, of course. Thank God there were no children. Chicky couldn't keep in possession of anything. I mean, truly. He sold the toaster. He sold the bed."
"He's a pharmacist?"
"Yes. And he's almost always kept a job. Although how, I don't know. He gets into these gambling fevers and he's not rational. He's not sane. I would think he'd be dangerous, you know, making up a prescription for somebody when he's on one of these crazy streaks. He insists he's never more sane. He hasn't killed anybody yet—as far as we know."
"Surely you and the Judge would have gotten him to a psychiatrist by now."
"Dozens of them. It doesn't take. He resists the whole thing. I think basically he resists me, as much of the work I do is in criminal psychology. So he resists any shrink we send him to. Every time Chicky's come a cropper and Charlie's had to pay his way out of it, the deal has been that in return Chicky would get himself to a psychiatrist and work hard at getting himself cured. Never works."
"What have his debts amounted to?"
"Oh, three thousand dollars. Seven thousand dollars a year ago. Twelve thousand dollars six months ago. Nice the way these bastards keeping extending his credit, isn't it?"
"He hasn't asked for anything in the last six months?"
Sassie said, "Not as far as I know."
"You do know," said Flynn. "You know that that walk Chicky and the Judge took in the woods on Sunday was another request for money."
"I don't absolutely know it," said Sassie,
"You don't know it, but you think so."
"Yes. I think so."
"You said the Judge was a little depressed when he came back from the walk."
"He was. But he didn't tell me what it was about."
"Did he usually tell you about Chicky's debts?"
"Sooner or later."
"But he didn't this time."
"He was leaving for England the next night. He probably didn't want to throw something sad and ugly at me at that point."
"You say the Judge didn't have any real money?"
"No. He didn't. Our incomes ran ahead of our expenses, so we had savings accounts, of course. We'd put money in savings and sooner or later Chicky would need it. This last amount, the twelve thousand dollars —Charlie had to borrow half of it from the bank."
"Is it all paid back?"
"Yes. I'm pretty sure it is. I don't think there's much in savings, though." Sassie pushed the empty teacup away from her. "Poor Chicky. So mixed up. His father was so important, so bright, so beautiful. There was no way for Chicky to compete decently. Away down deep, I think Chicky thought too well of his father—to his own detriment. He worshiped him. Charlie was God. I don't know whether this whole gambling compulsion was Chicky's way of punishing his father or himself. It worked both ways. Either he's been trying to prove his father wasn't God, or that he was. I can't imagine what he'll do now."
"Sassie," Flynn said. "There's something you have to face. There's a real possibility your husband needed a lot of money when he got on that plane to England the other night."
"I realize that, Frank." But her eyes were hurt. "I'm not telling you anything I haven't worked out for myself. But it doesn't work that way."
"What doesn't?"
"I got a letter this morning. You remember either
Grover or you said I'd get the half-a-million dollars' worth of insurance policies in this morning's mail?"
"Yes," said Flynn. "Actually, I said it."
"Well, I didn't. They're smarter than that. This morning I got a letter in the mail instead telling me there's a limit of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars on flight insurance. Apparently there was a big sign right there, saying so. We were tiddily. People were shoving by us. If we were thinking of the insurance as insurance, instead of some silly game we were playing, we would have noticed that sign, don't you think?"
"I don't know. Frankly," said Flynn, "I find the contention that someone would not murder himself and one hundred and seventeen other people for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, but would do so for five hundred thousand dollars, more than a little capricious. Sign or no sign."
"And anyway," Sassie said, "the letter went on to say even the one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars will not be paid until the satisfactory conclusion of an investigation."
"I see."
"So it means nothing, Frank. Nothing.'*
"It means nothing now."
"What do you mean?"
"It might have meant something to the Judge on Monday."
"He
was a careful man, Inspector. He wouldn't make such a mistake, if it were significant."
"On the other hand, Mrs. Fleming, one might expect a federal judge to consider himself and his wife above suspicion, in most matters. Most crimes require some conceit. Well, now." Flynn was paying the check. "I shouldn't worry you about this anymore, in your grief."
"Thank you."
"I said at the beginning of lunch I wasn't grilling you."
"You did."
"Then this matter about Chicky came up."
"One of us brought it up."
"Was it myself, by any chance?"
"I think it was, Inspector."
"Well, once on the table it needed a chew. I believe it best if you're prepared for all contingencies. Even if it's only a matter of having to confront your stepson —which you will have to do one day, you know."
"I know."
"By the way, if Chicky is in debt again, will you take it upon yourself to pay his debts?"
"I suppose so."
"Forever?"
"No," Sassie said. "This would be the last time."
"Are you sure of that, now?"
"Absolutely sure."
"I hope so. Come on, I'll find you a taxi."
"Do I dare leave your presence?"
"What do you mean?"
"Grover. Your Sergeant Richard T. Whelan. How do I know he's not lurking outside the door, ready to snap at me with handcuffs again?"
"Since he insisted upon working the day, I sent him out to interview the widow of the other deceased who had the prescience to insure his last gasp—however, for only five thousand dollars. Burial expenses, I'd say: a modest man. A woman named Geiger, in Newton."
"I feel sorry for her, whoever she is."
"Have no fear," Flynn said. "Nobody will arrest you henceforth, except, possibly, myself."
Nineteen
"Come in, Mister Flynn." The man in the dark brown suit stood up behind a mammoth desk.
It was just three-thirty.
Two other men in side chairs rose to shake hands as well.
"I'm Henry Winton. This is Clarke Frings and Robert Mattock."
Flynn shook hands all around. He had been relieved of his overcoat downstairs.
On one wall of the office was a Turner seascape.
"Well," Winton said. "Did you have a nice flight from Rome?"
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