Chapter 4… The Visit
The ride took longer than he expected, almost two hours, but the early Sunday morning scenery was pleasant along the Mass Pike, and the huge trees that lined the streets of North Cambridge were just sprouting their leaves so that everything looked like part of an impressionist painting. Indeed, all of the old houses along Clifton Street were symbols of American life personified, if only one imagined them as such.
“The house hasn’t changed much since the last time I was here,” Harry said as he took a cup of coffee. “That was a long time ago. I think your kids were still in high school.”
Suzanne took a seat opposite him at the large dining room table, setting down her cup and saucer but paying no attention to it beyond that. Her eyes glazed and red, she looked through the bay window of the old house, focusing on nothing in particular. “It’s the only home we’ve ever lived in after we were married,” she sobbed. “Hutch loved this place. You wouldn’t believe how much work we put into it to make sure it never changed.” She swung her eyes toward Harry as tears tracked down her cheeks. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said, and she broke down into huge, heaving sobs.
Feeling awkward, he got up and made a move toward her but she put up a hand, stopping him. He sat back down and waited until he thought it was appropriate to speak again. “I assume the kids all know.”
Suzanne nodded as she put a soaked tissue to her eyes. “I spoke to them all last night after I got the call from that police detective.”
“You mean Detective Pruitt?”
“Yes, that’s her. I can’t seem to remember her name for some reason. It’s not that hard a name to remember, is it? Maybe I’m trying to block it out. Anyway, she seemed very nice.” Her hands trembling, she looked at him and added, “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my whole life, Harry, telling my children that their father was dead.” Once again, she broke into heaving sobs.
“I’m sorry Suzanne, maybe me coming here today was a mistake; maybe I should go.”
“No, stay... please. The kids aren’t flying in until this afternoon and I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be alone right now. I haven’t told anyone else about this, not a soul, not until we find out what happened.” She looked him straight in the eye. “What did happen, Harry? What the hell happened to my husband?”
He did move toward her now, scooting his chair over to her. An old floor board creaked as he reached over and took her hand. “Honestly, I don’t really know. I mean, we were all there, the whole gang, just having a couple of drinks and waiting to go to this reunion thing, and we just found him out there, in his car, with the doors locked. It was the weirdest thing, Suzanne. Why would he be sitting there in his car like that with the doors locked from the inside? Does that make sense to you?”
She took a couple of moments and suddenly looked up at him. “What are you saying, Harry? Are you implying—”
“I’m not implying anything,” he said, cutting her off quickly. “It was just weird, that’s all. I mean, I’ve known Hutch for longer than I’ve known my wife and kids. Never in a million years would I ever have thought that he would... I mean, knowing Hutch, I know that he had to be in perfect health, wasn’t he?”
Suzanne nodded. Looking down at her hands, she said, “He just had an annual physical—the folks down at the bank require it for all of their senior executives—and outside of a little high blood pressure, he was just fine. And I’m sure the high blood pressure was all his own doing—you know, taking work home and never, ever talking about it. He kept everything bottled up inside. No wonder his blood pressure was up.”
“That’s it?”
She nodded. “As far as I know.”
“And everything at work was fine? He didn’t have anyone who was on his bad side or anything, any enemies, politically speaking, I mean?”
Suzanne pulled her hands from his and suddenly stopped sobbing. “Where are you going with this, Harry? You are implying something. I know you. What are you thinking?”
It was suddenly a hundred and fifty degrees in the room. “Listen, Suzanne, I’m not implying anything—really. I mean, you knew Hutch better than anyone. What possible explanation could there be for him dying like that?” Feeling he’d gone too far, Harry suddenly changed the subject. “Listen, I’m sorry I brought it up.” He held up his hands and backed away. “Let’s wait to see what this Detective Pruitt and the medical examiner have to say. Hopefully there will be some logical explanation for what happened. In the meantime, what can I do for you? Anything at all, you just let me know.”
Suzanne hesitated, but he could tell something was on her mind. “Anything at all, Suzanne. I mean it.”
“There is one thing,” she said nervously as she took a sip of her now lukewarm coffee. “The kids’ flights are all coming in late this afternoon and they won’t be here probably until dinner time. Would you stay with me until then? Please?” Her eyes were begging him.
“I’d be glad to, but don’t you have any relatives or close friends that—”
She waved the thought away. “I have both,” she shot back. “But they’re all busybodies and I don’t relish the thought of me being the subject of their gossip on the phone and their Facebook pages. And besides, even though we haven’t seen each other as often as we would have liked, you and Denise have been as close to us as over the years as any of our relatives.”
“I’d be happy to stay, Suzanne. It would be my pleasure.”
Suzanne tried to put on her best smile. “So, are you hungry? There’s a great bagel place nearby.”
* * * * *
Staying until the kids showed up turned into staying until dinner was over, which turned into staying until a late May thunderstorm had passed. Like the deluge outside, there wasn’t a dry eye inside the house the entire time. Hutch’s death had been devastating on all of them. Now, finishing his second cup of coffee with Hutch’s oldest son—they called him Bobby—Harry was pleased to see that Bobby had inherited the best qualities of Hutch and Suzanne both. Suzanne and her two daughters were in the kitchen packing up leftovers and loading the dishwasher.
“How old are you now, Bobby?”
“Thirty-two, but I feel a lot older today.”
“What do you have, two kids now?”
“With a third on the way. You should see Maggie. She’s as big as a house.”
“I remember Maggie from the wedding. Beautiful girl. When is she due?”
“Six weeks. She’ll find out from the doctor if he’ll let her fly out here or not. My guess is not.”
Harry just nodded. “That might be a blessing in disguise. You’ve probably got enough on your mind. I hate to lay this on you, but your mom is going to need a lot of support. She’s a strong woman, mind you, but this came out of left field for her.”
“It came out of left field for all of us, but I know what you mean, and I’ve already thought about that. With me and my sisters all living a plane ride away, she’s bound to feel all alone. I’m prepared to do what I need to do. I think we all are.”
Watching him, Harry saw the same inviting attitude that made Hutch such a valuable friend. He and the brothers always teased Hutch back in the day that he was like an old hound dog, and it turned out that they were right. Hutch was fiercely loyal to a fault, and if Bobby had half the devotion and steadfastness that Hutch displayed, he knew that Suzanne’s angst would be as minimal as it could be. “When was the last time you saw your dad?”
“Just a couple of months ago, actually. We did some big bass fishing at Lake Amistad in Texas. It was something he always wanted to do. Those were three of the best days I’ve ever spent with him. I think he really needed it.”
Harry considered the last comment. “And he was okay, and all? I mean....”
“If you’re asking if he was in good health, or did I see anything that would indicate he’d be dead in tw
o months, no, absolutely not. We even did some running one morning when we had a late start due to some rain that come through, and he seemed perfectly fine. I was the one who was huffing and puffing after three miles, not him.”
“I figured as much. Listen, I’m not trying to pry. It’s just that your dad and I go way back and I just don’t get how... well, you know the rest.”
Bobby got up and said, “Harry, I know full well you’re not trying to pry. I’ve heard the stories about you and dad.” He smiled and pointed at Harry’s coffee cup. “You want another shot of caffeine for the road? Looks like that rain is clearing up.”
“No thanks, Bobby. Any more coffee and I won’t be able to sleep for a week. I just want to say goodbye to your mom—and your sisters, of course, and I’ll be heading back to Wallingham.”
“You’re not going back to Jersey tonight?”
“I was thinking about it, but I thought I’d spend one more day in Wallingham. Another of our old fraternity brothers lives near there and I think I can stay with him tonight.”
“Ah. That would be Ducky.”
“Oh, you know Ducky.”
“Oh yeah. He’d come by once in a while and he and Dad would drink too many beers and act like they weren’t buzzed. I never fell for it.”
“You’re a good son.”
“I try to be.”
“And speaking of being a good son, I assume you’re going to make arrangements to get your dad back here as soon as the medical examiner is finished.”
Bobby hesitated as if he hadn’t given it much thought. “Well, yeah, we’d have to talk about it as a family, of course, but I would assume so. Do we know, or do you know, when the medical examiner is going to conduct the autopsy?”
Those words were ugly, and they hit Harry in the solar plexus like a low uppercut. Looking at Bobby’s expression, he must have had the same feeling. “No, I don’t know,” Harry replied. “But seeing as I’m going to be in Wallingham tomorrow, I can check things out for the family and give you a call. That is, if you’d want me to do that.”
Bobby took a moment and said, “I guess it would probably make things easier, but I’ll call you in the morning and if it’s too much of a hassle we’ll just take care of it from here.”
“Sure, no problem. Your mom has my cell number.” Harry got up and headed to the kitchen to say his goodbyes, but turned back to Bobby just as he reached the doorway. “Listen, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, anything. What’s up?” Bobby asked curiously.
“During that fishing trip, or maybe even more recently, did your dad ever say anything about what he was working on at the bank?”
Bobby set his coffee cup back down. “You know, now that you mention it—”
“Does that mean he did?”
“Well, no. It was the exact opposite. Why do you ask?” Bobby’s forehead was suddenly creased, his face questioning.
“Well, your mom said he had a touch of high blood pressure and she was sure it was because he kept everything bottled up inside. You said about the fishing trip, ‘I think he really needed it.’ Sounds to me like he was stressed out about something.”
“You know, he must have asked me about my work a dozen times during that trip, but when I asked him about his, he kind of evaded me and changed the subject immediately.”
“Your mom said that he never talked about work at home.”
“Not to her, but once I got a little older he and I would talk about it once in a while. Usually it was when I was having some specific problem and he’d describe a similar situation and give me some insight as to how I might handle it, but lately he shut that conversation down cold. Do you think he’d gotten so stressed out that it had something to do with what happened?”
Harry put on his softest smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Just speculating, that’s all. I think I’d be better off letting the medical examiner do his job than running my yap. Listen, it’s getting late. Let me go and say goodbye to your mom and your sisters.”
* * * * *
On the Mass Pike approaching I-91 north, Harry glanced as the dashboard clock and noted the time. It was almost 11:00 p.m. and he wondered if Ducky was still up. He activated his Bluetooth and called into the atmosphere, “Call Ducky.” Moments later, the ring tone sounded over the road noise and Ducky answered promptly.
“Ducky, Harry here.”
“Yeah, I know. What’s up?”
“I’m on my way back from seeing Hutch’s wife and kids—”
“Yeah, how’d that go?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“So why are you calling?”
“Listen, I think Hutch was definitely into some stressful shit at work, I mean real stressful, the kind of stressful where he didn’t even want to share it with Suzanne or his kids.”
“C’mon Harry, we’re all like that. If I shared half the stuff I go through at work with Monica, she’d be nagging me to death. That’s more stressful than the stress.” Ducky was right. “And she does the same thing with me,” Ducky added. “To tell you the truth, sometimes I don’t want to know some of the things she deals with.”
“This isn’t about you, Ducky.” Harry looked into his rearview and wondered why the guy behind him was being a jackass. The road was wide open and the guy was right on his bumper. He would have changed lanes, but he was already all the way to the right.
“I know what you’re implying, Harry, but whatever it was that Hutch wasn’t sharing.... Well, do you think it was enough to give him a heart attack? To kill him? And besides, I thought you were of the opinion that there was no way in a million years that Hutch could have died from a heart attack.”
Harry suddenly realized that quite possibly he was seeing things in the conversations with Suzanne and Bobby that just weren’t there. “Maybe you’re right,” he admitted. The guy behind him continued to be annoying and he let off the gas slightly. Maybe the jerk would get the hint and go around. “Dickhead,” he said into the rearview mirror.
“I’m not being a dickhead,” Ducky responded. “I just think you’re trying too hard to disprove some theory that you don’t even know if it exists. I’m with you on this Harry, but I think we need to stop playing Dirty Harry and let the medical examiner do his job and determine the cause of death.”
“Funny,” said Harry.
“Funny but true,” Ducky responded back. “Just chill out, okay? Where are you, anyway?”
“I’m about to get on I-91 off the Mass Pike, that is if this jerk behind me doesn’t kill me first.”
“Just take it easy. Sometimes being a type A isn’t so good for you.”
“Right, got it. Speaking of the medical examiner, do we know when the autopsy is going to be performed?”
“Well, tomorrow is Monday; I assume it’ll be then.”
“I hope so. Do we know anyone who might have an inside track to the ME so we don’t have to wait forever to know the results?”
Ducky chuckled. “You mean besides my wife, the district attorney?”
Harry gave himself a mental slap upside the head. “Oh... yeah, I forgot.”
“She’s on it, Harry. We’ve already spoken about it. We’ll give you a call tomorrow as soon as we get the results.”
“Right, got it. Talk to you later.” Before ending the call, Harry said, “Ducky, one more thing.”
“Anything for you, Harry.”
“I was just wondering where the ME’s office was located. Do you know?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s in Northampton.”
“Thanks, bro. Have a good night.” Harry glanced into his rearview and ended the call. Evidently Ducky didn’t absorb the fact that he wasn’t on his way back to Jersey but was heading back toward Wallingham—but now Northampton. He’d be there himself to get those results.
The Brothers Page 5
