Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  "I will. But if I don't, let me know when he's coming home the last time?"

  The tongue darting again, Wonsley nodded quickly and entered Bacall's room.

  =28=

  FROM A TRAINING STANDPOINT, THE LAST HALF OF MARCH AND the first half of April were the worst. Wild changes in the weather. Teens one morning, forties the next. Blizzard snow to blinding sun. As the longer distances in Bo's program climbed past fourteen miles, I learned where the working water fountains were. The second floor of the Harvard Boathouse. The rest room of the MDC rink on Nonantum Road. I carried change in my pocket for sugar drinks at convenience stores in Newton and Watertown.

  Medically, I stayed healthy, but my knees and hips began to hurt after ten miles each time. I started to wonder if legs were like tires, only so many miles in them before they blew. But hurting or not, I finished each run, gaining confidence that I could go as far as I had to, maybe even twenty-six miles.

  The Andrus case, however, stayed dead while she completed her visitorship in San Diego. Juggling an arson investigation and a missing person matter, I couldn't understand it. Sending notes only sporadically might avoid diluting their effect, but there hadn't been any activity since the sniping incident in February. Granted, Andrus hadn't been back in Boston, either, but Hebert or Manolo, or whoever, must have had some kind of timetable, some overall strategy. I just wasn't seeing it.

  * * *

  "I've taken you about as far as I can, John."

  I stopped stretching against a tree. The Wednesday before the marathon, I'd just finished a tapering run of six miles. The April sun was warm, so I was wearing only shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

  "Less than a week left, Bo."

  Sitting on his bench, the man moved a shoulder inside the two sweaters he still wore. Tied around his waist were two other layers and the sport jacket, a green carnation from the holiday wilted in its lapel. "What I mean is, there's nothing left to tell you."

  "How about hanging around anyway, see if I finish on Monday?"

  "No need. I know you'll finish. Besides, the race herself is part of your life, John, not mine."

  "I'd still like you to be there."

  "No. No, I think maybe I'll go somewheres else. This climate, it doesn't have much of a springtime. Hell of a winter, but no spring."

  He fingered the carnation. "I think I'd like to be someplace I'll see live flowers this side of June."

  Bo stood, wiping his right hand elaborately on a sweater, then extending the hand to me. "Good luck, eh'?"

  I took it. "Thank you, Coach."

  He shook his hand loose from mine and pulled the Redskins cap down tighter with it. "Remember to do that last tune-up distance on Friday, now."

  "I will."

  Turning away, Bo stuck both hands in his pants pockets and began to walk upriver. He paused once, taking the left hand out to remove his glasses and pass a sleeve over his eyes.

  * * *

  When I got home from the office that evening, there was a message on the tape machine from Inés Roja. Maisy Andrus, Tucker Hebert, and Manolo had flown in from the coast a day early because Hebert was leaving that afternoon for a tennis exhibition in Europe. Trying the number at the town house, I got a busy signal.

  I showered and pulled on some clean sweat clothes. As I tied the drawstrings to the pants, the telephone rang in the living room.

  "John Cuddy."

  "John, John! It is Inés, Inés Roja."

  "What's — "

  "The note, John! There was just now another note in our mailbox here!"

  "At the house'?"

  "It says 'TONIGHT YOU DIE BITCH'."

  "Call the police. Nine one one. I'm on my way."

  I put on my training shoes and took the four-inch Combat Masterpiece from the closet. Due to the one-wayness of the streets, it was literally faster to run the seven blocks than to drive them. Reaching the front door of the Andrus house, I couldn't hear any sirens, but the cops might be coming with just flashers. Somebody was shouting inside. I grabbed the door handle to crash it, but the handle turned in my hand, opening the door. Going through it into the foyer, I could hear Inés Roja clearly.

  From somewhere above, she was crying out, "He is going to shoot the professor! He is going to shoot the professor!"

  I started up the staircase.

  Suddenly Roja appeared at the top. "Oh, John, he is going to shoot the professor!"

  I got out "Where — " when Manolo barreled into Ines, pushing her off balance. He fired at me before I saw the rifle clear the balustrade. Something tore at the waist of the sweatshirt, a searing sensation in my left side. Reflexively, I pulled the trigger, rocking Manolo at the left shoulder but not putting him down.

  I dropped back a step to steady my weapon as he worked the bolt on the rifle. My foot slipped a little on the stair, my second shot missing as Manolo raised the rifle as high as his shoulder would allow. Inés lunged at him, cuffing his arm as he fired and sending his next bullet wild. Manolo bellowed as he pushed her off, the first sound I'd ever heard him make.

  Steadied, I fired three more times, each slug punching Manolo in the chest, the rifle dropping from his hands. He bucked off the wall, his palms coming together and twisting on the wrists, like a shortstop handcuffed by a bad hop. Staggering forward, Manolo pitched through the balustrade, the staircase quaking as he struck the Oriental rug on the first floor.

  As I moved toward her, Inés Roja was sobbing in two languages at once.

  =29=

  NEELY SAID, “CHRIST, MY WATCH TOPPED. IS IT WEDNESDAY OR Thursday?"

  Patiently, Murphy said, "Thursday, twelve-fifteen A.M.”

  Neely spoke to himself as he wrote. "Mass General, Room 309."

  Murphy said to me, "The Roja woman didn't tell us anything at the scene about saving your life."

  Three pillows propped me up in bed. I shifted my rump to the left, the drain in my side starting to burn as badly as the bullet had. "She was pretty shook up, Lieutenant. Might not even remember hitting his arm. How is she now?"

  "Zonked. The M.E. gave her something just after he pronounced Manolo."

  Neely looked up from his pad. "M.E. had to say it three times, the way you aced him there."

  I turned back to Murphy. "How about Andrus herself?"

  "She went back to sleep. The woman gets home from the coast, all 'jet-lagged,' she said. When she wasn't bitching at us about messing up her house. Said she took some pills, went to bed, slept through the whole thing, firefight and all."

  "Nobody else in the house, right?"

  "You got there before we did. Roja never called it in. Said she was about to when she heard Manolo heading toward the professor's bedroom."

  Neely was doodling. Murphy was biding his time.

  I said, "There are some things wrong here, Lieutenant."

  "Like what?"

  "Manolo had plenty of motive and opportunity on the notes. Even on the sniping incident last month."

  "I'm goosing ballistics to give us a quick read on whether the slugs from tonight match those. The weapon Manolo used was a Remington."

  "You might check with Ray Cuervo, the son from Spain. He said his father had one of those as a hunting arm."

  Neely stopped doodling. "So what doesn't add up, Cuddy?"

  "First, Manolo's supposed to be doing this for revenge, right?"

  Murphy said, "Go ahead."

  "Wouldn't you think he'd wait till she was awake'?"

  "Again?"

  "Manolo wants to avenge the killing of his father figure. Pass for now that it takes him over ten years to work up to it. He decides to bust Andrus with a hunting rifle that maybe belonged to the old doctor. Poetic justice. But wouldn't you think Manolo would wait till she was awake?"

  Murphy thought about it. Neely looked lost.

  Murphy said, "You mean because of the notes."

  "Right. Guy intends to scare her with the notes, especially that last one tonight, wouldn't you think he'd be sure she
was awake enough to read the last one and be in terror? And wouldn't you think he'd hold off shooting her till she was looking at him, eyes open?"

  Neely said, "So maybe the Roja woman surprised him. Who knows?"

  Murphy said, "Anything else?"

  "Yeah. Manolo seemed to think of himself as being in charge of the house security. Even if he's going to kill Andrus, maybe especially if he's going to kill her after she reads tonight's note, wouldn't you think he'd have made sure the front door was locked'?"

  "Was the front door ever unlocked?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "So it's more like he must have unlocked it on purpose before he started after the professor."

  "And why would he do that?"

  Murphy rubbed his chin. "Expecting somebody."

  "And probably not me."

  Neely said, "I don't get it."

  Murphy said, "It's thin, but this Manolo leaves the front door open, maybe he expected a guest for the execution."

  Neely looked from Murphy to me to Murphy. "Aw, fuck. You mean this ain't the end of it?"

  * * *

  The next time I opened my eyes, Dr. Paul Eisenberg and Nancy Meagher were standing over me. "Don't tell me I slept until visiting hours?"

  Nancy shook her head. "Ever the adolescent."

  Eisenberg said, "I was coming up to check on you anyway. I heard Ms. Meagher threatening the nurses' station with dire legal consequences if she wasn't permitted to see you, so I included her on my rounds."

  I said, "How did I draw you, Doctor?"

  "I was on duty last night. Heard about a private investigator shooting someone, getting shot himself, and being rushed here as the closest facility. A nice change of pace from the ordinary, if you'll forgive my saying so."

  "So you're not on the case as my specialist for internal medicine."'

  "Oh, no. No problems that way."

  "The slug missed all the vital stuff ?"

  "Completely. Just gouged a wormtrail through the bit of fat you've got over that left hip. You're in pretty good shape."

  Nancy said, "He was training for the marathon."

  "Am training for the marathon."

  Nancy said, "No."

  I said, "Yes."

  Eisenberg said, "You mean, to run the Boston Marathon this Monday?"

  "Any reason I can't?"I

  Nancy turned away and began pacing. "I can't be hearing this right."

  The doctor combed his beard. "It's not my call medically, but physically, it's certainly not a good idea."

  Nancy said, "Listen to the man."

  "I didn't even take any stitches."

  Eisenberg came over, lifted my johnny coat. "We let a gunshot heal from below. If we closed it over with sutures, an abscess might form." He dropped my coat.

  "So it's not that bad, right?"

  "A bullet makes a dirty wound, Mr. Cuddy. The slug itself, fibers it introduces from your clothes."

  "But you washed all that out."

  "We used a saline solution to irrigate the area, yes."

  I said, "If I run, what's the worst that can happen?"

  Nancy said, "John, you're a dunce."

  Eisenberg looked skeptical. "The wound could weep through the dressing, perhaps even break open. You'd lose some blood and risk an infection."

  "So if I run and the worst happens, I won't die before I finish the race, right?"

  "Right. But you could be very sick thereafter."

  "Which means I might be on antibiotics and maybe in bed for a while'?"

  "Probably."

  "If the wound breaks open."

  "Yes, but you'll also be rather weak to start with."

  "Any weaker than if I'd had a bout of the flu?"

  Eisenberg said, "Honestly? Probably not as weak as the flu would make you."

  I looked at Nancy and shrugged. She crossed her arms and stalked out.

  * * *

  I was saying good-bye to Room 309 when I heard a knock. "Come in."

  Inés Roja opened the door a little. "You are all right?"

  "Come on in, Inés."

  She closed it behind her. "I wanted to thank you."

  "I'm the one who should thank you."

  When Roja looked puzzled, I described her hitting Manolo's arm and throwing off his aim.

  A shake of the head. "I do not remember doing that."

  "Things were happening pretty fast."

  "After I called you, I heard a noise downstairs. I searched for something, anything, as a weapon, but there was nothing I could see. Then Manolo was coming up the stairs with a rifle. I tried to talk to him, to sign to him, but he kept moving toward the professor's room, pushing me away. I didn't know what to do. I was shouting, but she wouldn't wake up. Then I heard you and . . . and the rest you saw."

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes." Roja lowered her eyes. "No. No, I am not. I cannot seem to do anything to please the professor."

  "She's probably upset too."

  "No, no. She was like this before . . . Manolo. From the time she came in the door from the plane. Nothing can please her, everything makes her angry. I think the reason Tuck left so soon for the tournament is because even he cannot stand to be around her."

  "She'll ride it out."

  Roja bit her lip. "Today the professor said she would not need me for a while. That I could just as well leave."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I don't want her to be alone in that house, but that is what she wants."

  "Can't Hebert come home early from the tournament?"

  "The professor says she does not want him either. I could use a vacation from all that has happened, but I want to tell you something first. So that you will still watch over her."

  "What is it?"

  "I helped Manolo with his English since I worked for the professor. "

  "Yes?"

  Roja bit her lip again, facing the floor. "I saw all the notes. I do not think Manolo could write . . . could compose them alone." She looked up, tears brimming. "I think someone else must have helped him, John."

  =30=

  THE VIETNAMESE DOCTOR WHO DISCHARGED ME THURSDAY morning insisted that I ride a wheelchair and elevator to the public entrance. It was a blue-skied sixty degrees, and my body was balky from the hospital bed. I decided to walk off my stay before going to see Maisy Andrus.

  Winding down Cambridge Street, I took Charles to the Public Garden, my side feeling a little tight but not hurting. In the garden, the curly-haired man who oversees the flower beds was directing a couple of helpers with wheelbarrows containing clumps of pansies and other more exotic bloomers. A big van with R. B. COOKE & SON, INC./PACKERS AND MOVERS was backed down to the Swan Pond. The workers were unloading detached shells of white swans. Already on the lawn were red and green benches. A couple of other guys were lashing green pontoons to the dock.

  I sat for an hour or so, watching the flowers get planted so that people could see and smell them. Watching the swans and benches get hoisted over the pontoons so mothers and fathers could bring little kids for their first rides on them. Everybody getting ready for spring. There are worse ways to come back to life.

  I got up and walked west on the Commonwealth boulevard. Dogs were leaping for Frisbees, and college kids were playing hacky-sack. A couple of yuppies in madras bermudas hosed the winter from their bay windows.

  I reached Fairfield and went up to the condo. I tried Murphy, who wasn't in, then Neely, who was. I started to explain what Inés Roja had told me.

  "Cuddy, Cuddy. Hold on a minute, okay?"

  "Hold for what?"

  "No, I mean just wait like, all right? Hear me out."

  "Go ahead."

  "Murphy calls me this morning, he's got the ballistics report already. The flattened slug from the mailbox is a match for the ones we dug out of the plaster from where Manolo tried to whack you."

  "So the slugs match."

  "So what does that tell you?"

  "That th
e same rifle probably was used in both the sniping at us and the shooting at me."

  "Tells me more than that, pal. Tells me that Manolo was the shooter, both times."

  "Maybe he was. That — "

  "We found a rag there, closet of his room at the manse. Oil on the rag's same as the oil on the rifle."

  "Neely, just because- — "

  "What I'm saying here is, you got the right guy, okay?"

  "Neely, what I'm saying is that there might be another guy involved. Somebody to help Manolo write the notes, maybe get him stirred up about the professor injecting her husband way back when. Get it?"

  "That's the line you were pushing at the hospital. Just what do you got besides Manolo of the Morgue there?"

  I repeated what Roja said about the notes and suggested police protection for Maisy Andrus.

  "Cuddy, I got to tell you, I don't see it that way. We got a sniping, we got a match on the slugs, we got the gun, we got the dead guy with the gun. You got smoke and mirrors."

  "What will it take, Neely?"

  "To put a uniform on her door?"

  "Yes. Round the clock."

  "Never happen. She's got the money, she can hire somebody. Like you, for instance."

  * * *

  From inside the town house came "Go away."

  I leaned my forehead against her unopened front door and spoke louder. "Professor, we have to talk."

  "I see no need for that. Please just go away."

  "Not until I've finished what I started for you. It won't take long."

  I heard a sound of exasperation as Andrus yanked open the door. The eyes burned out from a taut face. Her hair was tousled here and matted there, as though she hadn't brushed it since sleeping on it. A breath of warm air from behind me rustled some of the loose strands. Andrus shuddered violently and moved behind the door. I barely got in before she closed it.

  Andrus shook again. "Can't stand drafts."

  "Are you all right?"

  Her head ratcheted up. "I'm fine! Or I would be if I weren't being interrupted every five minutes. What is it, Mr. Cuddy?"

  Wondering what happened to "John," I gestured toward the parlor.

  Andrus made a noise that actually sounded like "harrumph" as she strode in ahead of me and sat rigidly on a wing chair. "What?"