“Well, that’s it, isn’t it?”
“That’s what?”
“There is no girl. There never was, you see. That is what one had better think.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“The girl getting the tea? I think she just left. I told her you like cream puffs. I remember that about you. I told her to make cream puffs especially for you.”
“Thank you.”
Shrewdly, Callie Loveson looked at Flynn. “She’s probably gone to the river to get the chocolate pudding for the cream puffs.”
“There is no chocolate pudding in the river,” Flynn said.
Callie laughed. “You’re a sane one!”
“Well . . .”
“What day is this?”
“Thursday.”
“Yes. I’ve been out of the hospital three months now. And three days.” She looked perplexed at the piles of magazines around her chair. “But why am I the one who goes to the hospital when it was Louie who had his head broken? We were in New York for a long time, you see. Well, I went to see him in the hospital there. That man from the embassy took me. Then they kept me in the hospital! I suppose it was cheaper than the hotel. Do you think that’s why they kept me in the hospital?”
“Possibly.”
“Because I didn’t see that much of Louie in the hospital. Then I got sick. The hospital began to sway back and forth, up and down. My stomach got sick. My head ached. Louie was with me then. Did you know New York floats?”
“Certainly. New York floats everything.”
“After a while, the hospital settled down. All that motion stopped. Then they planted trees outside the hospital. Put hills around there. That was nice. Except for Mrs. Roberts. She wasn’t nice. Your name is Winthrop, isn’t it?”
“I live in Winthrop.”
“I remember. I’ve been back to that hospital many times. It’s wonderful how they can change the shape of the hills outside the windows these days, isn’t it?”
While listening, Flynn was trying to figure out what to do with Mrs. Loveson. The woman who was supposed to take care of her had run out. He had no idea how to reach her. He wasn’t sure he would if he could. At least not to return to take care of Mrs. Loveson. In the hospital, Professor Loveson assumed his wife was being taken care of.
Flynn wondered if Elsbeth, through her charities, knew of someone who could come and stay with Mrs. Loveson.
It surely wasn’t Elsbeth’s problem.
He supposed he would have to call an agency called Human Services or something. Would Cocky know how to be in touch with the right agency? What to tell them? Of course.
Flynn thought he probably would have to wait hours before someone from some agency showed up to say what should be done with Mrs. Loveson.
“Did you have a nice tea?” Callie asked him.
“Oh, yes. Thank you. The éclairs were excellent.”
“It’s better not to think of things like that,” Callie said.
“Of course not.”
“I mean, like what happens to girls.”
“That’s right.”
“What happens, happens, I always say. I mean, people sometimes do get their heads broken.”
“Yes.”
“They can still become Harvard professors.”
Flynn said, “I think it helps.”
“The doorbell is about to ring,” Callie said.
“Is it?”
The doorbell rang.
“It always clicks like that first.”
“I see.” Flynn’s perfect ears had not heard a click. “Who is at the door?” Flynn asked her.
She frowned. “It’s not Louie. He’s in the hospital.”
In the front hall, Flynn pushed the button of the door intercom. “Who is it?”
Callie said, “Richard.”
“Flynn?”
“Ah, Grover. It’s you, is it?”
“Ring the buzzer.”
“Ah, yes. Happily.”
He did so. Opened the apartment’s front door. Heard the elevator rise the three stories.
Grover came out of the elevator with a big brown paper bag cradled in his right arm.
Flynn stood back to let him enter. “Grover, I’m glad to see you! I never thought I’d hear myself saying that. Let me take the bag.”
“I brought food for Mrs. Loveson.”
“How kind.”
“How is she? Did you tell her . . . ?”
“She seems to know Loveson’s in the hospital. Thought I’d leave it at that.”
Flynn placed the bag on the kitchen table.
“Hi, Mrs. Loveson!” Grover said cheerily.
“How good to see you!” Her eyes beamed.
“Where’s the woman?” Grover asked. “The one who’s supposed to be taking care of Mrs. Loveson?”
“She fled almost the moment I arrived. Before I had a chance to tell her we have a problem.”
“No problem,” Grover said.
“We haven’t a problem?”
“No. I’ll stay with Mrs. Loveson tonight.”
“Grover, you can’t!”
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Grover, you can’t take care of an unwell old woman! Feed her. Put her to bed.”
“Of course I can. My sister and I took care of my old Granny more than five years, when she was this way. Mostly I did. My sister did better at school than I did.”
“And where was your uncle, Captain Walsh, while all this was going on?”
“He visited his mother Sundays. Some Sundays.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Lots of things.” While Grover took off his coat, Flynn was taking bread, eggs, bacon, pork chops, baked beans, chocolate éclairs out of the bag. “Nothing is ever absolutely senseless, is it? If you follow it far enough.”
Grover said, “I discovered last night I had to wash the pots and pans before I cooked in them. The glasses, dishes, knives, and forks . . .”
“Grover, why don’t we call the Department of Human Services, or whatever it’s called. Then maybe you’d have the goodness to wait here for them to come do whatever they do?”
“No. I want to do this. I’ll stay with her. Take care of her. I owe Professor Loveson this much.”
“Grover, you’ve known the man only a few days!”
“That’s all right. Flynn, you’re always sayin’ things I don’t understand.”
“So you say.”
“The professor makes sure I understand what he says.”
“He’s kind . . . ?”
Grover almost said the obvious. Instead he said, “Why don’t you just go get your appendix out? It must have grown back again by now.”
Flynn grinned. “I’m so pleased by you, I might just do that. Make a present of this one to you.”
“I got some cream puffs.” Grover put them in the refrigerator. “Do you think Mrs. Loveson likes cream puffs?”
“I’m certain of it. Oh, here are Professor Loveson’s keys.” Flynn was putting on his coat. “Just don’t tell her you got the chocolate pudding from the river. She’ll think you’re crazy.” In various places in the Flynn home that night after dinner three violins were practicing three different sections of a Mozart piece simultaneously. They were being practiced for the Flynn family’s Sunday afternoon living-room musicale.
Jet airplanes flew over the roof as they took off from and landed at Logan International Airport just across the harbor.
Flynn found his wife working on a computer in the den.
“Will you be free to take a walk?”
“Lovely idea,” she said. “The sweet music of the Flynn household getting to you? Me, too. Let me just finish logging this verse. There! Here. Come read it.”
She scrolled all three verses onto the screen.
“This poem has taken me eleven months. Sometimes having a child is quicker.”
Leaning over her, he read the
poem.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
He read it again. “Very much. I shall enjoy reading that piece for the rest of my life.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Would you like to see a note Winny left for me? You know my poem about how an alcoholic sees the world, in which I use every word there is for the color red?”
“Sure.”
“This is the note Winny left me.”
She scrolled up.
There appeared on the screen:
Mama,
As you know I like your poem WELL . . . RED very much. But I’d see all those reds better if once you used the word “green.”
Winny
“Isn’t that wonderful?” Elsbeth asked. “And you know what? He’s right! Nine years old and he’s right!”
She turned off the computer.
As she marched beside Flynn along the dark sidewalk, beneath Elsbeth’s good tweed skirt her sensible brown shoes kicked up dead leaves rhythmically.
Elsbeth grasped Flynn’s point regarding Lieutenant Detective John Kurt before he made it.
“That bears further looking into,” she said.
“Yes.”
“One man using his uniform and gun only to exercise his prejudices is like the little match that can set the world afire. Prejudice is the original sin, and it will destroy the world yet.”
“Cocky tells me Kurt seems to be the center of a growing pool of young admirers, among the police.”
Elsbeth told Flynn that her new publisher suggested illustrating her next book of poetry. “‘If the images I make in your head aren’t better than what an artist can do with pen and ink, then don’t publish me,’ I told him.”
“The image is the illustration, isn’t it?” Flynn asked.
He then brought Elsbeth up to date on the affair Loveson.
He flashed his pocket light along the cemetery wall to find the break in it. There was no moon this night.
“This is where Jenny brought me Sunday night. Over the wall just here.”
Elsbeth climbed over the cemetery wall. “I don’t suppose we’re supposed to be in the cemetery after dark.”
Flynn followed her over the wall. “I don’t think many want to be.”
“Think of all the places, Franny, people haven’t wanted you and me.”
“Everywhere.”
“Do we go uphill?”
“Yes.”
She took his hand. “We’ve made a difference, you and I.”
“One way and another,” he said.
Trudging up the cemetery hillside slippery with dead leaves, she said, “But how many times do I have to remind you, Franny, you think too much. You’re too philosophical. You want to see into things too deeply.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“This Loveson business. You’re doing it again. You’re trying to understand all this as some beginning-of-the-century academic jostling for position. You just said you think it’s existential nihilism in a new form.”
“And what should I be thinking? I must understand the people involved, what concerns them, what they’re thinking.”
“What do I always tell you? At the bottom of every difficulty, criminal or not: always a little schnook with a grievance.”
At the top of the hill, she asked, “So where’s the children’s trysting place?”
“Over here.” Flynn moved to his left. “This way.”
“You remember our place in the olive orchard, Franny, in that little town outside Basra?”
“We were older.”
“They would have killed us.”
“That was part of the fun. Wasn’t it?” He shined his light on the thick oak. “That’s where the boy lover got his ear nailed to the tree.”
“Poor Billy.”
“Louie Loveson suggested whoever nailed Billy to the tree thought Billy was ‘unmanly.’ Had done something ‘unmanly.’ What’s considered ‘unmanly’ these days?”
“Not wearing an earring high up in the ear apparently.”
“Look at that!” Flynn’s light had passed over a tombstone. “Capriano!” He ran his light around other tombstones surrounding them. “Capriano, Capriano! We’re in the Capriano family plot! I knew I had seen that name in some odd place recently. I’ll be . . . ! I guess when I was here Sunday I didn’t know Billy’s last name was Capriano.”
He went to the most recent grave. “This does have something to do with his family.”
Crouching before the most recent tombstone, Flynn read TERESA CAPRIANO, her date of birth, her date of death just five years past.
On the same tombstone was inscribed ANTONIO CAPRIANO. His date of birth was five years earlier than his wife’s. There was no date of death.
Flynn said, “Billy’s grandfather is still alive.”
“Sure,” Elsbeth said. “Mr. Anthony. A fine old gentleman. Seldom comes to the store anymore. He’s nearly eighty.”
“Yes, he is,” Flynn said.
“You never met Mr. Anthony?”
“I guess not. But I was reasonably certain neither Billy’s father nor uncle nailed Billy’s ear to the tree.”
“You think Mr. Anthony did?”
“I sure do.” Flynn stood up. “But I still don’t know why.”
EIGHTEEN
Sitting at the chess table in the alcove near the fireplace in his office on Craigie Lane Friday morning, Flynn continued to stare at the figures on the chessboard after he had moved his knight.
Cocky brought the two cups of herb tea into the office on a tray held in his right hand.
Glancing at the board, Cocky said, “I thought you’d do that.”
“You’ve given me damn-all choice.”
“You had a choice,” Cocky said. “You missed it.”
“You meant for me to sacrifice something, didn’t you?”
Cocky nestled at his side of the board. “I always play to what isn’t characteristic of you, Flynn.”
He moved his king.
“No!” Flynn said. “You’re not doing that!”
“Done it.”
“Ah!” Flynn moved a rook.
Cocky moved his king again.
Flynn said, “Oh.”
Dragging his left foot a little behind him, Cocky went to answer the phone on Flynn’s desk.
“It’s Grover,” Cocky said. “He says he needs to talk to you.”
“Right.” Standing at the desk, Flynn said, “Good morning, Sergeant. Did you get any sleep on that couch?”
“Enough. Mrs. Loveson’s very peaceful, really.”
“In a way, it must be nice.”
“Look, Flynn, that woman, what’s her name—?”
“Mrs. McElroy.”
“—hasn’t shown up.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Time to call Human Services, Grover, old lad.”
“I think I’ll try to clean this place up a little.”
“Grover, no matter how alarming, I mean, charming is your affection for the Lovesons, the City of Boston is paying neither you nor me to play at baby-sitting.”
“Maybe Mrs. McElroy will show up. Why wouldn’t she? I don’t even know if she has a key.”
“She must have.”
“You don’t know that. Are you going to see Professor Loveson?”
“Yes, I’ll visit him in the hospital this morning. I think I have some questions for him. Keep in touch, Grover.”
“My name is Richard.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my having an affectionate name for you, is there?”
Flynn hung up before Grover could answer.
Cocky had been spreading papers around Flynn’s desk to display them.
“What’s all this about?” Flynn studied the dozens of head shots and short biographies glued to the papers.
“These,” Cocky announced slowly, “are all the people Lieutenant Detective John Kurt has convicted in the last eighteen months.”
“My, my,” said Flynn. “Almost all bla
ck.”
“One Asian American.” Cocky pointed to the picture of a man with a goatee. “Read the names of the four white people.”
“Ginsberg, Knowlton, Epstein, Jacobs.”
“Three Jews, wouldn’t you say?”
“And Knowlton?”
“Read what he was convicted of.”
“Solicitation.”
“Of a male police officer.”
“Homosexual.”
“Statistically,” Cocky said, “this is highly improbable, if not impossible.”
“Does Lieutenant Kurt work in a mainly black district?”
“Distinctly not.”
“Then it can be assumed that Lieutenant Kurt, while going out of his way to charge minorities with crimes, is also, most likely, avoiding arresting possible white miscreants.”
“He seems to be running a one-man campaign to bring every black, Jew, or sexually other-directed person up on charges. Besides that, Flynn, there appears to be a running gag among his friends that Kurt is absolutely brazen at planting evidence on people he doesn’t like. Look at how many weapons charges there are here. Way above a likely average. One of the jokes is that Kurt keeps introducing the same gun as evidence in case after case. Also that he plants drugs on people, as well as stolen property. A big joke is his charging a black paraplegic with the theft of a motorcycle.”
“And no one has put this together before . . . ?”
“Why would anybody? Kurt is considered a great success.”
“What you’re saying, Cocky, is that all these cases will have to be reviewed. As if the courts haven’t enough to do!”
The telephone rang.
Flynn answered, saying, “Thank you for calling the Boston Police Department. How may we help you this fine day?”
The right side of Cocky’s lips smiled.
There was a momentary silence on the other end of the line. “Flynn?”
“Grover!”
“I’m just trying to straighten out the Lovesons’ apartment. There are all these magazines on the floor of the living room, near Mrs. Loveson’s chair.”
“I’ve noticed them underfoot.”
“When I picked them up to throw them away I realized somebody has been at them with a scissors.”
“What do you mean?”
“Inside. Individual letters. Whole words have been cut out of the magazines. Perhaps it’s some game Mrs. Loveson plays. You know, preschool activity, or something. Some kind of therapy. Do you think so? If it’s some kind of therapy for her, I shouldn’t throw these magazines away.”
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