Blunt Darts

TWENTY-SEVENTH

– ¦ "He'll probably be in the library," Stephen whispered as he beckoned me toward the back of the house.

"Does the house have an alarm system?" I asked, still winded from my hike up the path.

"Yes," he said as we approached the back door, "but he never turns it on until he goes to bed."

Stephen produced a key, and we entered the house.

I followed him to a turn in the corridor. He took the turn, and we approached two large polished double doors.

Stephen looked up at me. "Ready?" he whispered.

"Does he keep a gun at his desk?" I asked.

Stephen shook his head. "Only upstairs, in the bedroom."

"Then I'm ready."

We opened the doors.

The judge was standing in front of a mirror. He was dressed in an Izod Lacoste sport shirt and khaki pants. He had notes in his hand and appeared to have been rehearsing his speech.

"Practicing a eulogy?" I asked.

He looked at us as if we'd entered the Debutante's Ball naked.

"Sit down, Judge. We want to have a little lobby conference."

The judge looked over at the telephone. Stephen briskly walked over to the wall and pulled the plug from the wall jack. The judge moved unsteadily toward his desk chair. I took an easy chair and tried to maintain my smile as I lowered my rib cage into it.

Stephen sat to my right and a little behind me, keeping me between him and his father.

It was a beautiful room, with carefully polished wainscoting and natural-wood bookshelves. I would say "restored" wood, but I doubt that that particular wood had ever been allowed to deteriorate. The books I could see were mainly law titles, with some leather-bound, gold-lettered fiction classics by Defoe, Dickens, and assorted others sprinkled around.

The judge slumped into his chair and then tried a fine, arrogant recovery.

"Mr. Cuddy, I must say I underestimated you. I want to thank you for returning Stephen to me."

"Aren't you even curious about Blakey?" I asked.

The judge lost a bit ot? his regained color. "What about him?"

"He didn't fare too well after he called you yesterday."

The judge started, then must have inwardly cursed for thus confirming my suspicion about the call.

"What did he do, Judge, happen on you as you dumped your wife in the river?"

The judge tried a snarl that queerly came off as a smile. "I don't know what you're talking about. I intend to call-"

"Or more accurately, as you dunked your wife's car?"

The judge lost his queer smile.

"Where did you bury her, Judge?" I asked.

"We know," said Stephen. His voice was very flat.

The judge looked from me to Stephen and back to me.

"Officer Blakey will deny every one of these ridiculous…"

I leaned back farther in my chair.

Stephen said, "Blakey's dead." Still the flat voice. The judge jerked violently.

"That's what I meant by eulogy when we came in," I added.

The judge said, "Blakey wasn't there. Blakey only helped me afterwards. After he-"

"It's too late to deny things," said Stephen, changing his inflection to a sing-song, as though he were the adult explaining the world to a dull child. "I told Mr. Cuddy everything?

The judge's eyes went wide in terror. "Where's the gun?" he whispered to me, like an aside in a Shakespeare play.

"The twenty-two?" I asked.

"Yes, yes!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's the one thing that can clear me, you idiot! I thought he'd been cured after he came back from Willow Wood. I couldn't have the publicity, the madness in the family and all. I wanted to be elevated to the superior court, but I had to protect myself The gun had his fingerprints on it. I hid it so well, I thought he'd never find it-so well I thought he'd given up looking for it." Then turning to Stephen: "But you never did, did you? You found it, and I realized it and Blakey missed you, and you ran, you little bastard. I authorized the absolute minimum search possible. I prayed to God that some hobo would slit your throat in a ditch."

"Judge, maybe if you told me what-"

"I have to tell you, can't you see that? Now that Blakey's dead, I have to." He was becoming unglued.

Stephen remained silent.

"After she wouldn't shut up that night, drunk and vile as she was, about how much she'd enjoyed making love with Tel, about how much she'd enjoyed having his baby and making me act the father, then after he was born, him being so much like Tel, even down to the… Ah, but he didn't tell you that part, did he? Did he!"

I began to feel weak in the gut. I glanced back at Stephen. He was staring straight ahead, his face unsmiling but his eyes twinkling.

I turned back to the judge. "Tell me what?"

The judge began to shake. "Where's the gun?" he demanded.

"Stephen buried it. After he killed Blakey with it."

The judge shook more violently.

"Did you see him bury it?"

"No."

"Dear God, first his mother, now Blakey, and I can't-"

"Are you trying to tell me that Stephen-"

I heard the zipper sound but didn't tum immediately. By that time Stephen had my. 38 out of the crotch of his pants and leveled at the judge. He must have hidden it under the passenger side of the front seat when he found Blakey's car at the ranger station and then retrieved it when he "stumbled" out of the car at the beginning of the path.

In my peripheral vision I caught the judge standing up too quickly as he yanked open the middle drawer in his desk, banging his knees on the drawer as he did so. Then the first shot. The bullet knocked the judge back into a bookcase niche with a brandy decanter and cut-crystal liqueur glasses and brandy snifters. Stephen probably was not used to the greater kick of the more powerful weapon. His second shot ruined a painting above the niche.

My rib was screaming at me as I dived at Stephen, my left fist aimed at his face. He ducked as he swung the barrel toward me. The blast deafened me. I felt a sledge hit my left shoulder. The follow-through sent me into Dreamland.