God Save the Child

14

The north shore shopping center was on high ground north off Route 128 in Peabody. Red brick, symmetrical evergreens, and parking for 8000 cars. I discovered that Marge Bartlett was a member of the shopping center the way some people belong to a country club. Between 10:15 and 1:20 she charged three hundred and seventy-five dollars’ worth of clothes. I spent that time watching her, nodding approval when she asked my opinion, keeping a weather eye out for assailants, and trying not to look like a pervert as I stood around outside a series of ladies’ dressing rooms. I was glad I hadn’t worn my white raincoat. There were a lot of very well-shaped suburban ladies shopping in the same stores. Suburban ladies tended to wear their clothes quite snug, I noticed. I was alert for concealed weapons.

We got back to Smithfield at about a quarter of two. The house was still. Roger Bartlett worked Saturdays, and Dolly was going to spend the night with Aunt Betty. Punkin lay placidly in a hollow under some bushes to the right of the back door. Marge Bartlett held the door for me as I carried in the shopping bags. The dog came in behind us.

“Put them on the couch in the living room,” she said. “I want to call the caterer.”

There was a corpse in the living room. On the floor, face down, with its head at a funny angle. I dropped the shopping bags and went back to the kitchen with my gun out.

Marge Bartlett was still on the phone with her back to me. No one was in sight. The back door was closed. The dog had settled under the kitchen table. I turned back to the living room and stood in the center, beside the corpse, and held my breath and listened. Except for Marge Bartlett talking with animation about a jellied salad, there was no sound.

I put the gun back in the hip holster and squatted down beside the corpse and looked at its face. It had been Earl Maguire. That’s it for the law practice, Earl. I picked up one hand and bent the forefinger back and forth. He was cold and getting stiff. I put the hand down. All the college and all the law school and all the cramming for the bar, and someone snaps your neck for you when you’re not much more than thirty. I looked around the room. A glass-topped rug was bunched toward Maguire’s body. A fireplace poker lay maybe two feet beyond Maguire’s outflung hand. An abstract oil painting was on the floor beneath a picture hook on the wall as if it had fallen.

I duck-walked over to the poker and looked at it without touching it. There was no sign of blood on it. I stood up and went to the front door. The lock button in the middle of the knob was in. The door was locked. I’d seen Marge Bartlett unlock the back door. I opened the front door. No sign of it being jimmied. There’d been no sign of jimmying on the back door. I’d have noticed when we came in. There weren’t any other doors. I walked across the front hall to the dining room. It was undisturbed except that the door to the liquor cabinet was open. There was a lot of booze inside. It didn’t look as if any was missing.

I heard Marge Bartlett hang up. I headed for the kitchen and cut her off before she got to the door.

“Stay here,” I said.

“Why?”

“Earl Maguire is dead in your living room.”

“My God, the party’s in six hours.”

“Inconsiderate bastard, wasn’t he,” I said.

She opened her mouth and then put both hands over it and pressed and didn’t say anything. “Sit there,” I said and steered her to a kitchen chair. She kept her hands over her mouth and watched me minutely while I called the cops. When she heard me say Maguire’s neck was broken, she made a muffled squeak.

Five minutes later Trask arrived with a bald, fat old geezer who carried a black bag like the ones doctors used to carry when they made house calls. He eased himself down on his knees beside the body and looked at it. He was too fat to squat.

“When’d he die, Doc?” Trask had a notebook out and held a yellow Bic Banana pen poised over it to record the answer.

The doctor was strained for breath, kneeling down like that; it didn’t help his temperament. “Before we got here,” he said.

Trask got a little redder “I know that, goddamn it. What I want to know is how long before we got here?”

“How the hell do I know, George? I don’t even know what killed him, yet. His neck looks broken.” The doctor picked up Maguire’s head and turned it back and forth. A dark bruise ran along his cheek from the earlobe to the corner of his mouth. “Yep, neck’s broken.”

“What time you find him, Spenser?” Trask decided to question me. It wasn’t going well with the doctor.

“Quarter of two.”

“Exactly?”

“Approximately.”

“Well, goddamn it, can’t you be more exact? You’re supposed to be some kind of hot stuff. I want to know the exact time of the discovery of the deceased. It could be vital.”

“Only in the movies, Trask.”

Trask looked past me and said, “Hello, Lieutenant.” I turned and it was Healy. He had on the same straw hat with the big headband that I’d seen him in before. His jacket was gray tweed with a muted red line forming squares in it. Gray slacks, white shirt with a button-down collar, and a narrow black knit tie. Tan suede desert boots. He had his hands in his hip pockets, and his face was without expression as he looked down at the body.

“Worse and worse,” he said.

Trask said, “This is Doc Woodson, Lieutenant. He was just saying that Maguire died of a broken neck.”

“No, I didn’t, George. I said his neck was broken. I didn’t say it killed him.”

“Well, it didn’t help him none. That’s for damned certain,” Trask said.

Healy said, “When can you give me a report on him, Doctor Woodson?”

“We’ll take him down Union Hospital now, and I can have something for you by, say, supper time.” He looked at me. “Gimme a hand up, young fella; you look strong enough.” I helped him up. The effort left him red-faced, and there was sweat on his forehead. “Don’t get the exercise I should,” he said.

“Who found the body?” Healy asked.

Trask said, “Spenser,” and jerked his head in my direction. I got the feeling he wished I were the body.

“Okay, tell me about it.” Healy squatted down on his heels beside the corpse and looked at it while I told him.

“Doors locked when you got here?”

“Yep, both of them. Mrs. Bartlett opened the back door with a key, and the front door was locked. I checked it.”

“Let’s check again,” Healy said. We walked to the front door. Healy opened it, went outside, shut it behind him, and tried the knob. Locked. I opened it for him from the inside. We went to the back door. Healy did the same thing. Same result. I let him in. We walked around looking at the windows. Most of them were closed and locked. Those that weren’t locked were screened. There was no sign they’d been tampered with. The screens were aluminum, part of screen and storm combinations.

“Someone could have gone out, reached back in, released the catches, and lowered the screen,” I said, “to make it look like it was inside business.”

Healy nodded absently. “Yeah,” he said, “but why would someone do that?”

“Misdirect the cops,” I said.

“Maybe,” Healy said.

“Course with Chief Trask on the track,” I said, “you probably don’t need too much misdirection.”

Healy separated a peppermint Life Saver from the roll and popped it into his mouth. He didn’t offer me one. “Well, he’s just a hick cop. Not a high-powered fast gun in from the city. Couldn’t even solve a simple missing person squeal.” He sucked on the Life Saver. “You find the kid yet?”

“Nope.”

Healy said, “Oh.”

We went back to the living room. The photographs had been taken. The measurements made. The corpse was wrapped in a blanket and lying on a stretcher. Trask looked at Healy. Healy nodded and Trask said, “Okay, let’s get him out of here.”

Two Smithfield cops picked up the stretcher and went out the front door.

“Union Hospital,” Trask yelled after them. “And tell ’em it’s for Doc Woodson when you get there.”

“Anything missing, Trask?” Healy asked.

“Mrs. Bartlett says no. She don’t see anything gone. Liquor cabinet was open but nothing missing.”

Marge Bartlett was sitting with her knees pressed together on the couch. The lines around her mouth seemed to have deepened. She needed to freshen her makeup.

“What was he doing here, Mrs. Bartlett?” Healy said.

“Who?”

“Maguire. What was Maguire doing in your house while you were away?”

“Oh, Earl has his own key. He’s an old and dear friend. He often lets himself in. We’re having a party tonight, and he said he’d come out early and help me set up the bar and things because Roger wouldn’t be able to get home till after supper. Almost time for... My God,” she looked at her watch, “it’s after four. My company is coming in three and a half hours. I’ve got to get ready. Spenser, you’re going to have to help me.”

I nodded. Healy said, “Do you have any idea, Mrs. Bartlett, who might have done this?”

“To Earl? I don’t know. He was a lawyer; perhaps he made enemies.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Lieutenant, I simply must get ready. I’m having sixty-five people here tonight. And I’m already very late.” She was on her feet moving toward the hall as she spoke.

Healy looked at her with a puzzled expression. “It’s grief, Lieutenant,” I said. “She’s hiding her grief and carrying on.”

Healy snorted. Trask said, “Well, she is. She’s being damned brave.”

“Brave,” Healy said.

“I’ll question her later on,” Trask said, “when she’s gotten herself together more. Ya know.”

“Yeah,” Healy said, “you do that.”

Trask said, “Got any theories, Lieutenant?”

“I’d guess someone was in here expecting no one to be home, and Maguire came in and surprised him. There was a fight, Maguire went for the poker, and whoever it was hit him with something else and broke his neck. Then he got out of here.”

“From the way the rug’s bunched up and the body’s lying, I figure he came at him from the dining room,” I said.

Healy said, “Maybe.”

Trask said, “How’d he get in?”

“That’s a problem. Maybe one of the screens was unlocked or the door was ajar. Maybe somebody had a key.”

Trask looked shocked. “Wait a minute, who the hell would have a key except the family?”

Healy shrugged. “Maybe the lock was picked,” Trask said.

“How long you been chief here?” Healy asked.

“Seven years,” Trask said. “Before that I was a sergeant.”

“How many people have you run into out here that can pick that kind of a lock?” I said.

“There’s always a first time.”

“We’ll wait and see what the doctor can give us,” Healy said. “If I was you, Trask, I’d put a man here.”

“I had one, but when Mrs. Bartlett went off with Spenser, I took him off. She was supposed to call when she came back. I only got twelve goddamned men, Healy.”

“I know. Spenser, you hanging in here?”

“Yeah. I’m staying in the guest room. If you get a chance, let me know what the doctor says about cause of death.”

“Oh, of course,” Healy said. “Want I should iron your shirts for you or anything while I’m here?”

I let that pass. “Well,” I said, “time to dig out the old gold lamé tux and freshen up for the party.”

Both Trask and Healy looked very sourly at me. I knew how they felt. I felt the same way.