Right To Die

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.