School Days

Chapter 46

I WAS DRIVING a dark green Mustang this year, with a tan top, which, when I drove it with the top down, wearing my Oakley shades, did in fact suggest the designation Hunko. While Susan was away and I had Pearl, I parked the Mustang in Susan's driveway and used Susan's white Explorer so that Pearl would have sufficient room to jump around and annoy me.

But now I was at the last desperate fallback position, where, under Spenser's rule #113, you find someone to follow, and follow them. So I rented a tannish-grayish Toyota Camry sedan, which looked like 40 percent of the other cars on the road, and, with Pearl looking a little disgruntled in the backseat, I parked outside Channing Hospital and watched for Beth Ann Blair.

Like everyone else who had come and gone while I sat there, she paid me no heed as she came down the front walk of the hospital and turned left toward the parking lot. The Toyota was working. It was so effective that I could still wear my Oakleys and be overlooked. I admired her stride as she went into the lot. Susan had explained to me that the amount of hip sway was usually dependent on the kinds of shoes you were wearing, but I was pretty sure that in Beth Ann's case, it also suggested a kind of pelvic awareness that might be prideful.

She had one of those little boxy Audi sports cars that reminded me of German sports cars from the 1930s. It was silver. She turned left out of the parking lot, and I fell in a ways behind and followed. Tailing somebody in the country is easy in the sense that you won't lose them, but hard in the sense that you're easy to spot. Beth Ann wasn't expecting to be followed, which was an advantage. My car was not noticeable. And, of course, city or country, it helped that I could track better than Natty Bumppo.

She stopped at the village market. I lingered up the street. She came out with a bag of something and got back in her car. Off we went. She stopped for gasoline on Route 20. I lingered around a turn. She pumped it herself, which was impressive. Susan would run out of gas and leave the car and walk home before she'd use a self-service pump. Then, with a full tank, she got back in the car, started up, and drove past me, and I followed. We got all the way to Framingham before she turned off into the parking lot of a large brick condominium complex that overlooked a lake. She parked and got out with her groceries and went in.

Pearl and I sat. Beth Ann didn't come out. After a time, I took Pearl out for a short, necessary stroll to a small patch of grass under a single tree. I could still see the door of Beth Ann's building while Pearl occupied herself. Then we got back in the car. And sat. It got dark. I broke out a bag of sandwiches, which I had hidden in the trunk to keep Pearl from ravaging them, and a couple of bottles of spring water. I ate a ham and cheese on light rye, and gave Pearl a roast beef on whole wheat. She finished first. There were two sandwiches left. I put them back in the trunk. Back in the car, I drank some water and gave some to Pearl. Drinking from the bottle, she slobbered a lot onto the backseat but managed to swallow enough to alleviate thirst and prevent dehydration.

At about 9:30, I gave it up. Beth Ann had made no further appearance. She might slip out later and perform some criminal act, but it was more likely that she was in bed in her jammies, reading Civilization and Its Discontents, and I was tired. Pearl and I gave it up and went home.