Sudden Mischief

chapter forty-seven

LEE FARRELL CALLED me on Friday morning. Outside was bright sunshine, temperature about eighty-two, slight breeze. A perfect day to be outside.

I was inside. I had nothing to do inside or outside. But I hid it better inside. I didn't know where Sterling was. I didn't know if he'd killed Carla, or even Cony Brown for that matter. I had nowhere else to go, and no one to ask, and nothing to follow up. I was thrilled that the phone rang.

"'Talked to Somerville half hour ago," Farrell said. "The gun you took away from Wechsler's shooter?"

"Philchock," I said.

"Yeah. Cambridge passed it over to Somerville and they fired couple rounds and compared them to the bullet that killed Carla Quagliozzi. No match."

"That's too bad," I said.

"On the other hand-it was Quirk's idea-we took the slugs from Carla and compared them to the one came out of Cony Brown, the guy got diced in Sterling's office?"

"And you got a match," I said.

"That's right."

"You noticed where this seems to be going," I said.

"It's beginning to look like Susan's ex," he said. "Lotta questions though."

"A lot," I said.

"You answer any of them, you'll call me," Farrell said.

"First thing," I said.

We hung up. I stood up and stared out my window for a while. I went over to the sink and got a drink of water. I stood for a time and looked at the picture of Jackie Robinson on my wall above the file cabinet. When I got through looking at Jackie, I went back and looked out the window some more. Then I put on my sunglasses and went out of the office and began to walk. After a while I ended up at the Harbor Health Club, in the boxing room, which Henry kept like a family secret in the back end of the club.

I hit the heavy bag for a while. It was the kind of repetitive, effortful, mindless endeavor that I seemed best qualified for. I dug left hooks into it, circled it, landing stiff jabs at will, going to the body hard and when the hands came down, delivering my crushing over-hand right. I stopped, took a breather, drank some water, and did it again. After an hour the bag was ready to say no mas, my hair was plastered to my skull, and my sweatshirt was soaked through. I took some steam, then a shower, and was dressed and admiring myself in the mirror when Henry came into the locker room.

"Am I better looking than Tom Cruise? Or what?"

"You're taller," Henry said. "Settle for that."

"Everybody's taller, for crissake."

"Almost everybody," Henry said. "Susan called. Said to tell you that Brad was visiting at her house."

I said, "Thank you," and walked past Henry and out through the health club.

The Central Artery was always problematic if you were in a hurry, and now that it was in the process of being disassembled and placed underground, it was less reliable than Dennis Rodman. I went up Atlantic Avenue as fast as the spillover from the Big Dig would let me. I went past the North Station on Causeway Street, deked down Lomansy Way, and went along Nashua Street past the Suffolk County Jail and the Spaulding Rehab Hospital. I ran the light at Leverett Circle, which annoyed several drivers, and I was loose and in an open field on Storrow Drive.

In one sense, Brad was Susan's problem. And Susan would, if given enough space, solve her own problems. On the other hand, Brad may have killed two people and while he probably was not as tough as Susan, he was a lot bigger. And she had called.

I pulled up in front of Susan's house twenty-one minutes after I had left the Harbor Health Club and parked and let myself in. The door to her waiting room was closed. I opened it and went in. There was a thin-faced woman reading a copy of The New Yorker in one of the waiting room chairs. She had rimless glasses and a pointy nose. The door to Susan's office was closed. The woman did not look up.

I said, "Excuse me, what time is your appointmement?"

The woman looked at as if I had proposed sodomy.

"Twelve-fifty," she said and returned huffily to studying "Talk of the Town."

It was 12:34. I sat in the chair opposite the door and waited. There was a white sound machine in one corner of the room and it hissed harmonically with the sound of conditioned air moving through the vents. Serenity. I looked at my watch. 12:35. I took some air in through my nose and let it out slowly. The sharpnosed woman didn't look up from The New Yorker, but she managed through body language to convey how boorish she thought I was to breathe deeply this close to the sepulchre. At 12:52 the door to Susan's office opened and a square jawed young man with longish hair came out, and made no eye contact with either me or Needle Nose. Susan was wearing a subdued gray suit. She saw me.

"Please come in, Adele," she said to Eagle Beak. When Adele had put down her New Yorker and stalked into Susan's office, Susan said, "I'll be with you in a moment."

She closed the door and walked over to me.

"Pearl is with me in the office," Susan said. "Brad came this morning. He's upstairs. He said he had nowhere else to go. He said he was, quote, at his wit's end, unquote. He's unshaven. He appears exhausted. I think he's been sleeping in parks. When I left, he was asleep on my bed with all his clothes on."

"How would you like me to handle it?" I said.

"As you think best. Today is my short day. Adele is my final patient."

"I'll wait for you here," I said. "And we'll go up together."

"Fine," Susan said and turned back toward her office. With her hand on the doorknob she stopped for a moment and turned and looked at me.

"I'm all right with this," she said.

"Good," I said.

And she went into her office.