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  She didn’t blush. In fact, she smiled wickedly, tilting her chin up and touching her throat with her fingertips, as much as to say, “I know. And what would you like to do about it, big fella?”

  Her reaction startled me. Then it occurred to me that the graduates of Leonard Wertz’s Assertiveness Conditioning and Reinforcement program probably walked through that door making similar comments to her all the time—testing out their new-found assertiveness.

  Look at what I’d accomplished in only one session. I, clearly, was a quick study.

  CHAPTER 11

  FLORENCE GRESHAM’S HOME IN Beverly Farms is nestled among those of descendants of the Cabots, Lowells, Saltonstalls, and several other moneyed, old Massachusetts clans. It’s less than a fifteen-minute drive from Leonard Wertz’s office in Danvers. I decided to take a chance that she’d be home on Monday morning, see how she was making out, pick up the magazine article we had discussed, and, in general, keep my fences in good repair. House calls. Part of the service rendered by Brady L. Coyne, Inc.

  The Gresham estate in Beverly Farms is not visible from the road. A high brick wall surrounds it. The sturdy iron gate that admits visitors opens electronically.

  I pulled the front bumper of my BMW up to the gate and stepped out, leaving the motor running. Built into a brick pillar to which the high gate was hinged was a metal box painted flat black. Inside the box was a telephone. I opened the box, put the phone to my ear, and pressed the button beneath the phone hook.

  “Who is there, please?” came a man’s voice.

  “Brady Coyne, John. Mrs. Gresham available?”

  “One moment, please, Mr. Coyne.”

  I waited for a couple of minutes before John’s voice said, “Mrs. Gresham will see you, sir. Please come in.”

  I hung up the phone and returned to my car. The gates swung silently open and I drove in. In my rearview mirror I saw them ease closed behind me. The tires crunched on the pea-stone driveway, which wound around an artificial pond up to an arched portico on the front of the Georgian mansion where Florence Gresham lived.

  John led me to her where she sat at an umbrella’d table in the back garden amid a spectacular wash of blue and yellow late-spring flowers. I took the seat opposite her.

  “Coffee, sir?” asked John, with a little bow to me after I sat down.

  “No. Thank you,” I said.

  I lit a cigarette and spoke to Florence. “How are you?”

  Instead of answering me, she thrust a tabloid-sized newspaper across the table toward me. “Look at this,” she said.

  It was a copy of the National Tattler, a popular scandal sheet which I confess to picking up from time to time along with my frozen dinners at the Stop & Shop. This edition featured on its front page a photograph in a grainy color of a hard-looking, blonde girl under the blaring headline: “Has Deborah Really Kicked the Habit?”

  I lifted my eyebrows at Florence.

  “Page three,” she said.

  I folded over the page. On the third page I saw a photograph of four young men dressed in military camouflage suits and wearing berets, kneeling side by side grinning into the camera. They reminded me of Cap Spender, the resident Nazi at Ruggles. Each of the men in the photo held a short, efficient-looking weapon which I recognized as an Israeli combat gun. The headline for the story read “Survivalists: Preparing for Armageddon.”

  The picture was captioned “Young Americans gird for their next battle.”

  “The radicals of the Eighties,” I said to Florence. “The new generation of Abbie Hoffmans.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve been reading about them. They think civilization is about to come toppling down around our shoulders. They stockpile provisions and weapons and ammunition. They think the cities are going to collapse and all the people who live there will evacuate to the country. These people are prepared to kill to defend their property. They train their children to shoot strangers. They live on hatred—the Jews, the blacks, Easterners, urbanites, Catholics, whatever. Some of them say it’ll be a Communist takeover. Others think it’ll be a racial thing. They’re organized in military fashion. Very big in the Midwest and West. Scary bunch.”

  “You’ve done your homework,” I said, a little puzzled by it. “But I don’t understand…”

  Florence extended her finger to the paper spread open in front of me and pointed to the face of one of the armed young men in the photograph.

  “That’s Win,” she said.

  I looked at her, then at the picture, then back at her. “Win? Your Win?”

  She nodded firmly.

  “Oh, come on, Florence. Win is dead.”

  “That,” she said, jabbing with her finger, “is Winchester Gresham.”

  I bent to examine the picture more closely. I had never seen Win Gresham alive, but I had seen pictures of the younger Gresham son. I remembered him as having Florence’s strong features—a long, straight nose, heavy jaw, dark hair, and burning black eyes. The face in the fuzzy photograph I was looking at could have been anybody. The beret was pulled down over his forehead, and he wore a bushy black mustache. His smile showed strong, white teeth. I thought all four men in the picture looked pretty much alike.

  I reached across the table and touched Florence’s arm. “Your imagination’s running away with you,” I said. “It’s not like you to indulge yourself in wishful thinking.”

  For an answer, Florence handed me a photograph in a heavy frame. I recognized it immediately. It usually sat on the grand piano in Florence’s living room. Win Gresham. He wore his Army uniform. His hair was short under the officer’s cap, and his expression was properly military.

  “Yes, I know. That’s Win.”

  “Compare them.”

  I tried to imagine the young soldier in Florence’s portrait ten years older. I mentally crayoned a black mustache onto the face. I looked at Florence with raised eyebrows.

  “It’s the smile,” she said.

  “It could…”

  “It’s him,” she said.

  I studied the photo in the newspaper. I glanced back and forth at the two pictures. There was something about the smile, a kind of cynical lopsidedness, that struck me. And the structure of the faces—the noses, the jawlines, the cheekbones—all bore a vague similarity. I admitted to myself that if I looked for the resemblance, it was indeed there.

  But that didn’t mean they were the same person. I told Florence that.

  She only smiled. “You haven’t finished your job,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your first job. To find out what happened to Win.”

  “I did, Florence. Win died in Vietnam. Don’t torture yourself.” I reached across the table and covered her hands with mine. “You’ve got to accept it. Both of your sons are dead.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then averted her eyes. She pulled her hands away, reached under the table, and slid two postcards toward me. “Explain these, then.”

  I looked at them. They were picture postcards, the kind with spaces for a short message and an address on one side, and a gaudy, color photograph on the reverse. Florence’s name and address had been printed by hand in capital letters on each. The places for the message had been left blank. One was postmarked November 10, 1973. It had been mailed from Ketchikan, Alaska. The second bore a postmark from Pittsburg, New Hampshire. Florence must have received it a couple of weeks earlier.

  I flipped them over. The one from Alaska showed a snow capped mountain. The New Hampshire postcard featured an autumn farm scene, resplendent with golden maples and a red barn.

  I looked up at Florence. “I don’t get it.”

  “They’re from Win.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  She smiled. “It’s just the sort of thing he’d do. Even as a little boy he preferred little secrets and surprises and mysteries. He always signed my birthday cards, ‘Guess who?’ He liked to hide behind the furniture and jump out yelling ‘Boo!’ Besides,�
�� she added, “how else can you explain them?”

  I shook my head. “I think there are probably several logical explanations. For example, people go on trips. They bring lists of people to send postcards to. They buy a batch, lug them back to their hotel, address them all at once, copying from their list, stick stamps on them, and drop them all in the mail without remembering to write, ‘Having fun, wish you were here’ on them.”

  Florence cocked her eyebrows at me.

  “Or maybe,” I said, “whoever sent them just assumed you’d know who they were from. Listen, there’s no reason to believe they’re even from the same person. The printing doesn’t look particularly similar.”

  “I think they’re from the same person. Win.”

  I sighed. “I suppose you’ll believe what you want to believe. But I don’t think it’s healthy. Now that you’ve lost George, you’re trying to resurrect Win. It’s a sad, sad business, Florence. But you have lost both of your sons. You’ve really got to accept that.”

  She glared at me. “Win is alive.”

  “Look,” I said. “If you believed this postcard from Alaska was from Win, why didn’t you show it to me when you received it?”

  She stared down at the table. “I wasn’t sure it was from Win. Not then. I knew it could’ve been just wishful thinking. I mean, I knew I wanted it to be from him, you see.”

  “But now…?”

  “Now I’m more certain. Now I’ve seen this picture in the paper, and I’ve received this other postcard.” She looked up at me. “Look, Brady. I know exactly how this must sound to you. A foolish old lady with all her heirs gone. A lonely old bag losing her grip, confusing her dreams with the facts. But that really isn’t how it is. I think Win’s alive. I’ve always felt it. Now I feel that I know it. These postcards, this picture, they just confirm what I’ve always felt. Will you find him for me? Or, if you can, prove once and for all that he’s dead? Either one will put my mind to rest.”

  “What about George?”

  “Okay,” she said. “George first. Then Win.”

  I nodded. “I concede. But I think it’s fruitless.”

  “Then prove it to me. If the man in that picture isn’t Win, so be it. If I have some secret admirer who likes to send anonymous postcards, okay. I just want to know, once and for all.”

  I shrugged. I copied the dates and postmarks into my notebook. Then I handed the postcards to Florence.

  She carefully folded the newspaper and placed it beside her on the table. She set the framed portrait of her son as a young soldier face down on top of it, and placed the postcards on the picture. Then she handed me a manila envelope. “Well,” she said. “This is what you came for. I’ll be damned if I know what good it’ll do us, but you might as well have it.”

  I accepted the envelope from her, opened the flap, and pulled out George’s photocopy of the Atlantic Monthly article. I glanced at it for a moment, then slid it back. I stood. “I’ll take it along,” I said.

  She rose, and we walked together around the house to my car. “You still think George jumped, don’t you?” Florence said.

  “Seems that way. I talked with his psychiatrist this morning.”

  “Psychiatrist?”

  “Doctor Wertz. His name was on George’s Blue Shield forms.”

  “Was George disturbed?”

  “Not really disturbed. A little depressed, maybe. The point is, George seemed to think he needed help.”

  “And you think that suggests he would kill himself.”

  “It fits.”

  We walked back to where I had parked my car. I climbed in and started up the engine. Florence stood by the door. I lifted my hand to her.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said. “And please try not to let yourself get too hopeful about Win. Let’s just concentrate on George.”

  “And don’t get too hopeful about him, either,” she added sourly.

  “They’re both dead,” I said.

  She shook her head and turned away. I shifted the car into gear and drove slowly around the long, curving drive, then headed back toward Boston.

  “Any calls?” I asked Julie when I walked into the office.

  “That anything like ‘Good morning, Julie, and did you have a pleasant weekend?”

  “Sorry,” I said. I sat in a chair opposite her desk. “How was your weekend?”

  “Shitty,” she said. “Edward had to work. You?”

  I thought about my evening with Rina Prescott. “I worked, too,” I said.

  “Frank Paradise. Waiting for your report, thank you very much; he’ll be in touch. Mrs. DeVincent. Still on the dogs. Miss Prescott from the school. No message, will try another time. Mr. McDevitt reminding you of your luncheon date tomorrow. Office supply salesman. I handled him. Someone from the Bar Association about you joining some committee. I told him you’d get back to him.” Julie slapped the pages in her notebook. “That’s it.”

  “So who’ve I gotta call?”

  “Mrs. DeVincent. I think you better call her. She sounded itchy. Bar Association guy—let’s see—a Mr. Kelsey. I’ve got the number. The rest you don’t need to call.”

  “Miss Prescott left no message?”

  Julie glanced up at me. “I told you, no.”

  I heaved myself out of my chair. “Okay. We can do those calls later on. I’ve got some paperwork to go over. Why don’t you put on the machine and get yourself some lunch.”

  “What’s the matter? Can’t answer the telephone yourself?”

  “Sure I can. Don’t want to. Anyhow, how do you think it would appear if I answered my own phone?”

  “Appear?” Julie threw her hands into the air and flopped back into her seat. “Appear? Jesus, Coyne, is that what I am? An appearance?”

  “Aw, you know what I mean.”

  “Sure I do. Damn straight I do. That any successful male attorney has to have a dumb-headed silly female to answer the phone for him, and buy birthday presents for his mistresses, and go get his Red Sox tickets, and all that shit. That phone answering is beneath any important male-type person. That…”

  I held up both hands in surrender. “Whoa! I concede. Enough. I’m new at this equality stuff, you know. I’m learning everything I know from you, remember. I’m trying. Honest.”

  Julie grinned. “Yeah? Well, you’re a damn slow learner. When it comes to this, I think you’ve got a severe learning disability. Okay. You want to do some uninterrupted reading while I’m at lunch, I’ll put on the answering machine. Just don’t tell me it has something to do with appearances, that’s all.”

  I held out my hand to her. “Okay. Forgiven?”

  She shook my hand. “Sure.”

  Julie began to move things around on her desk, and I went into my office. Something occurred to me. I opened the top drawer of my desk and rummaged among the pencils, half-opened packs of Winstons, bottles of aspirin and antacid pills, and assorted papers. I tried the other drawers. I went to the wall safe, spun the dial, and poked around. Then I went back to Julie.

  “Do you remember what I did with that address book?”

  She frowned. “What address book?”

  “George Gresham’s. The one I got when I was at the school with Florence. I put it someplace.”

  She shrugged. “I never saw any address book.”

  “Maybe I took it home. I’ll check there.”

  “Right. It’s probably there. I never saw it.” Julie put on her jacket. “I’m off. The machine is on. You’ll never miss me.”

  I leered at her. “The machine seems to lack a certain something.”

  “Slow learner, nothing,” she said. “You’re retarded.” She blew me a kiss and swirled out the door.

  I went back into my office, armed with a mug of coffee and the manila envelope Florence had given me. I sat on the sofa, slipped my shoes off, and put my feet up on the coffee table.

  It bothered me that I couldn’t find that address book. As I thought about it, I couldn’t remember removing i
t from my jacket while I was in the office. I supposed I’d find it at home.

  I lit a cigarette, sipped from my mug, and slid the Atlantic article from the envelope.

  It was entitled “Who Are the New American Radicals?” Percy at the library had been pretty close. George Gresham, I assumed, had drawn heavy brackets around the first several paragraphs, and, for good measure, had added two big exclamation points in the right-hand margin. I read it.

  Early in the morning of June 19, 1971, before even the milkmen had begun their rounds, the quiet of Norton Street in Queens was rocked by an explosion. Within minutes the five-story brick apartment building at number 72 lay in a smoldering heap of rubble.

  When the Fire Department and the Bomb Squad and the NYPD and the FBI completed their investigations, the world was told that the blast had been produced by a group known to the radical underground as “The Sewing Circle”—an unlikely sorority of wealthy college girls devoted to the cause of creating anarchy and bringing the “corrupt establishment” to its knees.

  In a joint statement issued to the press, the authorities reconstructed the event as follows:

  “Five young women were constructing pipe bombs in the basement of 72 Norton Street, the apartment building owned by Martin Cashen, the father of one of the young women. Huge quantities of nitroglycerin, a very volatile and unstable explosive, were stored there. This material was accidentally detonated—probably as a result of careless smoking.

  “It is believed that all five young women were killed by the powerful blast.

  “The so-called ‘Sewing Circle’ has publicly claimed responsibility for three recent bombings of Federal buildings, in which a total of eleven people were killed—the courthouse in Chicopee, Massachusetts, a post office in Brooklyn, and an Army recruiting center in Concord, New Hampshire.

  “In each of these three cases, the ‘Sewing Circle’ claimed to have acted ‘on behalf of exploited victims of capitalist greed in Amerika (sic) and in Southeast Asia.’