Death at Charity's Point Read online

  She accepted the card, ran her fingertips over the embossed lettering, and tucked it into the breast pocket of her blouse. She backed out the door, bid Florence and me a courteous good-bye, and disappeared.

  “Lovely young lady,” said Florence.

  I nodded. I thought she might tell me something about the Harvey Willard who had written the C paper that George treasured enough to copy and keep in his files. Perhaps she could also identify for me the young man with the shaven head and the aggressive manner who had accosted me on my previous visit. I hoped she would call me.

  I persuaded Florence to let me drive her back to Beverly Farms and leave John, her chauffeur, to clean out George’s rooms and cart the stuff home. She agreed without a fuss. Which was uncharacteristic.

  I brought the library books with me. Since they were a week or so overdue, I told Florence I’d return them and pay the fine. The Boston Public Library was a short walk from my office. I also kept Harvey Willard’s paper and the Blue Shield statements, along with George’s little address book with the mysterious list of numbers.

  All of that seemed to please Florence. She seemed to think I was being more useful than I felt.

  She rode beside me with her head back and her eyes closed. She looked old, now. Her skin seemed translucent, and her forehead was faintly spotted with liver marks. I had never noticed before how the flesh sagged in wattles under her chin. Her hands, resting quietly in her lap, seemed bony and fragile. George’s death had transformed her.

  As I drove, I reached to touch her hand. “Maybe you shouldn’t have come,” I said.

  “Why not?” she said sharply.

  I didn’t answer. We drove in silence for several minutes.

  “I still can’t believe it,” she whispered in a voice so soft that I could barely make out her words.

  “Come on, now, Florence. You’ve got to…”

  “I know he’s dead. I’m not senile yet, you know. But this suicide idea. I just don’t know.”

  “Probably we’ll never know,” I said.

  She nodded. “Did we learn anything today?”

  “I’m not a detective, Florence, in spite of your efforts to make me into one. I’m not good at this sort of thing—questioning people, assembling clues, making great inductive leaps of imagination. I have no idea what I’m even supposed to be looking for. It seems to me that at some point we’ve just got to accept the word of the experts.”

  “They aren’t experts on my son,” she said.

  “No. I guess not.”

  “Will you keep trying?”

  I patted her leg. “Sure. I’ll talk to this doctor George visited, and I’ll see what I can find out about the boy who wrote the paper. Maybe when John gets all George’s stuff home you can go through it again. See if there’s anything that strikes you.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Several more minutes passed. As we neared the Beverly Farms exit, Florence said, “George wouldn’t kill himself, you know.”

  I nodded.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER OF the law, like our counterpart in medicine, is rapidly going the way of the brontosaurus. Attorneys, like doctors and most other professionals, must be specialists. We barristers have our own equivalent of proctology, histology, podiatry, and psychiatry—criminal law, probate, tax, corporate, and so forth.

  As I’ve mentioned, my field of specialty happens to be the law of the wealthy. My specific expertise is service. I provide counsel, and I broker my clients to other appropriate specialists readily when I recognize the need. Julie calls me a “social worker,” and I guess the description is apt. I lend a shoulder for leaning or crying, I offer a willing and sympathetic ear, and I dispense sound advice. My clients value the personal relationship. They come to me because, as one might expect of very rich people, they expect immediate attention and they tend not to get it from the large firms.

  Frank Paradise was one of my clients, a short, swarthy man of about sixty-five with one of the world’s most magnificent pot bellies. Frank has trouble keeping his shirts tucked in. People tend to misjudge Frank. They imagine him to be a concrete contractor, or the owner of a fleet of trucks. In fact, however, Frank Paradise amassed his considerable fortune by inventing things. He started with components for jet engines back in the ’forties. Next came inertial guidance systems, those gadgets that took satellites into orbits in space. Later, it was computers. Most recently, Frank’s thinking has run along more bizarre routes. Surgically implanted radios, for example, was his latest brain child—little chips which could be inserted under the skin behind the ear. “Simple office procedure,” declared Frank. “Great for joggers and school kids.”

  Frank retained me to perform patent searches for him—“discreet” patent searches, he always emphasized. He had become paranoid about what he called “the pirates out there” who, he was convinced, wanted to steal his ideas. He thought I was good at evading the pirates.

  Working for Frank made a nice break from my usual paperwork, even if it required a couple trips a year to Washington. Besides, he paid me well for my simple services.

  So after all the time I had devoted to Florence Gresham, I heeded Julie’s advice and returned the half-dozen “urgent” calls Frank Paradise had made in my absence.

  Julie reached him at his summer place in Brewster. “He’s at the pool,” she told me over the phone. “Someone’s bringing the extension to him.”

  “He tell you what he wants?” I asked her.

  “You kidding? Very mysterious, as usual.”

  The big voice of Frank Paradise boomed over the phone. “You alone?” he demanded.

  I heard Julie disconnect. “Yes, Frank. What can I do for you? Sorry to hold you up. I’ve been out of the office a lot lately.”

  “I know, I know. Damn inconvenient. Never mind. You gotta go to Washington for me.”

  “What’ve you got, Frank?”

  He dropped his voice. “You don’t think I’m gonna tell you on the phone, do you? Listen. Discretion, Brady. Discretion. Remember?”

  I sighed. “Sure, Frank. I remember. Okay. Mail the specs to me and I’ll get right on it.”

  “Mail them? Hey, I’m not mailing them. Jeez, Brady. You know better. You’ve gotta pick them up. There are pirates out there. You know that.”

  “Aw, come on, Frank.”

  “This afternoon, Brady. No fooling. You’ve gotta get right on this one. It’s hot, I’m telling you.”

  I thought about it. Frank would feed me steamers and lobsters and lots of Coors. It wouldn’t be bad. I could use some time away from the office. I could use the chance to clear my head of the Gresham case.

  “Okay, Frank,” I said. “I’ll be there by five. If you’re any sort of a host, you’ll have the water already boiling and the beer iced up when I get there.”

  When I got into my car at the parking garage, dreading the three-hour round trip to Brewster, I noticed George Gresham’s library books on the back seat where I had left them. I stood there for a minute, then with a sigh I reached in and took them out. There were eight of them altogether. I stacked them up and clumsily closed the car door with my knee, holding the pile of books against my chest.

  I walked that way the several blocks to the Boston Public Library, a staid old stone and concrete edifice that frowned out on a modernistic park of fountains and pools in the middle of Copley Square. Around back is the new addition to the old building, lighter and airier and more twentieth-century. That’s where I took George’s books.

  I dumped them up on the high counter and stood waiting. Three or four young people behind the counter—college students, I surmised—paid no attention to me.

  I stood on one foot and then the other for a while, cleared my throat loudly, and finally declared “Ahem!” very clearly. The public servants behind the counter gleefully ignored me.

  I hate waiting. I am a prompt person. I keep my appointments. I would prefer to do without rather than wait in line to bu
y something I want. Gloria used to get furious when we had hired a babysitter so we could dine out, only to be greeted at the restaurant where we’d made a reservation with the news that we’d have a fifteen-minute wait, sir, which I knew translated to three-quarters of an hour to two hours, and won’t you visit our lounge—and I’d turn on my heel and walk out.

  “We’d have a drink anyway,” Gloria would protest.

  “It’s the principle,” I’d tell her. “Rather go to Howard Johnson’s.”

  Which is what we usually did.

  Which helps to account for the fact that Gloria and I are divorced now. She never minded lines, she tolerated rudeness, and she detested Howard Johnson’s. We were quite incompatible.

  I fixed my gaze on the nearest boy who was shuffling papers behind the counter and whistling tunelessly through his teeth. He had watery blue eyes and a wispy blond mustache.

  “Hey! You, there. Yes, you, sonny.”

  The boy peered blankly at me, and as he did, a face popped up directly before me from behind the counter. The face belonged to a towering black man with a goatee and a tangle of gold chains around his neck. He looked like a young Wilt Chamberlain.

  “Help you?” he rumbled. I immediately regretted having used the word “sonny.”

  “Oh,” I smiled in what was intended to be a disarming manner. “Didn’t see you there.”

  “Puttin’ some stuff away,” said Wilt. “Whatcha got?”

  “These are overdue. I’d like to return them and pay the fine. They were taken out by a friend.”

  If Wilt wasn’t very, very tall, then there was a very high platform behind the counter for him to stand on. And if that was the case, then the college kids were very, very short. Wilt flipped open the books and studied the cards in the inside pockets.

  “Four-forty,” he said.

  I paid him the money.

  “How is George?” he asked.

  “You know George?”

  “Oh, sure. Always comes on Saturdays. Haven’t seen him for a few weeks. These were his books.”

  “Oh. Well, he’s dead.”

  Wilt glowered at me. “Don’t jive me, man. I like George.”

  “He is dead.”

  Wilt scowled, then slowly began to chuckle deep in his throat. “I told him he’d get into trouble,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Little joke between us. Listen—how’d George die, anyway? Heart or something?”

  “He drowned. They called it suicide.”

  He whistled. “George?”

  “So they say.”

  “Damn! Nice fella, George. Suicide! God damn.”

  “How did you remember these were his books? I mean, you must stamp out hundreds of books.”

  “Thousands. But, see, we don’t just stamp out books. We librarians know books. We help people.” He glanced at the college kids behind him. “Well, most of us do. George was doing research. I helped him find what he wanted.”

  I nodded. “What did you mean—about him getting in trouble?”

  “Oh, just a joke. See, George wanted to copy an article from a magazine, and he didn’t have any money with him. Typical of him, you know? Never brought back books late. Meticulous, that way. But always broke. Forgot his library card half the time. Drive all the way down here from his school there to take out books, and leave his card home. I’d stamp them out on my card for him. That’s how much I trusted him. So anyway, he brought me this article. ‘I’ve got to have a copy of this,’ he said, and I said to him, ‘The Xerox’s over there,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, but I don’t have any money with me.’ So I loaned him seven dimes. That’s all. He promised to pay me back, and, of course, I knew he would, though it really didn’t matter. But I said to him, ‘You don’t pay me back you’re in big trouble, honky,’ like that, rolling my eyes around and lookin’ fierce. That always made George laugh, when I did my tough-dude act for him.”

  The big man stared at me, as if he were trying to decide whether to do his tough-dude act for me. Then he said, “I haven’t seen George since then. Probably the same time he took out these books. Hell, he didn’t have to send you. I can spare the seventy cents.”

  He bared his big teeth and laughed loudly. I smiled. “What was the article about, do you remember?”

  “Yup. Atlantic Monthly. Fall of 1971. October, November, around there. Something about terrorists or radicals. College kids blowing up post offices. White college kids.” He stared at me for a minute.

  “Okay,” I said. “That makes sense. He was doing some research on that. That article probably was just what he was looking for.”

  “That’s what he said. ‘Just what I’m looking for.’ Those were his exact words,” said Wilt.

  “You don’t have another copy of the magazine, do you?”

  “Hell, no. You got any idea how many periodicals we get in this place?”

  I shook my head.

  “Two hundred and seventy-eight. That’s just the magazines. Then there’s the newspapers. From all over the world. The Times and Globe go on microfilm. We used to do a lot more of that. Had to cut back. You know, budgets.”

  “Sure,” I said. “You think that was October ’71?”

  “October, November, in there. Maybe September, I couldn’t say for sure. But the fall, and ’71. I’m sure on that.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I nodded, and turned to go.

  “You say hi to George for me, now, hear?”

  I stopped and turned to face the tall man. “He’s dead,” I said. “Really.”

  He chuckled. “Sure. Right. I wouldn’t show my face around here again, either, if I owed the librarian seven dimes. Hey, you tell George it’s okay. You tell him ol’ Percy isn’t mad, and the dimes were a gift, okay? You tell him that.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. I’ll tell him.”

  “You tell George Percy says he doesn’t need to be dead.”

  I walked out into the sunshine. I agreed. George Gresham didn’t need to be dead.

  Frank Paradise fed me the anticipated lobsters, steamed clams, and Coors at a long table on the patio by his pool in Brewster. Our conversation was frequently punctuated by the BZZT! of insects flying into their electrified death at the pair of big, blue lights hung at the corners of the house.

  After we had eaten, Frank led me into his book lined den. He picked up a large manila envelope and clutched it with both hands against his great stomach.

  “This is it,” he said.

  “This is what?”

  “What’s gonna revolutionize America’s morning rituals.”

  “More computer stuff?”

  “Nope. Better.” Frank put his mouth close to my ear. “Coffee bags,” he whispered, then stepped back to grin at me.

  “Oh. Coffee bags.” I nodded vigorously.

  “Sure. Like tea bags. Only with coffee in ’em. Better’n instant. Quicker’n perked. Listen, that can be our slogan, once we get production under way. Quicker’n instant, better’n perked. Nice ring to it, don’t you think? These—” he tapped the envelope—“are the manufacturing specs. Guard them with your life, Brady, my friend. With your life.”

  I told Frank I surely would guard them with my life, that it was a helluva idea, and then I listened to him rave about the uses that America would make of coffee bags. Campers, sportsmen, housewives, harried executives late for the train—the market, according to Frank, was unlimited—as was his enthusiasm for the project.

  It was the middle of the evening before I got away. I felt bloated and sleepy. Frank’s warnings of pirates rang in my ears. Route 3 cut straight and narrow through the sandy terrain of the Massachusetts south shore, and I fought to keep my eyelids propped open in the face of the headlights of big trucks in the opposite lanes.

  It was nearly midnight when I pushed open the door of my waterfront apartment. The phone was ringing.

  “It’s Florence,” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “Hi,” I said. “I’v
e been working.”

  “Humph,” she said, implying with that syllable that I had my nerve giving my attention to other clients. “I found something. You remember the books George had? All those things on radicals and hippies?”

  I unbuttoned my shirt and was pushing my shoes off with my toes. “Atlantic Monthly, October ’71,” I said.

  “Brady Coyne! How in the world…”

  “Like I said. I’ve been working. So you found the copy of the article.”

  “Well, yes. You seemed interested in George’s research, so I thought it might—you know—mean something. How did you know about it?”

  “Percy told me.”

  “Percy?”

  “It’s not important, Florence.”

  “So what should I do with it? The article?”

  “I’ll come by for it. Okay?”

  “It’s all marked up. Written on. Underlined, and some little abbreviations in the margins.”

  “Okay. I’ll be out for it.”

  “Do you think it means anything?”

  “I don’t know, Florence.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s late.” I heard her sigh. “I just don’t believe he killed himself.”

  “No, Percy didn’t, either.”

  “Who is this Percy?”

  “Just a friend of George’s. I met him today. Nice guy. Thought a lot of George.” I yawned loudly. “’Scuse me. Gotta go. Good night, Florence.”

  “Well, all right. Good night.”

  I showered quickly, the hot needles of water driving the tension from my muscles. Then I crawled into my solitary bed.

  CHAPTER 7

  I PARKED AGAIN UNDER the “Authorized Personnel Only” sign. I thought of that as my parking spot. When I stepped out of my car I glanced around. The bald-headed kid with his flock of adolescent sheep was nowhere to be seen. I had rather looked forward to another debate with him.

  The girl at the desk outside Bartley Elliott’s office blinked myopically at me from behind thick, round glasses and said that Mr. Elliott was out of his office for the afternoon, could she help me? I told her I was trying to find one of the students, a Harvey Willard.