The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (39 page)

Hundred thirty, hundred thirty-five . . .

"Joey! Joey! Joey! Not so fast!"

"Keep it to the floor Joe. Keep it right on the
goddamn floor!"

I scarcely remember the drive south into Woods Hole.
Along those twisty roads and tight turns, with thick woods all
around, I remember mostly a continual blur of headlights sweeping
past dark pine trees, the squeal of tires and shriek of brakes. And
always, the white-hot hum of the big engine.

Then we were at the Coonamessett Inn, jerking to a
halt in the parking lot behind a police car with lights flashing. Joe
and I were out of the cruiser and running for the entrance when we
were met by two cops who told us that Jack and old man Hartzell had
left about fifteen minutes earlier.

There was some sort of brief conference, I guess, but
I scarcely recall it. It was a dark, scary dream, punctuated with
bright flashing lights cutting the air and reflecting off the badge
of the officer we talked with, the night all bluish black, and cold.
I think I was shouting; Joe told me more than once to be quiet. Then
Mary came up and was crying. Next thing I knew, we were back in the
cruiser again, all three of us, with Joe trying to calm us down,
saying that three other police cars were cruising the area, looking
for them.

"Have they gone to Swope? Have they tried Lillie
Hall? What about the docks? Oh Christ, Charlie! The docks!"
screamed Mary. I wanted to jump out of the car and run in all
directions. I wished there were twenty of me, running in all
directions at the speed of light and calling Jack's name so he could
hear me. Then I could find him and hug him and kill Hartzell. But
there was only one of me and I was riding in a car—trapped in one
place—and I couldn't get out and it was killing me. Mary was
reaching her arm over the seat, holding on to my hand so hard her
nails were digging into my palm, making me bleed. Charlie, oh
Charlie! she was saying. We'll find him, we'll find him, God help us,
we'll find him, I kept saying, and wishing it were true.

"A blue Ford Escort," Joe said. "Hartzell's
got a blue Ford Escort, wagon I think. Look out for it."

Then we were screaming along Water Street and turning
down School Street.

"Where the hell are you going?" I shouted
to Joe.

"To Jack's place. Drop Mary off. Check
Hartzell's house."

So we fishtailed to a stop in front of the boys'
house. Joe leaned on the horn until Tony came running out,
breathless, planting his hands on each side of Joe's window as he
leaned inside the cruiser.

"The police phoned. So Hartzell's the guy?"

"Yeah, looks like. Take your mother inside and
wait," said Joe.

"Which way is Hartzell's?"

"Up that way, third on the right. We checked it
though; nobody there. Uncle Joe, is there—"

"Gotta go kid," said Joe, opening the door
for Mary and hauling her out. He dragged her out of the car like a
rag doll and shoved her into Tony's arms.

"Watch the street here. They pull up anywhere,
yell at Jack to bail out of the car. Now, you got an idea where they
could be now? They left the Coonamessett already."

"Hell, they could be anywhere. Maybe check their
lab in Lillie, then . . . I don't know."

"I'm coming too. Charlie! Chhaaarrrlie!"

We spun out of there and back onto Water Street. I
glanced back to see Mary getting into Tony's car. Tony was already
behind the wheel. Damn. We barreled right through town and slid to a
halt in front of the big stone building.

Joe pulled a bull horn out from somewhere under his
dashboard, right behind the twelve gauge pump that sits upright near
the radio. He leaped from the car and pointed the horn up at the dark
building.

{Jack! Jack Adams, you up there?"

A window flew up.

"They're not here; we just checked, Lieutenant.
Maybe on the—"

BLAM!

He was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot. From
the sound it made, I knew it was a large-bore pistol, and not far
away. BLAM! . . . BLAM! . . . BLAM!

Too late! Too late! Oh my God, my God! I was crying
to myself as I ran down the street, guided by the noise. My throat
was making a gurgling whine, and it ached. Jackie! Jackie!

A car door slammed off to my left. In the parking lot
behind Water Street, Tony and Mary were getting out of the car. Next
to it, I saw an empty blue Escort with a door left open.

"N000000000!" she screamed. She ran after
me and Tony after her. A lighted door was in front of me. It was the
door to the supply shed, the Marine Resources building. I heard Joe
yelling at Mary, then I was at the door, leaping full at it, bumping
it open fast with my knee. An old man was inside, under the light,
taking aim with a revolver, aiming at somebody on the floor.

BLAM!

I hit him full force, knocking him across the cement
floor. But it was too late. Too late, too late, too—

I turned and looked at the man on the floor.

It was Lionel Hartzell. I turned again, and saw the
old man trying to get to his feet. Then I recognized him; it was Boyd
Cunningham, Andy's father.

"He killed him," Cunningham said sadly. "He
killed him, Dr. Adams . .

"Where! Where's my son?" I screamed.

"He killed my boy . . ."

"Where's my son? You—” I grabbed him and
shook him until my arms ached. He raised a trembling arm and pointed
to the big brine tank.

I jumped over to the big tank and peered inside.

There, caught in the spray and bubbles, was Jack,
motionless on the bottom.
 

THIRTY-TWO

I DON'T REMEMBER diving into that tank. I don't
remember the eels, or the cold. I only became aware of the cold later
when Jack came to and started shivering as he finished coughing up
the brine that had almost killed him. I remember sitting on the
concrete floor, holding him in my arms after we'd gotten most of the
sea water out of him. He'd started to move during the mouth-to-mouth,
then spat up a gallon or so of brine and began to shake all over.
Mary was there, too, of course, and I'll never forget her change of
tone from hysteria to warm thanks.

"Ohhhh, Jackie. It's okay, hon . . . Mommie's
here . . ."

Somebody had brought a little green tank of oxygen,
and we put the mask over his face for maybe twenty minutes. He tore
it off when he came to completely, probably because it scared him.
When you've gone without breathing for several minutes, you generally
don't want anything in front of your face afterwards. So he lay there
while we covered him with blankets until the ambulance came. The only
commotion was the kicking Mary and I heard behind us as we were
reviving him. It was a flat, wet, hollow sound. It was Tony, kicking
old man Hartzell's head. Kicking hard, as if it were a soccer ball,
and shouting very bad things at the dead man.

They tried to pull him away; he slugged one cop,
clipped another with a kick to the knee which sent him hobbling away
on one leg, and then went back to kicking the prone body of the
professor. Ugly thing to do, and I must say Hartzell's appearance
wasn't improved by it. And I must also say that I really didn't give
a damn, no matter if the old guy was sick. Couldn't have cared less.
They got Tony under control and his Uncle Joe kept a huge, hairy paw
on the kid's shoulder. Finally, Tony turned around and buried his
dark head on Joe's beefy shoulder and cried his lungs out in relief.

They hauled Hartzell out of there in a plastic body
bag, then put the bracelets on Boyd Cunningham, who stood meekly in
the corner in the company of two officers until they put him in a
cruiser. The other two officers who had tried to subdue Tony were
discussing charging him with assaulting an officer (make that two),
until Joe turned around and informed them in no uncertain terms that
unless they canned that conversation immediately, put the notion
entirely and permanently out of their heads, they were going to be
very personal witnesses to an exceptionally barbaric example of
assault on officers, and that they would be lucky to get out of the
hospital within two weeks.

Joe, at around two hundred thirty pounds, is
impressive when he gets steamed. Fortunately, it doesn't happen
often. When it does, people sit up and take notice.

They put Jack on a gurney
and wheeled him out to the ambulance. Mary, Tony, and I rode with
him, with Joe following in his cruiser. They put a hot blanket over
Jack, and when I saw his younger brother leaning over him, putting
his head on his chest, crying, I came apart at the seams, and wept in
that silent, strangled way men do all the way to the hospital in
Hyannis.

* * *

The following Monday, September 25, I was driving
Paul Keegan back down to the Cape. He'd ridden up to Boston with Joe
the previous Saturday, the morning after the fireworks, taking Boyd
Cunningham up to his arraignment for killing Lionel Hartzell, and now
he needed a way back to Woods Hole to pick up his cruiser. There was
no doubt that it was Boyd who killed Hartzell. The autopsy, in which
I, as acting M.E., reluctantly took part, showed conclusively that
death was brought about instantaneously by four .357 Magnum,
125-grain, semi-Jacketed hollow-point bullets, at close range. Two of
these entered the chest, one the abdomen, with the final one passing
through the shoulder region. Any but the last would have proven
fatal.

Therefore, not much attention was paid to the other
injuries induced after death—the massive contusions of the head,
and the dislocated mandible, brought about by "post-mortem
trauma" inflicted by an "enraged blood relative of the
deceased's intended murder victim."

End of file. Thank God.

"Ten to one Cunningham gets two years, reduced
to pro," said Keegan, looking out the window at the Columbia
Point campus of U. Mass., as we headed down the constantly jammed
Southeast Expressway—everybody's least favorite artery.

"Jury or no jury, but especially with a jury,
there's no way they'll pin anything on him except involuntary
manslaughter. Given what happened to his son, and the man's emotional
state—"

"Not to mention the fact that he probably saved
Jack's life—"

"Yeah. He'll walk, with probation. How's Jack
doing?"

"He's fine. Totally fine. The last thing he
remembers that night is walking with Hartzell into the supplies
building and staring at the tank. That's when Hartzell sapped him
from behind and flipped him into the water. He doesn't remember
coming to in the shed, or the ride in the ambulance, either. The next
clear memory is the hospital in Hyannis."

"
Well, I'm glad he's okay. You got nice kids."

"
Thanks; we've worked at it."

It wasn't until we crossed over the canal that he
asked the question I knew was coming.

"So what's the big deal with Joe and marriage,
Doc? I mean, I gather it's a sensitive subject."

"Yep. Rather sensitive."

There was a pause, and a nervous shifting of
backsides on the car seats.

"I mean, can you tell me?" he asked.

"The reason it's hard for me to talk about it,
Paul, is that I was involved."

"Oh . . ."

"
Well, here goes: two years or so before Mary
and I got married, Joe married his old high-school sweetheart,
Jessica Baldi. What a wedding. And what a happy couple. Joe and
Mary's dad was still alive then, and Joe went to work in the family
business, Brindelli's. He'd just graduated from Syracuse with a
business degree, and was more than happy to take over the management
of the stores. They're home-improvement stores. You know, combination
lumberyard and giant hardware store. It used to be a construction
company, but when labor costs went sky-high in the sixties, old man
Brindelli converted the construction company to three big
home-improvement centers in Schenectady. Joe managed all of them,
with his office in the central store. After his dad died, Joe became
president. Soon afterwards, Jessica gave birth to their son, Peter.
Joe was overjoyed. Business was doing well; things couldn't have been
better."

"Uh-oh. Sounds too good to be true."

"It was. At that time, I was just beginning my
practice, and Mary and I had just gotten married and moved to Boston,
where I'd taken my first position, a staff physician in internal
medicine at Mass. General."

"Yeah, I didn't think you were from around
here," said Keegan.

" 'Course not. Can't you tell by my normal
speech, my cautious driving, and my affinity for functional
efficiency? I'm from Illinois and Iowa, places like that. Places that
are essentially German and Nordic, as opposed to Latin and Celtic.

"Well aren't you the lucky one."

"Anyway, Mary got pregnant and had our first
son, Jack, just after we moved. Joe's little boy Peter was a little
older than Jackie, but they toddled around together as kids. Joe,
Jessica, and Mary and I used to rent a cottage together on the Cape
during summer vacations. At Christmas, Mary and Jackie and I would
drive out to Schenectady to see the Brindellis, and so on. Well, when
Peter was seven, he came down with meningitis."