The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (14 page)

I thought a second and decided to go out on a limb. I
began to describe the white Cadillac to her. But before I could
finish, she waved me off.

"Oh, no. Eddie wouldn't do that, Dr. Adams."

"Eddie?"

"Yeah, Andy's friend from Providence. Andy said
his name was Eddie. I met him once."

"And?"

"And what can I say? I know he's in some racket
or other. Probably gambling and dealing dope or something. Or maybe
playing the numbers, or whatever. But he liked Andy; he wouldn't kill
him."

"Andy owed him money, Alice."

"I know that; Andy told me. But still, I don't—"

"What's Eddie's last name?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"How can I get in touch with him?"

Another shrug. I sat there on the hatch cover,
looking at her. It was something a man could do for a long time
without getting bored. My son Jack had been in bed with this
girl-woman. Did I envy him? Hell yes.

Stick to the business at hand, Adams.

"Alice, the police have determined that whoever
broke into Andy and Jack's rented house used a key. Did either of
them ever loan you a key to the front door?"

"I'm . . . not sure I should tell you."

"Well, you just have. Was it Andy, or Jack?"

She bowed her head. "Both. And when Andy loaned
me his key later on, I made a copy at the general store."

"Can I see it?"

"No, because I don't have it with me; I left it
at home. Why would I need it now?"

She looked at me with a questioning look, which
turned sour and pouty, and then she was crying again. I moved next to
her and put my arm around her. Nobody else was on deck. The
Westward
,
majestic even in her berth, was all ours. She cried into my shoulder,
saying she was sorry about Jack, sorry about Andy, sorry about
everything, and that maybe everything was all her fault. Finally her
sobbing ebbed and we got off the hatch cover and walked over to the
cutaway and down the gangplank.

We walked along the big pier towards town. The giant
hull of the
Knorr
loomed up over us.

"I just can't . . . I just can't . . . seem to
stop crying, Dr. Adams."

"Don't try. just keep on crying until the pain
cries itself out. If you need me, call me or Mary at the Swope Dorm,
okay?"

She nodded.

"Who could have taken your key or made a copy of
it? Terry?"

"Sure. Terry or . . . or any number of people I
guess. But what would he want with a key?"

"Who knows? But
somebody went in there looking for something. And they had a key."

* * *

Joe was waiting for me in his cruiser outside Swope
Dormitory. After we pulled out of town and were on the highway to the
clinic in Hyannis, he pulled something out of his coat pocket and
handed it to me. A brass badge: a shield with the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts state seal on it. Above the seal were the words
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY. Below the seal it said SPECIAL POLICE. I
turned the heavy shield over and over in my hands, trying to get used
to it.

Joe grinned at me out of the side of his mouth.

"I know you're excited, Doc. Try not to wet your
pants."

"What does this entitle me to?" I asked.

"You ready for this? It's a license to kill.
Anybody you don't like, or that pisses you off, POW! Blow 'em away."

"I mean seriously."

"Seriously? Okay, try this then: it allows you
to be abused, verbally and physically, with almost no right to fight
back or defend yourself. It gives you the right to be called out at
four in the morning to scrape the corpse of a teenaged hooker off the
railroad tracks beneath a viaduct . . . the right to expose yourself
to constant danger, including getting shot at. The right to drink
half a bottle of booze at ten in the morning to stop the shakes from
seeing your partner's brains blown out while he's standing next to
you on a dark street. The right to be called a motherfucking honky
pig by blacks, and a nigger-lover by whites. The right—"

"Hey, you want this back?"

"Do I want it back? Hell no I don't want it
back. Carrying one is more than enough. It's yours now, pal. You're
stuck with the fuckin' thing."

He reached into the coat again and pulled out a worn
leather folding case the size and shape of a wallet. He tossed me the
badge holder.

"This was Joe Kenny's; he retired last fall. You
can have it. When he left he told me he never wanted to see it
again."

"
What can I say? Words fail me. I'm overjoyed."

"You've got to read the code of conduct, and
memorize it. You've also got to memorize a bunch of legal stuff, and
you've got to sign some forms and be photographed and fingerprinted.
You've got to take a set of polygraph tests and some personality
profile tests for mental soundness.”

"Mental soundness, eh?" I said, fingering
the badge. "Well, it was fun while it lasted . . ."

"We need copies of your diplomas and all that
stuff. Some letters of recommendation and other- hell, that can wait.
Right now you're going to take a short tour of your new work place."

"Can't wait."

"And for this, you'll be paid the smashing
salary of eighty-five hundred a year."

"What can I say? I'm over—"

"Plus an hourly fee for your lab time. Plus
expenses."

We exited for Hyannis and headed for the small clinic
that was also the forensic mortuary for Barnstable County.

"I'm thinking that this appointment—should it
go through—is a godsend," said Joe as he pulled the cruiser
into a parking slot outside the low brick building. "Because as
of now, you are officially a state cop, of sorts."

"So?"

"So you figure it out. We cops stick up for each
other. Your son's in trouble; we stick up for him. Get it?"

"Yeah, I get it. Now I see what Mary was getting
at. Have you ever noticed how smart your sister is?"

"Or how brilliant her brother is? C'mon, let's
get this over with, and hope to Jesus you don't have a 'customer'
waiting."

Joe and I followed Carl Blessing through the hospital
corridor and down a flight of stairs. He opened the second door on
the left and flipped on the light.

The big drain table caught our attention first.
Stainless steel, with a molded gutter around its perimeter. To catch
what is euphemistically referred to as "bodily fluids."
Then there were the enameled steel cabinets on the walls, filled with
dark brown bottles, cotton swabs, balance scales, and photographic
equipment.

"Here's where you'll be working, Dr. Adams,"
said Blessing.

"Actually, it isn't used all that often. By the
way, there are three death certificates I'd like you to sign off on
before you leave: a drowning victim and two motor vehicle fatalities.
Fortunately, none required autopsies because in each instance the
cause of accidental death is clear. The report of the attending
emergency room physicians is sufficient."

Blessing pulled out a wide, silent drawer filled with
bright steel tools.

"And here, of course, are your postmortem
instruments," he said in a weary tone, picking each one up and
naming it as he did so.

"These are the rib shears, as you must remember
from med school: Bethune rib shears, Semb rib shears, Saurbach
serrated rib shears . . ."

Get me out of here, I was thinking to myself. just
get me the hell out of here—

"The rib spreaders are these: Finochietto rib
spreader here, Sweet rib spreader, Giertz rib guillotine . . . here
are the hand retractors . . . a Charriere bone saw there . . . here
are the cranial drills . .. Satterlee bone saw Smollett geared
retractor . . .Meyerding bone chisel—that'll go through
anything!—your mallets are here, these are the suction tubes—he
said, pointing to a tray of neatly arrayed hollow steel probes with
holes in them, "and of course your motorized surgical saw.
Howard used this one for cranial cutting prior to removing the skull
cap—"

I took an involuntary step backward. Joe was staring,
transfixed, at the gruesome array of implements. Torquemada would
have loved to get his mitts on them. Nothing delicate about them:
they were massive, with gear-driven mechanisms for shearing,
clipping, tearing, crunching through the stoutest chest cavity, the
thickest femur, the heaviest skull and jaw. And no concern whatsoever
for pain . . . of course.

"Thanks, Carl," I said, trying to catch my
breath, "you've been most helpful. I think we can be going now.
I—"

"Wait. I've got to show you the chem lab and
radiology."

"Do we hafta?" asked Joe, holding a hanky
up to his mouth.

"Carl, uh, how often are autopsies performed
here?"

He thought for a second, hand on chin, his white lab
coat flopped open. "More in the summertime, of course. I'd say a
total of eighty to ninety annually, which isn't much, really.
Increasingly, they're done up in Boston. Remember though, the rate's
two hundred an hour. Comes in handy," he said with a wry grin.
"Of course, it's not much fun working with a floater, but then
we—"

"Floater?" said Joe weakly. "You mean
like . . . a floater?"

"Uh-huh. Not a drowning victim . . . a floater.
Mostly decomposed. Hard to tell if they're male or female, or even
human. And definitely aromatic. But like I was saying, every job has
its drawbacks."

We left the hospital and got back into Joe's cruiser.
We both had our windows open all the way back, trying to suck in the
sea air.

"I quit," I said. "In case you haven't
realized by now, I quit."

"Now, c'mon, Doc. There aren't that many. Carl
himself said—"

"Listen, it was the only part of med school I
hated: cutting up the cadavers in gross anatomy. I swore I'd never do
it again. And I'll tell you this, too: the only floater I'm having
anything to do with is the
Ella Hatton
."

"So you're quitting? Before you even start?"

I thought again about what Joe had said about cops
sticking together, protecting one of their own. Jack needed all the
protection he could get.

"No. I'll stay on and sign the death
certificates and things like that. The title gives me some authority
and I want it. But I've still got my practice, and it just won't
leave me time for autopsies. Sorry about that. So the first heap of
stinky meat that comes in, waiting for the knife, it's goodbye Doc.
Get it?"

"Okay, okay," he
said. "Can't say I blame you."

* * *

Joe dropped me off in Woods Hole on his way back to
Boston. "I'll be in touch with the lab people who've been
examining the evidence from the Breakers and the stuff from the boys'
rented house here," he said. "We should have a clearer
picture of what took place. The funeral in Providence is tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh, at three. just can't wait. You going to
be there?"

"No. Paul and I are meeting with the D.A.'s
office in Boston. So now you're going to try to see Lionel Hartzell?"

"Yep. First thing tomorrow when Moe gets here. I
want his diagnostic expertise."

"Well, good luck. Remember, though, you still
can't make him see you. How's our boy doing?"

"Jack? He's doing pretty well, considering.
Yesterday he went out whale watching with Tom McDonnough, so things
can't be that bad."

"But they could be better, right?"

"You said it. Hey, and don't forget to run that
car through R and I, okay?"

Joe pulled out his notebook. "White Caddy Eldo.
Rhode Island vanity plate, SLINKY. Guy's first name is Eddie. Gotcha.
So long."

I found Mary up in our dormitory room, resting after
a day of shopping and sightseeing. We poured drinks and relaxed. I
showed her the badge.

"Hmmmm. This mean you're going to start wearing
a uniform, Charlie? I like uniforms on men. I go to pieces."

"Well, bad news. I stay in civvies."

"You gonna carry a big gun? Huh?"

"You know me, Babe. I'm always packing a big
gun."

She sat down on my lap and sipped.

"C'mon now," she said. "Let's not get
arrogant."
 

ELEVEN

I WAS FIRST UP, so I was elected to go down to Water
Street and fetch two big cups of coffee back to the dorm. Mary
propped herself up on one elbow and looked out the window at the sun.

"Oh, Charlie! I feel great today. I think I'll
go running up along Oyster Pond Road with Jackie. It's a good
feeling, having grown-up kids when you aren't even old yet."

"Well speak for yourself. For me, fifty's just
around the corner."

"You're not old. You're very, very young. You've
proved that twice in the past—she glanced at her watch"—fourteen
hours. You hot shit, you."