Flynn's World (17 page)

Fists on his chair arms, eyes blazing, Carver said to Wincomb, “Well, maybe I’ll make an issue of this! I have my rights!”

“Fine.” Wincomb smiled. “Develop that sort of a reputation for yourself. Maybe someday you’ll be able to get a job teaching in a boys’ reformatory.”

“If you do make an issue of it, as you say,” Flynn said, “I’m afraid you’ll embarrass me. I’ll have to leave it up to the attorney general’s office whether criminal charges should be filed against you.”

Taut with anger, Carver went to the door. He slammed it open.

Heading down the corridor, he shouted, “I did not trash Loveson’s office!”

Slouched behind his desk, Dean Wincomb asked Flynn, “Who did? Who wrote those notes?”

Flynn said, “Damned if I know.”

Even though he had the keys, Flynn rang the doorbell to the Lovesons’ apartment.

He rang it again.

And again.

The door jerked open as much as its chain permitted.

“Mrs. McElroy, is it? Inspector Flynn. Boston Police. We met the other day.”

“What you want now?”

“To come in, please.”

She considered it.

Finally she opened the door. “The professor no is here.”

“I know that. I need your help on something. How is Mrs. Loveson today?”

The woman shrugged fat shoulders. “Still crazy.”

The woman wore necklaces from which hung silver ornaments. Some were of pyramids. Some of camels.

A twisted silver ring on her finger was of a snake.

“I see. That’s why I need your help. What’s your first name?”

Warily, the woman answered, “Enid.”

“Ah, yes.” They were still standing in the foyer. “May we sit down, Enid?”

The powder and rouge on her face did not conceal to Flynn the heavy, lifetime exposure to the sun her skin had suffered.

She shrugged, turned and led him into the living room.

Enid wore a long, black dress over her big frame. On it, in red, were Aramaic letters. The letters were arranged meaninglessly.

Callie Loveson’s eyes lit up when she saw Flynn. “Ah, we have a visitor! How nice!”

Enid said, “She’s as well as can be expected.”

“How do, Mrs. Loveson.” Flynn extended his hand to her. The seated obese woman took it gracefully. “My name is Flynn.”

“Yes,” she said. “Mary, do get us a nice tea.”

Enid sat in her recliner.

Over heavy socks Enid wore very old sandals.

Flynn sat on the divan. “How long have you been working for the Lovesons, Enid?”

“Tree monts.”

“I see. It must be tiresome. This small apartment. No television.”

“It all right. Not much to do.”

Smiling in a friendly manner, Flynn asked Callie Loveson, “What did you two have for lunch today?”

Callie frowned in thought. Then beamed. “We had a game hen! And wild rice. It was excellent, wasn’t it, E — nid. The waiter was so kind!”

“I brought a can of chicken soup,” Enid said. “She don’t know no diff’runce.”

“Enid—” Flynn looked at her heavily made-up face for as long as he could bear. “We need to be in touch with the Loveson’s daughter.”

“Daughter? What daughter?”

“Does she live locally?”

“No daughter.” Her hands grabbed up the sides of her skirt and put them in her lap. “No daughter.”

“But there is a daughter. Professor Loveson mentioned her to me once . . .”

“No daughter!” Enid sat forward in her recliner.

Flynn looked toward the kitchen counter. “Do the Lovesons have some sort of a telephone-address book? They must have.”

“No. Calls coming in only. Professor he never use telephone.”

“Instrument of the devil, is it?” Flynn went to the kitchen area. Indeed there was a green address book near the phone.

There was no listing under Loveson.

How could he ever identify a daughter if he did not know her married name?

The book was very old. Flicking through it he saw nothing that looked like a recent entry. Recent in years.

“Do you happen to know her first name, Enid? Ever hear them mention their daughter by name?”

The woman was sitting sideways on the edge of her recliner.

Looking at Enid from the kitchen area, Flynn asked, “When was the last time you were in Egypt?”

“Egypt.” She rose quickly. “Never been in Egypt. I go now.” She took her coat from a hall closet. “Professor Loveson be here soon. You stay.”

“But, Enid— It’s just after four o’clock.”

She struggled into her coat. It was more of a useless vest. It was nothing anyone would wear in the New England climate for warmth.

“You can’t go,” Flynn said. “I must tell you—make arrangements—”

Enid McElroy was out the door.

Instantly, Flynn heard the elevator door close.

“Um,” he said.

Flynn went to the living-room window at the front of the apartment. He wanted to see if he had much hope of catching up with Mrs. Enid McElroy.

Variously parked in the street were three small blue cars.

Enid McElroy was already getting into one.

Her huge eyes on Flynn when he turned, Callie Loveson said, “It’s very difficult to get good servants these days, isn’t it?”

SEVENTEEN

“Are you the new doctor?” Callie Loveson asked Flynn.

He sat on the edge of the recliner abandoned by Enid McElroy.

“Do you wish to think so?” Flynn asked, appropriately enough.

“Oh, yes. You’re very nice.”

“Thank you.”

“I think it very odd, don’t you? That ever since Louie had his head broken all you doctors have been concerned about is what’s going on in my head.”

“Louie had his head broken?”

“I don’t mind. Am I going back to the hospital now? I haven’t been feeling too well lately. Who was that woman who just left? Rather a pig, isn’t she. Traditionally, religions have thought ill of the pig, until Christianity came to the South.” She rolled her tongue around her lips. “Barbecue.”

“Are you nervous with me?” Flynn asked.

“Something’s happened to Louie.”

“What?”

“He’s in the hospital, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He got his head broken. They pushed him down. Stamped his head into the road. They broke his head and they’ve been treating me for a broken head ever since. Tell me the sense of that!”

“When was that? When was Louie’s head broken?”

Callie Loveson looked alarmed. “This morning? You said he’s in the hospital now.”

“Yes.”

“Will he be all right? I doubt it. Of course I’m nervous. What do you think?”

“Where did this happen? Where did Louie get his head broken?”

“Big city. By the sea. New York? No. I remember now. Alexandria, Virginia. That’s a nice place.”

“Who stamped on Louie’s head? Who broke his head?”

“Well, you know the answer to that! You were probably there! You seem to know a lot! The men who took the girl from Louie. At least, that’s what the man from the embassy said. I really don’t like him much. Will you please ask him to stop coming to see me?”

“He won’t come see you anymore.”

“That’s nice. You’re very kind.”

“What girl?”

“She’s the secretary for the man from the embassy. I don’t like her, either. She keeps looking at me as if I’m crazy, or something. I keep testing her out, you see. I say things like, ‘The river is full of chocolate pudding,’ and she says, ‘Yes, all right.’ Crazy! She’s the crazy one. I don’t need to see her anymore, either.”

“All right. You won’t. Was she with Louie when his head was broken?”

“They pushed him right down. Against the wall. Well, you told me that. Then they stamped on his head.”

“What happened to the girl?”

“Well, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“That’s what?”

“There is no girl. There never was, you see. That is what one had better think.”

“What happened to the girl?”

“The girl getting the tea? I think she just left. I told her you like cream puffs. I remember that about you. I told her to make cream puffs especially for you.”

“Thank you.”

Shrewdly, Callie Loveson looked at Flynn. “She’s probably gone to the river to get the chocolate pudding for the cream puffs.”

“There is no chocolate pudding in the river,” Flynn said.

Callie laughed. “You’re a sane one!”

“Well . . .”

“What day is this?”

“Thursday.”

“Yes. I’ve been out of the hospital three months now. And three days.” She looked perplexed at the piles of magazines around her chair. “But why am I the one who goes to the hospital when it was Louie who had his head broken? We were in New York for a long time, you see. Well, I went to see him in the hospital there. That man from the embassy took me. Then they kept me in the hospital! I suppose it was cheaper than the hotel. Do you think that’s why they kept me in the hospital?”

“Possibly.”

“Because I didn’t see that much of Louie in the hospital. Then I got sick. The hospital began to sway back and forth, up and down. My stomach got sick. My head ached. Louie was with me then. Did you know New York floats?”

“Certainly. New York floats everything.”

“After a while, the hospital settled down. All that motion stopped. Then they planted trees outside the hospital. Put hills around there. That was nice. Except for Mrs. Roberts. She wasn’t nice. Your name is Winthrop, isn’t it?”

“I live in Winthrop.”

“I remember. I’ve been back to that hospital many times. It’s wonderful how they can change the shape of the hills outside the windows these days, isn’t it?”

While listening, Flynn was trying to figure out what to do with Mrs. Loveson. The woman who was supposed to take care of her had run out. He had no idea how to reach her. He wasn’t sure he would if he could. At least not to return to take care of Mrs. Loveson. In the hospital, Professor Loveson assumed his wife was being taken care of.

Flynn wondered if Elsbeth, through her charities, knew of someone who could come and stay with Mrs. Loveson.

It surely wasn’t Elsbeth’s problem.

He supposed he would have to call an agency called Human Services or something. Would Cocky know how to be in touch with the right agency? What to tell them? Of course.

Flynn thought he probably would have to wait hours before someone from some agency showed up to say what should be done with Mrs. Loveson.

“Did you have a nice tea?” Callie asked him.

“Oh, yes. Thank you. The éclairs were excellent.”

“It’s better not to think of things like that,” Callie said.

“Of course not.”

“I mean, like what happens to girls.”

“That’s right.”

“What happens, happens, I always say. I mean, people sometimes do get their heads broken.”

“Yes.”

“They can still become Harvard professors.”

Flynn said, “I think it helps.”

“The doorbell is about to ring,” Callie said.

“Is it?”

The doorbell rang.

“It always clicks like that first.”

“I see.” Flynn’s perfect ears had not heard a click. “Who is at the door?” Flynn asked her.

She frowned. “It’s not Louie. He’s in the hospital.”

In the front hall, Flynn pushed the button of the door intercom. “Who is it?”

Callie said, “Richard.”

“Flynn?”

“Ah, Grover. It’s you, is it?”

“Ring the buzzer.”

“Ah, yes. Happily.”

He did so. Opened the apartment’s front door. Heard the elevator rise the three stories.

Grover came out of the elevator with a big brown paper bag cradled in his right arm.

Flynn stood back to let him enter. “Grover, I’m glad to see you! I never thought I’d hear myself saying that. Let me take the bag.”

“I brought food for Mrs. Loveson.”

“How kind.”

“How is she? Did you tell her . . . ?”

“She seems to know Loveson’s in the hospital. Thought I’d leave it at that.”

Flynn placed the bag on the kitchen table.

“Hi, Mrs. Loveson!” Grover said cheerily.

“How good to see you!” Her eyes beamed.

“Where’s the woman?” Grover asked. “The one who’s supposed to be taking care of Mrs. Loveson?”

“She fled almost the moment I arrived. Before I had a chance to tell her we have a problem.”

“No problem,” Grover said.

“We haven’t a problem?”