Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy (33 page)

When Roja looked puzzled, I described her hitting
Manolo's arm and throwing off his aim.

A shake of the head. "I do not remember doing
that."

"Things were happening pretty fast."

"After I called you, I heard a noise downstairs.
I searched for something, anything, as a weapon, but there was
nothing I could see. Then Manolo was coming up the stairs with a
rifle. I tried to talk to him, to sign to him, but he kept moving
toward the professor's room, pushing me away. I didn't know what to
do. I was shouting, but she wouldn't wake up. Then I heard you and .
. . and the rest you saw."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes." Roja lowered her eyes. "No. No,
I am not. I cannot seem to do anything to please the professor."

"She's probably upset too."

"No, no. She was like this before . . . Manolo.
From the time she came in the door from the plane. Nothing can please
her, everything makes her angry. I think the reason Tuck left so soon
for the tournament is because even he cannot stand to be around her."

"She'll ride it out."

Roja bit her lip. "Today the professor said she
would not need me for a while. That I could just as well leave."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't want her to be alone in that house, but
that is what she wants."

"Can't Hebert come home early from the
tournament?"

"The professor says she does not want him
either. I could use a vacation from all that has happened, but I want
to tell you something first. So that you will still watch over her."

"What is it?"

"I helped Manolo with his English since I worked
for the professor. "

"Yes?"

Roja bit her lip again, facing the floor. "I saw
all the notes. I do not think Manolo could write . . . could compose
them alone." She looked up, tears brimming. "I think
someone else must have helped him, John."
 

=30=

THE VIETNAMESE DOCTOR WHO DISCHARGED ME THURSDAY
morning insisted that I ride a wheelchair and elevator to the public
entrance. It was a blue-skied sixty degrees, and my body was balky
from the hospital bed. I decided to walk off my stay before going to
see Maisy Andrus.

Winding down Cambridge Street, I took Charles to the
Public Garden, my side feeling a little tight but not hurting. In the
garden, the curly-haired man who oversees the flower beds was
directing a couple of helpers with wheelbarrows containing clumps of
pansies and other more exotic bloomers. A big van with R. B. COOKE &
SON, INC./PACKERS AND MOVERS was backed down to the Swan Pond. The
workers were unloading detached shells of white swans. Already on the
lawn were red and green benches. A couple of other guys were lashing
green pontoons to the dock.

I sat for an hour or so, watching the flowers get
planted so that people could see and smell them. Watching the swans
and benches get hoisted over the pontoons so mothers and fathers
could bring little kids for their first rides on them. Everybody
getting ready for spring. There are worse ways to come back to life.

I got up and walked west on the Commonwealth
boulevard. Dogs were leaping for Frisbees, and college kids were
playing hacky-sack. A couple of yuppies in madras bermudas hosed the
winter from their bay windows.

I reached Fairfield and went up to the condo. I tried
Murphy, who wasn't in, then Neely, who was. I started to explain what
Inés Roja had told me.

"Cuddy, Cuddy. Hold on a minute, okay?"

"Hold for what?"

"No, I mean just wait like, all right? Hear me
out."

"Go ahead."

"Murphy calls me this morning, he's got the
ballistics report already. The flattened slug from the mailbox is a
match for the ones we dug out of the plaster from where Manolo tried
to whack you."

"So the slugs match."

"So what does that tell you?"

"That the same rifle probably was used in both
the sniping at us and the shooting at me."

"Tells me more than that, pal. Tells me that
Manolo was the shooter, both times."

"Maybe he was. That — "

"We found a rag there, closet of his room at the
manse. Oil on the rag's same as the oil on the rifle."

"Neely, just because- — "

"What I'm saying here is, you got the right guy,
okay?"

"Neely, what I'm saying is that there might be
another guy involved. Somebody to help Manolo write the notes, maybe
get him stirred up about the professor injecting her husband way back
when. Get it?"

"That's the line you were pushing at the
hospital. Just what do you got besides Manolo of the Morgue there?"

I repeated what Roja said about the notes and
suggested police protection for Maisy Andrus.

"Cuddy, I got to tell you, I don't see it that
way. We got a sniping, we got a match on the slugs, we got the gun,
we got the dead guy with the gun. You got smoke and mirrors."

"What will it take, Neely?"

"To put a uniform on her door?"

"Yes. Round the clock."

"Never happen. She's
got the money, she can hire somebody. Like you, for instance."

* * *

From inside the town house came "Go away."

I leaned my forehead against her unopened front door
and spoke louder. "Professor, we have to talk."

"I see no need for that. Please just go away."

"Not until I've finished what I started for you.
It won't take long."

I heard a sound of exasperation as Andrus yanked open
the door. The eyes burned out from a taut face. Her hair was tousled
here and matted there, as though she hadn't brushed it since sleeping
on it. A breath of warm air from behind me rustled some of the loose
strands. Andrus shuddered violently and moved behind the door. I
barely got in before she closed it.

Andrus shook again. "Can't stand drafts."

"Are you all right?"

Her head ratcheted up. "I'm fine! Or I would be
if I weren't being interrupted every five minutes. What is it, Mr.
Cuddy?"

Wondering what happened to "John," I
gestured toward the parlor.

Andrus made a noise that actually sounded like
"harrumph" as she strode in ahead of me and sat rigidly on
a wing chair. "What?"

"First, I'm sorry about Manolo."

"Manolo? A traitor! Do you realize what my
husband did for him? What I did for him? He deserved what happened."

I had the sensation of speaking to a different
person, another member of a family whose personality diverged one
hundred eighty degrees from the rest.

"Does your husband know?"

"Sir, my husband is d — — Oh. Oh, you mean
Tuck, don't you? I've left messages for him, but we keep missing each
other."

"You mean, he doesn't know about all this?"

"It is not the sort of thing one can synopsize
for a Parisian hotel operator."

"Don't you think he ought to come home for you?"

"No. No, I don't, not that it's any of your
business. I am hardly the damsel in distress here. This is my home,
and I am perfectly capable of living in it alone for as long as I
desire."

"Inés Roja said you — "

"Mr. Cuddy. I prefer to be alone right now.
Alone means no Tuck, no Inés, and no you."

"Professor, Inés thinks Manolo may have had
help."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

I started in about the notes.

Andrus threw up her hands. "Out, Mr. Cuddy! I
have been betrayed, betrayed by a man I thought loyal to me and to my
family. That will take some getting over, and I would prefer to do so
on my own, without your irrelevant inquiries and whether that meets
with your approval or not."

She got up, but I didn't turn to go.

"Professor, have you seen a doctor?"

"I was not injured last night. Thanks to you,
I'm told. Don't worry. You will be compensated for that, and I'll
cover any medical bills."

Andrus went to push me toward the door. I hit her at
each shoulder with the heels of my hands, sending her reeling back
two steps.

The eyes burned again. "How dare you!"

"Can't you see yourself? Your appearance, your
attitude."

"What I see, sir, is a trespasser and a batterer
who used to work for me. Are you leaving?"

"Yes."

Staying out of the warm
breeze, she slammed the door behind me.

* * *

On Friday morning I decided to spare my side the
warm-up run but walk over to the river anyway. Bo wasn't there, but
hundreds of obvious marathoners were, just jogging loosely for a few
miles, getting the kinks out toward the race three days later.

By Saturday I figured Nancy might have cooled off
enough to talk with me. The A.D.A. who answered at the courthouse
said no one had seen her, and there was no answer at her apartment.
When I tried Maisy Andrus, I had to wait fifteen rings before she
picked up. Her voice was hoarse, like she'd been using it to yell.
Telling me "positively for the last time" to butt out, she
hung up.

By Sunday I was feeling restless and a little lonely.
I walked over to the Hynes Convention Center for the Marathon Expo.

The building was filled with everything that ever had
to do with running and a lot that didn't. Displays of the old-time
shoes and shorts and singlets. Clips of Jesse Owens humbling Hitler
in the thirties and Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile in
the fifties. Longer pieces on Bill Rodgers in the seventies edging
into Joan Benoit in the eighties. All watched reverently by probably
the biggest, slimmest crowd the Hynes had ever hosted.

But after a while, being jostled this way and that, I
felt nostalgia yielding to commercialism. How-to books and exercise
videos, health foods and vitamin supplements, rowing machines and
stationary treadmills. Uncountable cross-sectioned shoes in front of
as many sales reps trumpeting arch support and heel stability.
College kids working for restaurants and handing out discount flyers
for beer and pasta "last suppers." I'd been trained by a
pro, but I was basically an amateur, a little overwhelmed by the
breadth of a sport in which I knew I just dabbled.

At a pay phone I tried Nancy at her apartment again.
No answer. Maisy Andrus at the mansion. Busy signal.

I recovered my quarter and walked home.

Coming into the condo, I heard a movement near the
kitchen. All I had were my keys and the chance of making the bedroom
for a weapon.

"John?" said Nancy's voice from the
kitchen.

I exhaled and moved around the corner into the living
room.

"How did you know it was me?"

She came out of the kitchen. "I could hear your
ankles grinding."

Nancy was wearing jeans and one of my old chamois
shirts.

I said, "After the session with Eisenberg, I
didn't expect to see you for a while."

Her face was flushed, and she used the back of her
wrist to wipe away the perspiration. "I thought I'd try to cook
you something."

"Unfortunately, I'm down to just pasta for the
race."

"I heard that's what they push, so we're having
spinach linguini, nonalcoholic beer, and whole-grain crisp-crust
bread for your — what is it, your 'carbos'?"

"My carbos."

About midway through the meal and a particularly good
hunk of bread, I said, "This mean you don't still think I'm
stupid about running the marathon?"

"No. This means I think you are so incredibly
more stupid for even considering doing it after getting shot that I
realized I had to do what I could by way of damage control."

"Nance?"

"What?"

"How long you been working on that line?"

"All afternoon."

"Should have been more concise."

"I tried it a lot of different ways. That was
the best."

I munched my crisp crust and shut up.

After a moment Nancy said, "So, I'll drive you
out there and then come back here."

I put down the bread. "You'll be at the finish
line?"

"Reluctantly. But I've got a trial first thing
Tuesday, so I can't stay over."

"For once in your life, call in sick."

"Can't. But that reminds me. You should phone
Del Wonsley."

"Wonsley?"

"Yes. I heard his voice on your tape machine as
I was coming in."

"Did you catch any of the 1nessage?"

"Yes." Nancy used a soup spoon to twirl
some pasta onto her fork. "Good news, I think. He said Alec
Bacall is coming home tomorrow."
 

=31=

"IF I HADN'T SEEN IT.”