The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (12 page)

Up in Jack's bedroom, I turned and saw Mary leaning
against the doorway, her arms folded across her ample front. Her head
was cocked slightly to one side, her dark hair cascading down the
side of her head onto her shoulder. Looked great. But her lip curled
a bit in a dubious, disgusted expression.

"Well, when it rains, it pours," she said
softly. "Jackie, can you tell offhand if anything's missing?"

"
Not anything I can remember. Looks to me like
they just searched the place."

"Looking for what?" asked Keegan.

Jack shrugged his shoulders. Keegan suggested we all
go get a cup of coffee. Tom wanted to put his room back together, so
he stayed at the house. The rest of us walked to the Cap'n Kidd
tavern, which is down on Water Street near the drawbridge. We ordered
coffee. Jack, usually hungry, had a Coke, which he sipped nervously.
I repeated my observation that this ransacking of the boys' house
cleared Jack of all suspicion. I was hoping Keegan would agree
without reservation. But he didn't.

"Hold on, Doc," he said. "We can't
assume that. Not yet. For one thing, we have no evidence that links
the break-in with the murder. It could be just a random burglary."

"Aw, c'mon, Paul," said Mary. "It's
not the kind of house a burglar would choose. Even I know that. It's
student housing, and everybody around here knows it. And nothing
valuable was taken. It must have been a search, not a burglary."

Keegan held up his hand.

"All that's crossed my mind. But how about this:
what if somebody, like maybe a prosecuting attorney, supposes that
Jack tossed the house himself on Friday afternoon prior to leaving
for your cottage in order to divert suspicion? What about that?"

Mary squirmed in her chair. "That's the biggest
load of horseshit I've ever heard, Paul. For one thing, he and Andy
left together, didn't you, Jackie?"

"Well no, not exactly. Andy had loaded all his
stuff into the Toyota at lunch time. He was in the lab all that
afternoon, remember? So after my work was finished, I packed my stuff
in and then picked him up at Lillie."

"What's Lillie?" asked Keegan.

"Lillie Hall. The big building right down the
street. It's where the labs and offices are. I picked him up there
about four-thirty."

"Right," said Keegan, "I remembered
your saying that, and wrote it down. Tom left Woods Hole Thursday
afternoon to visit his parents in Worcester. You were the last one to
leave."

"What have you got against us?" said Mary.
She was giving him a dead level stare. It wasn't friendly.

"I have nothing against any of you, believe me.
If anything, I'm biased in your behalf, for two reasons. One is Doc's
coming forward with the cause of death. The other is the fact that
you're Joe's sister. So don't worry about my personal feelings. But
remember, there are D.A.s. There are prosecuting attorneys and grand
juries. These people may not see things the way you do. And speaking
of that, Jack, there's a curious thing I wanted to talk to you
about."

Jack looked up from his Coke. He was jiggling his
legs up and down fast in his nervousness.

"The lab team checked for means of entry. Tom
McDonnough says that each of you kept a key. No key was hidden under
the doormat or any such place, right?"

"Right," Jack nodded.

"Tom also told me that whenever you guys left
for the weekend, you always locked the doors, front and back, and you
always closed and snibbed the downstairs windows. Correct?"

Jack nodded again.

"Well, when he discovered the mess, Tom looked
around and saw the kitchen window left wide open, and the window
screen removed and lying in the bushes below. I assume you didn't do
this."

"No, I didn't. just before I left on Friday, I
checked all the windows on the first floor. They were all shut down
tight. I don't know about the screen, it could have been missing. But
the windows were closed and locked."

"Okay. Now the odd thing is this: there's no way
the window could have been forced from the outside. There are no pry
marks from tools on the sill or the bottom of the window frame. Also,
the snib is intact. If the window had been forced, the fastener would
be broken or pried off. Follow?"

"I guess. You're saying that the window was
opened from the inside, and made to look like somebody forced it from
the outside."

"Exactly. So how did they get in? We think they
got in through the front door. And because there are no marks on the
lock face, we're pretty sure they didn't pick the lock. Therefore,
they used a key."

"Well, it wasn't my key."

"I didn't expect you to say it was, Jack. But
Tom swears it wasn't his key, and we know for sure it wasn't Andy's
key. So assuming it wasn't the landlord, my question is, who else had
a key, and how'd they get it?"

After several seconds of silence, Jack admitted he
had no idea. "Think carefully, Jack. Did you loan your key to
anyone, even for a few hours?"

"No. Not that I can remember. The one person I
can think of that might have borrowed mine, or Andy's, is Alice
Henderson."

Keegan said nothing; he just looked at Jack, whose
legs and knees were bouncing a mile a minute. He wasn't a twitchy
kid, so he was clearly nervous about something.

"It might interest you to know that I spoke with
Alice Henderson yesterday.”

Jack didn't answer, just rattled the ice around in
his Coke glass, bouncing his legs so fast I thought he might become
airborne. Then I saw a sheen of sweat on his lip. Oh boy—

"She, uh, had some interesting things to say
about your relationship with Andy."

Jack just sat there, twitching in every muscle and
staring down at the table. The lunch time crowd, swilling beer and
inhaling burgers, paid no attention to our taut little group.

Mary couldn't stand it any longer.

"What is it Jackie? For God's sake, tell us!"

Jack looked back at Paul, biting his lip.

"
What did she say?"

"What do you think she said?” asked Keegan. At
that point I sensed danger. I don't know much about the law, but I've
learned from Brady Cone that when the water turns murky, clam up and
wait for good advice. I told Keegan that the "interview"
was over. The three of us got up and left him sitting at the table
alone, presumably to pick up the tab. It was the least he could do.
We walked awhile in silence, past the historic Candle House with its
ship's prow over the door, and then I suggested we go up to our room
in Swope Dormitory.

"I wanted to get you out of there before he
painted you into a corner," I explained. Jack was stretched out
on the bed, leaning up against the headboard, staring at his hands.
"I don't think you ought to answer any more questions, for
anyone, until we get a lawyer."

"Charlie! Is it that bad?"

"Hell yes it's bad. First degree murder has a
tendency to be serious business. Listen, Jack, I have the distinct
feeling that Alice Henderson has told Paul Keegan something that's
important and perhaps damaging. Right?"

He nodded his head without hesitation. Great. just
great.

"Well?" Mary said.

"Well, what happened was, Andy and I got into a
fist fight on July Fourth weekend. I'm sure that's one of the things
she told him."

"Fist fight?" said Mary, getting out of her
chair and walking over to the bed. "Why didn't you tell us
this?"

"Why? For one thing, it was over a month ago and
we'd both just about forgotten about it. Except that the side of my
face still hurts sometimes, and Andy told me he had a ringing in his
left ear.”

I slumped over the table and let out a low groan,

"
Sweet Jesus," Mary whispered. "Now
listen: you're going to tell us everything—right here, right now."

"There's not much else to tell—"

"Who saw this fight?" I asked.

"Well, Alice did. It was kinda about her. Andy
was like teasing me privately about it, and I lost my temper. Terry,
Alice's brother, was there, too. Along with a few other people."

Great, I thought. Witnesses galore for the bad scenes
. . . no "impartial" witnesses when we neeeded them. Great.

"So who won?" asked Mary.

"Nobody. They broke it up. For a while
afterwards, Andy didn't stay at the house."

"Don't you see the position that this puts you
in?" I asked. Jack lowered his head again, as if about to cry,
and Mary jumped all over me for being harsh with him. I went over and
joined them on the bed, putting my arm around Jack's shoulder. Then
he did break down crying. He was plenty scared. Frankly, I was scared
myself, and doing my damnedest not to show it.

"Seems to me that you and Andy weren't really
friends," said Mary.

"That's not true. We were friends, deep down.
But the thing with Alice came between us, and Andy was, you know,
volatile. Sometimes he was real hard to get along with. I'm sure
Alice would admit that."

"Okay," I sighed, "the first step is
to get Joe down here for a day or two. I'll feel better once he's
here. Also, Mary, I'm accepting the medical examiner job, at least
for a while. It'll give me some clout. The best way to deal with this
is to fight back. Know what I mean?"

"You? Medical examiner?" she said. "You
nuts, or what?"

"Or what," I said. "Now can you try to
get your brother on the phone?"
 

NINE

"No, Doc. Keegan's not trying to blow you guys
out of the water. Believe me. It's just that he doesn't want you to
get an unrealistic view of the situation, is all."

"But why does he have to paint the bleakest
possible picture, for Chrissakes?"

"Look, take the alibi thing. You say you were
with Jack for two days aboard the boat. Fine. But you're his father;
you're an interested party, a biased witness. A jury could be
persuaded you're lying to protect your son. I mean, Pocassett's just
a hop and a skip from Woods Hole. They could buy it that Jack went
back to the house and ransacked it to divert suspicion away from him.
What would be great is an unbiased witness, a casual observer. That's
why it's a shame you didn't bump into some Joe Blow who could've
seen—"

"
Yeah, but tough shit, Joe. We didn't. And what
really pissed me off was when he suggested Jack could have tossed the
house himself before he left on Friday. Why did he even suggest
that?"

"Why? Because a prosecutor's going to, if this
thing goes that far."

"
You really think it's going to? I can't believe
it. You really think—"

"Look, I hope to hell not. But just don't count
on being out of the woods, is all I'm saying. Where's Sis?"

"In the shower. You want me to get her?"

"No, I'll call back. And I'll be down there
tomorrow, so in the meantime keep cool, and don't get yourself in
troub—"

"You know I'd never—"

"Ha! I know you too well."

"Moe's coming down today. I think I'll take him
with me when I see Lionel Hartzell, the loony professor with the
magic silver fish.”

"The what?"

"Never mind. Bye."

I hung up and sat back in the dorm's easy chair,
uneasily, waiting for Mary to emerge from the shower. She did,
dressed in a madras wraparound skirt and a white silk blouse, with
big silver earrings and sandals with cork soles. She looked like a
Mexican woman, only darker.

The phone rang again, and I picked it up.

"Dr. Adams? Hi, this is Art Hagstrom. I don't
know if you've ever heard my name before, but I'm—"

"The director of MBL. Yes, Jack's mentioned you
often, and most favorably, too."

"Well I'm glad to hear it, and the feeling is
very mutual. Jack's a fine young man and a good scholar, too."

"Even though he might be a murderer."

"Aw, c'mon. Nobody here believes that. In fact,
the reason I'm anxious to pay you a call is to discuss something that
could be important."

"Where are you now?"

 
"Downstairs in the lobby."

"Well, come on up, then."

Art Hagstrom was tall, with dark curly hair, and a
set of bushy eyebrows to match. Jack had told us about his national
reputation. His pleasant smile and casual manner belied the
path-breaking work in gene cloning and cell replication that he was
engaged in. He sat at the table with us, dressed in khaki shorts and
a polo shirt, Topsiders dock loafers with no socks. He sure didn't
look like a research scientist. He leaned forward, clapped his cupped
hands together as if calling a meeting to order, and said: "Okay,
here goes. I may slip into a shit pile for telling you this, but, as
I said, it may have a slight bearing on all this craziness. I only
ask that you not tell a soul. Agreed?"

We nodded.

"Good. I'm going to tell this to the police, but
I feel you should both hear it too, since you're Jack's parents. just
as long as you keep in mind that it's mostly hearsay. The upshot is:
I have reason to think that Andrew Cunningham, despite his charm and
talent, was not the young innocent he appeared to be."