Measure Of Darkness

Lee glances at the table, where the first round of betting is under way—cash is the rule, no effing chips—and says, “I got a call from a brother officer, an old pal of mine who’s still on the job in Cambridge, Taxachusetts, and you’ll never guess who’s just been named in a murder inquiry.”

“No idea,” Gatling responds, playing along. “Mother Teresa? Martha Stewart?”

“This is serious, Taylor,” Lee says. “Randall Shane. They expect to have him in custody any moment.”

Taylor looks blank. “Sorry, Chief, I don’t get it.”

“Shane. That FBI jerk who testified against your dad.”

“That was twenty years ago. Lots of witnesses testified against him.”

“Yeah, but this guy Shane, he was the one got your father convicted. That’s what your dad believed. Told me so himself.”

“Yeah? Well, he never told me. If you recall, we weren’t exactly on speaking terms at the time. I was eighteen that summer—I’d just enlisted with the Marine Corps so I could get away from all that crap.”

Lee looks at him, can’t quite meet his eyes. They both know how it ended for Gatling’s father.

“Just thought you’d want to know.”

“Thanks, Lee. Best forgotten, though. Water under the bridge, or over the dam, or wherever it’s supposed to go.”

“Sorry,” the old man says, shrinking a little, now embarrassed.

“Hey. No need to be sorry. I appreciate your concern. You were his good and loyal friend when times got tough, and I’ll never forget that. Get yourself a glass, we’ll have a little toast.”

Lee Shipley, relieved, pours a splash from the same bottle, raises his glass.

“To the old man,” Taylor says. “May he rest in peace.”

“Amen to that.”

They sit down to play poker, and not another word is said about his late father. But inside, behind his bad boy smile, Gatling is very pleased by the news. Randall Shane, the so-called hero, is down for a count of murder in the first degree, a charge long overdue.

Good.

Chapter Nine

What the Cat Lady Said

There’s nothing very grand about the neighborhood where Professor Keener lived and died. The modest two-story house is one of a hundred similar wood-framed dwellings situated along this particular stretch of Putnam Avenue, some with actual white picket fences, in the area dubbed “Cambridgeport” because the Charles River winds around it like a dirty shawl. Keener’s place, built narrow and deep to fit the lot, appears to date from the 1940s, but it could easily be considerably older, having been renovated a few times along the way. Asphalt shingle siding removed, clapboards repaired and painted. Inside, carpets and linoleum have been taken up to expose the original hard-pine floors, a few interior walls taken down to open up the downstairs—I can see that much by peering through the windows from the narrow, slightly sagging front porch.

The front door has been sealed with yellow crime tape, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’d attempt a break-in in broad daylight, or at any time, for that matter. The place has been thoroughly searched by professionals, and if there’s any evidence that Professor Keener had a son, surely it exists in the minds of neighbors, colleagues, friends. Memories can’t be so easily erased. Anyhow, that was my argument to boss lady, who normally doesn’t approve of me playing investigator, as she calls it. The homes on this block are close together, barely room to park a vehicle between them, and my plan is to prowl around the porch playing looky-loo until someone in the neighborhood responds, if only to tell me to mind my own business.

As it happens the watchful neighbor is a retired school bus driver, Toni Jo Nadeau, recently widowed, and she couldn’t be nicer. Pleasantly pear-shaped in velour loungewear, big hair and with the keen eyes of a nosey parker—in other words, exactly the person I was hoping to find.

“Excuse me,” she begins, having come out to her own little porch, right next door. “Are you looking for the professor?”

“Oh dear,” I say, clutching my handbag, acting a bit frazzled, which isn’t difficult. “No, no, I know he’s gone. Murdered, I should say, but that’s such an ugly word. Awful! No, I’m looking for his son? His five-year-old boy?”

Mrs. Nadeau gives me the once-over, decides I’m okay and introduces herself, including the part about her late husband. Then she glances up and down the street, as if to check if we’re being observed. “You mean the Chinese kid? Come around the back,” she says, gesturing down the narrow driveway. “My cats own the front rooms, we can talk in the kitchen.”

Unlike some of the other homes in the neighborhood, Toni Jo’s house has not been upgraded in the last few decades, and the kitchen still has the feel—and smell—of a place where cooking happens. Most recently, roast lamb with a few cloves of fresh garlic, if my nose hasn’t failed me. She urges me to have a seat at her little counter, offers coffee, which I decline, having already topped up on caffeine, courtesy of Mrs. Beasley. “I’m good, thank you. Alice Crane,” I say, offering my hand. “I work in the physics department. As a secretary slash office manager, I wouldn’t know an electron if it bit me on the ankle! This is so nice of you. I’m at my wit’s end. Did you say Chinese boy? I’ve been so worried.”

“Oh yeah?” she says cautiously, attempting to suss me out.

“Couldn’t sleep a wink last night, worrying about that poor little guy.”

“Wait,” she says, her eyes hooding slightly. “You know the kid?”

“No, no,” I say, shaking my head and keeping up the frazzled bit. “Never met him myself, and nobody in the department seems to know where he is, or who has legal custody. But everybody says Joe had a little boy, so he must be somewhere, mustn’t he?”

“Everybody, huh?”

“You know how it is. People talk.”

“And they say the kid is Professor Keener’s son, do they?”

It’s easy enough to look befuddled. “Do I have it wrong? Oh dear, maybe I’m worried about nothing. But you said—what was it you said?”

“Haven’t yet,” she says, going all cagey. “Joe, is that what his friends called him? Really? He was always Professor Keener to me. Very formal man, very private about himself. First time I went over there and introduced myself he looked at the ground and said, ‘Professor Keener,’ and that’s how it stayed. It fit him, too. He was the perfect neighbor, really. Anyhow, he used to have a little kid that came around on a regular basis, but that stopped a couple of years ago. Not every day, but like on weekends. A toddler, couldn’t have been more than three years old, the last time I noticed. Played in the backyard a few times, but mostly they kept him inside.”

“They?” I ask, genuinely surprised.

“The Chinese lady I assumed to be his wife. Or ex- wife, or whatever. She was always here with the boy and she was obviously his mother. She’s a real beauty, an exotic type, wears those formal Chinese dresses, doesn’t speak a word of English. At least not to me.”

“But you haven’t seen her or the boy for the last two years?”

“Something like that. At first I thought maybe she was just a friend of his. They didn’t look like a couple, if you know what I mean. Not even a divorced couple. But one day one of my ninjas got out.”

“Excuse me?”

“My kitty cats. Ninjas, I call ’em. I’m owned by four cats, shelter cats, and they like to hide under the furniture, whack your ankles as you go by. Anyhow, Jeepers got out and bolted over to Professor Keener’s yard, and the little boy was sitting in the sandbox, playing with a scoop, and wouldn’t you know, Jeepers was interested in the sandbox, or that’s what I thought. I go running out, afraid the kid might get scratched, but the cat was sitting there, perfectly well behaved, letting the little boy pet her. Very cute, I wish I’d had my camera. The professor came out at the same time, and I retrieved Jeepers and he retrieved the boy, and we had ourselves a little conversation. Which is all you ever got with the professor. I said, what an adorable child, I can see he takes after his father, and he smiled and said, ‘He’s my keyboard kid,’ and that was all. Not another word. I mean, what does that mean, ‘keyboard kid’? I asked, but the conversation was obviously over. He never even told me the boy’s name.”

“But you took him to mean the boy was his son.”

“Absolutely. You could tell, the way he was holding him, the pride in his eyes. He actually looked me in the eye that one time, just for a second, and I could tell how much he loved the boy. And close-up like that you could see the resemblance, I wasn’t kidding about that.”

“You haven’t seen the child in at least two years. Did you ever ask Professor Keener where his son was? Why he didn’t come around anymore? What happened to the boy’s mother? Anything like that?”

Mrs. Nadeau shakes her head, gives me a flinty, dismissive look, almost scornful. “Who are you really?” she wants to know. “If you worked with Professor Keener, you’d know what he was like. You’d know not to ask him personal questions like that. What are you, some kind of reporter?”

Boss lady always says that when you’re engaged on a case, it’s best to season your prevarication with just enough truth to make it edible—and be ready to alter the recipe on the fly. “Not a reporter, no, absolutely not,” I say, backpedaling in place. “And to be totally truthful with you—I’m so sorry I fibbed—I never actually worked in the physics department and I never met Professor Keener personally. But before he died, before he got killed, Keener hired a friend of mine to help him find his missing five-year-old son. It was my friend—he’s a former FBI agent who specializes in child recovery—it was my friend who found the body, okay? And my friend who is now a suspect in the murder.”

To my surprise, Toni Jo Nadeau grins at me. “This is a much better story, sugar,” she says, eyes bright with interest. “Some of it might even be true.”

“Please don’t tell the police. They’ll think I’m meddling.”

“Describe this ‘friend’ of yours and I’ll think about it.”