Blunt Darts

movements. I’d dragged a light folding beach chair down the path with me. I set it up with the help of my right foot. I eased into it, the light rain blowing on my face.
    “Yep,” I said, imitating an old man’s voice. “Sure is good to rest the weary bones.” Off to the left I noticed the elderly man again. He still wore the old gray suit, no raincoat, and held the Homburg. He was straightening back up with difficulty after laying some flowers near his headstone. I dropped the imitation from my voice.
    “Suicide, Beth,” I said, a little thickly. “Remember how we would talk around it, the last few weeks? When I wouldn’t leave you alone. Well, they left him alone. Two days after Brower’s—he’s the DA—two days after his third psychiatrist agreed that Stephen couldn’t stand trial, the kid tore open a pillow and shoved the stuffing down his throat. Kept shoving it till he choked. Mrs. Kinnington had just arrived at the hospital to visit him, special arrangements and all despite his, ah, status. The DA told me she saw him being rushed to a resuscitator. She had another stroke. The DA said he doubts she’ll last the week.”
    The tissue paper around the roses was beginning to flatten here and bulge there from the rain. We watched the power launches and a few maverick sailboats slap against the light storm chop in the harbor below. And we talked. It was my first day back in quite a while, so we had a lot to catch up on.
    After a time, I found myself watching the elderly man. He was still standing over his place, the Hom-burg clenched in his hands and his head bowed. His shoulders were shaking now, though, and every once in a while his torso would heave up, and he’d rock forward a little.
    I decided it was time to go, before the weather started getting to me, too.
     

About the Author
     
    Jeremiah Healy is a graduate of Rutgers College and Harvard Law School. He served in the Military Police and practiced civil litigation with a Boston law firm. In 1978, Healy joined the faculty of New England School of Law, becoming a full professor in 1983. He and his wife, Bonnie Tisler, a buyer for Filene’s, live in Boston and divide their vacations between Maine and the Caribbean. Blunt Darts is his first novel.
     

 

 
    JEREMIAH HEALY is a professor at the New England School of Law. A former president of the Private Eye Writers of America, he has earned eight Shamus Award nominations, most recently for Foursome. RESCUE, the tenth novel in his acclaimed series featuring John Francis Cuddy, will soon be available from Pocket Books Hardcover. Previous entries include the Shamus Award-winner The Staked Goat, and Blunt Darts, So Like Sleep, Swan Dive, Yesterday’s News, Right to Die, Shallow Graves, Foursome, and Act of God.