“Right. We scared everybody else off of trying to color his gray, though.”
“I vaguely remember a couple of other guys who were going gray,” I said. “A Wilson and… Beech, maybe?”
“Beecham,” Cookie said. “Manny Beecham. And if the Wilson you’re thinking of was gray haired, it was Quinn. Wilson and Beecham were motorcycle cops. Boy, I tell you — that was tough duty. Cold in winter. I knew men who would stuff newspapers in their jackets, trying to stay warm.”
“We weren’t much better off in the cars,” Bear said, watching Gus. “Right, Gus?”
Gus looked up. His eyes looked a little red. “Yeah, Bear, the cars were cold, too.”
“Irene, we didn’t get heaters in our cars until 1958,” Bear said, more animated now that Gus had joined in again. “Brian and I used to turn the spotlight on and aim it into the car just to heat ourselves up.”
“Everybody did that,” Cookie said. “We were supposed to ride with our windows down in the winter, so we could hear what was going on outside the car.”
“I reckon that would make things a little chilly,” Cassidy said.
Gus suddenly got to his feet. “I can’t stand this! We’re sitting in here talking about the fucking weather!”
Cookie stood up, too, and said, “Have a seat, Gus.”
Gus didn’t move. “It ain’t even today’s weather, for God’s sake!”
“Have a seat, Gus,” Bear said quietly. “For Bea’s sake.”
Gus sat.
“And watch your mouth,” Cookie added. “This is Bea’s home. You think if Brian were alive, he’d let you talk like that in front of his wife?”
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Cecilia said, drawing all eyes. “Gus is just upset, worried about Frank, right?”
Gus said nothing, looking down between his feet again.
“Yes,” Bea said, “that’s all it is. Nathan?”
Cookie said, “Of course. I’m sorry, Gus. I guess my nerves are on edge, too.” He sat down.
Cassidy glanced at me, then moved to sit in a chair near Cecilia, across from Gus and Cookie.
“Gus,” he said quietly, “I don’t blame you. We’ve avoided the topic that’s been on everybody’s mind all evening. You’ve always been close to Frank, right?”
He nodded.
“And you know who has him?”
“Those boys,” he said to the floor.
Cassidy glanced at me again, leaned back.
“Do you remember that day?” I asked Gus.
“You mean when the boys were found?” he said, looking up at me now.
“Yes.”
“Sure. Never forget it. I got there last. Cookie and Bear were there. Not Brian, though.”
“Brian had gone fishing that day,” Cecilia said. “He was off that weekend.”
“That’s right!” Bea said. “I had forgotten. That’s why he got back so late. He used to go fishing with some friends of ours in Bodfish.”
“Bodfish?” Cassidy asked. “I never heard of a fish called a bodfish.”
“It isn’t named after a fish, it’s named after a person,” she said. “His name was George Homer Bodfish.”
“I guess he didn’t want to have to live alone with it,” Cassidy said.
“Brian was in Bodfish that weekend?” Cookie asked.
“Just Saturday,” Cecilia answered. “He was back here by Sunday night.”
“How do you know?” Pete asked, coming in from the kitchen.
“It was the first time I’d been to a Father’s Day dinner. The Harrimans invited me. When Frank got the call that day, Brian hadn’t come back from fishing. Our plans got changed a little.”
I gave Pete a look that said “Lay off.” I guess he got the message, because he took a seat and didn’t say anything more. Rachel came in and sat next to him.
“I’m sure anyone who was a friend of the family would remember that Father’s Day,” I said. “All three of you went to the scene?”
“Yeah,” Gus said. “I don’t think anybody who was there could forget those two kids. Or Frank, the way he was that day. Oh, man. I felt so bad for him, you know, because he caught that call.”
“How did you hear about it?”
“I was working…. I had just come on for my shift, soit must have been… let’s see… around six-thirty. That’s right — I was on days for those last few years before I retired. Brian had also been on days, but he had been on them for a long time.” He glanced at Bea and then up at the photos on the mantel. He shook his head sadly.
