“I have the feeling I’m only getting a piece of what you’re saying,” I said. “Is it too much of an oversimplification for me to say that because his parents are as they are, he’s not sure whether he’d prefer to be like his mother or like his father when he gets to be an adult?”
She smiled a luminous smile and said, “That will do.
One thing, though; this is only an opinion and one based on not enough data. I think I’m right, but I have a master’s degree in guidance; I am not a psychiatrist.”
“Okay, go ahead. What else can you tell me?”
“He moves with a really damaging group for a boy like him.”
“Troublemakers?”
“No, not in the usual sense. Dropouts would be a better word. He has few friends in school. He spends most of his time with a group who have dropped out of school. Their approach to life is asocial if not antisocial, and for a boy with unresolved Oedipal hostilities it seems the worst possible choice of companions.”
“Do you think he might be with one of this group?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have an idea which?”
“No. That I can’t be sure of. Kevin is not very talkative.
He’s been to see me a couple of times. He has difficulties with the women teachers. Nothing that is easily explained, but a kind of nagging hostility which is difficult to deal with.”
“For instance?”
“Oh, telling one of the younger teachers she looks sexy.
If she reprimands him he’ll say, okay, you don’t look sexy.
That sort of thing. There’s nothing really you can discipline him for, and indeed, to do so makes you look more ridiculous. He’s very clever that way.”
“Okay, can you give me an idea of this group he hangs with?”
“Well, as I say, he’s not communicative, and he’s very clever. When I’ve talked with him, I’ve learned that he has friends among the local dissidents, I suppose you’d call them, and he seems particularly friendly with someone named Vic Harroway. But who or where he is I don’t know.
I’m not close to the situation. Kevin is only one of maybe twenty kids a day I talk with.”
“All with problems?”
“No, not emotional ones. Some of them just want advice on where to go to college, or when to take the college boards, or how to get a job as a bulldozer operator. But four or five a day are emotional problems, and there isn’t time, nor have I sufficient training, really, to help them. The best I can do is recommend help at one or another guidance clinic and give the name of some psychotherapists I trust.”
“Did you suggest that to Kevin’s parents?”
“Well, I asked them to come and talk with me, but they never came. And I didn’t want to just send them a letter suggesting it. So I did not make any recommendation.”
“How did you ask them? I mean, did you write a letter or see them at PTA or send a note home with Kevin? Or what?”
“I called Mrs. Bartlett and asked if she and her husband could come in. She said yes and we made an appointment, but they never came. Why do you want to know?”
“Because it’s there. Because it’s better to know than not to know in my line of work.”
She smiled, her teeth very white in her dark face.
“Maybe in all lines of work,” she said. And I was proud that I’d said a smart thing.
Chapter 4
The rain had stopped when I left Susan Silverman and headed back for the Bartletts’ house. I wanted to see what they could tell me about their son’s social circle. If there was a group like that around, it would be a fair bet he’d go to it. Smithfield didn’t look like the spot for a commune.
But then, I wasn’t quite sure what a spot for a commune looked like.
When I pulled into the Bartlett driveway, the chief’s car was there again along with three others. One was a cream-colored Thunderbird with a black vinyl roof. One was a blue Ford station wagon with Smithfield Police lettered in black on the sides and the emergency number 555-3434
across the back. The third was a two-tone powder-blue and dark blue Massachusetts State Police cruiser. A state cop with a uniform that matched the cruiser and a gray campaign hat was leaning against it with his arms folded.
The short-sleeved blue shirt was pressed with military creases; the black shoes were spit-shined. The campaign hat was tipped forward over the bridge of his nose like a Parris Island DI’s. He had a big-handled Magnum.357 on a shiny black belt. He looked at me with no expression on his tanned and healthy face as I got out of my car.
“May I have your name, sir?” he said.
“Spenser,” I said. “I’m working for the Bartletts. What’s going on?”
