'They keep circling faster and faster until they get behind it,' I said.
I held the car in a tight turn and put more pressure on the accelerator.
The Chevy tried to stay tight, but he didn't know what was going on and I did. Also I cornered better than he did. He lost some ground. I pushed the car harder, it bucked a little against the sharpness of the turn but I held it in.
'I get it,' Paul said.
'Quicker than the guy in the Chevy,' I said. He was still chasing us around the circle. On the third loop I was behind him and as he started around again, I peeled off right and floored it out the Alewife Brook Parkway, past the shopping center, ran the light at Rindge Avenue by passing three cars on the inside, and headed up Rindge back into Cambridge. By the time
I got to Mass Avenue he had lost us. I turned left and headed out toward
Lexington through Arlington.
'Wily,' Paul said.
'Float like a butterfly,' I said. 'Sting like a bee.'
'Pearl's looking a little queasy,' Paul said.
'Being a canine crime stopper,' I said, 'is not always pretty.'
CHAPTER 23
WE started in Stockbridge, because Paul and I agreed that Stockbridge was where we'd buy a place if we were on the run. And it was easy. We left Pearl in the car with the windows part open diagonally across from the Red Lion
Inn, walked across the street to the biggest real estate office on the main street in Stockbridge, and showed the picture of Patty Giacomin to a thick woman in a pair of green slacks and a pink turtleneck.
'Oh, I know her,' the woman said. 'That's Mrs. Richards. I just sold them a house.'
The house she had sold them was about half a mile from town on Overlook
Hill. They had purchased the house for cash under the name Mr. and Mrs.
Beaumont Richards.
'Beaumont Richards,' I said as we drove up the hill. 'Who'd ever guess it was him?'
Paul was silent. His face seemed to have lost color, and he swallowed with difficulty. Pearl had her head forward between us, and Paul was absently scratching her ear.
I parked on the gravel at the edge of the roadway in front of the address we'd been given. It was a recently built Cape, with the unlandscaped raw look that newly built houses have. This one looked even rawer because it was isolated, set into the woods, away from any neighbors. The roadway that we parked on continued into the woods. As if, come spring, an optimistic builder would put up some more houses for spec. Running up behind the house were some wheel ruts which appeared to do service as a driveway. The ruts had probably been created by the builders' heavy equipment and would be smoothed out and re-sodded in spring. To the left the hill sloped down toward the town, and you could see the Red Lion Inn, which dominated the minimalist center. Behind the house the woods ran, as best I could tell, all the way to the Hudson River.
'How to do this?' I said.
'I think I should go in,' Paul said.
'Yeah, except Beaumont is bound to be very nervous about callers,' I said.
'I'm his paramour's son,' Paul said. 'That's got to count for something.'
'He's scared,' I said. 'That counts for everything in most people, if they're scared enough.'
'I have to do this,' Paul said. 'I can't have you bring me in to see her.
I am a grown man. She has to see me that way. She has to accept that… that I matter.'
He swallowed. He had the look of bottled tension that he'd had when I first met him.
I nodded. 'I'll be here,' I said.
Paul made an attempt at a smile, gave me a little thumbs-up gesture, and got out of the car. Pearl immediately came into the front seat and sat where Paul had sat.
I watched him walk up the curving flagstone pathway toward number 12. It had a colonial blue door. The siding was clapboard stained a maple tone.
There were diamond panes in the windows. There was no lawn yet, but someone had put in a couple of evergreen shrubs on each side of the front door and a quiet breeze gently tossed the tips of their branches. I wished I could do this for him. It cost him so much and would cost me so little. But it would cost him much more if I did it for him. He stopped on the front steps and, after a moment, rang the doorbell.
The door opened and I could see Paul speak, and pause, and then go in. The door closed behind him. I waited. Pearl stiffened and shifted in the seat as a squirrel darted across the gravel road and into the yellowing woods that had yielded only slightly to the house. I rubbed her neck and watched the front door.
'Life is often very hard on kids, Pearl,' I said.
Pearl's attention remained fixed on the squirrel.
There was no sound. And no movement beyond that which the breeze caused to stir in the forest. Beaumont had chosen a bad place to hide. It seemed remote but its remoteness increased his danger.He'd have been better
