refused to testify. Joe was a friend, and there was a rumor he paid Lenny a fair price for the finger-’
Kelly held up his hand. He got the picture.
‘Look, I know I’m a little green. But I do have this job. In my town I’m the chief, for better or worse. I’m the only one they’ve got. I didn’t choose this.’
‘You’re green as grass,’ he said, as much to himself as to me.
‘Okay, well, thank you, I guess.’
‘There are hundreds of cops already working this case. You do know that, don’t you?’
He glanced at the newspaper he’d been carrying, the Boston Herald, then went to the breakfast table for the other morning papers, which he tossed one by one on the coffee table in front of me. The Boston Globe led with the story on page one. A two-column headline read, SEARCH FOR PROSECUTOR’S SLAYER CONTINUES. A color photo showed Danziger smiling behind his red mustache and owlish glasses. The caption identified him as Robert Danziger, led anti-gang unit. The Herald, Boston’s bad-boy tabloid, was more histrionic. It had a one-word banner headline, DRAGNET! over a photo of detectives in BPD windbreakers questioning a group of black teenagers on a street corner. A local paper, the Portland Press Herald, and even The New York Times had picked up the story.
But the notion of following the case to Boston seemed logical, even inevitable. My response to the newspapers was a mute shrug and a manful sip of whiskey.
‘So what do you want from me?’ Kelly asked.
‘I thought maybe you’d like to come along.’
‘To Boston?’
I nodded.
‘I told you, I’m retired.’
‘Yes, but you knew Danziger. Besides, you said yourself, a retired cop is still a cop. You said you never stop being a cop.’
‘Yes, but even cops get old.’
‘You could teach me. You could help me.’
‘Help you what?’
‘Help me follow the case. Stay informed. Maybe get involved somehow if we can.’
Kelly shook his head and paced with his drink. He wandered over to the chest, where the photo of the dark- haired girl stared back at him with a somber expression. ‘Ben, look at me. I’m sixty-six years old. I came up here just to get away from this bullshit.’ He turned for assistance to the little girl in the photo, the late Theresa Rose Kelly. She seemed to shake her head at me too. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally.
‘Me too.’
‘You’ll be alright, Ben Truman. You’re a good cop, deep down.’
‘I’m not really a cop at all. It’s just a job.’
‘That’s how it always starts.’
The next morning, Kelly knocked and opened the stationhouse door, tentative and polite, wearing his ever- present flannel jacket and scally cap. ‘Can I have a word with you, Chief Truman?’ He glanced at Dick, who was working a crossword puzzle at the dispatcher’s desk. ‘Alone?’
I slipped on my jacket, and Kelly and I walked down Central Street. He produced a wooden billy club, which he had tucked in his belt. It was coffee brown with a leather wrist strap. Every inch of the wood was nicked and scratched. As we walked, Kelly twirled the thing absent-mindedly. There seemed to be two ways to do this: a propeller sort of motion directly in front of the belt buckle; or at the hip, like a floozy spinning her feather boa. Kelly executed both maneuvers with incredible dexterity. Who knows how many years of practice he’d had, how many beats he’d walked with that truncheon. Our steps fell in with the rhythm of it — spin, slap! spin, slap! — and I understood why they call it ‘walking a beat.’
‘Did they give you that thing at Central Casting?’
‘Standard issue, Ben Truman. Every good policeman carries one.’ He gave me a once-over, ascertained that I was not carrying one, and made a face.
‘Well, you can put it away. I don’t think you’ll need to whack anyone with a billy club in this town.’
‘It’s called a nightstick. And the point is not to whack anyone. It’s part of the show.’ Spin, slap. ‘People have certain expectations. That’s why doctors wear white coats.’
‘So you’ve never whacked anyone with that thing?’
‘I didn’t say that. I said the point of carrying a nightstick is to not use it. If you carry it right, you’ll never have to.’
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
‘Then how did all those dents get there?’
‘Okay, almost never. Still, it’s best not to.’ He inspected the truncheon briefly, as if he’d never noticed all the dents and dings in it. ‘If you are going to be a cop, Ben Truman, you can either be a fighter or a talker. I have always been a talker.’
We strolled along. From the window of the Owl, Phil Lamphier stared out at us. He was holding a coffeepot, swirling the coffee in the glass bulb. Hard to know what Phil made of the sight — a very tall stranger spinning a cop’s nightstick, walking a beat in a town that had never seen a beat cop; and me, hands in pockets, listening intently. I could imagine Phil passing along the intelligence over the lunch counter: ‘Ayuh, saw Ben walking with a tall fella this morning, ’round nine-thirty twas…’ In the hothouse atmosphere of those days, any rumor that concerned the body in the cabin was snapped up and analyzed ad nauseam. I waved to Phil, and he lifted the coffeepot toward me in a sort of salute.
‘What does a cop do,’ Kelly asked, ‘in a place like this?’
‘Wait, mostly.’
‘Wait for what?’
‘For something to happen. Something different, I mean.’
‘So how long have you been waiting?’
‘Three years, give or take.’
‘You’ve only been a cop three years and already you’re the chief?’
‘They weren’t exactly standing in line for the job.’
Kelly stooped to pick up a stray piece of paper, slipped it into his back pocket, then resumed his twirling, spin, slap! ‘You know, when I started out, there was a sergeant in my precinct named Leo Stapleton. Leo was my first watch commander. He introduced me around, kept me out of trouble, showed me how things worked. Do you have anyone like that, a guy like Leo Stapleton?’
‘No.’ It occurred to me that I did have Dick Ginoux and my father. ‘Definitely not.’
‘So this idea about going down to Boston, you came up with that on your own. You haven’t discussed it with anyone.’
‘Right.’
‘Boy-o, do you have any idea what you’re getting into?’
‘I’m not sure what you’re asking.’
He stopped and poked me in the sternum with the nightstick. ‘What I’m asking is, do you know what it means to tangle with a guy like Braxton? Do you know what’s involved? Chief Truman, have you ever put physical pressure on a suspect?’
‘“Physical pressure”?’
‘Yes. Have you used physical pressure to obtain information?’
‘No! Of course not.’
‘Of course not? What if it were the only way to protect innocent life? Let’s say there was a bomb, and the suspect knew where the bomb was planted. Would you use force to make him talk, knowing it would save thousands of innocent people?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Maybe. Well, would you endanger an innocent person in order to get a conviction?’
‘What?’
‘Would you force a witness to testify, knowing his life would be in danger if he did so, but also knowing that a conviction might save many lives?’
