Act of God

the other pedestrians wrecked my line of sight. Then I went Past the monument to the 54th Massachusetts , the Civil War regiment memorialized in the movie Glory. The monument is a bronzed frieze, the scene depicting the white commander on horseback, the black soldiers marching with rifles at shoulder-arms around him. The commander doesn’t look much like Matthew Broderick, but two of the soldiers are dead ringers for Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington.
    I bought a muffin and hot chocolate from probably the same place William Proft had gone for his coffee when he and Pearl Rivkind had come to see me. I popped another pill on the way to my office on Tremont Street .
    Upstairs, I opened the two windows to prolong the fresh-l air feeling from walking into work. After checking with my answering service and skimming the prior day’s mail, I took out Darbra Proft’s telephone bill and dialed the more frequently called number in Meade. I got a real estate brokerage and asked for Roger Houle.
    The woman at the other end said, “I’m sorry, but Roger won’t be in the office for a few more days. Can I take a message?”
    “No, thanks. I’m afraid it’s a personal matter.”
    She hesitated. “Are you calling about... are you a friend of the family?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Then perhaps if you called back at the beginning of next week.”
    “Sure. Thanks.”
    After she hung up, I tried the less frequently used number. If another woman answered, I was prepared to apologize for a wrong number, but there was no answer and no tape machine.
    I thought about it. A few more days, a friend of the fam-; ily. Then I took out the MetroWest telephone directory and matched the number that didn’t answer with a residential address in Meade.

    The Houle house was imposing, the kind of suburban manse that was built on four acres in the nineteen-teens, with complementary houses on their respective four acres around it. Mostly red brick, the white Doric columns supported both a main entrance and the roof to a broad porch. The driveway was wide enough for two cars to dance in, curving along the house and disappearing about where a detached garage might be. It looked as though the trim around the bricks had been recently repainted and the mortar between the bricks recently repointed. The only cause for neighborhood concern would be the lawn, which hadn’t been mowed in a week.
    I left the Prelude at the curb and went up the flagstoned path to the front door. The knee brace had broken in some on the walk into work and the drive out to Meade, the neoprene not nearly as stiff at the back as it had been. However, I felt a little queasy, probably from the pill, and decided not to take another for a while.
    Next to the front door and above a bell button was the name HOULE. When I pushed the button, there was a deep, bong-bong chiming somewhere in the house, but no body came to the door, and I didn’t hear anything else.
    As I started toward the driveway to check the garage in back, a female voice said, “May I help you?”
    A chunky blond woman was standing in the driveway for the house next door. She wore a pair of corduroy pants, cotton blouse, and wool sweater, all earth colors and a little too warm for the mild morning. As I got closer to her, she seemed to be about sixty, with a kind, creased face, the hair that brassy color a natural blonde gets as she ages.
    “I’m looking for Roger Houle, Ms...?”
    “Mrs. Mrs. Thorson, that is. And you are?”
    Thorson had an almost courtly manner. I took out my identification holder. “John Cuddy. I’m a private investigator.”
    She studied the printing, the creases around her mouth growing deeper. “Oh, my. Now what?”
    “Now what?”
    Thorson handed back the holder. “I hope that after all Roger’s been through, this isn’t more heartache.”
    “Excuse me, ma’am, but I don’t know what you mean.” She reached into the cuff of her sweater for a handker chief, to tend to eyes that suddenly had filled with tears.
    His wife died last week.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Thorson didn’t return the hankie to her cuff. “Caroline was such a dear. We’d been neighbors for just ages, and I Was so happy when she and Roger met and got married, she just... beamed is the right word, Mr...?”
    “Cuddy.”
    “Cuddy. Yes, of course. I’m so sorry, it’s just that she was very nearly my best friend, even though she was ten years younger than I. As you get older, the years between you