Act of God

physical therapist.”
    “And?”
    “I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.”
    “Fine. Oh, and John?”
    “Yes?”
    “Thanks for calling.”
    “I wanted to.”
    “I know.”

    Expressway south to Quincy Shore Drive . After crossing the Neponset River , a left onto East Squantum Street . Past the entrance to Marina Bay , a mammoth beige condo building with a slate roof that overlooks the tidal flats. Then onto the peninsula of land called Squantum that’s the easternmost part of Norfolk County , cradling Boston ’s Suffolk County on the west and south.
    On Dorchester Street , I paralleled the bay for eight or ten blocks before winding up Bellevue Road , passing a grassy strip called John R. Nelson Park and the Star of the Sea Church . The homes ranged from converted cottages and disguised trailers to sprawling contemporaries with cupolas and decks offering vistas of the bay and maybe even Boston harbor over the roofs of their downslope neighbors. There were anchors for decoration on the lawns, lobster pots for cocktail tables on the patios, and ten or twelve different kinds of weathervanes spinning wildly in the gusty winds.
    Crisscrossing, I found the street I wanted, the name FOLINQ on a post with a smaller PRIVATE WAY sign above it. The macadam angled down toward the water, and I left the Prelude as much off the narrow driveway as I could.
    He was sitting on a webbed lawn chair, his bricked patio commanding a view of the ocean as far as the horizon, a harbor island or two visible to the north. The house was one of the converted cottages, green clapboard with white trim, a wind sock standing straight out from its mooring. He’d probably go medium height and a hundred-fifty pounds, his age in the fifties, the facial features even, the hair mostly gray. Wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt over cutoff shorts and shower thongs, he had hairy calves and a newspaper on his lap, the right hand not visible as he distracted me by waving with his left.
    “Help you?”
    “Angelo Folino?”
    “Sign kind of gives it away.”
    I stopped a respectable distance from him. “My name’s John Cuddy. Bonnie Cross from Boston Homicide and I have a case up there I’m hoping you can help us on.”
    “I got a call. ID?”
    Without moving, I said, “Okay if I reach for it?”
    Folino smiled, glancing down at his lap. “Guess I’m giving away lots of things, these days.”
    “No. The wave was right. It’s just that Holman at your place wouldn’t tell me anything, and I’ve known some retired cops here and there.”
    “You yourself?”
    “Just military.”
    “MP, you mean?”
    “Yeah.”
    He watched me for a minute, saw something else, and nodded, a different look in his eyes. “Pull up a chair.” There were three more like his folded against a wall of the house. I opened one and set it conversationally to his left.
    Folino lifted the newspaper, then carefully laid the Smith & Wesson Detective’s Special that had been under it on the brick next to his right foot.
    I said, “Not that it’s any of my business, but you expecting somebody in particular?”
    A shrug that included face as well as shoulders. “One of the guys on the force got the word through a source that a hard-case I put away’s out and maybe thinking about it.”
    “You get a lot of that?”
    “What, the threats? Oh, yeah. You get ‘em all the time, Working a small city like Quincy . It’s not like Boston , where usually there’s a little space between the cops and the perps. Down here, you shop at the same stores and drink in the same taverns. One guy I put away for armed robbery, his wife’d pour my coffee every morning, this little five-stool joint near the station.”
    I swung my head around. “Pretty place you have here.”
    “ Yeah, in the family since my grandpa. Come over on the boat, learned carpentry, built this place when all you needed was hammer and nails and sweat, no permit or certificate or variance. My parents winterized it, and I grew up here. When they died, well, I couldn’t think of any place else to live. Hey, can I get you something to drink?”
    “No, thanks.” «i
    “You sure? I don’t keep any hard stuff in the house, but I got some cold wine, iced tea maybe?”
    “No, but thanks.”
    Folino seemed to prepare himself a bit. “So, you’re the P.I., right?”
    “Right.”
    “Let me guess. Cross, she doesn’t give two shits about whatever you’re working on, but she owed you a favor, so she made the call