Blunt Darts

what I don’t know about this case could make a mini-series.”
    I smiled sympathetically. “It’s not your fault, you know. You’re a professional who’s being reined in.”
    “Yeah.” She finished her beer and slid off the stool. “If you need to talk to me again, which I hope you don’t, call me at the office and identify yourself as Mr. Pembroke but don’t leave a return number.”
    “By the way, why did you decide to call me?” I asked.
    She smiled as she slung her bag. “What we’re doing stinks. And in the office you didn’t refer to him as ‘the kid’ or ‘the boy.’ You called him by his name, Stephen. Poor little son of a bitch.”
     
     
     

     
    The next day was bright and clear. There was only one cruiser in the range parking area. Cal was waiting for me inside the wire enclosure. He waved to the short wooden tower, which was centered just inside the range. The tower man buzzed me in through the gate. Bonham may not be a big-budget town, but Chief Calvin Maslyk knew where the money he got was best spent.
    “Been a while, John.”
    “Nearly four weeks.”
    We picked up some sonic muffs and wad-cutter cartridges and moved to the seventy-five-foot line, just left of center. Cal had already set up some traditional bull’s-eyes downrange, one target easel apart. We adjusted the muffs over our ears, and the tower man clicked on.
    “Gentlemen, load five rounds.” We did so. Then the tower again. “Is there anyone down range?” A pause. Then again. “Is there anyone down range?” Another pause. “The range is clear. Ready on the right. Ready on the left.” We waved. “Ready on the firing line.” A pause. Then, “Fire.”
    We fired five rounds, single-shot. “Clear your weapons.” We opened our cylinders, jacked out the expended shells, and slid our fingers into the gun frame so the cylinder could not close back in.
    “Is the firing line clear?” intoned the tower. We held up our weapons, cylinders out. “The firing line is clear. You may proceed downrange.” We began walking toward the targets.
    I liked Cal, and I liked the way he required his range to be run. I’d read about a chief on the South Shore who hadn’t taken those precautions. A nine-year-old, playing army, had crawled onto the range. A rookie cop who never saw him hit him twice. The boy died the next day, and the rookie resigned the day after. The chief was forced out the following week by the board of selectmen, the governing body of the town.
    Usually Cal outscores me. This time he slaughtered me. “Something on your mind, John?”
    “Have you got any unbreakable vows toward Meade?”
    He measured me evenly. “None past neighborliness.”
    “I’m trying to find Stephen Kinnington, the judge’s son. It looks to me like the judge has told the present searchers to stand down and has sealed the case against outsiders like me.”
    “Unfortunate family, the Kinningtons.”
    With a pencil he marked our bullet holes on the targets so we’d know that unmarked holes came from our next shots. We walked back to the firing line.
    “Feel like talking about them?” I asked. it He rubbed his chin as we approached the bench. ‘The judge’s brother, Telford, was killed in ‘Nam, oh, 1969, maybe. The wife died four or so years ago. Went the Swan Street bridge into the Concord. I suspect the booze caused the crash.”
    “No autopsy?” I said as the tower told us to load nve more.
    “No body.”
    “In the Concord?” I asked. “That river’s current barely pushes a leaf.”
    The tower man’s voice crackled in the background. Cal clicked his cylinder shut. “It was early spring, John. Big from the snows and rain. When they pulled the car up, she wasn’t in it. Never found her.”
    “Was one of the doors open?”
    Cal smiled and pulled his muffs on. The tower man finished his liturgy. We fired the second string doubleaction and again cleared our weapons.
    As we moved downrange again, Cal continued the conversation. “Smollett’s diver said he didn’t notice.“
    “Did you say ‘driver’ or ‘diver’?”
    “Diver, as in scuba diver.”
    “Meade has its own scuba team?”
    “Of sorts. Meade is ‘concerned about crime.’ At least I think that’s Smollett’s usual budget speech. Pretty effective speech, too.”
    “Cal, I’m told that the kid flipped soon after his mother’s death. Institutionalized. Then he was appar-I ently fine until two weeks ago. Can you tell me anything about his