Blunt Darts

rather than advancing, the search.”
    Doucette grunted. “That doesn’t surprise me.” He licked his lips again, looked up at me, and took a deep breath. “Look, moving to Boston and working on this Paper, the Gay News I mean, has been the best thing in my life. I’ve pretty much put Meade behind me. If… things got opened up again, I can’t be part of it.“
    “I understand.”
    “No, no, I don’t think you do.” He seemed to puff up a little, regaining most of his color. “Working on this paper, you get cursed at and jeered at and threatened, but small-time stuff. Over the paper’s telephone, sometimes at home. That’s why I’m unlisted. But, the Kinnington death, that was the real thing. If he... if it’s found out that I’ve talked to you, I could be killed. No joke. That was the threat then.”
    I held him with my best steady look. “Thom, I promise that I will not tell anyone at any time that I’ve spoken with you.”
    Doucette nodded once and swallowed twice. I offered him the rest of my lemonade and he downed it. He cleared his throat. “What do you want to know?“
    “As I started to say, I think there’s a connection between Diane Kinnington’s death and Stephen’s disappearance. I don’t know what the connection is, but I think it might help me find him. Precious few people seem interested in helping me, including some of those who should be most concerned. Since I don’t know what I’m looking for, it would probably be best for you to just tell me all you know, and even suspect, about her death that night.”
    A woman walked by with a dainty dog on a purple ribbon leash. “Okay,” Doucette said. He waited until she was out of earshot, then began.
    “I don’t remember whether it was March or April, but it was cold and rainy. You know much about small-town newspapers?”
    “No.”
    “Well, a reporter isn’t paid a lot, and the newsroom isn’t open after maybe three P.M., SO you get most of your tips from the police radio. One advantage is that by definition, you’re close to the action in your town, and the Boston papers and stations don’t beat you to the scene.
    “Well, it must have been about one in the morning, maybe one-thirty. I couldn’t sleep that night, so I was dressed, but in bed, reading a novel. I was still living with my parents. I heard his... an officer named Gerald Blakey’s voice came over the scanner on my bureau.”
    “I’ve met him.”
    Doucette visibly shivered, then continued. “Gerry was calling in to the dispatcher, saying a Mercedes had gone off the Swan Street bridge and was in the water.”
    “Did Blakey say he saw the car go into the water?” Doucette finally looked at me as brightly as he had after the call to Mo. “No, which made me wonder how he could know it was a Mercedes. But I’ll get to that.“
    “Sorry,” I said. “Go on.”
    “When I heard Gerry’s call, I pulled on a slicker and some boots and drove out there. It was a terrible night for driving. Still, the police station is in Meade Center and my parents live just off Swan, so I had a mile or so lead on the rest of the cops. I got to the bridge first. That is, Gerry was the only one there when I arrived.
    “It was raining so hard as I pulled up that I’m not sure he heard me coming. When I slammed the car door, he turned around. He was down at the foot of the bridge, near the water. Have you seen the bridge?“
    “Not yet,” I said.
    “Well, it’s on Swan Street, the part of Swan Street as you drive toward the Bonham line. It’s maybe half a mile, I don’t know, before the Bonham line. Anyway, I Pulled in at an angle alongside his cruiser on the Meade side of the bridge.
    “When he saw it was me, he came scrambling up the bank, which was quite a sight, with him being so big and the bank so slippery. He was cursing at me when got to the top. That surprised me, because I hadn’t done anything.
    “Before he could say anything specific, another cruiser pulled up, lights flashing but no siren, and Chief Smollett in his own car behind it. I remember there were two cops in the cruiser, one with a rope who ran up to Gerry and one who opened the trunk and started pulling scuba equipment out. Smollett came up to me and asked me what the hell I was doing there. Before I could tell him, the cop who’d been with Gerry rushed back and said, ‘Chief, Blakey says it’s Mrs. Kinnington. It’s the judge’s wife.’
    “Smollett broke away and went after Blakey, who