Blunt Darts

on.”
    “Smollett came up and told Gerry to get to the other side of the bridge—another car had stopped— to make sure there wasn’t another accident. Gerry said to me, ‘Remember,’ and sort of sloshed off. Smollett gave me his usual disgusted look, but he walked back to the other cruiser, where the diver was putting his equipment back in the trunk.
    “I got into my car and drove home. Gerry’s threat had really shaken me. I was just pulling out my house key when I heard a honk behind me. I turned, and it was Gerry in the cruiser. He rolled down the window and said, ‘Remember,’ again. Just the one word. Then he drove off. I went in and didn’t fall asleep till nine or ten in the morning. I never wrote the story. I never really saw Gerry again. I moved to Boston a little while after that.” Doucette paused. “I think that’s about it.”
    “Ever talk with anyone else about what you saw and Blakey said?”
    “No way. Oh, my parents knew the Kinnington incident was what pushed me to move out. It hit Mom hard.” Doucette cleared his throat and voice. “You’ve met Gerry. He and I are the same age. We went to high school together. He was always so big. He was never good at athletics, not well-coordinated enough, I guess. Just big. And aware, painfully aware, of his hair. He started to lose it when he was a sophomore, and it was pretty well gone by senior year. Anyway, one day, our senior year, he and I were walking home from school, and we started talking, and well, we went into a bunch of woods and gave each other sex. He was real nervous, I think it was his first time ever, and I wasn’t very experienced either. Anyway, we left the Woods separately.
    “The next day, I was walking to school, and a lot of guys suspected—funny, I still think of it that way, it’s certainly the right word for back then— 'suspected’—I was gay. One of them was jibing me hat morning. He was a lot bigger than I was, but a lot smaller than Gerry. So, I went up to Gerry between classes and asked him if he’d tell the other guy to lay off me. Well, Gerry grabbed me by the collar and slammed me against the lockers, my books flying all over the place. He hissed at me, ‘I don’t protect faggots. Now stay away from me.’ A bunch of other guys and girls turned around to stare, and Gerry huffed off. I was so embarrassed. It was so bad that the other kids didn’t even make fun. I gathered up my books, got to the boys’ room, and threw up. Then I cried.
    “A few weeks later, I was walking home from school alone. I heard somebody running behind me. I turned, and it was Gerry. He apologized for embarrassing me, and then he asked me to go into the woods again. We did, but this time because I was scared of him. When we were finished, he said, ‘You know, if you ever tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you. Remember.’ He used the same word he used that later time—remember— like maybe his parents used it on him when he was young and he thought it had some magic to it. ‘Remember.’”
    I thought back to Blakey saying that to me as I left the judge’s chambers, but decided it wouldn’t help Doucette any. “Did you ever learn anything more about Diane Kinnington’s death?”
    Doucette shook his head. “No. I mean, I read the newspaper account in the Banner, which was just a neutral rehash of a police report. I also read the Globe article, which wasn’t much more elaborate. And I did know about Mrs. Kinnington’s, ah, social life. But Gerry’s threats pretty much blanked me out on her death. In fact, I probably haven’t spent as much time on it in the last four years total as I have with you on this bench.”
    I stretched my legs and stood up. “You’ve been a big help.” He stood and we shook hands. “And no one will ever know I spoke with you.”
    “One last thing,” he said as we walked from the park. “As you know, I guess, Mrs. Kinnington’s body was never found. After talking to you today, giving you answers and listening to them myself, I’m pretty sure of something. I think you already figured it, but you weren’t there that night and I was.”
    We’d come to our parting spot, me for my car and him for his office. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked me straight in the eye. “She wasn’t in that car when it went off the bridge. And Gerry Blakey knew it.”
    He turned and trotted in the heat back toward his office.
     
     
     

     
     
    I drove back to the apartment house and