Blunt Darts

have to.” He was becoming unglued. Stephen remained silent.
    “After she wouldn’t shut up that night, drunk and vile as she was, about how much she’d enjoyed making love with Tel, about how much she’d enjoyed having his baby and making me act the father, then after he was born, him being so much like Tel, even down to the... Ah, but he didn’t tell you that part, did he? Did he!”
    I began to feel weak in the gut. I glanced back at Stephen. He was staring straight ahead, his face unsmiling but his eyes twinkling.
    I turned back to the judge. “Tell me what?”
    The judge began to shake. “Where’s the gun?” he demanded.
    “Stephen buried it. After he killed Blakey with it.” The judge shook more violently.
    “Did you see him bury it?”
    “No.”
    “Dear God, first his mother, now Blakey, and can't—
    “Are you trying to tell me that Stephen—”
    I heard the zipper sound but didn’t turn immediately. By that time Stephen had my .38 out of the crotch of his pants and leveled at the judge. He must have hidden it under the passenger side of the front seat when he found Blakey’s car at the ranger station and then retrieved it when he “stumbled” out of the car at the beginning of the path.
    In my peripheral vision I caught the judge standing up too quickly as he yanked open the middle drawer in his desk, banging his knees on the drawer as he did so. Then the first shot. The bullet knocked the judge back into a bookcase niche with a brandy decanter and cut-crystal liqueur glasses and brandy snifters. Stephen probably was not used to the greater kick of the more powerful weapon. His second shot ruined a painting above the niche.
    My rib was screaming at me as I dived at Stephen, my left fist aimed at his face. He ducked as he swung the barrel toward me. The blast deafened me. I felt a sledge hit my left shoulder. The follow-through sent me into Dreamland.
     
     
     

     
    I’ve always suspected that patients could go snowblind in hospitals. They are some of the very few semipublic buildings that are still glaring white and usually clean.
    The last few times I’d opened my eyes, I’d been surrounded by blurry, white-furred polar bears growling and grunting and poking at me. Now I could narrow my focus down to a nurse and a doctor. The doctor spoke first.
    “Can you hear me, Mr. Cuddy?” she asked.
    “No,” I replied.
    The doctor mumbled something to the nurse, who nodded and left the room.
    “Do you have any pain?”
    “Doctor,” I said as sweetly as I could, “a gunshot wound always produces a numbing effect.”
    She smiled. “With your problems, you’d better be nice to me. The schoolteacher and I seem to be the only friends you’ve got right now.”
    “Why is that?”
    “I’ve been told not to talk with you.”
    “Then send Valerie in.”
    “If that’s the schoolteacher, I can’t.”
    “Why.”
    “District attorney’s orders.”
    “Oh.” A bad sign. I turned my head. There was a cop with a notepad sitting on a chair in the corner and scribbling furiously. Otherwise, no other people. Nor any other beds. There were some trees outside the window.
    “If I’ve been here more than ten minutes, this private room has bankrupted me.”
    The doctor laughed. “The county’s paying the tab.”
    Another bad sign. A very bad sign.
    I tried to hunch up in bed. The doctor stifled a smile as I yelled. The cop jumped up. The doctor placed her hand lightly on my left shoulder as I decided lying down was a very good position to maintain. The cop looked at his watch, sat down, and returned to scribbling.
    I couldn’t remember how hard I’d hit Stephen. As far as I could tell, my memory was otherwise intact.
    “How’s the boy?”
    “The Kinnington boy?” she said. “He’s doing quite well. The X rays say a broken jaw, but he’ll be going home soon, and—”
    “Home!” I thundered as the door burst open. The cop half-rose and reached for his gun. Through the door came Stanley Brower, the district attorney of Norfolk County. Behind him in the corridor I could see the Boston-area version of the paparazzi pushing in on a small barricade of police officers. A young man who looked a year or so out of law school followed Brower in.
    Brower gave the cop a dirty look and a beckon. The cop released his gun. His notepad fluttered as he followed Brower and his assistant into a corner of the room. The assistant clicked on a tape recorder as the cop mumbled heatedly. Brower asked a