Swan Dive

my bedroom window about 7:00 a.m. I was a lot less stiff and sore than the previous day, so I decided to try a short run. I stretched more slowly and carefully than usual, then went downstairs and out into a beautiful morning.
    I jogged gently across Beacon, Bay State Road , and the elevated walkway to the river. The wind was out of the northwest, so I started upstream toward Boston University . I heard a high, whining sound, and looked behind me. Nothing. Then a huge shadow passed over me, too fast for a cloud, too big for a plane. I looked up to see a blimp, all puffy and plump, with absurdly undersized fins and a small, windowed gondola. The whining sound was its engine, a noise like a bus going by you at eighty miles an hour on a highway. The fuselage had a broad green side stripe and the legend Fuji film. Its underbelly proclaimed, in smaller letters, official film of major lague baseball. As the pilot banked to hover over Fenway Park , I assumed that the abnormally potent Red Sox were going to be featured on Saturday’s Game of the Week and wondered why the blimp had to arrive two days early.
    Unfortunately, my wondering wasn’t distracting me from the ache in my right side. By the time I reached the BU law school tower, the rib cage was screaming at me. I tried cutting my pace, but it was the impact rather than the effort of running that was doing me in. I gritted my teeth and reached the Fairfield footbridge hardly above a walk.
    I crossed back over to the city side of Storrow Drive . Stopped at the red light was an old pickup truck with Wisconsin plates and a cranky muffler. Chugging to life and passing me, it displayed a rear bumper sticker reading wolski’s tavern: adventure, danger, romance .
    It would be the last laugh of the day.

    Holt kept me waiting outside his office for twenty minutes. To reassert control over the situation.
    Guinness came out, said, ”Now,” and sort of held the door for me with his foot. I followed him in.
    Holt sat behind his desk, clean pad in front of him. Dawkins lounged at the window, his butt half on and half off the sill. No Murphy. I took a chair across from Holt. Guinness made sure the door closed behind him and then stayed standing at it.
    Holt said, ”You wanted the meeting, so talk.”
    ”Did Murphy tell you I was contacted by J.J. Braxley yesterday?”
    Dawkins said, ”He told me. I told the lieutenant here.”
    ”Braxley and I met at J.C. Hillary’s under a flag of truce. He’s got a step on you guys, because he doesn’t think I killed Marsh or Teri Angel. However, he is three-plus pissed at the loss of his product. Seems he extended credit to Marsh at the exchange, and now he doesn’t have the money or the drugs.”
    Holt said, ”You tell him to call the Better Business Bureau?”
    ”He’s got his own ideas about consumer protection, Lieutenant. He said if I don’t find the stuff, he’s going to take it out on Marsh’s wife.”
    Holt and Dawkins just looked at me. I couldn’t see Guinness, but I didn’t much care what he was doing. I said, ”And on his daughter.”
    Holt said, ”Where do they live again?”
    He couldn’t be serious. ”Swampscott. They used to live in Peabody , remember? Then somebody killed the head of the household, and they moved back to the family manor.”
    Holt said, ”Sergeant, where the hell is Swampscott?”
    Dawkins said, ”Not sure. Somewhere past Everett , I think. Maybe even past Revere .”
    ”Revere! Jesus, I don’t think our jurisdiction goes nearly that far, do you, Guinness?”
    Guinness said, ”Myself, I never been north of Chelsea .”
    I said, ”What the hell is going on here?”
    Holt laced his hands behind his head and leaned back. ”I don’t see where this is any of our concern, geographically speaking.”
    ”What do you mean, ‘none of your concern’?”
    Dawkins said, ”Lieutenant’s pretty clear on it, Cuddy. You said Swampscott, that sound like Essex County to me. Peabody , too.”
    ”And you guys are strictly Suffolk County , right?”
    ”Right.”
    I looked at Holt. ”You had a double murder here, in your county.” I took Dawkins in as well. ”And you’re after a significant mover of cocaine who operates here.” I settled lower into my chair. ”So how come nobody’s interested in the victim’s wife and child being intimidated by a prime suspect in the murder and the clear distributor of the junk?”
    Holt said, ”First off, Braxley’s not a suspect in the murder. Got an