The Barker Street Regulars

When I left, instead of taking the fast route home along Soldiers Field Road, I impulsively took the little North Beacon Street Bridge, cut across to the Watertown and the Cambridge side of the river, and turned onto what’s rather grandly called Greenough Boulevard, but is a narrow, unpretentious road that runs along the Charles River. That section of the boulevard is a parkway, I suppose. Trees, weedy bushes, and a chain-link fence separate it from a vast parking lot and a long stretch of massive brick buildings that used to be a federal arsenal. Large parts of the old arsenal are now a shopping mall. One building houses a health maintenance organization. Another has become an apartment complex. The old arsenal is, however, uphill from the river and almost out of sight, at least if you don’t look for it, and in warm weather, Greenough Boulevard gives a pretty view of the river, provided that you keep your eyes on the water and not on the far bank, unless, of course, your idea of a pretty view is an International House of Pancakes, a discount office supply store, and Martignetti’s Liquors. But I’m not the only one to find the little stretch of road appealing, at least by city standards. There are small parking areas and, by the water, wooden benches. Even in good weather, people sit alone in their cars sipping coffee from cardboard cups. I always imagine that these are unhappy spouses who don’t want to go home and have nowhere else to go but Greenough Boulevard. The car-proud spend hours there polishing their vehicles with paste wax. The athletic skate on the sidewalk, ride bikes, or jog. Lots of people walk dogs there. In the spring, Harvard, Northeastern, and other local university crew teams practice on that stretch of the river, and recreational rowers propel one-person shells through the water. Kevin Dennehy, my cop friend and neighbor, distrusts the area. He maintains that it is a dangerous place for a woman. He’s warned me never to go there alone even with my big dogs.
    On a cold Friday afternoon, in full daylight, though, I felt perfectly comfortable in driving along the road. Rowdy was in his crate in the back of the car, but if the engine quit, I could get him out and walk safely to a telephone. Kevin was wrong, I reflected. He knew
    Rowdy so well that he’d forgotten how the dog appears to strangers. Despite the recent warm spell, patches of ice floated on the river. It was too early in the season for crew practice and much too cold to sit on the benches. No one was skating. I passed a solitary cyclist headed in the other direction. That’s how I thought of the woman, as a solitary cyclist. The phrase was Conan Doyle’s. It was the title of a story. A ragged couple pushed a shopping cart that probably contained everything they owned. Nancy’s belongings wouldn’t have filled half the cart. She’d been ninety-three. And frail. Althea was only ninety. How old was that French woman, Jeanne Calment? A hundred and twenty? Althea could easily have another thirty years. Helen Musgrave could have forty or more. Gus, my lobby ladies, all the others? I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I’d only been alerted, I could have rushed Rowdy to the Gateway, and Nancy would still be alive.
    Parked in a turnout was a dark panel truck, a van with no windows except the two by the front seats and, of course, the windshield. My eye caught the flash of something white near the riverbank. I naturally assumed that it was a dog and slowed down to see what kind. My brain cells identify any unknown object as canine. I’m always easing on the brakes to get a good look at paper bags blowing in the wind. But there was no wind today, and the white object wasn’t at ground level, but in the hands of a tall, lean man standing by the river and wrestling in a peculiar, scary-looking way with what I now saw was definitely not a white dog. Still, the white thing wiggled and squirmed in a way that looked animate. Kevin’s warnings about this stretch of Greenough Boulevard had made me suspicious. And I was mindful of death. The man had a furtive look. The white thing was struggling. At the risk of making a fool of myself, I pulled over, slammed on the brakes, cut the engine, and, leaving Rowdy in his crate, leaped out of the car without even closing the door. As I sprinted toward the man,
    I yelled, “Hey, what are you doing?”
    The thought flashed across my mind that I was accusing a kind and innocent reader of trying