Yesterday's News

should have to talk with you about it.”
    “The cops think she took sleeping pills. You ever see her with any?”
    “No.” Fetch took off the glasses to massage his eyes with the heels of his hands. “No. She couldn’t take them, something about swallowing medicine when she was a kid.”
    “The cops believe she ground the pills up and then took them in some kind of liquid, probably cocoa.”
    “I... she drank cocoa a lot, but I don’t see her doing that. I think she’d sooner get a shot.”
    “From a needle, you mean?”
    “Yes, of course from a needle.” He toned down. “But I was wrong enough about her as it was. I could be wrong there, too.” He got up and walked to the window, sticking his hands into his side pockets. “Look, just what do you want from me?”
    “Jane hired me to look into things down here. One of the stories she was working on involved some projects out of this office.”
    “Project. Singular. The only live one I’ve got is a condo site down by the waterfront.”
    “Is that Richard Dykestra’s complex?”
    “Yes. It’s called Harborside. And right now it’s the best thing this town’s got going for it.”
    “Why is that?”
    Fetch gestured with his hand across the street. “This town could have been dead. Dead and buried. Fall River and New Bedford were bigger, Taunton and North Attleboro were attracting new industry. We didn’t have beaches like the Cape , or nice ponds, or even unspoiled meadows. What we had was a waterfront you couldn’t breathe next to for three months starting Memorial Day and a welfare list the size of the telephone book.”
    “And what changed that?”
    “Dykestra. He made some money commercially and started buying up parcels here and there privately. Then he lobbied with our state rep and senator and got a sewer project that made the harbor tolerable. He got funding for this office to push things along. I’ve got ten, maybe twelve projects that’ll fly once Harborside makes it.”
    “When, not if?”
    He turned to me. “That’s right. A developer can get all the approvals in the world, but it doesn’t mean squat if he can’t sell the project once it’s built. Richie can do that.”
    “I’m told he’s been a little pressed in the cash flow sense.”
    “You know of anybody trying to accomplish anything who isn’t? It’s the nature of the beast. You’ve got to work on a shoestring because you don’t know which parcel or project might go. But you can’t attract investors without giving the impression that a particular project is the one that will go.”
    “Sounds like you understand the industry pretty well.”
    “My job. Part of it, anyway. The part that drives all the other parts.” He came back toward me. “If Richie’s project makes it, then all the guys, and women, he has working are drawing paychecks, not welfare checks. Harborside will need, the residents of it will need, all sorts of services. Those other ten or twelve projects I mentioned jump off the boards to supplement and eventually expand what Richie does down there.”
    “All this boom talk put any people off?”
    “Off? No. Well, there’s always going to be some opposition to any change, even if it is for the better. But we’re not exactly raping virgin forests here, you know? You seen our waterfront?”
    “Some of it.”
    “Well, let me tell you. Nobody in his or her right mind is going to miss the relics Richie will replace. He gets the right support now, the whole character of this area will change. I’m telling you, this city is perched on the edge of greatness.”
    “What edge was Jane perched on?”
    He cooled off and turned away again. “I don’t know.”
    “She told me she was under a lot of pressure at work. Was that all the pressure on her?”
    “I told you once, that’s none of your business.”
    “She also told me her personal life was a mess. Was that your business?”
    Fetch cried out and came at me, quicker than I would have credited him. He swung an amateurish right at me before I could get all the way up from the chair. I took most of it on my left forearm, and I heard a cracking noise that could only have come from one of his knuckles. He doubled over, holding the right hand in his left palm and grimacing to the point of tears.
    “Bruce?” said the older woman behind me.
    He squeezed out, “It’s alright, Grace. Just leave us alone.”
    “Are you sure? You look hurt.”
    “Grace, please. Just shut the door,