Read Online Swan Dive - Jeremiah Healy by Jeremiah Healy - Free Book Online

the Fiat.
Hanna had fixed me a thermos of tea with lemon, which I stood upright
on the passenger’s bucket. On the floor near the pedals was an old
tin saucepan that she wordlessly had handed me on my way out the door
    Purple dress rolled in with a different guy, but he
was too short to be Marsh in disguise. Aside from that diversion,
Saturday night made Friday look like New Year’s Eve.
 

    EIGHT
-♦-
    I had Sunday lunch with Hanna and Vickie, Rocky
mauling a catnipped cloth mouse in the corner of the kitchen. By
then, I was fairly sure that Marsh had decided to take the hint I’d
dropped at his house, and I left Peabody around 2:00 P.M..
    Driving into Boston, I circled my block a few times
to be sure old Roy hadn’t decided to shift his aim to me. I parked
behind my building and trudged up the stairs. I tried Nancy’s
number first, but apparently she wasn’t back from New York yet. I
reached Murphy’s home, his wife calling to him to leave the grill
alone for a while and come talk to me.
    "Cuddy?"
    "Hi, Lieutenant?
    "We got company for barbecue, so I don’t have
too much time."
    "Shoot."
    "Your boy Marsh, Roy M., stirred some interest."
    "How so?"
    "Seems my friend in Narcotics has some photos of
Marsh in the company of one J. J. Braxley."
    "This Braxley a cocaine dealer?"
    "Call him a distributor."
    "Big-time?"
    "Dawk—that’s my narcotics man, Ned
Dawkins--he didn’t seem to think so. Braxley’s a Crucian."
    "As in Saint Croix?"
    "Right. Come up from the island in the early
seventies, set up shop. Not oversmart, but enough careful and enough
lucky to stay out of the big shit so far. Probably deals with a white
dude like your Marsh just to spread the snow line a little farther
north without a whole lot of risk."
    "Thanks, Lieutenant?
    "Cuddy, you remember what I said to you. And
don’t you be messing with Braxley, either. Old J .J. like to use
the muscle, and his hired help’d scare the Fridge off the football
field."
    "Good to know."
    "I got a round of drinks to make here. Anything
else?"
    "Yeah. I’ve got to requalify at the range
tomorrow. Can you put in a good word for me?"
    I think he was laughing as he hung up.
    The couch felt so good I
figured I’d doze off for a while. I woke up at 9:15 P.M., hungry
but still blurry after my two nights sitting upright. I heated some
canned chili and put half of a frozen French baguette on top of the
pot lid to defrost. I washed things down with a couple of Killian’s
Irish Red ales, tried Nancy again without success, and went to sleep
in a real bed for a change.
    * * *
    To get to the Boston Police Revolver Range, you drive
south on the Expressway to Neponset Circle, then over the bridge to
Quincy Shore Drive. At a traffic light, you turn onto East Squantum
Street, bearing left all the way and enjoying an unusual aspect of
Dorchester Bay and the city behind it. You feel as though you’re
driving on a deserted causeway, winding toward some abandoned
lighthouse. Then, just after several large water locks, you see the
range compound, technically on a harbor chunk called Moon Island. I
parked next to the one-story bungalow with the police department’s
blue-on-white sign.
    Inside, the range officer took my name and told me to
have a seat. He was about fifty-five, with curly gray hair and a
soft-spoken manner. Handing me a duplicate of the instruction sheet
you get at the licensing unit back at headquarters, he suggested I
review it while he got some ammunition.
    In Massachusetts, the right to carry a concealed
firearm is governed by the police of the municipality in which you
reside. You have to have reasonable grounds for needing a permit, and
Boston’s live-fire test involves shooting thirty rounds at various
distances. All in the bull’s eye would be a perfect 300. To pass,
you need 210 points, a 70 percent score. Basically, that means
hitting a roughly chest-size target with most of your thirty bullets.
The problem is, if you shoot less than 2lO, you have to