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Authors: Jeremiah Healy
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Blakey.
“Why didn’t you report this to the police?” I asked. She gave me a sour look. “The police? Hmph. Will Smollett is a fool who can’t even control the teenage hoodlums in this town, much less be its chief investigative officer. Besides, he’s in the judge’s pocket. Everyone knows that. And if Blakey was chasing Stephen, the judge was likely connected with Stephen’s leaving. That’s why I decided to tell Eleanor.“
“You mean Valerie.”
She determinedly set down her teacup and rose. “Young man, you are smug, and you are rude. If I were to say ‘Valerie’ I would mean Miss Jacobs. When I say ‘Eleanor,’ I mean Eleanor Kinnington. I’m afraid this interview is over.”
I glanced to my right. Valerie seemed as stunned at the reference to Mrs. Kinnington as I was.
I stood politely and looked at our hostess. “Miss Pitts, please accept my apology. I was rude, and I assumed you were a meandering old woman who might confuse things. I was wrong. But I’ve been retained to try to find a probably terrified fourteen-year-old child, and you’re the first bright spot I’ve come across. Can we please talk a while longer?” Miss Pitts’s face softened, and she sat back down. “He is such a dear, dear boy.”
We covered the intersections of Miss Pitts’s and Stephen’s lives during the prior six months. Nothing was produced that sounded helpful. I decided that a quiet interlude was appropriate before we moved back to tougher ground.
“What can you tell me about Telford Kinnington, the judge’s brother?”
Miss Pitts gave a bittersweet smile. “Ah, Telford Kinnington. He was three years younger than the judge, and enough unlike him to have been bought from the Gypsies. The judge, who went to public school here too, was a plodder. Everything seemed to come easily to Telford, though. A gifted student, a fine athlete at Harvard, and a true patriot, Mr. Cuddy. Telford didn’t just talk about this country, he died fighting for it. Only a few months after he’d been home on leave, too. In fact, I still have the newspaper account of his last battle. Just a minute.”
She bustled over to a stuffed bookcase and levered out a scrapbook. I feared a lengthy, unproductive tangent coming on. I thought about telling her to forget it but decided I was talking to her on borrowed time as it was.
“Let me see,” she said, turning pages with agonizing slowness. “Yes, yes, here it is.” She passed me the open book.
There were two accounts, one from the Banner, a local paper, and one from the Globe. Both were dated April 11, 1969. According to the local paper, Captain Telford Kinnington had led his company in a counterattack from an American position against a much larger Vietcong force that was engaging a separate sector of the position. He and nearly a quarter of his company (about 40 of 160) were killed or wounded, but the VC had been annihilated. The medal he’d received, however, was, in my experience, not a very substantial award for a heroic charge.
The Globe article, written a bit more tongue in cheek, implied ever so gently that his action had been unnecessary and reckless. It also indicated that he’d entered the service as a second lieutenant five years earlier and had only recently been promoted to captain—a long time to wait for his second bar in those casualty-ridden late sixties. I noted the part of the war zone involved and remembered that I knew someone from Intelligence who’d served there after I’d come home.
I then swung the conversation as delicately as I could back to the judge’s late wife. Miss Pitts was reluctant at first, but once I emphasized the importance of my knowing Stephen’s earlier life, our hostess lapsed into the nearly universal enthusiasm with which people discuss those who appear big but turn out to be little.
“Diane Kinnington was a terror, Mr. Cuddy, a demon from hell. The judge met her when he was in law school. At first she was an enchanting girl,
“Why didn’t you report this to the police?” I asked. She gave me a sour look. “The police? Hmph. Will Smollett is a fool who can’t even control the teenage hoodlums in this town, much less be its chief investigative officer. Besides, he’s in the judge’s pocket. Everyone knows that. And if Blakey was chasing Stephen, the judge was likely connected with Stephen’s leaving. That’s why I decided to tell Eleanor.“
“You mean Valerie.”
She determinedly set down her teacup and rose. “Young man, you are smug, and you are rude. If I were to say ‘Valerie’ I would mean Miss Jacobs. When I say ‘Eleanor,’ I mean Eleanor Kinnington. I’m afraid this interview is over.”
I glanced to my right. Valerie seemed as stunned at the reference to Mrs. Kinnington as I was.
I stood politely and looked at our hostess. “Miss Pitts, please accept my apology. I was rude, and I assumed you were a meandering old woman who might confuse things. I was wrong. But I’ve been retained to try to find a probably terrified fourteen-year-old child, and you’re the first bright spot I’ve come across. Can we please talk a while longer?” Miss Pitts’s face softened, and she sat back down. “He is such a dear, dear boy.”
We covered the intersections of Miss Pitts’s and Stephen’s lives during the prior six months. Nothing was produced that sounded helpful. I decided that a quiet interlude was appropriate before we moved back to tougher ground.
“What can you tell me about Telford Kinnington, the judge’s brother?”
Miss Pitts gave a bittersweet smile. “Ah, Telford Kinnington. He was three years younger than the judge, and enough unlike him to have been bought from the Gypsies. The judge, who went to public school here too, was a plodder. Everything seemed to come easily to Telford, though. A gifted student, a fine athlete at Harvard, and a true patriot, Mr. Cuddy. Telford didn’t just talk about this country, he died fighting for it. Only a few months after he’d been home on leave, too. In fact, I still have the newspaper account of his last battle. Just a minute.”
She bustled over to a stuffed bookcase and levered out a scrapbook. I feared a lengthy, unproductive tangent coming on. I thought about telling her to forget it but decided I was talking to her on borrowed time as it was.
“Let me see,” she said, turning pages with agonizing slowness. “Yes, yes, here it is.” She passed me the open book.
There were two accounts, one from the Banner, a local paper, and one from the Globe. Both were dated April 11, 1969. According to the local paper, Captain Telford Kinnington had led his company in a counterattack from an American position against a much larger Vietcong force that was engaging a separate sector of the position. He and nearly a quarter of his company (about 40 of 160) were killed or wounded, but the VC had been annihilated. The medal he’d received, however, was, in my experience, not a very substantial award for a heroic charge.
The Globe article, written a bit more tongue in cheek, implied ever so gently that his action had been unnecessary and reckless. It also indicated that he’d entered the service as a second lieutenant five years earlier and had only recently been promoted to captain—a long time to wait for his second bar in those casualty-ridden late sixties. I noted the part of the war zone involved and remembered that I knew someone from Intelligence who’d served there after I’d come home.
I then swung the conversation as delicately as I could back to the judge’s late wife. Miss Pitts was reluctant at first, but once I emphasized the importance of my knowing Stephen’s earlier life, our hostess lapsed into the nearly universal enthusiasm with which people discuss those who appear big but turn out to be little.
“Diane Kinnington was a terror, Mr. Cuddy, a demon from hell. The judge met her when he was in law school. At first she was an enchanting girl,
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