Read Online Swan Dive by Jeremiah Healy - Free Book Online

stay here while I finish with someone else at the desk? I’ll just be a minute.”
    As she walked away, my eye was caught by a dog in one of the larger cages. He was some kind of terrier cross, maybe with a pointer. His legs were too long, his body too short, and he had a coarse, off-white coat with uneven orange blotches and scraggly whiskers. It was the look on his face that got me, though. A look that implied he knew he was an orphan, but not cute and cuddly, and therefore doomed to remain one. I turned away and hoped the volunteer would hurry.
    I drove Hanna, Vickie, and replacement cat ”Rocky” (don’t even ask) home. Hanna insisted I stay for dinner, and through the kitchen window I watched Vickie play with her new pet in the small backyard. Nerida, Chris’s former client who owned the building, came out and cooed and dangled a length of yam that Rocky batted incessantly. Vickie was delighted.
    ”Thank you,” said Hanna, cutting some vegetables into a steaming pot behind me.
    ”She’s going to be all right.”
    ”Soon.”
    Half an hour later, Hanna called Vickie for dinner, and the three of us sat down to family-recipe soup and bread. About midway through Hanna said, ”You were in the army, John?”
    ”Yes.”
    ”Overseas?”
    ”For a while.”
    ” Germany ?”
    ”No, Vietnam .”
    ”Oh.” She didn’t say that it was too bad that Roy hadn’t gone there and I to Germany , but she was thinking it.
    After supper, I tried to reach Murphy but got no answer at his home number. I slept for about five hours on Hanna’s couch. She tried to convince me to stay in the house this time, but I insisted on the car, calling the Peabody police to let them know I’d still be there.
    By 11:30, I was back behind the wheel of 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.

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