The policeman at the desk told me to sit down and Sergeant Travers would come out for me.
I sat on the hard oak bench near the station house door and in maybe five minutes Cecil Travers came out.
"Come on into my office," he said. "Tell me what I can do for you."
Cecil listened very carefully to everything I said. And nodded and listened and nodded and listened. When I got through, he leaned back in his chair and looked at me.
"You're a smart kid," he said.
And I shrugged.
"Brave too," he said.
"I was scared all the time," I said.
"Had reason to be," Cecil said. Then he cleared his throat. "I don't see enough evidence here to charge you with a crime."
"Even though I moved the sign?"
"That is correct," Cecil said.
"He might not have died if he'd been able to see the sign," I said.
"But you might have," Cecil said. "And what about the girl?"
I nodded.
"You're a kid," Cecil said. "You did the best any kid could do, with what you had, and you won. Take it and go home and be proud of it. Hell, nobody's even reported Luke missing."
"Poor guy," I said.
"Poor guy would have cut you up if he'd caught you," Cecil said.
I nodded.
"Nobody even knows he's gone," I said.
Cecil stood and came around his desk.
"And nobody cares," Cecil said. "Your old man outside?"
"Yeah."
"I'll walk you out," Cecil said.
We went through the station house and down the wide granite steps to where my father was parked in a no-parking zone, waiting for me to come out.
"Not enough of a case here for me to press charges," Cecil said.
"Good," my father said.
I got in the front seat beside him.
"Sam," Cecil said.
"Yeah?"
"You boys done a darn good job with this kid," he said.
"I think he's done most of the good work," my father said. "Me and Cash and Patrick mostly just stayed out of his way."
"Well," Cecil said. "You got reason to be proud of him."
"We are," my father said.
I was trying to stay dignified. Cecil put his hand through the open window and shook my hand. Then he turned and walked back into the station. We pulled away from the curb.
"How you feeling?" my father said.
"Pretty good," I said.
Chapter 26
"Why do you suppose you did that?" Susan asked.
"Should I lie back on this bench, Dr. Silverman?"
"Professional reflex, I suppose," Susan said. "On the other hand, my interest in you is not entirely professional."
"I've noticed that," I said.
"I love you and I want to know about you," she said.
"Anything in particular?" I said.
"Everything," she said. "And now that I have you rolling, it's hard not to keep pushing."
"I read someplace that wanting to know everything about a person is wanting to possess them."
"I believe that is probably true," Susan said.
"You want to possess me?" I said.
"Entirely," Susan said.
"Isn't that dangerous for my ego?" I said.
Susan smiled.
"If I may say so, your ego is entirely impregnable."
"Only child of a loving family," I said.
"Buttressed by accomplishment," Susan said.
"My father and my uncles were pretty impregnable too," I said.
"And to grow up," Susan said, "sooner or later, you had to separate from them."
"You think that's what I was doing?"
"When you went to the police?" Susan said. "Yes."
As one of the swan boats made its leisurely turn in front of us, a little boy was leaning out, trying to trail his hand in the water. His mother took hold of the back of his shirt and hauled him back in.
"Why then?" I said.
Susan waited. I thought about it.
"Because I had just done an adult thing," I said, answering my own question. "And I needed to what? Confirm it?"
"What happened when you had that trouble, with the men from the barroom?" Susan said.
"My father and my uncles came down and . . . fixed it," I said.
"And the bear?"
I nodded.
"My father came along and fixed it," I said.
"And the business on the river?"
"I fixed it," I said.
Susan nodded.
"And I had to fix it all the way," I said. "I couldn't let them fix the cover-up, so to speak."
"Correct," Susan said.
"It would have been a step back into childhood," I said.
"Yes," Susan said.
We were quiet. The light on Boylston Street turned green behind us and the traffic moved forward.
"You know a lot of stuff," I said.
"I do," Susan said. "Tell me how Jeannie was."
Chapter 27
It was late afternoon and starting to get dark. We were playing basketball, half-court, three on three, outdoors behind the junior high. There was a bench alongside the court and Jeannie Haden sat by herself on it watching us play.
When we got through, I walked over to her.
"You win?" she said.
"Jeannie," I said. "You been watching us play since school got out. Don't you keep track of the score?"
"I was just watching you," she said.
"Oh."
"Want to walk me home?" she said.
"Sure," I said.
"Want to stop on the way and buy me a Coke?" she said.
"Sure," I said.
We walked along Main Street to Martin's Variety, which sold bread and milk and canned foods and had a lunch counter down one side of the store. Most of their earnings probably came from the lunch counter, because the kids had pretty well taken over the store as a hangout, which meant that generally nobody else came in.
Jeannie and I said hello to some other kids as we walked down the counter and found two seats at the end where it curved.
A guy named Croy said to me, "Hey, Spenser the river rat."
"Just as smart," I said. "But not as good looking."
Croy gave it a big haw and elbowed one of his friends. He was a year older than I was, a big kid, fat mostly, but big enough to bully the younger kids.
We sat. Jeannie ordered a Coke. I had coffee.
"You don't like Coke anymore?" Jeannie said.
"Like coffee better," I said.
She nodded.
"Lotta kids know about us on the river," she said.
"They got the story straight?" I said.
"Mostly," Jeannie said. "Nobody seems to know about you moving the sign."
"Good," I said.
Croy yelled down the counter at me.
"How about Jeannie the Queenie," he said. "Have any fun with her in the woods?"
"You shut your mouth, Croy," Jeannie said.
"Bet you did," Croy said. "She hot, Spenser?"
I looked at him silently, the way I'd seen my father do when people annoyed him.
"No sense shouting back and forth," my father used to say. "If it's not worth fighting about, then it's not worth a lot of mouth. If it is worth fighting over, then you may as well get straight to it."
So far it wasn't worth fighting about.
But it was close.
"Look at that, Barry," Croy said to his friend. "Spenser the river hero is giving me a cold stare. Hot damn, is that scary or what?"
Barry was not a threat. He was a tough guy by association, hanging around with Croy probably made him feel important. He nodded.
"Scary," he said.
"I'm betting it's 'cause he don't know what to say, 'cause they did it and he don't want to admit it."
"I'm betting that too," Barry said.