Right To Die

I was saying good-bye to Room 309 when I heard a knock. "Come in."

Inés Roja opened the door a little. "You are all right?"

"Come on in, Inés."

She closed it behind her. "I wanted to thank you."

"I'm the one who should thank you."

When Roja looked puzzled, I described her hitting Manolo's arm and throwing off his aim.

A shake of the head. "I do not remember doing that."

"Things were happening pretty fast."

"After I called you, I heard a noise downstairs. I searched for something, anything, as a weapon, but there was nothing I could see. Then Manolo was coming up the stairs with a rifle. I tried to talk to him, to sign to him, but he kept moving toward the professor's room, pushing me away. I didn't know what to do. I was shouting, but she wouldn't wake up. Then I heard you and… and the rest you saw."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes." Roja lowered her eyes. "No. No, I am not. I cannot seem to do anything to please the professor."

"She's probably upset too."

"No, no. She was like this before… Manolo. From the time she came in the door from the plane. Nothing can please her, everything makes her angry. I think the reason Tuck left so soon for the tournament is because even he cannot stand to be around her."

"She'll ride it out."

Roja bit her lip. "Today the professor said she would not need me for a while. That I could just as well leave."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't want her to be alone in that house, but that is what she wants."

"Can't Hebert come home early from the tournament?"

"The professor says she does not want him either. I could use a vacation from all that has happened, but I want to tell you something first. So that you will still watch over her."

"What is it?"

"I helped Manolo with his English since I worked for the professor. "

"Yes?"

Roja bit her lip again, facing the floor. "I saw all the notes. I do not think Manolo could write… could compose them alone." She looked up, tears brimming. "I think someone else must have helped him, John."

30

THE VIETNAMESE DOCTOR WHO DISCHARGED ME THURSDAY morning insisted that I ride a wheelchair and elevator to the public entrance. It was a blue-skied sixty degrees, and my body was balky from the hospital bed. I decided to walk off my stay before going to see Maisy Andrus.

Winding down Cambridge Street, I took Charles to the Public Garden, my side feeling a little tight but not hurting. In the garden, the curly-haired man who oversees the flower beds was directing a couple of helpers with wheelbarrows containing clumps of pansies and other more exotic bloomers. A big van with R. B. COOKE & SON, INC./PACKERS AND MOVERS was backed down to the Swan Pond. The workers were unloading detached shells of white swans. Already on the lawn were red and green benches. A couple of other guys were lashing green pontoons to the dock.

I sat for an hour or so, watching the flowers get planted so that people could see and smell them. Watching the swans and benches get hoisted over the pontoons so mothers and fathers could bring little kids for their first rides on them. Everybody getting ready for spring. There are worse ways to come back to life.

I got up and walked west on the Commonwealth boulevard. Dogs were leaping for Frisbees, and college kids were playing hacky-sack. A couple of yuppies in madras bermudas hosed the winter from their bay windows.

I reached Fairfield and went up to the condo. I tried Murphy, who wasn't in, then Neely, who was. I started to explain what Inés Roja had told me.

"Cuddy, Cuddy. Hold on a minute, okay?"

"Hold for what?"

"No, I mean just wait like, all right? Hear me out."

"Go ahead."

"Murphy calls me this morning, he's got the ballistics report already. The flattened slug from the mailbox is a match for the ones we dug out of the plaster from where Manolo tried to whack you."

"So the slugs match."

"So what does that tell you?"

"That the same rifle probably was used in both the sniping at us and the shooting at me."

"Tells me more than that, pal. Tells me that Manolo was the shooter, both times."

"Maybe he was. That – "

"We found a rag there, closet of his room at the manse. Oil on the rag's same as the oil on the rifle."

"Neely, just because- – "

"What I'm saying here is, you got the right guy, okay?"

"Neely, what I'm saying is that there might be another guy involved. Somebody to help Manolo write the notes, maybe get him stirred up about the professor injecting her husband way back when. Get it?"

"That's the line you were pushing at the hospital. Just what do you got besides Manolo of the Morgue there?"

I repeated what Roja said about the notes and suggested police protection for Maisy Andrus.

"Cuddy, I got to tell you, I don't see it that way. We got a sniping, we got a match on the slugs, we got the gun, we got the dead guy with the gun. You got smoke and mirrors."

"What will it take, Neely?"

"To put a uniform on her door?"

"Yes. Round the clock."

"Never happen. She's got the money, she can hire somebody. Like you, for instance."

***

From inside the town house came "Go away."

I leaned my forehead against her unopened front door and spoke louder. "Professor, we have to talk."

"I see no need for that. Please just go away."

"Not until I've finished what I started for you. It won't take long."

I heard a sound of exasperation as Andrus yanked open the door. The eyes burned out from a taut face. Her hair was tousled here and matted there, as though she hadn't brushed it since sleeping on it. A breath of warm air from behind me rustled some of the loose strands. Andrus shuddered violently and moved behind the door. I barely got in before she closed it.

Andrus shook again. "Can't stand drafts."

"Are you all right?"

Her head ratcheted up. "I'm fine! Or I would be if I weren't being interrupted every five minutes. What is it, Mr. Cuddy?"

Wondering what happened to "John," I gestured toward the parlor.

Andrus made a noise that actually sounded like "harrumph" as she strode in ahead of me and sat rigidly on a wing chair. "What?"

"First, I'm sorry about Manolo."

"Manolo? A traitor! Do you realize what my husband did for him? What I did for him? He deserved what happened."

I had the sensation of speaking to a different person, another member of a family whose personality diverged one hundred eighty degrees from the rest.

"Does your husband know?"

"Sir, my husband is d – - Oh. Oh, you mean Tuck, don't you? I've left messages for him, but we keep missing each other."

"You mean, he doesn't know about all this?"

"It is not the sort of thing one can synopsize for a Parisian hotel operator."

"Don't you think he ought to come home for you?"

"No. No, I don't, not that it's any of your business. I am hardly the damsel in distress here. This is my home, and I am perfectly capable of living in it alone for as long as I desire."

"Inés Roja said you – "

"Mr. Cuddy. I prefer to be alone right now. Alone means no Tuck, no Inés, and no you."

"Professor, Inés thinks Manolo may have had help."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

I started in about the notes.

Andrus threw up her hands. "Out, Mr. Cuddy! I have been betrayed, betrayed by a man I thought loyal to me and to my family. That will take some getting over, and I would prefer to do so on my own, without your irrelevant inquiries and whether that meets with your approval or not."

She got up, but I didn't turn to go.

"Professor, have you seen a doctor?"

"I was not injured last night. Thanks to you, I'm told. Don't worry. You will be compensated for that, and I'll cover any medical bills."

Andrus went to push me toward the door. I hit her at each shoulder with the heels of my hands, sending her reeling back two steps.