God Save the Child

The Bartletts’ home was yellow with dark green shutters and a hip roof. The roof was slate, and there were A-shaped dormers protruding from it to suggest a third floor that was more than attic. Doubtless for the servants: they don’t mind the heat under the eaves; they’re used to it.

A brick walk led up to a wide green front door with sidelights. The brick driveway went parallel to the house and curved right, ending in a turnaround before a small barn designed like the house and done in the same colors. The blue van was there and a Ford Country Squire and a red Mustang convertible with a white roof and a black Chevrolet sedan with a buggy-whip antenna and no markings on the side.

The barn doors were open and swallows flew in and out in sharp, graceful sweeps. Behind the house was a square swimming pool surrounded by a brick patio. The blue lining of the pool made the water look artificial. Beyond the pool a young girl was operating a ride-around lawn mower. I parked next to the black Chevy, up against the hydrangea bushes that lined the turnaround and concealed it from the street. Black-and-yellow bumblebees buzzed frantically at the flowers. As I approached the house, a Labrador retriever looked at me without raising his head from his paws, and I had to walk around him to get to the back door. Somewhere out of sight I could hear an air conditioner droning, and I was conscious of how my shirt stuck to my back under my coat. I was wearing a white linen sport coat in honor of my trip to the subs, and I wished I could take it off. But since I’d made some people in the mob mad at me, I’d taken to wearing a gun everywhere, and Smithfield didn’t seem like the kind of place where you flashed it around.

Besides the white linen jacket, I had on a red checkered sport shirt, dark blue slacks, and white loafers. Me and Betsy Ross. I was neat, clean, alert, and going to the back door I rang the bell. Ding-dong, private eye calling.

Roger Bartlett came to the door looking more comfortable but no happier than when I’d last seen him. He had on blue sneakers and Bermuda shorts and a white sleeveless undershirt. He had a glass of what looked like gin and tonic in his hand and, from the smell of his breath, several more in his stomach.

“C’mon in, c’mon in,” he said. “How about something to fight the heat, maybe a cold one or two, a little schnapps? Hey, why not?” He made a two-inch measuring gesture with his thumb and forefinger as he backed into the kitchen, and I followed. It was a huge kitchen with a big maple-stained trestle table in the bay of the back windows. A cop was sitting at the table with Margery Bartlett, drinking a 16 oz. can of Narragansett beer. He had a lot of gold braid on his shoulders and sleeves and more on the visored cap that lay beside him on the table. He had a pearl-handled .45 in a black holster on a Sam Browne belt. The belt made a gully in his big stomach and the short-sleeved dark blue uniform shirt stretched very tight across his back. It was soaked with sweat around the armpits and along the spine. His bare arms were sunburned and almost hairless, and his big round face was fiery red with pale circles around his eyes where his sunglasses protected him. He’d recently had a haircut, and a white line circled each ear. His eyes were very pale blue and quite small, and he had hardly any neck, his head seeming to grow out of his shoulders. He took a long pull on the beer and belched softly.

“I’ll take a can of beer,” I said.

Bartlett got one from the big poppy-red refrigerator. “Want a glass?”

“No, thank you.”

The kitchen was paneled in pale gray boards, the counter tops were three-inch maple chopping blocks, the cabinets were red and so were the appliances. The wall opposite the big bow window was brick, and the appliances were built into it. An enormous copper hood spread out over the stove, and on the brick wall hung copper pans which bore no marks of use.

The floor was square flagstone, gray and red, and a hand-braided blue and red oval rug covered much of it. There were captain’s chairs around the table and some reddish maple barstools along the counter. I sat on one and popped open the beer.

Margery Bartlett said, “Mr. Spenser, this is Chief Trask of our police force. He’s been working on the case.” Her voice was a little loud, and as she spoke she held her empty glass out toward her husband. Trask nodded at me. Bartlett filled his wife’s glass from a half-gallon bottle of Beefeater gin on the counter, added a slice of lime, some ice, and some Schweppes tonic, and put it down in front of her.

Trask said, “I’d like to get a few things out in the open early, Spenser.”

“Candor,” I said, “complete candor. It’s the only way.”

He stared at me without speaking for a long while. Then he said, “Is that a wise remark, boy?” At thirty-seven I wasn’t too used to being called boy.