Jeremiah Healy - Right To Die

"One of those notes was inside a book Andrus was given to sign."

The reverend shook her head slowly. "What do you figure you got here, big-time crazy?"

"Daring. Clever. Maybe crazy, maybe not."

Givens looked skeptical. "Why you coming to me with all this?"

"You oppose Andrus on the right to die. I'm trying to talk with anybody that a real crazy might see as a kindred spirit against her." Emphatic shake of the head this time, almost dislodging the hairdo. "No. No, sir. My people, they are strong and they are tough, but they are good. They vote against what she says and march against what she says, but… She waved her hand at my pocket. "Not anything like that. Not ever."

"Nobody comes to mind?"

"None of my own."

"Meaning somebody else?"

"You already got to be counting those skinhead fools you tussled with."

"I am."

"And the police, they must have some kind of files on this like they do on everything else."

"Not much help there."

Givens looked around the room, as if reminding herself of her own jeopardy. "All right. There's this right-to-lifer. White dude in Providence, name of Steven O'Brien."

Mr. O'Brien, one of the repeaters from the threat folders. "I believe he is just plain around the bend, but… maybe."

I waited. She looked up at me.

"That's all I know."

I stood. "Thanks. By the way, why'd you leave?"

"Leave what?"

"Oklahoma."

A laugh and the gentler shake of the head. "Had me a husband, thought his thing was a battering ram and mine was a door. Knew I had to get out or I'd like to kill him."

Givens became determined, the sermon tone creeping back into her voice. "Before I turned to the Lord, I was turned on to the demon drug too. That's why I know we're going to beat cocaine and crack and what they're doing to our kids. Beat it without Professor Andrus and her just-go-to-sleep-now ideas that pretty soon catch on and seem like a perfect solution to all our ills. And we can't waste an entire generation of Arthurs and Lionels while we're doing it."

"Good luck."

"Luck, as the Lord would say, don't got nothing to do with it."

On the way out I retrieved my gun, asking Arthur and Lionel if they knew anyplace nearby that sold Gatorade by the case.

LOUIS DOLEMAN LIVED IN WEST ROXBURY, THE SOUTHWEST corner of Boston's Suffolk County. Predominantly white, West Rox is a mixture of magnificent homes on wide parkways and smallish ranches on narrow streets. From Reverend Givens's church, I took Washington Street to Belgrade Ave, then fiddled around for eight or ten blocks until I found Doleman's address just off Centre Street. It was a dwarf red-brick ranch among many stunted cousins. From the curb it appeared oddly kept. The lawn, despite the season, was maintained, but the hedges, huddled against latent snow the sun never touched, were untrimmed. The brickwork looked recently repointed, but the concrete stoop was crumbling.

All the window shades were drawn. I pushed the bell next to the front door, heard no chimes, and was about to knock when I heard what sounded like an inner door open and close. Then the front door opened, and Louis Doleman peered out at me.

Standing in front of a closed inner door, he wore heavy glasses and the same cardigan sweater. Liver-spotted skin hung loosely from the neck cords. His short gray hair seemed curiously soft, like the acrylic fur on a stuffed animal. In his right hand, a book, the index finger keeping his place in Our Right to Die by Maisy Andrus.

"Mr. Doleman, my name's John Cuddy." I showed him my identification. "I wonder if I could talk with you."

"Sure." He turned his head to look at the inner door. The soft hair radiated from a whorl on the top of his skull.

Doleman turned again to me. "Just step inside here so my spacelock'll work."

Spacelock. I thought, Scotty, beam me up.

"Got to have the spacelock, otherwise Marpessa here would be on her way back to Brazil."

Doleman was sitting in an old print chair, a faded towel protecting the upholstery a bit late in its life. He placed the book on a TV tray to his right, next to some cellophaned cupcakes that should have been labeled less by expiration date and more by half-life.

However, they weren't the main attraction. A bird like a giant parrot perched on his left shoulder. Most of its feathers were shocking blue or canary yellow, but the curved beak was black and the face was white, with long, squiggly lines under the eyes, like a child practicing with makeup.

I said, "Marpessa."

"Marpessa, right. Named her after this Brazilian actress I heard of. Only Brazilian actress I ever heard of, tell you the truth. Marpessa is a macaw. To keep them from flying off, most folks clip the primary feathers on the wing there. All but the last one, cosmetic purposes, you see. You do that, alternating wings each time the feathers grow back, you can let them out in the yard or whatever, because they can't fly. Be like a helio-copter with a bum tail rotor, just spiral down to the ground. But I couldn't bring myself to do that to her, seems like mutilation to me. So I just make sure to keep her in the house with the spacelock. Put that up myself."

To be polite, I turned in my chair to admire the patchwork job Doleman had done in framing a second, inner door at the entrance to form his spacelock.

Turning back, I said, "Sensible. Mr. Doleman – "

"Be crazy to have her outside anyway. With a bum wing, she'd be a sitting duck for cats, dogs, what have you. Used to hunt every chance I'd get, deer in the fall, waterfowl in the spring. Never would take a stationary bird, but I can't say that about a lot of fellows I met. No sense of sport in them. The hell good is it to hunt, you don't do it for the sport?"

"Not much."

"You bet not much. Marpessa here is friendly as a spaniel pup.

Comes when she's called, doesn't crap the furniture or rug, just does this little sideways dance, lets me know it's time for her to go."

I could hardly wait.

" 'Course, she's got her dark side too. Costs an arm and a leg this far north to keep her warm enough. And she gets real jealous if there are any kids… around…"

Doleman seemed to stall, like a motor that was doing fine until someone shifted to drive. His lips moved convulsively, as though he were practicing puckering.

"Mr. Doleman?"

He revived. "She'll talk your ear off too. Even think she understands some of it. She'll hang upside down from a rope I got in the kitchen there, and she'll say, 'Look, look,' like a little kid…"

Again the stalling effect.

I repeated his name.

This time Doleman barely came out of the daydream. "What was it you wanted?"

"I'm doing some work on the debate at the Rabb the other night."

"The Rabb?"

"The library. When you asked that professor a question?"

"Oh." Doleman lowered his head, shaking it. Marpessa transferred all her weight to the left foot, using her beak to pick at the claws on the right one. In a clearer tone of voice he said, "Well, go ahead."

"I got the impression from what you said to Professor Andrus that you felt she was involved in your daughter's death."

"Not involved. Responsible. There's a difference? Now he was more the man I'd seen rise from his seat at the debate. Staunch, certain.

"Mr. Doleman, can you tell me what happened?"

"I can. You have time to hear it?"

"Yes."

Doleman moved his hands as though lathering them with soap. "Heidi was my daughter. Wasn't the name I would have picked out for her, but she was an orphan, war orphan out of Germany. The wife and I couldn't have children ourselves, so we jumped at the chance to raise her."

As Doleman talked, I did some arithmetic. "What happened to your daughter?"

"Once we got her over here – stateside, I mean – she was fine.