School Days - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,36

have required you all to actually go on in there and maybe interrupt things," I said.

Cromwell nodded slowly. All of the General Patton crap seemed to have drained from him. He seemed gray and tired, almost human.

"I know," he said. "I know."

"You didn't know what to do," I said, "did you."

He shook his head.

"We're a small town," he said. "Upper-class. Quiet. We never ran into this sort of thing. Most of my guys never fired their weapons except on the range."

"You?" I said.

He looked at the big six-gun on the corner of his desk as if he'd never seen it before.

"No," he said.

"Hard to learn on the job like that," I said. "Most people aren't ready the first time."

"God, I hope there's no second time," he said.

"There'll be something," I said. "Sometime. And you'll be more ready."

"You're not going to leave this alone," Cromwell said.

"No," I said. "I'm not. Either of these kids got a history with you?"

"I don't give out juvie files," he said.

"I'm not looking for files. Just information. You and me. Alone in the room. Either of them been in trouble you know about?"

"We talked to the Grant kid couple times," Cromwell said.

He was looking past my left shoulder, out an office window, at the nice, neat stretch of lawn in front of the station. Orderly.

"He was shooting cats with a pellet gun," Cromwell said slowly. "Strays mostly, but he got a coupla pets and the owners complained and we brought him in and talked with him and his mother. He was maybe thirteen."

He shook his head.

"I've met his mother," I said.

"She just sort of said the hell with him. Like he's some sort of aberration. It's not my fault."

"Talk to his grandfather?" I said.

"They begged us not to. Both of them. I felt bad for the kid, tell you the truth. His mother's just a waste of time."

"The last hippie," I said.

"Yeah," Cromwell said. "So we confiscated the pellet gun and told him he was on probation and we were giving him a break, so if he got in any more trouble, we'd go hard on him."

"Did he?"

"Nothing official. I heard he hung out at the Rocks with the burnouts and freaks. But we never had any reason to bring him in again."

"What'd you do with the pellet gun?" I said.

"Give it to my sister's kid, lives outside Stockbridge."

"And he probably uses it to shoot cats," I said.

Cromwell shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "But he's not doing it here."

"Anything with Jared Clark?"

"No. Never even heard of him until the Grant kid fingered him after the shooting."

"Ever talk with anybody about him?" I said.

"Talked with the school shrink."

"Dr. Blair?"

"Yeah. You met her?"

I nodded.

"She's something, isn't she?"

"She is," I said. "What did she tell you?"

"Classic stuff," Cromwell said. "Jared was bullied a lot. Kids picked on him. Pushed him around. She feels he allied himself with Grant so that Grant would protect him."

"Why would Grant protect him?" I said.

"Don't know. He was the school tough guy. Big kid. Football player. Who would have thought it, him having the mother he did?"

"Sometimes, I guess, the apple falls as far as it can from the tree," I said.

He nodded.

"You know of any previous connection between Clark and Grant?" I said.

"No. But, you know how it is, they don't pop up on the screen unless they are causing trouble."

"And these guys weren't?"

"Except for the cat killings," Cromwell said.

"Love to know how they got together," I said.

"Maybe Blair knows," Cromwell said. "Ask her. Be a good excuse to talk with her."

"I will," I said. "Maybe she'll show me her knees."

"You gonna tell me about where they got the guns?" Cromwell said.

"No," I said.

"Isn't that sort of like withholding evidence?" Cromwell said.

"It's not like you need it for a conviction," I said.

Cromwell nodded.

"Just thought I'd ask," he said.

Chapter 36

IT HAD BEEN a wet summer. Outside my office window, it was raining again. I was watching it. Pearl was resting on her couch. Later, when the excitement died down, I might read the paper. My phone rang. Pearl had no reaction. She didn't care about phones. I didn't, either, but somebody had to answer, so I picked it up.

AN HOUR LATER, Pearl and I pulled up in front of the Dowling village market. The rain was steady but not abusive.

Through the steady sweep of the wipers, I saw him in front of the market, the red-haired kid from the Rocks. He was pressed against the front of the building, trying to stay dry. He was wearing