I took a walk. I walked down to the Charles River. I walked along the embankment, past the Harvard dormitories and the gilt-knobbed Lars Anderson Bridge. I was in familiar surroundings. I was home. And the more I walked, the more distant Manette Venus became.
I was back in the barracks at 3:00 P.M. the next day, Thursday. I signed in. Stan Maleski was duty sergeant.
“You’re back early,” Maleski said to me. “You’re not due in until four.”
“There’s somebody I have to phone,” I said.
I went into the guardroom and called the Staley Woolen Company office. They told me Manette Venus was out. She had left at noon and had not yet returned.
I called Glen Road and spoke to Mrs. Reece. She said Manette had come home about twelve-thirty and had gone right out again. No, Manette had not explained why she had left work early. But she had told Mrs. Reece to expect her home at six.
At five o’clock I went on patrol with Phil Kerrigan. It had been cloudy, windy and warm all day. At dark it began to rain gustily and fitfully.
There had been a gas station holdup in Connecticut and the two armed men had last been seen heading for the Massachusetts line in a stolen car. We had the cruiser in a roadblock at Route 114. We stood beside it, the intermittent rain slashing at our blue raincoats, streaming down our faces, dripping from our cap visors. Kerrigan had his head cocked, watching for headlights in the blackness, listening for tires on a wet road.
I was standing near the open window of the car and I heard the crackle of the shortwave radio. I opened the door and poked my head in. The time was 9:10.
The radio was saying, “–holdup men have been apprehended by Cruiser 19. A Signal Seven for Cruiser 36. Cruiser 36. A Signal Seven.”
I called to Kerrigan. “The roadblock’s off,” I said. “But there’s a message for us to call our station.”
Kerrigan came over, took off his cap, shook the water from it and got into the car. He radioed the barracks. The dispatcher told us to come in immediately.
Sergeant Ray Beaupré was at the duty desk. I knew it was bad as soon as I saw him. His voice had a tinge of strain in it as he told us Captain Walsh was waiting for me in the troop commander’s office.
I went in there, my dripping raincoat making a puddle on the floor. Walsh was in civilian clothes, his necktie hastily knotted and askew, his face darkened by a day-long stubble. He was talking on the telephone and when he saw me he motioned me to sit down. He said, “I’ll call you back,” and put the phone down quickly. He shuffled some papers on the desk as I took off my raincoat and sat down. He said, “They tell me you know a girl named Manette Venus.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“It’s bad news,” he said.
I waited, my heart beating harder.
He rubbed his jaw. “These things a cop sees all the time. He tries to take them in stride. He never expects them to get close to him. I don’t know why not. It’s the law of averages. A man’s got to get hit sometime.” He looked at me. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Manette Venus has been murdered.”
“What?” I asked it stupidly, as though I hadn’t heard him. “Who?”
“Manette Venus,” he said quietly. “She was murdered. Tonight about seven-thirty. The Danford cops notified us over an hour ago.”
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