Cocky nodded.
“Ach,” said Flynn. “You’ll never make it through dinner.”
“Won’t be the first time,” the President said. “I have the sort of job which teaches one how to sleep with one’s eyes open, while smiling and nodding beguilingly. The lieutenant has been regaling me with stories as to how it is to walk the beat.”
“All lies, I’m sure,” Flynn said. “Sure, and don’t the police have too much time to make up stories?”
The President said, “I do believe I missed my calling. And you two always have a chess game in progress?” He looked at the board. “Who’s black?”
“I am black,” said Flynn. “I’ve had such an easy week, my concentration level hasn’t risen to the point of being able to give Cocky a good game.”
“Inspector, Dean Wincomb called me a while ago. He tells me Assistant Professor Donald Carver resigned this morning. He understands he is leaving the university without recommendation.”
“He’s decided to go quietly, has he?”
“He put that rubbish about Louie on the Net, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“But he did not destroy Louie’s office?”
“No.”
“And is that all you have to tell me about that?”
“Dr. and Mrs. Loveson will need your help, the help of the university, special help, from here on in.”
“I visited Louie in the hospital last night. He seems to be getting on all right. All things considered.”
“Perhaps after he retires he could have some continuing association with the university? He has little else. Mrs. Loveson isn’t well.”
“Certainly. But isn’t there a daughter somewhere?”
Flynn said, “Somewhere.”
The President smiled. “I think I see everything clearly, Inspector.” The President shook hands with him again. “Many thanks. I’m sure I’ll be talking with John Roy Priddy soon.”
“I observe,” Flynn said, “your eyes being open is not a perfect indication of your being asleep.”
The President laughed.
Walking toward the elevator, the President said more quietly to Flynn, “I wonder if you would mind taking a piece of advice from Harvard’s President, Flynn?”
“I’d be very grateful for any advice you have to give me, sir.”
The President stepped into the ancient, wrought-iron caged elevator. He pushed the Down button.
He turned to face Flynn still standing in the corridor.
The President of Harvard said, “Move your queen.”
TWENTY
“Number 2211, is it?” In his tuxedo, Flynn drove the marked Boston Police car slowly through the residential street.
Cocky was checking the house numbers with the car’s spotlight.
“2211.”
Flynn had dressed formally, entered the Policepersons’ Ball in a downtown hotel, greeted various and divers police colleagues—including Captain Reagan who, for once, with all his brass buttons and gold braid, was properly dressed— sampled the hors d’oeuvres, and waited.
At eight forty-five Lieutenant Detective John Kurt, his wife, and three other couples entered the ballroom.
“Ach,” Flynn muttered to himself. “Society arrives late, doesn’t it? At least it’s a help knowing sometimes where Society is.”
Flynn left the ball.
“There it is,” Cocky said, “2211.”
Flynn pulled into the short driveway of the one-level brick house.
“You’re parking in the driveway of the house you intend to break and enter?” Cocky asked.
“I’m sure the neighbors of Lieutenant Detective John Kurt are used to seeing a police car parked in his driveway. They’ll think nothing of it.”
“What if anyone happens to look out and notice one of the burglars is wearing black tie? This isn’t a good enough neighborhood for such a gentleman burglar. I doubt there’s a diamond-studded tiara within miles.”
“It will just confirm their suspicion that we police are a stylish lot.” Flynn lifted the camcorder from the car seat between them. “You’re in uniform, after all.”
Cocky said, “I should have worn my tennis whites.”
It took Cocky less than three minutes to deactivate the burglar alarm.
It took Flynn less than a minute to pick the lock of the back door.
Flynn snapped on the kitchen lights.
“You’re putting the lights on?” Cocky blinked around the freshly painted kitchen. “Why don’t we put a sign out front saying ‘This house is being burgled’?”
“It’d be more suspicious seeing a flashlight moving around inside a house than the lights fully on, wouldn’t you say? Besides”—Flynn lifted the camcorder—“we need full light. Well, let’s start in the master bedroom, shall we?”
First, Flynn videotaped close-ups and then wide shots of photographs of John Kurt and his wife he found on their bedroom bureau. Then he panned their bedroom, their bathroom. While Cocky opened and closed their closet doors, Flynn shot their interiors.
After filming a neat guest bedroom, they moved back along the corridor to film the living room, kitchen, dining areas.
“The Kurts are remarkable housekeepers,” Flynn commented. “House-proud, to use a German expression.”
Cocky said, “Strange that such a good-looking, healthy young couple have no children.”
“I suspect they are otherwise directed,” Flynn said. “Did you notice the BMW in the back of the driveway?”
“Registered to Mrs. Kurt,” Cocky said. “Anne Kurt. She’s a primary school teacher.”
“Expensive transportation for a primary school teacher. Do you wonder what it’s meant to express?”
After videotaping the main floor of the house, they returned to the kitchen.
“Well,” Flynn said. “We’ve established where we are. And so far found nothing. Will our luck hold?”
Cocky opened and closed a door to a broom closet. “This house must have a basement.”
“Yes.”
The second door he opened led to the basement steps.
In the basement, Flynn filmed the heating-cooling system, the washer and drier, the neatly stacked suitcases, the clean collection of lawn mower, rake, snow shovel, the floor-to-ceiling wine rack.
Cocky looked at two bottles of wine. “BMW tastes in wine, too.”
“Cocky, old son.” Not filming, Flynn was just looking around. “The ceiling is square.”
“So’s the floor,” Cocky said.
“We’re in a rectangular house.”
“Yes.” Cocky looked at all four corners of the room. “A half basement?”
“Half a basement, more like it.”
“There’s no way out. No door.”
“Fiddle with that wine rack, if you will. That being the only object obscuring the wall in this subterranean world of Kurt.”
Cocky removed the wine bottles from the left-hand side of the rack, waist high. “A regular doorknob.” Cocky chuckled. “How clever!”
The wine rack swung open.
He entered the next room.
He switched on the light.
He said, “Oh, damn.”
Flynn followed him with the camera.
Viewing through the camera, Flynn said, “Dear, dear. We found what we didn’t want to find.”
He filmed the huge Nazi swastika flag on the wall; the framed photographs of Hitler, Goebbels, Göring, and three other men he did not recognize, each of the three in a strange costume undoubtedly meant to be a uniform; the computer table, computer, and printer; the six metal chairs scattered in the room, another six folded against the wall.
He also filmed a large print hanging on the back wall.
On the right of the painting was a sunlit rural area, red barns and a white steeple in green rolling hills.
On the left side of the painting was a dark, urban area, squalid streets, decrepit redbrick buildings, windows smashed The tallest building, the top obscured by dirty clouds, had a Star of David on it.
In the middle of the painting, beautiful, muscular men and women marched from the rural area to the urban area. In their left hands the men carried assault weapons; the women, brooms.
The biggest figure was a blond man in the center of the painting, leading them, his right fist raised to the sky.
Flynn lowered the camera. “Oh, dear.”
He felt so sad.
From across the room, Cocky said, “A sizable gun collection. Twelve assault rifles. Twelve forty-fives. Eight—”
“All right!” Flynn snapped angrily. “But is any of this actually illegal?”
“This is.” Cocky was facing Flynn.
Between them was a chest-high concrete wall.
Flynn walked around the end of the wall.
On Cocky’s side of the wall was a concrete work counter.
And on the counter were five bombs.
“Ah,” said Flynn. “It’s illegal to make bombs in a residential neighborhood?”
“Usually against zoning laws.” Cocky laughed. “Of course it is.”
As Flynn filmed the small bombs precisely spaced on the counter, Cocky commented: “These four essentially are ready for detonation. This last explosive device, as you can see, is a work in progress.”
After filming, Flynn heaved a great sigh. “All right. Let’s go upstairs and call Captain Reagan’s personal communicator. He has it at the Policepersons’ Ball with him. Tell him we found what we hoped not to find. Let’s get out of here before a heavy truck goes by and sets one of these darlings off. Leave the lights on, Cocky. Lights will make the cleanup squad feel safer.”
“Ha!” Flynn chortled. “Checkmate!”
Cocky sat back in his chair. “I suspect you had help, Flynn. Ever since you finally moved your queen—”
“Ah, a man is nothin’ at all, Cocky, without a little help from his friends. Surely you know that.”
“Who helped you?”
The television facing the old leather couch driveled on. A canned audience was finding something about a pregnant fifty-seven-year-old woman uncannily funny.
“Hark,” said Flynn. “I hear the elevator. The man approaches.”
Lieutenant Kurt entered the office closely followed by his wife. He looked around the big room.
Flynn and Cocky were on the couch, apparently watching the television.
“Flynn?” Kurt looked through the office’s dark spots. “Inspector Flynn?”
“Ah, Lieutenant Kurt!” Flynn rose as if he had not known Kurt was there. “And Mrs. Kurt! How very nice of you both to come.”
“Captain Reagan ordered me to report to you here.” There was more contempt in Kurt’s diction than curiosity. “Immediately.”
“Yes, he did,” Flynn said agreeably.
“In the middle of the Policepersons’ Ball,” Anne added.
Especially in his tuxedo did Kurt look handsome and physically fit. Tall, his shoulders were wide, his chest deep, his waist slim.
Flynn turned on the light over his desk. “Lieutenant Concannon and I have been looking at your remarkable conviction record, Lieutenant Kurt. Come, and look at it yourself, the way it’s presented here.”
Looking down at the desk, a slight smile played on Kurt’s face.
“Isn’t that remarkable?” Flynn asked Anne.
She nodded, blankly.
Forcefully, Kurt asked, “Why was I ordered here?”
“In the middle of the night,” his wife added.
“You don’t see anything remarkable about this presentation of your conviction record, Lieutenant? Nothing unusual?”
Cocky said, “Statistically impossible?”
“No.”
“Lieutenant Concannon and I just wanted to point out to you how extraordinary your conviction record is.” Flynn started back toward the couch. “Instead of your kickin’ around the dance floor, we thought you’d rather kick back with us. Sit and watch a bit of television with Lieutenant Concannon and me. Relax, after your great labors.” Flynn sat on the divan. “Pull up a pew, you two. This program is hilarious. It suggests the variety of human nature, it does.”
Kurt and his wife stood behind the divan.
Impatiently, Kurt said, “What the hell is this about? I’ve heard of you, Flynn. ‘Reluctant’ Flynn. A damned eccentric, ignorant of police matters, the law . . .”
“I’ve got it!” Cocky said. “The President of Harvard!”
That confused Kurt.
Cocky pressed the videotape button.
On the screen appeared first a beautiful photograph of Anne Kurt, then one of John Kurt, then one of them together, then a panning shot of their bedroom.
Anne gasped.
“I compliment you on your housekeeping, Mrs. Kurt,” Flynn said over his shoulder. “Your house is immaculate throughout!”
“Jack! Our bedroom!”
Kurt shouted, “What’s this about, Flynn?”
“Sure, and you could eat ice cream off your kitchen floor, so clean it is!”
“Good taste in wines, too.” Cocky fast-forwarded the tape.
“That’s right, Cocky. Speed it up. Our guests are familiar with their own home.”
Cocky slowed the tape to show him opening the door concealed as a wine rack in the Kurts’ basement.