Of course, his wife was glad he was back. She’d suspected he had only been fooling around: smoking too much and talking to other old farts like himself. And the rest of his homicide team thought he’d been fooling around as well. In vain did Flynn try to convince them that LaBrecque was the man they were looking for and that they had to find him fast, because who knew how many people he’d killed. LaBrecque could have left corpses all over New England. But Coughlin still saw no reason for Flynn to drive up to New Hampshire. Once the information was sent out electronically, it would only be a matter of time before LaBrecque was picked up. Flynn didn’t doubt that. He just wondered how many more people LaBrecque would stick in the neck before it happened.

And because Coughlin was unhappy with him, he had given Flynn a case concerning a Puerto Rican junkie who had been arrested after feeding slices of his aunt into the garbage disposal.

The junkie had been caught because he’d been using the garbage disposal for three hours straight between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. and it had overheated and started smoking. A neighbor had called the Fire Department. And now Flynn could hardly talk to the junkie without the Department of Social Services, and the public defender’s office, and soon probably even the Puerto Rican Defense League breathing down his neck. It seemed that because the junkie had an IQ of 75, he shouldn’t have to go to prison. But that wasn’t for Flynn to decide. He wasn’t supposed to have opinions. He had his paperwork and court dates and miles of red tape and every bit of it was taking him farther away from New Hampshire, where Francis LaBrecque was probably icing some poor sucker at that very moment. At least that was how Leo Flynn saw it.

—

Shortly after breakfast on Monday, Fritz Skander showed up in Hawthorne’s office saying he had to do something about Frank LeBrun, that the man was unstable and might easily poison the entire school. Hawthorne didn’t usually attend breakfast and preferred to make coffee and eat something in his own quarters. That morning LeBrun had lost his temper and thrown four pots at the two students assigned to help him.

“You seem to be a special friend of his,” said Skander with a worried smile. “You should march in there and set him straight.” Skander stood in the doorway of Hawthorne’s office, his rectangular shape making him seem doorlike as well.

Hawthorne couldn’t imagine marching anywhere. “Was anyone hurt?”

“They were scared, frightened—isn’t that enough? After all, they’re just children.”

As he made his way to the kitchen, Hawthorne assumed there was more to the altercation than what Skander had described, but it wouldn’t do to have LeBrun throwing pots. He wondered why Skander hadn’t spoken to LeBrun himself, and once again Hawthorne saw that he couldn’t take anyone’s actions at face value. There always appeared to be something lying underneath.

When Hawthorne got to the kitchen, LeBrun was alone. There were stacks of dirty dishes from breakfast and no sign of the women employed to wash them. The floor was strewn with pots and broken plates. LeBrun was sitting on a tall stool in the middle of the kitchen with his arms folded and his legs stuck out in front of him, smoking a cigarette, although smoking wasn’t allowed in school buildings. It was a gray morning and the lights were on.

“Now I suppose you’re going to yell at me, too,” he said angrily.

“That wasn’t my intention,” said Hawthorne looking around and walking slowly across the kitchen. “You want a hand cleaning this up?” He stepped over a pile of scrambled eggs.

“I’m not fuckin’ cleaning anything.” LeBrun didn’t look at Hawthorne but stared straight ahead at the wall where there were several refrigerators. His white coat was unbuttoned and underneath he wore a red shirt. His thick dark hair was uncombed and spiky. As he sat, he jiggled his knees so his black boots seemed to dance on the tiles.

“What’s bothering you?”

“Those fuckin’ kids won’t do as I say. I told this kid to take the eggs off the stove and he wasn’t paying attention so they burned. Then the other one burned the toast.”

Hawthorne drew up another stool next to LeBrun and sat down. “They’re kids.”

“Hey, if I’d done that at their age I’d of had the shit kicked out of me.”

“What happened to the dishwashers?”

“They were fucking staring at me and so I said, ‘What the fuck are you staring at, you old bags?’ You should of seen them scatter.”

Hawthorne grinned suddenly. “I guess you made a clean sweep, didn’t you?”

LeBrun grinned as well. “Damn straight.”

“Skander’s afraid that you’ll poison the school.”

LeBrun stood up and kicked a pot, which went skittering across the kitchen. “Fat chance. I’m not going to poison anybody unless I get paid for it.” Then he grinned again.

Hawthorne climbed off the stool and picked up a couple of pots. “These hang from those hooks over there?”

“Yeah, those ones by the sink.” LeBrun dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his heel.

Hawthorne hung the pots from the hooks, then went back and got several more. LeBrun watched him. When he had finished hanging up the pots, Hawthorne took a broom and began sweeping the broken dishes into a pile in the middle of the floor. They made a rattling noise as he pushed them ahead of the broom.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to do that.”

“Somebody’s got to.”

“But you’re the boss.”

Hawthorne kept sweeping. “So what?”

LeBrun got a broom as well. “You’re just trying to make me feel bad.”

Hawthorne walked over to LeBrun. “No, I’m not. We got about one hundred and twenty people who are going to want lunch in a couple of hours, so I’d better get started.”

“You can’t cook.”

“I can make sandwiches.”

“Not good sandwiches. Not with all the stuff on them like I do.”

Hawthorne shrugged and leaned on his broom.

“Okay, okay,” said LeBrun, “I’ll make lunch.”

“Tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you.”

LeBrun kicked at another pot, which landed against the stove with a bang. “I don’t need your fuckin’ help.” He let the broom drop to the floor and lit another cigarette.

“Is something bothering you?”

“The cops have been in here half a dozen times. I just tell them to get the fuck out, that I’m busy. Nah, that’s not right, I talked to them. I just don’t like it, that’s all. I don’t like them nagging me about Larry and when did I see this person last and that person last.”

“I’m sorry about that,” said Hawthorne.

“It’s not your fuckin’ fault. Why does Skander think I’ll poison the school?”

“I guess he’s nervous.”

LeBrun began sweeping the broken crockery. “What a jerk. He thinks he’s got it all figured out. He doesn’t know shit. Like, he’s making a big mistake. Look, you go tell those old bags they can come back and wash the dishes anytime they want, and you can get those kids as well. I won’t say a word to them. But don’t expect me to apologize.”

“That’s okay,” said Hawthorne, “I can apologize. You want me to hire some more people?”

“Nah, it’s just till the end of the week. Saturday I’m outta here one way or the other.”

Hawthorne found the two dishwashers in the small lounge used by the housekeepers. They were shapeless women in their sixties who wore light blue dresses and white aprons. They said they didn’t want to work with LeBrun anymore. Hawthorne said that LeBrun had promised to behave and that, anyway, it would only be until the students left. He offered them each a bonus of two hundred dollars. Grudgingly, they returned to the kitchen.

As for the students who had been helping out, one of them absolutely refused to go back. The whole school was scaring him half to death. He was leaving for his parents’ house in Framingham either Tuesday or the next day and he wasn’t sure if he’d be coming back in January. He’d have to think about it. It depended on whether they found out who had killed Scott. The boy was a tenth grader named Harvey Bengston. He wore thick glasses that made his soft brown eyes seem huge.