Free A Fine Line by William G. Tapply Page B

cop,” she said. “It’s my job. Snooping around isn’t your job, though.”
    “Walt Duffy was my friend,” I said. “Mostly, I want to return this dog to its rightful owner. You haven’t found Ethan, then?”
    “Not yet. We’re keeping an eye on his place on Mt. Vernon Street, and we’ve got the Sudbury cops watching his mother’s place. We know our business, Mr. Coyne.”
    Friday is generally a slow day at my office, especially during trout season. Julie schedules no appointments, and unless I’ve got to be in court, we use the day to catch up on phonecalls and paperwork. Often we quit early on Friday afternoons, and that was our plan for this pretty Friday in June.
    I had Julie dig out Walt Duffy’s file for me. As I’d remembered, aside from his collection of books, manuscripts and artwork, which he’d bequeathed to museums, Walt had left everything to Ethan. All that really amounted to was his townhouse on Mt. Vernon Street and whatever was in his bank accounts—which I knew wasn’t much. Every time Walt got some money, he spent it on his collection.
    I was staring out the window trying to imagine Ethan whacking Walt on the back of the head with a brick when the phone buzzed.
    When I picked it up, Julie told me it was Benjamin Frye. She said he sounded agitated.
    I hit the blinking button on my console and said, “Ben. What’s up?”
    “You
, goddamn it. You sicced the pigs on me.”
    “Did you say pigs?”
    “The cops. The police. I hate the police. The police hate me.
    “Have you done anything wrong, Ben? Need a lawyer?”
    “Maybe I’ve got a baggie or two in the bottom drawer of my file cabinet. That’s not the point. They always treat you like you’re a fucking criminal, make you feel guilty whether you did anything or not. Why’d you have to give them my name?”
    “Walt Duffy died,” I said. “They were asking me about it. I told them about the Meriwether Lewis letters.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about Duffy. Crabby bastard, but he knew his stuff. Anyway, it’s hard to hate a guy who likes birds, you know? What happened to him?”
    “The police didn’t tell you?”
    “Tell me?” He laughed quickly. “Cops don’t tell you anything. I think they thought I already knew about it. As if I was going to cross myself up, let it slip.”
    “He fell and banged his head on the bricks,” I said. “He died in surgery.”
    “They think somebody pushed him or something, huh?”
    “I guess so,” I said. “So what about those letters?”
    “Well,” he said, “they wanted me to hand ’em over. When I refused, they threatened me.”
    “Why did you refuse?”
    “You kidding? Those things are fucking priceless. You ever see a police evidence room? You want two-hundredyear-old letters from Meriwether Lewis to Alexander Wilson collecting dust and cigar smoke and mouse turds on some shelf in a police evidence room?”
    “I’d say you showed good judgment,” I said. “How did they threaten you?”
    “In that nasty, suggestive way that cops do it that you can’t really put your finger on but you know they’re doing it. That Mendoza, she’s a nasty one. I surmise she pulled my sheet.”
    I found myself smiling. Ben Frye had been arrested many times when he was younger, and he was quite proud of it. He’d spent nights in American jails from Birmingham to Chicago to San Francisco to Boston. He’d been convicted just once. That was when he lay down in the middle of Mass. Ave. in Harvard Square and went limp when they dragged him to a paddy wagon. The judge fined him a hundred dollars for disturbing the peace.
    Ben always thought that was supremely ironic, since he’d been carrying a sign that read “Peace Now.”
    “So where are the letters?” I said.
    “Oh, don’t worry. I got ’em. Now I want the damn things off my hands. Come and fetch ’em.”
    “What about tonight? I’ll buy you dinner, you can give me the letters. Remington’s? Say six-thirty?” Remington’s