Free All Our Yesterdays by Robert B. Parker Page B

an immigrant Paddy copper.”
    “Oh, Conn, don’t be silly. You’re the handsomest man I know, and you’re very learned. And my father says you are the best detective in Boston.”
    Conn shrugged a little. And smiled, letting the glint of laughter show in his eyes.
    “Well, maybe in Boston,” he said. And they both laughed. “I’m a bachelor, I know, with little experience, and it makes me foolish; but I guess that it scares me when you don’t show your feelings.”
    She was silent as she thought about this. He waited calmly. She frowned, and he admired how the little cleft appeared between her eyebrows.
    “We do kiss,” she said.
    “Like sister and brother,” Conn said.
    “Mother of mercy, Conn. I’ve not known you more than a month. I try to be proper.”
    “Of course you do,” Conn said. “And you should. But my heart isn’t as wise as my head, and you’re very beautiful.”
    She smiled then, and blushed again, and put her hand once more on top of his.
    “I do like you, Conn, very much. And I have strongfeelings too, God help me. But I don’t wish to give in to them. I don’t wish to be sinful.”
    Conn put his other hand on top of hers, and stroked it gently.
    “Of course not,” Conn said. His smile was affectionate. “I’m just a foolish, fearful bachelor. Don’t be paying me any mind.”
    “You’re not foolish, Conn. You’re very dear,” Mellen said.
    And Conn smiled at her some more.

Conn
    T hey went to Braves Field on a Saturday afternoon. They rode the streetcar out Commonwealth Avenue to Gaffney Street and walked down to the field with its very un-Boston stucco façade and serial archways. Fenway Park, where the Red Sox played, was appropriately New England with an ornamented brick front on Jersey Street. From the outside, Braves Field looked Californian to Conn, though he’d never been to California.
    The Dodgers were in town and the crowd on a bright, hot August afternoon was large. Mellen held Conn’s arm as they pushed through the jam around the entry gates to the press entrance. A uniformed usher winked at Conn, tipped his hat to Mellen, and waved them on through.
    “You don’t have to pay?” Mellen said.
    Conn shook his head.
    “Is it because you are a policeman?”
    “I did a favor,” Conn said as they walked to their seats.
    “Well, you must have done a lot of them, because everyone seems to know you.”
    “I try to be kind,” Conn said.
    “You’re softhearted like my father,” Mellen said.
    “Not a bad fault,” Conn said gently.
    “Not a fault at all,” Mellen said.
    They had box seats along the first-base line. Theyhad peanuts and scorecards. Conn tilted his straw boater forward to shield his eyes. Mellen wore a white visor, to keep the sun off her face.
    “This is not a tennis match,” Conn said with a smile.
    Mellen laughed.
    “I burn so easily,” she said. “And I get all freckly even if I don’t burn.”
    “That’s not freckles,” Conn said. “That’s an Irish tan.” He patted her knee gently.
    Conn had never played baseball, and had never fully come to like it in nine years, but he wanted to distance his Irish past and few things were more American. He knew all the teams and players, and who hit well and how the game was played. Mellen had never been to a game.
    “Are these good teams, Conn?”
    “Dodgers are so-so,” Conn said. “The Braves are bad.”
    “Who’s that little player, there?” Mellen said.
    “Rabbit Maranville,” Conn said. “He’s playing shortstop.”
    “He looks like a little boy.”
    The pitchers were Socks Seibold for the Braves and Dazzy Vance for the Dodgers. There were no runs until the sixth inning, when Babe Herman hit a home run into the jury box in right field and the Dodgers won, one to nothing.
    They rode the streetcar back through Kenmore Square where it dipped underground and rumbled under Commonwealth Avenue and parts of the Boston Common. It stopped at Park Street station, and they got off.
    They