Nervous Water by William G. Tapply Read Free Book Online Page A

sweet.”
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    After supper I went into my in-home office, sat at my desk, and dialed Richard Hurley’s house number.
    A woman answered with a cheery “Hello.”
    â€œCassie?” I said. “Is that you?”
    â€œNo, I’m sorry. This is Rebecca.”
    â€œI’m trying to reach Cassie,” I said. “I’m her cousin.”
    â€œHer cousin, huh?” Rebecca paused for a moment. “You better speak to my father. Hold on a sec, please.”
    A minute later, a man said, “Yes?”
    â€œMr. Hurley?”
    â€œThis is Dr. Hurley, yes.” His voice was soft and cautious. “Who did you say was calling?”
    â€œMy name is Brady Coyne,” I said. “I’m your wife’s cousin. I’d like to speak with her.”
    â€œWell, I’m sorry,” he said. “Cassandra’s not here right now.”
    â€œIt’s quite important,” I said.
    â€œWell,” he said, “she’s still not here.”
    â€œWhen do you expect her?”
    â€œLook, Mr.—what was it?”
    â€œCoyne,” I said. “Brady Coyne.”
    â€œAnd you’re her cousin, you say?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œCassandra has never mentioned you.”
    â€œWe’ve been out of touch.”
    â€œAnd now…?”
    â€œNow I need to be in touch with her.”
    â€œIt’s important, you say.”
    â€œYes,” I said. “It’s urgent.”
    â€œI’ll take a message if you want.”
    â€œYes. Thank you. Just ask her to call me, if you don’t mind.”
    He blew a quick, impatient breath into the phone. “What’s your number?”
    I gave it to him, and he repeated it back to me. Then he asked me to spell my name, which I did. “I’ll see that she gets your message,” he said.
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œWhen will you give her my message?”
    â€œFirst thing,” he said. “As soon as she gets home.”
    â€œTonight?”
    â€œLook,” he said. “I’m in the middle of something here. I’ll be sure that Cassandra knows you called.”
    And with that he hung up.
    I leaned back in my desk chair and looked up at the ceiling for a minute. Then I fired up my computer.
    Ten minutes later the Internet Yellow Pages had given me both the home and the office addresses for Dr. Richard Hurley. His home, as Uncle Moze said, was in Madison. His office was in Cambridge.
    Ten minutes after that I printed out the MapQuest driving directions from my town house on Mount Vernon Street in Boston to Dr. Richard Hurley’s house on Church Street in Madison.

Four
    Madison, Massachusetts, is a sleepy little community an hour’s drive west of Boston when the traffic is light, as it was on Sunday afternoon. No significant highway violates the borders of Madison. Aside from a few pick-’em-yourself apple orchards, several horse farms, a general store, a couple of churches, and untold numbers of psychiatrists and accountants with offices in their homes, there is no commerce in the town. It’s a green, moist, hushed place, famous for—and perversely proud of—its mosquitoes, with widely spaced expensive houses separated by stands of oak and maple and pine trees and manicured lawns. Madison is lushly populated with birds and deer and golden retrievers, a town where well-to-do people pay steep property taxes for the privilege of raising their animals and their children in insulated bucolic tranquillity.
    I arrived in the center of town, such as it is, around two in the afternoon. A big white Congregational church overlooked the village green, and Church Street, not coincidentally, ran along beside it. It descended a gentle hill past an elementary school, and where it bottomed out, across from a complex of soccer and baseball fields, I spotted a white mailbox with Hurley printed on it.
    I turned into the wide driveway and