Sugar and Spice - Chapter 2

 

Chapter Two

October 16 Thursday After Supper

Patrick Kelly’s House

Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

WHAT A SURPRISE for Patrick Kelly when the phone rang and it was from Cambridge Police Lieutenant Billy Reardon. Both boys had grown up in the Southie part of Boston. Their families lived next door to each other. They were the same age, so it was normal for them to be best buds.

They’d both gone from South Boston Catholic Academy to Boston College High School, complaining bitterly to their parents that they wanted to attend a co-ed school.

For university, Patrick lucked out, winning one of the scholarships given to top Boston students by Boston University. He could never have afforded it otherwise.

Billy went to the more affordable Massachusetts University campus at Boston. The two boys didn’t fall out; it was more a growing apart. Bill, as he told Patrick that he now wanted to be called, lived in Cambridge with other students. After graduation, he took the test to become a Cambridge cop and then worked his way up. From his changing titles, each higher than the last, Patrick assumed he was succeeding.

Back in the old neighborhood their mothers shared information about their boys. When Bill and Patrick did happen to meet, it was as if they had seen each other the week before. The last time they saw each other was Thanksgiving, almost a year before. No contact since then, which is why the telephone call had been such a surprise.

But maybe not considering their career paths.

Patrick had had a teaching fellowship at Harvard where he won his Ph.D. and was later certified as a psychologist. He had built his practice specializing in children.

Patrick married a South Boston girl, Nicole Flanagan. They bought a Victorian house just outside Harvard Square. The first floor served as his office. They lived on the second with the top floor under the eves serving as the bedrooms for them and the twins, Ethan and Violet, now eight. When Patrick thought of the nine-year olds who might have been plotting a murder, he couldn’t imagine his kids doing the same.

Every morning, Patrick threw his dirty underwear into the clothes hamper. He and Nicole had their own bathroom. After his shower he hung his towel with the ends lined up the way Nicole liked it. He didn’t need his psychology degree to know doing small things kept a marriage on a smoother path.

Nicole served as his receptionist and business manager. Once the twins were born, she hadn’t returned to nursing but took over the business responsibilities of Patrick’s practice. It kept her mind active and her salary within the practice and family.

It wasn’t that Patrick was cheap. Growing up he had watched his family’s careful handling of his father’s salary from the nearby power plant.

His mother had become the neighborhood seamstress not just for repairs but had made several wedding dresses for local women. To him and his father the word debt was equivalent to screaming “Fuck you” at the Virgin Mary in church.

It was 10:30, the same night long after Billy’s call, when Patrick went upstairs. He decided to wear his brown turtleneck and beige corduroy jacket tomorrow morning when he was to meet Reardon at the Cambridge Police Station. It would be professional enough but not so intimidating that he might scare four little nine-year-old girls being questioned at a police station.

He crawled into bed next to his sleeping wife. He loved watching her sleep. It reminded him of how lucky he was in everything.

***

The next morning as Patrick stepped out of the shower, the noise of the twins fighting floated up from downstairs. The battle?  As much as he could make out who would have the last box of Coco Pops rather than Frosted Flakes.

Usually, Nicole told the kids that sugared cereals should be considered their one candy a day. She wasn’t in the kitchen. He guessed she was already downstairs cancelling his appointments so he could spend whatever time Billy (she had never known him as Bill) needed at the police station.

Bill hadn’t given him much information, other than saying this was right up his alley, and he probably could write an amazing paper for professional journals about middle class kids wanting to kill other kids.

The twins didn’t notice him enter the kitchen until he plucked the two cereal boxes in contention, replacing them with a large box of Rice Krispies. “Eat fast and I’ll drop you at school,” he said.