A Fine Line Read Online Free Page A

his mouth, and said, “Say it again.”
    But he closed his eyes and said nothing.
    About then I heard sirens in the distance. I went back through the house, opened the front door, and stepped out to the sidewalk.
    The emergency wagon pulled up a minute later and two paramedics, an Asian man and a blond woman, jumped out.
    I waved at them and pointed to the open front door. “This is the place,” I said. “He’s out back.”
    The woman was carrying a black satchel. Both of them jogged into the house without acknowledging me.
    I followed them out to the patio. They’d already clamped an oxygen mask over Walt’s mouth, and the woman appeared to be taking his vital signs.
    The other paramedic was kneeling beside her speaking into a cell phone. When he snapped it shut, he looked up at me. “What happened here?”
    “I don’t know. He was like that when I got here.”
    “He doesn’t have use of his legs, right?”
    “That’s right,” I said. “They’re paralyzed from an accident.”
    “Fell on his crutches here, you think?”
    “I guess so. Is he going to be all right?”
    “Hard to say.”
    “What about—?”
    “Sir,” said the paramedic, “the police will be here. They’ll want to talk to you.” He turned to his partner. “We should bring the wagon around to the alley.”
    She nodded.
    I stood back and watched them get Walt’s head immobilized, strap him on a board, and load him onto a collapsible gurney. Then the Asian guy jogged back through the house, and I held the door while the blond woman wheeled Walt out to the alley.
    Just about the time their siren started up, I heard a voice calling “Hello?” from the front of the house.
    I went to the front door. Two uniformed Boston police officers were standing there. One looked about forty. He was beefy and pink-skinned. The other one was a little younger and trimmer and darker.
    “This the place?” said the older one. His nameplate read: Sergeant A. Currier. “The accident?”
    “Yes. The paramedics just took him away.”
    “The victim’s name is—” Currier checked his notebook “—Walter Duffy?”
    “That’s right.”
    “And you are?”
    I gave him my name, told him I was Walt’s lawyer. He asked for my address and both my home and business phone numbers, too. He wrote everything into a notebook.
    “We gotta ask you some questions, Mr. Coyne,” he said, “and take a look around.”
    “Sure,” I said. “It happened in the garden out back.”
    I led them to the patio and showed them where I’d found Walt lying. There was a patch of half-dried blood about the diameter of a grapefruit on the bricks. Walt’s crutches still lay where I’d found them.
    “He was expecting me,” I said. “When nobody came to the door, I went around back and came in through that doorway.” I pointed. “I found him lying here.”
    “Was he conscious?”
    “Sort of, at first. I think he recognized me. Then he seemed to lose consciousness.”
    “Did he say anything?”
    “He tried to. He whispered something, but I couldn’tunderstand what he said. I asked him to repeat it, but that’s when he closed his eyes.”
    Currier was writing in his notebook. “When you got here, the door, it was unlocked?”
    I pointed. “The back door. He knew I was coming. I guess he left it open for me.”
    “Nobody else lives here?”
    “His son lives here with him. Ethan. Ethan Duffy. Oh, and he has a dog. They’re not here. Ethan’s probably walking the dog. Henry. That’s the dog.”
    Sergeant Currier was writing it all down in his notebook. I wondered if he included Henry’s name. He looked up at me. “You figure, um, the son, Ethan, and the dog, they were gone when this happened?”
    “Right. Otherwise Ethan would’ve called for help.”
    “When did they go?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been here about twenty minutes, and they weren’t here when I got here.”
    “They go for long walks?”
    I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.