Blunt Darts Read Online Free Page B

have to do with his disappearance now?”
    “Frankly, I don’t know. But it seems to me something must have happened to cause Stephen to take off. Perhaps that something isn’t a new occurrence but rather a recurrence from those days.”
    She sighed again.
    “What kind of … hospital, Mrs. Kinnington?”
    The period appeared to be as difficult for her to discuss as it must have been for Stephen to experience. “I had very little to do with that. I was out of the country when Stephen’s mother died, and the judge’s actions were fait accompli by the time I got back.” She adopted the hard tone again. “I distrust psychiatrists and other so-called ‘mental health’ professionals. I believe that love, not analysis, is what Stephen needed. In any case, however, the name of the sanatorium was Willow Wood.”
    So, “Willard” committed his son alliteratively to “Willow Wood.”
    Mrs. Kinnington continued. “It’s in the Berkshires near Tanglewood. I don’t recall the town, but I doubt it would do you any good to visit the institution itself. I’m sure the judge would have sealed things up tightly to avoid any adverse publicity.”
    I thought it over. She was probably right about the sanatorium being a dead-end.
    Then I recalled something a doctor once told me when I was visiting Beth in her hospital. “I’ve heard a psychiatric institution usually does follow-up treatment on a released patient. Since Willow Wood must be a hundred miles from here, do you recall any local psychiatrist seeing Stephen after he was sent home?”
    “Yes. …” Mrs. Kinnington regarded her teacup for a moment. “Yes, I do. He was in Brookline. A Jewish surname—Stern? No. No, it was Stein. Dr. David Stein.”
    I nodded. “Could you call him and authorize Dr. Stein to speak with me about Stephen?”
    “Mr. Cuddy, I want one point to be absolutely clear,” she said, again hardening her voice. “I will not have those days reopened. The judge and I would agree on that, though he for selfish reasons of publicity and I from concern about Stephen. Is that understood?”
    “Mrs. Kinnington, if your concern for Stephen is so strong, I would think you’d want me to reopen anything I had to in order to bring him home safely.”
    She locked eyes for another moment, then relented once more. “This is all so … difficult to deal with. We had all thought him to be … Very well. I do appreciate your point. I will call this Dr. Stein.”
    “By ‘this Dr. Stein,’ do I take it you never met him?”
    “That’s correct. I’ve a vague recollection of speaking to him once, on the telephone.”
    “In that case,” I said, “could you give me a brief letter of introduction, preferably on some of your letterhead stationery?”
    “Certainly,” she swiveled and scooped up her walking braces in her right hand.
    I extended mine. “Do you need some help?” I asked.
    Mrs. Kinnington shook her head as she maneuvered the braces to the sides of her chair. “Never ask someone in a wheelchair, which I was, or on braces if they ‘need some help.’ Psychologically, we can’t answer ‘yes’ to that question.”
    “Well, then, can I give you a hand?”
    She rewarded me with her faint smile. “Better. But no, thank you.” She levered herself up to a standing position. “I prefer to have tea at a tea table and to write letters at a desk. This way, please.”
    Mrs. Kinnington’s legs moved stiffly in lockstep with the thrust of her shoulders and braces. She stopped at a Governor Winthrop model, which looked to my untutored eye to be made of curly maple and therefore probably even more antique than the rest of the place. She lowered the drawbridge writing surface, revealing a stand with fountain pen. Mrs. Kinnington eased into the chair, leaning her braces against the wall, out of the way but within reach.
    “Now,” she said, tugging open a shallow drawer and removing another sheet of the rose-colored stationery, “what shall I