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“But we are here now to say good-bye to him and to praise what we can praise. He was kind, he meant well, he had no mea
As he paused, Hawthorne thought of yet another quote from Marcus Aurelius that had stayed with him over the weeks: “You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.” He had first thought of it in relation to his wife and daughter, but now it had become one of his truths, as if Aurelius’s role were to fill the agnostic’s empty heaven. Aurelius offered consolation when there seemed none other to be had. Glancing up, he saw Kate watching him from the second row. He tried to smile and felt his awkwardness as a clumsy twisting of his lips.
“And here is the second quotation that gives me guidance and may be of help to you as well. ‘Be like the headland against which the waves break and break: it stands firm, until presently the watery tumult around it subsides once more to rest.’”
—
Leafing through an issue of Boston magazine, Detective Leo Fly
It was Thursday morning and Fly
The door to the i
Leo Fly
“I’d be grateful for just a minute,” he said. “I’ll make it quick.”
But ten minutes later Fly
“I wouldn’t say he was especially bad,” said Renfrew. “He was emotionally damaged and educationally handicapped. He was certainly angry but there was no evidence of bipolarity. Perhaps overactive would be a better word, at times even hyperactive.”
“So you wouldn’t say he was fucked up,” said Fly
“Well, he’d been mandated to the school by the court, presumably because the public schools couldn’t control him—he had a ferocious temper—but I don’t remember any instances of criminal behavior. He was disorganized and sometimes violent, though not to the other boys. But he might break up furniture or smash windows. Once he saw that we’d take away his privileges, though, he tried harder to fit in. Many of the boys at Bass were there for sexual-behavior modification, but that wasn’t entirely true in LaBrecque’s case, although he’d been sexually abused. Basically, he seemed friendly, but his anger and then his secretiveness made him completely untrustworthy. I wasn’t sure we could do anything for him, apart from giving him meds, until he got caught up in baking.”
“Did he have friends?”
“Frank was very much a loner. He was always eager to help out and he did favors for the older boys, but if given the choice he preferred his own company. When I first met him, he did lots of little favors for me—helping me clean my office, wash my car. And I thought it would lead to a friendship of sorts but it never did. His sociability was just a way of keeping a close eye on what was going on. It existed to mask his fear.”
“Was he ever sexually abused at the school?”
Renfrew’s brow wrinkled. “There was an older boy who bullied him constantly, always giving him orders, making him run errands, knocking him around. Looking back on it, there probably was a sexual aspect. Once I caught him snapping LaBrecque with a wet towel in the showers, aiming for the genital area. I put a stop to it and reprimanded him. He accused LaBrecque of coming on to him, although LaBrecque denied it. LaBrecque was somewhat peculiar-looking, thin and with an extremely narrow face. He was teased a lot. In all likelihood that was one reason he tried to ingratiate himself with the other boys, just so he wouldn’t be picked on.”
“What happened to the boy who’d been bullying him?”
Renfrew moved his tongue across his upper teeth. His discomfort seemed to increase. “He was nearly killed.”
“By LaBrecque?”
“I don’t know, but I rather think so. The boy was attacked one night as he was leaving the gym. He was beaten with a two-by-four. He didn’t see who did it and lost consciousness. His shoulder and arm were broken. Some other boys came ru
“What about?”
“The cake was full of tacks. The boy got several in his mouth and got a scratch on his tongue. I went to find LaBrecque but he was gone. No one saw him leave. There was a fence around the property but it wasn’t high; we didn’t want the place to look like a jail. The police searched for him for weeks. Obviously, his disappearance suggested that he had attacked the boy. And the business with the tacks was disturbing. In any case, the police lost track of him. They found a man who’d given him a ride to Boston—but nothing after that.”
“What about his family?”
“They seemed pretty indifferent.”
“Didn’t they visit him?”
“Never, as far as I remember, and LaBrecque himself never spoke of them. His mother was dead. There was a younger sister he was close to, but she was hardly more than a child. And there was a brother but no one really took an interest. Actually, I have to take that back. There was a cousin who visited him a couple of times, quite a young man.”