We checked the guest bedroom, found nothing there, went back to the living room.

“What are we looking for again?” I said.

“A clue.”

“What kind of clue?”

“A big one.”

“Oh.”

I checked behind the paintings. I took the back off the TV. I looked in the laser disc tray, the multiple CD tray, the tape port in the VCR. All were distinctly lacking in the clue department.

“Hey.” Angie came back out of the kitchen.

“Find a big clue?” I said.

“I don’t know if I’d call it big.”

“We’re only accepting big clues here today.”

She handed me a newspaper clipping. “This was hanging on the fridge.”

It was a small item from a back page, dated August 29 of last year:

MOBSTER’S SON DROWNS

Anthony Lisardo, 23, son of reputed Lynn loan shark, Michael “Crazy Davey” Lisardo, died of apparent accidental drowning in the Stoneham Reservoir late Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning. The younger Lisardo, who police believe may have been intoxicated, entered the grounds illegally through a hole in the fence. The Reservoir, long a popular, though illegal, swimming hole for local youths, is patrolled by two Marshals of the State Park Service, but neither Marshal Edward Brickman or Marshal Francis Merriam noticed Anthony Lisardo enter the grounds or saw him swimming in the reservoir during thirty minute patrols. Due to evidence that Mr. Lisardo was with an unidentified companion, police have left the case open pending the identification of Mr. Lisardo’s companion, but Captain Emmett Groning of the Stoneham Police stated: “Foul play has been ruled out in this case, yes. Unequivocally.”

The elder Lisardo refused to comment on this case.

“I’d say that’s a clue,” I said.

“Big or small?”

“Depends whether you measure by width or length.”

I got a good dope-slap for that on the way out the door.

13

“Who’d you say you’re working for?” Captain Groning said.

“Ahm, we didn’t,” Angie said.

He leaned back from his computer. “Oh. But just because you’re friends with Devin Amronklin and Oscar Lee of BPD Homicide, I’m supposed to help you?”

“We were kinda counting on it,” I said.

“Well, until Devin called me, I was kinda counting on getting home to the old lady, fella.”

It had been a couple decades, at least, since someone had called me “fella.” I wasn’t sure how to take it.

Captain Emmett Groning was five foot seven and weighed about three hundred pounds. His jowls were longer and fleshier than any bulldog’s I’d ever seen and his second and third chins hung down from the first like scoops of ice cream. I had no idea what the fitness requirements for the Stoneham Police Department were, but I had to assume Groning had been behind a desk for at least a decade. In a reinforced chair.