Running, I said a flurry of silent prayers that nothing had happened to Jim or Katenka or . . . worst of all, to the baby. As I pushed my way through the small crowd of curious onlookers, my concern for the young family vied with wondering how to explain this to the police: You see, officer, there were mysterious footprints, and a shad-owlike figure, a strange dark cloud. That ought to go over big. But the stretcher with the blanket-covered body didn’t roll out of Cheshire House. It came from across the street—Emile Blunt’s upholstery shop. Relief washed over me. But on its heels came shame. Could that too-still form on the stretcher be Emile? What had my parting words been? “Move it, old man, before I run you down”? No matter how obnoxious the old upholsterer was, I should have held my tongue. And then I saw a familiar face in the crowd near the ambulance. “Dad?” To my knowledge, Dad hadn’t set foot on a job site since I had taken over the management of Turner Construction two years ago.
