Widow’s Walk s-29

by Robert B. Parker

  “And your work is?”

  “To find out who killed Nathan Smith.”

  “Even if it’s his wife?”

  “Even,” I said.

  “I was under the impression you were hired to clear her,” Ann said.

  “What’s the connection between you and Conroy and Smith and DeRosa?”

  “The connection between me and Marvin Conroy must be obvious if you know he spent the night,” Ann said.

  “Un-huh.”

  “Jack DeRosa is my client.”

  “Un-huh.”

  “That they are both connected in some way to Nathan Smith is a coincidence.”

  “Un-huh.”

  “You don’t believe in coincidence?”

  “It doesn’t get me anywhere,” I said.

  She nodded. I noticed her second drink was not going down nearly as quick as her first.

  “And where are you trying to get?” she said.

  “How come you represent Jack DeRosa?” I said.

  “He needed a lawyer.”

  “And you were hanging around the public defender’s office smiling hopefully?” I said.

  “Every lawyer has a responsibility to the law,” she said.

  “So how’d DeRosa happen to hire you?” I said. “You bill more per hour than DeRosa’s life is worth.”

  “Arrangements with clients are confidential.”

  “How about Conroy? What can you tell me about him?”

  She smiled. “Relationships with friends are confidential.”

  “If there’s something, Ms. Kiley, I’m going to find it.”

  “You don’t frighten me, Mr. Spenser.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mr. Spenser,” she said, “you are a little man in a big arena. You simply don’t matter.”

  “What about my nice personality?” I said.

  “It doesn’t interest me,” Ann Kiley said. “Neither do you. Go away.”

  That seemed to sort of cover it. I put my drink down carefully on its coaster, got my hat and coat from the front hall closet, and left. Ann Kiley didn’t see me to the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Belson called me at home, early. It was still a half hour before sunrise and the morning was still gray outside my bedroom window.

  “I’m at a crime scene in your neighborhood,” Belson said. “Wanna stop by?”

  “Because you’ve missed me and you want to see me?” I said.

  “Corner of Berkeley and Commonwealth,” Belson said. “I’ll look for you.”

  I walked over. There were the usual too many cop cars, lights still flashing. Two technicians were loading a body bag into the coroner’s van. Belson in a light raincoat and a gray scally cap was leaning against his unmarked car, talking to one of the uniform guys. As I walked over, the uniform left.

  “Hit and run,” Belson said as I stopped beside him. “Vic’s name is Brinkman Tyler.”

  “I know him,” I said.

  “Yeah. He had your card in his wallet.”

  “Just mine?”

  “Hell no, he must have kept every card he ever got.”

  “But you called me,” I said.

  “I’ve missed you,” Belson said. “And I wanted to see you.”

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Near as we can figure, Brinkman was out jogging on the mall toward Arlington Street. He started across Berkeley Street and the car nailed him.”

  “Find the car?”

  “Not yet. But it should have some damage on the front.”

  “Hit him at high speed,” I said.

  “Body looked it,” Belson said. “ME’S guys say so.”

  “What other cards he have in his wallet?” I said.

  Belson took out a notebook and opened it.

  “Well,” he said. “He didn’t have the Pope’s card. Or Puff Daddy’s.”

  “Can I look?”

  Belson handed me the notebook.

  “Absolutely not,” Belson said. “This is a confidential police investigation.”

  I read the list of names and businesses that Belson had copied off the business cards of the late Brink. I recognized maybe a dozen names, but none that meant anything to my case. I gave Belson back his notebook.

  “He was Nathan Smith’s broker,” I said. “Mary Smith said he managed her finances.”

  “So you went and talked with him.”

  “Yep. That’s how he got my card.”

  “And?”

  “And Brink told me nothing, even though I asked really nice, and after I left his office, two guys assaulted me in the parking garage.”

  “An assault you reported immediately to the proper authority,” Belson said.

  “I told Susan,” I said.

  Belson nodded. “These guys say why they were assaulting you?”

  “They wanted to know what I’d talked with Brink about.”

  “And you, being you, probably didn’t tell them.”

  “Client confidentiality is job one,” I said.

  “Sure,” Belson said. “You know who these guys were?”

  “They’d been following me around since I took the case.”

  “And you didn’t mention it,” Belson said.

  “I wanted to see what got their attention.”

  Belson nodded. “Maybe this guy got their attention.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And maybe he’d be alive now if you’d felt like telling us about him.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’s just an accident and the driver panicked and left the scene.”

  “Didn’t some broad you talked to commit suicide?”

  “That’s what you guys are calling it,” I said.

  “And didn’t somebody try to hit you the other night over on A Street?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you talk to this guy and he’s accidentally run down at five in the morning, at the intersection of two empty streets?”

  “Seems to be the case,” I said.

  “That bother you?” Belson said.

  “All of it bothers me,” I said.

  “Maybe this wasn’t an accident,” Belson said.

  “And maybe Amy Peters wasn’t a suicide,” I said.

  “And maybe you told us a little more about what you’re doing, some of these people might not be dead.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing, Frank. If I did I’d tell you in a heartbeat.”

  “I owe you, Spenser,” Belson said. “But I don’t owe you everything there is all the time. You know something about a murder, you tell me.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing, Frank. I know anything, you’ll be my first phone call.”

  The uniform that Belson had been talking to when I arrived came back to Belson.

  “Found the car, Frank. On Charles Street, a block up from the circle. Black Chrysler. Front end buckled. Phony plates.”

  Belson looked at me. “Wasn’t there a black Chrysler involved in your shooting in Southie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had phony plates, as I recall.”

  “I believe so,” I said. “I put a couple bullets through the roof.”

  Belson looked at the uniform.

  “Got that, Pat?” he said.

  “I got it, Frank.”

  “Go down there yourself,” Belson said. “I want Crime Scene all over that car.”

  “Okay, Frank.”

  Belson turned to me as the uniform walked toward his car.

  “This thing reeks,” he said.

  “It does.”

  “I got things to do here. Come see me tomorrow.”

  I nodded.

  “And think about whether this guy might be alive if you’d told us what you know.”

  “I do what I can, Frank.”

  Belson looked at me for a time and nodded slowly.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know you do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mary Smith wouldn’t talk to me without Rita there
, and apparently she wouldn’t talk with Rita unless Larson Graff was present. We met for lunch at Aujourd’hui in the Four Seasons Hotel. It felt like a double date.

  Most of the people and all of the men watched Rita walk in. She was dressed for success in a dark green suit with a short skirt and a V-necked jacket. Her smooth tan looked healthy even though it wasn’t, and her thick red hair was in perfect shape. Susan had told me that red-haired women needed to make up with particular care, and Rita appeared to have done it just right.

  In her beige pantsuit and careful blond hair, Mary looked a little pallid next to Rita. Larson looked like Larson and I remained dashing and ineffable. Mary had a champagne cocktail. The rest of us sipped Perrier.

  “Why didn’t you authorize me to see your husband’s investment statements?” I said to Mary.

  “Whaat?”

  “Brink Tyler called you from his office and asked you if you’d authorize him to show me your husband’s investment statements,” I said.

  “He did?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “Last week,” I said. “About three-thirty in the afternoon, on a Tuesday.”

  “I get so many calls,” Mary said.

  Rita was sitting to my right at the table. She was sort of sideways to the table, half facing toward me with her legs crossed. She smiled when I looked at her and carefully hitched her skirt hem up another inch on her thigh.

  “I was there when he called you,” I said.

  “I don’t remember,” she said.

  I looked at Rita again.

  “Mary,” Rita said, “we’re all on the same side here. If you can help him, you should.”

  “Oh, Rita, I know. I know that. I really, really do. But you wouldn’t want me to lie about something. I absolutely can’t remember Brink Tyler calling me up last Tuesday.”

  “When’s the last time you talked with him?” I said.

  Mary had some champagne cocktail to help her think. Any help was welcome.

  “I can’t really recall. Larson? Do you recall when I talked with Brink last?”

  “I believe you and he spoke shortly after Nathan’s death. He was handling the estate.”

  “Yes. That’s right. Brink came over. He was so kind. He said he’d take care of everything.”

  “The broker’s handling the estate?” I said.

  “He’s an attorney as well,” Rita said.

  “Renaissance man,” I said. “Aren’t you ashamed, Rita, just doing law law?”

  “And that badly,” Rita said.

  “And how is your estate?”

  Mary looked a little vague. “Fine.”

  She looked at Rita.

  “Estate’s in a kind of legal limbo,” Rita said. “Until the cause of death gets clarified a little.”

  “Do you know how much you’ve inherited?” I said.

  Mary shook her head. “Nathan always said we didn’t talk about our money. That it wasn’t dignified.”

  “It might be dignified to know how much you had,” I said.

  She looked helplessly at Larson Graff.

  “Mary, I’m sorry. I’m in no position to know your finances.”

  “Well,” Mary said. “Certainly your bill is always paid on time, Larson.”

  “Oh yes. It certainly is,” Larson said.

  The waitress brought lunch, which consisted of three salads and a sandwich. I got the sandwich.

  “So, just so I understand,” I said to Mary. “You don’t know what your financial situation is, or you know, and feel it’s undignified to say?”

  Mary looked down at her salad. She speared a small slice of avocado and put it delicately in her mouth and chewed it more vigorously, I thought, than it required. When she had swallowed it, she took another sip of her champagne cocktail. Mary was dumb. But she moved very slowly. She looked at me and laughed as if she might be embarrassed.

  “I don’t really know, Mr. Spenser.”

  “Do you object if I find out?” I said.

  “Well, I really.”

  She looked at Larson. Larson wasn’t helpful. She looked at Rita. Rita nodded firmly.

  “Well, I really think it’s kind of, I don’t want to be offensive, but I really think it’s kind of nosy.”

  “God forbid,” I said.

  Rita smiled.

  “You never got a call from Brink Tyler last Tuesday asking if Spenser could look at the investment statements?”

  “Oh, Rita, I’m just so sure he didn’t.”

  Rita looked at me. I looked at Rita.

  “So who’d he call?” Rita said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Hawk was in my office when I returned. He was sitting in my chair with his feet up on my desk, reading Simon Schama’s History of Britain.

  “You interested in British history?” I said when I came in.

  “Naw. Read this dude’s book on Rembrandt. I like him.”

  “Lot of big words,” I said.

  “Thought you could help me.”

  “White man’s burden,” I said. “Gimme my chair.”

  Hawk grinned and dog-eared his page and closed the book and got up and came around and plonked in a client chair. I sat at my desk.

  “There,” I said. “You looking for a place to sleep?”

  “Nope. Since I ain’t following anybody for you at the moment, and since somebody tried to shoot your ass the other night, I thought maybe I should hang around with you, case somebody try again.”

  “Plus,” I said, “you could learn a lot.”

  “Be a privilege,” Hawk said. “Whyn’t you bring me up to date on what you doing, so I’ll know who to shoot.”

  I did. Hawk listened without expression, his face the pleasantly impenetrable blank it always was.

  “You got more information than you can handle,” Hawk said when I got through.

  “I do,” I said.

  “‘Course it easy for you to have too much information.”

  “How about yourself,” I said. “You make anything out of it?”

  Hawk grinned at me. “I’m just a simple thug,” he said. “I ain’t supposed to make nothing out of it.”

  “That may be true of me,” I said.

  “Simple thug?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thing is, all of the stuff you know doesn’t add up to who done what.”

  “That is the thing,” I said.

  “You tell Mary her husband was gay?”

  “No.”

  “Rita gonna find out about Smith’s finances for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “When she do you’ll have more information.”

  “And I still won’t know anything.”

  “Be used to that,” Hawk said. “You think Mary lying, or you think the Brinkster call himself?”

  “If he did,” I said, “it would be sort of a stopgap. He had to know I’d ask her myself pretty soon.”

  “Maybe he figure you ain’t around, pretty soon.”

  “Because he knew somebody would hit me,” I said.

  Hawk nodded. “Or maybe he did call her,” he said. “And she lying when she say he didn’t.”

  “Which might mean the same thing,” I said. “Except she’s so goddamned dumb.”

  “Dumb enough to think you wouldn’t check on her?”

  “She gets by with dumb,” I said. “She uses it. She may even rely on it.”

  “There got to be some money in here someplace,” Hawk said.

  “See, that’s just the reason you’re a hooligan and I’m a detective,” I said. “You jump to conclusions. I search for clues.”

  “Here’s a clue,” Hawk said. “A banker, a financial guy, a real estate developer, and a lawyer. All connected in some way to a homicide.”

  “Gee, you think there’s money involved?”

  “How I know. You the detective. I is just a hoo-li-gan.”

  “At least we’re clear on that,” I said. “Maybe we should rev
isit Jack DeRosa.”

  “The jailbird? Why him?”

  “Can’t think of anybody else?” I said.

  Hawk grinned.

  “‘Least he fit on the list,” hawk said. “Right after lawyer.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I called Frank Belson and asked him if we could arrange to talk with DeRosa again. He called me back in an hour.

  “DeRosa’s been out of jail for a week,” he said. “Eyewitness couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.”

  “Charges dropped?”

  “Yep.”

  “Got an address for him?”

  “Got the one he had when they busted him,” Frank said, and gave me the name of a street off Andrews Square.

  In half an hour Hawk and I were crossing the bridge on Southampton Street. We were in Hawk’s Jaguar. Hawk parked it behind a place that sold orthotics, where it was about as inconspicuous in South Boston as Hawk was. We walked across the street to a brick duplex, which had a tiny front yard that had been carpeted with gray stone and surrounded by a chain-link fence. The downstairs windows were grated. There was a peephole in the front door.

  “DeRosa don’t seem interested in botany,” Hawk said.

  “He’s probably just a renter,” I said.

  “Landlord’s a geologist?” Hawk said.

  Above the doorbell button beside the right-hand door was a small hand-lettered card that said DeRosast.McDermott. I rang. No one answered. I rang again. Same thing. Hawk reached over and rang the doorbell on the left-hand door. Nobody answered. I looked through the peephole the wrong way, like I always did, and I found that I couldn’t see anything in that direction. Like I always did. I tried the door. It was locked. Hawk nodded and walked back across the street to the Jaguar and opened the trunk, took out a big red gym bag, and came back across the street with it. He set it down on the steps and took out a flat bar and handed it to me.

  “Why do you have one if you can’t use it?” I said.

  “I use it when I haven’t got an Irish-American laborer handy.”

  I took the flat bar and got it wedged in against the doorjamb where the lock tongue would be and heaved and there was some doorjamb splintering and then the bolt tore loose and the door popped free. I put the flat bar back in the red gym bag and handed it to Hawk.

  “Tote that bale,” I said.

  He took it back to the Jaguar. No one in the neighborhood seemed interested that I had just performed the B part of a B and E. I pushed the door open. The lock I had jimmied was the kind that locked behind you when you went out. The house was silent. And hot. And stuffy. Lights were on in the hallway. I smelled a bad smell. Hawk came in behind me from his bale-toting chores. I could hear him breathe in.