Widow’s Walk s-29

by Robert B. Parker

  “Whoops,” Hawk said.

  I nodded and, breathing through my mouth, started through the front hall toward what was probably the living room. I knew what I would find. Hawk walked beside me. Inside the living room archway we both stopped.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Un-huh,” Hawk said.

  The distorted remains of a man and woman lay together on the floor, their bodies disfigured by the slow flame of decay. The woman sprawled diagonally across the man. Someone had shot them many times, probably with an automatic weapon, maybe more than one. They had, in the process, chopped the room up pretty good. Pieces of chair backs, scraps of upholstery, bits of lamp shade, shards of glass, and fragments of plastic, and plaster, and human tissue clung to the walls. The blood covered the floor, black by now, and hardened like a vast scab. Insects had found them both. The room was very hot and flies buzzed thickly in the stinking air.

  I had seen it before, but I never liked it. And this was worse than most. Except that I could hear him breathing through his mouth, Hawk showed no sign that it bothered him. For all that showed on his face, he could have been looking at a lawn tractor.

  “DeRosa?” he said.

  “I assume so,” I said. “And maybe McDermott as well.”

  Hawk walked over to the corpses and looked down at them.

  “Hard to be sure,” Hawk said. “McDermott the girlfriend?”

  “I dunno. It’s the other name on the doorbell.”

  “People dying just after you talk to them or just before,” Hawk said. “Somebody think you closing in?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “Wish I had their confidence.”

  “We pretty clear on what happened to these folks,” Hawk said. “You think Amy Peters a suicide?”

  “No.”

  “You believe Brink Tyler an accident victim?”

  “No.”

  Hawk was still staring down at the bodies. He shook his head a little to dispel a fly.

  “They shot these people to pieces,” Hawk said. “I bet they got fifteen, twenty rounds apiece in them.”

  “Had to make some noise,” I said.

  “Anybody heard it, they ignored it,” Hawk said. “These people been here awhile.”

  I looked around the living room. The windows were shut and locked. There was a big air-conditioning unit in a side window. I looked at it. It was turned off.

  “When’s the last time it was cool?” I said.

  Hawk shrugged.

  “Don’t do weather,” he said.

  We went through the house, living room and kitchen on the first floor. Two bedrooms and a bath on the second. The smell thickened the air in every room. All the windows were closed and locked. The air conditioner in the second-floor bedroom was shut off, too. The back door was locked. In the drawer of the front hall table we found a 9mm Colt, with a round jacked up into the chamber.

  “Man locked everything,” Hawk said. “Yep. No windows open, even if it be cool when he shut off the AC, most people like a little ventilation in the summer.”

  “It’s not a bad neighborhood,” I said. “But he was being pretty careful. Gun in the front hall. Round in the chamber.”

  Hawk nodded. “He knew them,” Hawk said.

  “Seems like it,” I said.

  “He would have looked through the peephole,” I said. “And he would have unlocked the door when he saw them. The hall gun is still in the drawer. He wasn’t afraid of them.”

  “And he should have been,” Hawk said. “You figure the broad got shot because she was here?”

  “Could be. Or it could be she was part of the whole deal. Whatever the whole deal was. Or it could be they wanted to kill her, and he had the misfortune to be on hand.”

  “Going to call the cops?” Hawk said.

  “Guess we got to.”

  “We could just close the door and walk away.”

  “Your fingerprints in the system?” I said.

  “‘Course,” Hawk said.

  “Mine too.”

  “So give them a call,” Hawk said.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “We’ll let the B and E slide,” Quirk said. “But corpses keep showing up in your area, we might cite you for littering.”

  We were outside, away from the smell, leaning on the fender of Quirk’s car. It was about six hours since we’d found the bodies. The prowl car guys had arrived first and questioned us and told us to stick around. Some District 6 detectives came and asked us questions and told us to stick around. Crime scene people asked us questions and told us the detectives wanted us to stick around. Belson showed up after a while and asked us questions and told us to stick around and wait for Quirk. An hour and a half ago Quirk had ambled in and told us to stick around until he was through.

  “Anyone know the identity of the woman?” I said.

  “Yeah, we talked with some neighbors. Name was Margaret McDermott. She was DeRosa’s girlfriend. Live-in. Been with him six, eight years,” Quirk said.

  He was looking at Hawk. Hawk smiled at him.

  “You bother me,” Quirk said. “I know you wouldn’t have aced these two people, then come back a week later and called us.”

  Hawk smiled some more.

  “And I know that when you’re with Snoop Doggy Dogg here, you may not be on the up-and-up, but you’re probably not illegal.”

  Hawk’s smile seemed almost sweet as he listened to Quirk.

  “On the other hand,” Quirk said, “I hate to come upon a double homicide and find you lingering about and give you a bye.”

  I said, “I’m pretty sure he didn’t do it, Captain.”

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t, too,” Quirk said. “But not because you say so.”

  “My word is my bond,” I said.

  “I don’t know what the connection is between you two clowns, but I know you’d cover for him.”

  “White guilt,” I said. “My ancestors might have owned slaves.”

  “Yo‘ ancestors being bog-trotting paddies didn’t have the money to own no slaves,” Hawk said.

  I looked at him sadly. “You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “It’s a white thing.”

  “Isn’t this fun,” Quirk said. “Lemme get the other cops over here, give them a chance to listen.”

  I said, “We’re just working on our material, Captain.”

  “And it’s really enjoyable,” Quirk said. “Oddly enough there’s no warrants out on Hawk.”

  “You sure?” Hawk said.

  “I had it checked.”

  “Embarrassing,” Hawk said.

  “You got anything you can tell me about this thing?” Quirk said.

  “Same as I tole the other six cops,” Hawk said. “I just along try to keep him from hurting himself.”

  “Okay, you can drift,” Quirk said. “Spenser, I’ll talk a little more with you.”

  Hawk nodded his head once, slightly, and walked away.

  “I talked to the same six cops he did,” I said.

  “You used to be a cop,” Quirk said. “You know how we do this.”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know much more than I did after I shot the guy in Southie,” I said.

  “You didn’t know much before you shot that guy in Southie. Name was Kevin McGonigle. Twenty-three, two priors for strong-arm.”

  “Good to start young,” I said.

  “And finish that way,” Quirk said.

  I shrugged. “Him or me,” I said.

  “I know. Tell me what you know,” Quirk said.

  We were both leaning against Quirk’s car. Quirk’s arms were folded across his chest, and he was motionless except for the fact that the fingers on his thick right hand tapped gently on his left arm.

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s a mishmash, but here it is, all of it.”

  I told him everything in sequence from the time Rita had called me about Mary Smith until Hawk and I had come to visit DeRosa.

  “You got a theory?” Quirk said.
r />   “No.”

  “If you count Nathan Smith,” Quirk said, “and I do, there’s him, the broad from the bank…”

  “Amy Peters,” I said.

  “… Tyler, DeRosa, the girlfriend, Kevin McGonigle.”

  “Six,” I said.

  “And all connected to you, one way or another.”

  “Charisma,” I said.

  “Six murders,” Quirk said. “And somebody threatens to beat you up and somebody hires McGonigle to clip you, and you got no theory?”

  “There’s something being covered up,” I said. “And it’s connected to Nathan Smith.”

  “Holy mackerel,” Quirk said.

  “You asked.”

  Quirk nodded. We watched the body bags load into the ME’S van.

  “We find out anything, we’ll tell each other,” I said.

  “I known you a long time,” Quirk said.

  I didn’t comment. Quirk wasn’t really talking to me anyway. A couple of uniforms moved the small crowd out of the way as the ME’S van pushed slowly among them, hauling away the unpleasant remains of DeRosa and his girlfriend.

  “And you are a stubborn bastard, and you don’t much give a fuck about how things are supposed to go.”

  Quirk was still looking at the van. A uniform stopped traffic. The van turned left onto Southampton Street and moved slowly over the bridge.

  “And you’re not as smart as you think you are, and nowhere near as funny,” Quirk said, still watching the van as it disappeared toward downtown. “But you’re on the right side of the fence.”

  “How do you know it’s the right side?” I said.

  “Same side I’m on,” Quirk said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  We were in Hawk’s car. It was 10:15 on a bright summer morning when we pulled into the parking lot at Soldiers Field Development Limited. We had no trouble parking. The lot was empty. The front door of the building was locked. There was no sign of movement or light inside.

  “B and E?” Hawk said.

  “Might as well,” I said. “Practice makes perfect.”

  Hawk handed me the flat bar, and in we went. There was no air-conditioning. The building was hot. The furniture was still in place. But no one was using it. We walked down the corridor to the back office where Felton Shawcross had sat. The corridor was dim. There were no lights on. There was a bank of file cabinets across the right wall of Shawcross’s office. I opened a drawer. It was empty. I opened them all. They were empty. Hawk looked in Shawcross’s desk. It was empty. He picked up the phone.

  “Dial tone,” he said.

  I tried a light switch. The lights went on.

  “Didn’t bother to cancel anything,” I said.

  We went methodically down the row of offices that lined each side of the long corridor. All of them were empty. All of the files were empty. The only things in the desk drawers were a few Bic pens, some blank paper, some rubber bands, paper clips, staples, and pads of yellow stick ‘em paper to draw smiley faces on.

  “Didn’t leave no paper trail,” Hawk said. “Maybe they skipping out on the utility bills.”

  “Probably it,” I said.

  We had worked our way down the corridor and were standing in the reception area. There was no place else to look.

  “On the wall in the men’s room it say for a good time call 555-1212,” Hawk said.

  “Probably a clue,” I said.

  A mailman in blue shorts came in carrying a packet of mail held together by a wide rubber band. He looked around.

  “You guys moving out?” he said.

  “Just rehabbing,” I said. “Closed for a couple of weeks.”

  “You oughta notify us, fill out a form, have us hold your mail until you’re back in business.”

  “What a very good idea,” I said. “My man here will be down to the post office later today to fill out the documents.”

  “It’s just a form,” the mailman said. “What do I do with this mail?”

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  He handed me the mail and left.

  “My man be down to the post office?” Hawk said.

  “I’m cleaning up my act,” I said. “There was a time I would have said my boy.”

  “I love a liberal,” Hawk said.

  I took the mail over to the reception desk and went through it with Hawk looking over my shoulder. We went through it twice. Each of us. To make sure we hadn’t missed anything. There was nothing to miss. People like this didn’t do business by mail. When we were through I left the mail in a neat pile on the reception desk.

  “The more we look, the more there’s nothing there,” Hawk said.

  I sat back in the receptionist chair and leaned back against the spring.

  “We keep getting there just afterwards,” I said.

  “Getting where?” Hawk said.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Least they didn’t shoot nobody and leave them for us.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe there ain’t no one left to shoot,” Hawk said.

  I was rocked back, looking at the Celotex ceiling tiles, my hands laced over my chest.

  “Ann Kiley,” I said.

  “Ann Kiley?”

  “She was DeRosa’s lawyer.”

  “S.”

  “She’s got no business representing a stiff like DeRosa.”

  “Nice choice of words,” Hawk said.

  I shrugged.

  “If DeRosa was killed so we wouldn’t find out anything from him, what are the chances that his lawyer would know what that is?”

  “The chances are good,” Hawk said. “And even if they aren’t, the people who killed DeRosa might think they were.”

  I came forward in the spring-back chair, letting my feet hit the ground. I pointed my finger at Hawk and dropped my thumb like the hammer on a gun.

  “Let’s go see her,” I said. “Right now.”

  “So we won’t be afterwards again?”

  “So that,” I said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Ann Kiley had the second biggest corner office on the twenty-fifth floor of a high-rise on Broad Street. Her father had the biggest, the one that looked out to sea. Ann had what the real estate ads would call cityscape views.

  I introduced Hawk when we came in, and they eyed each other, evaluating potential.

  “So where’s Harbaugh’s office?” I said when we were seated.

  Ann pointed toward the ceiling.

  “Big firm in the sky,” she said.

  “So this place is really Kiley and Kiley.”

  “Yes. But the name was familiar, so we decided to leave it.”

  I could tell, as she spoke, that she was aware of Hawk. Silent, as he often was, there was still a lot of Hawk.

  “Did you know that Jack DeRosa was murdered?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think?”

  “About DeRosa’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one should be murdered,” she said.

  “Are you in danger?”

  Hawk stood and walked to the window and looked out.

  “Danger? Why would I be in danger?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure DeRosa was killed to shut him up, and if he talked with you, they might feel they had to shut you up, too.”

  “That’s absurd,” Ann Kiley said. “I was Jack’s attorney. Nothing more.”

  I looked at Hawk. She saw me look and turned and looked at him, too. Hawk smiled.

  “You fuck around with this,” Hawk said, “and they gonna kill you, too.”

  She was tough, but it rocked her. Hawk saying it made it somehow more forceful. I have often wondered how he got that effect, and have concluded that it is because he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care if she believes him. Doesn’t care if they kill her, too. She was too contained to show it much, but there was a faint look of strain around her eyes and in the way her mouth compressed.

  “I have no idea,
” she said, “what either of you is talking about.”

  There was a short knock on her office door, and it opened immediately and Bobby Kiley walked in. He closed the door behind him.

  “I’d like to sit in,” he said to his daughter.

  “I don’t think I need any help,” Ann Kiley said.

  “I’ll sit in anyway,” Kiley said. “How are you, Spenser?”

  “Fine, Bobby. Nice to see you.”

  He walked over to Hawk and put out a hand.

  “Bobby Kiley,” he said.

  “Hawk.”

  Kiley nodded and walked back to sit in a chair beside me. He was a handsome guy with white hair and one of those slightly hollow-cheeked Irish faces.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “Bobby,” Ann said, “why are you here?”

  “I know this guy.” He nodded at me. “I know somebody killed a guy we represent.”

  “I can handle this myself,” Ann said.

  Kiley shrugged and stayed where he was.

  “You know Nathan Smith?” I said.

  “Know of him,” Kiley said. “Know he was murdered.”

  “I was hired by Cone Oakes to investigate his death,” I said.

  Kiley nodded. Ann Kiley sat perfectly still. She looked like she was insulted by her father’s intervention. But she also didn’t look strained around the mouth and eyes anymore.

  “Rita,” Kiley said.

  “Yep.”

  “Hell of a lawyer,” Kiley said.

  “And when I started looking into the matter,” I said, “people started to die. A woman at Smith’s bank committed suicide. Smith’s broker was killed in a hit-and-run. A kid named Kevin McGonigle tried to kill me.”

  “Heard about that,” Kiley said. “You got him first.”

  “Then Jack DeRosa got shot and his girlfriend with him.”

  “Our client,” Kiley said.

  “Ann represented him.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s too many people dying in the same case.”