by Ace Atkins
THE SPENSER NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn
(by Ace Atkins)
Robert B. Parker’s Kickback
(by Ace Atkins)
Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot
(by Ace Atkins)
Silent Night (with Helen Brann)
Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland
(by Ace Atkins)
Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby
(by Ace Atkins)
Sixkill
Painted Ladies
The Professional
Rough Weather
Now & Then
Hundred-Dollar Baby
School Days
Cold Service
Bad Business
Back Story
Widow’s Walk
Potshot
Hugger Mugger
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
Small Vices
Chance
Thin Air
Walking Shadow
Paper Doll
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
Playmates
Crimson Joy
Pale Kings and Princes
Taming a Sea-Horse
A Catskill Eagle
Valediction
The Widening Gyre
Ceremony
A Savage Place
Early Autumn
Looking for Rachel Wallace
The Judas Goat
Promised Land
Mortal Stakes
God Save the Child
The Godwulf Manuscript
THE JESSE STONE NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Debt to Pay
(by Reed Farrel Coleman)
Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins
(by Reed Farrel Coleman)
Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot
(by Reed Farrel Coleman)
Robert B. Parker’s Damned If You Do
(by Michael Brandman)
Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice
(by Michael Brandman)
Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues
(by Michael Brandman)
Split Image
Night and Day
Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage
THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS
Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor
THE COLE/HITCH WESTERNS
Robert B. Parker’s Revelation
(by Robert Knott)
Robert B. Parker’s Blackjack
(by Robert Knott)
Robert B. Parker’s The Bridge
(by Robert Knott)
Robert B. Parker’s Bull River
(by Robert Knott)
Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse
(by Robert Knott)
Blue-Eyed Devil
Brimstone
Resolution
Appaloosa
ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER
Double Play
Gunman’s Rhapsody
All Our Yesterdays
A Year at the Races
(with Joan H. Parker)
Perchance to Dream
Poodle Springs
(with Raymond Chandler)
Love and Glory
Wilderness
Three Weeks in Spring
(with Joan H. Parker)
Training with Weights
(with John R. Marsh)
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2017 by The Estate of Robert B. Parker
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Ebook ISBN 9780698413061
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
In memory of Ron Borne,
True pal, lover of life, and dedicated Sox fan
Que le vin de l’amitié ne jamais s’assèche
Contents
Also by Robert B. Parker
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
1
Dr. Silverman thought you might help,” Connie Kelly said. “She said you’re the best at what you do.”
“I do many things for Dr. Silverman,” I said. “Although my chosen profession is the least important of them.”
“So I take it you’re more than friends?”
I nodded, adding water to the new coffeemaker sitting atop my file cabinet. I’d recently upgraded from Mr. Coffee to one of those machines that used pre-measured plastic cups. I placed
my mug under the filter, clamped down the lid, and returned to my desk. Demonic hissing sounds echoed in my office. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
“God,” Connie said. “I feel like the biggest idiot in Boston.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Why?”
“That’s quite an elite club,” I said. “The line stretches all the way from Mass Ave down to Mattapoissett.”
“I thought I loved him.”
“Did he say he loved you?”
“Of course,” she said. “That’s how I found myself back in therapy. I haven’t been to see Dr. Silverman for years. I thought I was cured.”
“Dr. Silverman might say therapy isn’t a cure,” I said. “It’s a process.”
“She’s a very intelligent woman.”
I gave Connie a big smile, letting her know I echoed the sentiment. When the hissing and spitting ceased, I retrieved the mug and a carton of milk, a few packs of sugar, and a clean spoon. I set them on the desk near her and returned to my seat.
“I’ve worked a lot of unusual jobs,” I said. “But I have to admit, helping with relationships isn’t my specialty.”
“I don’t want help,” Connie Kelly said. “I need to know who he really is.”
“You mean deep down?”
“I know he’s a phony, a liar, and a two-timing, backstabbing son of a bitch.”
“Yikes.”
She busily added sugar and milk to her coffee with shaking hands. Despite her mood, Connie Kelly was dressed in a white sleeveless silk top with a black pencil skirt adorned with chrysanthemums and a pair of black open-toe heels that highlighted her shapely calves. Her toes had been painted a festive red.
“As true as that might be . . .” I said.
“Wait,” she said. “There’s more.”
Being a trained investigator and a master listener, I waited. Pleasant city sounds drifted up from Berkeley Street on a cool, almost fall-like breeze. I leaned back in my chair, resting my hands on my thighs, still dressed in a sweaty gray T-shirt and running shorts. I had intended to check my mail, not meet with a client. But she’d been there waiting before I opened the door.
“He has two hundred and sixty thousand dollars of my money,” she said. “He swindled it from me and then disappeared.”
I withheld from snapping my fingers and saying, “Now we’re talking.” Instead, I nodded with grave understanding. The promise of money made me quite attentive, especially after a slow summer and losing my apartment and all my worldly possessions in a recent fire.
“I don’t even know if M. Brooks Welles is his real name.”
“That name sounds familiar,” I said. “Should I know him?”
“Are you a member of many social clubs?”
“Does the corner barstool at the Tennessee Tavern count?”
“Hardly,” she said. “When we were together, he seldom passed on a charity event or dinner invitation. Come to think of it, I never saw him pick up a check. People loved being around a guy who got his face on TV.”
“Actor?”
“Worse,” she said. “Pundit.”
She ran down the names of several cable news channels where Welles had appeared as an expert. I inquired about his area of expertise.
“He said he was in the CIA,” she said. “He spoke on terrorism, military affairs, politics. Mainly how we’d failed to keep our country safe. He was a very popular speaker after the marathon bombings. He said the current administration and their liberal policies had failed us.”
“How, when, and under what pretense did Mr. Welles take your money?”
Connie let out a long breath and reached for the coffee with both hands. She sipped and with great care returned the mug to the desk. “It’s so naked and awful,” she said. “It was two months ago. Real estate.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “A foolproof investment?”
“Land up near Walden Pond,” she said. “He said he’d hunted there as a boy and the place had given him great solace.”
“The only thing I knew people to hunt around Walden Pond were rats.”
“I didn’t ask many questions,” Connie said, shaking her head, her eyes growing moist. “I didn’t ask him anything at all. I met very few of his friends and no family.”
“Love is blind,” I said.
I toasted her with my mug. She smiled for the first time since entering my office. “Bryn Mawr. English.”
“You and Kate Hepburn.” I reached for a yellow legal pad and my pen. “What is it that you’d like me to do?”
“I want you to run a background check on him.”
I shrugged. “You could do that online. You don’t need me.”
“And,” she said, “I want my goddamn money back and his ass hanging out to dry.”
“Ah.”
I wrote down a few notes, taking care with the details about his ass drying out. I put down the pen and drank some coffee. After running five miles, I was having fantasies about stopping off at Kane’s for a couple of old-fashioneds to replenish my carbs.
“I’m four hundred dollars a day,” I said. “Plus expenses.”
She didn’t flinch, and instead reached into her purse for a checkbook. The checks were sandwiched between handsome alligator covers. “I’d be glad to pay for a week in advance.”
“I don’t know how long it will take,” I said. “And I can’t promise any legal action or justice. Although I do know a very competent and very mean redheaded attorney.”
“I understand.”
“Just the facts, ma’am.”
“The Bard and Joe Friday?”
“I am one literate son of a gun.”
“I heard you often amuse yourself.”
“Can’t put anything by ol’ Doc Silverman.”
“Shall I tell you everything I know about M. Brooks Welles?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know much, but I do think he might be dangerous,” she said. “Very dangerous. I think back on things he told me and they make me shudder. He confided in me that he’s killed many men.”
I shrugged and thought about flexing my biceps or showing off the .357 Magnum I kept in my right-hand drawer. But doing so might seem gauche to a gal from Bryn Mawr, so I just listened.
“I asked for it,” she said. “We met each other through an Internet dating site. He told me that after Vietnam, he joined the CIA and then went on to write books and produce movies. I saw him several times on television, so I trusted he was telling me the truth.”
“Do you have a photo?”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of a man in his sixties with silvery hair and a saltwater tan, wearing expensive duds. Starched white shirt wide open at the throat, navy blazer with brass buttons. Connie Kelly was seated beside him at some waterfront restaurant. They were laughing and looked very happy. I didn’t wish to judge, but he looked a bit long in the tooth for her.
“I wanted a tall, successful, and interesting man. Someone who liked to travel and took time to enjoy sunsets.”
“Piña coladas and getting caught in the rain?”
“I should have said honest but ran out of room on my profile,” she said. “I guess I left the door wide open for this kind of thing. My husband left me two years ago for a flight attendant from Dallas. I am not what you’d call a stunner, but Brooks made me feel very beautiful. I do know I’m smart and very good at what I do.”
“What do you do?”
“I work as an administrator for Jumpstart,” she said. “Are you familiar with the organization?”
“Very,” I said. “They do great work. Do you have children?”
She shook her head. She didn’t touch the coffee again. But she ripped out the check and dropped it on my desk.
“Let me see what I c
an do.”
She smiled again. “You’re different than Dr. Silverman described you.”
“Bigger? More stunning?”
“Quieter,” she said. “More self-contained.”
“I tried to put that on the business cards,” I said. “But ran out of room.”
2
I drove home to my new digs in the Charlestown Navy Yard and made breakfast. As I ate two poached eggs with a side of locally cured bacon from the Public Market, I pulled up YouTube clips of M. Brooks Welles doing his thing. It was liberating doing my job in a terry-cloth robe while munching on bacon. I wondered why I didn’t begin every day like this. Skip the workouts, head right to the breakfast meats and sleuthing.
Pearl sat by my side as I worked. Her yellow eyes were dutiful and glowing. She wanted either to show me her love or me to share. I pinched off a piece of bacon and tossed it to the floor. On my computer, Welles was introduced as a former Navy SEAL, Vietnam vet, and CIA operative. Special consul to foreign affairs committees. He was sleek and confident. He spoke in a gravelly, knowing voice filled with authority and wore an American flag pin on his lapel. I resisted the urge to salute my MacBook.
He called the president at the time a clown and a fraud. He claimed he knew of dozens of Muslim paramilitary training camps within the United States. He said, based on his experience, that tougher immigration standards and screening processes needed to be put in place or we’d be visiting 9/11 all over again. He talked a lot about his time in the CIA, offering vague comments about his mission in South America making tough calls and doing the work in the shadows. Over the years, I had known men and women who’d done that kind of work. They seldom spoke of it. Even in vague terms.
Welles relished in it. More talk about working with Air America, battling the Communist threat, and now looking at a battlefront at home. As the interview continued, Welles was intercut with images of the marathon bombing. I had enough and closed the screen.
Pearl looked up at me. Ever vigilant, she knew I still had half a piece of bacon left. I tossed it to her and walked back to get dressed. Pearl trotted beside me, still not confident in the new place.
The old shipping warehouse had been built not long after the Civil War and had a nice view of the yards and the U.S.S. Constitution, with tall ceilings and a big plate-glass window, exposed brick walls, and floors fashioned from the decks of old ships. Rustic. Susan found it amusing I resided so close to Old Ironsides.