Now and Then

by Robert B. Parker

Belson shook his head.

  “Same thing,” he said. “You know what they’re like in the water. When did he go missing?”

  Epstein told him.

  “Consistent,” Belson said. “Coulda died then.”

  “No sign of his car?” Epstein said.

  “Not yet,” Belson said. “Makes me think he didn’t go in here.”

  “We can check the currents,” Epstein said.

  “Sure,” Belson said.

  Epstein nodded. He walked over and stood looking down at the remains. I saw no need to.

  “Currents are kind of unreliable around here,” I said.

  “That’s for sure,” Belson said. “But we check them anyway.”

  “That may be the defi nition of police work,” I said.

  “Philosophical,” Belson said. “You in this?”

  “He was having trouble with his wife,” I said. “He hired me to look into it.”

  “And?”

  “She was cheating on him,” I said.

  “You tell him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is she?” Belson said.

  “She was shot to death,” I said. “Couple of days ago.”

  “In Cambridge?”

  “Yes.”

  “That don’t simplify anything,” Belson said.

  “No.”

  “So what are you doing here now?”

  “Epstein invited me,” I said. “Interested party.”

  The wind off the ocean was hard. Belson had his hat clamped down against it. Everyone was hunched a little.

  “Aren’t you always,” Belson said. “If I remember, the wife was shot by someone who got shot himself.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Too bad.”

  “Been nice and neat if the other guy hadn’t done it. Doherty shoots his cheating wife and then goes and jumps off a bridge someplace.”

  “Clear two cases,” I said.

  “No such luck,” Belson said. “Coroner doesn’t come up with a neat explanation, we’re going to have the bureau up our ass for the foreseeable future.”

  “You can work with Epstein,” I said.

  “Sure, they leave it with him,” Belson said. “But they bring some of those guys up from DC . . .”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You know anything I don’t know?” Belson said.

  “Christ, where do I start?” I said.

  “About this case,” Belson said. “You holding anything back.”

  “No.”

  “You always hold something back,” Belson said.

  “Don’t generalize,” I said.

  Belson nodded. Epstein still stood, motionless, looking at the remains of Dennis Doherty, while the photographers photo 86 graphed and the measurers measured and the routine went on around him.

  Two more unmarked cars arrived and men got out wearing dark jackets that said FBI on them.

  “Help is on the way,” I said.

  “Oh fuck,” Belson said.

  22.

  Hawk and i were working out at the Harbor Health

  Club. Probably out of some loyalty to his own past, and because he liked Hawk and me, Henry Cimoli kept a small boxing area in the club that was otherwise full of gleaming machinery and chrome-coated weights. Hawk was hitting the little double-end jeeter bag with his left hand and I was doing combinations on the heavy bag. The more repetitious the exercise, the more you are likely to coast. I concentrated on punching through the bag. Hawk seemed to hit the jeeter bag without any effort or thought, except he hit it square every time and it danced rhythmically. He shifted hands without breaking the rhythm.

  “You know what be bothering me,” he said.

  “The question of intelligent design?” I said.

  “I already know that,” Hawk said. “What I’m thinking is that if Vinnie ain’t there to drill the mystery shooter, that everybody be assuming that her husband shot her and killed himself.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So maybe somebody set it up that way,” Hawk said.

  “And Vinnie showed up and ruined it,” I said.

  Hawk began to hit the bag alternately with both hands. The rhythm was uninterrupted. I paused and watched. It was Hawk in essence. Like everything he did, it seemed effortless, as if he were thinking of something else. And yet the perfectly focused energy seemed to explode through the bag.

  “Not their fault,” Hawk said. “They had no reason to think he’d be there.”

  I went back to working my combinations on the heavy bag.

  “That theory might lead one to speculate,” I said between punches, “that Doherty was murdered too.”

  “Would,” Hawk said.

  “And one might wonder who was responsible.”

  “Alderson seem to be the honky in the woodpile,” Hawk said.

  “She went straight there after her husband kicked her out,”

  I said.

  “She in there ’bout an hour,” Hawk said.

  “Plenty of time to tell him what happened,” I said. Hawk shifted his feet a little and went back to hitting the small bag with his left hand.

  “So why didn’t she spend the night?” I said.

  “Maybe Alderson only like to fuck part-time,” Hawk said.

  “It would explain why she went to the hotel,” I said.

  “Lotta rejection,” Hawk said. “And the next day, she dead, and her husband missing.”

  “Probably dead by then too,” I said.

  “She know ’bout you?” Hawk said.

  “Yes.”

  I put a fi nal fl ourish of combinations on the heavy bag.

  “Epstein tells me they haven’t found that tape among Doherty’s possessions,” I said.

  “Doherty got no reason to get rid of it,” Hawk said.

  “No. Be useful in a divorce proceeding.”

  “Maybe he knew there wouldn’t be none,” Hawk said.

  “You mean he hired someone to kill her?”

  “People do.”

  “Not him,” I said. “Not his style. He might have shot her in a rage and then put the gun in his mouth. But he wouldn’t hire some guy with no ID to do it, and then drown himself later.”

  “Okay,” Hawk said. “Maybe Alderson don’t want people to know he been fooling around with Jordan.”

  “Killing two people to cover it up seems extreme,” I said.

  “Maybe he don’t want people knowing other things,” Hawk said.

  “If he does and he stole the tape he’ll be disappointed,” I said. “I edited it down to just the lovey-dovey stuff.”

  “But you still got the original.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said.

  “Anybody know that?” Hawk said.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “So maybe they think they got all there is,” Hawk said.

  “Maybe.”

  “On the other hand,” Hawk said, “they know somebody made the tape.”

  “Yep.”

  “So they ain’t free and clear yet,” Hawk said.

  “Nope.”

  “Unless Jordan told them ’bout you.”

  “My guess is that she didn’t,” I said. “She was pretty desperate to get them back, more than she should have been, since her husband had already heard them.”

  “She worried about Alderson,” Hawk said.

  “Maybe.”

  “So maybe she don’t tell him,” Hawk said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Doherty could have told them ’bout you before he died?”

  “He was FBI,” I said. “They may have thought he did it himself.”

  Hawk finished up with an elegant flurry of punches, and stepped away from the jeeter bag and looked at me. He nodded.

  “They don’t know,” Hawk said.

  “That’s my guess.”

  “They knew,” Hawk said, “they would have made a run at you already.”

  I nodded.

  “So we’re probably under their radar,” I said.


  “There you go with that we again,” Hawk said.

  “I leave you out and you get sullen,” I said.

  “I always sullen,” Hawk said. “You thinking about letting them know you got the tape.”

  “It’s an option,” I said. “Let’s see what develops.”

  “You could just give the tape to Epstein,” Hawk said. “Then there’d be no reason for them to come after you.”

  “And there’d be no way to smoke them out,” I said.

  “You won’t give Epstein the tape,” Hawk said.

  I shrugged.

  “It’s our only hole card. Otherwise these people have no reason to show themselves.”

  “They might get Alderson arrested,” Hawk said.

  “You heard them,” I said. “Did he ever say anything that would get him jail time?”

  “No.”

  “But as long as there’s a tape and he wants it,” I said.

  “If he wants it,” I said.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Doherty died for a reason,” I said. “And the tape’s missing.”

  “’Less you buy it’s suicide,” Hawk said.

  “You?” I said.

  “No,” Hawk said.

  “So it’s a working hypothesis,” I said.

  “I got another one,” Hawk said.

  “Which is?”

  “They killed these people on your time,” Hawk said.

  “You could think of it that way.”

  “You could and you do,” Hawk said. “I know you a long time.”

  “I’ve tried to be a good role model,” I said.

  “So you want the one gets them be you,” Hawk said. “Not Epstein.”

  “At least I want fi rst position,” I said.

  Hawk smiled widely.

  “’Course you do,” he said.

  23.

  Epstein stopped by my office in the late morning and gave me a big brown envelope.

  “Copy of Alderson’s fi le,” he said.

  “What makes you think I’m interested,” I said.

  “I know about you,” he said.

  “Anything classifi ed?” I said.

  “I work for a very large government bureaucracy,” he said.

  “My fucking dick is probably classifi ed.”

  “And should be,” I said. “You got anything new on Doherty or his wife?”

  “Water in his lungs. He was alive when he went in.”

  “And conscious?” I said.

  “No way to know,” Epstein said. “No bullets in him, no discernible wounds on the body. But it’s been banged around on the rocks and chewed on by sea creatures. Nothing is certain.”

  “Time of death?”

  “Approximate with his wife, give or take twelve hours,”

  Epstein said.

  “Tidal analysis?” I said.

  Epstein smiled.

  “Body could have gone in most places north of the Cape,” he said.

  “It was saltwater in his lungs,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Wearing his gun?” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “Holster?”

  Epstein smiled again.

  “Nope,” he said. “Nobody appears to have disarmed him. Gun and holster were in the top drawer of a bureau in his bedroom.”

  “Did it appear to be her bedroom, too?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “How was he dressed?” I said.

  “Shirt, pants, shoes,” Epstein said. “Wallet in his hip pocket. He wasn’t wearing his suit coat or tie.”

  “Sounds like they took him at home.”

  “Which,” Epstein said, “leads me to wonder where she was.”

  I nodded.

  “You got any idea?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I was married once, twice actually, and I remember some of it, and one of our female agents went through the house too, and we agreed that there wasn’t enough makeup in the bathroom. Like she packed some and left.”

  “After he heard the tape,” I said. “It would fi gure.”

  “So where’d she go?”

  “Ask around at the college?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Hotel?” I said.

  “We’re running that now,” Epstein said. “Just thought you might save us a little time.”

  I shrugged.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Epstein sat quietly looking at me. Outside my window it was dark, with a lot of wind which drove short occasional bursts of rain against the glass.

  “I talked with Martin Quirk about you,” he said. “Known you a lot longer than I have.”

  “He’s always admired me,” I said.

  “Sure,” Epstein said. “He told me you get sort of flighty upon occasion.”

  “His admiration sometimes shades into jealousy,” I said.

  “We agreed that you sometimes operate under the illusion that you’re Sir Lancelot.”

  “Explains why my strength is as the strength of ten,” I said.

  “That was Galahad,” Epstein said.

  “Wow, a literate bureaucrat.”

  “We also agreed that you were pretty good at this work and could go places and do things that cops are barred from,” Epstein said.

  “Fewer rules,” I said.

  “Mostly none, according to Quirk.”

  I shrugged.

  “And we agreed that you usually came out on the right side in the end,” Epstein said.

  “When possible,” I said.

  “At the end of this,” Epstein said, “you better be on the right side, which is to say, mine.”

  “Do what I can,” I said.

  “You better,” Epstein said. “You get the full force and credit of the U.S. government on your ass . . . we’ll win that one.”

  “Eeek,” I said.

  24.

  It would have been helpful if Vinnie hadn’t shot the mystery man,” Susan said. I was driving, Susan beside me. It was dark. The wipers were moving gently. It embodied most of what I wanted in life, alone with Susan, going someplace, protected from the rain.

  “It would be helpful if the tooth fairy came by,” I said, “and left a note under my pillow explaining everything.”

  “I guess it was just Vinnie being Vinnie,” Susan said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It wouldn’t occur to him that the gunman might be a valuable witness.”

  “It wouldn’t,” I said.

  “And if it did?” Susan said.

  “He wouldn’t care,” I said.

  “Some nice friends,” Susan said.

  “I’m not sure Vinnie is a friend, exactly,” I said. “But if I need him he shows up. He’s not afraid of anything. He keeps his word. And he’s a really good shooter.”

  I was in Kendall Square, looking for a parking spot close to the college. Susan would hate walking in the rain. Unlike myself.

  “Who seems to be without regard,” Susan said, “for any of the rules.”

  “He has some rules,” I said.

  “Like Hawk,” Susan said.

  I spotted an unoccupied hydrant across the street from Concord College.

  “Some,” I said. “He’s not as smart as Hawk.”

  “Most people aren’t.”

  “And he doesn’t have Hawk’s, what, joy?” I said.

  Susan laughed.

  “Oddly, joy is about right for Hawk,” she said. I let the traffi c pass, and U-turned back toward my hydrant.

  “It’s almost as if we were talking about you,” she said.

  “Which is kind of frightening.”

  “I have more rules,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “And I have you.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You do.”

  I parallel-parked so adroitly that I was looking for applause. Susan had no reaction. She’d expected it. That was, after all, a kind of applause. We got out and headed across the street.

  Susan had an
umbrella. She offered me shelter under it. I declined, of course.

  “This lecture,” Susan said from under her umbrella. “It’s by the man that Jordan whatsis was having an affair with?”

  “Richmond,” I said. “Yes. Epstein gave me the FBI file on Alderson, or at least as much of it as Epstein felt I should see.”

  “That’s cynical,” Susan said.

  “You bet,” I said. “According to the fi le, Alderson is a visiting professor at Concord, and part of his deal is to give two public lectures per academic year.”

  “And we’re going to assess him?” Susan said.

  “Got to start somewhere,” I said.

  “And you brought me along to help with the assessment?”

  Susan said.

  “Yes.”

  “Not because it was going to be so boring you couldn’t stand to do it alone?”

  “Boy,” I said, “you shrinks!”

  We went into the college and found our way to the lecture hall. We sat in the last row. I put my feet on the back of the chair in front of me. No one else was within three rows of us. Susan smiled.

  “Childhood habits persist,” Susan said.

  “I was always a little rebellious in school,” I said.

  “I’m shocked,” Susan said. “Shocked, I tell you.”

  It was a big lecture hall, and could probably hold more than one hundred people. There were maybe thirty of us scattered 100 around the room. A professor in an ill-fi tting corduroy jacket came out onto the stage and introduced Alderson.

  “My, my,” Susan said when Alderson came onto the stage.

  “Handsome.”

  “If you like that look,” I said.

  “What look do you like?” Susan said.

  “Thuggish,” I said.

  Susan smiled.

  “Yes,” she said. “I like that too.”

  After the lecture, some of the audience gathered around Alderson at the lectern. They were almost all women. Alderson was animated and charming with them.

  “Recruiting a replacement?” I said to Susan.

  “Women like him,” Susan said.

  We left, and, with the rain still coming pleasantly, we drove out to Arlington and had a late supper at a restaurant called Flora.

  “Whaddya think?” I said.

  “He’s a graceful performer,” she said. “Speaks well. Doesn’t say much that’s new and informative.”

  “The federal government is fascist, his organization is the place of last refuge for freedom-loving Americans,” I said.

  “That’s not new?”