“Have you gotten to see much of Boston since you’ve been here, Jill?” Susan asked.
“No.”
“What a shame. It really is a lovely city.”
“You try to get out when you’re working sixteen hours a day every day, and some lunatic is threatening your life,” Jill said.
“That must be very trying,” Susan said. Her voice was sympathetic, but to the accomplished listener, and I’d been listening closely to Susan since 1974, there was humor and maybe the edge of something else in there.
“You got that right, sister.”
We went along the river and pulled off on Charles Street. I found a convenient No-Parking-Here-To-Corner opening and pulled in near the recycled Universalist Meeting House.
“Charles Street,” I said.
“We did a scene down here, somewhere, in an old firehouse,” Jill said.
It was still warm. The brick sidewalks on Charles Street were wet with the puddled snow melt, and every eave dripped. There were Christmas trees being sold on the corner of Chestnut Street, and a Salvation Army Santa rang his bell in front of Toscano Restaurant.
“ ’Tis the season to be jolly,” I said.
“So,” Jill said, “it’s Susan, isn’t it?”
Susan nodded.
“Aren’t you on the show in some way or other?”
“Yes,” Susan said with a big sunny smile. “I’m the technical consultant.”
We were walking toward the Common. The crowds on Charles Street were in the spirit of the season. People were angry and sullen and tired as they shoved past each other carrying shopping bags. Sweaty in their winter clothing, they packed into the small trendy shops and bumped each other with their packages.
“What’s that mean?” Jill said.
Susan was wearing a black leather jacket and black jeans. The jeans were tucked into some low-heeled soft leather cobalt boots that wrinkled fashionably around her ankles. Next to her Jill Joyce looked maybe just a trifle silly.
“I’m a psychotherapist,” Susan said, “and I offer suggestions to make the show more authentic.”
“You’re a shrink?”
“Un huh.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“I have a Ph.D. in psychology.”
We reached the corner of Beacon Street.
“Up to the left,” I said, “is the State House. That’s the Common there, and on the other side of Charles is the Public Garden.”
The trees on the Common were strung with Christmas lights. It was bright with them at night, though it was hard to see now. The Common was snow covered, and full of people crisscrossing its walks in bright clothing. At a distance they looked cheery. The white snow and the dark trees made a bright contrast to the predominant red brick tones of Beacon Hill that rose along our side of the Common and slanted down Park Street behind it. The steeple of the Park Street Church gestured over the rise of the Common, against the blue winter sky. Two hundred years ago they’d hidden gunpowder in its cellar.
“I want a drink,” Jill said.
“I can see why,” I said. “It’s nearly three hours since breakfast.”
“I don’t give a fuck what time it is,” Jill said. “When I feel like a drink I feel like a drink.”
“Want some lunch with that?” I said.
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” Jill said.
We walked across the Public Garden to the new Four Seasons Hotel and sat at a table near the bar. Jill had a glass of white wine. Susan and I had club soda. Jill drank a gulp of white wine, took out a cigarette and leaned toward me. I didn’t have a match and there weren’t any on the table. I shrugged and spread my hands.
Jill said, “We’ll get some from the waitress.”
The waitress spotted our dilemma and brought over a book of matches before I could ask her. I took them and lit Jill’s cigarette. Jill took a long drag, exhaled, swallowed some more wine. The bar was nearly empty at twenty to noon. It was sprawling and low with many sofas and little tables. The lighting was dim. There were times when a quiet bar early in the day is nearly perfect. Jill finished her wine.
“Get me another,” she said.
“No. I perform heroic feats if you are threatened. But I don’t fetch things.”
“You get me one,” she said and pointed her chin at Susan.
“I’ll see if I can get the waitress,” Susan said pleasantly.
Again the waitress was alert. She had nothing else to do. And she was over with Jill’s second wine almost at once.
“So.” Jill had a third of her second glass inside her. She sprawled back in her chair and rested her head and looked along her nose at me. “You don’t fetch things.”
I shook my head.
“You usually bring your girlfriend along when you’re protecting someone?”
“If she’ll come,” I said.
Jill got that crafty, you-have-fallen-in-my-trap look that drunks get at the right point in their drinking.
“So if someone tries to kill us, who will you protect first?” she said.
“Susan,” I said.
Jill started to speak and stopped and stared at me.
“You son of a bitch,” she said, finally, and drank the rest of her wine. The waitress knew she had a live one and was right there for the refill.
“The point is it isn’t likely to work out that way,” I said. “I don’t think someone will try to kill us. If there’s trouble, it will be directed at you. Susan will get out of the way, and I’ll explode into action.”
“But you’d save her first, ahead of me?”
“Yeah.”
Jill twirled her wineglass slowly by the stem. Now that she had some in her, and more available, she could afford to take it slow. Her eyes were fixed on me. Susan sat quietly, listening, interested as she always was about everything. Two couples with plaid pants and cameras came into the bar and sat at the far side from us. One of the women looked over and whispered to her husband and they stared over. Then the other two stared. One of the men nodded. The other man said something and all four of them laughed. One of the women slapped her husband’s hand as she laughed.
Jill twirled her wineglass a little.
“Well,” she said finally, “I guess I know where I stand.”
I saw something change in Susan’s face.
“Jill,” she said, “this whole conversation is inane.”
“Excuse me?” Jill said.
“You’re not worrying about who he’ll protect. You’re mad because you thought you’d have him to yourself today and instead, I showed up and spoiled it.”
“Well, thank you, Dr. Ruth,” Jill said.
“From your point of view I’m an intruder,” Susan said. “I understand that. But that’s because you have personalized the relationship. If you see it as a professional endeavor, in which he protects you because he’s hired to, then the sense of intrusion goes away.”
Jill stared at her for a moment. She drank some of her wine. Then she said, “Fuck you.”
Susan nodded thoughtfully.
“Interesting point,” she said. “Let me put this another way. Since Spenser was hired to protect you, you have been trying every way you can to climb into his lap, and I came along today so that if you tried it again I could kick your fat little butt out into Park Square.”
Jill’s eyes widened.
“Fat?” she said.
“Fat,” Susan said, “and, if I may say so, gone south a little.”
Jill began to breathe faster, her eyes still very wide. Tears formed and began to roll down her face.
“You are through,” she said. “Both of you are not going to work on my goddamned show again.”
“Curses,” I said.
�
�Take me home,” Jill said. “Now.”
It was a strained and sullen trip back to the Charles Hotel. Jill sat in the back in haughty silence and smoked cigarettes which she lit herself, in a kind of self-imposed martyrdom. She got out when we got there and stalked into the hotel without a word. I drifted along behind her to make sure security was alert. They were. A guy picked her up in the lobby and went up with her in the elevator.
Back in the car I looked at Susan.
“I knew you’d get her to see it our way,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have lost my temper at her. But . . .” Susan shrugged.
“Hard not to,” I said.
“And that damned coquettish Czarina act that she does with you . . .”
I nodded. We were cruising along Memorial Drive, heading into town, with the river on our right.
“What would you like to do now?” I said.
“Let’s go to your place. You make a fire. I’ll make a lunch. We’ll open a bottle of wine and see what transpires.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what will transpire,” I said.
“No fair,” Susan said. “You’re a trained detective.”
I nodded and turned right onto the Western Avenue Bridge.
“I don’t think her fanny is fat,” I said.
Susan smiled, the way she does when her face lights up and her eyes get brighter, and you know just what she looked like when she was sixteen.
“All’s fair in love and war,” she said.
13
I picked Jill up Monday morning and took her to the studio as if I hadn’t been fired. She made no mention of Saturday. It had begun to snow late Sunday night and there was about three inches of soft feathery snow accumulated with no sign of slowing. I had the Cherokee in four-wheel drive and drove with the arrogance that only a man in a four-wheel-drive vehicle can feel. The California guys at the studio were all bundled up like Admiral Byrd as they stumbled around the studio parking lot.
The drivers were gathered in fur-trimmed parkas, holding coffee in thick-gloved hands and kibitzing in the cafeteria downstairs. I followed Jill to the wardrobe office. The door was ajar, and we went in. There was no one there.
“Kathleen?” Jill called. “Ernie?”
The lights were on. The clothing for costuming hung in neat order on pipe racks, filling most of the room. There was a counter to one side and an open space with mirrors, a cutting table, and an ironing board. On the counter was a glass jar of hard candies. I took a red one, hoping for cherry. It was raspberry. Even for the discerning palate, however, in hard candies the difference was but slight.
Jill said, “Spenser.”
I turned and saw what she saw. Behind the counter, facedown on the floor, was a woman’s body. The white blouse she was wearing was darkly blotched with dried blood.
I went around the corner and knelt. I knew she was dead. Checking her pulse was just a formality. Her skin was cold when I touched it. There was no pulse. There hadn’t been for some hours. The woman’s head was turned left, and the side of her face that showed was blank and meaningless. Her hair was the same coppery color that Jill’s was.
I stood. Jill was standing very still. Her hands, clasped together so hard her knuckles were white, were pressed against her lips.
“You know who this is?” I said.
“I don’t want to look,” Jill said. She kept her hands pressed against her mouth as she spoke.
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “But one glance, please.”
I walked around the counter and put my arm around her shoulders and moved her gently to where she could see the body. She kept her eyes closed.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s not that bad, just a look at her face, then you won’t have to look again.”
Jill opened her eyes, stared down for a moment over her clasped hands. Then she clamped her eyes shut again, very tightly.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said softly. “Oh, Jesus.”
“Who is it?” I said.
“Babe,” she said. “Babe Loftus, my stunt double.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to say. I squeezed her a little tighter with my arm around her shoulders. She let her arms drop and turned her head in against my chest. We stood that way for a moment. There was a phone on the counter. Still holding on to Jill, I reached out and got it and punched in a number I knew too well by now.
A radio car showed up about two minutes after I called, and the two prowlies in it came in, looked things over, and were as careful as civilians not to touch things.
“You got a detail officer on this deal,” one of the cops said.
“Ray Morrissey,” I said.
“Tommy,” the cop said to his partner, “whyn’t you go and see if you can round him up.”
The partner left.
I said, “I’ll take Miss Joyce to her mobile home.”
“No,” she said, “Sandy’s office.”
She had her face still buried against my chest.
“Upstairs,” I said, “in the line producer’s office.”
“Be sure to stay there. Homicide don’t like it when they get here and the witnesses aren’t around.”
“We’ll be there,” I said.
Everybody looked stiff and uneasy as we passed through the corridor and up the main stairs to Salzman’s office. The two women in the outer office were both on their feet at the top of the stairs looking down.
“Somebody said it was Babe,” one of the women said.
I nodded. We went into Salzman’s office. He wasn’t there. He was on his way in.
Jill sank into one of the leather armchairs near Salzman’s desk. Outside the picture windows the snow came steadily in wide pleasant flakes, drifting as it fell, but falling with the kind of purposeful steadiness that means business. Traffic was very slow on Soldiers Field Road. Cars had their headlights on in the gray daylight and the lights made a weak glow through the snow that accumulated on the headlight lenses. Wipers made dark rhomboids on the windshields, and beyond, winding through the white landscape, the river was icy black. The snow came thick enough so you couldn’t see the other bank of the river.
Jill and I sat very quietly while we waited. That someone had shot Jill’s stunt double didn’t have to be connected to the threats and scary phone calls that Jill had been getting. But you could make a pretty good case that it might be, and you couldn’t assume it was not.
After about twenty minutes Belson came into the office. He had his tan trench coat on with the collar up. The coat was unbuttoned. The tweed scally cap he was wearing was tilted down over the bridge of his nose so he had to tilt his head back a little to see. He stopped inside the front door when he entered and put his hands in the hip pockets of his pants. You could see where he had his gun holstered inside his belt.
“Good day for it,” Belson said. He had one of his ugly little cigars in the corner of his mouth.
I introduced Jill. Jill raised her eyes slowly from her lap and fixed Belson with a tragic stare.
“Oh, Frank,” Jill said. “It’s my stunt double.”
If Belson minded being called Frank by a murder witness, he didn’t let it show.
“You discovered the body,” he said.
I said yes.
“Together?”
“Yes.”
Belson nodded. As he spoke his eyes moved around the room, filing everything. Three months from now he would be able to describe the place in exact detail.
“I talked with Morrissey,” Belson said.
“So you know what I’m doing here,” I said.
Belson nodded again. He pushed a couple of items away from the corner of Salzman’s desk and sat on it, one leg dangling, one leg still on the floor.
“Your usual bang-up jo
b,” Belson said.
“Maybe you should follow me around on this one,” I said. “Learn as you go.”
“For God’s sake,” Jill said. “Don’t you people realize what happened? That was meant for me. He thought Babe was me.”
“Who thought that?” Belson said.
“There’s a man,” Jill said. “He’s been threatening me, saying terrible things. Now he’s done this. He thought Babe was me.”
“What’s his name?” Belson said.
“I don’t know. That’s what he’s supposed to find out.” Jill jerked her head at me. “Only he hasn’t found out anything, and now he’s tried to kill me.”
“Spenser?”
“No, no. The man.”
Sandy Salzman came into the office wearing a down parka and moon boots. He went straight to Jill Joyce.
“Jill, honey, are you okay?”
“Better than Babe Loftus,” I said.
“Oh my God, Babe,” Salzman said. “What happened?”
“We’re looking into that,” Belson said.
“Are you the police?”
“I’m one of them,” Belson said. He flipped out his shield. “Belson,” he said. “Homicide.”
Salzman was holding Jill Joyce’s hand. She put her other hand over his and laid her head against his arm.
“Sandy, please, get me out of here,” Jill said.
Salzman looked at Belson.
Belson said, “Where’s she going to go?”
“Charles Hotel,” Salzman said.
“We can locate that,” Belson said. “We may want to talk with her.”
“I think we should have an attorney present,” Salzman said.
“Of course,” Belson said. “Important person like her. Probably ought to have two or three present.”
“No need to be unpleasant,” Salzman said. “I just think with a star of Jill’s magnitude it’s prudent.”
Belson looked at me and something that might have been amusement showed for a moment in his thin face.
“This one’s going to be a good time,” he said.
“I’m taking Miss Joyce to the hotel,” Salzman said. “Feel free to use my office.”
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