Pale Kings and Princes

by Robert B. Parker

  Just a big friendly kid in a spiffy uniform. Now he'd get in the cruiser and call in and see what they had on me. And they'd get hold of Healy and see what he could tell them. It had taken him maybe ten seconds to spot me when I showed up. If he hadn't turned up anything on the Valdez killing, it meant that there wasn't much to turn up. Or it was buried deeper than he'd had time to dig.

  I walked along the edge of the police line. The EMT's had backed away from the Olds and a police photographer was taking flash pictures.

  Caroline Rogers looked up and saw me. She said something to the captain. He looked at me and shook his head. She dipped her head slightly and stepped away from him and walked toward me. The skin on her face looked tight, but her voice was quiet when she said, "Mr. Spenser."

  "Your husband," I said. She nodded gravely. "I'm sorry," I said.

  She nodded again. "They've killed him," she said softly.

  I waited.

  She didn't say anything else. "Can I help you?" I said.

  She looked at me steadily, her eyes wide and nearly all pupil. Her breathing was quiet. The skin seemed to tighten still more over the bones of her face as I looked at her.

  "Maybe," she said. "Maybe you can."

  "I'm at the Reservoir Court Motel," I said.

  "I know," she said.

  The state trooper was still sitting in the cruiser talking on the radio. Henry the police captain had walked over and stood outside the car, leaning on the roof with his arms folded, waiting for the trooper to get through.

  The photographer got through and the EMT's started to bundle the corpse out of the front seat and into a body bag. I put my hands on Caroline Rogers's shoulders and turned her toward me.

  "I can look," she said.

  "I'm sure you can," I said, "but there are probably better ways to remember him."

  She shook her head. "I'll remember it all," she said. "I wish to."

  I took my hands off her shoulders and she turned and watched as they zipped her husband up in the bag and put him on the trundle and wheeled him to the ambulance. The legs folded, the trundle slid on into the bed of the ambulance. They closed the two doors, walked around to the driver's compartment, got in and drove away. The emergency light on the roof was flashing, but they didn't use the siren. Bailey was in no rush.

  Caroline watched it pull away. When it rounded the curve and disappeared, she turned back to me and her eyes looked vacant. She seemed aimless, as if now that the event was over there was no place to go and nothing to do.

  "The children?" I said.

  "There's only Brett," she said. "He's away. He doesn't know yet." She seemed to be looking for something to do with her hands. "They never got along," she said. She clasped her hands in front of her. "Bailey demanded so much of Brett."

  A neat dark-haired woman in a pleated plaid skirt stepped close to us on the other side of the police line.

  "Caroline," she said, "come to the house with us."

  Caroline looked at me a moment. I nodded. She nodded back. Then she turned toward the woman in the plaid skirt.

  "Yes," she said, "maybe some coffee." She bent and slipped under the yellow plastic ribbon with the black police-line-do-not-cross printing on it and straightened on the other side. The woman in the plaid skirt took her hand and held it and together they walked across the street and into a white frame house with green shutters.

  I looked at the trooper's card: Brian P. Lundquist. I looked at the cruiser. Lundquist had stepped out and was talking with the captain. Then both of them walked over to me.

  "Lieutenant Healy says you could probably help on this," he said. "Says you used to be a police officer."

  "Says they fired your ass, too," Henry said. Lundquist's eyes shifted very briefly from me to him and back.

  "And it came out here and made captain," I said.

  Lundquist smiled.

  Henry didn't. "This is our business," he said. "We don't need a lot of outsiders coming in here telling us what to do."

  Lundquist dropped his head in a polite little bob. "'Course you don't, Cap'n. Your chief gets smoked you want to take care of it yourself. Anyone would."

  "Goddamned right," Henry said.

  "Whyn't I just take Spenser here over to the cruiser and get a statement while you take care of the important stuff."

  Henry said, "Aw . . ." and made a quick throwaway gesture with his right hand and walked away toward the Oldsmobile. Lundquist pointed at the State Police cruiser with his thumb cocked as if he were shooting it. We walked over. Lundquist got behind the driver's seat. I sat on the passenger side. Lundquist took a notebook out from over the sun visor and a pen from his shirt pocket.

  "Tell me what you know," he said.

  "I know Valdez was shot," I said. "I know Rogers told me it was a jealous husband. I know he said there's no coke trade in Wheaton. I know a DEA guy named Fallon who says it's the major distribution center in the Northeast. I know Rogers didn't want me here and the cops followed and harassed me since I've been here. I know four guys stopped my car on Quabbin Road one night and attempted to beat me up. I shot one in the left thigh. They burned my car. I know a social worker named Juanita Olmo told me that Esmeralda Esteva had an affair with Valdez. I called on Esmeralda. She denied it. Later her husband and four other guys told me that I should butt out. He said his wife didn't have an affair with Valdez and that there was no coke business in Wheaton. He said he didn't send four guys to roust me on Quabbin Road. That part I believe. They weren't Latins and they weren't pros. I know that Bailey Rogers's son drives a truck for Esteva."

  "How come this Juanita told you about Esmeralda Esteva?"

  "I'm not sure," I said. "She said she was concerned that we Anglos were discriminating against Hispanics."

  "Yeah?"

  "She knew Eric Valdez, she said. Says the police killed him."

  "So why'd she tell you he was getting it on with Esmeralda Esteva?" Lundquist took notes but when he asked questions he never had to look back at the notebook for names.

  "I pushed her."

  "Un huh. Any other reasons?"

  "If I had to guess, I'd guess there was something jealous in it. Maybe she was taken with Valdez and was mad because Emmy took him away. Maybe she's warm for Emmy's husband. Maybe she killed Valdez and wanted to place the blame somewhere else."

  "It's just the opposite," Lundquist said. "It calls attention to her."

  "I didn't say she was smart," I said.

  "Why'd the police kill Valdez, does she say?"

  "As far as I could gather it was because he was Hispanic. She says Rogers was an evil man."

  "I don't know about evil," Lundquist said. "He was a fair asshole though."

  "Thought he was Wyatt Earp?"

  "Seemed to," Lundquist said. "Spent most of his time making sure you knew what a herd bull he was."

  I nodded.

  "You know anything else?" Lundquist said.

  "No."

  "Still puts you ahead of us. Why do you suppose cops were on your ass so much when you got here?"

  "I don't know. Rogers said the same kind of stuff that Henry said a minute ago."

  "Who were the guys that burned your car?" Lundquist said.

  "My guess is that Rogers sent a few local good old boys. Not cops, when I shot one of them they didn't know what to do. Not Hispanics."

  "Or Esteva was smart enough to send Anglos," Lundquist said.

  "Possible," I said. "What happened to Rogers?"

  "Shot twice in the head, close range, big-caliber gun. One of the patrol cars found him about six A.M. in his car. Apparently sitting in it when he was shot, probably by someone in the backseat. Rogers's gun was still on his hip, snap fastened. Blood had dried, and he was starting to rigor, so it had been a while. When I get the coroner's report I'll give you a buzz."

  "Thanks," I said.

  "You learn anything you give me a buzz," Lundquist said.

  "Instead of the Wheaton police?" I said.

&nbs
p; Lundquist shrugged. "Might be nice," he said.

  Chapter 15

  I found Juanita Olmo at her office in the Quabbin Regional Hospital Administration Building. The small plastic plaque on the door said DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, in white lettering cut into a brown background.

  "Good morning," I said.

  "Good morning."

  "I wonder if I might take a few moments of your time," I said, and closed the door and sat down in the client chair next to her desk. There was no one else in the office and no room for anyone else.

  "Looks like a one-person department," I said.

  "Full-time, yes," she said. "We do have some people help us on a consulting basis."

  "Did you hear that Chief Rogers was killed last evening?"

  "Yes," she said. "I will not be a hypocrite. I won't say I am sorry."

  "Always good to encounter standards," I said. "You have any thoughts on who might have done it?"

  "I? Why should I have such thoughts?" she said.

  "You told me he was a bully, an evil man, and you suggested he might have killed Valdez."

  "I told you the truth."

  "Any possibility that the Valdez killing and the Rogers killing are connected," I said.

  "I don't see why," she said. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

  "Feel free," I said.

  Juanita took a cigarette from the pack on her desk and lit it with a disposable lighter. She took in some smoke and let it out and looked at me through the haze of it. She raised her eyebrows. "Do you?"

  "Do I see why there should be a connection? Sure. Town like this has two murders in a month. They are probably connected."

  "They don't have to be."

  "No, they don't," I said. "But assuming that gets me nowhere. Assuming the greater likelihood, that the same people clipped Valdez and Rogers, gives me places to go, people to see."

  "Like me?"

  "Like you."

  "I have no idea of who killed Chief Rogers," Juanita said.

  "How about Felipe Esteva?" I said.

  "No!" she said.

  "No?"

  "No. Of course you'll try to say he did it. He's a successful Hispanic and you'd love to bring him low. But he's too . . . too much man for any of you."

  "Successful at what?" I said.

  "At business, that's why you hate him. He's beaten you at your own capitalist game."

  "My game? Capitalism? You overestimate me, I think."

  "You know what I mean," she said.

  "None of this means he couldn't have shot Rogers for getting too close to things that Esteva wants concealed."

  "Guilty until proven innocent?" Juanita said, and took in most of the rest of her cigarette in a long angry drag.

  "If you run a legitimate produce business," I said, "you don't employ guys like Cesar to walk around with you."

  "I don't know any Cesar," she said.

  "Why'd you tell me about Valdez and Esteva's wife?" I said.

  "You tricked me," she said.

  "I'm a tricky devil," I said. "What kind of woman is Mrs. Esteva?"

  "She is his weakness," Juanita said. She took a short puff on the cigarette and exhaled and took another. She held the cigarette with the first two fingers of her right hand, between the tips and the first joint. I nodded encouragingly.

  "She is a slut and he won't throw her out," Juanita said.

  "She sleeps with a lot of people?"

  "Yes." The word came out of Juanita in a hissing intense whisper. The cigarette went briefly to her lips.

  "Who besides Valdez?" Juanita shook her head. "You don't know any besides Valdez?" She shook her head again.

  "If you don't know any but Valdez how do you know she sleeps around?"

  "I know," Juanita hissed.

  "How?" I said.

  "I know," she hissed again.

  "You ever sleep with Valdez?" I said.

  Her face changed. Her eyes widened, her mouth went into a humorless lopsided smile. "I don't want to talk with you anymore," she said brightly.

  "I don't blame you," I said. "But there's dead people involved. There's somebody killing people around here. I need to find out who it is."

  The smile got brighter and more lopsided. Her voice had a chirpy quality.

  "You get out of here right now," she said gaily, "or I'll call hospital security."

  "My God," I said.

  "I mean it," she said. "You get out of here this minute."

  I wanted to stay. She was like a cable stretched too tight and beginning to fray. I wanted to stick around and see what unraveled.

  "Emmy was sleeping with your boy friend?" I said.

  Juanita's grin got more lopsided. The whites of her widened eyes gleamed. She stood up from her desk and walked stiffly around and past me and out the door. I stood and went after her. She went fifty feet down the corridor and into the ladies' room. I stopped in the corridor outside. A nurse came down the corridor from the other direction and went in the ladies' room too. I hesitated and then turned away. Some taboos are unbreakable.

  Chapter 16

  I was having a cup of coffee at the counter in Wally's Lunch when Lundquist came in, the winter sun glinting off the polished leather of his holster as he opened the door. He sat down beside me.

  "Cup of tea, please," he said to Wally. Wally scowled. Lundquist smiled at him. "I know it's more trouble than coffee," he said, "but I just like it better. Little lemon too, please." Wally got to work on the tea.

  "Rogers was shot twice in the head from behind with a forty-one-caliber firearm," he said. "We assume it was a revolver because we didn't find any brass, though the perpetrator could have cleaned up afterwards."

  "Forty-one caliber?" I said.

  "Yeah, an oddball," Lundquist said.

  "How many of those are registered?" I said. The tea came. Lundquist squeezed the wedge of lemon into the cup, jiggled the tea bag a little, studying the color. Then he took the bag out and set it soggily into his saucer. "Sugar, please," he said. I passed the cup of sugar packets to him. He opened two at once, lining them up and ripping off the tops. Then he poured the sugar in his tea and stirred it carefully.

  "There are no forty-one-caliber guns registered in the state," he said.

  "Anything else?"

  "There might be some tire tracks behind Rogers's car. But so what? Place is out of the way but people park there. Ground was frozen. There's not enough for a cast."

  Lundquist picked his cup up and blew softly over the surface and then sipped some tea. He made a face, and shook his head slightly. "Not good," he said. "Water wasn't hot enough and it was a mass-market teabag."

  "Suppose Wally's got a tea cozy back there someplace?" I said.

  Lundquist smiled and shook his head. "Mrs. Rogers says her husband left the house that morning and went off to work like he does every day. She says that's the last she saw him. He never came home. She wasn't all that worried, she says, because he was often out late on police business. Sometimes all night."

  "In Wheaton, Mass.?" I said.

  "I thought about that myself," Lundquist said. "M.E. figures he was shot sometime in the early evening, but the cold weather complicates it, and it would be nice to know the last time he ate."

  Lundquist drank some more of his tea. Wally came down the counter and put a bill in front of us, and went away.

  "So he went up there probably in the early evening, after dark, and met somebody he knew and they sat in the car and talked. And one of them shot him in the back of the head."

  "Why do you think more than one?" Lundquist said.

  "One person would have got in the front seat beside him. There were at least two. One got in front with him. The other one sat in the baekseat."

  Lundquist nodded. "People he knew," Lundquist said. "No cop is going to let two strangers in his car, one in the backseat, while he's sitting on his piece."

  "But people he didn't want to be seen with," I said.

  "Or why would he go up to t
he top of an empty street on a cold night after dark to sit in the car and talk," Lundquist said.

  "Could be a date?" I said.

  "With two women? One of whom is carrying a forty-one-caliber weapon?"

  "Not impossible," I said. "They make a forty-one-caliber derringer, and it could have been two women who were confronting the man who'd been cheating between them."

  "Possible," Lundquist said. "Not likely."

  "Or he could be crooked," I said, "And he was meeting the bagman and it went haywire."

  "More possible," Lundquist said.

  "You know something about Rogers?" I said.

  "No. But he's the head cop in a town that's noted for cocaine trafficking."

  "And Felipe Esteva runs the cocaine," I said.

  "You think so."

  "Yes."

  "Maybe I think so too," Lundquist said. "But neither of us has proved so yet."

  "Maybe one of us will," I said.

  "Yeah, and maybe we'll find out who killed Valdez."

  "Or maybe we won't," I said. "And maybe it won't be what we think it is if we do."

  "It'd be cleaner if there wasn't this sex thing. The fact that Valdez was castrated."

  "Maybe to confuse us," I said.

  "Maybe. If so it's working. Every cocaine explanation can also be a jealousy explanation," Lundquist said. He took a last swallow of tea and stood up. Half the tea was still in his cup.

  "You got this one?" he said.

  "Sure," I said. "I'm on expenses."

  "Thanks," Lundquist said. He hitched his holster slightly forward on his hip and went back out into the bright cold sunlight. I paid the tab and left Wally half a buck and went back to my motel.

  Chapter 17

  From behind a cluster of evergreens on a hill above Mechanic Street I could see Esteva's warehouse across the river. The road past it wound parallel with the river, then dipped under the Main Street bridge and out of sight. I was sitting in Susan's red thunderjet for the third day in a row looking at the warehouse. When anyone came out or a truck pulled in, I looked at it through binoculars. Which meant simply that I was learning nothing at closer range. Crates of vegetables got unloaded off big trailer trucks and slid down rollers into the warehouse. Smaller crates came out of the warehouse and were loaded onto delivery trucks.