Widow’s Walk

by Robert B. Parker

  “I… What’s this about a murder?”

  “Four or five murders,” I said.

  “My God.”

  “Why didn’t you press charges?” I said.

  Across the open field a big cement truck had backed in against the foundation forms and begun to sluice a gray slurry of concrete into the first foundation. There were some dandelions in the field, and a few buttercups. The breeze riffled the surface of the uncut grass.

  “I don’t want to discuss it,” Bisbee said.

  He was a thin-faced man with a gray-streaked black mustache and goatee. I waited.

  I said, “We’re way past that, Mr. Bisbee. You’re a material witness to a case of multiple homicide. You could be arrested.”

  I was careful not to say that I would arrest him, as I had been careful not to say I was a police detective. But misunderstanding was possible.

  “God, Jesus!” he said.

  “So why didn’t you press charges?”

  “If I tell you, would I still be arrested?”

  “No,” I said.

  I wasn’t exactly lying. His arrest was not contingent on him telling me anything.

  “It was the woman lawyer,” he said.

  “Ann Kiley?”

  “Yes. She said she represented the two men who attacked me, and that she also represented Marvin.”

  “Marvin Conroy?”

  “Yes. And Marvin wanted me to drop the charges.”

  “And why did you care what Marvin wanted?”

  He looked at me as if I had blasphemed. “He… Marvin is very dangerous.”

  “What was your relationship?” I said.

  “With Marvin?”

  “Yes.”

  Across the way three laborers were moving the cement chute. Two more guys watching. Good ratio, I thought.

  “I appraised some property for him.”

  “And?”

  “He didn’t like the appraisal.”

  “Why not?”

  “He wanted me to inflate the appraisal.”

  “So he could get a bigger loan?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So why’d you get beat up, to make you change your appraisal?”

  “No. To keep me from telling anybody. Marvin was up to something. Probably flipping real estate, maybe covering some real shaky loans. I don’t know. But I told him that I was suspicious and the next day he sent me a message.”

  “The message being?”

  “To keep my mouth shut.”

  Bisbee had thin hands. He was holding onto the clipboard with both of them so tightly that the knuckles were white.

  “Which you did?”

  “Yes… There was another name you mentioned. Soldiers Field Development.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That was the company that was developing the property.”

  “That Conroy wanted you to appraise?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know anything about Nathan Smith?”

  “No.”

  “Any other names mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  Bisbee’s shoulders were hunched and he was sitting stiffly on the stone wall as if it were cold. Which it wasn’t. He hung on to his clipboard.

  I took a card out of my wallet and tucked it into the breast pocket of his plaid shirt.

  “Anyone threatens you,” I said, “call me. I’ll take care of it.”

  Bisbee nodded without looking at the card, or at me. Across the field the driver of the cement truck was hosing down the cement chute. Five men were watching. Bad ratio.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said.

  Bisbee nodded again. I left.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  I sat with Vinnie Morris in my car parked on the second level of a parking garage beside a hotel in downtown Worcester, near the Centrum. Almost everything in downtown Worcester was near the Centrum. “She drove out here this morning with an overnight case,” Vinnie said. “Checked in a little after one.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone.”

  “You see any sign of Conroy?”

  “Nope.”

  I looked at the dashboard clock. It was 2:47. I didn’t like digital clocks. Nice phrases like quarter to three were becoming obsolete.

  “You’d recognize him?”

  “Yep.”

  “He ever make you when you tailed him before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll hang here. They’d both know me. You go to the lobby and sit around and try to look like a hotel guest.”

  “I’ll read a newspaper,” Vinnie said.

  “Master of disguise,” I said. “If she goes out, follow her. If Conroy comes in, follow him. Find out what room he goes to. You got a cell phone?”

  “Yep.”

  I took out a business card and wrote my car-phone number on it and gave it to Vinnie.

  “If they get together, stay with them and call me.”

  “Okay.”

  Vinnie got out and walked toward the stairwell. He moved very precisely. As if he’d been expertly crafted. He was medium-sized and liked Ivy League clothes. Except for the way he moved, he didn’t look anywhere near as dangerous as he was. I let the motor idle so the car phone would work, and punched in a number. My status was rising. I got right through to Bobby Kiley.

  “Your daughter has checked into a hotel in Worcester with an overnight bag,” I said. “I’m waiting for Marvin Conroy to show.”

  “Which hotel,” Kiley said.

  I told him.

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” he said.

  “I don’t want Conroy spooked,” I said. “There’s a hydrant across the street from the main lobby entrance. Park there and wait for me to find you. What are you driving?”

  “Black Lexus sedan,” Kiley said. “Vanity plates-Like-A-Will-More-A-N.”

  “It’ll be me, or a guy named Vinnie Morris, who’s almost as good as me.”

  “I’ll be there,” Kiley said. “Thanks.”

  We hung up. I couldn’t find anything on the radio that was recognizably musical. I did not want to listen to the opinions expressed on the talk shows. I didn’t want to tie up my car phone, so I couldn’t call Susan up. When all else fails, think about the case.

  I still didn’t know exactly what was happening. The business about taking the gun so it would look like murder was just the kind of smart move a couple of morons like Mary Smith and Roy Levesque would choose. The fact that the finger of suspicion would then point at Mary, his heir, would never have occurred to them. Or it could be a double fake to cover up the fact that they really had killed him and Roy was too dumb to get rid of the gun.

  But I did know that the only connection between what seemed like two separate cases, but probably wasn’t, was Marvin Conroy. He was connected through the bank to the Smiths and Soldiers Field Development and that side. He was connected through Ann Kiley to Jack DeRosa and Chuckie Scanlan and that whole side, where people were getting killed. If I believed Bisbee, and there was no reason not to, Conroy and Soldiers Field and Pequod Bank were involved in some kind of swindle. The need for an inflated appraisal made me wonder if it was a land flip. But in wondering that, I exhausted my expertise. Rita would know. Or she would have somebody in the firm who would know.

  At 4:53 my car phone rang.

  “I’m on the seventh floor,” Vinnie said. “She’s in room 7112. He’s in there with her.”

  “Here I come,” I said.

  As I headed for the stairs to the lobby I looked down and saw Bobby Kiley’s Lexus. When I got to the seventh floor, Vinnie was standing outside the elevator, looking like a man waiting to go down.

  “Turn right,” Vinnie said. “Halfway down the corridor.”

  “He wonder about you when you rode up with him?”

  “Maybe. But what’s he going to do?”

  I nodded.

  “How you going to get in?” Vinnie said.

  “Maybe I�
��ll knock on the door, like in the movies, tell him there’s a message?”

  Vinnie grinned. “And he says slip it under the door.”

  “And I say he’s got to sign for it.”

  “And the dope jumps up and opens the door.”

  “Or he tells me to blow,” I said. “Especially if nobody knows he’s here and how could they send him a message.”

  “Always works in the movies,” Vinnie said.

  “I can take it from here,” I said to Vinnie.

  “You don’t want me to shoot nobody?”

  “Thank you for asking,” I said. “Another time.”

  “Sure.”

  “Guy named Bobby Kiley is parked across the street from the lobby entrance in a black Lexus sedan, vanity plates say ”Lawman.“ Send him up and tell him I’ll be outside the room or in it.”

  “Kiley,” Vinnie said.

  “Girl’s father,” I said.

  Vinnie nodded. He pushed the button for the elevator. The door slid open. The same car I’d come up in was still there. Vinnie got in, pushed the button for the lobby, and the door slid shut. I walked down the hall to room 7112 and stood opposite the door and leaned on the wall and waited. I was still there when Bobby Kiley came down the corridor.

  “Is he in there?” Kiley said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you knocked?”

  “I was waiting for you.”

  Bobby Kiley took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose.

  “I’ll knock,” he said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  It was probably two full minutes, and Kiley had knocked three times when Ann opened the door with the chain on. “Daddy?”

  “Open up, Ann,” Kiley said. “We need to talk.”

  “Daddy, not now.”

  “Now, honey.”

  Through the narrow space produced by the barely opened door I could see Ann Kiley’s eyes shift briefly to me, and back to her father.

  “Daddy, I’m busy.”

  “I know,” Kiley said. “And I know who you’re busy with. Open the door, Annie.”

  “Daddy,” she said, emphasizing the two syllables, stretching out the second one.

  “Annie, you’re a full-grown woman. Who you sleep with, and how often, is your business and not mine. But we’re dealing with four or five murders here… and you’re involved, and I am going to get you uninvolved. If we have to kick this thing in, we will.”

  I think he meant that I would. But it was not a time for quibbling over pronouns.

  “I have to close it to take the chain off,” Ann said.

  Kiley nodded. The door closed. The chain bolt slid. The door opened and we went in. Ann was wearing a hotel-issue white terrycloth bathrobe. Her hair was mussed. Her clothes were haphazardly draped on the hard chair in front of the desk by the window. On the desk was a bottle of champagne and two glasses. The king-sized bed was still made, but it was badly rumpled and the pillows had been pulled out from under the spread. There was no one else in the room. But a man’s clothes were carelessly folded on the armchair to the right of the door. I walked to the bathroom and opened the door. Marvin Conroy was standing behind the pebbled glass door in the shower stall with only his pants on, the belt still unbuckled.

  “Who would think to look here,” I said and held the shower door.

  It is hard to look dignified when you’re caught hiding in the shower with your pants unbuckled. Conroy did his best as he came out of the bathroom, but it didn’t seem to me that he succeeded. He buckled his pants as inconspicuously as he could, and stepped into the brown loafers with the black highlights, which he had left neatly at the foot of the bed. Shirtless, he looked kind of soft, not fat exactly, but like a guy who makes his living shuffling money. I could tell he was holding his stomach in. He saw his shirt hanging on one arm of the soft chair and retrieved it and put it on, though he didn’t tuck it in. As he dressed, he rejuvenated. By the time his shirt was buttoned he was nearly back to bank CEO. Ann sat on the side of the bed without a word. Her head was down, and she looked at nothing.

  “Bobby,” Conroy said. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Kiley didn’t say anything. He went to the bed and sat beside his daughter. Conroy fumbled with his cuff links. He turned his gaze from Kiley and focused it on me.

  “And what the hell are you doing here?” he said.

  He was getting tougher by the minute. By the time his cuff links were in he’d be threatening me. I leaned against the door.

  “Here’s what I’ve got,” I said. “I know you were looking into Nathan Smith’s sexual preferences.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Conroy said.

  “And I know you had Jack DeRosa hire a couple of mulligans to beat up a real estate appraiser named Bisbee to make sure he didn’t tell anybody that you were asking him to inflate appraisals. And I know you got Jack DeRosa from Ann Kiley, and I know you got Ann to go down and straighten things out when the mulligans got arrested. And I know that you were in business with Soldiers Field Development, and I’m pretty sure I can prove that you were involved in some sort of land flip with them. You worked with Amy Peters. She’s dead. You worked with Jack DeRosa. He’s dead. You were snooping on Nathan Smith. He’s dead. Sooner or later I’ll tie you to Brinkman Tyler.”

  I stopped. Conroy was silent. I didn’t blame him. There was a lot coming down. He didn’t say, “Who’s Brinkman Tyler,” and he probably should have. After a moment, he stood.

  “I’m leaving,” he said firmly.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “You’re not.”

  “Are you saying you’ll prevent me?”

  “Yes.”

  He stared at me, trying for outrage. He fell a little short. He was thinking about whether he could force me to let him go, and deciding that he couldn’t. He was correct.

  “You can’t-”

  “Sure I can,” I said. “What we’re trying to decide here is how much we can keep her out of it.”

  For the first time since he’d come out of the bathroom, Conroy looked at Ann.

  “There’s no it to keep anybody out of,” Conroy said. “You haven’t got anything worth listening to.”

  “What do you think?” I said to Ann.

  Still staring emptily at nothing, she shook her head.

  “You haven’t any right,” she said without looking up. “Neither of you has any right.”

  “I can’t help you if I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I know I love Marvin,” she said.

  Seated beside her Kiley closed his eyes for a moment and stretched his neck a little.

  “Anyone would,” I said. “But are you ready to go to jail with him?”

  “If I have to.”

  “How far out of this can we keep her,” Kiley said to me.

  “Depends how far in she is,” I said. “Much of what I said about Conroy could be said about your daughter.”

  It was a gamble. But Kiley was a smart guy, and very tough, and if he picked up on it maybe we’d have something.

  “You’re saying if you can’t get him you’ll get her?” Kiley said.

  He got it. I wanted to go over and sit in his lap.

  “Would work either way,” I said.

  “You said we could work something out.”

  “We can, with one of them, but not both, and to tell you the truth, Bobby, I don’t especially care which one it is. Hell, it works for me if they both go.”

  Kiley put an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. She seemed to contract in a bit on herself when he did it. Her head was still down.

  “Honey,” Bobby Kiley said. “Tell us what you know.”

  She shook her head. Kiley looked at Conroy.

  “How about you?”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “For God’s sake, man. I’ve been in criminal law all my life. They’ve got enough. This guy will get you. I know this guy. You
don’t. He’ll bring you down, and if you don’t help her, my daughter will go with you.”

  Conroy was silent. He looked at me leaning against the door.

  “You tell me what I need,” I said, “and I can keep her out of it.”

  “You and I both love her,” Kiley said. “We can’t let this happen to her.”

  Conroy walked to the window and stared through it at the shabby cityscape below him. For the first time since we’d come into the room, Ann Kiley raised her head. Her father’s arm still around her, she looked at Conroy. He kept looking out the window. Then, as if he could feel her look, he turned back toward us. None of us said anything. He looked at Ann Kiley. After a long moment Conroy nodded his head.

  “Okay,” he said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” Conroy said. “You just had it done,” I said.

  “No. That was Shawcross.”

  “He had it done?”

  “Yeah.”

  The gloss of Conroy’s CEO manner was sloughing off rapidly.

  “You were just the middleman,” I said.

  Conroy shrugged. “I worked for Felton Shawcross,” he said.

  He was sitting on the edge of the hard chair, his forearms on his thighs, his hands clasped between his knees. Ann Kiley, still in the hotel bathrobe, sat on the bed. Bobby Kiley sat beside her.

  “We were working a loan-to-value scam on Pequod,” Conroy said. “You need me to explain that?”

  I looked at Bobby Kiley.

  “I know what a loan-to-value scam is,” Kiley said.

  “Later,” I said.

  “Good,” Conroy said. “Smith didn’t like it, but we knew he was gay, and we knew he was hiding it. So we squeezed him.”

  “Which is how you got to be president of Pequod,” I said.

  “Yeah. Smith was chairman, but that was just for show. He did what we told him.”

  “And?” I said.

  “And we were making a fucking fortune,” Conroy said.

  “But?”

  “But Smith wouldn’t stay squeezed. He finally said if we didn’t move on and let go of his bank he’d go to the cops.”

  “So?”

  “So Shawcross had him killed, and rigged it to look like a suicide. But somebody fucked it up.”