Widow’s Walk

by Robert B. Parker

  “Mrs. Smith,” I said. “She thought it was suicide and didn’t want to forfeit her insurance and decided to make it look like a murder.”

  “Which it was,” Bobby Kiley said.

  Conroy shook his head, thinking about it.

  “Ain’t that great,” he said. “And we didn’t know why the suicide setup went wrong, but it did and we had to go to plan B.”

  “Which was to frame Mary Smith for the murder.”

  “Yeah.”

  Conroy looked at Ann Kiley again. She looked back at him. Something went on between them for a moment. I waited for it to stop.

  Then I said, “What about Amy Peters?”

  “That was bad,” he said. “She told me she’d talked to you, asked if there was anything going on she should know about. Said she could serve the bank better if she knew what was up so she wouldn’t be blsided.”

  “Good employee,” I said.

  “Yeah. She was very career-driven,” Conroy said. “I mentioned it to Felton and that was it for her.”

  “Just for asking?” Ann said.

  Conroy looked at her again for a moment.

  “Felton is a really smart guy,” Conroy said. “But he’s… he’s like Stalin or somebody. Any suspicion, you’re dead.”

  “Must have been fun to work for,” I said. “What happened to Brink Tyler.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I know Felton had him zipped, but I never knew what for. Maybe Smith talked to him about his situation-you know, had a problem related to money, so he talked with his broker? Guys like Smith sometimes don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

  “How about guys like you?” I said.

  “I had Ann,” he said. “Maybe Tyler decided to cut himself in, whatever. He knew something, so Felton had him killed.”

  “Who’s doing all this killing?” Bobby Kiley said.

  “We recruited local guys.”

  “How?” I said.

  “Through DeRosa. They never knew who they were working for.”

  “Would Shawcross kill someone himself if he had to?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  “DeRosa was a valuable man,” I said. “Why waste him on the Mary Smith frame?”

  “He was in jail anyway,” Conroy said. “Small-time street thing, the asshole. We got it fixed. But meanwhile, it gave him a reason to make a deal with the DA for ratting out Mary Smith.”

  “Credibility,” I said. “Who were the stumblebums that followed me around and tried to brace me in the parking garage?”

  “They were from Felton. He had some people on, ah, staff.”

  “But he didn’t use them for heavy lifting?”

  “No,” Conroy said. “Not usually. He wanted to keep that separate. Anybody who did any killing only knew DeRosa.”

  “That true of the guys that tried me in Fort Point?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who pulled the trigger on DeRosa?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Felton.”

  “Because I was getting too close?”

  “I don’t know how close you were getting,” Conroy said, “but you wouldn’t go away. Killing you hadn’t worked, so he had DeRosa killed to cut you off, and he told me to disappear.”

  “Which you did.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Except.” I looked at Ann.

  Conroy nodded. His voice was heavy. “Yeah,” he said. “And you figured it out.”

  “Why were you checking Smith out at the gay clubs?” I said.

  “You know about that, too,” Conroy said wearily.

  “We never sleep,” I said.

  “I was trying to figure out what Shawcross had on him. I got some sort of gay hit off him in the bank. All those boys… I don’t know. I just had a suspicion.”

  “How did Shawcross know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The name Roy Levesque mean anything?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Larson Graff?”

  “No.”

  “How about Joey Bucci?” I said.

  Conroy frowned. “Bucci?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When I was at the bank we lent him some money.”

  “You remember all the bank loans?” I said.

  “No. This one was no interest, open-ended, you know? A gift. Felton told us to do it.”

  “You know why?”

  Conroy shook his head.

  “You know where Shawcross is now?”

  “No idea.”

  “Is that his real name.”

  “No idea.”

  “Will he come after you when he knows you’re talking like this?” Ann said.

  “What fucking difference does it make, Annie?” Conroy said.

  Tears formed in Ann Kiley’s eyes. Beside her Bobby Kiley’s face was pale and bony. He put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. She didn’t appear to notice.

  “Shawcross has disappeared,” I said. “We don’t know where he is. We don’t even know who he is. He’s safe. Reaching back here for Conroy is a risk that doesn’t make any sense.”

  Conroy shrugged.

  “We can keep Ann out of it,” Kiley said. “He makes a couple of minor adjustments, which we can help him with, Annie’s name never has to come up.”

  “You okay with that?” I said to Conroy.

  He nodded.

  “You?” Bobby Kiley said to me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m all right with that.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Abner Grove wore a blue polo shirt and tan slacks, loafers with no socks. “Casual day?” I said.

  Grove smiled. “Every day,” he said.

  I looked at Rita.

  “Abner’s so good,” Rita said, “he can get away with pretty much anything he wants to.”

  “He married?” I said.

  “Sadly yes,” Rita said.

  Grove waited patiently while we discussed him.

  Then he said, “A loan to value is one where the bank assumes all risk. I don’t know the details yet of what Soldiers Field and Pequod were doing. It will take years to peel all that away. But here’s how an LTV can work.”

  “LTV?” I said.

  “Loan to value,” Grove said. There was a hint of scorn in his voice.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  Grove frowned for a minute, then went on, as if I hadn’t teased him.

  “I don’t want to keep saying Soldiers Field Development every time,” Grove said, “so we’ll call them Soldier, and we’ll call the bank Pequod. Soldier has some property it wishes, or appears to wish, to develop. It borrows say fifty thousand dollars from Pequod and buys the land. It then flips it.”

  “That is, sells it back and forth,” I said. “With somebody in on the deal.”

  “Yes. Each time inflating the cost and getting a new loan from Pequod to cover it.”

  “Doesn’t the bank get suspicious?” I said.

  “Of course,” Grove said. “Finally, let’s say, Soldier has now inflated the value of this property to a million dollars, and it’s quote unquote owned by their flipping partner. Soldier goes to Pequod for an ADC loan.”

  “Which would be?” I said.

  “Acquisition, development, and construction. They get a loan to value-which is to say that the loan covers all costs, including fees and even interest on the loan for the first two years. There is no down payment.”

  “I’m beginning to see how this might work out,” I said.

  “After a time, Soldier defaults on the loan, government insurance covers the loss, and everybody makes a lot of money.”

  “Doesn’t the government catch on after a while?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes Pequod might sell the loan to a sister institution, which gets it off Pequod’s books, so that when it defaults it defaults on the sister bank.”

  “And what’s the sister bank get out of that?” I said.

  Grove smiled. “Reciprocity,” he said.

  I looked at Rita. She
was wearing a bright green suit today, long jacket, short shirt. Her hair was gleaming. She was leaning back in her chair with her spectacular legs crossed, one foot swinging gently. Her shoes were black.

  “Talk a little about interest rates,” Rita said to Grove.

  “One of the things a bank will do, obviously, to attract depositors is to pay high interest rates. But if you pay too much interest you can’t make a profit.”

  “You have to charge more interest than you pay,” I said.

  “There you go,” Grove said. “You’ll make a banker yet. Pequod paid the highest interest in the area. Significantly higher. Possibly because they were not worried about profit.”

  “Because they were simply Soldier’s vehicle for fraud,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Would the president of Pequod have to know?”

  “Almost certainly,” Grove said. “But that said, once you got your own man in there…”

  “Conroy,” I said.

  He nodded. “Then, while he would know what was going on, he wouldn’t have to be involved. He could just get out of the way and let Conroy run the scam.”

  “How much money are we talking about?” I said.

  Grove shrugged, put his head back, pursed his lips, and thought about it.

  “A hundred million dollars would not be out of the question,” he said.

  Rita said, “Jesus Christ!”

  “People have been killed for less,” I said.

  “Mind you, this is all hypothetical,” Grove said. “We may never prove any of it.”

  “We’re not compelled to prove any of it, About,” Rita said. “We’re only on the hook for defending Mary Smith.”

  “That would be your area,” Grove said.

  “It would,” Rita said.

  “You have questions,” Grove said, “feel free to call me.”

  “I’ll have questions,” I said.

  Grove nodded, still with a hint of scorn, and went out.

  “Grove know his stuff?” I said.

  “He knows everything there is to know about finance law. He knows almost nothing about anything else.”

  “Turned you down?”

  Rita smiled. “Dumb bastard,” she said.

  Rita and I looked at each other for a moment.

  Rita waggled her knees at me.

  “Remember that scene with Sharon Stone?” Rita said.

  “Don’t start with me, Rita. You know how excitable I am.”

  “I’ve always wanted to see you excited,” she said.

  I had nothing really good to say to that so I didn’t say anything.

  “I guess we’ve got Mary Smith out of the deep water,” I said.

  “She did try to conceal a murder,” Rita said.

  “Well, did she,” I said. “She set out to conceal a suicide.”

  “By pretending it was a murder.” Rita smiled. “Which in fact it was,” she said. “I think we can reason with Owen Brooks about that.”

  She swung her foot some more, watching as it moved in a small arc. She smiled at me again.

  “You know,” she said, “Owen’s single again.”

  “A single DA,” I said. “What could be better?”

  “You think Mary knew anything about the bank-fraud enterprise?” Rita said. Sex and business were two sides of the same thing to Rita.

  “I haven’t come across any sign of it,” I said.

  “The murder was the only overlap.”

  “Far as I can see, except for Graff…!”

  “What?” Rita said.

  “Graff. Graff is the only person left standing that could connect Shawcross to the bank fraud and the murders.”

  “What about Conroy?”

  “Shawcross thinks Conroy is waiting for him in Wamego, Kansas,” I said. “Under another name. In another bank.”

  “And Graff is connected to them?”

  “The bank lent him money, interest-free,” I said. “He used his original name, Joey Bucci.”

  “A gift.”

  “Yep.”

  “He did something for Shawcross,” Rita said.

  “You’d think so.”

  “And with Conroy, Shawcross assumes, still his partner and already laying groundwork for a new fraud…”

  “Leaves Graff the only loose end I know about.”

  Again Rita and I looked at each other.

  “I think I better go visit Larson,” I said.

  “Six people have been killed so far,” Rita said.

  “Let’s see if we can hold it at six,” I said.

  “Be a little careful,” Rita said. “I haven’t slept with you yet.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Larson Graff denied that he knew Felton Shawcross, denied that he had introduced Mary Toricelli to Nathan Smith, denied that he had anything to fear, and insisted therefore that he was not afraid. I didn’t believe any of it. “Do me one favor,” I said. “If a man named Felton Shawcross, whom you don’t know, shows up, or calls and wants to see you, lock your doors and call me.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Graff said.

  His face was pale and tight and his mouth moved stiffly when he spoke. I gave him my card.

  “Of course it is,” I said. “So am I. But if Shawcross or anyone else that you don’t know wants to see you, call me.”

  Graff was silent, sitting in his state-of-the-art swivel chair, behind his big maple desk with the red leather top. His Adam’s apple bounced as he swallowed. I stood and walked toward the door. I had my hand on the knob before he spoke.

  “He called,” Graff said.

  I took my hand off the knob and turned, and walked back to Graff’s desk and sat back down in the client chair.

  “Shawcross?” I said.

  “That was the name he said.”

  “Where does he want to meet you,” I said.

  A quick flicker of surprise pushed through Graff’s look of cold panic for a moment.

  “The parking lot at the Blue Hill Trailside Museum.”

  “In Milton,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What time?”

  “Nine,” Graff said. “At night.”

  “The museum closes about five,” I said.

  “I guess so.”

  “So the parking lot will be empty and it’ll be dark,” I said. “Nothing to worry about there.”

  “Would you go with me?” Graff said.

  The valve had opened, and his resolve was running out.

  “Why go at all?” I said.

  “I… I feel I should.”

  “A guy you don’t even know?”

  “Can you go?” Graff said.

  “I’ll go instead,” I said.

  “Instead of me?”

  “Yes. You lend me your car. He thinks it’s you. I jump out and say ah ha!”

  “Maybe it won’t be him,” Graff said.

  “It’ll be him. As I explained so carefully but a few moments ago, you are the only one left, as far as he knows, who can tie him to any of this mess. He isn’t going to send somebody to do it, then that person becomes a threat. He’s going to do it himself.”

  “Do it?”

  “Kill you,” I said.

  Graff leaned suddenly forward in his chair as if he had a stomach cramp.

  “Oh God,” he said.

  “Not to worry,” I said. Soothing. “I can fix it. All you have to do is tell me what you know, and then I’ll handle Shawcross.”

  “You can’t handle him,” Graff said. His voice had become squeaky. “Nobody can handle him.”

  “Tell me what you know,” I said.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  The next morning I went to a place on lower Washington Street that sold what it called “novelties,” and bought one. In the middle of the afternoon, I took my novelty and followed Larson Graff while he drove his black BMW sedan down to Milton and parked in the museum lot at the foot of the Blue Hill. The lot was maybe two-thirds full and Graff parked at the far end
of it, away from the museum, between a Chevy Blazer and a Ford minivan, near the foot of one of the trails leading up into the hill. I parked behind him. He got out. I got out with my novelty and put it on the driver’s seat, then Graff and I got in my car and drove in silence back to Boston. Graff had told me everything he knew yesterday morning in his office with fear singing at the edge of everything he said. Neither of us had much more to say today. In the late afternoon I joined the south-bound commuter traffic and drove back to Milton. I parked on a shoulder on Route 138 about a half mile from the Trailside Museum, took my raincoat from the backseat and carried it with me as I walked on down to the parking lot. I was wearing a replica Boston Braves baseball cap, New Balance running shoes, jeans, a T-shirt, and a Browning 9mm semiautomatic pistol on my belt, with the T-shirt hanging out to be less conspicuous. I had two extra magazines in my hip pocket. There were only three or four cars in the parking lot when I got there. Graff’s BMW sat alone at the far end. I paid it no attention and started up one of the paths near the museum. It was hot and gray and the air was dense with the unculminated promise of heavy rain.

  I went up the narrow trail for maybe 100 yards, turned left out of sight of the parking lot, and worked my way through the humid woods to a point above where Graff’s car was parked. I sat at the base of a large tree, put my back against it, and waited.

  The last stragglers from the museum wandered into the parking lot and got in their cars and departed. Finally, Graff’s BMW was the only one left. As it grew dark, it grew no cooler. It seemed impossible that the atmosphere could still contain the rain that thickened it. In the woods there was the rustle and movement and sound that woods always seem to have. A few pretentious raindrops plopped onto the leaves in the treetops above me. There would be more. I stood and put on my raincoat. I took the Browning out of its holster and put it into the side pocket of the raincoat before I zipped the coat up. A few more raindrops pattered. The scatter was decreasing. Then they were steady. Then, as if the energy that held them had released, they cascaded joyously. I sat as stolidly as I could. Hunching my shoulders didn’t help.

  It was hard to see my watch in the wet darkness, but I think it was ten minutes to nine when a car, maybe a Buick, with its headlights on, swung into the parking lot and drove in a circle around the lot before it parked near Graff’s BMW. The wipers stopped. The headlights went out.