Sudden Mischief

by Robert B. Parker

  "Sean," I said. "Spenser. I need an address."

  "Full name," the voice said, "last name first."

  "Sterling, formerly Silverman, Brad, I assume Bradford."

  "Location?"

  "Greater Boston."

  "Home or business."

  "Home."

  "Please hold."

  Some Klezmer Muzak came on. "Klezmer Muzak?" Hawk said.

  "Sean thinks it's funny," I said.

  "He sounds like a funny guy," Hawk said.

  The Klezmer stopped and the voice came back and read out the phone number and an address in Brighton.

  "Brighton?" I said.

  "Brighton."

  I said thank you and the line went dead. I killed the speaker phone.

  "Chatty bastard," Hawk said.

  "He's a computer geek," I said. "He thinks it makes him seem businesslike."

  I turned the speaker phone back on and called the number in Brighton. After four rings a machine answered.

  "Hi, Brad Sterling. Sorry I'm not here right now, but your call is important to me, so please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can."

  I hung up.

  "Why would he have an unlisted number?" I said.

  "Everybody got unlisted numbers," Hawk said. "It's one of the ways you know you a Yuppie."

  "I suppose you're in the promotion business you don't want people calling you at home," I said. "You in on this deal?"

  "Uh huh."

  "There's nothing in it for either one of us."

  "Susan might like it," Hawk said.

  "Not so far," I said.

  "But she might," Hawk said. "Later on."

  "Maybe," I said.

  "Besides," Hawk said, "I made two hundred thousand last week in Miami, so I can afford to take a few days, and I don't much like people threatening me."

  I did not ask him what he had done in Miami to earn the money.

  "Okay," I said. "Let's go over and burgle Sterling's apartment."

  "What you looking for?"

  "I have no idea," I said.

  "It's a start," Hawk said.

  chapter twenty

  STERLING'S APARTMENT WAS a second-floor walk-up on a middle-class street off Commonwealth Avenue, before you got to Washington Street, just this side of Brookline. Hawk was not impressed. "Maybe Brad ain't as rich as he say."

  We'd come properly equipped, which is a definite advantage for B&E, the pry bar and other things in a red Nike gym bag. It took us about ninety seconds to jimmy the door quietly enough so that nobody stuck their head out into the hall and said "hey"; and neatly enough so that when we closed it behind us the break-in wasn't obvious.

  It was one room and sparsely furnished. Narrow bed, clean sheets, neatly made, table and chair, bureau, bath off one side, no kitchen. A long hook swung out from the back of the door for suits and sport coats to hang on, and a single window looked out on the air shaft. Hawk was even less impressed.

  "Maybe Brad a lot less rich than he say."

  "Maybe he simply prefers Thoreauvian simplicity," I said.

  "Sure," Hawk said. "That probably it."

  "Lucky Susan's not still married to him," I said.

  "She don't prefer Thoreauvian simplicity," Hawk said.

  "No."

  Searching the place wasn't a challenge. Our only problem was that it was so small we got in each other's way. Brad was a neat guy. His socks were carefully rolled. His freshly laundered shirts were organized by color. His spare keys were in a small lacquer box, each key neatly labeled with little plastic tags. There was nothing very interesting about the labels. I put the keys in my coat pocket and put the box back in the drawer. Neckties lay on top of the bureau as neatly as in a haberdashery case. Three pairs of shoes were lined up under the foot of the bed. Under the head of the bed was a working flashlight, and a box which had once contained a pair of Rockport walking shoes. Now it contained a thick bundle of letters, still in their envelopes. Hawk dumped the box out on the bed and we each took a letter. The letters were handwritten in bright purple ink on lavender stationery in what I took to be a female hand. They were all addressed to Brad Sterling at this address. We each read our letter. The salutation was "My darling."

  "If I wasn't such a dangerous and self-contained African American person," Hawk said, "I'd blush."

  "Like me," I said.

  "Just like you, 'cept the flush be darker. You know who writing these letters?"

  "Mine is signed `J,' " I said.

  "Mine too," Hawk said.

  "Could be Jeanette," I said.

  "Like Jeanette Ronan?"

  "Like that," I said. "Or it could be Jane, or Janet, or Jean, or Jenny, or some private lover's nickname that we couldn't even guess."

  "Life be easier if it's Jeanette," Hawk said.

  We read some more letters. All starting "My darling." All of them signed "J."

  "She not too inventive," Hawk said. "But she very concrete."

  "This is less fun than you'd think it would be," I said.

  The room had a stuffy, closed-up feel as we stood reading the mail.

  "You the expert here," Hawk said. "You call these love letters?"

  "She says she loves him," I said.

  "That ain't what she spends her time talking about," Hawk said.

  "It's a white thing," I said.

  In the fifth envelope I picked up, tucked neatly inside the folded stationery, was a Polaroid picture.

  "Jeanette Ronan," I said and held the picture up for Hawk to see. Jeanette was naked, standing smiling in front of a canopied bed.

  "All of Jeanette Ronan," he said. "Guess life going to be easier for once."

  "I wonder who took the picture?" I said.

  "Say in the letter?" Hawk asked.

  I read the letter. It alluded to the picture and was very detailed in what the naked woman pictured had in mind for the recipient. But it didn't tell me who took it.

  "No," I said and handed the letter to Hawk.

  He read it carefully. "You know, I never thought of doing that," he said.

  "Hang around," I said. "You learn."

  "Maybe `My darling' took the picture," Hawk said.

  "It's a Polaroid. If he took it, then why did she mail it to him?"

  "So you think somebody else taking nudies of her?" Hawk said. "And she mailing them to `My darling'?"

  "That may be the definition of depravity," I said.

  "Or thrift," Hawk said. "Two for one."

  "Sometimes your cynicism achieves Shakespearean resonance," I said.

  "Coming from you," Hawk said, "that a real compliment."

  We continued through the letters. We found three more photographs of Jeanette Ronan nude. No useful explanation in the letters, though the pictures were mentioned. When we got through, we put everything back the way it was and closed up the shoebox. I put the shoebox in the gym bag.

  "Look like sexual harassment to you?" Hawk said.

  "Maybe she's harassing him," I said.

  "How many straight single guys you know feel harassed by getting nude pictures of good-looking women in the mail?" Hawk said.

  "Just a thought," I said.

  There was a phone on the top of the bureau with an answering machine beside it. I went over and pushed the all-message play button. The first message began without preamble.

  "Brad you sonovabitch," a woman's voice said. "You either send the goddamned support payment or I swear to Christ I'll have you back in court."

  "Reach out and touch somebody," Hawk said.

  "Hi Brad," another woman's voice. "It's Lisa. I'm feeling neglected. Call me."

  We listened to all thirteen calls, the mechanical machine voice announcing time and day of call after each one. The calls spanned at least a week. Two were from the Brighton branch of DePaul Federal Savings asking him to please call. One was from an outfit called Import Credit Company in regard to his car lease payment, please call. There was a call from the Cask and Carafe Win
e Shop saying that his check had been returned and asking when he could come in and settle his account. Another angry call about money. Another call from Lisa, this one more urgently wondering why he hadn't called. "I don't want to think I'm just another notch on your gun," she said. Five other calls from women following up on a recent evening, or looking forward to one in the offing.

  I wrote down all the names.

  "Brad seems to have mixed success with women," I said.

  "But not from lack of trying," Hawk said.

  "And he's living in one room in Brighton," I said, "and not paying his bills."

  "So, unless he very thrifty," Hawk said, "the story he told Susan is right."

  "Sounds near dissolution to me," I said.

  "You find an address book anywhere?" Hawk said.

  "No."

  "Checkbook?"

  "Nope."

  "Maybe his office," Hawk said.

  I reached in my coat pocket and took out the keys and found the one marked office.

  "Maybe," I said.

  chapter twenty-one

  THE FIRST THING we noticed when we went into Sterling's office was the smell. Hawk and I looked at each other. We both knew what it was. I closed the office door behind us and fumbled for the light switch, and found it to the right of the door, and turned on the lights. There was nothing unusual in the outer office. The door to Sterling's private office was closed. As I opened it I was already dreading what I'd find, and dreading telling Susan about it. I turned on the lights. The body was there, facedown on the rug in front of Sterling's desk, a wide black soak of blood showing on the rug under him, the head turned at an angle only death permitted. I turned on the light. The smell was bad. The body had begun to bloat. I didn't want to look. I held my breath and went and squatted on my heels and looked at the face. It wasn't much of a face anymore. It wasn't much of anything anymore. But it wasn't Sterling. I stood and breathed again, trying not to breathe through my nose. "Not Sterling," I said.

  "Anybody we know."

  "I don't know him."

  Hawk bent over and stared at the corpse for a moment.

  "Nope," he said and walked to the desk and turned on the lamp.

  "We're going to have to toss the place," I said.

  "I know."

  "I'll take this office," I said. "You do the outer."

  "You know what you're looking for?" Hawk said.

  "Clues."

  I took two pairs of disposable latex gloves from the Nike bag and gave one pair to Hawk. We put them on. There was a computer on Sterling's desk. I turned it on. It was a Mac, like Susan's. I clicked open the hard drive. There were twenty-six items on the hard drive including a folder marked "Addresses." I opened the drawers in Sterling's desk and found some blank disks. I put one in the computer and copied the hard disk onto it. I put the copy on the desk and shut off the computer. I went through Sterling's desk. I concentrated on breathing through my mouth, and on avoiding eye contact with the corpse. I found no checkbook. The bottom right drawer had a lock. I found a key for it among the ones I'd taken from Sterling's apartment. In the drawer was a narrow case made of gray translucent plastic. In the case were a dozen disks. I took the case out of the drawer and left the drawer unlocked. I added the copy of the hard disk I had made and put the whole thing in the Nike bag on the desktop. I got on my hands and knees and looked under the desk. I turned the desk chair upside down and looked at the underside of it. I rummaged through the wastebasket. I ran my hand over the door frame and felt under the edges of the rug. Feeling under the rug got me closer to the corpse than I wanted to be. I stood up and went and checked the windows. They didn't open. I paused in a corner of the office away from the corpse and surveyed the room. It was a suspended ceiling and a thorough search would include looking behind it, and in the ventilation ducts. But that was too much time invested for what it was likely to earn me. I wanted to see what I had on the disks and I didn't want any cops showing up and taking them away from me. I went to the desk and got the Nike bag and detoured around the corpse into the outer office.

  "Anything?" I said.

  Hawk was sitting on Patti's desk, still wearing the sanitary gloves.

  "Usual stuff," Hawk said. "Invoices, receipts, letters, promotional material. Only thing interesting is what I didn't find."

  "Which is?"

  "Civil Streets," Hawk said. "There is nothing with their name on it. No file, no letters, no bills, nothing. You find his checkbook?"

  "No."

  "So wherever he went, he took it with him."

  "Yep, and we know he's got one because one of those phone messages was about a bounced check."

  "How you feeling?" Hawk said.

  "I haven't thrown up yet," I said.

  "Good to work with a pro."

  "Even better to work out here where the smell isn't as strong," I said.

  "Okay. There's that," Hawk said. "You want to wipe down the door knobs and the light switches."

  "No. It's reasonable that my fingerprints would be there."

  "You calling the cops?"

  "Yes."

  "Law abiding," Hawk said.

  I took off the gloves and dropped them into the Nike bag. I put the spare keys in there too, except the one for the office.

  "Hang onto these," I said.

  "Law abiding, but not crazy," Hawk said.

  "I'll be in touch," I said. "When the cops get through yelling at me."

  Hawk smiled, took the Nike bag, and went out the office door, leaving it open behind him. I waited five minutes for him to clear the building, then I dialed up Martin Quirk.

  chapter twenty-two

  I SAT IN Patti's chair in the outer office for maybe an hour and a half waiting for Quirk to get to me. Quirk hadn't changed much since he made captain. He still showed up at most crime scenes. He spent too much time investigating and too little time managing the department, which was why it took him so long to make captain in the first place, and why a lot of the hierarchy wanted to replace him. And I knew that he cleared more cases than any commander in the department, which was why the hierarchy couldn't replace him. If Quirk knew any of this, he paid no attention to it. Finally it was my turn.

  "You know how to give a statement," Quirk said. "Christ knows you've done enough of them."

  He and I were sitting together in the outer office, Quirk on the corner of Patti's desk, me still in her chair, which was too small. Quirk's employees had photographed the corpse and now were dusting for fingerprints, and measuring, and sampling, and poking, and studying. A team from the coroner's office finished getting the remains into a body bag and onto a gurney. They trundled it past us as we sat, leaving behind only the blood-stained rug, a chalk outline, and the strong smell.

  "Well," I said. "First of all you'll find my fingerprints on the door and the light switches and the phone."

  "I sort of guessed that," Quirk said. "And I'm also guessing that we won't find them anywhere else."

  "Of course not," I said.

  "Which will not mean that you didn't touch anything else."

  "Boy, have you gotten cynical," I said, "since you made captain."

  Quirk rarely smiled, and he didn't this time, but his gaze, which was always steady, rested on me a little more lightly than it sometimes did.

  "Go on," he said. "Tell me your story."

  So I did, as best as I could, since I didn't understand it too well myself. I left out any mention of searching Sterling's apartment. Quirk listened without expression. His thick hands rested quietly on his thighs. He always dressed well. Tonight he had on a blue tweed jacket and a white button-down shirt with a blue knit tie and gray slacks. He never needed a haircut. He always looked clean-shaven. His shirts were always freshly laundered. His plain toe cordovan shoes were always shined. When I got through explaining myself, Quirk was silent for a time.

  Then he said, "Susan's ex-husband?"

  "Yes."

  He was silent again for a time. Then he shook h
is head slowly. I shrugged.

  "And this is his office," Quirk said after a while. "To which he gave you a key."

  "Yes."

  "Because he thought it might be convenient for you to come here and let yourself in."

  "Right," I said.

  Quirk looked at me some more.

  "We both know that's horseshit," he said. "But we also know that's all you're going to say until there's reason to say something else."

  "Captain, you can't mean that," I said.

  "I know you long enough to know how many corners you'll cut," Quirk said. "But I also know you end up most of the time on the right side of the way things work out."

  I looked at him openly and honestly and didn't say anything.

  "And"-Quirk almost smiled-"you got enough problems for the moment." He shook his head. "Susan's ex. Jesus Christ."

  "You don't know who the stiff is?" I said.

  "White male."

  "Driver's license, anything?"

  Quirk almost made a face.

  "Coroner's people will go through the body," he said.

  "Don't blame you," I said. "Coroner say anything about time of death."

  "A while ago," Quirk said. "They get him to the lab, they'll be more exact."

  "Cause of death?"

  "Gunshot. Probably a small caliber. In the chest, doesn't seem to be an exit wound. We assume it's still in him."

  "So he was facing whoever shot him."

  "Yep. And he was carrying. When they were getting him in the bag there was a gun under him. Colt Python."

  "So he had it out," I said.

  "Not quite soon enough," Quirk said.

  "So maybe he wasn't just somebody stopped by to organize an event," I said.

  "Lot of people carry guns these days," Quirk said.

  "The American way," I said. "You'll let me know when you get an ID?"

  "Sure," Quirk said. "That's how we like to operate. We tell you everything we know. You bullshit us. You don't know where your client is now, I suppose."

  "No I don't."

  "You find out maybe you could give me a jingle?"

  "Of course," I said.

  Quirk did not look as if he believed me entirely.