Family Honor - Robert B Parker (23 page)

"This is, I take it, the late Kevin Humphries," I said.
"Yep."

"You know the woman?" I said.

"Nope. You?"

I shook my head.

"Doesn't look anything like your client, does it?" I shook
my head again. Anderson shrugged.

"Who's seen these pictures," I said.

"Mrs. Humphries," Anderson said.

"And maybe a few guys in the station," I said.

"Maybe all the guys in the station," Anderson said. "And
nobody knows the woman?"

"That's what they say," Anderson said. "Just like you."

"Well," I said, "she gets credit for inventive, whoever
she is."

"Yeah. The picture of them in the rocking chair, I'm not
exactly sure what they're doing ... you?"

"Well, not specifically," I said, "though I recognize
the general, ah, thrust."

Anderson smiled.

"You know what I'm betting, Sunny?" he said.

"What?"
 
"I'm betting that you do know who that woman is, and
sooner or later, when it suits with whatever you're working on, that you'll
tell me."

"Really?" I said. "Could I have a copy of these pictures?"

"Sunny," Anderson said, "there's forty-one pictures there.
Evidence in a murder case. You know I can't give you any."

"I only need one," I said. Anderson nodded.

"I got to go wash my hands, Sunny. You better not even
think of taking any of those pictures while I'm gone. 'Cause I got them
counted."

"Okay," I said.

Anderson got up and walked out of his cubicle. I looked
at the stack of photographs. They weren't Polaroids. They were goodquality
color photographs. I counted them. There were forty-two. I selected one
that showed Betty Patton clearly and full face in a completely compromising
pose. I put that picture in my purse and put the other forty-one back in
the envelope, and crossed my legs and folded my hands in my lap. In a couple
of minutes Anderson came back. He walked to his desk, picked up the envelope
and counted the pictures.

"Forty-one," he said. I nodded.

"Does anything about those pictures bother you?" I said.
Anderson grinned at me.

"Aside from that," I said.

"Like who took them?" Anderson said.

"Yes. If they were taking pictures of themselves wouldn't
they set the camera up on a tripod and use some sort of timer or remote?"

"That's what people usually do."

"These pictures are taken from different angles at different
distances," I said. "And some of them seem to have been taken seconds apart
from different angles and distances."

"So maybe there's a third party," Anderson said.

We looked at each other. Neither of us seemed pleased
with the image of a third party with a camera lurking just outside of every
picture.

"I guess there would have to be," I said.

"You suppose Humphries kept that private mailbox for anything
else?" Anderson said.

"Well, he wouldn't want his wife to see these pictures,"
I said. "Did he get other mail there?"

"No."

"How about the handwriting on the envelope?"

"Wife says it's his. Our guy says it matches other samples
of his handwriting."

"So he rented the box to hide these pictures," I said.

"Looks like."

"If it were just his wife why wouldn't he just hide them
in his office? They were separated. She says that she never went there."

"Un huh."

"If the woman in the pictures had money these would be
a good basis for blackmail."

"Your client got money?" Anderson said.

"On the other hand, the picture taker could use them for
the same purpose."

"One wouldn't preclude the other," Anderson said.

"'Preclude', " I said. "Wow."

"Impressive, huh?"

"And accurate," I said. "One would not preclude the other."

"Still be nice to know who the photographer was."

"It couldn't hurt," I said.

"Too bad, I only got forty-one of those pictures," Anderson
said. 'Cause if the broad in the pictures turned out, just by a crazy chance,
to be your client, and you had one of the pictures you might be able to
use it for leverage."

I didn't say anything.

"'Course you gotta wonder," Anderson said, "would a woman
who'd pose for pictures like this care about being blackmailed?"

"Maybe her husband would."

"Or maybe it's just vanity," Anderson said. "Maybe she
told everyone she was a real blond."
 

"Have you ever rowed a boat?" I said.

"No."

Millicent was trying so desperately to balance that she
could barely speak.

"Good," I said. "This is nothing like that, and if you
had you'd just have to unlearn it."

Millicent said "yes" as minimally as possible. She looked
entirely miserable in her yellow life vest.

"Okay, first, just let the oars rest on the water ...
That's right ... Now rock the boat. Go ahead. See how long the oars are?
You can't tip over with the oars spread like that."
 
Millicent shifted her weight a millimeter. The shell
didn't tip.

"Good, now we'll just sit here a bit until you get used
to it. We have as much time as we need. There's no reason to hurry."

We sat. It was early October and everything along the
river near the boat club was still green. Cars moved steadily along the
parkways on both sides of the river. People ran along the sidewalks next
to the river, running the loop around the upper Charles where it bent toward
Watertown, using the Larz Anderson Bridge to cross the river in one direction
and the Eliot Bridge to cross in the other. We stayed in close to shore,
out of the current, just far enough from land to keep the oars from hitting.

"Okay," I said, "see, you're not going to tip over."

"Yet," Millicent said between her teeth.

"Now, when you row, you want the blades to dip in, but
not too deep, and of course to come out of the water entirely, but not
too high. Watch me."

I rowed across the river and back staying where she could
see me without turning. I remembered when I had first learned to row these
boats. It was like sitting on a needle. I knew she wouldn't turn.

"Okay, now look at my hands, see how they are? It's all
in the way you roll your wrist. See? Again. See?"

Millicent nodded very carefully, her head barely moving.
"Now you do it," I said.

"Where shall I row?"

"Just roll your wrists first, see how the blades turn?"
She tried it, rolling her wrists maybe a half an inch.

"Let's practice rolling the wrists so that the oar blades
are vertical, then horizontal, vertical, horizontal, that's right. If you
feel like you're losing your balance just let the oars drop onto the water,
there, yes, like that."

We practiced that for a while. I wasn't having a nice
time. I had housebroken Rosie faster than I was teaching Millicent to row.
But it was the first thing she'd shown any interest in. She'd seen the
college teams rowing on the river and said that it looked like it might
be nice. I had pounced on it like an Ocelot. I used to row, I said, in
college. She said, Really? I said, Yes. She said, Could you teach me. And
here we were.

"It's the legs," I said, "that do the real work in rowing.
You get the push off the big quadriceps. It's why the seat is like that.
See, you lay out over the oars like this and then pull them toward you
while you drive with your legs."

I demonstrated and my rental shell shot halfway across
the river. I returned to her, backstroking, stern first.

"You can try that now. Look around and make sure it's
clear because the first stroke will send you a pretty good distance."

She did as I told her and caught a crab with her right
oar and almost fell out of the boat.

"Oars in the water," I said. "Oars in the water."

She did what I told her. The boat steadied. I looked at
her. Her face was gray with fear and concentration.

"Everybody almost falls in," I said. "Try it again. Remember
about rolling the wrists."

The gun at the small of my back was not appropriate to
singleshell rowing, and I felt like we were two ducks sitting out
there on the river in plain view. But I was goddamned if I was going to
let Cathal Kragan bury us alive. And I was pretty sure he wouldn't be looking
for us out on the river.
 
"Okay," I said, "I'll be right beside you, go ahead,
don't press, let the oars into the water pull, extend your legs, good,
roll the wrists, good."

We slid out across the dark water.

"Again," I said, "pull, push with the quads, roll wrists,
relax. Try it with your eyes closed so that you get the full feel."

I felt like a single mother. It was too much to try and
bring Millicent up and protect her and find the guys who wanted to kill
her and figure out what was going on with her parents. I needed help and
much of the help I needed was the kind that men usually were better at
than women. The kind that Julie couldn't really give. The kind that Spike
was good at, but how fair was it to ask him? The kind that Brian Kelly
could give me, but he was a cop. He had his own agenda. My father? Daddy,
I'm grown up and on my own but could you help me do my job? Richie? No,
I won't sleep with you, but could you risk your life for me? Did getting
help mean selling out? I didn't mind getting help from Julie. Why was I
having the vapors about getting a different kind of help from men? I was
getting really sick of I-amwoman-hear-me-roar. Maybe if you're really
integrated, you asked for the help you needed and got it on your own terms.

"Sunny," Millicent said as we sat side by side in the
middle of the river and let the shells drift, "I'm sick of this. I want
to go home."

Like that.
 

"Did you like the rowing?" I said.

"It's awfully hard," she said.

She rubbed Rosie's chest absently with the toe of her
right foot. "I know, but it's sort of like riding a bicycle. Once you get
the balance, it's not so hard."

"I know, I could feel that."

"Do you think you'll want to do it again?"

"Yes."

I was quiet. Millicent drank some hot chocolate.
 
"Your mother was having an affair with the plumber,"
I said.

"The plumber?

"Yes, the one you said looked like an Italian Stallion."

"Him?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? My mother? Did he tell you that?"

"I found pictures of them."

"Pictures?"

"Yes."

"You mean, dirty pictures? Like I found?"

"Yes."

"Jesus. It's like she sees a camera she yanks off her
clothes."

"Some people like to pose," I said. "With plumbers?"

"Sometimes what seems a drawback to one person seems an
asset to another."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe his being a working-class guy was his appeal."

"Well, it's sick," Millicent said.

"Yes," I said. "It probably is."

I took a deep breath. "We're never going to get to where
we need to go," I said. "If you can't trust me to tell you the truth ...The
plumber was shot to death."

"Shot? You mean murdered?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it was my mother?"

"It happened after she talked with Cathal Kragan about
somebody who would have to be killed."

"But there must have been a bunch of people killed since
then."

"Sixteen," I said. "In Massachusetts. He's the only one
we can connect to your mother."

Millicent looked at me without saying anything for a moment.
The red smudges faded. She shrugged.

"Well, fuck her," she said. "I hate her anyway."