Widow’s Walk (13 page)

“B and E?” Hawk said.

“Might as well,” I said. “Practice makes perfect.”

Hawk handed me the flat bar, and in we went. There was no air-conditioning. The building was hot. The furniture was still in place. But no one was using it. We walked down the corridor to the back office where Felton Shawcross had sat. The corridor was dim. There were no lights on. There was a bank of file cabinets across the right wall of Shawcross’s office. I opened a drawer. It was empty. I opened them all. They were empty. Hawk looked in Shawcross’s desk. It was empty. He picked up the phone.

“Dial tone,” he said.

I tried a light switch. The lights went on.

“Didn’t bother to cancel anything,” I said.

We went methodically down the row of offices that lined each side of the long corridor. All of them were empty. All of the files were empty. The only things in the desk drawers were a few Bic pens, some blank paper, some rubber bands, paper clips, staples, and pads of yellow stick ‘em paper to draw smiley faces on.

“Didn’t leave no paper trail,” Hawk said. “Maybe they skipping out on the utility bills.”

“Probably it,” I said.

We had worked our way down the corridor and were standing in the reception area. There was no place else to look.

“On the wall in the men’s room it say for a good time call 555-1212,” Hawk said.

“Probably a clue,” I said.

A mailman in blue shorts came in carrying a packet of mail held together by a wide rubber band. He looked around.

“You guys moving out?” he said.

“Just rehabbing,” I said. “Closed for a couple of weeks.”

“You oughta notify us, fill out a form, have us hold your mail until you’re back in business.”

“What a very good idea,” I said. “My man here will be down to the post office later today to fill out the documents.”

“It’s just a form,” the mailman said. “What do I do with this mail?”

“I’ll take it,” I said.

He handed me the mail and left.

“My man be down to the post office?” Hawk said.

“I’m cleaning up my act,” I said. “There was a time I would have said my boy.”

“I love a liberal,” Hawk said.

I took the mail over to the reception desk and went through it with Hawk looking over my shoulder. We went through it twice. Each of us. To make sure we hadn’t missed anything. There was nothing to miss. People like this didn’t do business by mail. When we were through I left the mail in a neat pile on the reception desk.

“The more we look, the more there’s nothing there,” Hawk said.

I sat back in the receptionist chair and leaned back against the spring.

“We keep getting there just afterwards,” I said.

“Getting where?” Hawk said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Least they didn’t shoot nobody and leave them for us.”

“No.”

“Maybe there ain’t no one left to shoot,” Hawk said.

I was rocked back, looking at the Celotex ceiling tiles, my hands laced over my chest.

“Ann Kiley,” I said.

“Ann Kiley?”

“She was DeRosa’s lawyer.”

“S.”

“She’s got no business representing a stiff like DeRosa.”

“Nice choice of words,” Hawk said.

I shrugged.

“If DeRosa was killed so we wouldn’t find out anything from him, what are the chances that his lawyer would know what that is?”

“The chances are good,” Hawk said. “And even if they aren’t, the people who killed DeRosa might think they were.”

I came forward in the spring-back chair, letting my feet hit the ground. I pointed my finger at Hawk and dropped my thumb like the hammer on a gun.

“Let’s go see her,” I said. “Right now.”

“So we won’t be afterwards again?”

“So that,” I said.

I introduced Hawk when we came in, and they eyed each other, evaluating potential.

“So where’s Harbaugh’s office?” I said when we were seated.

Ann pointed toward the ceiling.

“Big firm in the sky,” she said.

“So this place is really Kiley and Kiley.”

“Yes. But the name was familiar, so we decided to leave it.”

I could tell, as she spoke, that she was aware of Hawk. Silent, as he often was, there was still a lot of Hawk.

“Did you know that Jack DeRosa was murdered?” I said.

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

“About DeRosa’s death?”

“Yes.”

“No one should be murdered,” she said.

“Are you in danger?”

Hawk stood and walked to the window and looked out.

“Danger? Why would I be in danger?”

“Because I’m pretty sure DeRosa was killed to shut him up, and if he talked with you, they might feel they had to shut you up, too.”

“That’s absurd,” Ann Kiley said. “I was Jack’s attorney. Nothing more.”

I looked at Hawk. She saw me look and turned and looked at him, too. Hawk smiled.

“You fuck around with this,” Hawk said, “and they gonna kill you, too.”

She was tough, but it rocked her. Hawk saying it made it somehow more forceful. I have often wondered how he got that effect, and have concluded that it is because he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care if she believes him. Doesn’t care if they kill her, too. She was too contained to show it much, but there was a faint look of strain around her eyes and in the way her mouth compressed.

“I have no idea,” she said, “what either of you is talking about.”

There was a short knock on her office door, and it opened immediately and Bobby Kiley walked in. He closed the door behind him.

“I’d like to sit in,” he said to his daughter.

“I don’t think I need any help,” Ann Kiley said.

“I’ll sit in anyway,” Kiley said. “How are you, Spenser?”

“Fine, Bobby. Nice to see you.”

He walked over to Hawk and put out a hand.

“Bobby Kiley,” he said.

“Hawk.”

Kiley nodded and walked back to sit in a chair beside me. He was a handsome guy with white hair and one of those slightly hollow-cheeked Irish faces.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Bobby,” Ann said, “why are you here?”

“I know this guy.” He nodded at me. “I know somebody killed a guy we represent.”

“I can handle this myself,” Ann said.

Kiley shrugged and stayed where he was.

“You know Nathan Smith?” I said.

“Know of him,” Kiley said. “Know he was murdered.”

“I was hired by Cone Oakes to investigate his death,” I said.

Kiley nodded. Ann Kiley sat perfectly still. She looked like she was insulted by her father’s intervention. But she also didn’t look strained around the mouth and eyes anymore.

“Rita,” Kiley said.

“Yep.”

“Hell of a lawyer,” Kiley said.

“And when I started looking into the matter,” I said, “people started to die. A woman at Smith’s bank committed suicide. Smith’s broker was killed in a hit-and-run. A kid named Kevin McGonigle tried to kill me.”

“Heard about that,” Kiley said. “You got him first.”

“Then Jack DeRosa got shot and his girlfriend with him.”

“Our client,” Kiley said.

“Ann represented him.”

“And?”

“And that’s too many people dying in the same case.”

“I agree,” Kiley said. “So?”

“So Smith is on the board of a company named Soldiers Field Development, which had some of its employees following me after I started the case. We talked with them, and this morning we went out to talk with them again. They had packed up and left.”

“Suspicious,” Kiley said.

“There’s a guy who came in as Smith’s partner at the bank not too long before Smith was shot. Guy named Marvin Conroy.”

Kiley frowned a little. As if the name meant something.

“Marvin Conroy is an acquaintance of your daughter’s.”

Kiley glanced neutrally at Ann. “Yeah?”

“And Ann was representing DeRosa when he told us that Mary Smith hired him to kill her husband.”

“This is all very interesting,” Kiley said. “But I was hoping you might sort of get around to why you are here talking to my daughter.”

“This is the preeminent criminal law practice in the city. Maybe on the East Coast. What the hell are you doing with Jack DeRosa?”

“He was Ann’s client,” Kiley said. “Ask her.”

“That’s where we were when you came in,” I said.

Kiley smiled and didn’t say anything.

“So,” I said to Ann, “how’d you come to represent DeRosa?”

“I decline to discuss my clients with you,” she said.

“Tell me,” Kiley said.

“Bobby,” his daughter said, “I am not going to talk about this with these men.”

“I want to know, Ann.”

Father and daughter stared at each other. I stayed quiet. Hawk leaned placidly against the wall, looking at the view. Then Kiley shifted his gaze to me.

“There any connection between this guy Marvin Conroy and DeRosa?”

“Conroy was in the bank with Smith,” I said. “DeRosa was asked to kill Smith.”

“That’s hardly a connection,” Kiley said.

“Yet,” I said.

Kiley shifted his glance to Hawk. “I been in the criminal defense business for a long time,” Kiley said. “I know what he does.”

“And well,” I said.

“He watching your back?”

“Yes.”

“So this is serious business,” Kiley said, probably to himself more than to me. He pointed his chin at Ann Kiley. “You think she’s in danger?”

Ann said, “I’m not a she. My name is Ann.”

I nodded. “I think Ann’s in danger,” I said.

Kiley said, “What do you think, Ann?”

“I think it’s preposterous,” she said.

“No,” Kiley said. “I know this guy. He thinks you’re in danger, we need to take it seriously.”

“For God’s sake, Bobby-”

“And cut the Bobby shit, for the moment. It’s fine while we’re colleagues, but I’m also your father, and I want to know what the fuck is going on. How come we represented Jack DeRosa?”

Ann Kiley’s face got very tight, and colorless. Her jaw clamped, but do what she would, she couldn’t stop it. She began to cry. She stood and walked to the window and stood beside Hawk and looked out. Her shoulders shook, though not very much. In the quiet room we could hear the stifled sound of her fight for control. Bobby Kiley didn’t move. Hawk looked at me. I looked at Hawk. We decided that quiet was the way to go.

After a time Ann turned from the window. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were red and her face was stiff. She leaned her hips against the window ledge and folded her arms and looked straight at her father.

“I’m having an affair with Marvin Conroy,” she said.

Kiley nodded. Ann Kiley took in a long slow breath with a hint of vibrato.

“It’s a serious affair,” she said.

Kiley nodded again. Ann tightened her folded arms as if she were hugging herself in a cold place.

“He asked me to help him,” she said. “He was in trouble.”

Nobody said anything. The phone rang on Ann Kiley’s desk. Bobby Kiley picked it up and said, “No calls,” and hung up.

“He asked me if I could find him someone to pretend something. He said I was a criminal lawyer, and I should be able to find someone.”

“And you found DeRosa,” Bobby Kiley said.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I was doing my annual pro bono, for the public defender’s office, as required by the firm, and I drew DeRosa, some sort of auto theft, I believe.”

“So when Conroy wanted a mug you remembered DeRosa.”

Kiley appeared calm. He seemed entirely focused on the questions he was asking and the answers he was getting.

“And Marvin asked me to be DeRosa’s lawyer, this time, too, to see that he stayed on message.”

“The message being?”

“That Mary Smith had approached him to kill her husband.”

“Which was not true,” Kiley said.

“No. I don’t believe it was.”

Kiley sat back in his chair. Hawk and I remained where we were.

Ann Kiley said, “Daddy.”

Kiley stood and went to her and opened his arms and she fell against him and began to cry. As he hugged her, he looked at me.

“We can talk later,” he said.

“You will need security for her,” I said.

“I know,” Kiley said. “I can arrange that.”

“There’s more I need to know,” I said.

“She’s got nothing else to say,” Kiley said.

“I think she does,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter what you think,” Kiley said.

“How’s your lawsuit?” I said.

“I think the insurance company plans to settle,” Susan said.

“Thus leaving you neither vindicated nor convicted.”

“But they’ll probably cancel afterwards,” she said.

“Insurance companies are fun,” I said. “Aren’t they.”

Susan nodded. She dipped into her coffee, her big eyes gazing at the road across the top of the cup.

“And the boy is still dead,” she said.

“And it’s still not your fault,” I said.

She was quiet, her face still half hidden by the coffee. In the backseat Pearl snored occasionally, the way she had begun to do as she got older.

“Fault has little to do with sadness,” Susan said. “One of the things that helps kids get through the difficulty of being a gay adolescent is to have someone. I don’t mean a shrink. But a friend, a lover, someone. But the thing they need help with prevents them from getting it.”

“Because they’re too conflicted about being homosexual,” I said.

“I hate that word,” Susan said into her cup.

“Homosexual?”

“Yes.”

“Too clinical?”

“Makes me think of grim men in lab coats,” Susan said. “Studying a pathology.”

I had nothing to say about that, and decided in this case to try saying nothing. Susan drank her coffee. I drank mine.

“Where’s Hawk?” Susan said.

“I thought we’d have Sunday alone together.”

“Except for the baby.”

“Except for her.”

“Is it safe?”

“Even without Hawk,” I said, “I am not an amateur.”

“True,” Susan said. “Have you ever considered that your person might have been suicidal?”

“Nathan Smith?”

“Yes. A closeted gay man. Trying to pretend.”

“There was no gun,” I said.

“Too bad, he so fit the profile. A life spent in deception, finally too much.”

I shrugged.

“How are you with this kid’s death?” I said.

“I’ve gone over every therapy session ten times.”

“You remember them all?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And I did what there was to do,” Susan said.

“And better than most people could have,” I said.

“How do you know,” Susan said. “You’ve never been in therapy with me.”

I smiled.

“Why, this is therapy,” I said. “Nor am I out of it.”

“Hamlet?” Susan said.

“Mephistopheles,” I said.

“Who?”

“Marlowe,” I said. “Doctor Faustus.”

“Smarty-pants.”

“So how come I can’t figure out what’s going on with the Nathan Smith thing?”

“I’ll bet you could if Christopher Marlowe did it.”

“A slam dunk,” I said.

“Have you thought about what kind of woman marries a gay man?” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“Do you have a conclusion?”

“No. I can’t figure her out.”

“Maybe you need to,” Susan said. “Maybe you need to find out more about Mr. Smith’s life as a gay man. Maybe you need to find out why Mrs. Smith married him.”

“A tip?” I said. “A crime-stopper tip?”

“Two tips,” Susan said. “I have a Ph.d. from Harvard.”

“A hotbed of crime-stopping,” I said.

“A hotbed,” Susan said.

We drove on to Newburyport. Susan shopped. Pearl and I stood outside each shop, and waited. Pearl slept in the car while we ate lunch at the Black Cow. Susan and Pearl and I went for a walk on the beach at Plum Island. None of us talked about business for the rest of the day.