Widow’s Walk (7 page)

“I’m going to drop in on Felton Shawcross,” I said. “At Soldiers Field Development.”

“Good,” Hawk said without shifting his focus.

“Want to go?”

“Sure. They still tailing you?”

“Not unless they’ve gotten better at it.”

“Figure Brink Tyler was the one they was worried about?”

“Yes.”

“So now that you seen him they don’t see no reason to follow you?”

“Maybe. Or maybe they are going to try another approach now that I’ve confronted the followers.”

“So you going to go straight over there and present yourself, case they do want to take other measures.”

“Yes.”

“Which be why you inviting me along.”

“Yes.”

“We doing it to get even?” Hawk said.

“We’re doing it because, right at the moment, I don’t know what else to do,” I said.

“There’s a surprise,” Hawk said.

An hour later, showered and dressed and looking like two million dollars each, we walked into the reception area of Soldiers Field Development and gave my name and asked for Felton Shawcross.

“A moment, please,” the receptionist said.

She looked at Hawk as if hoping for his name, too. Hawk didn’t respond. She excused herself and went through a door behind her desk and in a few moments came back along with a tall guy in a blue suit. He eyed Hawk as he approached.

“My name’s Hatfield,” he said to me. “What did you wish to see Mr. Shawcross about?”

“Nathan Smith,” I said.

Hatfield frowned. “Who?”

“Hard name,” I said. “Nathan Smith.”

“Does Mr. Shawcross know Mr. Smith?”

“Doesn’t everybody,” I said.

Hatfield frowned again, and stood for a minute. He appeared to be thinking.

“I’ll check with Mr. Shawcross,” he said.

I nodded at the receptionist.

“I thought she already did that,” I said.

“She checked with me,” Hatfield said.

He had a thin sharp face. He looked formidable when he frowned. Which is probably why he frowned.

“And you are?”

“I’m the director of internal security,” he said.

I looked at Hawk. He grinned.

“Internal security,” he said.

“Wait here,” Hatfield said and went back through the door behind the reception desk. Hawk and I went through it right behind him. He turned and started to say something. Hawk hit him with his left fist and Hatfield fell over backward. We were in a corridor. There were offices along the corridor. At the end of the corridor was a glass door that said FELTON SHAWCAOSS in black letters. We went in. Shawcross was sort of a fleshy guy with his black hair slicked back. He was wearing a charcoal pin-striped suit and a black shirt with matching satin silk tie. His face was wide and his mouth was small under his big nose.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he said.

“I believe we are bursting into your office uninvited,” I said.

He leaned back in his chair. “Where’s Hatfield?” he said.

“My associate persuaded him to let us in,” I said.

Shawcross nodded.

“Well,” he said. “You’re in. What do you want?”

Hawk leaned against the wall next to the door. I stood in front of the desk.

“Why are you worried about me talking with Brinkman Tyler?” I said.

“Tyler?”

“Tyler. You had people following me for days until I talked with Tyler, then they made a move on me.”

“I didn’t have anyone follow you,” Shawcross said.

Behind me I heard people come through Shawcross’s door. I glanced back. Hatfield was one of them. The right side of his face was already starting to swell. With him were three other guys in blue suits.

“Internal security,” Hawk said.

I said, “You think?”

Hawk grinned.

“You all right, Mr. Shawcross?” Hatfield said.

“I’m fine,” Shawcross said. “Before you throw them out, let’s hear what these gentlemen have to say.”

Hawk stayed by the door. The Internal Security Squad ranged along the wall on the other side of the room. I took a seat in a green leather chair with little brass studs showing on the face of the arms. I crossed my legs and admired my ankle for a moment.

“Nathan Smith has been murdered,” I said. “His wife has been accused of the crime. I’ve been employed by her law firm to clear her.”

“If she didn’t do it,” Shawcross said.

“I’m not sure the law firm cares,” I said. “But I do. We don’t have to be silly here, right? Since Nathan Smith is listed on your board of directors, we’ll agree that you know him and since you are on his wife’s invitation list we’ll agree that you know her.”

“Agreed,” Shawcross said.

He was not a nervous guy. From their respective walls Hawk and the security squad were looking at each other.

“So as soon as I get hired onto this thing, I pick up a tail. My associate, Mr. Hawk, here, followed the tail back to this building. The tail was driving a car registered to this company.”

Shawcross nodded, and said, “Um hm.”

“I didn’t do anything about the tail,” I said. “Because I wanted to see if I could figure out why you were tailing me.”

“It was not necessarily me,” Shawcross said.

“Yesterday I talked with a guy named Brinkman Tyler, and after I finished, the tail made a pass at me.”

“A pass?”

“They assaulted me,” I said. “Wanted to know what I had talked with Tyler about.”

“Really?” Shawcross said. “Did you tell them?”

“No.”

“If you’re trying to clear Mary Smith of her husband’s murder, why are you talking to his broker?”

“Gotta talk to someone,” I said. “Did you do any business with Nathan Smith?” I said.

“Business?”

“You develop real estate. He has mortgage money. He’s on your board.”

“It would be inappropriate for him to lend money to a business he was involved with,” Shawcross said.

“How involved was he?”

“Not,” Shawcross said. “His presence on the board was a titular formality. But the bank regulators would frown on it nonetheless.”

“So why have you been following me?”

“I know nothing of anyone following you. Do you know about that, Curtis?”

Hatfield frowned. It was harder now that his cheek was puffy, but he managed.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“Do your employees have access to the company cars?” I said.

“They’re not supposed to,” Shawcross said. “You know anything about this, Curtis?”

“No.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do much for you, Mr. Spenser,” Shawcross said. “I’ll certainly look into your charges, and inform you if we find anything substantial.”

“I know you will,” I said.

“In the meantime,” Shawcross said, “should you feel inclined to barge in here again, you will be apprehended and held for the police.”

“We’re fairly hard to apprehend,” I said. “Aren’t we, Mr. Hawk.”

“Heavens, yes,” Hawk said.

“I don’t intend to get into a pissing contest with you,” Shawcross said. “I think we have nothing else to discuss.”

“Until next time,” I said.

No one else said anything as Hawk and I walked out of the office and down the corridor. As we passed through the reception area Hawk winked at the receptionist. She smiled.

“Mary Toricelli,” she said. “Name doesn’t ring a bell. A lot of students passed through here in thirty-five years.”

“Class of 1989,” I said. “Used to date a boy named Roy Levesque.”

“Him I remember,” Mrs. Graffino said. “He was in here a lot.”

“Why?”

“Bad kid. Stole. Peddled dope. Cheated. Bullied any kids he could. I believe he dropped out without graduating.”

“We all cheated,” I said.

Mrs. Graffino smiled. “I know, but we’re still required to condemn it.”

“How about friends.”

“Roy’s? Or Mary’s?”

“Either.”

“I can give you class lists,” she said.

“Two years on either side?”

“‘Eighty-seven through ’ninety-one? Are you going to harass these people?”

“No. I’m just going to ask them pleasantly about Mary and Roy.”

“And you’re trying to clear Mary of a murder charge?”

“Yes.”

“And you are working for a law firm?”

“Yes. Cone Oakes.”

“Is there someone I could call?”

“Sure.” I gave her Rita Fiore’s number.

She said, “Excuse me,” called it and talked with Rita and hung up.

“I needed to be sure,” she said.

She got up and went around to her office door and spoke to the secretary. Then she came back and sat.

“It’ll only be a minute,” she said. “Computers, you know, they’ve revolutionized record-keeping.”

“I’m going to get one soon,” I said.

“They’re here to stay,” she said.

Her phone rang. She excused herself again and answered. While she talked I thought how schools always felt like schools when you went in them. Even full grown and far removed, when I went in one I felt the old hostility again. While Mrs. Graffino spoke on the phone, the secretary came in with several pages of printout and put them on Mrs. Graffino’s desk. She mouthed “thank you” to the secretary, pushed the printouts toward me, and nodded. I picked them up. Another list. About 1,200 names long. We never sleep.

“I should be wearing a sleeveless undershirt,” I said.

“The notorious wife-beater undershirt,” Susan said.

“Like Brando,” I said. “In Streetcar.”

“Wasn’t he a wonderful actor?” Susan said.

“No,” I said. “I always thought he seemed mannered and self-aware.”

“Really?”

“Can’t help it,” I said.

“But he was so beautiful.”

“Didn’t do much for me,” I said.

A woman with shoulder-length gray hair walked by in hiking boots and short shorts. Her companion was tall and bald with a combover.

“How you feeling?” I said to Susan.

“Like I failed.”

“The kid who killed himself?”

“Yes. I’m supposed to prevent those things.”

“Didn’t someone say something about the tyrannical ”supposed to’s“?”

“Karen Horney,” Susan said. “The tyrannical shoulds.”

A guy walked past wearing a seersucker suit and one of those long-billed boating caps. He had a tan mongrel on a leash. The mongrel was wearing a red kerchief.

“Stylish,” I said.

Susan nodded. Pearl lay between us on the top step with her head on her paws. The mongrel spotted Pearl and barked at her. Pearl’s hearing wasn’t much anymore. She glanced at the source of what must have been a dim sound, and growled a little without raising her head. Susan patted her absently.

“My office was the only place he was safe,” Susan said. “His parents were appalled that he was gay. His schoolmates were cruel. He had no friends.”

I didn’t say anything.

“He could only be who he was in my office.”

I nodded.

“I couldn’t help him to change who he was. I couldn’t help him to accept who he was. All I could accomplish, finally, for a few hours a week, was to provide a temporary refuge.”

“Not enough,” I said.

“No.”

My beer was gone. I got up and went to the kitchen and got a jar of olives and another beer. I was trying Heineken again. A blast from the past. Susan was having another micro sip of her martini when I came back and sat down beside her. It was still warm, in the evening. The air had begun to turn faintly blue as the darkness came toward us. There was no wind. I plunked a fresh olive into Susan’s martini. She smiled at me.

“If they have something somewhere,” Susan said. “If they are loved at home. If they have a circle of friends. But if it’s no good at home and it’s no good at school… Goddamn it.”

“No place to hide,” I said.

“No place.”

“Any theories why people are such jerks about it?” I said.

Susan shrugged.

“Nature of the beast,” she said.

“There is a high jerk count among the general populace,” I said. “Present company, of course, excluded.”

Four girls from Radcliffe went past us in various stages of undress. They all talked in that fast, slightly nasal way that well-bred young women talked around here.

“Living in a college town is not a bad thing,” I said.

Susan watched silently as the girls passed. She sipped her martini. I could hear her breathing.

“We are both in a business,” I said, “where we lose people.”

“I know.”

“A wise therapist once told me that you can’t really protect anyone, that sooner or later they have to protect themselves.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes.”

“After you lost Candy Sloan?”

“Yes.”

“I am wise.”

“Good-looking, too,” I said.

“But god-damn it…” she said.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t feel bad when you lose one.”

Susan nodded.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Feel bad.”

Susan nodded again.

“I’ve been fighting it,” she said.

“And losing,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Give in to it. Feel as bad as you have to feel. Then get over it.”

Susan stared at me for a while. Then she put her head against my shoulder. We sat for a time watching the street traffic. I listened to her breathing.

“That what you do?”

“Yes.”

“Even after Candy Sloan?”

“Yes.”

She fished another olive from the jar and put it in her martini. She had already drunk nearly a fifth of it.

“And,” I said, “there’s always you and me.”

“I know.”

A squirrel ran along Susan’s front fence and up a fat oak tree and disappeared into the thick foliage. Pearl followed it with her eyes but didn’t raise her head.

“You’re a good therapist,” Susan said after a while.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “Maybe we should open a joint practice.”

With her head still against my shoulder Susan patted my thigh.

“Maybe not,” Susan said.