Rough Weather

by Robert B. Parker

“Pre-nup, Lessard’s will,” Epstein said. “It’s all in there in more detail than you’d ever want. From the moment of marriage, Adelaide and Maurice became each other’s primary heir. And no matter what the family does later, each is entitled to the estate as it existed at the time of marriage.”

  “And the Lessard lawyers bought that?” I said.

  “Lawyers can only do what the client will agree to,” Epstein said. “Far as I can see, the Lessards thought they were marrying up. They probably thought the arrangement was in their favor.”

  I picked up the folder. It was thick. I put it down.

  “You suppose,” I said, “all this, helicopters, and shoot-outs, and assassination attempts, and kidnapping, and FBI and state cops, and Boston cops, and a lot of people dying . . . you suppose it’s all about fund-raising?”

  Epstein shrugged.

  “What is it usually about?” Epstein said. “Any crime?”

  “Love or money,” I said.

  “Or both,” Epstein said.

  41

  I met Ives on the little bridge over the Swan Boat Pond in the Public Garden. It was rainy again, and Ives was under a colorful golf umbrella. I was wearing my leather jacket and my Boston Braves cap (circa 1948). Umbrellas are for sissies.

  “You called?” I said.

  Even though there was no one within twenty yards of us, Ives softened his voice when he answered. Maybe you had to have a heightened sense of drama to be a spook.

  “The Gray Man,” Ives said, “was in our employ in Bucharest in the early 1980s.”

  It was too late in the year for swan boats. They were put away. But the ducks were still here, and they cruised the pond hopefully.

  “He was probably fun-loving and carefree in those days,” I said.

  “Mr. Bradshaw was, at that time, at the American embassy in Bucharest.”

  “Small world,” I said.

  “It gets smaller,” Ives said. “In 1984 Mrs. Van Meer visited Bradshaw in Bucharest.”

  “Heidi Van Meer?” I said. “Now Heidi Bradshaw?”

  “Yes.”

  “In 1984 she was married to Peter Van Meer,” I said.

  Ives shrugged. We were silent as two very dressed-up women strolled past us. We both watched them as they passed and for a time afterward.

  “You think they might be enemy agents?” I said, as Ives stared after them.

  “No,” Ives said. “The woman on the right, I was admiring her ass.”

  “Discriminating,” I said. “I was admiring both.”

  “My dear Lochinvar,” Ives said. “I went to Yale.”

  “And never recovered,” I said. “So we have Heidi, Bradshaw, and Rugar all in Bucharest in 1984. Rugar and Bradshaw both working for the Yankee dollar.”

  “And Mrs. Van Meer, involved romantically with Bradshaw.”

  “Any concrete connection,” I said, “between Rugar and Bradshaw?”

  “They worked out of the same building,” Ives said. “Beyond that I don’t know, and can’t find out.”

  “Even though you went to Yale?” I said.

  Ives smiled.

  “All of us,” he said, “went to Yale, Lochinvar.”

  “I know,” I said. “Why aren’t there any spooks from, say, Gonzaga, or Florida State?”

  “Imponderable,” Ives said.

  “How long was Heidi in Bucharest?” I said.

  “Don’t know,” Ives said. “Mr. Bradshaw was there through 1986.”

  “Rugar?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Is he working for you now?” I said.

  “No.”

  “You know who he is working for?” I said.

  “To my knowledge Mr. Rugar is not currently working for anyone.”

  Below us a small vee of ducks paddled industriously under the bridge in the fond possibility that there’d be peanuts.

  “Anything else?” I said.

  “No, I appear to have emptied the purse,” Ives said.

  “I appreciate it.”

  Ives nodded his head to accept my thanks.

  “We both live in worlds where the cynicism is age-old and millennium-deep,” Ives said. “We are both cynical, and with good reason. But you are not just cynical, Lochinvar. I find it refreshing.”

  “How about you,” I said. “Are you just cynical?”

  “Yes,” Ives said.

  We both smiled and were quiet, and watched the ducks for a while before Ives went his way and I went mine.

  42

  Hawk joined us for Thanksgiving dinner at my place.

  “Have we had Thanksgiving together before?” Susan said.

  “Can’t recall it,” Hawk said.

  “Why on earth not,” Susan said.

  “Most holidays nobody trying to shoot him,” Hawk said. “Which seem kinda strange to me, too.”

  “Does that mean that you are often alone on Thanksgiving?” Susan said.

  Hawk smiled.

  “No, Missy,” he said. “It don’t.”

  Hawk and Susan were drinking vintage Krug champagne, which Hawk had contributed, at the kitchen counter. Pearl was deeply into the couch in front of the fire. There was a football game on the tube, with the sound off, in deference to Susan, and I was cooking.

  “What’s for dinner?” Hawk said.

  “I thought I’d experiment with roast turkey this year,” I said.

  “Nice choice,” Susan said.

  “Stuffing?” Hawk said.

  “Yep, and cranberry sauce.”

  “Clever additions,” Susan said.

  “Paul with his girlfriend?” Susan asked.

  “Yes, in Chicago. They said they were going to stay home and cook for each other.”

  “Eek!” Susan said.

  “He living out there now?” Hawk said.

  “Yes. They’re both with a theater company.”

  I opened the oven and pulled out the oven rack with the turkey on it. I basted the turkey with a mixture of applejack and orange juice.

  “How will you know when it’s done,” Susan said.

  “Cook’s intuition,” I said, and shoved the turkey back into the oven and closed the door.

  “Plus the little red plastic thing in the turkey,” Hawk said, “that pops up when it’s ready.”

  “Big mouth,” I said to Hawk.

  “It’s all right,” Susan said. “I love you anyway.”

  “How come?” Hawk said.

  “Damned if I know,” Susan said.

  Thanksgiving at Spenser’s: Hawk and Susan sipping champagne, Pearl asleep in front of the fire, the rich scent of the roasting bird filling the room, the dining room table set and beautified by Susan, Hawk’s shotgun leaning on the corner of my bookcase.

  When I got the food to the table my duties were over. Hawk carved surgically. Susan served meticulously. I ate. Pearl watched each mouthful closely. Susan had ruled that it was absolutely forbidden to feed her from the table. All three of us ignored the rule.

  “Wonder what Rugar doing for Thanksgiving,” Hawk said.

  “And Adelaide,” I said.

  “No,” Susan said. “Not on Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving we worry about whether we’ll be hungry enough before bedtime to have a turkey-and-stuffing sandwich with cranberry sauce and mayo.”

  “No business?” I said.

  “None,” Susan said.

  “No concern for the less fortunate?” I said.

  “Fuck ’em,” Susan said.

  “That be my other Thanksgivings,” Hawk said.

  “Works for me,” I said. “Pleasant and not fattening.”

  “I was using a metaphor,” Susan said.

  “Fact it probably burn calories,” Hawk said.

  “Today is a day to enjoy the fact that we love each other,” Susan said. “That’s enough.”

  “All three of us?” Hawk said.

  “And Pearl,” Susan said.

  “’Scuse me,” Hawk said. “All four of us?”

  �
�You know we love you, Hawk,” Susan said. “Pearl included. And you damned well know that in your own singular way, you love us.”

  Hawk grinned widely.

  “Singular,” I said.

  “Sho ’nuff, Missy,” Hawk said to Susan.

  He bent over and gave Pearl a bite of turkey. He watched her chew it, still bending over, and when she was finished she looked up at him hopefully.

  “Sho ’nuff,” he said to her.

  43

  I went to see Van Meer. We sat in the same room we’d sat in last time. He offered me a drink. I declined. He made one for himself. It appeared that he’d started early today. He was already a little glassy-eyed at two in the afternoon.

  I couldn’t think of a way to ease in, so I just went.

  “You in financial difficulty?” I said.

  “No,” he said, “not at all.”

  “The bank’s foreclosing on this place,” I said.

  “Oh, the banks are always doing something,” he said. “I don’t pay any attention.”

  “You’ve cashed out your life insurance,” I said.

  Van Meer smiled happily.

  “Had better things to do with it,” he said.

  “What about your daughter? She was the beneficiary.”

  “She was marrying into one of the richest families in the country,” he said. “She didn’t need it.”

  I nodded. I wondered if he remembered that his daughter was missing.

  “So the reports of your financial vulnerability are greatly exaggerated.”

  Van Meer nodded several times.

  “You bet,” he said. “I’m rich.”

  “In the early 1980s,” I said, “while she was married to you, Heidi was in Bucharest, Romania, with Harden Bradshaw.”

  “I know,” Van Meer said.

  “Talk about that,” I said.

  “We had a big fight,” he said. “She went to Bucharest. When she came back, we made up. In fact, that’s when Adelaide was conceived.”

  He sipped his drink. He was sedate. No guzzling.

  “What was the fight about?”

  “Oh, God,” he said. “I don’t know. We had fights all the time.”

  “You know she was cheating on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “With Bradshaw?”

  “Yes.”

  “Might it have been a fight about that?” I said.

  “Coulda been,” Van Meer said.

  “How’d you feel about that?” I said.

  Van Meer shrugged.

  “Hell, she cheated on me all the time, with anybody available,” he said, and sipped again.

  “How’d you feel about that?” I said.

  He laughed.

  “You sound like all of my many shrinks,” he said. “Why do you want to know all this?”

  “If I knew ahead of time what was important to know and what was not . . .” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I can see that.”

  He had another swallow. Like a lot of experienced boozers, he could go a long time before he began to slur his words. He held his glass up a little and looked at his drink.

  “Not too long after we got married, we had some wiring done at our new house,” he said. “She fucked the electrician.”

  I nodded.

  “She needed sex, and she needed variety,” Van Meer said. “She was fucking me while she was married to that art professor. She was fucking Bradshaw when she was married to me.”

  “Busy,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Looking for Mr. Right?” I said.

  “Mr. Feels Good,” Van Meer said. “As far as I could tell, she fucked plumbers and limo drivers and delivery men, and for all I know doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs.”

  “One man would never be enough,” I said.

  “That is correct.”

  “And you could live with that?” I said.

  “Better than I could live without her,” Van Meer said.

  “And now you have to do both,” I said.

  Van Meer nodded and took another sip.

  “Yup,” he said.

  44

  It was the Thursday after Thanksgiving, the last day of November, with a gentle but persistent rain falling all along the south coast. In Padanarum, Hawk waited in the car for me while I went up on the porch and rang the bell for Harden Bradshaw. I could hear the surf from the waterfront side of the house. I could smell wood smoke, and when Bradshaw opened the door, I could look past him and see the fire burning on the big hearth in his living room.

  “You again,” he said.

  “Glad to see you, too,” I said. “May I come in?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Several things,” I said. “Like where your stepdaughter attended college.”

  “She went to Penn for two years before she dropped out,” Bradshaw said. “Before that she went to Miss McGowan’s School in Ashfield, western Mass,” he said.

  “Prep school?”

  Bradshaw nodded.

  “For young ladies,” he said.

  He sounded a little scornful.

  “Why’d she drop out of college?” I said.

  “You’ll have to ask her mother,” Bradshaw said. “Is that all?”

  “Can we discuss you and Heidi in Bucharest in 1984,” I said.

  “I have nothing further to say to you,” Bradshaw said, still blocking the doorway. He had on a plaid flannel shirt today, and wide-wale corduroy pants.

  “I wonder if she might have met a man named Rugar while she was there.”

  “I don’t know,” Bradshaw said. “I had nothing to do with the events at Tashtego. I have no idea where my stepdaughter is. I don’t know anything about this Rugar fellow, and I am quite frankly tired of you.”

  “Then you’ll be tired of dreaming,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Allusion to a song,” I said. “I could sing it all for you.”

  “I do not find you amusing,” Bradshaw said.

  “What a shame,” I said. “So you probably don’t want me to sing, either.”

  “I believe we’re through here,” Bradshaw said.

  “Before you go,” I said, “lemme tell you what I think. You and Rugar were working out of the American embassy in Bucharest. I think you knew Rugar from there. I think maybe Heidi met him there as well.”

  “The American embassy in Bucharest is not a ma-and-pa store,” Bradshaw said. “Many people worked there. I didn’t know most of them.”

  “And yet nearly twenty-five years later, Rugar shows up at your wife’s home and kidnaps your stepdaughter,” I said. “Is it really that small a world?”

  “For the record, Tashtego belongs to me,” Bradshaw said.

  Then he closed the door in my face and I heard the dead bolt turn. Some people have no sense of humor.

  45

  Miss McGowan’s School was on top of a hill in western Massachusetts. It occupied all of a big old Civil War-era estate in Ashfield. Which is not too far from Deerfield, where there had been a massacre once. It was, as far as I could tell, the last excitement they’d had out there.

  Hawk parked his Jaguar in front of the main building near a sign that said Administration.

  “You be safe in there without me?” Hawk said.

  “No,” I said. “But you better wait here anyway; I don’t want you scaring the girls.”

  “I keep doing this,” Hawk said, “I going to get me one of those dandy-looking chauffeur’s hats.”

  “I been hoping,” I said, and got out of the car.

  The building was probably the original statehouse, with a big porch that wrapped around three sides, and in the autumn sunshine offered a splendid view of the countryside. If you like countryside.

  The headmistress was a tall, slim woman who looked a little like Charles de Gaulle. Her name was Isabel Baxter.

  “A private detective,” she said. “How utterly fascinating.”
/>   “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you carry a, ah, a gat?” she said.

  “I wouldn’t risk the McGowan School without one,” I said.

  She laughed. Sort of a high, fluty laugh, but genuine.

  “Tell me what you can,” I said, “about Adelaide Van Meer.”

  “The girl who’s missing,” Ms. Baxter said. “Heidi Bradshaw’s daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you trying to find her?” Ms. Baxter said.

  “Yes.”

  “The poor girl,” she said.

  I waited. Ms. Baxter thought about it. The way she was thinking told me there was something to learn, if she’d tell me. I began to assemble my every charm, the smile, the twinkle in the eye, the manly profile, maybe even a little flex of my biceps, if I could sneak it in. She wouldn’t have a chance. I would lay it all on her like a tsunami, should she hesitate.

  “I went to the McGowan School,” Ms. Baxter said. “When I graduated, I went on to Mount Holyoke. When I graduated from Mount Holyoke, I came back here to teach French. After a time I became dean of students. After another while I became headmistress. I have spent nearly all my life here. I care deeply about the school.”

  “I can see why you would,” I said.

  She was going someplace, and I wanted to let her go there.

  “But a school isn’t buildings, or even headmistresses,” she said, and smiled slightly at herself. “A school is the girls who come here, and flourish, and move on to college and careers and marriage, and when they have daughters they send them here and the school continues, organically, almost like a living thing.”

  I nodded. I’d had no such experience with schools, but it was touching to see someone who had. Even if it was illusory.

  “So,” she said, “to shortchange the children in order to preserve the school is oxymoronic.”

  I made no comment. She wasn’t really talking to me anyway.

  “Adelaide did not flourish here,” Ms. Baxter said. “In her second year she took too many sleeping pills and nearly succeeded in killing herself.”

  “How old?” I said.

  “Sixteen.”

  “What the hell was a sixteen-year-old girl doing with that many sleeping pills?” I said.

  “She was a very troubled girl. We got her to the hospital and the school doctor arranged for her to see a local pediatrician. With the help of members of our board, we managed to allow the world to think it was an accident.”