Rough Weather

by Robert B. Parker

  “You Spenser?” one of them said.

  “Yes, I am,” I said.

  They both looked at Hawk, who was sitting on Pearl’s couch.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Security consultant,” I said. “His name’s Hawk.”

  “He’s with you?” the Tashtego patrol guy said.

  “He is,” I said. “No one else would have him.”

  Hawk smiled a friendly smile.

  “Okay,” the guy said. “We’re bringing Mrs. Bradshaw in.”

  He spoke briefly into his walkie-talkie. Then he and his partner moved to stand on either side of the door. We waited. In a minute, four more security guys came to the door and stood aside and from among them, like an old Esther Williams water ballet, Heidi emerged and came into the office. She was wearing a fur coat, which she slid out of as she sat and let it drape over the back of her chair. She had on a stretchy, tight-fitting sleeveless black top and a camel-colored skirt. The skirt was short above black boots.

  She looked around my office, her glance lingering on Hawk. Then she said, “Okay, Michael, you and the others can wait outside.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the security guy said. “Do you want the door left open?”

  “No,” she said. “Close it.”

  The men withdrew. The door closed, and there we were.

  “Who is this gentleman?” Heidi said.

  “My associate Hawk,” I said.

  “Oh, my,” Heidi said.

  Hawk nodded at her.

  “He’s as male as you are,” Heidi said.

  “But less winsome,” I said.

  “Whatever that means,” Heidi said. “The two of you look like a testosterone commercial.”

  It was the funny, warm, sexy Heidi today. Full of flirtatious innuendo. She really wanted something.

  “And it’s all at your service,” I said. “Whaddya need?”

  Heidi was quiet for a moment. She looked at Hawk for a long time, and then at me. She crossed her legs.

  “May I speak freely?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She stretched a little in her chair so that her breasts pushed out. Then she put her head down and rubbed the bridge of her nose at the corners of her eyes.

  “It’s terrible what happened to poor Harden,” she said softly. “Do you know who killed him?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  “He was hiding out in a motel in Burlington, Mass,” I said. “Under the name Bailey. Somebody shot him in the head through the window of his hotel room.”

  “Why was he hiding out?” she said.

  “Don’t know.”

  Heidi turned to Hawk, and as she leaned a little forward in the chair, her skirt got shorter.

  “Were you there?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hawk said.

  “Do you know anything?” she said.

  “Same as Spenser,” Hawk said.

  She looked back at me.

  “Do the police have a theory?” she said.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “You found him there.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you happen to go there?”

  “He called me,” I said. “Told me he was in danger. Asked for help.”

  “And you were too late,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why you?” she said.

  “Good question,” I said. “I haven’t solved a crime in quite a long time.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “You inspire confidence,” she said. “Something about you is reassuring.”

  I looked at Hawk. He had no expression on his face.

  “And you need reassurance,” I said.

  “If it could happen to Harden . . .” she said.

  “Hence the heavy security,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  “And you want what from me?” I said.

  “I want you to be my personal bodyguard.”

  “In addition to the Tashtego patrol?” I said.

  “They didn’t protect my Adelaide,” she said.

  “Neither did I,” I said.

  “You weren’t hired to,” Heidi said.

  She shifted again in her chair, leaning toward me. The skirt seemed to have edged farther up her thighs. Probably just an accident.

  “Why was I hired?” I said.

  She sat back quite suddenly and stared at me.

  “I . . . I told you already,” she said, “when I hired you. I’m not proud of it, I guess, but I needed a man to lean on.”

  “Like a fish needs a bicycle,” I said.

  She opened her mouth and her eyes widened. She closed her mouth. She narrowed her eyes. The gamut of emotion.

  “What are you saying,” she said after a while.

  Her voice was breathy.

  “I’m saying you don’t lean on men. You use them. I’m saying that you were involved with something or someone that scared you,” I told her. “And you wanted a tough guy around to help you if it went bad. I was the tough guy of choice.”

  “I don’t . . . you think I knew what was going to happen? What an awful thing to think. My daughter is gone. My son-in-law is dead. I am the victim here. How dare you accuse me.”

  “Did you know your son-in-law was gay?” I said.

  “That’s a disgusting thing to say. Of course he wasn’t gay. If he were gay, why would he be marrying my daughter?”

  “My question exactly,” I said.

  “I came here asking for your help, and you say these things to me?”

  “Did you know Rugar,” I said to Heidi, “in Bucharest, in 1984?”

  “What?”

  “You were in Bucharest in 1984,” I said. “With Bradshaw, who was working out of the American embassy. So was Rugar.”

  “That’s absurd,” Heidi said.

  She was sitting stiffly upright in her chair now. Her knees were pressed together; the ascent of her skirt had halted at mid-thigh. Her elbows were on the arms of the chair. Her hands were clasped in front of her. She seemed to be breathing rapidly, as if she had sprinted a distance.

  “Coulda happened,” Hawk said helpfully.

  “It didn’t,” Heidi said.

  She was almost prim.

  “Kind of a big coincidence, though,” I said. “You’re all in Bucharest at the same time, and then, twenty-two years later, he shows up at your daughter’s wedding and kidnaps her.”

  “I don’t care,” Heidi said. “I never met him.”

  “Your daughter tried to commit suicide,” I said, “five years ago. Tell me about that.”

  “You . . . you pig of a man,” she said.

  “How come the only help you got her is this quack Rosselli?”

  She sat even straighter and seemed to gather in on herself. Her primness changed to sternness.

  “My daughter did not attempt suicide,” she said. “It was merely an accidental overdose of her medication.”

  “How do you accidentally take twenty pills?” I said.

  “She did not take twenty pills,” Heidi said. “She’s a nervous girl, she needs help sleeping. Perhaps under the influence of her pills she forgot she had taken them and took some more.”

  “What’s Dr. Rosselli treating her for?” I said.

  “He’s her doctor,” Heidi said. “He’s treating her general health.”

  “Shrink out in the Berkshires says he believes she was sexually molested,” I said.

  “By whom?” Heidi said.

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “Of course he doesn’t know,” she said.

  “He says it’s usually someone in or near the family.”

  “He’s a back-country witch doctor, for God’s sake,” Heidi said. “Why on earth would anyone listen to him?”

  “Did you know that Van Meer is broke,” I said. “And Bradshaw was nearly so?”

  “What has that got to do with my Adelaide?”

/>   “Weren’t they the primary source of income for you and Adelaide?” I said.

  “Absolutely not. I am entirely independent.”

  “Since the moment Adelaide married Maurice Lessard?” I said.

  “Goddamn you,” Heidi said. “I will not be treated like this. I don’t want you for a bodyguard or anything else.”

  She turned and walked out of my office. The security detail closed ranks around her.

  She paused for a moment and looked back at me.

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  And away they all went without closing the door. Hawk looked at me with no expression.

  “At least her position clear,” he said.

  “Does this mean I’m losing my charm?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Hawk said.

  59

  “So, did she tell you anything?” Susan said.

  “She tell him ‘Fuck you,’” Hawk said.

  “Her, too,” Susan said.

  “I took it as a proposition,” I said.

  Susan smiled.

  “The glass is always half full for you,” she said.

  We were having dinner at Davio’s. Susan was doing something with a salad. Hawk appeared thrilled with his veal chop. I was having pasta with Bolognese sauce, which is what I always had. Traditions matter.

  “Aside from ‘Fuck you,’” Susan said, “did you learn anything else?”

  “I confirmed my suspicion that she knows a lot and lies about it,” I said.

  “What do you think she knows?” Susan said.

  “I think she knows pretty much everything,” I said. “She knew about her daughter’s suicide attempt, though she denied that it was a suicide attempt. I think she knew about her daughter’s molestation. I think she knew Rugar from way back. I think she knows that her second and third husbands would no longer be able to support her. I think she cannot support herself. Her daughter’s marriage to Lessard was probably providential.”

  “Even if he’s dead?”

  “Epstein says Adelaide inherits everything he would have, plus her husband’s share of the business, according to the pre-nup.”

  “If Adelaide is alive,” Susan said.

  “Even if she’s dead, her mother might be her heir,” I said.

  “My God,” Susan said. “She wouldn’t have her own daughter killed.”

  “She might,” I said.

  Susan nodded.

  “If one of us can even think of it,” she said, “someone could do it.”

  “Also the bridegroom, Maurice Lessard, was, according to his sister, gay.”

  “And he married Adelaide because?”

  “She was his beard? She was gay, too, and they bearded each other?”

  “The molestation might have a place in all of this,” Susan said.

  “Might,” I said.

  “She admit any of this?” Susan said.

  “No.”

  “Hawk?” Susan said. “You were there.”

  “Spenser’s right,” Hawk said. “You sit and listen to her and you know she’s scrambling for cover. You know she’s lying.”

  Susan nodded and ate a little salad and sipped a little wine.

  “Not for nothing,” she said to Hawk, “but are you aware that, in those rare moments when you are perfectly serious, you lose your accent.”

  “I am,” Hawk said.

  Susan smiled.

  “So if she knows all this stuff, and won’t tell you, then doesn’t that mean she’s complicit?”

  “Be my guess,” I said.

  “But exactly what is she complicit in?” Susan said.

  “I don’t know for sure,” I said. “And it’s all guesswork and intuition. The courts do not welcome intuition.”

  “But . . .” Susan said.

  “But there’s an awful lot of money in the mix.”

  “Cherchez la bread,” Hawk said.

  “Wow,” I said. “Multicultural, too.”

  “But,” Susan said. “Why all this huge huzzarah on the island? Kidnapping, shootings, and all that?”

  “I been thinking about that, too,” I said. “When I’m not admiring Hawk’s linguistic range. I tried it from the other end, so to speak. If the deal on the island is so not Rugar, then who is it? If one were to throw a kidnapping, who would throw one like that?”

  “Heidi,” Susan said.

  I looked at Hawk.

  “See,” I said. “Not just another pretty face.”

  “No,” Hawk said. “Got nice legs, too.”

  “It is just the kind of overproduced extravaganza that people like Heidi would throw,” Susan said. “Maybe she didn’t expect all the killing. Certainly she couldn’t have planned the hurricane. But . . .”

  “Like a kidnapping thrown by a party planner,” Hawk said.

  “Yes,” Susan said.

  “But why would Rugar go along with it?” I said.

  “Money?” Susan said.

  “Always a good guess,” I said. “But it is so against his nature.”

  Hawk nodded.

  “Had to be something in addition to money,” Hawk said.

  “And what would be in addition to money?” Susan said.

  “And you a shrink,” Hawk said.

  “Love,” I said.

  Hawk nodded. Susan nodded, too. We were silent.

  “Rugar and Heidi?” Susan said after a while.

  I turned my palms up. Hawk said nothing.

  “Nothing is proven,” Susan said.

  “But some of it can be,” I said. “Sooner or later we’ll find out if Heidi knew Rugar. Sooner or later we’ll get a look at her finances. Sooner or later we should be able to find out if Adelaide was abused and by whom.”

  “If she’s alive,” Hawk said.

  I nodded.

  “If she’s alive,” I said.

  “You think she is?” Susan said.

  “I don’t know that she isn’t,” I said.

  Susan nodded. She cut up a leaf of romaine lettuce and ate part of it, and drank some wine.

  “Do you think Rugar killed Bradshaw?”

  “Who in this mess more likely?” I said.

  “Tony Marcus?”

  “Nope, I believe him. I think he had Ty-Bop ace Leonard to sever himself from the whole business, and to remind his employees of the zero-tolerance rule.”

  “Why would Rugar kill Bradshaw?”

  “Don’t know. But if there’s a connection back to Bucharest, we might be able to find out,” I said.

  “If Heidi is in collusion with Rugar,” Susan said, “and if she tells him the truth, Rugar is smart enough to know that you have a handle on this whole thing, and that eventually you may be able to unravel it.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And he must know you well enough to know that you will stay with it, however long it takes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which means he may decide it is time to take decisive action.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why am I hanging around?” Hawk said.

  “The two of you are formidable,” Susan said.

  Hawk and I both nodded.

  “But so is Rugar,” she said to me. “He almost killed you once.”

  “I wasn’t around when that happened.”

  “True.”

  “I am around now,” Hawk said.

  “Yes,” Susan said.

  “Him against both of us?” Hawk said. “I like our chances.”

  Susan nodded slowly. She looked at me. I smiled and nodded. She looked back at Hawk.

  “And you’ll continue to hang around,” she said.

  “I will,” he said.

  “Until it’s over,” she said.

  “Until there’s no need for my skill set,” Hawk said.

  The waiter brought Susan a second glass of wine. For Susan, that was a binge. She sipped some of it and put the glass down.

  “Hawk,” she said, “in regard to me having nice legs?”

  “
Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thanks for noticing.”

  Hawk grinned at her.

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  60

  I was reading the morning Globe in my office with my feet on the desk. I had made coffee and was drinking some. It was a bright day outside, temperature in the forties, and the sun reflecting off the windows of the office tower across the street made my office bright. I read methodically. The newspaper had years ago become a ritual, and I did it every morning, starting at page one, and wading on to the end. Every year there were more stories about shoes, and celebrities, and hot restaurants, so that every year I read less. But I still checked every headline. I still read Doonesbury carefully, and Tank McNamara, and Arlo & Janis. I still took some time on the sports page, though even there, ever more space was devoted to the financial aspects of the games, which interested me less than the Bank of America annual report.

  I was studying a strip called Stone Soup, which seemed pretty good, and might fill the void left by Calvin & Hobbes, when Maggie Lane came in to see me. She was wearing jeans, and boots, and a short leather jacket. Her hair was loose and looked sort of soft. She was wearing more makeup than I remembered, and looked somewhat less crisp and businesslike than she had on Tashtego Island. I did not feel passion welling, but she no longer made me think of Dick Butkus.

  I offered her a seat. She took it. I gave her coffee. She took that. I went back behind my desk and sat down and tilted my chair back a little.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I am no longer employed,” she said, “by the Bradshaws.”

  “Bradshaws?” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Plural?” I said. “Bradshaws?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s what I wanted to speak to you about.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “When I heard about poor Mr. Bradshaw being killed,” Maggie Lane said, “I . . . The place is like a fortress now. Heidi is terrified. She won’t leave the island except with a bunch of guards.”

  “I know,” I said. “What’s she terrified of?”

  “I assume whoever killed her husband,” Maggie Lane said.

  I nodded.

  “I had to get out of there. I was, very simply, frightened. I’m as loyal as the next person, and I stuck with them during that awful time at the wedding. But now Mr. Bradshaw is gone. And I don’t feel close enough to Heidi, and in truth, my salary is insufficient to overcome my anxiety.”