Widow’s Walk

by Robert B. Parker

  “How long you think,” the Franklin cop said.

  Belson looked at his watch. “Usually goes quick.”

  “Seriously,” Santoro said, “you ever give Rita a little bop?”

  “In my case it would be a big bop,” I said. “And it’s not your business.”

  “Hey, just killing a little time.”

  “Kill it another way,” I said.

  Santoro shrugged. We drank our coffee.

  After a while, Belson said, “I don’t think it would be such a big bop.”

  “I don’t wish to discuss it,” I said.

  “I’ll check it with Susan,” Belson said.

  “She’s promised not to tell,” I said.

  The door to the squad room opened and Quirk stuck his head in.

  “Levesque wants to make a statement,” Quirk said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Levesque’s statement was sort of complete, but the essence of it was that his old friend Mary Toricelli Smith had given him the gun to dispose of, and he had kept it instead. “Said he’d never had a gun,” Quirk told us on the ride back to Boston. “Said he held on to it because he’d always wanted one and maybe it would come in handy someday.”

  “It came in handy for someone,” I said.

  “Levesque says he was Mary Toricelli’s boyfriend, before and after she married Smith. Says that Mr. and Mrs. Smith had an open marriage. Smith with boys, her with him, Levesque.”

  “We believe his story?”

  “Sounded true to me,” Quirk said.

  “Too scared to lie?”

  “Be my guess,” Quirk said.

  “They coulda been in it together,” Belson said.

  “Sure.”

  “She denies it, it’ll be her word against his.”

  “Prints?” I said.

  “His,” Quirk said, and smiled. “Hawk’s. Nothing else we can use. Gun’s been handled a lot.”

  “Powder residue?”

  “Too long ago,” Quirk said.

  “Smith had ten million dollars’ life insurance.”

  “Coulda killed him for his money,” Belson said. “And when everything died down, she moves the boyfriend in.”

  “You had Smith’s money,” Quirk said, “would you move Roy Levesque in?”

  “He ain’t my type,” Belson said. “But it seems like he was hers.”

  “He say how Mary Toricelli met Nathan Smith?” I said.

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Might be good to know,” I said.

  “I’ll get to it,” Quirk said.

  “So where does all the other stuff fit?” I said.

  “Like?”

  “Like Brinkman the broker, and Amy Peters, and Soldiers Field Development, and Marvin Conroy, and the kid I killed in Southie, and Jack DeRosa and his girlfriend, for instance,” I said.

  “You always been picky,” Quirk said.

  “You ask him any of that?”

  “I’ll get to it.”

  “We going to talk with her?” I said.

  “We? All of a sudden it’s we?”

  “I want to make sure you don’t start whacking her in the face,” I said.

  “I’m going to call her attorney,” Quirk said. “Have her come in with Mrs. Smith for a dignified interview.”

  “Homicide commander doesn’t usually get down to this level of nitty-gritty,” I said. “Does he? Or she?”

  “In this case, he,” Quirk said. “Lotta people been killed. And the suspect is worth a large amount of money.”

  “So you’re hearing about it.”

  “Mayor’s up for reelection,” Quirk said. “He’s been bragging about the crime rate.”

  “So you’re showing a laudable hands-on interest.”

  Quirk nodded. He might have almost smiled a little.

  “And there are personnel issues,” he said.

  Belson kept his eyes on the road as he spoke over his right shoulder.

  “I told Quirk I’d take early retirement,” he said, “before I’d go one-on-one with Mary Smith again.”

  “The power of dumb,” I said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  When I got back to my office there were two calls on my answering machine. One was from Hawk asking if I still needed backup. The other was from a secretary at Kiley and Harbaugh. Mr. Kiley would like to have breakfast with me in the coffee shop of his building the next morning and could I call to confirm. I called Hawk at the Harbor Health Club and left a message with Henry that since everybody seemed to have skedaddled, and whatever was going on had stopped, I figured there was no further need to kill me and Hawk could therefore go back to his career of crime. Then I called the secretary at Kiley and Harbaugh and confirmed, and, at 7:30 the next morning, I met him there. He was already seated when I came in. “Don’t have the bagels,” Kiley said. “Cranberry muffins.”

  I went to the counter and got orange juice, coffee, and a cranberry muffin and brought it to Kiley’s table, and sat. Kiley didn’t say anything. I drank some juice. Kiley had a muffin, too, and some juice. Same breakfast I was having, except I was eating mine.

  “I been practicing criminal law around here for most of my adult life,” Kiley said.

  I drank some orange juice.

  “I known you sort of here and there and roundabout for a long time,” Kiley said.

  I nodded and drank the rest of my orange juice.

  “Everything I know about you says your word is good.”

  “For something,” I said.

  “I checked on you, cops, DA, lotta people.” Kiley smiled. “Some of them clients. The consensus is that you’re a hard-on, but I can trust you.”

  I had mixed feelings about the consensus, but I had nothing to add.

  “Before we talk,” Kiley said, “I need your word that it goes no further.”

  “I can’t promise, Bobby, until I know what I’m promising.”

  Kiley looked at my face for a moment and pursed his lips. His cranberry muffin lay on his plate unmolested.

  “It’s about my daughter,” he said.

  I put a little milk in my coffee and stirred it. “I’ll protect your daughter,” I said carefully, “if I can.”

  “What makes you think she needs protection?” Kiley said.

  “Come on, Bobby.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. That was dumb. Okay. You gimme your word?”

  “I’ll do the best I can,” I said.

  “Your word?”

  “Yes.”

  “The kid you killed,” Kiley said.

  “Kevin McGonigle.”

  “Yeah. We represented him once.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I could raise one at a time, but I saved that for women.

  “Him and another guy, guy named Scanlan, got arrested on assault charges. They beat up a real estate appraiser. Cops caught them in progress, down back of South Station.”

  “Why?”

  “Appraiser claims he didn’t know them, had no idea why they assaulted him. Refused to press charges.”

  Kiley was right about the cranberry muffins.

  “So how’d you get involved?” I said.

  “Guy called here, asked us to go down and see about them. We represented them maybe two hours.”

  “They call you?”

  “No. Ann took it.”

  “She go down?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the appraiser’s name?” I said.

  Kiley took a piece of folded notepaper from his shirt pocket and read it.

  “Bisbee,” he said. “Thomas Bisbee.”

  He handed me the paper.

  “Who paid you?”

  “That’s bothersome,” Kiley said. “We got no record of anybody paying us.”

  “Any record of anybody being billed?”

  “No.”

  “That is bothersome,” I said. “McGonigle didn’t look like your kind of client any more than DeRosa did.”

  “We’re criminal lawyers,” Kiley said. �
�Some of our clients are criminals.”

  “Usually criminals who can pay.”

  “True.”

  “Was McGonigle someone who could pay?”

  “He wasn’t. He was muscle. Just like Scanlan.”

  “Who were they working for?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  I got up and went to the serving counter and got more coffee for myself and a fresh cup for Kiley.

  “So,” I said when I came back, “what do you want from me?”

  “I want to know how deep in she is,” Kiley said.

  “You asked her?”

  “She won’t talk to me about it. She says it’s a question of professional respect, that she won’t allow me to treat her like a child.”

  “And you want me to find out what happened,” I said.

  “Goddamn it, she’s my child.”

  I nodded. “I have a client,” I said.

  “I’m not asking you anything that would interfere with that. I’m asking you while you’re serving your client to keep an eye out. And let me know.”

  “Give me the name of the other guy she defended.”

  “Chuckie Scanlan.”

  “Chuck,” I said.

  “You know him?”

  “No. Guy named Jack DeRosa claimed a guy named Chuck put him in touch with Mary Smith.”

  “Common name,” Kiley said.

  I nodded. “Where do I find him?”

  “Works in a liquor store on Broadway. Donovan’s.”

  “Ann knows this guy, she knew DeRosa, and she is, or was, Marvin Conroy’s girlfriend.”

  “Yeah. I noticed that, too,” Kiley said.

  “Ann know where Conroy is?” I said.

  “She says she doesn’t.”

  “We may be going in the same direction,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “And report to me.”

  “Anything I find out about Ann, I’ll report to you first.”

  “Only,” Kiley said.

  “Bobby, what if she’s in too far?”

  “She’s my only child, Spenser. Her mother’s dead.”

  “I can’t promise, Bobby. I can walk away from this conversation and say nothing to anybody. But I can’t promise you more than I can promise you.”

  “You going to talk with Chuckie Scanlan?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if that leads you someplace and Ann’s in it really deep?”

  “Then I’ll talk to you,” I said.

  “Before you talk to anyone else?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what?” Kiley said.

  “And we’ll decide,” I said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  It was a hot day and there was no air moving. Donovan’s Liquors was a big store with a big sign in the window that advertised the coldest beer in Boston. There was a burly woman with big brass-colored hair at the cash register when I went in. “Chuckie Scanlan?” I said to her.

  “He’s out back.”

  “Mind if I go back and see him?” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  “New caseworker,” I said. “Wanted to say hello.”

  It was a vague enough term to cover several jobs and I figured Chuckie would be covered by one of them. The big woman made an ushering sweep with her right hand and pointed me toward the back room. Chuckie was stacking cases of Budweiser. He was a short wide guy with very little hair.

  “Chuckie Scanlan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “My name’s Spenser. We need to talk.”

  Scanlan’s eyes showed a moment of something and then went dead again.

  “About what?”

  “You, Kevin McGonigle.”

  “Kevin’s dead,” Scanlan said.

  “And you’re not,” I said, “yet.”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  Scanlan jerked his head and we went out the back door into the heavy air and sat on a pile of wooden skids in the near corner of the narrow parking lot behind the store. Scanlan lit a cigarette.

  “You a cop?” he said.

  “Private,” I said. “I came from Bobby Kiley’s office.”

  “Kiley?”

  “Kiley and Harbaugh. They represented you a couple years ago.”

  “Oh, yeah. The broad came down, got us sprung. Cops had nothing.”

  “Broad’s name was probably Ann,” I said.

  “Yeah, Ms. Kiley. Good-looking. Smart as hell,” Scanlan said. “How come you’re talking about me not being dead, yet?”

  “You know Marvin Conroy?”

  Scanlan took in some smoke and let it out slowly, squinting through it at me. “Conroy?”

  “Un-huh.”

  “I never met him. I think he was a friend of Jack’s.”

  “Jack?” I said.

  “DeRosa,” Scanlan said.

  Bingo! “How’d you know DeRosa?” I said.

  “He hired me and Kevin to do some stuff.”

  “For Conroy?”

  “I guess.”

  “You know what happened to McGonigle?” I said.

  “I heard Kevin got it in a shootout over on A Street.”

  “From me,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “He got it from me. I shot him.”

  Scanlan took in some more smoke. I knew so few people who smoked anymore that it was kind of fascinating to watch him.

  “How come you shot him?”

  “He was trying to shoot me,” I said.

  Scanlan shrugged. “Shit happens,” he said.

  “Tell me about Marvin Conroy.”

  “Nothing to tell,” Scanlan said. “When the cops tried to hang me with that bum rap he helped me out with the lawyer.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “I guess he was the one got Jack to hire us.”

  “To do what?”

  Scanlan said, “A little of this, a little of that.”

  “You’re a thug,” I said. “You were doing strong-arm work.”

  “Cops couldn’t hold us.”

  “Somebody shot Jack DeRosa to pieces,” I said.

  “Jack?”

  “Jack and his girlfriend,” I said. “Fifty rounds.”

  “Margy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why her?”

  “Probably for being there.”

  “Who done it?”

  “What would be your guess?” I said.

  “How the fuck would I know?”

  “I figure Jack got it because he knew something and somebody wanted to make sure he didn’t tell it to me.”

  “You?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I figure you know it, too.”

  “They killed him so he wouldn’t talk with you?”

  “Seems like.”

  “So?”

  “Now I’m talking to you,” I said.

  Scanlan looked around the parking area.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said.

  I smiled at him.

  “You’re setting me up.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m asking you about Marvin Conroy.”

  “Why him?”

  “Detective’s intuition,” I said.

  “And if I don’t know nothing about him?”

  “I keep hanging around and asking about him and talking to you and talking to other people about talking to you.”

  “You bastard, you’re going to get me killed.”

  “Not if you tell me what you know.”

  Scanlan glanced around the lot again. There were only two cars parked there.

  “You got a gun,” Scanlan said.

  “I do.”

  “What happens if I remembered some stuff?” Scanlan said.

  “I go away and never mention your name again,” I said.

  Scanlan dropped his cigarette and stepped on it and got out a package of Marlboros and lit a new one.

  “I don’t know much,” he said.

  I waited.


  “Jack DeRosa come to me and Kevin one day, says he’s got a easy couple a hundred for us. Tells me all we got to do is rough up some fucking suit. So we say why not, and he says the guy comes down Summer Street every night, same time, got a condo over by the milk bottle thing, you know? And we say fine, we’ll pull him over behind the Postal Annex and have our talk.”

  Scanlan dragged in some smoke.

  “So the next night, Jack drives us over there and points out the guy. He waits in the car, and we go over and do it. But while we’re doing it some fucking postal cop comes by and pulls his gun. Once in a lifetime, you know, I mean, how many postal cops you ever seen, for crissake. Jack takes off, and we’re busted. EMT’S show up and patch our guy up and we all go over to the station and me and Kevin are shutting up because, what the fuck, we don’t even know why we’re smacking the guy around.”

  “DeRosa tell you to say anything to him?”

  “Jack says just tell him it’s a message from his bank.”

  “He seem to understand that?”

  “Who knows. He’s so fucking scared it’s hard to say what he understood. So we’re in the station and the cops are yelling at us and we’re saying jack shit, and this lady lawyer comes in. Man, I’d fuck her in a heartbeat.”

  “She’ll be pleased to know that,” I said.

  “She tells us her name and says she’s from Kiley and Harbaugh. She says that the suit won’t bring charges, and that she’s getting us released.”

  He stopped his eyes moving back and forth across the parking lot.

  “That’s it?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You never saw her again?”

  “No.”

  “Where’s Marvin Conroy come in?” I said.

  “Oh, him,” Scanlan said. “Jack picks us up after we’re out, and I say to Jack, ”Thanks for sending us a lawyer,“ and he says, ”No problem,“ and I say, ”We owe anybody any money?“‘ and he says, ”Nope, it’s on Marvin Conroy,“ and I say, ”Who’s Marvin Conroy?“’ And Jack kind of smiles and says, ”The guy from the bank.“”

  “You know who sent McGonigle to kill me?”

  “No idea.”

  “You driving the car?”

  “No way.”

  “Jack DeRosa send you?”

  “I wasn’t there, man. DeRosa was in jail then.”

  “How do you know when it happened?”

  “Kevin was a friend of mine,” Scalan said. “I remember when he got killed.”