Sudden Mischief s-25

by Robert B. Parker

chapter twenty-eight

  I WAS HAVING very little success following the Galapalooza trail. Which was why I decided to revisit sexual harassment. Which is why I was sitting at my desk, studying the several nude pictures of Jeanette Ronan that I'd taken from Sterling's apartment, looking for clues. The fact that there were no clues didn't make looking a waste of time.

  The existence of the pictures was a clue; so was the existence of the letters. Both raised a serious question about the validity of a sexual harassment charge. You could certainly harass someone with whom you'd been intimate. But the pictures, and the letters, some dated after the alleged harassment, would make it hard as hell to win a court case. Even if the complaint were legitimate, a lot of women wouldn't want to take it to court and have the pictures and the letters surface. Jeanette knew about the pictures. Did she really think he wouldn't keep them? Or did she have some reason to believe he wouldn't use them? Why wouldn't he use them? One good approach would be to ask her. I got the phone and called her number. She answered. I said my name. She hung up.

  Maybe another approach would be good.

  I looked into my case file on Sterling and found Olivia Hanson's number. I dialed. She answered.

  "Spenser," I said, "with a rain check for lunch."

  "The detective," she said.

  "That's me," I said.

  "With the short gun."

  "But effective," I said. "How about that lunch now?"

  She was silent for a moment.

  "I won't ask you a single question about Jeanette Ronan," I said. "Or Brad Sterling."

  She was still silent.

  "Someplace you've been dying to go," I said.

  "I don't know," she said.

  "What are your plans for today?" I said. "Add a cup of hot water to some instant soup mix? Chicken noodle maybe? Watch some daytime TV?"

  "You have a point," she said.

  "Time to get out of the house," I said.

  "Okay. But no talking about the case."

  "Not a single question," I said.

  "Will you pick me up?"

  "Absolutely. When may I come?"

  "I have to decide what to wear," she said. "And my hair… Come at noon."

  "I'll be there," I said.

  We had lunch in a place called Weylu's. It was on a hill off Route 1 in Saugus, overlooking a parking lot for school buses. The place looked like a Disney version of the Forbidden City. There was a small stream coursing through one of the dining rooms with a little bridge over it. The food wasn't bad, but given her choice of lunch anywhere she wanted, Weylu's seemed a modest aspiration on Olivia's part. Maybe Jeanette's circle wasn't as sophisticated as I'd been led to believe.

  The waiter inquired as to cocktails. I ordered a Changsho beer to be authentic. Olivia had a glass of Cordon.

  "So," Olivia said. "What's the best part about being a detective."

  "Legitimizes nosiness," I said.

  "And you get paid for it."

  "Sometimes."

  "How did you come to be a detective?"

  She was through her first glass of wine already. The waiter was alert. He brought her another.

  "I started out as a cop," I said.

  "And why did you leave that?"

  "I got fired," I said. "I had a problem with authority."

  "Had?"

  "I'm older now," I said.

  She was leaning forward, her eyes on me, her whole person focused on me. It was flattering, but it was technical. It's what she did to be charming.

  "Would you go back?"

  "No."

  She smiled as if she'd discovered the innermost me.

  "Did you get your nose broken in the line of duty?" she said.

  "Among other things," I said.

  "Like what?"

  "I used to box."

  "Oh my," she said.

  We ordered more food than we could eat, and Olivia had another glass of wine.

  "I promised not to ask you any questions about Jeanette Ronan," I said.

  "That's right," Olivia said.

  She had a little trouble with the't's.

  "But I would like you to give her a message from me."

  "How come you don' give't to her yourself?"

  She wasn't doing so well with adjacent vowel sounds either.

  "She won't take my calls," I said.

  She drank some more wine.

  "Why don' you go out there in person?"

  "I don't want her husband to know," I said.

  "Why not?"

  "There's something involved here that he shouldn't know. I'm trying to spare her."

  A pu-pu platter had arrived and Olivia sampled a spare rib while she thought this through.

  "Wha's the message?"

  "It's a question," I said. "I'll write it on the back of my business card."

  I took out a card and wrote: Do you have a remote control device on your Polaroid? I handed it to Olivia who looked at it and frowned.

  "Wha's this mean."

  She had solved the problem with her't's by dropping them.

  "Nothing you should know," I said. "But it will mean something to her. And, hopefully, if it should fall into her husband's hands, it won't mean much to him."

  I could see that she liked the conspiratorial overtones. Fall into her husband's hands pleased her.

  "Okay," she said. "I'll do it."

  The purpose of the lunch was over, but I felt I owed her the full treatment, so I stayed on with her through several more glasses of wine, and increasingly flirtatious small talk. When I finally got her home, she was quite drunk. Much too drunk to conceal her disappointment when I said I wouldn't stay. I felt kind of bad about that, but I guess it was better than having her eager to get rid of me.

  "Will you call again?" she said.

  "Absolutely," I said.

  "Being divorced sucks," she said.

  "I've heard."

  "Nothing out there but jerks."

  "Heard that too."

  "I had a nice time," she said.

  "Me too," I said. "I'll call."

  She put her arms around my neck and stood on tiptoe and gave me a hard open mouth kiss. I did the best I could with it. It would have been ungentlemanly not to respond. Driving back to Boston over the bridge I felt like I may have been guilty of some kind of molestation myself. I decided that when this was over, I'd take her to lunch again. The decision made me feel better. But not a lot.

  chapter twenty-nine

  SUSAN CAME OVER to my place and Pearl came with her. I had promised to make steak salad and biscuits, and Pearl had apparently got wind of it. She gave me several wet kisses, then raced around my apartment nosing in every place that it was possible to conceal a steak salad. Finally she gave up and hopped onto the couch and turned around three times and lay down.

  "Now it's your turn," I said to Susan.

  "Do you mind if I don't sniff behind the bookcase?" she said.

  I settled for the several kisses. When that was done, Susan sat on one of the stools at my kitchen counter and poured half a glass of Merlot. She had come from work so she looked very professional in a tan suit.

  "We haven't had steak salad in a long time," she said.

  "Well," I said, "call me crazy, but I tire of tofu."

  "Fickle," she said.

  I was drinking a bottle of beer.

  "I like this Merlot," Susan said.

  "It's Meridien," I said. "When we were in Santa Barbara we used to look at its vineyards from the top of that hill we used to run."

  The steak was grilling. I was cutting mushrooms and sweet peppers and celery and scallions with a large knife on a white Fiberglas cutting board.

  "In some ways that was the hardest time we've ever had," Susan said, "Santa Barbara and all that went with it. But I kind of miss it."

  I turned the steaks on the grill with some tongs.

  "I was pretty dependent on you when we first got out there," I said.

  "Well, of course you were,
" Susan said. "You'd been shot and nearly died."

  "That does increase dependency, I suppose."

  There was a lot of activity on my couch. Pearl was rooting the pillows around trying for a better lie. She finally found one that satisfied her and she settled into it with a sigh.

  Susan got up from the counter, took her wine glass, walked to the front windows in the living room, and looked down at Marlborough Street. During the fall last year, when fresh corn was a glut on the table, I had wrapped and frozen any ears left over during the time of plenty. Now that fresh corn would be more valuable than ambergris, I couldn't wait to take out a couple of frozen ears and use them. They weren't good as corn on the cob, but thawed and cut from the cob, the kernels were a lot better than the perfect and nearly tasteless ones they sell in the store. I picked up one of the ears I'd defrosted and began to cut the kernels off.

  "Magnolias are out," Susan said from the window.

  "Every year," I said.

  I scraped the cut corn into a small bowl, sprinkled it with very little sugar and some chopped cilantro, and put it aside.

  "I wonder if my fondness for Santa Barbara might have had something to do with your dependence," Susan said.

  "Well, I was sure at my least," I said.

  "Physically," Susan said. "You were, and that maybe is what I'm responding to now. But in some ways you were more you than you've ever been."

  "I think this may be my moment," I said. "I understand what you said."

  Still carrying her wine glass, she turned away from the window and came back to the counter and sat again.

  "Do you know why I've been so bitchy lately?"

  "Is bitchy an acceptable phrase for a feminist?" I said.

  "No. Do you know?"

  "Has something to do with Brad Sterling."

  "Do you have a theory on what the something is?"

  "Well, I'd say something about him, or my connection to him, scares you."

  "Yes," Susan said. "I think that's right. Do you know what it is?"

  "No."

  "That's the thing," Susan said. "I don't either, and being scared and not knowing of what makes me frantic."

  "You're not used to it," I said.

  "No I'm not. And," she shook her head, – "physician heal thyself-I decided simply to deny it."

  "And yet you would ask about him."

  "Of course, how could I not be interested? I had gotten myself into a situation I couldn't tolerate."

  "And therefore…"

  "And therefore bitchy," Susan said.

  "Like you are about Russell Costigan," I said.

  Susan took in a deep breath and let it out. I was finished tearing the romaine and the steaks were done. I took the steaks off the grill and put them on the cutting board to rest.

  "You are so much fun," Susan said. "And you're so nice to people who need being nice to, and you're so nice to me that it is easy to forget how hard you are."

  I got out a container of cajun spice that a guy had sent me from Louisiana and sprinkled some on the steaks. There was nothing to be gained here by opening my mouth.

  "But it's not meanness, is it," Susan said.

  I wasn't entirely sure she was talking just to me.

  "You think I need to make the connection between how I feel about Brad and how I feel about Russell Costigan."

  I nodded.

  "And you know how difficult this is for me, which is why you are being very quiet."

  I nodded.

  "You are, of course, right, you bastard."

  "Don't you hate when that happens," I said.

  Susan nodded. I began to cut the steaks into small squares. Susan was quiet. I looked up at her and there were tears running down her face.

  "Jesus Christ," I said.

  She turned her head away. But she couldn't stop her shoulders from shaking. Pearl raised her head from the couch and looked at Susan with a mixture of annoyance and anxiety. I came around the counter and started to put an arm around her shoulder. She stood and turned half away from me. Her shoulders were shaking hard now and she was cursing to herself.

  "Goddamn it," she said. "Goddamn it, goddamn it."

  I moved around so I was facing her and put my arms around her. It was like embracing a coat hanger. I didn't force it. But I didn't take my arms away.

  "What is wrong with me?" she said. "What in hell is wrong with me?"

  "Don't know yet," I said. "But we'll find out."

  And then it broke and she leaned in against me and put both her arms as far around me as she could reach and sobbed. Pearl got off the couch and came over and tried to get her head in between our thighs and failing that put her head against mine and looked up at me. She'd have to wait.

  chapter thirty

  WE DIDN'T GET to sleep until very late that night and got up far too early in the morning. Susan was very late, so she left Pearl with me for further spoiling. I fed Pearl and walked her and now she was in the office with me looking out my window and barking at things on Berkeley Street. I was drinking coffee and sharing an oatmeal scone with Pearl and trying to feel perkier when Quirk came in. Pearl abandoned me at once and hustled over. Quirk bent down low enough for Pearl to give him a lap, and scratched her behind the right ear for a moment before he straightened up.

  "You got custody this week?" he said.

  "It's take your dog to work day," I said. "You want some coffee?"

  "Of course."

  I got a cup from the storage cabinet and handed it to him and pointed at the Mr. Coffee machine on the side table.

  "There's milk in the little refrigerator," I said.

  Quirk poured some coffee, and added milk and sugar. Pearl paid close attention. There was a canister of dog biscuits beside the coffee maker. Quirk took one out and gave it to Pearl. Then he came and sat in one of my conference chairs. Pearl sat on the floor beside him and put her head on his thigh.

  "Why you," Quirk said to Pearl, "why not my old lady?"

  Pearl wagged her tail.

  "Going through Sterling's address file, we came across the name Richard Gavin," Quirk said.

  I nodded.

  "When we talked the other night in Sterling's office," Quirk said to me, "you mentioned a guy named Gavin who kept popping up in whatever it is you think you're doing."

  "Investigating," I said. "I'm investigating."

  "Sure you are," Quirk said. "Gavin has popped up again."

  "And you stopped by on your way to work to share?" I said.

  "Spirit of cooperation," Quirk said. "Maybe you can learn by example."

  He drank some coffee.

  "Good coffee," he said. "You remember the name of the stiff in Sterling's office?"

  "Cony Brown," I said.

  "Right. You remember he was tried for assault in Massachusetts."

  "Yeah, dismissed because the plaintiff got frightened."

  "Uh huh. You want to guess who his lawyer was?"

  "Richard Gavin."

  Quirk pointed his forefinger. "Bingo," he said.

  "Richard gets around." I was thinking out loud. "He warns me away from Carla Quagliozzi, who is Sterling's ex-wife. Number 3, I think, who is the president of a charity, of which Gavin is a board member, which was part of Galapalooza which Sterling produced. Gavin's name is in Sterling's address file…"

  "To which you of course have no legal access," Quirk said.

  "Right. And a guy who answers Gavin's description is calling on some of the other charities in Galapalooza asking how much money they made from the event."

  "Is he now?" Quirk said. "You got any idea why?"

  "No. All I know is that nobody made a dime, except Civil Streets."

  "How much did they get?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Maybe they didn't get anything either. They won't talk to me."

  "I'll bet I can get them to talk to me," Quirk said.

  "You have a winning way about you, Captain."

  "Yeah. You want to make a wager what I'll find
out?"

  "If you get past the cooked books?"

  "I got people can get past those," Quirk said.

  "I'll bet they made a bundle."

  "No bet," Quirk said.

  We sat quiet for a time drinking coffee, both of us thinking.

  "Here's what I know," I said to Quirk.

  "See, spirit of concentration is working already."

  "He talks a good game, and he puts up a nice front, and he won't admit it, but financially, Sterling is in the crapper. He's got alimony and child support. He can't pay his bills. He's apparently run out of people to borrow from. Even his sister won't lend him money."

  I held up a last small corner of my oatmeal scone.

  Pearl left Quirk and came over and I gave it to her. She ate it with a lot more enthusiasm than its size deserved.

  "It's a mess," Quirk said. "But there's ways to get out of it. People get out of it all the time."

  "Sure," I said. "The right kind of people. They change the way they manage their money. Restructure for debt relief until they get back on their feet. They might even get a better job, or pick up a night job. But Sterling's old man was a self-made success, and Sterling went to Harvard and played football and was in Hasty Pudding, and drives a Lexus and rents himself a corner office and thinks all those things are important."

  "So he doesn't do the only thing that makes any sense," Quirk said. "He does something stupid."

  "He does something stupid," I said. "And now he's involved with people like Cony Brown."

  Quirk nodded. We both drank coffee again. Pearl lingered near my desk, in case I might eat another scone. Quirk got up and went to the side table and poured himself more coffee. He put in a careful measure of milk and two sugars. He took another dog biscuit from the canister and came over and gave it to Pearl and went back and sat down. Pearl ate the biscuit and resumed her scone watch.

  "And," Quirk said, "there was Galapalooza, grossing all that dough."

  "Ah yes," I said.

  "So where's Gavin fit?" Quirk said.

  "Don't know yet."

  "And what is Gavin's connection to Carla Quagliozzi?"

  "Don't know yet."

  "And if you had been married to a guy and could call yourself Carla Sterling, why would you go with Quagliozzi?"

  "Might be pride in heritage," I said.

  "Yeah, that's probably it," Quirk said.