Perish Twice

by Robert B. Parker

  When I got there, Rosie did her usual several spins and then ran to her water dish and drank half her body weight. When her glad-to-see-you ritual was done, and she would hold still long enough for me to hook the leash on her collar, I took her for a walk. We walked down Summer Street to the bridge over Fort Point Channel and stopped there. Rosie very much enjoyed looking down at the water, while I leaned on the bridge railing and fielded the inevitable questions about her species, gender, and purpose.

  “Is that a pit bull?”

  “No, she’s a miniature bull terrier. She bears no resemblance to a pit bull.”

  What was going on with Lawrence B. Reeves? Why didn’t Mary Lou want him named? Why was he stalking her? Why had he been so freaky when I confronted him?

  “Is that a dog?”

  “Yes.”

  She had to know him. It was the only thing that made sense. There would be no reason to conceal him if she didn’t know him.

  “Does he bite?”

  “Depends. She’s a wonderful ratter.”

  And she had to know him in a way that would somehow compromise her. A small child walked by, holding its mother’s hand. Rosie barked at him.

  The kid said, “Bad doggie.”

  The mother and I glared at each other.

  The only thing I could think of was to look into Lawrence B. Reeves and see if I could backtrack him to Mary Lou. I looked down at the slick black surface of the water. It moved sluggishly. Rosie stared down at it through the fence railing, her tail wagging. I wasn’t likely to find out very much about Lawrence B. Reeves by tomorrow and I knew Farrell wasn’t bluffing. Whether he’d get my license lifted or not wasn’t clear, but I knew he’d come after me if I didn’t go in tomorrow; besides, I’d said I would. I had already decided, I realized, that I would have to tell Farrell what he wanted to know.

  A panhandler stopped beside us.

  “What a cute dog,” the panhandler said. “Wha’s his name.”

  “Fang,” I said.

  “Can I pat him?”

  “Better not,” I said. “He’s vicious.”

  “You got any spare change?”

  “No.”

  “Have a nice day,” the panhandler said.

  “You bet,” I said.

  The panhandler moved off. I looked at Rosie. Who was still focused on the glossy black water moving sluggishly below her.

  “Mommy’s in a foul mood,” I said aloud.

  Rosie ignored me.

  “Want a cookie?” I said.

  Rosie turned abruptly and stared straight up at me with her opaque little black eyes gleaming.

  “Come on,” I said, “we’ll go home and get a cookie.”

  I turned from the railing and started back up Summer Street. Rosie trotted along in front of me with never a backward glance at the bridge.

  CHAPTER

  15

  BACK IN MY loft, I gave Rosie her cookie, and called Mary Lou to announce my decision. The conversation was short, unpleasant, and ended, as promised, with me being fired. I left Rosie asleep on the bed with her feet sticking up, and went over to the new Police Headquarters Building. Lee Farrell was at his desk in the Homicide Bureau. There was a chair beside the desk. I sat in it.

  “You’re early,” Farrell said. “Who’s the stalker?”

  I handed him one of the pictures I’d taken.

  “His name is Lawrence B. Reeves,” I said. “He lives on Brookline Street in Cambridge. I wrote the address on the back.”

  “Your, ah, employer know you’ve told me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve been fired.”

  “Sorry about that,” Farrell said, though not like he meant it much. “Why doesn’t she want us to know this guy’s name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She know him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll go talk with him,” Farrell said.

  “May I come along?”

  “I thought you were fired.”

  “Can I come along anyway?”

  Farrell grinned.

  “Nosy broad?” he said.

  “Stubborn broad,” I said.

  “The best kind. You free now?”

  “Completely.”

  “You’re living that close to the edge?” Farrell said. “No other clients?”

  “My brother-in-law, sort of.”

  Farrell shook his head. He looked at his watch.

  “Four o’clock,” he said. “I’ll get someone from Cambridge to meet us there and we’ll go see if he’s home.”

  A Cambridge detective named Bernie Larkin was sitting in his car outside Lawrence B. Reeves’s house when we arrived. Farrell introduced me.

  “He’s in there,” Larkin said. “I saw him peeking out the front window when I parked.”

  “Okay, we’re just here to talk with him,” Farrell said as we walked up the front walk. “There shouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “On the other hand he’s a murder suspect,” Larkin said.

  Farrell unbuttoned his sport coat.

  “So far,” Farrell said.

  Larkin took out his gun and held it by his side and stood to the left of the door. I had mine unholstered, holding it in the side pocket of my coat. Farrell rang the front door bell. Nothing. He rang it again. Footsteps. Then silence. Farrell rang a third time. The door opened slightly. It was on a chain bolt. A narrow part of Lawrence B. Reeves peered out.

  “What do you want?”

  Farrell held up his badge.

  “My name is Detective Lee Farrell,” he said. “Boston Police. This is Detective Bernie Larkin of the Cambridge Police. We need to talk with you.”

  “What about?”

  “About a murder in the offices of Mary Lou Goddard.”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Reeves, we need to talk.”

  “No.”

  Farrell smiled.

  “And,” he said pleasantly, “we will. There’s the civilized way, where you invite us in, and we chat pleasantly…”

  “No. Go away.”

  “…or we can go the Wild West route, where Detective Larkin calls the station and some people come up and kick in your door and we arrest you.”

  The one eye that Reeves was looking out the door opening with shifted toward me. With my coat collar up, holding my gun in my coat pocket, I felt like Georgette Raft.

  “She told you, didn’t she?”

  “Open the door, Lawrence.”

  “That bitch told you,” he said. “I have to close the door to unhook the chain.”

  “Sure,” Farrell said.

  The door closed. Farrell put his hand on his gun butt under his jacket. I tensed. All three of us knew that when the door opened you could not be sure what would come out. I heard the chain rattle inside, then the door opened and Lawrence B. Reeves gestured us in.

  We were in the downstairs hall of a two-family house. The stairs to the second floor ran up the right-hand wall. Glass double doors opened into a living room that ran narrowly along the left-hand side of the house. Reeves brought us in there. The room was not enticing. The furniture was shabby. There was a lot of dust, teacups with used tea bags drying in the bottom were here and there on surfaces that would hold them. A lot of newspapers, not all of them recent, were in a slovenly pile near the couch, which was obviously sprung, and covered with a multicolored crocheted throw. Farrell and I sat on the couch. Larkin, his gun out of sight again, was leaning in the doorway. Reeves sat in a straight chair with rounded arms and carved feet. He gazed at me balefully.

  “You are Lawrence B. Reeves?” Farrell said.

  “Yes. She told you, didn’t s
he?”

  “Where were you last night from, say, midnight to eight?”

  “Mostly I was in bed.”

  “Can anyone testify to that?”

  An odd look came into Lawrence’s eyes.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Well, we understand you were stalking Mary Lou Goddard,” Farrell said.

  Reeves glared at me some more.

  “And,” Farrell said, “we thought it would make sense to eliminate you as a murder suspect.”

  “Mary Lou wasn’t killed.”

  “No, her assistant. We think it could be mistaken identity.”

  “Because this bitch says I was following Mary Lou, you think I killed her.”

  “The bitch rap is beginning to annoy me,” Farrell said. “Do you have an alibi for last night.”

  “There was a woman here,” Reeves said. He looked straight at me. “We came here from the Casablanca at 10:45 last night. She stayed until 9:30 this morning. We had breakfast together.”

  “Way to go, Lawrence,” Larkin said from the doorway.

  “There are a lot of women come here,” Reeves said.

  “What is this one’s name?”

  “I can’t tell you her name.”

  “We’ll need to verify the alibi, Lawrence.”

  “A gentleman does not kiss and tell.”

  Farrell took in some air through his nose and let it out slowly.

  “A gentleman can get his ass kicked up between his ears,” Farrell said.

  “Police violence,” Reeves said. “I want an attorney.”

  “You’re not being charged with anything, you moron,” Farrell said. “We just need to confirm your alibi.”

  “We can find her, Mr. Reeves,” I said. “We know you were at the Casablanca last night. Someone must have seen you together. It’s only time and effort.”

  “How do you know I was at the Casablanca?”

  “You just said so.”

  “Smart bitch,” Reeves said and leaned forward and hit me with his fist on my thigh. I’ve had passes made at me that hurt more, but it was all Farrell needed. He was on his feet, got a handful of Reeves’s hair, yanked him out of the chair, and slammed him facedown on the living room floor. He put his right knee between Reeves’s shoulder blades.

  “We got you for assault, you sonofabitch.”

  Reeves started screaming. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.”

  “You are under arrest for assault,” Farrell began. “You have the right to an attorney. If you…”

  “Bonnie Winslow,” Reeves screamed. “Bonnie Winslow was here.”

  Farrell grinned.

  “If he gives us her address, are you willing to drop the assault charge,” he said to me.

  “I guess,” I said.

  CHAPTER

  16

  LEE FARRELL CALLED to say that Lawrence B. Reeves’s alibi checked out, and I was about fifteen minutes late meeting Julie at the bar in the Casablanca. When I got there, she was talking to a man with a blond beard wearing a dark brown Harris tweed jacket and a wool scarf. The wool scarf was not my favorite look. She had an empty wineglass in front of her and was just ordering another, when I slid onto the empty bar stool beside her.

  “Sunny,” she said, “this is Robert.”

  “Hi, Robert.”

  “Sunny?” Robert said. “What kind of name is Sunny?”

  “A good one,” I said.

  The bartender delivered Julie’s wine. I ordered a Belvedere martini on the rocks with a twist. Julie looked startled.

  “Well,” she said, “that kind of day.”

  “Yes.”

  Julie drank some of her white wine.

  “I’m in the mood for wine myself,” Robert said.

  “Maybe we should share a bottle.”

  “Sure,” Julie said.

  The bartender brought me my martini. I drank some and felt it move through me. I felt like saying ahhhhhh but decided that it was unladylike.

  “Want to talk about it?” Julie said.

  “What kind of wine do you prefer?” Robert said.

  “Oh, you pick it. I just know white and red,” Julie said.

  “I had to do something that makes me feel bad,” I said.

  “Did you have a choice?”

  “Not really.”

  “Tell me,” Julie said.

  Robert was studying the wine list.

  “How about this nice California Chardonnay,”

  Robert said.

  “Sure,” Julie said.

  Robert gestured to the bartender. I told Julie about Lawrence B. Reeves and Mary Lou Goddard, and Lee Farrell.

  “Is the detective cute?” Julie said.

  “And taken,” I said.

  “Aren’t they all,” Julie said. “You did what you had to do, Sunny.”

  The bartender brought a bottle of Chardonnay and two fresh glasses. He opened the wine and poured a small splash into one of the glasses.

  “Would you care to test this?” Robert said to Julie.

  “No, no. You decide,” Julie said and smiled at him as if deciding were definitely man’s work. She turned back to me.

  “I know,” I said, “but it doesn’t make me feel good.”

  “Your client didn’t have the right,” Julie said, “to put you in that position.”

  I nodded. Robert sampled the wine as if he were testing the cure for cancer. He swirled the wine, breathed in its aroma, swirled it again, took a small sip, let it rest on his palate for a time before he swallowed, then nodded at the bartender, who poured out two glasses and left the bottle. Julie finished her existing wine and pushed the glass away and took the new wine. Robert leaned forward to talk to me across Julie.

  “Would you care for some wine, Sunny?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “The martini is a nice year.”

  He smiled indulgently. Many members of the lower class didn’t understand about wine. He clicked glasses with Julie and they each sipped some wine. Robert said something I couldn’t hear, and Julie giggled. I thought about how odd Lawrence B. Reeves was. I thought about him here probably at this bar, with Bonnie Winslow. I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to learn more about him, even if I wasn’t on the case anymore. It was better than trying to talk to Julie, or listening to her talk with Robert, and really a whole hell of a lot better than listening to her giggle. I got one of my pictures of Lawrence out of my purse and showed it to the bartender.

  “Larry Reeves,” he said.

  “He a regular?”

  “Sure. Comes in couple nights a week.”

  “Alone?”

  “When he comes in.”

  “He meet someone?”

  “Usually picks up a woman,” the bartender said. “That’s what he comes in for. Nurses maybe one beer at the bar until he scores or strikes out.”

  “Does he score often?”

  “Pretty often.”

  “He doesn’t look like he would.”

  The bartender shrugged.

  “Larry does pretty well, Sunny,” he said. “This is Cambridge. Usual rules don’t apply.”

  “Do you know any of the women he, ah, dates?”

  “He scores a couple regulars pretty often,” the bar tender said.

  “You know them?”

  “Woman named Bonnie, some others, I don’t know their names.”

  “Any of them here tonight?”

  The bartender glanced around the bar. At this hour it was half empty.

  He said, “Nope. Are you working, Sunny?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Just curious.”<
br />
  “If this is about a case or something, I probably shouldn’t be blabbing.”

  “I don’t even have a client,” I said. “And I’ll never tell you told.”

  “Sure,” he said. “You want another martini?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Beside me, Julie and Robert had turned on their bar stools so that they were facing each other and their knees were sort of interactive. Julie giggled again. This wasn’t a Julie I knew. And I wasn’t sure it was a Julie I liked. There would be, however, a better time than now to discuss it. I thought about that for a while, and when my martini was gone, excused myself. Robert said it was great to meet me. Julie hugged me and said she hoped I felt better tomorrow. I said I was feeling better now. Julie said she’d call me. And I went home.

  CHAPTER

  17

  I WAS SITTING at the bar of a restaurant in Wellesley called Blue Ginger with Spike.

  “This is how it’s going to go. Elizabeth has a blind date. She’s afraid to meet him alone, so we’ll sit here, and when she comes in she’ll be thrilled to see us and ask us to join them.”

  “I haven’t been this far out into the suburbs since The Brady Bunch was on television,” Spike said.

  “Elizabeth picked it. She thinks the city is dangerous.”

  Spike was drinking vodka on the rocks. He sipped some.

  “I hate your sister,” Spike said.

  “I’m not crazy about her either, but she is family.”

  Spike said, “This is a big favor, Sunny.”

  “Yes it is, but I’m worth a big favor.”

  “Richie wouldn’t do it?”

  “I have dinner with Richie every Wednesday night,” I said. “I wouldn’t let her share that.”

  “So why not have dinner with her alone?”

  “She’s got a date, and she wants me to have one.”

  “Do I have to make out with you after?”

  “No.”

  “Where’d she find this guy?”

  I looked at the surface of my drink.

  “Personal ad,” I said very softly.

  “What?”

  “Personal ad,” I said a little louder.