Rough Weather - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,14

shrugged.

“We all know it’s hard to assess the performance of people under stress,” I said.

Healy was silent. He walked to one of the tall windows and looked out at the storm-littered lawn.

“Well,” he said, “we’ll see.”

He turned back to us from the window.

“You want to go home?” he said.

“Yes,” Susan said.

“I’ll tell my people at the dock to let you go,” Healy said.

Susan said, “Thank you.”

Healy looked at me and said, “You going to stay in this?”

“I think I will,” I said.

“Thought you might,” Healy said. “Just don’t muddy the waters.”

I grinned at him.

“Can’t promise,” I said.

“Didn’t think you could,” Healy said.

14

What with packing and waiting for a boat and such, we got to Susan’s house in the late afternoon. Hawk was there with Pearl. We went in, kissed Pearl, thanked Hawk, fed Pearl, went to bed, and slept for fourteen hours.

In the morning I fed Pearl again and made coffee while Susan prepared a face to meet the patients she would see today. Susan pulled together for work was rather different from the Susan whom I often took to dinner. Work was dark tailored suits, quiet makeup, little jewelry. Dinner was much more glamorous.

And after dinner was sometimes exotic.

At eight-thirty Susan went downstairs for her first patient. Pearl and I went out and ran along the river. We were back to Susan’s by nine-thirty. We were in my office checking the mail by ten. Actually, I was checking the mail. Pearl was on her couch against the far wall, resting her eyes.

The mail was unenlightening, though a couple of clients paid their bills, which was pleasing. There were no phone messages, no e-mail except spam. I wondered if anyone ever bought anything as a result of being spammed. I hoped not.

I got out a lined yellow pad and a Bic pen and sat, and looked out the window at the place where Berkeley Street crosses Boylston. Or does Boylston cross Berkeley? Either way, the storm that had hit Tashtego full-on had then followed the coast-line out along the cape and on out to sea. Boston had gotten only rain. The rain had been heavy and had washed everything so that the old redbrick city seemed to glow in the Indian-summer sunshine.

I wrote Heidi Bradshaw on my pad.

Then I sat some more and looked out the window.

Then I wrote Peter Van Meer on my pad. And in a creative frenzy wrote down Maurice Lessard and Adelaide Van Meer Lessard . Then I looked out the window some more.

It was odd for the Gray Man to be involved in a simple kidnapping for ransom, even one as ornate as this one. And if he was going to kidnap her, why would he not wait until she was on her way home from Wal-Mart, or Tiffany, or wherever Adelaide shopped, and grab her. Why a kidnapping that required a squad of submachine gunners and a helicopter, in front of a host of celebrated people, on an island that had limited exit choices?

“Why is that?” I said to Pearl.

Pearl, who was lying on her back with her feet in the air and her head lolling off the couch, opened her eyes for a moment and looked at me upside down, and closed her eyes again.

“Lassie woulda known,” I said.

I got up and made some coffee and stood in my bay window and looked down while it brewed. Then I poured myself a cup with cream and sugar and sat back down and put my feet up.

I drank some coffee.

Did Rugar want it to be noticeable? Or did someone who hired Rugar want that? Did they want to sell the kidnapping? Why would they want to? Why would they think they needed to? And why Rugar? Rugar was the big leagues. Whoever wanted her kidnapped could have hired any third-rate fringe guy to grab her. How did they even know about Rugar? You didn’t find him hanging on a corner in South Philly.

I drank some more coffee.

Maybe I was looking the wrong way. Maybe the kidnapping was a decoy. On my yellow pad I wrote DEATHS: Minister, Maurice Lessard, four Tashtego patrol guys, the shooter I threw off the cliff. Others? The guy off the cliff could not be planned for. I crossed him out. The security guys almost certainly just drew the wrong duty at the wrong time. Hard to imagine that this whole elaborate charade was a cover to kill one or more of them. I knew nothing about the minister. If