Rough Weather - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,53

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