Now and then - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,17

said.

“You’ve tossed his place?”

“We’ve looked around,” Epstein said. “We’ll look again.”

He got up and went to the fi le cabinet and got more coffee.

“Got any thoughts on whether he got compromised?” Epstein said.

“Nothing I didn’t tell you at the Holiday Inn bar,” I said.

“Anything about Alderson?” Epstein said.

I shook my head.

“Wasn’t that interested in Alderson,” I said. “I was hired to be interested in Jordan Richmond.”

“You got any idea why she got killed?” Epstein said.

“No.”

“Or who the killer was?”

“No.”

“Or if somebody hired him?”

I shook my head just for a change of pace. It was as if Epstein was running down a checklist in his head.

“And if somebody did hire him,” Epstein said, “who that might be?”

“Nope.”

“Or where Dennis Doherty is?”

“Not a clue,” I said.

“Sadly,” Epstein said, “me either.”

20.

It had been an odd fall. It rained every day for about six weeks, and now, two weeks before Thanksgiving, it was sunny, and temperate enough to sit on a bench in the Public Garden and have lunch. Some of the trees were leafless, but many of them still had a full complement. Yellow mostly, with some red and now and then some green.

“You should drop Alderson for the moment,” I said to Hawk.

“Epstein will be all over him.”

Hawk nodded. He ate a small plastic forkful of curried chicken salad from his plastic takeout dish.

“For the moment?” he said.

“We might want to revisit him later,” I said. “Depends on developments.”

“Why not just leave it be?” Vinnie said. “You got nobody paying you.”

Vinnie had a meatball sub which, because his movements were so precise, he was able to eat without getting any on his shirt. I could get chewing gum on my shirt.

“Spenser don’t leave things be,” Hawk said. “You know that.”

“Why don’t he?” Vinnie said.

“I don’t know,” Hawk said.

He looked at me.

“Why don’t you?” he said.

“Something buried in my deep past,” I said.

“What?” Vinnie said.

“That mean he don’t know either,” Hawk said. “But I promise you he ain’t gonna let this alone.”

“You know that,” Vinnie said.

“Ah do,” Hawk said.

“How you know.”

“He gonna think she died on his watch.”

“He wasn’t even there,” Vinnie said. “Fuck, if you want to talk about that, she died on my watch.”

“That bother you?” Hawk said.

“Bother? No.” Vinnie was puzzled. “I wasn’t protecting her. . . . I nailed the guy clipped her.”

“He’s different than us,” Hawk said.

“Could you guys discuss me on your own time?”

“’Course not,” Hawk said.

I laughed.

“The guy you clipped,” I said to Vinnie. “How did he get there?”

“No car?” Vinnie said.

“No car,” I said. “No car keys. FBI and the Cambridge cops went through every car parked in the lot or on the street. Identifi ed all the owners. None of them was your guy.”

Vinnie shrugged and took another precise drip-free bite of his sandwich.

“Subway.”

“No wallet. No money. No tokens. No pass. Even if he used a token to get there. How does he leave?”

Vinnie chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

When he was through he said, “You don’t want to hit somebody like that and have nowhere to go.”

Hawk nodded.

“Crowded area, maybe,” Vinnie said. “You pop the mark and mingle with the crowd. But not here. Nobody’s gonna hit somebody in the bright morning and plan to stroll away in Kendall Square.”

“Don’t like to depend on no subway either,” Hawk said.

“Be a driver,” Vinnie said.

“See anybody?”

“No,” Vinnie said. “Wasn’t looking for anybody.”

“Untraceable piece,” Hawk said. “No ID, no money, no means of transportation.”

“Had to have a driver,” Vinnie said. “When he saw the shooter go down, driver took off.”

“Somebody going to a lot of trouble, keep him a secret,”

Hawk said. “Case he got caught.”

“How could they be sure he wouldn’t talk, if he got caught?”

I said.

None of us knew.

“So you going to chase this thing?” Vinnie said.

“Probably,” I said.

“You know why?” Vinnie said.

“Because I can’t sing and dance,” I said.

21.

Epstein called me from his car.

“Doherty’s dead,” Epstein said. “Want to ride along?”

I did.

There were a couple of cruisers, and a couple of unmarked cars and a coroner’s wagon parked near the water behind UMass, Boston. Doherty was not recognizable, a sodden something wedged in among some boulders. Frank Belson was there.

“Been in the water awhile,” he said. “Hard to say where he went in.”

“Cause of death?” Epstein said.

“Have to wait till they open him up,” Belson said. “Body’s been banging against rocks and things.”

“Any estimate when?”

Belson shook his head.

“Same thing,” he said. “You know what they’re like in the water. When did he go missing?”

Epstein told him.

“Consistent,” Belson said. “Coulda died then.”

“No sign of his car?”