“Just what do you mean by that?” the lawyer said.
“Hell,” I said. “I have no idea.”
And I turned and walked out of the office without closing the door. . . . That showed ’em.
7
Healy came into my office with two large coffees and a dozen doughnuts. He put one coffee on my desk and offered me a doughnut.
“A bribe?” I said.
“Authentic cop food,” Healy said.
“Oh, boy,” I said. “Two of these babies and I’ll run out and give somebody a ticket.”
“Thought I might come by this morning and compare notes,” Healy said.
“Which means you haven’t got much and you’re wondering if I do,” I said.
“You want the doughnuts or not,” Healy said.
“Okay,” I said. I took a significant bite. “I know nothing.”
“Lot of that going around,” Healy said.
“You talk to the museum people?” I said.
“Yep, Richards, the director, and his man Lloyd, the lawyer,” Healy said. “You?”
“Same two,” I said.
“And?”
“They wouldn’t tell me anything,” I said. “How’d you do.”
“No better,” Healy said. “And I’m a captain.”
“Did you tell them that?” I said.
“They seemed unimpressed.”
“You know who the insurance company is?”
“I did get that,” Healy said. “Shawmut.”
“Way to go, Captain.”
“Their home office is here,” Healy said. “Berkeley Street, corner of Columbus. Right up from you.”
“I know the building,” I said. “Got the name of an investigator or somebody?”
“They call them claim-resolution specialists.”
“Of course they do,” I said.
“Called over there,” Healy said. “They tell me the claims-resolution specialist has not yet been assigned.”
“Who’d you talk with,” I said.
“Head of claims resolution, woman named Winifred Minor.”
“How about Prince?” I said.
“Professor at Walford University,” Healy said. “Married, no kids, lived in Cambridge.”
“Cambridge,” I said. “There’s a surprise. You talk with the wife?”
“Distraught,” Healy said. “Doctor’s care. So no, we haven’t talked to her.”
“She use his name?” I said.
“She’s a poet,” Healy said.
“So she doesn’t use his name,” I said.
“No,” Healy said. “Her name is Rosalind Wellington.”
“Wow,” I said.
“You read a lot,” Healy said. “You ever heard of her?”
“No,” I said. “But maybe she doesn’t know who I am, either.”
“I’d bet on it,” Healy said.
“What about Prince?” I said. “Anything?”
“We interviewed some colleagues at Walford. Nobody seems to know much about him. Quiet guy, minded his own business.”
“Talk to students?”
“A few,” Healy said. “Ordinary teacher, easy grader, nothing remarkable.”
“How’d he end up consulting on the art theft?”
“I asked that question,” Healy said. “They were a little evasive, but it appears that Lawyer Lloyd recommended him.”
I fumbled around in my desk drawer and took out the card Prince had given me at our first meeting. It said Ashton Prince, Ph.D., and a phone number. I passed it to Healy.
“He told me he was a forensic consultant,” I said.
“That’s his home phone,” Healy said.
“Heavens,” I said. “No wonder you made captain. You know if he had an office or anything?”
“None that we can find,” Healy said.
“What about Lawyer Lloyd?” I said.
“Morton Lloyd,” Healy said. “Tort specialist. Works for the museum pro bono.”
“He legit?” I said.
“Far’s we can tell,” Healy said.
“He got an office?”
“Yeah, on Batterymarch,” Healy said. “Lloyd and Leiter.”
“He tell you that?” I said.
“No,” Healy said.
“Everybody is holding their cards right in close to their chest,” I said.
“Yep.”
“Whaddya think that’s about?” I said.
“I think the picture is still out there,” Healy said.
“That’s what I think,” I said.
8
Shawmut Insurance Company was very handy, so when Healy left, I went over there. It was a medium-size brick-and-granite building, built in the time when people seemed to care about how buildings looked. There was an arched entrance on Columbus, and a smaller one on Berkeley. Next to it there was a hotel that used to be Boston police headquarters.
I wanted the full experience, so I went around the corner onto Columbus and went in the granite arched main entrance. Inside was a big old lobby that rose several stories. Opposite the entry was a black iron elevator cage. I asked the security guy at the desk for Winifred Minor and was sent, via the black iron elevator, to the third floor.
The third floor was open and full of desks, except along the Columbus Avenue side, where a series of half-partitioned cubicles marched in a fearful symmetry. The one where Winifred Minor had her desk had a higher partition than those on either side of her. Status! There was one at the far end that not only had a floor-to-ceiling partition but also a secretary outside. Deification. I stuck my head in the opening of Winifred Minor’s cubicle and rapped gently on the outer edge.
“Yes?”
I stepped in.
“My name’s Spenser,” I said. “I believe you talked with Captain Healy on the phone. I’m just stopping by to follow up.”
She looked at me as though she might be going to buy me.
“Spenser,” she said, and wrote in a small notebook that was open in front of her.
I nodded and put a little wattage into my killer smile. She survived it.
“First name?” she said.
I told her. She wrote that down in her little notebook. Then she looked straight at me and spoke. Her voice was very clear, and her speech was precise.
“I have nothing to say.”
“You know,” I said, “I don’t, either. These first meetings are awkward as hell, aren’t they.”
She leaned back a little and folded her arms. She frowned, though it wasn’t an angry frown. She looked good. She had thick black hair that she wore long. She had Tina Fey glasses and was wearing a white shirt and a fitted black tunic with brass buttons. I couldn’t see what she was wearing below that because the desk was in the way. But what showed of her was very well made up, very pulled together, and hot.
“Once we get to know each other,” I said, “we’ll be chattering like a couple of schoolgirls, but the first moments are always hard.”
“Well,” she said in her clear, precise way, “you are not the standard cop.”
I smiled and tilted my head a little in obvious modesty.
“I know,” I said.
She looked at me some more. I dialed my smile up a little higher. She smiled back at me.
“Does this crap usually work for you?” she said.
I grinned.
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Well,” she said. “This is one of those times. Sit down. Tell me what you need.”
Magnified by the fancy glasses, her dark eyes seemed even bigger than they probably were. She knew they were a good feature. She let them rest steadily on me. She didn’t blink. She sat and looked and waited.
“Okay,” I said. “Right from the beginning, I want there to be no secrets between us.”
She didn’t smile. But something sort of glittered in her eyes.
“I’m not a cop. I’m a private detective.”
“You were adroit at letting me think you were a cop, without actually saying so.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“So who is your client,” she said.
“Nobody,” I said. “I’m the guy who was supposed to protect Ashton Prince when he delivered the, ah, ransom.”
“And you are not satisfied with your performance,” she said.