“Watch your step,” I said.
“She’s very scared and alone.”
I nodded.
“She said I make her feel safe.”
I nodded again.
Z took the ball from Pearl and threw it far and wide. His face was slick with rain as he stared up at the rolling hills and picnic tables. Pearl and the black Lab nuzzled each other. Pearl was faster and stronger, but for some reason, she dropped the ball in front of the Lab. I reached for the ball and threw it as far as I could.
“We had sex,” Z said.
“Uh-huh.”
“The other night,” he said. “She wanted me to come up to the room. She was naked.”
“Hard to resist.”
Z shrugged.
“I don’t know much about this woman,” I said. “But the more I know, the less I like.”
“Because she was Rose’s protégée?”
“That she didn’t mention it.”
Z nodded.
“She asks me a lot about you,” Z said. “Wants to know what you know. She asks me a lot about Rachel Weinberg, too. And wants to know about your meetings with Healy.”
Pearl returned. She looked happy and winded. A man in a red windbreaker called for the Lab, and the Lab trotted off. I placed my hand on Pearl’s head and attached her leash.
“What else?” I said.
“Jemma says you took advantage of her the other night.”
“By saving her life?”
“After,” he said. “She said you poured her a lot of drinks and that things happened.”
“She tripped on my rug and I put her to bed.”
“She said she does not remember it all,” Z said. “But she remembers you crawling on top of her in the night. And doing things.”
“You would think that I would remember, too.”
“I told her that I couldn’t trust you anymore,” Z said. “I said that you were a liar and a man without honor.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Z broke into a grin. “I said I was through with you,” he said. “But I would act as if we were still friends and pass along information.”
“Some sidekick.”
Z shrugged. He was still smiling.
“Perhaps you can find out why she kept her relationship with Harvey Rose secret?”
“If you slept with that man, wouldn’t you lie about it?”
“Most definitely.”
We walked back to our cars, taking a winding path covered with pebbles and stones. The air seemed to swell and expand, the dark, full clouds pregnant with an oncoming storm. Z walked to his car while I stopped at my Explorer.
“She does believe those dead men were coming for her,” Z said.
“Maybe so.”
“She has a lot of fear in her,” Z said.
“You would know,” I said.
“How long do we keep this up?”
“Me as the Lone Ranger?”
Z nodded.
“When we come to a fork in the road, we both take it.”
57
DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS, nothing new was learned for two whole days. Pearl seemed unconcerned, as she had taken the entire new couch while I walked across Berkeley for a tall Starbucks coffee. I tossed her a bit of a blueberry scone, and she caught it in midair and swallowed it whole. I spread out a copy of the Globe on my desk, going right for the sports section. It was early in the season, but many were already calling for the Sox manager’s resignation. Many also doubted the salaries of several marquee players. Perhaps my job was more stress-free. Then again, ballplayers seldom dodge bullets.
After reading the box scores and checking in with Arlo & Janis, I got right into the accumulated mail. I was shocked to find a check from a previous client. And not so shocked to see a check I had sent to Mattie Sullivan torn in half and returned in a new envelope. I received an amazing offer from a local pizza chain, two for one. I put that aside. I found out I was preapproved for a credit card. That I tossed in the trash. I saved the largest envelope for last.
I slit open the edge with my thumbnail and out dropped what seemed to be a basic key fob. But on further analysis, I realized it was a flash drive. The envelope was otherwise empty. My address was computer-generated on a basic Avery label. Of course, there wasn’t a return address.
I clutched the flash drive in my hand and tried it out in my computer. My computer spoke to the flash drive, and in a couple seconds, a fifty-eight-page Excel document opened, filled with rows and columns of neatly aligned numbers and figures. At the top of several columns were names of many area banks. Running along the side of the document were dates of transfers. Gadzooks.
Being a trained detective, I noted this might mean something. Being someone who did not have a degree from Harvard Business School, I knew I needed a bit of help. I reached for the phone and called Wayne Cosgrove as I copied the Excel file to my hard drive. He did not graduate from HBS but would know someone who could translate.
“Hold for subscriptions,” Wayne said.
“I just received this neato electronic thingy in the mail,” I said. “It appears to highlight many banks’ wire transfers and payments over the course of the last six months.”
“Good for you.”
“Many payments of note go to a deluxe slush fund for Joseph G. Perotti.”
“And how did you come by this information?”
“On this neat thingy,” I said. “Sent in the mail.”
“Just showed up in your mail?”
“I do believe someone has been searching for it,” I said. “My office was torn apart a few days ago. Someone believed I had something of value.”
“Maybe you had other stuff they wanted.”
“They left the coffeepot, a .357, and my Vermeer prints.”
“Ah.” The buzzing phones and tapping keyboard sounds of the city newsroom came from the other end of the line. “When can I see it?”
“It says Perotti, but who knows if it’s genuine or who sent the funds.”
“You may be a trained investigator,” Wayne said, “but I am a trained muckraker. I know people who could read that thing if it was encrypted from the original Mandarin Chinese.”
“Good to know those people,” I said.
“You bet.”
I hung up and whistled for Pearl. But Pearl was already at the door, waiting for me to slip the choker over her neck. She must have heard the conversation and known.
“The game is afoot.”
Pearl stared and tilted her head.
“Tally ho,” I said.
Pearl was not impressed until I rolled down the passenger window on our way to the Globe newsroom in Dorchester. I placed the drive into an envelope and handed it over to Wayne at security. For what seemed like ten hours but was more likely two, Pearl and I took in the sights around Dorchester. I let her off the leash at an empty Joe Moakley Park and we strolled along the beach.
I finally met Wayne at a reporter gathering spot called the Harp and Bard and left Pearl in my car with the windows cracked. The bar was a newish pub with dozens of new televisions hanging from metal beams in the ceiling, along with old Bruins and Celtics flags. Wayne sat in a dark corner of the bar, studying an open folder.
A sign advertised a karaoke contest every Thursday at five p.m. Prizes awarded.
“We stick around long enough and we can enter,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” Wayne said. “What would you sing?”
“‘The Girl from Ipanema.’”
“Glad to know you’re keeping up with the times,” Wayne said.
I ordered the club with a Bud Light, and Wayne ordered a burger with a side of Jameson. After the bartender walked away, he shuffled his papers and looked at me.
“This appears to be some pretty damning stuff,” he said. “It shows direct payoffs going right to Perotti. Some of it is legal, but most of it isn’t.”
“Terrific.”