Cone, Oakes had fifteen floors on top of a high-rise with a view of the harbor and the ocean beyond. Rita was on the top floor.
“Wow,” I said when I sat down. “On a slow day you can sit and watch the planes fly in and out of Logan.”
“My days aren’t usually that slow,” Rita said. “I understand you’re working for me.”
“I prefer to think of it as ‘working with,’” I said.
“I’m sure you do,” Rita said. “On the other hand, your pay comes through my account.”
I said, “Yes, boss.”
“Actually,” Rita said, “I’m very glad you’re aboard.”
“Because I am a crackerjack detective,” I said.
“That,” Rita said, “and it gives me time to pursue my seduction.”
“How’s that worked out for you in the past?” I said.
“Not as well as I’d hoped,” Rita said.
“If it’s any consolation,” I said, “I enjoy the attempt.”
Rita shifted in her chair and crossed her legs in case I wanted to admire them. Which I did, in a sort of abstract way.
“If it’s any consolation to you, you’re not the only one I’m attempting,” she said.
“I suspected that,” I said.
“Susan’s well?” Rita said.
“Susan is perfect,” I said.
“Probably not,” Rita said. “But I find it lovely that you think so.”
“Tell me about Jumbo Nelson,” I said.
“It’s going to be a bitch,” Rita said. “He’s a perfect pig of a man, and everybody hates him, including me.”
“You think he’s guilty?”
“He’s guilty of a lot,” Rita said. “And he is such a degenerate that it’s tempting to let him take the fall for this... Plus, have you seen any of his movies?”
“No. You think he killed her with malice aforethought?”
“I don’t know,” Rita said. “I do know that it’s not clear that he did. And I do know that he has the right to the best defense available. Which is me.”
“He’s not been charged,” I said.
“No,” Rita said. “He remains a person of interest, but he’s not been arrested. Some of the ADAs probably know the case isn’t a lock. The way Quirk does.”
“You think he will be arrested?”
“Probably,” Rita said. “I think the pressure will be too much, and they’ll cave.”
“So you have any specific assignments for me?” I said.
“I suspect you know what to do. We’ll need all we can know about the girl.”
“Dawn Lopata,” I said.
“Yes.”
“So you’ll be able to impugn her reputation if you need to.”
“If we need to,” Rita said. “Also, we need to know all we can about Jumbo Nelson.”
“So you can counter the prosecution if they impugn Jumbo’s reputation,” I said.
“It’s how these things sometimes work,” Rita said. “But I’ll bet you have found that the more you know about the principals in the case, the better able you are to work the case?”
“I have found that,” I said.
“Beyond that,” Rita said. “I suggest you use your intelligence, guided by experience.”
“Lucky I have a lot of experience,” I said.
“You’re too modest,” Rita said.
“I know,” I said.
5
The Lopata family lived in Smithfield, twelve miles north of Boston. Susan had once lived there a long time ago, when she was a guidance counselor at the junior high school, before Harvard and all that followed, so I knew my way around better than I sometimes did in the suburbs. Or wanted to.
As I drove through town, I was reminded once again of why Susan left. If you Googled “bedroom community,” there’d be a link to Smithfield. It was a Saturday morning in spring, and nothing was happening. There were no kids in the school yard throwing the ball around. There was no one shopping, maybe because there was no place to shop. No dogs were racing about, no Frisbees were being thrown, no bicycles were being pedaled. The town common, which was the only evidence of New
England in Smithfield, was deserted. There weren’t even any kids sitting on the wall across from the meetinghouse, smoking weed.
The Lopata home was a big style-free house in a pretentious development called Royal Acres, where there was one house to an acre, and, I suspected, no one knew anyone else. I parked on the empty street and walked up the curving brick walk to the front door. There was too little landscaping and too much house, and the recently wintered lawn stretched emptily to the next house, and the next, and the next... big ugly house on the prairie.
I rang the bell.
The woman who answered was wearing cropped pants and a tight top with longish sleeves pushed up on her forearms. She had a very big engagement ring, a smoker’s thin face, and the blondest hair I had ever seen.
“Mrs. Lopata?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “You the guy that called?”
“Spenser,” I said.
I gave her my card.
“I’m an investigator for Cone, Oakes, and Baldwin.”
“You’re on their side,” she said.
“Probably too early,” I said, “for us and them. Mostly I’m just trying to establish what happened.”
“We already got that established,” she said. “The fat pervert killed my daughter.”
I nodded.
“May I come in?” I said.
She shrugged.
“May as well,” she said. “Better to our face than snooping around behind our back.”
I smiled. These were, after all, bereaved parents.
“I may do some of that, too,” I said.
She nodded absently and led me into the living room, and sat me in a brand-new flowered armchair. The room was as intimate as an operating room but not as welcoming.
She went to the living room door and yelled up the front stairs.
“Tommy, there’s some kind of cop here.”
“Okay.”
I waited. She waited. And down the stairs he came. Pink Lacoste shirt, tan Dockers, dark brown Sperry Top-Siders.
“Spenser,” he said. “Right?”
I stood.
“Right,” I said.
“Memory’s still hitting on all eight,” he said. “Tommy Lopata.”
We shook hands and sat down.
“I’m in insurance,” he said. “My business to remember names.”
“Own business?” I said. “Or you work for somebody.”
“Independent broker,” he said. “Lopata Insurance, in Malden Square.”
He took a business card from a cut-glass holder on a coffee table in front of the couch and handed it to me.
“Take care of any insurance needs you got,” he said. “Casualty, health, life, annuities, anything you need.”
I took the card and tucked it into my shirt pocket.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Buffy,” he said. “How about making us some coffee?”
“Not if you’re gonna drink it in here,” Mrs. Lopata said. “I’m not having coffee stains on my good furniture.”
“Jesus Christ, Buf,” Lopata said.
“You know my rules,” she said.
“I’m already over-coffeed,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”
She paid no attention to me while she lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before she let the smoke ease out, as if she regretted letting it go.
“We are going to take that fat pervert for every goddamned penny he has in the world,” she said.
I nodded.
“Did Dawn have any previous relationship with Mr. Nelson?” I said. “Before the night she died.”
“Are you kidding?” Mrs. Lopata said. “You think I’d permit my daughter to go out with a sick tub of lard like him?”
“None that we knew of,” Mr. Lopata said.
“But she went with him willingly enough that night,” I said.
“Well,” Mr. Lopata said. “You know, young girls, and a big movie star...”