Hawk and I were at the bar drinking beer, eating oysters, and watching the sleek foodies.
"So we didn't take Haskell down after all," Hawk said.
"I know," I said. "Marcus will be disappointed."
"He'll get over it," Hawk said.
"And he can take satisfaction in having done the right thing."
"Sure he can," Hawk said. "Haskell not going to let you rough him up and get away with it."
I shrugged.
"He send couple of people to clean you clock for sitting down at lunch with him," Hawk said. "How you think he feel about getting hit."
"I scared him some," I said.
"Sure you did. You scary. But Haskell too mean to stay scared. We going to have to watch your back for a long while."
"Haskell will have to take a number," I said.
A tall blonde woman with a good tan walked by wearing white sling back shoes and as small a white linen dress as was legal in Massachusetts. Hawk and I watched her all across the room to make sure she wasn't one of Haskell's people. When she was seated and partly hidden by the menu she was handed, Hawk turned back to me.
"You watching my back," I said to Hawk.
"She got a weapon," Hawk said, "be hard to think where she's concealed it."
The oysters were from the Pacific Northwest and were served with a dab of citrus sorbet on top. I got a taste of the sorbet on my fork, added an oyster, and slurped it in. Excellent.
"And you buying Haskell's story," Hawk said.
"Yeah."
"Well, you done this work before, 'spose you learn who to believe."
I drank my beer. "I hope so," I said.
"So if Haskell didn't have the woman killed, who did?" Hawk said. "Gavin?"
"I don't think so," I said. "He was in shock, and he had a couple of security people with him."
"Freelance?"
"No, legit guys from that big security outfit the former commissioner works for. One of them was Kevin Clarke."
"Used to be a marshal," Hawk said.
"That's right. Anyway, when I suggested to him he might have killed his girlfriend and cut out her tongue, he started to cry."
Hawk shrugged.
"He loved her," I said. "He wouldn't have killed her like that."
"I seen guys shoot a roomful of people and feel bad afterwards," Hawk said.
I shook my head.
"He loved her," I said.
"You the romantic in the group," Hawk said and ordered more beer and oysters.
The tall blonde woman in the minimal dress got up from her table and walked toward the ladies' room. She walked as if she were balancing a book on her head and everyone were watching to see if she could do it.
"She went to the ladies' room," Hawk said.
"Uh huh."
"Which mean she will be coming back."
"Stay alert," I said.
Hawk drank some beer and ate two oysters and patted his lips with a linen napkin.
"So it ain't Haskell and it ain't Gavin, who you got in mind for it?" Hawk said.
"Well, it could be person or persons unknown," I said.
"A perennial favorite," Hawk said.
"Or it could be Sterling."
"Wondered when you'd come 'round to him."
"I'm not happy with it," I said.
"Don't blame you," Hawk said.
"How could a guy that Susan would marry kill his ex-wife and cut out her tongue?" I said.
"Well, Susan seen something in him," Hawk said.
The white dress paraded back from the ladies' room. We watched her, listening for a flourish of trumpets. She was listening too.
"You've been talking to Rachel Wallace," I said after the blonde had sat down.
"We had a drink couple weeks back," Hawk said. "Faculty club at Taft."
I had a moment of quiet contentment as I imagined Hawk at the Taft University Faculty Club.
"And she shared her theory," I said, "that Susan is drawn to men whose faults appeal to her."
"Would explain you," Hawk said.
I drank some beer and looked out the window at the tops of city buildings arranged appealingly across the line of sight.
"You take the scenario I painted for Gavin," I said, "of why he or Haskell would want to kill Carla Quagliozzi, it would work pretty well for Sterling too, if he feared she might tell. The cut tongue could be a message to Gavin."
"But he got a secret, why does he ask you to help him with the harassment suit?"
"Because he was afraid it would shed too much light on his life and the other stuff would show."
"So why didn't he just flash the nude pictures to Jeanette Ronan's hubby?" Hawk said. "That would stop the harassment suit."
"Chivalry?"
"A dude who will kill a woman and cut out her tongue?"
I shrugged.
"You show the pictures to Judge Ronan?" Hawk said.
"Jeannette," I said.
"'Cause you didn't want to get her in trouble," Hawk said.
"I figured she'd find a way to call it off."
"You soft hearted for a guy with no neck."
"I have a perfectly good neck," I said. "I just wear my collars high, like Tom Wolfe."
"Sure," Hawk said. "So what you going to do now?"
I shook my head.
"I have no idea," I said.
chapter forty-five
I WAS SITTING ON a round bench with Susan in the center space of the Chestnut Hill Mall, which was swankier than Ivana Trump. There were several shopping bags around me on the floor, each of which had things in them that Susan had bought and I carried.
"Do you like that white silk jacket?" Susan said.
"Breathtaking."
"And you don't think it makes me look fat?"
"No I don't."
I had learned over the years not to give smartass answers to the kinds of dumb questions Susan asked when she shopped. It was nothing she could help, and no amount of smart talk on my part could dissuade her from it. Giving a widely amusing answer to such questions in fact tended to call forth more questions.
"You're not just saying that?"
"No."
"And the platform sneakers? Do you think they are, you know, too something."
"They look great," I said.
"Not too too?"
"Definitely not," I said. "'Things look good because you wear them."
There was a live combo playing jazz in the center of the mall, which meant, I suppose, that the demographics of the mall skewed mature. Like me.
"But you don't like them only because I'm wearing them," Susan said. "You'd like them on other people."
Simple yes and no, I reminded myself. You elaborate, you get into a swamp.
"They're great looking on anyone," I said. "On you they are podiatric perfection."
She was content. The combo was doing a nice job on "Sleepin Bee." We listened.
"Harold Arlen," I said.
Susan nodded as if she were interested. But I knew she wasn't. Susan didn't care whether it was Harold Arlen or Arlen Spector. The combo went into "A Foggy Day." We were alone on the bench. My hand was on her right thigh. She put her hand over mine. I took in a large breath of mall air.
"There's some reason to believe that Brad Sterling has killed two people," I said.
She was still. The music played. People moved past us carrying bags. Susan turned slowly to look at me.
"Tell me," she said.
I told her. She listened quietly. Now and then she nodded her head. When I finished she was very inward for a time. I waited. The combo moved from "Foggy Day" to an uptempo take on "Summertime."
"Well, it's logical," she said. "Though I can't imagine him doing it."
"Person or persons unknown is still an option," I said.
"But not a useful one," Susan said.
"No."
"I wonder if I overreacted when he came to me," she said. "I'm certainly capable of it, Ms. Fixit."
There was no sound of guilt in her voice. She was analytic. She could have been talking about people she barely knew.
"Someone complains to me about being overweight," Susan said with a half smile, "I immediately suggest ten steps to solve the problem, when all they wanted was for me to say, `You're not so fat."'
"Probably a useful trait though, in your profession," I said.