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  “You have a big fight with him the evening he was killed?”

  “No.”

  “Cops have witnesses,” I said.

  “I don’t care what they got, Nathan and I were happy as clams.”

  “Nathan have enemies?”

  “No. Not at all. Everybody liked Nathan.”

  “Almost everybody,” I said. “Anyone else in your life?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Boyfriends?”

  “No. Of course not. Absolutely not.”

  “How long you been married?” I said.

  “Seven years.”

  “You going with anyone before you married him?”

  “I dated, of course, I mean, look at me. Of course I dated.”

  “Anyone special?”

  Her face brightened suddenly, and she smiled.

  “They were all special,” she said.

  “See any of them since your marriage?”

  “Well, of course, you don’t give up all your friends when you get married.”

  “Maybe you could give us a list of your friends.”

  “My friends?”

  “Somebody killed your husband.”

  “I can’t give you a list of my friends. So you can go bother them?”

  “I’m not your problem,” I said. “I’m working for you. Won’t your friends want to help you?”

  “Well, of course.”

  I spread my hands. It follows as the night the day. She frowned for a while. Which was apparently what she did when she thought.

  “Maybe I could give you a list,” she said.

  I waited. Finally she turned to her PR guy.

  “Larson,” she said. “You could give them the guest list for the last party.”

  “I have it in the computer,” Graff said. “If that would help.”

  “Great,” I said. “That’ll be great.”

  I could see Rita off to the right. She looked amused.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I went with Belson to the new Suffolk County House of Correction in South Bay, where they were holding Jack DeRosa for trial on an armed robbery charge. “So, as I understand it,” Belson said, “I’m trying to help you prove that our case against Mary Smith is no good.”

  “Yep.”

  “And what’s in that for me?” Belson said. “I helped put the damned case together.”

  “Justice is served?”

  “Yeah?”

  “And I’m your pal.”

  “Oh boy,” Belson said.

  We met DeRosa in a secure conference room on the first floor. His lawyer was with him. DeRosa was a small guy with a big nose that had been broken more than once. There was enough scar tissue around his eyes to suggest that he’d been a fighter.

  “Welterweight?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Any good?” I said.

  “I was a palooka,” he said.

  “So you found another line of work.”

  DeRosa shrugged. His jail fatigues were too big, and it made him look smaller than he was.

  “Whaddya want?” he said.

  “Woman named Mary Smith asked you to kill her husband,” I said.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “From me,” Belson said.

  “We already have our deal in place,” DeRosa’s lawyer said.

  She was stunning. Expensive blond hair cut short, dark blue pantsuit with a fine chalk line, white blouse, small diamond on a gold chain showing at her throat. She looked like she worked out, probably in bright tights and expensive sneakers.

  “Where are you from?” I said to the lawyer.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What firm do you represent?”

  “Kiley and Harbaugh,” she said. “I’m Ann Kiley.”

  “Bobby Kiley’s daughter?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Wow!” I said.

  “What can we do for you, Mr. Spenser?”

  “I’m interested in who hooked DeRosa up with Mary Smith,” I said.

  “And what is your interest, Sergeant?”

  “I’m just along to learn,” Belson said.

  “Are you here officially?”

  “You mean if your client helps us out can I help him out?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Sure.”

  She nodded slightly at DeRosa.

  “Guy I know called me,” DeRosa said. “Told me this broad was interested in a shooter.”

  “What’s the guy’s name?”

  “Chuck.”

  “Chuck.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know his last name, just Chuck.”

  “Where’s Chuck from?”

  “In town somewhere,” DeRosa said.

  “In town.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If I wanted to talk with Chuck, how would I reach him?”

  “I don’t know. He called me.”

  “So how’d you get in touch with Mary Smith?”

  “Chuck give me her number,” DeRosa said. “I called it.”

  I looked at Belson. He shrugged slightly.

  “So,” I said. “A guy named Chuck, you don’t know his full name or how to reach him, calls you up and tells you that a woman wants her husband killed, and you call her up and offer your services?”

  “Yeah.”

  I looked at Belson again. He had no expression. I looked at Ann Kiley. She seemed calm.

  “Okay. Tell me about your conversation with Mary Smith.”

  “Hey, I already told about a hundred fucking cops and ADA’S,” he said. “Didn’t you read the reports?”

  “It’s just an excuse,” I said. “You’re so goddamned charming that I just like to talk with you.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like saying the same shit over and over.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Like you got important stuff to do in here.”

  “It won’t hurt,” Ann Kiley said, “if you tell it once more, Jack.”

  “Yeah? Well, she met me at some fucking restaurant in a fucking clothing store, for crissake.”

  “Okay. How’d you recognize her?”

  “I asked the hostess, or whatever, and they seated me.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She just said she wanted her husband killed and could I do it?”

  “How much she paying?”

  “Fifty grand.”

  “Why didn’t you take the job?”

  “I did.”

  “But you didn’t kill her husband.”

  “No.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I don’t do that kind of work.”

  “But you took the money.”

  “Yeah, sure. I figure I take the dough and don’t do it. What’s she gonna do?”

  “And you have fifty large in your pocket,” I said.

  “Twenty-five. She give me half up front, half when it was done.”

  “She say why she wanted him killed?” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “She ever follow up with you?” I said.

  “No.”

  “So she gave you twenty-five thousand, and you put it in your pocket and walked away and never saw her again.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How’d she give you the money?”

  “Whaddya mean how? She fucking handed it to me.”

  “Cash?”

  “Yeah. In a bag.”

  “Big bills?”

  “Hundreds.”

  I went over it with him another time, and Belson tried him once. The story didn’t change.

  Finally Ann Kiley said, “I think it is clear that my client has told his story and he retells it consistently.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said.

  “You’ll speak to the district attorney,” Ann Kiley said, “about my client’s willingness to cooperate.”

  “Sure,” Belson said.

  As we walked to my car, I said to Belson, “Anything bother you?”

>   “Like what?” he said.

  “Like an entry-level slu)o being represented by Kiley and Harbaugh,” I said.

  “Pro bono?” Belson said.

  “You think?” I said.

  “No.”

  “It bother you?”

  “Sure it bothers me,” Belson said. “And it bothers me that he got into the deal through a guy named Chuck whom we can’t identify, and it bothers me that his story is so exactly the same every time. And it bothers me his lawyer let him keep talking about it with only my sort of casual comment that I’d speak to the DA.”

  “I noticed that myself,” I said.

  “However,” Belson said, “sergeants don’t get to be lieutenants by helping people unsolve a high-profile murder.”

  “True,” I said.

  “But, I’m not forgetting what I owe you… When Lisa was gone.”

  “That’s not an owesie,” I said.

  “It is to me. I’ll help you when I can.”

  “Mary Smith says she never hired this guy,” I said.

  “Mary Smith’s an idiot,” Belson said.

  “Well,” I said. “There’s that.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Larson Graf faxed me an invitation list with the names of Mary Smith’s 227 closest friends, in alphabetical order. I recognized enough of the names to assume that these weren’t people who hung out at bowling alleys. The first one I was able to talk with was a guy named Loren Bannister, who was the CEO of an insurance company. He probably thought I was a prospect.

  “Mary Smith?” he said.

  “Yes, sir. Your name was high on her list.”

  “Maybe because the list was alphabetical,” he said.

  Bannister was square-jawed and silver-haired with a nice tan. He was in full uniform. Dark suit, white shirt, gold cuff links, red tie with tiny white dots.

  “You’re too modest,” I said.

  “Um-him. I assume this is connected with Nathan Smith’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “She really kill him?” Bannister said.

  “No.”

  “And you work for Cone Oakes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Barry Cone called me,” Bannister said. “How can I help you?”

  “Tell me about Mary Smith.”

  “Well, I don’t know her very well,” Bannister said. “I knew Nathan a little.”

  “They seem happy to you?”

  “Sure. I guess so. She was younger. As I said, I’d see them now and then, at charity events, mostly.”

  “Did you know them socially?”

  “In the sense that we would go out to dinner with them? No.”

  “Do you know Larson Graff?”

  “Graff?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe so. Who is he?”

  “He’s Mary Smith’s PR man.”

  Bannister smiled. “Oh,” he said. “Him.”

  “You know him?”

  “I didn’t know his name,” Bannister said. “Mary is at a lot of affairs without Nathan. Whatsisname escorts her.”

  “Did your company insure the Smiths?”

  “I don’t really know,” Bannister said. He smiled. “I don’t do much direct selling.”

  “Could you find out?” I said.

  “Does it say CEO on my door?” he said. “Of course I could find out.”

  “Would you?”

  Bannister looked as if he might say no. But instead he picked up his phone.

  “Allison? Please find out if we have policies on Nathan Smith or Mary Smith.” He looked at me. “Address?”

  I gave him the address and he repeated it to Allison.

  “Get back to me promptly,” he said and hung up. He seemed confident that he would be gotten back to promptly.

  “Aside from walker duties,” I said, “would you know why Mary Smith would need a public relations person?”

  “No.”

  “Who would know?” I said.

  Bannister leaned back in his swivel chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

  “Barry Cone’s a buddy of mine,” Bannister said. “He asked me to talk with you. I’m happy to do so. But I don’t get why you’re talking to me. I don’t really know Mary Smith. I don’t know who would know about her. I say hello to her at cocktail parties that I go to because being prominent is part of my job.”

  “And Nathan Smith?”

  “See him at the Harvard Club once in a while,” Bannister said. “Knew him casually. He was a player.”

  “A player?”

  “Yes. In the money business.”

  “What did he do?” I said.

  Bannister smiled. “He fiddled with money.”

  “How?”

  “Like everybody else,” Bannister said. “He bought and he sold.”

  “Stocks and bonds?”

  “And real estate, and banks, and, for all I know, lottery tickets.”

  “Who would know more about him?” I said.

  Bannister shrugged. “His attorney. His broker. His doctor. His priest? I don’t know how to make this clearer. I don’t really know either one of them.”

  The phone rang and Bannister answered. He listened, made a couple of notes, said thank you, and hung up.

  “We have a whole-life policy on Nathan Smith,” he said.

  “How much?”

  Bannister hesitated only a moment. “Ten million dollars,” he said.

  “There’s some premiums to pay,” I said.

  “Not as much as you might think,” Bannister said. “It was taken out for him at birth, by his grandfather.”

  “Beneficiary?”

  “Mary Smith.”

  I didn’t say anything. Bannister had tilted back in his chair again and reclasped his hands.

  “That doesn’t help your cause,” Bannister said.

  “Not much,” I said. “Can I get a copy of the policy?”

  “It’s confidential.”

  “Yeah, but you and Barry Cone are buddies.”

  Bannister smiled. “I’ll have somebody run it off and FedEx it over,” he said. “May I ask a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why, if you are trying to clear Mary Smith, are you investigating Mary Smith?”

  “I have nowhere else to investigate,” I said. “Think of it as cold-canvassing.”

  Bannister smiled. “I never sold insurance,” he said. “My last job was at Pepsi-Cola.”

  “Management is management,” I said.

  Bannister nodded and smiled. “Good luck with the cold canvass,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was almost May. The azaleas were blooming. The swan boats were active in the Public Gardens. The softball leagues had begun across Charles Street, on the Common. And, in the Charles River Basin, the little rental sailboats skidded and heeled in the faint evening wind. “You’re working for that hussy again,” Susan said.

  “Rita?”

  “Miss Predatory,” Susan said.

  “I like Rita,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Are you being jealous?” I said.

  “Analytic,” Susan said. “Rita is sexually rapacious and perfectly amoral about it. I’m merely acknowledging that.”

  “But you don’t disapprove.”

  “Professionalism prevents disapproval,” Susan said.

  “So the term ”hussy“ is just a clinical designation,” I said.

  “Certainly,” Susan said. “She has every right to wear her skirts as short as she wishes.”

  “She wears short skirts?” I said.

  “Like you didn’t notice.”

  “So do you like Rita, Ms. Professional?”

  “Red-haired floozy,” Susan said.

  “I so admire professionalism.”

  Susan and I stood on the little barrel-arched bridge over the lagoon and watched Pearl the Wonder Dog as she tracked the elusive french-fry carton. Her face was gray. She didn’t hear well. Her back end was arthri
tic and she limped noticeably as she hunted.

  “Old,” Susan said to me.

  I nodded.

  “But her eyes are still bright and she still wags her tail and gives kisses,” Susan said.

  “Me too.”

  “I’ve been meaning to speak to you about the tail wagging,” Susan said.

  Pearl found a nearly bald tennis ball under the island end of the bridge and picked it up and brought it to us and refused to drop it. So we patted her and Susan told her she was very good, until Pearl spotted a pigeon, lost interest in the ball, dropped it, and limped after the pigeon.

  “She hasn’t got long,” Susan said.

  “No.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “If she has to be put away, can you do it?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Because you can’t?”

  “I don’t know about can’t,” I said. “But if you can do it, I’ll let you.”

  “I thought you were fearless,” Susan said.

  “I am, but it’s embarrassing for a guy as fearless as I am to cry in the vet’s office.”

  “But it’s okay for me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “You’re a girl.”

  “How enlightened,” Susan said.

  Pearl came back to check where we were. Since her hearing had declined she was more careful about checking on us. Susan bent over and looked at her face.

  “But not yet,” Susan said.

  “No.”

  Susan put her arms around my waist and pressed her face against my chest. I patted her back softly. After a while she pushed away from me and looked up. Her face was bright. The shadow had moved on.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “I have cold chicken and fruit salad,” I said. “And I could make some biscuits.”

  We had to wait until Pearl looked at us and then gesture her to come. When she arrived Susan snapped her leash back on and we headed slowly, which was Pearl’s only pace, back toward Marlborough Street.

  “Do you really think Mary Smith didn’t do it?” Susan said.

  “I’m sort of required to,” I said. “Ah, professionally.”

  Susan gave me a look. “But when you’re not being professional,” Susan said. “Like now.”

  “I wish there was another explanation for how Nathan Smith got shot to death in a locked house with his wife downstairs, and she didn’t hear a thing.”

  “So why do you think she didn’t do it? Other than professionalism.”