Small Vices s-24 Page 8

  Chuck looked like a tennis coach. He was tall and flexible and lean and had the look of self-contentment that only expensive private education can confer. He wore a white cable stitched tennis sweater without a shirt, khaki pants, soft tan loafers, and no socks. The sleeves of the tennis sweater were pushed up over his tan forearms.

  "That's him," Dixie said. "Tried to steal my back-up two guard for his fucking sissy-boy team."

  Arnold smiled as if he were tired.

  "Oh, give it a rest, Dixie," he said and put out a firm hand to me. "Chuck Arnold, what can I do for you?"

  "Keep a hand on your wallet," Dixie said. "Fucker'll take it right out of your pocket, you're not careful."

  He turned away and rumbled back down the drab corridor toward his office. Arnold stared after him with no trace of affection. Then he looked back at me.

  "What did you say your name was?" he said.

  "Spenser. I'm a detective. I'm looking for a guy who played tennis here sometime in the last few years. He dated a girl at Pemberton and gave her his letter sweater."

  "I'm supposed to keep track of their love life?" Arnold said.

  "Her name was Melissa Henderson. She was murdered about eighteen months ago."

  "Yes, of course, I remember that. Some black guy raped her and killed her."

  "Actually there was no evidence of rape."

  "Whatever," Arnold said. "I already talked to the other detective."

  "Which one?"

  "I don't remember, big man, short blond hair."

  "Miller?" I said.

  "I don't remember."

  "What did he want to know?"

  "He was asking about Clint Stapleton."

  "Melissa's boyfriend?"

  "That's what he said."

  "Who?"

  "The other detective, for crissake. I try to teach them tennis. I don't delve into their sex lives."

  "Is Stapleton the captain of the tennis team?"

  "Yes."

  "Where do I find him?"

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "Because I want to find him and talk with him about the murder of his girlfriend."

  "Are you sure she was his girlfriend?" Arnold said.

  "Perhaps she was a one-night stand."

  "He gave her his letter sweater."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I'm a trained sleuth," I said. "Where do I find him?"

  "Well," he said, "I guess I really must, mustn't I?"

  "Yes."

  "He should be working on the bang board in the cage."

  "Thank you," I said and started out.

  "I'd, ah, I'd be just as happy if you didn't mention that I told you about him."

  "It is quite possible," I said, "that I will never mention your name again, Chuckster."

  Chapter 21

  I WENT OUT of his office, and along the cinderblock corridor to the cage. The cage had a lot of high windows, a dirt floor, and a pale green, rubberized, ten-laps to-the-mile indoor track around it, banked high at the curves. There was a broad-jump pit in the infield, and a pole-vault set up with thick spongy mattresses to land on. On the far curve was a chain-link hammer throw enclosure, closed on three sides so the hammer wouldn't get misdirected into somebody's kisser by an inexpert thrower.

  I walked around the track to a doorway on the far side. It opened into the tennis area where two red composition courts occupied most of the space. Along the back wall behind the baselines were solid green boards against which a tall rangy kid wearing a blue-and-white kerchief on his head was banging a tennis ball with a graphite racquet. He was wearing a set of blue and white sweats, and white tennis shoes, to go with the kerchief. He alternated slicing backhands and top spin forehands, hitting effortlessly and hard, without mis-hitting: backhand, forehand, backhand, forehand, alone in the big empty space. The sound of the ball was almost metronomic as it whanged off the racquet, banged off the board, and popped off the floor. If he was aware of me he didn't show it. I waited for him to take a break. He didn't. So I said, "Clint Stapleton?"

  The ball clanged off the rim of his racquet and dribbled away from him. He looked up at me.

  "Goddammit," he said. "I'm trying to concentrate."

  "And doing a hell of a job of it," I said. "My name's Spenser. You Stapleton?"

  "Yeah, but I'm busy."

  "We need to talk."

  "No we don't," he said. "I need to hit for another half hour and you need to get lost."

  He was looking straight at me and I realized that he was… black certainly didn't cover it. His skin color was about the same color as mine… of African heritage, or partly so, seemed to say it better. I don't think I'd have noticed if the kerchief hadn't predisposed me.

  "I can wait," I said.

  "I don't like anyone watching me."

  "Clint," I said. "Under ordinary circumstances worrying about what you like and don't like would occupy my every waking hour. But these are desperate times. And I'll have to hang around until I can talk with you."

  "Maybe I could wrap this racquet around your head," Clint said.

  "No, you couldn't," I said. "I'd take it away from you and play Steamboat Willie on it."

  Stapleton stood and studied me for a time, slapping the racquet gently against his leg, looking as arrogant as he was able to, making sure that I knew he feared nothing.

  "What do you want?" he said finally.

  There was weariness in his voice, as if he was fighting off his darker impulses, trying to be civil. I was fairly sure that if I had been a short person with small bones he would have given in to his darker impulses.

  "I want you to tell me about Melissa Henderson."

  "Who?"

  He said it too fast, and too loudly.

  "Melissa Henderson, whom you used to go out with, who was murdered."

  "Oh, Melissa?"

  "Yeah. Melissa. Tell me about her."

  "Nothing to tell. We dated a few times. Then she got killed."

  "Don't you hate when that happens," I said.

  He shrugged.

  "How many times?" I said.

  "How many times what?"

  "How many times did you date her."

  "How the hell would I know? I go out with a lot of girls. I don't keep track of every date."

  "More than five times?" I said.

  He shrugged again.

  "Yeah, I imagine."

  "More than ten?"

  "For crissake," he said. "I told you I don't keep fucking track."

  He rolled a yellow tennis ball up onto his racquet and began to bounce it on the racquet, studying the bounce as if it was important.

  "You got a girlfriend?" I said.

  "What are you, Ricki Lake? Yeah, I got a girl I'm going with."

  "Who?"

  "None of your goddamned business."

  "You give her your letter sweater?"

  "No. What the hell are you asking all this crap for?"

  "You gave Melissa Henderson your letter sweater."

  "How the hell do you know?"

  "I am wise far beyond my years," I said.

  "Yeah?" he said. "Well, bullshit."

  I had no idea where I was going. There was something phony about him. I didn't believe a kid would give away his letter sweater to someone he dated casually. And I wanted to keep him talking and see what came out.

  "So how come you gave Melissa your letter sweater?" He continued to watch the tennis ball bounce rapidly on the racquet face. Then he gave it a little sharper bounce and it went up in the air. As it started down he whanged the ball across the length of the tennis facility and watched it burrow into the netting that hung around the outside of the courts.

  "I'm sick of you, pal," he said. "I got better things to do than hang around here and talk shit with you."

  "Good for you," I said. "You know a State Police Detective named Miller?"

  "Never heard of him," Stapleton said.

  He zipped his racquet up in its case.


  "Talk to any cops at all about this case?" I said.

  "Hell, no," he said.

  He put his racquet under his arm and walked away across the courts toward the exit, leaving the court area littered with yellow tennis balls. I wanted to tell him that it was bad form not to pick up the balls. I wanted to scuttle alongside him and ask more questions. But his legs were longer than mine and I decided to work on dignity. I'd already been compared to Ricki Lake. So I went looking for the Sports Information Office, instead, and found it in a wing attached to the field house.

  "My name is Peter Parker, the photographer," I said to the young woman at the reception desk. "We're publishing a photo essay on Clint Stapleton, and I need some bio."

  The receptionist was clearly a student, probably a cheerleader in her other life, cuter than the Easter Bunny, but nowhere near as smart.

  "Could you spell the last name, sir?"

  I spelled it. She wrote it down on a piece of note paper. I could see the tip of her tongue resting tentatively on her lower lip as she wrote.

  She read it aloud when she'd finished writing it down. "Stapleton, yes, sir. Now what did you want about him?"

  "Biographical material," I said.

  She looked a little uncertain.

  I said, "A press kit maybe?"

  She smiled with relief.

  "Yes, sir. I'll get you a press kit on Mr. Stapleton, sir."

  She stood and started to turn toward the file cabinet on the opposite wall. Then she caught herself and turned back to me.

  "Would you like to be seated, sir? I'll only be a moment."

  I said, "Thanks."

  She hurried across the room to a big metal file cabinet and began rummaging through the file drawers. I didn't want to sit. But I didn't want to offend her, so I compromised by leaning on the wall while she rummaged. She was dressed in the calculated slovenliness that was au courant. Doc Marten shoes, baggy jeans, and an oversized white shirt under a herringbone-patterned sweater that was also too big. The white shirt tail hung well below the bottom of the sweater, and the white shirt cuffs were turned back over the sweater cuffs. The sleeves of the sweater shirt combination left only her fingers visible. The bottoms of the jeans bagged over the Doc Martens so that she stepped on them when she walked. I shifted my other shoulder onto the wall. It was slow going at the file drawers, for Ms. Grunge. I wanted to say, "After R and before T." But I feared she would find it patronizing, so I held back. And as it turned out, she didn't need my help. After five or six more minutes she came back from the file cabinet and handed me a blue folder with the Taft logo on the front and the name Clint Stapleton hand lettered in black ink on the tab.

  "May I keep this?" I said.

  "Oh, certainly, sir. We have them available just for that."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Oh, you're very welcome, sir." I smiled.

  She smiled.

  I left.

  Chapter 22

  I SAT IN my office with my feet up, and the window open to let some air in, and thumbed through the press kit on Clint Stapleton. Mostly it was puffery. It did say that Clint was twenty-two, and a senior at Taft. That he had grown up in New York City, and attended Phillips Andover Academy, where he'd been captain of the tennis team.

  I put the folder down for a moment. At twenty-two he was five years younger than Hunt McMartin, the guy who'd ID'd Ellis Alves. And the same age as McMartin's wife, who had also gone to Andover. This smacked of clue, but it had been so long since I'd found one that I remained cautious. The rest of the stuff was about how Clint was likely to be an all-American this year, and how Iie was planning to join the pro tour after graduation. His won-and-lost record was there, some xeroxed clippings, all laudatory, a head shot, and several action shots of Clint. He was wearing his kerchief in all of the action shots.

  I sat for a bit and thought about the Andover connection and listened to the sounds of city traffic below my window. While I was thinking, Hawk came in with lunch.

  "Nantucket Bay scallops are in," Hawk said. "Thought we ought to have some."

  "What made you think I'd be hungry?" I said.

  Hawk snorted and didn't bother to answer. He took out a bottle of dry Riesling, some plastic cutlery, two containers of broiled scallops, and a pint of coleslaw. I dug a corkscrew out of my desk drawer and, while Hawk opened the wine, I rinsed out two water glasses in the sink.

  "Wine for lunch makes me sleepy," I said.

  "Don't have to drink none," Hawk said.

  He poured some in one of the water glasses and looked at me.

  "I don't wish to offend you," I said.

  Hawk grinned.

  "'Course you don't," he said and poured some wine into the second glass.

  We were quiet for a time while we sipped a little wine and sampled a couple of the bay scallops. The pint of coleslaw was communal. We took turns at it.

  "Take a look at this," I said and handed the sports info folder to Hawk. "This is the guy that gave Melissa Henderson his letter sweater."

  Hawk read through it. When he came to the pictures he stopped and studied the head shot.

  "A brother," Hawk said.

  "Sort of," I said.

  "Suppose he met Melissa's parents?" Hawk said.

  "Don't know."

  "If he did," Hawk said, "you suppose he was wearing the do rag?"

  "Looks like a trademark to me," I said.

  "He tell you anything useful?" Hawk said.

  "Started out pretending he didn't know Melissa," I said.

  "Okay, so we know he ain't smart," Hawk said.

  "He's not friendly either," I said. "He also says he never talked to the cops, but his coach says a detective who sounds like Miller, the State cop that busted Ellis, talked with him, the coach, not long after the murder and asked about Stapleton."

  "So somebody knew about him right after she died," Hawk said.

  "But either Stapleton's lying, or nobody talked to him."

  "You talk to the cop?"

  "Yeah. He wasn't friendly either. And he never mentioned Stapleton."

  "Might want to talk to him again," Hawk said. "Sound like somebody lying."

  "Almost certainly," I said. "Cops always talk to the husband or the boyfriend in a case like this."

  "So why he lying?"

  "Be good to know," I said.

  "And how come the cop… whatsis name?"

  "Miller."

  "How come Miller don't mention Stapleton," Hawk said, "and Stapleton's name never come up in the transcript?"

  I didn't even know Hawk had a copy of the transcript.

  But I was used to that. Even I never really knew Hawk.

  "That'd be good to know, too," I said.

  "And who looking to get you run off the case?"

  "That'd be dandy to know."

  I swiveled my chair a little and looked out my window and sipped my wine. It had rained hard last night and cleared before dawn. The morning sun was bright, and outside my window everything in the Back Bay looked clean and morally alert.

  "Another thing that bothers me," I said, "is that Stapleton went to Andover three years behind Hunt McMartin and coincident with McMartin's wife."

  "They the people ID'd Ellis?"

  "Yeah."

  "So Stapleton's girlfriend get killed, and by coincidence people he went to prep school with ID the killer and nobody mention that?"

  "Not to me," I said. "And it's not in the trial transcripts."

  "'Course not everybody go to Andover know each other," Hawk said.

  "True," I said.

  "Still a coincidence," Hawk said.

  "Un huh."

  "You like coincidences?"

  "I hate them," I said. "How about you."

  "Got no feeling on it," Hawk said. "You the detective. I just a thug."

  "You're too modest," I said.

  Hawk grinned.

  "Didn't mean to say I wasn't a great thug," he said.

  "Another thing that's bot
hersome," I said, "is even though, according to the ME, there's no proof of rape they found no semen, for instance-everybody automatically refers to the fatal event as a rape and murder."

  "That 'cause the alleged perp is a brother," Hawk said.

  "And all you guys think about is ravaging our women."

  "Not all," Hawk said. "Sometimes we think 'bout eating fried chicken."

  "While ravaging our women?" I said.

  "When possible," Hawk said. "What did she die of?"

  "Strangulation."

  "Manual?"

  "No, some kind of ligature."

  "Ligature," Hawk said. "Easy to see how you got to be a detective. I assume they never found this here ligature."

  "Nope."

  "And they didn't find her clothes?"

  "Nope."

  "They ever establish a, ah, prior connection between Ellis and the deceased?"

  "Nope."

  Across Berkeley Street from my office the tourists were posing with the bear outside of FAO Schwarz. The coffee shop on the first floor must have changed the grease in the frialator. There was a clean smell to it as it drifted up from the alley vent.

  "They ever establish how Ellis got out to Pemberton?" Hawk said.

  "The eyewitnesses said he was driving an old pink Cadillac."

  "Yeah, that's what we drive," Hawk said. "They ever find the car?"

  "Nope."

  "They get the license number?"

  "Nope."

  "But there was one registered to Ellis."

  "Nope."

  Hawk ate the last scallop. I turned back to the desk and took a healthful bite of coleslaw.

  "So," Hawk said, "Alves borrows or steals a car one night, an inconspicuous old pink Caddy. He drives out to Pemberton in his inconspicuous car, where there ain't no black folks, and the cops pay attention to any that they see. He cruises around in his inconspicuous car until he spots a white girl on a busy street, drags her into his inconspicuous car in front of witnesses, drives her somewhere, takes off her clothes and strangles her, though he maybe doesn't rape her, dumps her body in the middle of the Pemberton Campus, and rides on back home with her clothes and the aforesaid ligature in his inconspicuous car, so in case the cops stop him he can incriminate himself."

  "He could have dropped the clothes off in a Dumpster somewhere."