Sudden Mischief (16 page)

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.

"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.

"Actually, a more useful trait in my profession is listening quietly."

I nodded.

"Maybe all Brad wanted when he came to me was for me to say, `Oh, poor baby.' Instead I involved you, and if you are right, it's the last thing he would have wanted."

"Or maybe he just wanted money," I said.

Susan shook her head emphatically.

"I know better than to give him money," she said.

"Or maybe he was already in way over his head and was half-hoping I could save him without knowing what I was saving him from."

Susan smiled sadly. "Yes," she said. "'That's exactly the kind of hare-brained scheming Brad would be capable of. Do you think you can find him?"

"I think he'll find us," I said.

"Because?"

"Because he's shown a pattern of running for help to the women he's known," I said.

"Yes, that's consistent."

"His sister has shut him off," I said. "Carla's dead. There's at least one other ex-wife. I don't know where. But he owes her child support, and few things annoy an ex-wife more."

"So he'll come to me," Susan said.

"Sooner or later," I said.

She nodded.

"When he does," I said, "remember he may have killed two people."

Susan nodded again. She was looking straight into my eyes.

"If he appears," she said, "I will call you at once."

"Oh good," I said.

I said, "Good morning, Judge."

He nodded. I waited. He studied me some more. I leaned my chair back and put my feet up. He tapped his tented hands against his upper lip. I folded my hands and let them rest on my stomach.

"First," Ronan said, "I apologize for sending those two cretins to threaten you."

"'They didn't threaten me very much," I said.

"They had once appeared before me in court. I thought they were more formidable than apparently they were."

"Or I was more formidable."

Ronan nodded his head once. "Perhaps," he said. "In any case, it was uncalled for."

I had nothing to add to that so I kept quiet.

Ronan stood up suddenly and walked past me and looked out my window. Outside the window it was a hot day, and overcast, with a promise of rain later. Ronan stared out my window silently. I swiveled my chair so I could look at him while he looked out.

Finally, with his back to me and his gaze fixed on the world outside my window, he said, "Jeanette told me about the pictures."

"The ones from Sterling's apartment," I said.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I have power. I have money. I have a national reputation," he said. "But I am twice Jeanette's age."

I didn't say anything. He was so still as he stood looking out my window that he could have been a cardboard cutout. His voice hardly seemed to come from him as he talked.

"And I love her."

"That's good," I said.

"I don't know if she loves me," he said. "But she likes me. And she doesn't want to leave me."

"Some people might call that love," I said.

"Whatever it is," Ronan said, "it will suffice."

He turned back from the window and went and sat in my client chair again. He made no eye contact with me.

"Needless to say, we will take no further action against your client."

"He'll be glad to hear that," I said.

If I can find him.

Ronan took a tan leather checkbook from the inside pocket of his seersucker jacket.

"And I wish to recompense you for your time and inconvenience."

"That won't be necessary," I said.

"I insist," Ronan said.

He leaned forward and opened the checkbook on his side of my desk and got out a fountain pen.

"You've done too much insisting in your life, Judge. It's one of your problems."

Ronan looked up. His expression was startled.

"My client is so far downhill by now his reputation is probably irrelevant," I said. "But if his reputation were relevant, the charge of sexual harassment would linger on him like a bad smell."

"I…"

"You would need to do more than write a check," I said.

"I… I was afraid," he said. "I found a love letter from him to Jeanette. I was terrified. But I confronted her and she said he meant nothing to her. That he had harassed her sexually and that this letter was just another example of it."

"And you couldn't wait to believe her."

He nodded.

"And maybe there was some sort of low-level doubt that you wanted to put aside," I said, "so being you, you decided to sue. That would make it official. Then it would have to be true."

Ronan was trying to look autocratic, but it was hard because his shoulders had slumped and he was having trouble looking at me.

"And I'll bet you told Jeanette that corroborating evidence would be useful. The testimony of other women he'd harassed."

He nodded.

"So Jeanette went out and got her friends in on it."

"They were just trying to be supportive," Ronan said.

"Why'd she tell you?" I said.

He started to speak, and paused, and thought about it a moment.

"She said she couldn't live with the secret."

"Too bad," I said. "The way things are shaping up, she might have been able to."

"It is best to know," he said.

"That's the official view," I said.

"You don't agree?"

"Sometimes a secret kept causes pain for one," I said. "And a secret shared causes pain for two."

"She told me because she cared for me."

"Sure," I said. "That's probably it."

We were quiet for a time. Outside my office window the air was thickening. It was darker. No rain yet, but soon there'd be thunder in the distance.

"You won't accept my check?" Ronan said.

"No."

"Your client has disappeared?" Ronan said.

"Yes."

"If you find him, offer him my apology."

"He might prefer the check," I said.