"What case?"
"Looking for a missing rare ma.n.u.script stolen from a university."
"What university?"
"If it seems pertinent, I"ll tell you."
"If I want to know, you"ll tell me."
Quirk"s voice squeezed out sharp and flat like sheet metal.
"I"ll tell you if you need to know it. I don"t make a living telling cops everything they want to know about clients."
"I don"t make a living taking c.r.a.p from hole-in-the-wall shysters like you, Spenser."
A thin, blue-jowled sergeant named Belson drifted in between Quirk and me.
"Come on, Lieutenant, this don"t get us far. Both the girl and the victim are university students, and there"s a fair bet that it"s the same university that hired Spenser."
Quirk looked at me, then Belson.
"Do you know him?" he asked, nodding at me.
"Yeah, he used to work out of the Suffolk County D.A."s office about five years ago. I hear he got canned."
"Okay, get his story." He turned to me. "You"re not working for the D.A. now, boy, you"re working my side of the street, and if you get in my way I"ll kick your a.s.s right into the gutter. Got that?"
"Can I feel your muscle?" I said.
Quirk looked at me without saying anything, then turned away and walked over to the girl.
Belson shook his head and pulled out a notebook.
"Start up with the lieutenant, Spenser, and you"ll end up looking like you went through a pepper mill."
"I won"t be able to sleep without a night light," I said.
Belson shrugged. "Okay. Start from the beginning. You"re in the business. l don"t have to lead you."
I told him, omitting, mostly from stubbornness, the name of my client, but including, because it was sure to come out anyway, the incident in the Pub that afternoon, when I had knocked the kid down.
Belson shook his head again.
"How could anyone get mad at a sweetheart like you? I would have thought he"d have been hypnotized with the way you"re so agreeable."
I let that go.
"You"re sure you might not have been hustling his chick just a little, Spenser? And maybe you were over here hustling her again and he came home and caught you, and an argument developed?"
"Yeah, and I pulled out my fourteen-dollar Sat.u.r.day night special and let fly at him. Come off it, Belson. You"re just talking for the h.e.l.l of it. You know l didn"t do it. You know I wouldn"t use a piece of cheap tin like that gun. If I had, you know I would have covered it better than this."
"Okay, maybe I don"t like you for it. I"ve known you a long time, and it"s not your style. But it could happen. You got nothing against girls, I can recall. It could be his gun and you had to take it away from him and it went off. Lotta people get killed by people in a way that ain"t their style."
"And I shot him four times in the chest getting it away from him?"
"Could be to cover it up, make It look different."
"You"re fishing, Frank," I said.
"Maybe."
"Have you heard the girl"s story yet?"
"Nope, lieutenant"s getting that now."
"He"s going to love it," I said.
"Of course you got it before you called us," Belson said.
"She was way under from something. I had to bring her out."
"And then you had to ask her what happened and then she had to tell you. Arid then you had to fix up a story maybe."
"Wait till you hear the story. You don"t think I"m smart enough to work up something like that. You guys are cops, not priests. Calling you isn"t a ritual act. I called you as soon as my judgment told me it was both feasible and prudent."
Belson set fire to a half-smoked cigar before he said anything. Then he said, "You talk good for a dumb slug; feasible and prudent, my, my."
From the other side of the room Quirk spoke over his shoulder without turning his head.
"Belson, bring the private license over here."
Belson nodded me toward Quirk and I walked over. Quirk was straddling the only straight chair in the room, with his forearms crossed on the back. Before him Terry Orchard was on the couch. She had on a denim shirt and Levi"s again, but her hair was still wet and tight on her skull. She looked awfully small.
"Spenser," he said without looking up. "She says she won"t say anything unless you say it"s all right. She says you told her not to talk to us without a lawyer."
"Right enough, Lieutenant. I knew you wouldn"t want to take advantage of her when she was perhaps in a state of shock."
"We"re going to take her in."
"I thought you might."
"We"d like you to come along, too," Quirk said.
"I wouldn"t miss it," I said.
Terry looked at me with her eyes very wide and dark. I said to her, "Haller will be there. Just do as I said."
The a.s.sistant M.E., a small man with thick gla.s.ses and gray curly hair, came over to Quirk.
"I"m through," he said. "If you are too, we"ll haul him off."
"Any opinions, Manny?" Quirk asked.
"Yeah, I"d guess he was shot in the chest."
"That med school training really gives you insight," Quirk said. "Anything that I need to know that you can tell me now?"
"Shot sometime within the last five or six hours, cause of death presumable gunshot. I don"t see any other signs. Got any corroborative testimony?"
Quirk looked at Belson.
"Spenser says the kid was dead when he arrived at three fifteen and that the blood had gotten tacky and the skin was cool," Belson said.
The a.s.sistant M.E. said, "That seems about right, but it could be a couple hours earlier for all I can prove here."
Quirk nodded. "Okay, thanks; Manny," And then to the two white-coated interns, "Take him away."
They bundled Dennis Powell onto the stretcher. He"d already started to stiffen and he was getting awkward to handle. They straightened his arms out down by his side, put his ankles together, wrapped the tarp around him, and strapped him into the stretcher. Then they dollied him out. They had to stand him up to get him out the apartment door, and when they did the top of him lolled against the straps. Terry made a noise and looked away. The stretcher b.u.mped down the stairs and out to the ambulance. A few curious early risers stood around staring. The two harness bulls who"d showed up first kept them away from the door. A little fat d.i.c.k in a long blue overcoat with a b.u.t.ton missing came in after letting the stretcher out.
"Nothing, Lieutenant. n.o.body heard nothing, n.o.body saw nothing, n.o.body knows nothing. Half of them are G.o.dd.a.m.n f.a.ggots, anyway."
"Jesus Christ," Quirk said. "Just give me information; don"t review the witnesses" s.e.x life for me."
"Okay. Lieutenant. I mean I figured that being as they was f.a.ggots you might not want to take their word. You know how these G.o.dd.a.m.n perverts are."
"No, I don"t know, and I don"t want you to tell me. Stay around, ask questions. See what you can find out about these two. Try to remember you"re on the homicide squad, not the vice squad. When I want a f.a.g count, I"ll let you know."
The d.i.c.k hustled out. Quirk shook his head. Belson was looking up at the ceiling, puffing the cigar b.u.t.t that was barely clearing his lips by now.
"Take "em downtown, Frank," Quirk said to Belson. "I"ll clean up here and be along."
As we started out I said to Belson, "I"m still double-parked out there. Let me get it off the street before some zealous meter maid gets it hauled off."
Belson said, "Why don"t you follow me downtown. Then we won"t have to drive you back later."
I nodded and grinned.
"See? I told you you didn"t think I did it."
"I don"t think anything," Belson said. "But you"ll be down to look out for the little girl."
Belson took Terry into the squad car and they drove off. I got my car out from behind another white and blue police car with the seal of the city on the side, and followed Befson"s car up Hemenway to Boylston, down Boylston to Clarendon, right on Clarendon. then up the Stanhope Street Alley and in behind headquarters.
Chapter 5.
We went in the back door, off Stanhope Street by the parking area that says RESERVED FOR PRESS. There were no cars there. You only go in the front door if you"re newsfum material. If they put the arm on you in a disadvantaged neighborhood you go in past the empty press lot.
The Homicide Division was third floor rear with a view of the Fryalator vent from the coffee shop in the alley and the soft perfume of griddle and grease mixing with the indigenous smell of cigar smoke and sweat and something else, maybe generations of scared people. Vince Haller was leaning against one of the desks outside Quirk"s frosted gla.s.s cubicle. He was wearing a white doubleknit suit, and over one shoulder he carried a camel"s hair coat with big leather b.u.t.tons. His gray hair was long and modish and he had a big Teddy Roosevelt Mustache. He was a couple of inches taller than I was, but not as heavy.
"Gentlemen?" he said in his big actorish voice.
I gave him a wave and Belson said, "h.e.l.lo, Vince."
"I"d like a chance to talk to my client."
Belson looked at Terry Orchard.
"Is this man your attorney?"
She looked at me and l nodded.
She said, "Yes."
"You can talk with her at my desk there." Belson nodded at a scarred and cluttered desk outside Quirk"s enclosed cubicle. "We"ll stay out of earshot."
"Has she been charged, Frank?" Haller asked.
"Not yet."
"Will she be?"
"I don"t know. The lieutenant will be along in a minute. He takes care of that stuff. We"ll want to talk with her a lot, though, either way."
"Has she been advised of her rights?"
Belson snorted. "Are you kidding. If she were shooting at me with a flame thrower I"d have to advise her of her rights before I shot back. Yes, she"s been advised."
"Have you, Miss Orchard?"
"Yes, sir." She was numb and scared, and entirely submissive.
"Okay, come over here and we"ll talk."
She did and Belson and I stood silently watching them. I suddenly realized how tired I was. I"d slept about three hours. As we stood there, Quirk came in with two other d.i.c.ks. He looked over at Haller and Terry Orchard, said nothing, and walked into his cubicle. Belson went in after him.
"Stick around," he said. And closed the door. The two d.i.c.ks sat down at desks, and looked at nothing.
At the other end of the office a black cop with thick hands and a broken nose was talking into a telephone receiver cradled on one shoulder. An old guy in green coveralls came through dragging a cardboard carton with a rope handle and emptying the ashtrays and wastebaskets into it. Haller was still talking to Terry. And I thought about all the times I"d spent in shabby squad rooms like this. Sometimes it felt like all the rooms I was ever in looked out onto alleys. And I thought about how it must feel to be twenty and alone and be in one at 5:30 A.M. and not sure you"d get out. The steam pipes hissed. I wanted to hiss back.
More than that I wanted to run. The room was hot and stuffy. The air was bad. I wanted to get out, to get in my car and drive north. In my mind I could see the route, over the Mystic Bridge up Route One, north, maybe to Ipswich or Newburyport where the houses were stately and old and the air was clean and cold and full of the sea. Where there"s a kind of mellowness and a memory of another time and another America. Probably never was another America though. And if I headed out that way I"d probably be sitting around the police station in Ipswich, smelling the steam pipes and the disinfectant and wondering if some poor slob deserved what he was getting.