MARK KANE MYSTERIES

BOOK FOUR

TILL DEATH

Copyright © 2015 by John Hemmings

Mark Kane Mysteries. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover by Octagon

Table of Contents

About the Author

THE MARK KANE MYSTERIES SERIES...SO FAR

FULL CHAPTER HEADINGS

Preface

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

A Word from the Author

Book One: Forget Me Not

Book Two: Ice

Book Three: The Black Widow

Book Four: Till Death

Book Five: Missing

Book Six: I Spy

Book Seven: A Tangled Web

About the Author

John Hemmings is a lawyer and writer of crime fiction with a one hundred percent record - none of his clients have been executed...yet! Some of his stories are suggested by cases he has been involved with, but some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent - or sometimes the guilty!

Each of his books features Boston private investigator Mark Kane, or simply Kane as he is known to most people, and his longtime companion Lucy - a slightly oddball couple with a somewhat unconventional relationship.

"I write for enjoyment - the sort of books that I hope have broad appeal in the mystery/detective genre; the kind of books I like to read myself - and as a family man I write for all ages - the sex private (even private eyes like a bit of privacy!), the language tempered. Take a look at those movies from the thirties and forties: Edward G Robinson, Cagney, Bogart. The lack of strong language didn't take away anything from the air of menace those guys exuded. Of course, they wouldn't have talked like that in real life; but then a movie or a novel is not 'real life'.

"I have used my experience to make the stories as authentic as possible, although these books are intended as entertainments, so a little 'poetic license' is sometimes necessary. As for 'character development', this is a series told in real time. While each book is a standalone story, as my readers progress through the books more is gradually revealed about my protagonist and his sidekick. My readers sometimes ask me what Kane & Lucy look like; but as to their physical appearance well, that's the beauty of books over movies - they look just like each reader imagines they look."

Find out more or contact the author at http://johnhemmings.net/contact

THE MARK KANE MYSTERIES SERIES...SO FAR

‘Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness’
– Euripides

For Gillian, Susan and Jim

FULL CHAPTER HEADINGS

Chapter One: The Meeting

Chapter Two: The Agoraphobic

Chapter Three: A Fresh Start

Chapter Four: Stars in her Eyes

Chapter Five: Maddox

Chapter Six: The Prestige

Chapter Seven: Office-less

Chapter Eight: Another headache

Chapter Nine: The Dead Guy

Chapter Ten: The Cold Case

Chapter Eleven: The Gym

Chapter Twelve: Partners in Crime

Chapter Thirteen: Starbucks

Chapter Fourteen: Night Starvation

Chapter Fifteen: Delmar Ditto

Chapter Sixteen: The Accident

Chapter Seventeen: A Moral Dilemma

Chapter Eighteen: A Second Honeymoon

Chapter Nineteen: In the Mood

Chapter Twenty: The Twin Cities

Chapter Twenty: One Atterbury

Chapter Twenty Two: Another Death

Chapter Twenty Three: The Highlander

Chapter Twenty Four: Rapid Falls

Chapter Twenty Five: Bob and Gladys

Chapter Twenty Six: Till Death

Chapter Twenty Seven: Making Plans

Chapter Twenty Eight: Taking Stock

Chapter Twenty Nine: Solja

Chapter Thirty: A Race against Time

Chapter Thirty One: Dr. Sanjit

Chapter Thirty Two: DNA

Chapter Thirty Three: Sudden Death

Chapter Thirty Four: The Letter

Chapter Thirty Five: Providence

Chapter Thirty: Six Lisa

Chapter Thirty Seven: The New Office

A Word from the Author

Mark Kane Mysteries Series

Book One: Forget Me Not

Book Two: Ice

Book Three: The Black Widow

Book Four: Till Death

Book Five: Missing

Book Six: I Spy

Book Seven: A Tangled Web

Preface

In writing this series I think it only fair to acknowledge my debt to that master of the detective genre, Raymond Chandler. Whilst I could never hope to produce narratives of such accomplishment, nor produce such a memorable hero as Philip Marlowe, in writing this series of novels I have nevertheless tried to be true to Mr. Chandler’s concept of what a private detective novel should comprise. I have adopted his famous guidelines, not simply because I admire him as a peerless writer of private detective crime fiction but because I believe they truly encapsulate everything that a good crime novel should be, namely:

It should be credibly motivated, both as to the original situation and the dénouement.

It should be technically sound as to the methods of murder and detection.

It should be realistic in character, setting and atmosphere. It must be about real people in a real world.

It should have a sound story value apart from the mystery element: i.e., the investigation itself must be an adventure worth reading.

It should have enough essential simplicity to be explained easily when the time comes.

It must baffle a reasonably intelligent reader.

The solution must seem inevitable once revealed.

It should not try to do everything at once. If it is a puzzle story operating in a rather cool, reasonable atmosphere, it cannot also be a violent adventure or a passionate romance.

It must punish the criminal in one way or another; not necessarily by operation of the law, but if the detective fails to resolve the consequences of the crime, the story is an unresolved chord and leaves irritation behind it.

It must be honest with the reader.

As for the hero, Chandler also had firm views. The morality of the detective is paramount. In his essay, ‘The Simple Art of Murder’, he wrote: ‘Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor – by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world’.

If Mr. Chandler were alive today it is doubtful that he would be impressed by my clumsy attempts at writing crime fiction, but I hope he would be satisfied with my attempts to carry on a fine tradition.

Chapter One

The Meeting

As soon as Lisa set eyes on him she was smitten. He was prowling along the jetty wearing an open neck dark blue polo shirt and cream-colored linen pants, his sockless feet in dark blue deck shoes that matched the color of his shirt. His hair was the color of prairie wheat and the skin of his face and neck had the golden glow of a summer dawn. He was about fifty, she guessed, and as such was old enough to be her father, but her thoughts at that moment were far from daughterly. He was a shade under six feet tall and, despite his middle-age, his figure was trim and athletic. He wasn’t conventionally good-looking, but he was striking in a way that she couldn’t quite figure. He carried with him an air of comfortable confidence that suggested he was at ease with the world.

As he stepped off the jetty he made a beeline for the table outside the café where she was sitting. He strode towards her so purposefully that, in spite of the fact that she was sitting at a small table with her back to the café’s white stucco wall, she instinctively looked behind her to see where he might be headed. With a burst of adrenaline butterflies, she realized that he was directly approaching her, and she felt a rush of blood to her face. He stopped in front of her table and tilted his head slightly.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you from around here?”

“Er no, I mean yes, in a way. I’m working here for the summer.” She tried desperately to prevent her face coloring. She felt foolish, like a girl at the prom being approached for a dance by the coolest kid in school.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he said. “I’m in town for a few days and was hoping to find a boat to charter for a spot of fishing.”

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said, “I’m afraid I’m a bit of a land lubber.” She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps the café staff can help.” She was feeling calmer now.

He stood perfectly still; looking at her with the deepest cobalt blue eyes she had ever seen. Neither of them said anything but the stranger made no move to go; it was like somebody had pressed the pause button on the video machine. After a while he said:

“Perhaps I can join you for a few minutes. I could do with some refreshment. I don’t want to be a nuisance, but as you can see all the other tables appear to be occupied and you seem to be by yourself.”

Liza felt her mouth go dry. “Er, yes…please. I mean of course.”

He sat down, hitching the knees of his pants slightly as he did so. He extended his hand, and as she shook it she noticed the sandy-colored down on his bronzed forearm. She moved her chair back a little and looked out across the bay, trying not to stare at him.

“I’m Don,” he said. “Don Maddox. I’m from Boston. Well not originally, but that’s where I live now.”

“Lisa,” she said. “Lisa Burrows from small-town Minnesota. Born and bred there and if I never see the place again it’ll be too soon.”

“So what brought you to Florida?” he said.

“It was the farthest I could go without falling into the ocean. I’m not a very good swimmer.” She laughed at her own joke. She was feeling relaxed now and not self-conscious at all.

“Well I’m just here on a jaunt,” he said. “I stuck a pin in the map and here I am.”

“Are you with friends?” Lisa said. “Or...or family?”

“All on my lonesome,” he said.

“Two lost souls in a sea of people,” Lisa said. It was so strange. She’d only met him a few moments ago and yet she felt totally at ease with him.

With an almost imperceptible raise of his hand he caught the waiter’s eye. “A double shot cappuccino with skim milk,” he said. “And...?” he looked at Lisa.

“Oh, an ice tea please,” she said.

“I hope you don’t think I’m hitting on you,” Don said, as the waiter disappeared.

Lisa felt a surge of adrenaline again in the pit of her stomach as she realized that’s precisely what she hoped he had been doing.

“Of course not,” she laughed. Damn that rush of blood to her face again. She felt momentarily awkward, but he smiled a benign closed-lipped smile at her and she instantly felt at ease again. “Actually it’s nice to have someone to talk to,” she said. “I haven’t really met anyone much since I came here. I feel a bit like a fish out of water sometimes, as if everybody secretly knows that I don’t belong here.”

“Are you working?”

“I’ve got a sales job downtown.”

“Fashion?”

“No, jewelry actually,” she said.

Don eyed her quizzically. “Unadorned as you are with your wares.”

“I couldn’t afford anything that I sell,” Lisa said.

“Sometimes less is more,” he said, and smiled. Lisa felt a flush of pride. She knew she was attractive, in a small-town Minnesota sort of way. She wore no jewelry and little make-up. She was confident with her looks; but it was the understated way that he fed her the compliment that she liked.

“Look, if you’re not busy today,” he said, “perhaps you could show me around, if that’s not being too presumptuous of me.”

“That would be lovely,” she said. “I’d be happy to.” Oh dear, was she being too forward?

“Well perhaps you’ll let me buy you lunch. Do you like seafood?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” she growled. “Sorry, that’s not very ladylike.”

They both laughed. Their drinks had arrived.

“So it’s settled then.”

The hours that followed had an almost dreamlike quality to them, except they lacked the disjointed nature of a dream. They talked about anything and everything, although very little about themselves. It was as if they’d known each other for years and there was no need to delve into each other’s backgrounds. She learned he was single and had been in the military some years before, but little else. He didn’t say whether he’d ever been married, and she was too shy to ask. Anyway, Lisa assumed that they were ships passing in the night, living for the moment. And she was glad of that because there was no way she could tell him the truth about her past. Her past was past and she wanted to forget it. And then again, she didn’t want to know about his family, a former wife or his present girlfriend, because it would spoil everything.

Lisa found Don to be engaging, charming and courteous. He had apparently travelled widely and she found him excitingly knowledgeable and worldly, but at the same time he was in no way egotistic or boastful. In spite of her relative lack of experience in the world he was not at all patronizing or condescending. He listened intently to her opinions and views. Despite the age difference they found that they had many common interests − their political affiliations, tastes in music and movies. The same things seemed to interest them. They had a similar sense of humor too.

There was no intimacy between them; no holding of hands or sweet words. She just felt comfortable. Yes, and safe too; safe and comfortable in a way that she hadn’t felt since she was a child; carefree. But she noticed that when they crossed the boulevard he gently guided her across the road by placing his hand softly in the small of her back, which sent a shiver up her spine.

At sunset they returned to the very place where they had met and drank cocktails al fresco as they watched the sun go down.

“It’s been a lovely afternoon,” Lisa said. She didn’t ask where he was staying. He didn’t ask for her number. They would part soon and life would go on. “Thank you for the beautiful lunch,” she said.

“And thank you for the engaging conversation and the tour,” he replied.

“I’ve got to get back and collect my laundry,” Lisa said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t lead a very exciting life I’m afraid. Rather humdrum actually, but I better be going.”

They rose together and stood facing each other. It might have been an awkward moment, but it felt as natural as saying goodbye to a close friend that you knew you were going to see again soon. Only they wouldn’t see each other again, somehow she knew that was a given. They smiled warmly at each other and she turned to leave; but as she did so he reached out and lightly took hold of her wrist. He raised her arm towards him and gently kissed the back of her hand.

“Goodbye Lisa, and thanks again,” he said. “I’ve had a perfect day.”

She walked away without looking back, but she could feel his eyes boring into her. She wanted to turn and look, but she dared not. She rounded the corner, walked to the bus stop and headed home. She was flushed with the unexpected excitement of the day which had zipped by in a blur of wonderfulness. It was Sunday night. She collected her laundry, picked up a salad from the deli and went back to her room.

The following morning, she replayed the previous day in her mind as she sat at her counter in the jewelry shop. She didn’t feel sad, in fact she felt somewhat elated; her afternoon with Don had boosted her confidence and, God knows, she needed that; and she spent a good deal of time wondering about the mysterious Mr. Maddox. She knew almost nothing about him of course, but she could still feel the touch of his hand in the small of her back and the memory of that slight but intimate gesture made her feel warm inside. She fantasized about having sex with him. What had he done to her?

The next two days passed uneventfully. She went to work, ate alone in the evenings. She called nobody, and nobody called her. Nobody could call her. She’d left no forwarding address when she left her home in Minnesota. She had no email, no Facebook page, and no poste restante address. She was alone, but she was free. Free to start over.

It was shortly after eleven on Wednesday morning when she saw him again. She was dusting a tray of jewelry under the counter-top. She looked up and there he was.

“Hello Lisa,” he said.

“Oh, hi,” she said, feeling those butterflies again. “I didn’t expect to see you again. I thought you’d be on your way back to Boston by now.”

“Tonight,” he said. “My flight leaves at eight. I remembered you said you worked at a jewelers shop and so I tracked you down. The thing is I need to buy something rather grand for someone very special and I thought you might be able to help me choose.”

“I will if I can. What kind of item are you looking for? And what kind of budget?” she said.

“The budget’s not important. It has to be something exceptional; a ring.”

Lisa’s mouth went dry. Why here? Why here? It was cruel. She felt her eyes watering. She took a deep breath.

“Yes, of course,” she said, struggling to compose herself. “Well these are the finest stones.” She indicated a tray beneath the glass-top counter.

“Can you choose for me? I think a lady’s a better judge than a man for things like this.”

Lisa’s head was starting to spin. She breathed deeply again, trying not to let it show.

“Um, I think any of these would be fit for a princess,” she said, steadying herself by placing her hands on the counter top; “how about the diamond and twin sapphires. The diamond is one point one carats, it’s almost flawless.” I need to get this over with quickly, she thought; this is too much.

“Okay. Is Amex alright?”

“Yes, of course; but usually our customers want the ring made to a particular size.”

“No can do. As I said, I’m flying out tonight. Unless you can have it done this afternoon?”

“We can do that. Do you have the size?”

“Not really, no. I hadn’t thought about it to be honest. Let me see.”

He reached out and took Lisa’s hand. “I should think about the same as you,” he said. The flush came surging up Lisa’s neck again.

“Alright, it’ll be ready by six this evening,” she said, trying to stay calm.

“Can I have it delivered to my hotel?”

“I’m afraid we don’t deliver,” she said.

“Well, perhaps you could bring it along, and I’ll buy you dinner.”

Lisa couldn’t believe it. He was so different today. She’d taken him to be kind and thoughtful, but this was a hurtful thing to do. Was he blind? Couldn’t he tell what she felt? How could he put her through this? Well damn him.

“If you write down the hotel and room number I’ll bring it for you, but I’m afraid I have a dinner date already,” she lied.

“Yes, of course; that was thoughtless of me,” he said. “Anyway I’d appreciate it if you could bring it. I won’t keep you, unless you’d like a quick drink before I go. And thanks for your help.”

He tendered his card and paid for the ring.

“I’m in the Excelsior. You won’t need the room number. I’ll be in the lobby waiting for you; and thanks again.” He left without a backward look.

Lisa’s anger slowly dissipated after he left. She reasoned with herself. The afternoon they’d spent together had been lovely, but when all was said and done she’d been his city guide and he’d been pleasant company. She had no right to expect any special consideration. For God’s sake, she wasn’t his girlfriend. Anyway it was a compliment really, that he’d gone to the trouble of tracking her down so that she could help him choose a special gift for a special person. She wouldn’t let the morning’s events spoil her happy memories of Sunday afternoon.

By the time she arrived at the Excelsior she was feeling calm and relaxed. She was also feeling curious. She decided she wanted to know a bit more about him. She’d accept that drink; why not?

He was waiting in the lobby as promised. He had a cabin bag with him and a suitcase next to his chair.

“Thanks, Lisa,” he said as she approached.

“It’s okay. It’s on my way home anyway and the manager said I needn’t go back to work this evening.” Lisa stuck her tongue in the side of her cheek and then smiled up at him. “I’ll get a good commission too. Maybe I’ll have that drink.”

He seemed relieved. “Of course,” he said. He picked up the cabin bag and called over the bellhop and asked him to watch the suitcase. Lisa and Don walked up a gently curving staircase under an enormous chandelier to the bar.

“What’s it to be?” Don said.

Lisa suddenly felt her inhibitions leave her. “Sex-on-the-beach,” she said.

“Here’s to that. You heard the lady. Two of those please,” he said to the barman.

It was early evening and they were almost alone in the bar.

Lisa raised her drink. She handed him the box containing the ring. “Here’s to the lucky girl,” she said. “Is it her birthday?”

“No it’s um... an engagement ring.”

Lisa’s mouth went dry and she swallowed hard. She took a sip of her drink.

“So when’s the wedding?” she said, sipping her drink through the straw and avoiding his eyes; those cobalt eyes.

“I’m not sure. I don’t know for certain whether there’ll be one.”

“Why ever not?”

“I haven’t asked her yet. She may not have me.”

“Well you must be fairly confident to have bought her a ring like that,” Lisa said.

She glanced at him and saw that he had a distant look in his eyes and a serious expression on his face.

“She must be really special to you,” Lisa said, trying to bring him back.

“Yes,” he said, “she is.”

“Have you known her long?”

“No, not long,” he said.

She looked up at him and she knew instantly. She started to cry.

“Will you marry me Lisa?” he said.

She burst into tears. Don tenderly took both her hands in his.

“Well,” he said, “at least we know the ring fits.”

Chapter Two

The Agoraphobic

“But she’d be perfect, don’t you see?”

We were in my home and Lucy was on her favorite hobby horse again. Since we came back from the Philippines the previous month she’d been bugging me endlessly to elevate her from office secretary to investigator. Well, assistant investigator anyway. Prior to that she only wanted to get away from the office; the mausoleum as she referred to it. She wanted to work from home. The windowless office downtown was all that I could afford, and then only because I shared the space with a bunch of other hapless individuals. It made her claustrophobic, she said, especially since there was precious little to do most of the time since none of us went there much. But I’d foolishly promoted her to the temporary post of assistant investigator in the Philippines and, although I’d stressed that the position was only a temporary one, she argued that resuming work as a secretary, even working from home, would be tantamount to a demotion.

Lucy tends to take no prisoners in arguments (or differences of opinion as she refers to them), so I was now reluctantly prepared to compromise and let her work from home, provided my office colleagues agreed. But the bit was between her teeth; she’d found a potential new secretary to take her place.

“Why would she be perfect?” I said.

“Because she’s agoraphobic. You know, she has a fear of open spaces, public places, people...”

“You advertised for an agoraphobic secretary?”

“No, it was just a lucky chance. I told Eric that I wanted to find a replacement secretary but that I thought the mausoleum would put potential candidates off.”

Eric was one of my office colleagues. He was an investment analyst who worked mainly from home and went to the office rarely. He liked the office because it had a prestigious address. A prestigious address is an important accoutrement for an investment analyst.

“Eric said that his niece might be interested because she hated going outdoors and was virtually unemployable as a result. It seemed like the perfect fit. So I invited her for an interview and she enthused about it. She said she couldn’t believe her luck. Not just because of the lack of windows; the fact that hardly anyone ever goes there was the icing on the cake as far as she was concerned.”

“Does she have any secretarial skills?” I countered, raising my eyebrows.

“Not as such. Not yet. I can mentor her and she can do a postal course. She doesn’t like to attend classes; they freak her out.”

“So it’ll be a gradual transition then. Is that what you have in mind?”

“Eric says she’s a quick learner.”

I struggled to think of a way out.

“It’s not just up to me. We’ll have to run it past the others. They may not agree,” I said hopefully.

“I’ve already asked them. They’re fine with it.”

“Ten out of ten for efficiency,” I said coolly.

“Oh please say yes,” she said imploringly, making the best possible use of her doe eyes.

“Lucy, you’ve helped me out in a lot of cases over the years and in other ways too numerous to mention, and don’t think I’m not grateful; but at the end of the day it’s a matter of dollars and cents. If I have to pay for an assistant, as well as an office and a secretary, I’ll have to increase my fees. If I do that I’ll lose a fair amount of business.”

“Not if you’re better than everyone else.”

“Even if I were the bee’s knees a lot of potential clients just wouldn’t be able to afford me. I didn’t choose this line of work to become wealthy; no-one knows that better than you. I’m here for people who need a special kind of service that they can’t find anywhere else. Oftentimes the people who need me the most are the ones with limited means.”

Lucy pondered this for a few moments.

“If you gave up the office altogether,” she said slowly, watching me like a bird of prey about to strike, “we could manage. Working on your own means you can only take one case at a time – look at all the work you have to turn away. If I worked with you, we could expand the workload. I could handle some of the routine stuff and free you up to do more of the better-paid work. And if a client wants to hire us as a team he or she’ll have to pay more, because they’ll be getting more for their money. You already delegate a fair bit of work to freelancers – like routine surveillance. I could do that. I’ve been going through the books – it’d save enough to produce the bulk of my starting salary.”

“It’s pretty tedious work,” I said, worrying about the word ‘starting’ that Lucy had used.

“So’s working in the mausoleum; if you can call it work,” she said.

Touché, I thought. The bottom line was that I was lucky to have Lucy at all. She’d stood by me through a lot of difficult times and could certainly have found a more rewarding and better paid job if she’d wanted to. Plus, I had to admit that she’d helped me in many investigations in small ways – even if it was just having her nearby as a sounding board.

“You really want to do this, don’t you Lucy?” I said.

“You know I do. I’ll be an asset. I won’t get in the way.”

“We’d be letting down the others. They’d need to find someone to take my place. Don’t forget I’m the leaseholder.”

“I’m going to let you into a little secret, at the risk of busting your ego,” she said.

“What?”

“The other guys don’t even like you much; they think you’re not progressive enough.”

“I thought they adored me.”

“We all have our cross to bear, Kane,” she said. “It’s time for you to move on. You don’t need the fancy address anymore. You have a great reputation for thoroughness, fairness – and results. You shouldn’t underestimate yourself. The number of referrals we get has soared during the past two or three years.”

This was true. I was getting quite a few referrals from insurance companies, and law firms. The unofficial referrals from the police had been steadily growing too. I had Lucy to thank largely because she was much better at networking than I am; which is another way of saying better than nothing. My back was to the wall but I fired my final shot.

“We’ll give it a try,” I said. “No promises.”

Lucy knew she’d won. She’d won before the discussion even began. The situation reminded me of a televised interview with Lester Piggott, the famous English jockey, which I’d seen years before. He’d just ridden a blistering race on a rank outsider in one of the American Classics, coming from near last to win inside the final furlong. Immediately after the race one of the journalists asked him: ‘At what point did you know you had the race won, Lester?’ ‘About last Thursday’, he replied sardonically.

“I’ve arranged a little celebration meal,” Lucy said. “Just the two of us − my place at six for pre-dinner drinks − we can discuss the finer details.” She flounced out the door triumphantly.

I was round at Lucy’s place on the dot of six. I didn’t have far to go – we live a few doors apart in the same street. I had to hand it to her – she’d really pushed the boat out. Since her trip to Asia she’d got heavily into Asian cooking, especially Thai and Vietnamese food, although Vietnam hadn’t been on her travel itinerary. There was an assortment of dishes – pork, chicken, seafood, pan-fried vegetables and a large dish of freshly diced fruit. It produced a display of technicolor splendor. She even produced a bottle of my favorite Scottish single malt whisky which she’d gotten from the duty free shop at the airport, and there were twelve ounce cans of Coors in the refrigerator. But in pride of place on her counter-top was a brand new rice cooker which we’d brought back from Thailand, only to find it would have been cheaper on Amazon. She was as happy as a clam that’d just found out it had won the lottery and as excited as a teenager preparing for her first date.

“You realize this will mean we’re going to be in each other’s pockets a lot more?” I said.

“Lucky you.”

“I suppose you’ll want to move in with me next.”

“You wish,” she chuckled.

She left some dishes simmering on the stove and switched on the automatic rice cooker. We adjourned to the verandah with our drinks. It was identical to what I referred to as ‘the porch’ in my house but Lucy had decided, after visiting Asia, that hers would now be called the verandah. As I sipped my scotch I was relieved to see that Lucy was sticking to green tea. Lucy has a fairly low threshold for alcohol and the night was still young.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said.

“Congratulations. And cooking at the same time? That’s called double-tasking isn’t it?”

“As a matter of fact cooking is very conducive to thinking,” she said, as if addressing a class of philosophy undergraduates. “I’ve decided we shall still need an office of some kind. I suggest a unit with a reception-cum-waiting room and a single office which can double as a conference room. We should look for something in this neighborhood; it won’t cost much and we won’t have to waste time traveling. If a client comes to the office I can double-up as the secretary for no extra charge.”

“That’s very magnanimous of you,” I said. Lucy ignored the interruption.

“There’s a shop near the flea market that sells out-of-date legal books by the yard so we’ll line the back wall of the office with those. We’ll need a few filing cabinets and some plaques for the wall – you know, commendations from satisfied clients. We can fake them until we get some real ones. Then there’s your old police graduation certificate. If you’ve still got the letter from Santos we could frame that and hang it in a prominent position − to give the business a kind of international flavor.”

Vicente Santos was a police superintendent in Manila. He’d taken a bit of a shine to Lucy and practically given me carte blanche to investigate a murder there. She noticed my somewhat hesitant expression.

“Don’t worry, I’ll organize everything.”

Lucy was nothing if not good at organizing. Organizing was her middle name.

“How about a couple of pictures of Bogart on the back wall,” I said sarcastically.

“Hmmm, good idea; I’ll see what I can do.”

“If you’re going to take over the surveillance work you’ll have to break the news to Tony.”

Tony Scipio and his wife were freelancers who handled most of my routine surveillance for me.

“You can’t please everyone, you know. You’ve helped him a lot; it’s time for them to stand on their own feet now. You should see this as a new beginning; a step forward. We’ll be like the Thin Man and his wife. What were their names?”

Lucy was referring to a television series which had somehow, inexplicably, metamorphosed from a book written by Dashiell Hammett and a film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Dashiell Hammett was a famous writer of crime noir mysteries in the nineteen thirties. He’s dead now.

“Nick and Nora Charles,” I said. “They had a dog called Asta.”

“We’ve got a dog called Skipper,” Lucy said.

Skipper was dead too. He was buried at the bottom of my yard. I never knew Skipper. I never knew Dashiell Hammett either.

I looked at Lucy, the profile of her face illuminated dimly by the porch light and the infra-red patio heater. It was almost fifteen years since we began working together. She was in her thirties now, but still looked like a girl to me. Her excitement had bestowed a warm glow to her skin, still tanned from her recent vacation. She was like a female Dorian Gray, the guy who kept a portrait of himself in his attic and never got old.

The meal was delicious and I gave the cook the greatest compliment you can give any cook – by devouring every last morsel. Prior to our recent foray to the Far East Lucy had been a competent cook with a limited range. Now her enthusiasm knew no bounds. She had a shelf in the kitchen full of herbs and spices from the Orient. She knew how to use them too. Lucy had recently had a bit of a windfall as a result of a case we’d solved in the Philippines and had treated herself to a new dishwasher. We loaded it up and I was given the honor of pressing the start button for the first time.

“God bless her and all who sail in her,” I said.

Lucy’s bungalow and mine are virtually identical, but hers is back to front, although Lucy claims it’s mine that’s back to front. There’s another difference too. The wall that in my house is lined with books is lined with videos in hers, either side of a fifty inch LED television with surround sound. Lucy announced that we were going to watch ‘Brief Encounter’ for the umpteenth time. Lucy’s a romantic movie buff. There’s an important rule of thumb I have to abide by when I watch movies with Lucy: I’m not allowed to utter a word until after the final credits have disappeared, and then the comments have to be ‘sensible’ ones. Lucy dimmed the lights and I asked where the popcorn was. She thumped me on the bicep.

“You’ve eaten enough already. Shhh, it’s starting.”

The movie finally reached its weary conclusion and I stood up to stretch. It was getting late. I looked at my wristwatch. It was a gold Rolex. It was a gift, not from a client, but from a friend of a client. Lucy looked at me out of the corner of her eye.

“You’re not going anywhere tonight, buster,” she said, “except my bedroom.”

Chapter Three

A Fresh Start

I saw little of Lucy for the next few days, engaged as she was in a flurry of activity. I let her get on with it – I didn’t want to get in the way. I got occasional progress reports. She located some nearby premises in need of a substantial makeover and agreed a three-month rent-free period to smarten them up. She arranged for various tradesmen to busy themselves at my expense. We should be able to move there by the end of January, she said. I wasn’t consulted about the layout or décor, but scored a minor victory by purchasing, without Lucy’s prior consent, some second-hand office furniture from a now defunct business called ‘Fortune Investments and Securities’ which was being sold cheaply by the official receiver.

While Lucy was busy laying the cornerstone of our new business empire I was doing my best to keep my head above water. Christmas may be the time to be jolly but it’s a generally lax time for private investigators. I was busying myself at home with some cold case files from the police department. I’d had some degree of success for them previously and was on the books as a consultant. It’s surprising how many cold case files contain manila envelopes stuffed with promising leads that were never followed up. It wasn’t the kind of work that was going to catapult me on to the Forbes Rich List but it would be enough to pay the bills for the time being.

And then the phone rang with a promising referral from a most unlikely source.

“Hi kid,” said the voice on the other end.

“Duncan. You back from California?”

“Yep. You got your snow shoes on?”

“A bit of snow never hurt anyone,” I said. “It makes it feel more seasonal.”

“Yeah, a bit of snow. Not a mountain of it though. How’s Lucy?”

“Organizing.”

“You?”

“In a way. We’re moving out of the downtown office. Lucy’s arranging a new place a few blocks away. Just the two of us.”

“What gives?”

“Lucy’s legendary powers of persuasion; she’s to be my new assistant investigator.”

An explosion of laughter followed. I had to move the phone away from my ear to prevent my eardrum bursting.

“Yeah,” I said.

“She’s a smart kid – very smart. You probably should’ve done it years ago.”

“Why are you taking her side?”

“Somebody has to. Anyway listen; I may have a client for you.”

“Seriously?”

“Of course seriously. His name’s Don Maddox. He used to work with me until a few years ago; prior military background. He’s getting on a bit now, but he’s still a pretty useful all-rounder – he’s a sixth Dan black-belt and an arms expert. He quit about five years ago − suddenly met the love of his life down in Florida. I must’ve mentioned I had a shamus for a brother at some point because he called me up a day or two ago and asked if I could put him in touch.”

“What kind of inquiry – did he say?”

“Something to do with his wife; she’s been acting a little weird lately and he thinks she may be in some kind of trouble. He lives down there in Boston. I said I’d give you a call.”

“Okay, tell him to get in touch. He can call me here if he likes; I’m not going to the office at the moment. Or he can call my cell if he prefers. Is it urgent?”

“I don’t think so, but I better leave it to him to tell you about it.”

“Are we going to see you sometime?”

“Maybe in the spring; you’ll probably be getting married right around then.”

“Yeah, right,” I said dismissively. “I’ll wait for you to find someone so we can have a joint celebration. That should shelve it for a couple of decades or so.”

“You think there was something wrong with our upbringing?” Duncan said, “Two ageing single guys. Our parents were barely out of high school when they got hitched.”

“Yeah, maybe I should go see a shrink. Maybe we should both go see a shrink.”

“Oh, another thing,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“He’s loaded, so don’t stint on your fee.”

“Ten four,” I said.

“See you around Kid. Love to Lucy.”

There was more laughter, and then he hung up.

I couldn’t wait to tell Lucy. It looked like a promising start to the New Year. I called her up.

“Watcha doing?” I said.

“I’m at the dealership on Planting; choosing a new car. Well, not a new car, a different one.”

“Can you afford it?”

“You mean can we afford it; it’s a business expense,” she said. “Probably not, but it was your idea.”

“Was it? When?”

“You said if I was going to do surveillance work I’d need a car that didn’t stick out like a sore thumb; except you didn’t use those words.”

She was right. I had said that.

“Can you trade your pile of junk?” I said.

“Yes, I came up with a great idea. They’re going to put it on a plinth in the lot with a big sign that says: ‘Are you driving a heap of crap like this? Come on in and talk to us.’ Or something like that.”

I had no idea whether she was being serious; you never know with Lucy.

“You want to meet for lunch?” I said. “I could see you at the Mexican place. I can’t remember the name, but you know the one.”

“I can’t remember the name either, but I know where it is. One o’clock?”

“Don’t buy anything without letting me check it over first.”

“What do you know about cars?”

“I know how much they should cost.”

“See you at one.”

I got there first. I ordered tequila and perused the menu, not that there’s much to peruse in a Mexican menu. Lucy arrived at a quarter after one, which wasn’t bad for her.

“Are we celebrating something?” she said as she slumped down in the booth opposite me. “I can’t remember the last time you invited me to lunch.”

“I wanted to catch up with you to see what you’re doing before you bankrupt me.”

Lucy wobbled her head, pulled a face and rolled her eyes at me.

“Plus I think I may have a new case, and it just could be the type of case where you could assist me.”

Lucy’s eyes opened as wide as a yawning crocodile’s mouth.

“Really, why?”

“I just had a call from Duncan…”

“Oh, how is he? We haven’t seen him for ages.”

“Just listen for a minute. It’s some ex-colleague of his. Apparently his wife is acting kind of strange and he wants me to find out what’s troubling her. But here’s the icing on the cake: Duncan says he’s a rich guy, so he’ll probably be able to afford both of us.”

“Duncan did that for me? Cool.”

“No. It’s my idea. Not the case, obviously, but your possible involvement. I haven’t even talked to the client yet. I just thought, from the little I know about it, that it might be a suitable case for you to cut your teeth on. No promises obviously, we’ll have to see how it pans out.”

“I’ve always liked your brother.”

“Yeah, and he’s always liked you. We all like each other. Let’s not get carried away, we’ll see what happens.”

We ordered our food. In the excitement Lucy had failed to notice my drink. She noticed it now.

“Tequila? At lunchtime? I thought you were working that cold case file.”

“I was. I am. Look it’s only one drink,” I said.

“Only one that I can see,” she said. “So have you made any progress on it?”

“Not yet. It’s early days – there’s a lot of paperwork generated by these investigations you know; you can’t do them in five minutes.”

“I’ve been trying to think of a name.”

“A name? For what? What are you talking about?”

“For the new business.”

I took a big breath and exhaled loudly.

“The business,” I said, “is called Mark Kane Investigations. You may have noticed it. It’s on my letterheads and business cards. It’s even on my tax return. And it’s on the checks that are routinely deposited in your account for…whatever it is you do.”

“That was then. I told you. This is a new start.”

“Lucy, I agreed to give you a trial as my assistant. I didn’t make you my partner.”

“It’s the same thing. You’re not trying to wheedle out of it now, are you?”

“I’ve made a lot of concessions lately Lucy, but I’m putting my foot down. We’re not changing the name. You can have gold embossed business cards if you like, but the name stays.”

“For the time being, okay,” she said, leafing through the menu.

The food mercifully arrived and I reminded Lucy that talking with her mouth full would be very unfeminine. After she finished eating I asked her about the car.

“There’s a really boss Corvette,” she said.

“Boss? This isn’t the sixties, Lucy. You weren’t even born in the sixties.”

“Neither were you.”

“No, more’s the pity. Better days back then.”

“How do you know?”

“Lucy, you need an invisible car.”

“Don’t be stupid, there’s no such thing.”

“Well obviously not literally. I mean a car that doesn’t stand out, doesn’t get noticed. I’ll find something suitable. I really don’t think it’s a priority right now, I’ve got enough to pay for.”

“You know Kane, sometimes you sound just like my father.”

“I’ve always had a lot of time for your dad,” I said.

Lucy was eyeing the dessert menu.

“Go on then,” I said. “I’ve got to get back to work. How are things panning out in the downtown office, have they decided who’s going to take over the lease?” I hadn’t talked to any of them. I was persona non grata.

“They’re squabbling about whose name is going to be on top of the leaderboard. They’re like a bunch of schoolboys.”

“How’s Eric’s niece getting along? I don’t see how you’re mentoring her and organizing my new office at the same time.”

“She’s in the hospital. The calls are being forwarded to my cell.”

I decided I’d heard enough. I left sufficient on the tabletop to pay the check and a more than reasonable tip and told Lucy I was heading home.

“There’s not going to be a problem with the office, Lucy, is there?” I said.

“I’ll handle it,” she said. “Relax.”

I left the restaurant and headed home. I didn’t feel relaxed.

Chapter Four

Stars in her Eyes

Lucy was conspicuous by her absence for the next couple of days. I didn’t know whether this was a good or bad sign, whether it augured a reason for optimism or pessimism for the future. Moreover, I’d received no call or message from Don Maddox and I was beginning to worry that his problem had resolved itself. Not that I wished him ill, of course, but it left me feeling a bit deflated. I figured that whatever his concern had been it was no longer troubling him. I continued to work on the police files at home, racking up an agreeable number of hours and constructing neat indexed piles out of the jumble of papers that had been delivered to me just before Christmas. The papers would eventually end up in the new office and my penchant for tidiness would no doubt appeal equally to Lucy’s penchant for organization. Since the new office was close by I wouldn’t have to keep everything at home once we moved in. If Lucy was to be my assistant, I’d have to school her in this sort of work so she could lend a hand when I was busy with other things.

The papers related to three homicides which had occurred between seven and twelve years ago. The investigations hadn’t identified any suspect or suspects. After studying the files for the past few days, to familiarize myself with the investigations, I was now searching for anything of evidential significance that may have been missed, or any exhibits which might be re-examined in the light of advances in forensics. There was nothing that appeared to connect the three cases, but one investigative method was to compare apparently unconnected homicides and see if they had anything significant in common. If two cases could be linked, especially if there was a link between the victims, then there was a better chance of a breakthrough. However, if a homicide was a random killing it would probably forever remain unsolved.

It was mid-morning on a Saturday so I knew Lucy wasn’t at work. Another reason I knew Lucy wasn’t at work was because her car was parked in her driveway. It was early January and the snow was deep and crisp but, because of the snow plows, not particularly even. The snow on the leaves and branches of the trees in my front yard gave them a dream-like appearance and everything seemed strangely still and quiet until a rat-a-tat-tat on my front door shattered the silence.

“Hi Lucy, come on in,” I shouted in the direction of my front door. “How goes it?” I said, as she stepped over the threshold.

“Cold enough to freeze the knickers off a vicar’s wife,” she said.

She came up behind my recliner and put her hands on my cheeks. They were freezing and I gave a small involuntary yelp.

“Cold hands, warm heart” she declared.

“Care for a hot toddy?” I said, shuffling the piles of papers surrounding my chair into a single pile and placing them on the dining table. “I’m just about to wrap things up for the weekend.”

I went in the kitchen to boil some water and get a pot of honey. I made drinks for us both and placed them on the coffee table in front of the sofa where Lucy had ensconced herself. She picked up one of the mugs and held it in both hands, shivering as she did so in spite of the warmth inside the house.

“How are things at the office?” I said, hoping that her silence over the last couple of days was a good omen.

“Hopeless,” she said. “It’s all coming apart down there. Nobody can agree on anything and since nobody actually goes there I spend all day passing messages from one to another. They’re like a bunch of headless chickens. It seems that you were the glue that kind of cemented everything together and nobody wants to take responsibility for the lease. I’m pretty sure that everything’s going to fold so I spoke to the landlord and he said if that happens we’ll have to forfeit the entire deposit and the advance rental. He says he doubts he’ll be able to find another tenant and he’ll probably have to rent it out as a storage unit. I told the others and they all say that you should reimburse them their share of the deposit because you’re the one who’s landed them in this mess.” She looked at me over the top of her steaming mug and grinned. “Apart from that, everything’s hunky dory.”

“Why are they blaming me? They should be blaming you. You’re the author of their misfortunes.”

“Because they don’t know that. They all think it was your idea to deprive them of an office and a secretary. I didn’t tell them that, it’s just their assumption.” Lucy placed her mug on the table in front of her and sat there with a self-satisfied smile and rubbed the palms of her hands together, still trying to get them warm.

“So that’s why you’ve been keeping a low profile for the last couple of days? Guilt and shame,” I said.

“I’ve been shopping.”

“For two days?”

“Of course not; I’m changing the subject.”

“Shopping for what?”

“Stuff for the new office.”

“I’ve ordered the furniture already; I told you.”

“Old movie posters.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well I know when you made that crack about pictures of Bogart you were being sarcastic, but it got me thinking.” She pointed her finger at me. “You’d unintentionally hit on a great idea. So I found this little shop downtown that sells old posters featuring famous movie detectives and I got a really good deal.”

“Please tell me you haven’t bought them yet.”

“I haven’t bought them yet.”

“No, but really?”

Lucy smiled and drummed her fingers on the coffee table.

“Lucy this is a serious business we’re in. Posters of fictitious private eyes aren’t what I had in mind for the décor.”

“You promised to leave the décor to me. Don’t worry, you’ll love them, and so will the clients. They’ll subconsciously associate you – I mean us − with all those famous movie detectives. It’ll send a kind of subliminal message that will give them confidence in you; in us. Plus, the guy in the shop says they’re a really good investment. They weren’t cheap, but I got Chinatown thrown in for free.”

I felt as if I was in the midst of a ghastly dream. Then Lucy leaned across the table, made her eyes big at me, and grinned.

“You’re kidding, right?” I said.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she said.

I had to believe she was kidding; it was the only way to maintain my sanity. I decided to let it rest there.

“What about our new case?” Lucy said. “Have you got an appointment to see the client yet?”

“No, he hasn’t been in touch so far. Maybe he’s decided he doesn’t need an investigator after all. Or maybe he’s just been too busy to call. Let’s wait and see. You want to rustle us up something for lunch? I’ve got plenty of stuff in the refrigerator for you to work your magic on.”

“Okay, then we can go back to my place to watch a movie. I’m in a good mood so I’ll let you choose.”

“Can I talk as well?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“I was planning on reading a book this afternoon.”

“Then what would I do?”

“Watch a movie?”

“It’s no fun watching a movie by myself.”

It’s no fun not to be able to make disparaging comments, I thought. “Okay,” I sighed, “we’ll do that then.”

While Lucy was in the kitchen preparing the lunch I sat and put the piles of papers that I’d sorted earlier into numbered box files. I’d got to file number four when the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and found myself talking to Don Maddox.

“Hi Mr. Maddox, Duncan told me to expect a call from you. How do you think I might be able to help you?”

“Call me Don. I feel as if I know you already. Duncan and I were pretty close back in the day and he told me a lot about you. It may be nothing much, but I’m a bit worried about my wife, Lisa. She’s been preoccupied with something lately; she hasn’t been herself. She won’t talk to me about it – says I’m imagining things, that nothing’s wrong; but she’s been going out at odd times during the day and I don’t think she’s being truthful to me. It’s not like her at all. We’ve been married a few years now and everything’s been perfect, but something or somebody is bothering her. I was hoping maybe you could discreetly find out what it is. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“So you want her tailed, or what?”

“I think we’d better meet so that I can give you the full picture. When can we hook up?”

“I’m kind of between offices at the moment,” I said. “I’m moving from my office downtown to a new place here in Norbury and it’s not ready to move into yet. Can we meet at your place?”

“I think it would be better if we meet somewhere else. Um, maybe I could come over to your place tomorrow. But if that’s not convenient we can make some alternative arrangement. I’ll sling some golf clubs in the trunk so that Lisa won’t worry where I am. I go to the range sometimes.”

“Even in winter?” I said.

“You’ve got keep it up if you want to improve.”

“Okay, that’s fine.” I gave him the address. “What time do you want to drop by?”

“Say eleven. Would that be okay?”

“See you at eleven,” I said. Then we hung up.

Lucy had stopped dicing the vegetables when the phone rang. She looked over at me inquiringly.

“Looks like we’re in business,” I said. “Maddox will meet us here tomorrow morning and give us the low-down. Obviously his wife doesn’t know – he’ll tell her he’s practicing his golf swing. Other than that I’m no wiser than you.”

“Which is pretty wise,” Lucy said.

“Now I can’t promise that there’ll be anything for you to do, but she’s likely to need tailing to find out where she’s going or who she’s seeing. I guess you can do that. Remember it has to be surreptitious. On foot it’s not too difficult as long as you keep a discreet distance. Tailing a car is trickier – you’d be surprised how people pick up on that quite easily. I’m not letting Tony go until I’m sure you can do it effectively. I guess we’ll have to ditch the movie until later. I’ll take you walkabout and give you some tips. Then you can shadow me and if I spot you I’ll bring you back here and devise some suitable punishment for you.”

“Oooh,” Lucy said, her mouth forming a perfect ‘O’, hunching her shoulders and making her neck disappear. “Then I’ll be like the invisible woman, don’t worry.”

“We’ll have to work out a sensible fee if Maddox wants us both involved. He probably will because I’ll tell him it’ll be less obvious for his wife to be tailed by a woman. Anyway, I’ll be with you, or at least nearby. Say she meets somebody and goes to a restaurant or bar. It’ll be less noticeable if you’re not on your own.”

“How about a thousand a day?” Lucy said; “you told me he’s wealthy.”

“We’ll see how it goes. We can start at a grand and then maybe negotiate.”

“It’s so exciting; I can’t wait,” Lucy said.

“It’ll be the acid test – any goofs and you’ll be back to answering the phone,” I said.

“Do you think she’s cheating on him?”

“I don’t think anything yet. And neither should you. Let’s wait until we have all the facts.”

“We really will be like Nick and Nora Charles,” she said, “won’t we?”

“Except Nora Charles was rich and you’re not.”

“Well you’re not thin either.”

“Nick wasn’t the thin man. The stiff was the thin man. Oh never mind – let’s just be ourselves, shall we? What’s for lunch?”

Chapter Five

Maddox

At eleven in the morning I was sitting on my sofa reading Huckleberry Finn when an M class SUV Mercedes pulled up in my driveway and out stepped a fifty-something man dressed in navy pants and matching polo shirt underneath a sheepskin coat. The coat was unbuttoned and he didn’t seem to mind the cold. I walked out to the porch as he strolled up and we greeted each other.

“Hi, I’m Don Maddox and you must be Mark, although your brother says you prefer Kane. Am I right?”

It was a sunny morning, but cold. “You’re right on both counts,” I said. “You’re nothing if not prompt. Come inside and meet my assistant, Lucy.”

“I can see the family resemblance,” Don said as we went inside. “I understand the two of you are quite close.” He was referring to my brother Duncan.

Lucy came around from behind the kitchen counter and I introduced them.

“Well, Duncan and I have always got on well together, although I don’t see much of him these days, I’m afraid. Please, take a seat,” I said, indicating my leather armchair.

Don was a little shorter than me but similar in build to myself, although perhaps a bit heavier. He was strongly built and the extra weight was muscle, not fat. His thick hair was silver and crew-cut, and his face was attractively tanned, even though it was the middle of winter.

“Would you care for some coffee, Don? I’ve just brewed a fresh pot,” Lucy said.

“That’d be swell,” he said, “Thanks.”

Lucy brought over the coffee and the two of us sat down on the sofa facing Don.

“Well, maybe you’d better tell us what’s troubling you Don,” Lucy said. I’d suggested to Lucy prior to the meeting that if she wanted to be part of a team then she might like to take the initiative.

“It’s kind of embarrassing really,” he said, “and I must say I feel uncomfortable talking about Lisa behind her back, so to speak. I adore her and we have a great marriage. But I’m convinced that something’s worrying her at the moment and I’ve tried to give her a chance to open up to me about it but she won’t. It’d probably help to let you know briefly about ourselves.”

“Okay,” said Lucy. “Take your time. We’re here to help if we can.”

“I know, and I’m sure I can trust you both implicitly. Duncan and I go back a long way and he’s told me all about the pair of you. He says the two of you have had the longest non-engagement in the history of the state.”

Lucy and I smiled. “That sounds like my brother,” I said.

“I met Lisa about five years ago when I was taking a short break down in Florida. It was like something you only read about or see in the movies. It was love at first sight,” he said. “We got engaged after a single afternoon together, and neither of us has regretted it for a moment. Lisa packed her bags and came back to Boston with me and we got married soon after. We were both single. I’d never been married before, although I’m a good deal older than Lisa. Actually at the time we met she was less than half my age. I was forty-nine and she was twenty-four. Naturally we talked about the age difference at the time. I told Lisa that I didn’t want to start a family at my age, but she was fine with that. We used to joke that she was young enough to be my daughter anyway. But seriously, it’s never been something that’s bothered us – in fact it’s never been an issue. Nor has the fact that neither of us really knew anything about each other before we got married, because in all important regards we’re birds of a feather. We’ve never had a falling out since we met.”

“So what has happened recently; in as much detail as you can manage?” I said.

Don inhaled, blew out his cheeks and then exhaled audibly.

“I don’t want to give the impression that we live in each other’s pockets,” he said, “even though we do most things together. I’m fortunate in that I don’t need to work – I was left very well-off when my parents passed away. They died within three months of each other more than ten years ago now. As a result, Lisa doesn’t need to work either. As I said, we do most things together – we travel frequently; in fact, we were on a cruise in the Caribbean at Christmas. We have mutual friends. We play tennis together. We work out together. We both do voluntary charitable work. We still go to movies together like teenagers and we go to the theater and concerts. We both have similar tastes in music. But we also have our own interests. I teach martial arts for a hobby and I play golf occasionally. Those things don’t interest Lisa. She has her own casual friends that she likes to sometimes go shopping, drinking or just hanging out with.”

Don paused for a moment or two, rubbing his bottom lip with his forefinger.

“But since we came back from our vacation things have changed. Last weekend, for example, we were supposed to visit friends in New Hampshire for the weekend but at the last minute she backed out. When I said I’d cancel the trip she got annoyed – not annoyed exactly; it was more like she was frustrated. She said that she needed some space, so I went without her. When I got back on the Sunday afternoon she seemed distracted somehow. She seemed on edge.

“I don’t know whether Duncan told you, but I’m a martial arts instructor. It’s voluntary, unpaid work. I run classes every Wednesday and Friday at the youth center from noon until two. It enables some of my students to use their lunch breaks to attend – the ones that have jobs, that is, which isn’t many of them. I usually leave home at eleven-thirty and get home about two-thirty. Last Wednesday when I arrived at the gym I discovered that they’d had a burst pipe and the place was flooded. We had to cancel the class so I was home before one. Lisa wasn’t home. There was nothing particularly unusual about that, but when she got back at about two o’clock she was surprised to see me there. I didn’t ask where she’d been, but she mumbled something about leaving some kit at the gym or something. All I can tell you is that when you spend every day of your life with someone for five years you instinctively know when they’re not telling the truth, and I was sure she wasn’t, but I didn’t say anything. I let it pass. Then on Friday she was expecting me to go to take my class, and at about eleven forty-five she reminded me that I was going to be late. So I told her that the classes were canceled because of repairs that were necessary in the gym. She seemed a little flustered and then she said she had to go out to meet Cindy for lunch – that’s one of her friends – and she left the house. When she came back I asked how was Cindy and she said something about comforting Cindy because she had boyfriend trouble and that was that. But I was worried about her recent behavior. I called Cindy – not to check up on Lisa, but to ask her if she knew whether Lisa had any problem that she may have told her about. Cindy said she was sorry but she hadn’t seen Lisa for ages.

Yesterday Lisa told me that she has a lunch appointment on Monday with Cindy again. She said, ‘you know, she just needs a shoulder to cry on’ or something like that. I know she’s not being truthful, although I didn’t tell her. I’ve asked her a few times if anything was wrong but she said she was fine. But she’s not fine. She’s worrying about something. She’s not been eating much either.”

I sat absorbing all this for a minute or two.

“Have you noticed any changes in the way she dresses, or how she is in the bedroom? I’m sorry, but I have to explore all the angles, I’m sure you understand.”

“She’s very demonstrative and affectionate. She always has been and, if anything, even more so lately. I haven’t noticed any changes in the way she dresses – or in her day to day behavior, other than those I’ve mentioned to you. And she’s a lot quieter – as if she’s got something worrying her. Of course it’s occurred to me that she’s having an affair but I’m practically certain that’s not it. I trust her implicitly and I feel guilty about that thought even crossing my mind.”

“You said you knew little about her background when you married. Has that changed?”

Don rubbed his cheek with his hand, and then squeezed his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“No. It hasn’t changed. Lisa doesn’t like to talk about her life before she met me. She’s from a small town in Minnesota. She did mention the name of it once – Rapid Falls I think she said...yes, that's it; but she’d left home before I met her and she’s never told me anything about her life there. In the early days I used to ask her the usual things that people do when they get involved but her response was always the same. ‘Past is past’ is all she’d say. In fact, one of the first things she ever said to me was that if she never went back to Minnesota it would be too soon. I’ve always respected her reluctance to talk about her past. Maybe a little mystery in a relationship isn’t such a bad thing.”

“What was her name,” I said. “Before she was married?”

“Burrows,” he said.

“Have you met any of her family?”

“I know nothing about her family; not even if she has any living relatives. My own parents died before we met, and I had a younger brother who was killed in a biking accident in Peru many years ago when we were in our twenties. I have uncles and aunts and a few scattered cousins somewhere. I’ve not had contact with any of them since my parents died. All I can say is that nobody from Lisa’s family or mine came to the wedding. I asked her if she wanted to invite anyone – even a friend – but she declined. We got married in Vegas – just the two of us there. It was Lisa’s idea.”

“Have you ever seen any of Lisa’s friends from the time before you met?”

“No, I haven’t. She’s told me many times that I’m the only friend she wants or needs. She doesn’t use Facebook or any of those social media sites. She doesn’t even use email. Of course we have mutual friends that we see from time to time, but I wouldn’t describe any of them as close friends. We have each other, and that seems good enough for both of us. Of course we both have casual friends of our own too, but neither of us has anybody who is really important to us except each other.”

I reflected that it wasn’t much different from me and Lucy. Except that we weren’t married of course. Or rich.

“I wonder if something − or somebody − has come back from her past to haunt her,” I said. “Perhaps one of her parents has died or is sick and she’s bottling it up inside her.”

“I’m really at a loss – I just don’t know what to think. The last thing I want to do is to jeopardize our marriage. It sounds a trite thing to say but I couldn’t live without her. It’s strange. I was nearly fifty when we met and the idea of sharing my life with one person had never even crossed my mind before that. I was the proverbial confirmed bachelor, but now…”

“From what you’ve told us already it seems unlikely that there’s anyone she knows that she’s likely to have opened up to about whatever it is that’s worrying her. It’s pointless to speculate what the problem may be, but if she loves you like you say she does then whatever she is hiding from you is likely to be something serious; you must realize that.”

“I know. And that’s why I’m here. I need your help…desperately.”

It seems inevitable that she’ll need to be tailed the next time she goes off on her own, but I can give you an assurance that we’ll be discreet. She won’t suspect anything.”

“Could you start right away? Or have either of you got something pressing to do at the moment?”

“No, we’re both free. As you can see from the files on the table I have some paperwork to do, but that can wait. They’re cold case investigations. The investigations date back several years so a few days more won’t make any difference.”

“That’s a relief. I’d really like to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. I want my old Lisa back – I miss her.”

“It’ll probably be less obtrusive for Lucy to tail your wife. If you want Lucy and me together then the daily fee will be a thousand dollars. If that’s a little steep, then I can handle everything by myself. In that case the daily fee would be six hundred. Either way, I’d need a retainer equivalent to three days. If the case runs over that period, then you’ll be billed by the day. Any incidental expenses will be charged on top of that. I’ll let you know beforehand if any major expense is likely to be incurred.”

“I want both of you to work together. Duncan says you work well as a team.”

Lucy folded her arms and looked as pleased as punch.

Don pulled a checkbook from his rear pocket and wrote a check for three thousand dollars. He handed it to Lucy. He opened his wallet and extracted two photographs of Lisa which he handed to me − one full body, the other showing only her face. She was slim, with chestnut-colored shoulder length hair. Her eyes were light brown, the color of almonds. She had even features, a strong nose and slightly angular chin. She was an attractive lady.

“How tall is she Don?” I said.

“She’s five feet six inches. A couple of inches taller in heels of course.”

“And what car does she drive?”

“It’s a dark blue BMW three series coupe. Here, I’ll write the registration down for you, and my address.”

I handed Don my black pocket book.

“Lisa usually drives, but we live in an apartment near the North End and if she’s only going downtown she’ll sometimes take a taxi instead. Her car’s kept in the basement parking garage.”

“If she uses her car tailing can sometimes be difficult,” I said. “We’d need to stay at least two car spaces behind and it’s possible to lose a car at stop lights. Would you have any objection to me putting a tracking device on the car? It’s a small magnetic device that I usually attach to the underside of the vehicle. If I lose the car I’m tailing, it’s the easiest way to pick it up again.”

“You’re the expert. I authorize you to do whatever you think will achieve the best result. But the security in the basement is quite tight. It may be better for me to place the device there.”

I went to get the tracker. It was an expensive active model which could be linked to my laptop computer and would send back a near real-time record of whatever route the car took. I handed it to Don and showed him how to activate it.

“Okay, Don. Now you say that Lisa has told you that she’s meeting Cindy again tomorrow, and I understand that you haven’t said anything to her to suggest that you believe that she is lying about that?”

“No, I’ve kept it all to myself.”

“Then we’ll tail her tomorrow to see where she goes and who she meets. You say it’s a lunch appointment. I guess if we’re in the vicinity of your home by eleven that should be early enough. I’ll keep you in the picture about where she goes and whom, if anyone, she meets. Of course, I won’t be calling you every five minutes, but I’ll let you know as soon as I have something useful to report. You’ll get a full written report in due course. In these kinds of cases we just have to play it by ear. Try to keep everything as normal as possible at home. If for any reason Lisa changes her plans for tomorrow, then you can call me on my cell phone.”

“It’s a weight off my mind to have you guys on it. I just hope it’s nothing too serious,” he said. “Whatever it is I’m sure it’s something that I can sort out if she’d just let me. You know Lisa’s usually such a bright girl, always goofing about. The change in her lately is disturbing, to say the least.”

“We’ll do our best to get to the bottom of it as soon as we can.”

“Okay, well I’d better be getting home. And thanks; I really appreciate it.”

I walked Don out to his car and went back inside to talk to Lucy. She was unusually quiet and pensive.

“What’s the matter Lucy?” I said. “I thought you’d be over the moon.”

Lucy went and slumped down on the sofa.

“I’ve been so excited at the prospect of actually being involved in an investigation,” she said, “and now it’s really happening I’m as nervous as hell. Do you think I’ll be okay? I mean what I’ll be doing is so important. You think I’ll be able to cope? I don’t want to let you down.”

I went and sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders.

“You’re going to be a natural,” I said. “The important thing to remember is that it’s just a job, and like any job you have to learn as you go along. But you’re bright and intelligent and if I didn’t think you were up to it I wouldn’t let you get involved. But remember, I’m still the boss. You have to listen carefully and do things my way. I’ve had a lot of practice at this game. Let’s go out for lunch, and then we’ll drive over to Don’s place and have a recce.”

“Thanks Kane. I’ll do my best to make you proud of me.”

“I’m proud of you already, Lucy. C’mon, let’s go spend some of Don’s money.”

Don and Lisa lived in an apartment on the top floor in a block named The Prestige. After lunch we drove over there to get the lay of the land and find a suitable location where we could hang out so as not to be too far away if Don gave us a call. I tried the laptop to see if the device I’d given Don had been activated but got no signal. I guessed he hadn’t had an opportunity to fix it on the car yet. I could see what he meant about security – there was a grill covering the entrance to the basement parking garage.

We found a couple of alternative places where we could wait undisturbed, and then we had a short drive around the vicinity to get acquainted with the area. It was a seven story block and some of the apartments had views towards the waterfront.

On the way home we stopped off at the new office, which thankfully was taking shape more quickly than I’d anticipated. It was about a twenty-minute stroll from the street where we both lived, or a five-minute drive. There were two parking bays allocated to our unit. The entire building, a single story redbrick, was being renovated and a sign was advertising other units for rent. All-in-all I reckoned Lucy had found us a pretty convenient location. She hadn’t been her usual bubbly self during the afternoon so I decided to cheer her up by suggesting we go watch a movie at her place. She looked at her watch.

“It’s only four o’clock,” she said. “So we’ll have time to watch two. We’ll look for something on Netflix that neither of us has seen before.”

That did the trick of cheering her up. It doesn’t take a lot to cheer Lucy up.

“It must be wonderful to be loved as much as that,” Lucy said, pensively. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“Yes,” I said in my normal voice, and then, in my Joe Cocker voice, I sang, “I’m certain that it happens all the time.”

Lucy thumped me on the arm and laughed. Lucky I wasn’t holding the wheel with that arm.

Chapter Six

The Prestige

Lucy and I were in place nearby The Prestige shortly before eleven. I’d heard nothing from Don, so I presumed that Lisa still intended to keep her lunch appointment. From our vantage point we could see both the front entrance of the building and the parking garage entrance. I checked my laptop and confirmed that the tracking device had been activated. Now all we had to do was wait.

While we waited I explained to Lucy how to use the laptop to track the route and location of the car. She might not need to use it during this assignment but it was as well to be prepared for the future. At twenty-five minutes past the hour Don called my cell phone; Lisa was on the way down to the basement.

“We’re ready to roll,” I said to Lucy as I fired up the Chevy’s engine.

The entrance grill started to move up and the blue BMW eased its way up the ramp and underneath the grill. I could recognize Lisa from the photograph Don had given me. The car turned right and indicated for a left turn at the next junction. I pulled away and followed, keeping a discreet distance behind. I followed the BMW through the Financial District and over the Congress Street Bridge towards South Boston. Lisa crossed West Broadway and turned left and then right at the next block. She eased the car to the side of the street and was obviously looking for a meter.

“Lucy, you get out here and keep her in sight when she gets out. I’m going to park a couple of blocks away.”

Lucy got out, pulling the collar of her knee-length black coat above her ears. She was wearing a black scarf, and black knee boots. She looked like a million other people probably looked in cold places around the globe. She was carrying a newspaper. I drove a couple of blocks, spotted a meter and made a right. As I walked back to where I’d last seen the BMW I saw Lisa walking into a café, and a few seconds later Lucy followed her in there. I called Lucy’s cell phone.

“I’m just down the street. I know where you are. Keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll mosey on down there but I’m not sure whether or not I’ll come in.”

As I walked past the café window I saw that Lucy had seated herself in a booth by the window opposite an older gentleman who seemed pleased to have something nice to look at. That was perfect. Lisa was in a booth too, at the side of the café and about twenty-five feet away. Through the window I could see that she was sitting opposite a man who was facing towards the window. He looked about thirty or so and had a thin face and lank, greasy hair which was long and tucked behind his ears. They were talking quite animatedly. I called Lucy again.

“I’m not coming in – I don’t want to disturb your admirer. You’re obviously too far away to hear anything, but watch the body language carefully. Call me the minute either of them gets up to leave. It’s damn cold and I’m going to sit in the car until I hear from you.”

I went back to the Chevy, fired the engine to keep warm and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. Lucy called to say they were both about to leave. I walked back around the corner and watched as they left separately. The man came out the door and turned in my direction. Lisa came out about half a minute later, just as the guy walked on past me, and she headed towards where her car was parked. I called Lucy.

“I’m going to follow the guy. Watch to see whether Lisa goes back to her car. If not, I want you to follow her. If she does, then get in the Chevy and crank up the laptop – let’s see if she’s heading home again.”

The guy who’d been talking to Lisa in the café walked straight past me. I followed him at a distance of about forty feet. After four blocks he turned into a shabby three story apartment block. I turned in there too. I watched at the doorway as he pressed the button and waited for the elevator. There were fire stairs next to the elevator. When the man got into the elevator I took the stairs. The elevator didn’t stop at the second floor so I went up to the third. I watched him get out of the elevator and let himself into one of the apartments with a key. The number of the apartment was 3D. I retraced my steps and walked back to the Chevy. Lucy was already inside trying to warm herself up. I looked over at her and she smiled. “Piece of cake,” she said.

“So did she go back to her car?”

“Yes.” Lucy had the laptop open. “It looks as if she’s going home – anyway she’s headed in that direction.”

“Okay, so what did you see?”

“The guy was already waiting for her in a booth over near the kitchen. There weren’t any free tables but there was this older guy in the window and he smiled at me so I sat down with him. That’s when you rang me the first time. After you hung up I said “See you in a minute honeybun” into the phone so the guy would think I was expecting someone and wouldn’t try to hit on me. I didn’t want to be distracted.”

“Honeybun?” I said. Lucy giggled. “So I guess you couldn’t hear any of the conversation?”

“No. I was too far away and they were talking in low voices. But I could see the guy was pissed. It seemed like Lisa was remonstrating with him, and he kept slapping his newspaper on the table. Then he kept pointing at her and jabbing his finger towards her face. They had ordered coffees but I didn’t see either of them take a sip. Then the guy threw some coins on the table and left. He got up first, and then Lisa called over the waitress and paid. Then she left.”

“A lovers’ tiff?” I said.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t that. The impression I got was that she hadn’t done something that she was supposed to have done. Something like that. It was just my feeling from the body language and the expression on the guy’s face. I could see his face clearly, but Lisa had her back to me.”

“You did well. I followed the guy to an apartment building just a few blocks away. He let himself into an apartment on the third floor, apartment 3D. It’s kind of a shabby building. None of the apartments had names next to the bell pushes.”

“So what do we do next?” Lucy said.

“Well, she didn’t meet Cindy, and the guy certainly doesn’t seem like some Lothario. From your description of their brief meeting it seems they’ve got unfinished business of some sort. There’s no point in us sticking around – the guy from apartment 3D could stay there all day. I’d call Tony or June to sit it out for us but although I’d have no trouble recognizing him I couldn’t give Tony much of a description of the guy. He’s about five nine, thin build. There’s no point giving a description of his clothing because he might come out – if he comes out – dressed differently. I think we’re just going to have to leave it there for the time being. As I said, I think they’ll be meeting each other again – maybe we’ll learn more next time.”

“In the meantime at least you can confirm to Don that she’s not meeting a secret lover. The guy looked like a real creep to me. Ugh,” she said, giving an exaggerated shiver.

I looked at the laptop. Lisa was almost home. It was little more than an hour-and-a half since she’d left there.

“It’s possible they could meet again sometime later today, so I think we should stay in this general area,” I said. “On the other hand Lisa’s brought us to a part of the city where there’s absolutely nothing to do or see. I guess if she does come back we’ll have at least half an hour’s notice from our tracker. Let’s get out of here and find somewhere nice for lunch. We can take the laptop with us.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Lucy said. “Let’s go to the downtown office while we’ve still got one to go to. You can help me face the music there.”

Chapter Seven

Office-less

It was seven thirty and we were in Lucy’s place. She was cooking some dinner and I was raking through her movie collection to see if I could find something I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t, but I did find a copy of The Last Waltz –Scorsese’s movie of the Band’s farewell concert back in 1976 − so I put that on. As the theme music started Lucy waltzed out of the kitchen and handed me a cold beer.

Nothing further had been seen or heard of Lisa, and I hadn’t had a call from Don either. I thought it better to wait for him to call me rather than vice-versa. It hadn’t been a completely wasted afternoon though because, much to Lucy’s surprise, I’d unexpectedly managed to pour oil on the troubled waters at the downtown office. As a result of a mighty feat of organization by Lucy the entire membership of the soon-to-be-defunct downtown headquarters of Mark Kane Investigations was assembled in the seldom-used conference room – five, including Lucy and me, seated on chairs, and the other three leaning against one of the windowless walls. I renounced my entitlement to my share of the advance rent and the deposit, and by a unanimous vote of the remaining members it was resolved that they would remain in situ and cast their net to see if they could attract another couple of tenants. They were to become fishers of men.

At eight o’clock Lucy got a message from Don on her smartphone asking us to email him with an update. I checked my mailbox, read Don's email and sent him a reply. I told him about the rendezvous in South Boston, including the name and location of the café. I gave him a brief description of the man Lisa had met. It was possible, but a longshot, that he might recognize the description. I had no idea who the man was, but it was just possible that it was someone they both knew. I told him that I’d tailed the guy to his apartment and I gave him the address, but I stressed that under no circumstances must he go to either place or the whole investigation would be in jeopardy. Finally, I told him that although the man had appeared to be angry with Lisa there was no reason to think that she was in any danger. The meeting was conducted in a public place and anyway, if she met him again I would be close by to see that no harm came to her. I told him that I expected them to meet again – probably quite soon.

I waited to see if there was any reply – I pictured Don eagerly poised over his computer. A few minutes later I got his reply. He would call either Lucy or me immediately if she went out by herself. If he was unable to give enough notice for us to get over there, he hoped we could rely on the tracking device. He’d be at the gym again on Wednesday, so she might wait until then. He asked me to be sure to be ready just in case.

“Don’s going to call us next time Lisa goes out on her own,” I called out to her. “It looks like Wednesday is the most likely time as he’ll be going to the gym for coaching again.”

Lucy was in the kitchen. The Band was somewhere up on Cripple Creek.

“Same time as before?” Lucy called back.

I walked into the kitchen where Lucy was steaming some fish and mussels, and a pan of sauce was simmering on the stove.

“I expect so, but if she goes anywhere at short notice we’ll have to rely on the tracker. Actually it’ll probably be safe to take a chance and head directly to South Boston anyway. It’s pretty certain she’ll be meeting the same guy and the rendezvous will be the same because it’s near his apartment. If I’m wrong about the location, we’ll soon know by checking the laptop. I’d like to get into that guy’s apartment and look around, but if the meeting’s as short as the one today there’ll be no time. We’ll see how things go tomorrow. I might just have to muscle my way in.”

“What do you think it’s all about?” Lucy said.

“I reckon my first guess is most likely. I think there may be something in Lisa’s past that’s come back to haunt her. Maybe the guy’s got something on her. If you think about it that’s what makes the most sense. After all, it’s pretty unusual not to want to tell your husband anything about your past; and it’s pretty unusual not to confide in him if she has a problem of some sort, especially given the apparent closeness of their relationship.”

“So do you think the creep may be putting the squeeze on her or something?” Lucy said.

“Maybe, but it’s important to keep an open mind. We may be barking up the wrong tree entirely.”

“I wonder what it could be about.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to go to Minnesota to find out,” I said.

I helped Lucy bring the food into the living room and we sat at the dining table to eat.

“At least I’ve managed to sort out the mess that you created in the office,” I said. “It was getting to be a real headache.”

“A satisfactory solution made possible only by my exceptional powers of organization,” Lucy said.

“The police should make suspected inebriates say a sentence like that,” I said.

“Apparently in England the police make DUI suspects say: ‘the Leith police dismisseth us’,” Lucy said. Her head was full of random information like that, or maybe she was making it up.

“I didn’t see any sign of Eric’s niece there today. Is she still in the hospital?”

“No, she’s fine now. Her name’s Daphne by the way. I could hardly invite her to come to the office when it was full of people – she’d have flipped out.”

“Well it’s not our problem anymore. I can’t say I shall miss the place,” I said.

“It’s hard to miss a place that you hardly ever went to,” Lucy said.

“That’s true. And I shan’t miss the camaraderie of my former colleagues either. They were a curious assortment of individuals. They didn’t even give me a going away gift.”

“So now we’re office-less − for the time being,” Lucy said.

“Well, you always wanted to work from home. Anyway it looks as if the new place will be ready ahead of schedule.”

“And we won’t have to share it with a soul,” Lucy said happily.

“Here’s to your first real day’s work as an assistant investigator,” I said, raising what was left of my beer. Lucy lifted her glass of tomato juice in response.

“Don’t forget I was your temporary assistant when we were in the Philippines,” Lucy said.

“And you got rather well remunerated for it in the end,” I said.

Lucy put her elbows on the table, making a cradle of the back of her hands and resting her chin on it.

“We haven’t discussed my salary yet,” she said.

“No,” I said, “we haven’t.”

Chapter Eight

Another Headache

We heard nothing from Don the following day, but on Wednesday morning he phoned me.

“I’ve a feeling she’s getting ready to meet someone again today. She’s been very much on edge and rather touchy,” he said.

Since he wasn’t sure whether she would be going out or not, he agreed with my proposal that we’d wait near the café in South Boston. We’d have the laptop and could make adjustments to our location if necessary.

“If she goes out we’ll watch her carefully and I’ll call you at the gym and let you know.”

“No, um, there’s no signal in the basement for cell phones.”

“Can I reach you there on a land-line if necessary?”

“I’ll let you know. I don’t remember the number there off-hand.”

We arrived at the location of the café at eleven thirty. During the next half hour or so we managed to find a parking space near enough to see inside without venturing into the cold. I sat with the laptop in front of me waiting for it to show some sign of life. Finally, I spotted movement on the laptop. She was heading our way. I watched until she crossed the Congress Street Bridge.

“She’s on her way here,” I told Lucy.

We watched and waited. Then, walking towards us, we saw the man from apartment 3D; ‘the creep’ as Lucy had christened him. But he wasn’t alone; he was with a woman of a similar age, or perhaps a little older, with blond hair tucked under a red woolen tuque. The pair of them went into the café, the entrance of which was less than fifteen feet from where the Chevy was parked. The creep and his companion sat in a booth by the window. From our vantage point we could see them both. They sat next to each other, facing towards us. The woman removed the tuque. She was a bottle blonde, and a bad one at that. I asked Lucy to go inside and try to get a better look at them. There was an empty table to the side and at a slight angle to the booth.

“Go inside and order a coffee and try to get a good look at both of them. Look for any distinguishing marks or characteristics which might help to describe or identify them later. It’s just a little too far to see clearly. If Lisa joins them shortly you may be close enough to hear some of the conversation,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”

“You don’t think Lisa will recognize me from Monday, do you?” Lucy said.

“I shouldn’t think she even noticed you – her attention would’ve been on the creep. In any case, even if she does recognize you she’ll just assume you’re a local. I can’t imagine anyone coming far to eat in a place like that.”

Lucy went in and sat down. The waitress approached and Lucy spoke to her.

I sat in the car waiting for Lisa’s car to show up. After a few minutes I looked at the laptop again. Lisa’s car was stationary on West Broadway. I assumed she was in traffic or at a stop light. After a few minutes it was apparent that the car wasn’t moving. It seemed to have been parked there. The distance from where I sat was not that far – about four blocks to the north and two to the west − so I assumed that for some reason she had decided to park and walk from there. I calculated how long it should take for her to reach the café. No more than ten minutes, I thought, maybe less.

Lucy had received her coffee and was nonchalantly looking towards the window, directly at the creep and his companion, but not obviously so. The two of them didn’t appear to be saying much. Then the creep apparently received a call on his cell phone. He got up from the booth and walked through the café to where the restrooms were situated and I lost sight of him. After about a minute he came back to the booth. He leant over to the woman and said something to her. Then they got up and walked out of the café. I hadn’t seen them ordering anything. They turned right and walked in the direction of the apartment building but after walking a couple of blocks I lost sight of them; there were too many pedestrians and too many vehicles parked by the sidewalk to have a clear view. I looked at the laptop. Lisa’s car was still stationary. I waited while Lucy paid for her coffee and then came out to join me in the Chevy.

“Looks like she’s chosen a different place to park,” I said. “Maybe they’ve arranged to meet somewhere else. Lisa’s car seems to be parked on West Broadway, a few blocks to the north east of here. I’m going to go take a look. You stay in the car in case they come back here. Keep an eye on the laptop – if Lisa’s car moves then call me immediately.”

I got out of the car and headed towards West Broadway. Lisa’s car was parked near a branch of the Citizens Bank. It took me seven or eight minutes to find it. Lisa wasn’t inside the vehicle. I looked both ways, up and down the street, but couldn’t spot her. I walked inside the Bank to see if she might be there, but there was no sign of her. I walked back to the Chevy and climbed in.

“Have you seen her, or any of them?” I asked Lucy.

“Nobody’s been this way,” she said.

“We’ve been too complacent − assuming they’d meet in the same place. There must be dozens of places nearby where they could be. I assumed that the creep and his lady friend had gone to his apartment, but they may have gone to another location to meet Lisa. I started the motor and moved away from the curbside. I drove to the place where Lisa’s car was parked and found a place to park nearby. I looked at our map of the area.

Taking into account where Lisa’s car was parked and the direction I’d seen the creep and his companion walking I narrowed the search area to eight blocks to the south of West Broadway. This was an area between the place where Lisa’s car was parked and the creep’s apartment building. I doubted they’d be the other side of Dorchester or north of West Broadway. It was still a fairly large area to search and there were a lot of cafes, restaurants and bars where they could be. I suggested Lucy took the blocks east of F Street and I’d take the blocks to the west. If either of us spotted them we’d call, otherwise we’d meet back at the Chevy in about twenty minutes. I wasn’t confident. It was lunchtime and places would be busy. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I walked down the street, scanning the blocks to the left and right. There were several small eateries and I peered inside to see if I could spot them. It was slow going – most of the cafes and restaurants were quite full. After thirty minutes or so of fruitless searching I went dejectedly back to the car. Lucy turned up ten minutes later.

“Sorry, Kane, it took longer than I thought. I had to go inside several of the restaurants to look because they were so full of people. It’s hopeless,” she said.

“Damn!” I said, thumping the dashboard. “I should’ve been paying closer attention. It was stupid to assume they’d necessarily meet in the same place.”

“Not really,” said Lucy. “After all that’s where the creep went first. There must’ve been a change of plan.”

It was more than an hour since Lisa had parked her car. At least it was still there. But maybe that wasn’t such a good sign. I remembered what I’d told Don in the email – that I’d be here to make sure Lisa was safe. What if something had happened to her? I had a change of plan.

“Lucy I’m going up to the apartment,” I said. “It’s the only logical place we haven’t looked. Maybe they’re there – and if not I’ll try to get inside and take a look around. We may as well try and salvage something from this disaster. I started the engine and drove back to the apartment building. I circled the block a couple of times but couldn’t find a parking space.

“Lucy, you find a parking space as nearby as possible. I’m going up. We’ll keep in touch by phone. On the off chance that you spot any of them give me a call; especially if you see any of them entering the apartment building – I’m switching my phone to vibrate. If it rings I’ll know it’s you but I may not be able to answer it.”

I got out and hurried towards the apartment building. The street was practically deserted. In a few minutes I was inside and heading for the stairs. I raced up the stairs two at a time and paused at the top. No-one was in the dimly lit corridor. I walked down to apartment 3D and listened at the door. No sound came from inside. I listened carefully for a couple more minutes. Nothing. I walked back to the stairwell and called Lucy.

“The apartment seems to be empty. I’m going to try to get inside. It shouldn’t be too difficult – there’s only a simple Yale lock, nothing else.”

“Be careful,” Lucy said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just keep your eyes peeled,” I said. “Are you parked yet?”

“Still looking for a space.”

I went back to the apartment. I took a pick out of my pocket and pushed it into the lock. I jiggled it around for a minute or two and got lucky. I opened the door and stepped inside. The drapes in the room were drawn although the material was thin and there was still sufficient light to see there was nobody in the sitting room. There were two closed doors on the right-hand side of the room which I guessed were bedrooms, but my attention was drawn to the other side of the room, to my left, where a door was ajar and there was light coming from the gap. And there was water, too; lots of it, seeping under the door and through the gap.

I walked over and looked inside. It was the bathroom and there was a bathtub in the middle of the room – one of those old-fashioned Victorian-looking stand-alone bathtubs on claw foot legs. There was water in the bathtub, and there was something else in it too. It was the body of a man, his head at the near end of the bathtub just in front of me and his feet at the other. The bathtub was almost full of water. The man’s arms hung limply by his sides; his head and shoulders were out of the water, lying against the sloping back of the tub. I stood behind his head, put my arms under his armpits and tried to lift him out of the tub. And then I felt a salty taste under my tongue, and a feeling of nausea, and everything seemed suddenly far away. I pulled back my arms to try and steady myself by hanging on to the sides of the tub but I couldn’t grip them. As I tried to steady myself my feet slid out from under me and I fell backwards. I had glimpse of the ceiling and then felt a jarring bump as the back of my head hit the floor.

*

“Kane!”

I was lying face down on the bathroom floor. I turned my head towards the voice and winced at a sharp pain at the base of my skull, near the nape of my neck. I managed to roll over. I was soaking wet.

“Kane, are you okay?”

I was looking up at Lucy looking down at me. I shook my head to try to clear it; bad idea. The pain stabbed my neck again, or was it my head? – I couldn’t tell.

“Geez, Lucy,” I said. “How did you get in here?” My head was starting to throb.

Lucy helped me into a sitting position and gradually, with her help, I was able to stand up. The guy was still in the bathtub. His staring eyes told me something I already knew: he’d made the one-way journey to meet his maker. I’d seen him before. He was in a café down the road talking to Lisa. He wouldn’t be talking to Lisa again. He wouldn’t be talking to anyone again.

“Lucy, is the front door locked? If it isn’t then lock it. Bolt it if there is one.”

Lucy went out of the bathroom. She came back in with a half-full bottle of scotch. She handed it to me and I took a gulp.

“Where the hell did you get that?” I said, smiling at her.

“It was on the counter by the kitchen. Thank God you’re alright,” she said. “What happened?”

I felt the back of my head. There was a lump growing, but no blood. It hurt like hell.

“Somebody slugged me,” I said. “How did you get up here?”

“I waited for ages after you said you were going to try to get in the apartment. I was worried. I came up to see if you were okay,” she said. “The door was open and I found you on the floor in the bathroom and I splashed some water on your face, but it took a while for you to come out of it.”

“How long would you say I was out? How long is it since I called you?”

Lucy looked at her wristwatch. “I guess about twenty minutes,” she said.

“This investigation is turning into a pantomime,” I said as I found my way to a chair in the living room and sat down. “You recognize the guy in the bath, of course?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ve never seen a dead person before.”

“You want a shot of this?” I said, holding out the bottle of whisky. “It’s real scotch, believe me.”

“No, I’m okay thanks.”

Lucy sat down beside me. I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.

“What a mess,” I said.

“So what happened? Did you see who slugged you?”

“I broke the first rule in the book, Lucy. I was standing with my back to the bathroom door and concentrating on trying to get the body out of the tub. I should’ve checked the other rooms first.” I motioned to the doors on the other side of the room, one of which was now open.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

“Well we can’t stay here. But I want to take a quick look around to see if there’s at least a clue as to who the dead guy is. I’ll have to call it in, of course, but not until we’re some way away. Let’s have a look around – see what we can find.”

I walked over and closed the bathroom door. Then I found the light switches and turned on the lamps. The room was sparsely and cheaply furnished. There was little in the way of kitchen equipment or utensils. I looked in the two bedrooms. One was unfurnished except for the bed, but there was no bedding or bed linen and nothing in the closet either. The other bedroom – the one with the now-open door, had been used. The bed had been slept in, but there was nothing in the closet there either. The apartment had been used as a temporary home, probably for no more than a few days.

“Lucy, I want you to search the apartment. Look for anything that may give a clue as to the identity or origins of anyone who’s been here. Anything – even shopping receipts or shopping bags.” I picked up a red plastic bag that had been discarded in the kitchen. “If you find anything you think may be helpful put it in the bag. I’m going to look at our friend in the bathtub.”

I went into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I stood looking at the corpse, trying to ignore its sightless eyes. I knew he hadn’t been dead long, but how had he died? He was naked; his genitals bobbing obscenely and somewhat comically in the water as I carefully moved the body to search for signs of injury. I assumed he’d drowned – a fairly natural assumption in the circumstances – but he may not have. Perhaps he’d been surprised while taking a bath and either struck, as I had been, or shot or stabbed. The last two possibilities could be quickly dispensed with because there was no blood and no obvious wound. I lifted the head from the back of the tub and looked and felt behind it. The body was flaccid, still flexible. There was no sign of an injury from blunt force trauma.

I was puzzled. It would take considerable strength to hold the head of a relatively young and fit-looking man under the water long enough to drown. And there was another thing. I could find no marks on the body – not even bruises, abrasions or redness that were testament to a struggle. Yet he would have been fighting for his life. Even if he’d been initially taken by surprise I would’ve expected him to put up quite a fight. I looked at his hands and forearms. There was no sign of defensive wounds – no skin or visible blood under the fingernails, although if there’d been small traces then the water may have obliterated them. I stood back and looked at him. It was too soon for rigor mortis to have set in. He’d been dead for less than an hour and rigor would have been slowed by the water. It would be slower, too because of the relatively low temperature in the room. It was impossible to tell whether the water in the tub had once been warm – too much time had passed. I knew that the onset of rigor is faster if there has been intense physical activity shortly before death, like a struggle with his attacker; but the short time that the body had been in the bath made speculation about that pointless.

As I looked around the room I saw a broken tumbler on the floor next to his discarded clothes which were on a footstool. I picked it up, using a handkerchief to ensure that I left no fingerprints. It smelled of scotch − probably from the bottle Lucy had found in the kitchen. I quickly walked back into the kitchen, wiped the bottle and rinsed the neck under the faucet. I hadn’t been thinking clearly when I handled it earlier. I went back into the bathroom. I imagined the scene just before death. It was cold outside and cold in the apartment too. No heating had been switched on inside the apartment although there were radiators in the hallway outside. It seemed that the dead man had been taking a bath – maybe to warm himself up, or maybe he was about to leave the apartment altogether. He’d taken off his clothes next to the bathtub and laid them on the stool. There was a white towel lying on the floor by the stool too, ready for him to dry himself when he was done. He’d been sipping a scotch when he was attacked. It had been in his right hand, probably resting on the lip of the bathtub. He’d obviously been taken by surprise; perhaps his eyes were closed as he lay in the warm bath, relaxed by the warmth and the scotch he was drinking.

Had he been brought the drink by someone else? By the woman I’d seen him with earlier? That seemed likely, because otherwise the bottle itself would probably have been in the bathroom too. And where was she now? I hadn’t been able to see whether they entered the apartment building together. She seemed the most likely suspect. If she wasn’t the murderer, then where was she? But she wouldn’t have been strong enough to overpower him, even if she’d taken him by surprise. The surge of adrenaline in his body when he realized he was under attack would have practically doubled his strength. It was, for the time being anyway, a mystery.

I looked through the clothing beside the bathtub. I wasn’t expecting to find anything helpful so I wasn’t surprised when I came up empty-handed. Literally empty-handed; there was nothing in his pockets at all.

I paused to consider what facts I could be sure of. Whoever had slugged me had been in the apartment with the consent, or at least knowledge, of the dead man – perhaps at his invitation. This was obvious because when I went into the apartment the front door had been locked. There appeared to be no trace of the key – or any key – now. It seemed highly likely, though it couldn’t necessarily be assumed, that the person who’d slugged me was the murderer. The guy in the bath hadn’t been dead for long, and I’d seen the water seeping under the door when I walked in, presumably from spillage from the bathtub during the deceased’s death struggle. The murderer must have heard my knock on the door, and my effort to pick the lock, and concealed himself, or herself, in the bedroom, probably armed with a weapon of some sort. They’d taken the chance to slug me as I bent over the bathtub to try to lift the man out of the tub. Whoever slugged me might not have had the type of weapon capable of inflicting a fatal injury – a gun or a knife – but once I was unconscious it wouldn’t have been difficult to devise a way to finish me off, so I had to assume that whoever it was they hadn’t wanted me dead. Lucy rapped lightly on the bathroom door.

“I’m all done in here.”

I took out my iPhone. It had been Lucy’s Christmas gift to me. She taught me how to use it too. She’d insisted I discard my old Samsung and moved with her into the twenty-first century. She explained that it would be a useful tool for me because it would double-up as a camera. She was probably also hoping to curry favor with me in her quest to become my assistant. I took a couple of shots of the dead guy, then took some tissue and wiped the rim of the bath to ensure that I hadn’t left my prints there and flushed the tissue down the toilet. Then I went out to the living room, closing the bathroom door behind me.

“There isn’t much stuff here,” Lucy said, “and I haven’t found anything useful I’m afraid.”

“We need to go,” I said. “Were you careful not to touch anything which might hold your prints?”

“I’m not that much of a novice. I’ve seen enough movies to know how to handle a crime scene.” She smiled at me. “Back to your old self?” she said.

“Good as new. Let’s get out of here. We’ll take the stairs. It doesn’t look like the kind of elevator with a CCTV but we don’t want to run into any of the neighbors.”

Lucy had parked the car less than a block away. We got in, Lucy in the driving seat, and me shivering beside her. She started the engine and we headed home.

“Are you going to call it in?” she said.

Usually I would have called 911 anonymously. The last thing a private investigator wants is to spend half a day in a police station with the prospect of being called as a witness at a subsequent trial or coroner’s enquiry. I didn’t want to be even half-considered a suspect either; nor did I want to explain what I was doing in the apartment or how I’d got in. But I needed help if I was to solve this murder. I needed to know at least how the dead man had been killed. He may have been drugged or asphyxiated for all I knew. He may have just suddenly expired in the bathtub of natural causes, although I hardly thought that likely.

“I’m going to call Calley,” I said.

“Aren’t you taking a bit of a chance?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll risk it. Calley owes me one and I’m going to need access to some confidential information from the police.”

“Like what?”

“Like who the guy is, for a start; where he comes from, how he died. Maybe it will help to find out who killed him and why.” I picked up the laptop from under the seat where Lucy had stashed it. Lisa’s car was heading towards the North End.

Chapter Nine

The Dead Guy

My clothes were still damp and my head hurt. Now we had to contend with grinding traffic on the way home. Lucy was driving and I was too fed up to even care when she occasionally crunched the gears. It was almost four o’clock when we got home. Lucy made some coffee and laced mine with a shot of whiskey, and then I had a hot bath. After that I lay on my bed for a while and dozed off. It was seven o’clock when I woke up. I went into the living room. Lucy was sitting on my recliner, lost in thought.

“You should’ve woken me up? Has Don called?”

“No. You needed to rest. Your body needs time to recover.”

I checked my email but there were no messages.

“You looked like an angel when I came to in the bathroom this afternoon,” I said.

“I am an angel.”

“No, I mean a real one.”

Lucy laughed. “It’s not like you to farm out compliments.”

“I’ll try not to let it happen again,” I said.

“Maybe the blow on your head has changed your personality forever,” Lucy giggled. Then she frowned and said: “Did it hurt much? I mean when you were slugged.”

“Strangely enough I don’t remember feeling anything – except a kind of slight nausea, and suddenly everything seeming far away. I remember trying to stop myself falling over, and the next thing I remember is hearing you calling my name – from a distance it seemed at first.”

“When are you going to call Calley?”

“Right now,” I said.

I picked up the phone. Lance Calley was a detective in homicide. We’d had our ups and downs, but I believed everything to be cool at the moment. I hadn’t spoken to him for several months. I dialed his private number.

“Lance, this is Kane. I’ve got something for you. Not really your district but it’s yours if you want it.”

“A homicide?” he asked.

“Looks like it.”

“Where?”

“I’m going to need some help from you if I let you have it.”

“So long as you don’t need anything that’s gonna get me in trouble,” Calley said. “I’m sitting pretty sweet with the department right now, and that bastard Armstrong’s off my back. Partly thanks to you I guess, although it pains me to say it.”

Bruce Armstrong was a sergeant detective in homicide.

“I’ll just need access to some of the investigation details, nothing you can’t get your hands on easily enough.”

“Okay, shoot.”

I gave Calley the address.

“How long’s the guy been snoring?”

I looked at my watch. “About six or seven hours I think. He’s in the bathtub; naked. The place is empty apart from the victim and a few sticks of furniture.”

“How…

“Don’t ask,” I said. “This is an anonymous call.”

“Roger that,” Calley said. We hung up.

“So what are we going to do now?” Lucy said.

“That, Lucy, is what is known as a sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

“Has it got a sixty-four-thousand-dollar answer?”

“We’ll both need to don our thinking caps,” I said.

“Well at least Lisa must be okay or we’d have heard.”

“I have a worrying concern, Lucy; about the identity of the culprit. I hope to God I’m wrong.”

Lucy’s expression morphed from cheery to serious.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“You know how hard it is to drown somebody in a bathtub?” I said.

“I haven’t really given it much thought. It’s not something you come across very often,” she said, with a slight grin and something of the usual twinkle in her eye.

“Seriously,” I said. “The only person we saw the dead guy with…God I wish I had a name for him instead of having to keep calling him the dead guy.”

“The creep?” Lucy suggested.

“Let’s allow him some dignity in death, shall we?” I said. “Anyway, the only person we saw him with – apart from Lisa of course – was his café companion. I’ve no idea whether she accompanied him back to his apartment − I lost sight of them as they walked away from the café. I don’t even know whether she’s ever been to that apartment; there’s nothing in it which says so. But, in any case, she can’t be the culprit – she wouldn’t have been strong enough, at least not on her own. When a person is attacked or in danger it’s trite knowledge that the human body produces a surge of adrenalin which gives that person extra strength − it’s an evolutionary thing. Even without that extra strength I don’t see that woman being able to overpower the…dead guy. You saw her. I grant you he wasn’t that big, but he was young and fit-looking and she was quite slightly built, so even if she’d surprised him in the bath I can’t see how she’d have been able to hold his head under the water long enough with him struggling and thrashing about. Anyway, we have no reason to think that she had any motive to kill him. They seemed to be friends, or partners or something.”

“So who’s the suspect you reluctantly have in mind? Not Lisa, surely?”

“No, not Lisa; for the same reasons – I don’t think she’d have been physically capable of it. Of course we don’t know whether she had a motive. The guy obviously had something that was seriously bothering her.”

“Then who?’

I looked straight at her. “I sent Don an email on Monday, as you know. I told him what we’d seen. I even told him the address of the apartment.”

Lucy’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

“My God, you’re not serious are you?” she said.

“From what I told him in the email he would have known that the guy who lived in that apartment was behind Lisa’s worries. Lisa means the world to him. He’s a martial arts expert – a sixth Dan according to Duncan. He’s fit and strongly built. He’s physically capable. And I find it a little strange that he hasn’t been in contact this evening to find out what happened today. I’m not saying he’s a suspect exactly – I’m just saying that for the time being we can’t discount the possibility.”

“Well perhaps he’ll call later. Or maybe he’s waiting for you to contact him.”

“I hope you’re right, but I can hardly call him and say, ‘the guy who was arguing with Lisa on Monday was drowned in his bath this afternoon. Have you got an alibi?’”

Lucy laughed nervously. “Especially as he’s our client,” she said.

Anyway, I don’t think we can avoid talking to Lisa about this for much longer. It’s too serious. And then there’s the question of how much we tell Don at this stage; assuming of course that he knows nothing about it yet.”

Lucy thought this over for a while.

“Why don’t you let me do it? Talk to Lisa I mean. I have an idea: if we could arrange for Don to introduce me to Lisa – as a friend I mean – I can see if I can get her to talk to me; girl to girl.”

“It’s not a bad idea, and it might work. The problem is that if it doesn’t then we’ve blown our cover.”

“But do you think that really matters anymore? I mean if the guy who’s been bothering Lisa is dead we won’t need to tail her again.”

“I don’t think it’s as simple as that. If we’re going to get anywhere with this then we have to theorize. We each keep an open mind of course, because our theory may be wrong – but if we don’t have a theory to work with then we won’t get anywhere. And the problem is that we’re making assumptions all the time and those assumptions may not be correct.”

“Okay, so what’s your theory at the moment?”

“I think that Lisa is, or maybe was, being blackmailed. About what I have no idea, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it relates to something in her past; something that happened before she met Don. It’s obviously something serious – it could even be something criminal – because otherwise she would have opened up to Don about it. They obviously have a close and loving relationship – at least they do if Don is to be believed; we haven’t heard her side of it.”

“But if she was being blackmailed then it will stop now because the guy’s dead,” Lucy said.

“Not necessarily. We assume that he was the blackmailer but he may only be a go-between. He may be a minor player. You see there has to be some motive for his death. I think it’s safe to assume that he was murdered, probably by a person who was in the apartment when I arrived, although even that’s not certain. The person who slugged me may have entered the apartment after me – whilst I was preoccupied with the guy in the tub. I left the front door open a tad when I went into the bathroom. Either way, we don’t know who the murderer was, so for the time being we have to focus on why. It’s unlikely that the woman could have done it herself – at least not on her own. We shouldn’t assume that there was only one person involved in the murder of course. Two people could have easily overpowered him if they were working together. But whether one or two people were involved we still have to consider the motive.”

“So what do you think the motive could be?”

“I think he was either killed to shut him up by somebody else involved in the blackmail or in revenge for what he’s been doing to Lisa – unpleasant though the implication of that second possibility is.”

I walked over to the kitchen to get some more coffee and at that moment Lucy finally had a message from Don.

“See,” Lucy said, “I told you he’d be in touch.” He’d sent us an email. Lucy went over to check and called over to me.

“He wants to meet tomorrow. He’ll be in the gym where he coaches and he has something significant to tell us. He’ll see us at twelve.”

“The Kraken wakes,” I said.

“What’s a kraken?”

“Never mind,” I said. After I poured the coffee I leaned on the counter and looked over at her.

“Lucy there’s something else I haven’t told you about yet. It’s probably nothing more than a strange coincidence, but if it’s not then we may get Calley promoted to Sergeant yet.”

“What on earth is it?”

“You know those cold cases I’ve been working on for the department?”

“Uh-huh.”

“This death seems like a carbon copy of one of them, Lucy – possibly in more ways than one.”

“When did it happen?”

“About seven years ago.”

Lucy’s eyes were as big and round as a Mexican sombrero, and she briefly covered her mouth with her hand.

“My God,” she said. There was a pause. “How long has Don lived in Boston?”

Chapter Ten

The Cold Case

The first thing I did in the morning was feel the lump on the back of my head. Lucy had stayed over. In case I had a relapse, she said, or a delayed reaction. That was swell by me; I needed a bit of cheering up. The throbbing had stopped and it only hurt when I tried to look sideways, so I took some painkillers and walked around looking like a robot for a couple of hours.

Over coffee I suggested that we both look at the cold case files. There was nothing else that we could usefully do until we met Don at lunchtime. I’d managed to get all the papers in box files. There were thirteen of them – some full, some not so full. About the equivalent of a couple of trees from the Amazon rain forest I guessed. I’d made an index. Lucy was mightily impressed even before I opened the files.

“It’s all so neat-looking,” she said enthusiastically.

“It took me a long time,” I said. “I would’ve given the files to you to sort out except that I didn’t want to cart them all downtown.”

“I could’ve done them at home,” she said.

“Yeah, you’d have loved that because it would’ve meant you’d won.”

“Won what?”

“You know – the working at home thing.”

Lucy laughed. “Well, we don’t need to worry about that anymore do we? Because we’re a team now; officially.”

“It’s a good job we are. If you hadn’t found me yesterday I might have drowned on the bathroom floor – or choked on my own vomit.”

“There’s no need to be quite so melodramatic,” Lucy said. But I glimpsed at her sideways and could see she was as pleased as a dog with two bones.

I opened one of the files where I’d put together a brief synopsis of the evidence that I’d gleaned from the numerous scraps of paper that had been thrown at me.

“This case happened in the South End,” I said. “The deceased – I can’t say victim because there’s no clear evidence that it was a homicide – was found dead in his bathtub. He lived alone. There were no marks on the body to suggest that he’d been forcibly held under the water. The autopsy was inconclusive. There was no sign that he had been suffering from any illness or disease. He was twenty-nine years old. There was no alcohol in his blood and no trace of any drugs, prescription or otherwise.”

“Did he drown?” Lucy said.

“Well that’s another thing – there was relatively little fluid in the lungs or airways to suggest drowning. All the autopsy says is that the death was sudden and instantaneous. The actual cause of death was never determined.”

“How strange,” Lucy said. “Is there anything else?”

“He hadn’t been out of prison long. He had a string of convictions since his early teens. He was bailed at the time for another offence − he’d been implicated in a blackmail racket. He was due in court a few days later for a preliminary hearing. There was some speculation at the time that he may have been killed to keep him quiet. There wasn’t any direct evidence of that; it was just the word on the street.”

“Were there any suspects?” Lucy said.

“Apparently not. I don’t know how thorough the investigation was; I rather imagine that he was considered somebody of little importance and no great loss to society.”

“How horrid.”

“Welcome to the real world,” I said.

“So it’s really just the manner of death that’s similar?”

“Well that and possibly the motive too,” I said. “Blackmail is a particularly insidious crime because it tends to be a continuing one. If you pay up, sooner or later the blackmailer is likely to come back for more. The most effective way to ensure that that doesn’t happen is to take the blackmailer out – either by having him arrested or by silencing him, or her, forever. Now the similarity between these two cases may be no more than a coincidence, but – and here’s the thing – although there were no significant clues found, the forensic boys did a good job at the scene. There’s a wealth of potential DNA on various items found in the deceased’s apartment. Most of the DNA came from the same person, but it wasn’t all the deceased’s. So the case may yet be solvable.”

“Were there any prints found in the cold case?” Lucy said.

“No. And that’s why the police are convinced that it was a homicide.”

Lucy looked at me inquiringly. “What do you mean?” she said.

“I mean that there were no prints at all found in the deceased’s apartment; not even his own.”

“So somebody must have wiped everything after he died.”

“That’s the theory.”

“If it did turn out that there was a connection between the two cases it would be a real feather in your cap as far as the police are concerned,” Lucy said.

“Except that I don’t know anything about the present death – remember?”

“Oh,” Lucy said, “that’s right; it’s Calley’s case now isn’t it? We weren’t there. We don’t know anything about it, right?”

“About what?” I said. Lucy thumped me.

“But Calley doesn’t know about the cold case, so how would they make the connection – I mean if there is one?” Lucy said.

“He doesn’t know − yet.” I said. “That information could buy me a lot of cooperation from Calley for years to come.” I smiled craftily at her. “Okay,” I said, “for the time being we tell Don only that we tracked Lisa’s car to South Boston yesterday but we couldn’t locate her. That’s the truth, after all. When all’s said and done we can’t even be sure that the two events are connected – I mean her probable blackmail and the death. I admit it’s likely, but we can’t dismiss the possibility that the dead guy might have pissed somebody else off. We’ll find out from Don whether Lisa is still acting the same. I hate to say it, but if she’s suddenly full of the joys of spring again it would rather tend to suggest that she knows about the guy’s death. Let’s go see Don at the gym where he coaches at lunchtime. I want to probe his whereabouts yesterday afternoon. I’ll have to be tactful – I don’t want him to know that he’s currently on our list of suspects.”

“Who else is on our list?”

“Possible cronies of the dead guy. I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase ‘there’s no honor amongst thieves’.”

“In the meantime, maybe Calley can find out something about the…dead guy,” Lucy said.

“I doubt we’ll hear anything for a few days. They’ll run his prints of course. By the look of him I wouldn’t be surprised if those prints were on file somewhere. Where’s the place that we’re meeting Don?”

“In Fenway somewhere – I’ve got to look it up on the map.”

“Well you go and spruce yourself up,” I said, “and I’ll see you back here at eleven.”

Chapter Eleven

The Gym

The smell of stale sweat assaulted our nostrils as we went down the steps into the basement. The gym was like a thousand others in cities across the States. There was a boxing ring at one end and a martial arts mat at the other. Between them and around the sides was an assortment of the usual paraphernalia – punching bags and kick bags, weights, ropes and medicine balls. A couple of guys were sparring in the ring and a short fat guy was hurling insults at them.

Don was there to meet us. He was already kitted-up. There wasn’t anything much to add to what he already knew. I’d emailed him last night to bring him up to date on the progress, such as it was; or rather such as it wasn’t.

“Hi, Don,” I said. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to make any real progress yesterday. We were outside the café and the man she met on Monday was there with a woman, but Lisa didn’t show up. She parked her car in West Broadway but didn’t turn up at the café. By the time we located her car she was gone. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to reach you to let you know.”

“No. We don’t get a signal down here, I’m afraid.”

“I called the gym,” I bluffed.

“Oh, I wasn’t here long; they were still clearing up after last week, putting stuff back in place so we had to cancel our session. Lisa’s having tennis coaching at the club, so I decided to have an extra session today to make up. We’ve got grading coming up and the kids were falling behind so I thought we could do some catching up.”

I looked around me. There was a group of youths gathering over by the mat.

“So tell me about yesterday,” Don said.

“Well,” Lucy said, “it was the same guy as the day before and he went to the same café; but this time there was a woman with him. They sat in the café for a while but didn’t order anything. Then after a while the guy got a call on his cell phone and they both left. We lost them after that − I guess they went back to his apartment.”

As she spoke I tried to read the expression on Don’s face, but it was a mask of inscrutability.

“Lucy said you had something important you wanted to tell us about,” I said.

“I had a call from Lisa’s bank yesterday,” Don said; “the Citizens Bank. There was an unusual transaction on her account at the branch on West Broadway yesterday. The call came from the head office.”

“Did they say what kind of transaction?”

“No – they wanted to talk to Lisa, but she wasn’t in. They wouldn’t discuss it with me or give me any details.”

“Hmmm. That probably explains what she was doing on West Broadway. Her car was parked quite close to the bank,” I said.

“What do you think’s going on, Kane?”

“It’s speculation on my part, but as an educated guess I’d say the guy she met in the café had… is putting the squeeze on her for something.” I almost said ‘had been’ instead of ‘is’ but I stopped myself in time. “Maybe the unusual transaction was a large cash withdrawal. Does she have substantial funds in her account?”

“I don’t know what she has in her account. I give Lisa an allowance every month and she doesn’t have expensive tastes. Over the years she may have accumulated a reasonable amount of savings. Obviously I haven’t asked her about it.”

“What time was the call?”

“I can’t remember exactly – but she came home at about four so it was before that. I didn’t mention it to her.”

“She must have stopped somewhere on the way home,” I said. “She was already well on her way by two-thirty; I checked the tracker. How did she behave when she got home?”

“Her behavior was quite normal, but she said she was tired and didn’t want any dinner. She put on her headphones and listened to some music, and then she watched some TV for a while. She went to bed early.”

“Did you ask her about her afternoon?”

“No, I just asked her how she was and she said she was okay but a bit tired. Obviously I didn’t ask her about Cindy – that would’ve been rather pointless in the circumstances. She didn’t mention it either.”

“Did you recognize the description of the guy she met? I’m sorry it wasn’t more detailed.”

“Oh,” Lucy said, “I forgot – I took a picture of the two of them in the café yesterday. It’s on my cell phone.”

She rummaged in her purse and pulled out her smartphone. I did my best to act as if I’d seen it already but it was the first I’d heard of it. The picture was at an odd angle, but it was good enough, although half the woman’s face was shielded by the guy who was sitting nearer to Lucy. Don looked at the picture. His eyes had a hard expression. It seemed to me that he spent longer than was necessary studying the picture before saying, “No. I’ve never seen him before – or the woman.”

“I think it’s possible that Lisa may have met with him – or them – in his apartment yesterday. Again, it’s only speculation but the proximity between the place where her car was parked and the guy’s apartment suggests that they had an appointment to meet somewhere nearby. Maybe they were originally supposed to meet at the café again but for some reason there was a change of plan. I’m sorry we didn’t spot her but, as I said, by the time we located the car she’d already left it.”

“Well, you can’t be everywhere at once,” he said. “I appreciate that you did your best and I don’t expect miracles. Where do you suggest we go from here? I don’t want the police involved under any circumstances. You understand that, of course.” He intoned the statement as a question and raised his eyebrows.

They already are, I thought. “Lucy’s had an idea,” I said, ducking the question. “She thinks if we could engineer a chance meeting between the three of you – that is Lucy, Lisa and you, Lucy may be able to persuade her to reveal what’s going on. Keeping that kind of thing to yourself is a considerable strain. Maybe she’d open up to a virtual stranger, provided she felt she could trust her. And you can take it from me that Lucy’s powers of persuasion are not to be underestimated. If she can get Lisa to open up to her then she may be able to persuade her to open up to you too. However, the down side to that idea is that it may not work and in the process we’ll have blown our cover. We can keep it in mind for the future but I think it’s too early to try at the moment.”

Don said he was willing to give it a try, but he could see the potential problem that it might cause as well. He agreed that we should put such a course off for the time being.

“I’ll be coaching here again tomorrow so I’d like you to be ready to follow Lisa again if she goes out. Can you wait near my place? We don’t want to lose her again.”

“You’re a dark horse,” I said to Lucy on the drive home.

“Oh, the picture? Sorry, with all the excitement I forgot about it. I had the phone on my lap in the café – I had a quick glance to see if it had come out and then I just forgot.”

“Well, I think you deserve congratulations, not a reprimand. I’m impressed. Well done.”

“Only I’ve been thinking. You don’t think that’s why they left the café, do you? Because they knew I was watching them.”

“No. I think Lisa went to the bank to get some cash – a lot of cash by the sound of it – and then called to say she’d got it. They probably decided that they needed somewhere private for the handover. After all they’d want to make sure it was all there. That’s what I think happened.”

“Do you still think Don may have had something to do with the killing?”

“I don’t know. He told us he was at the gym but couldn’t get a signal on his cell. When I said I’d called the gym he said he left early because he had to cancel the class − and I could hardly cross-examine him about it. I didn’t really make any calls to him, of course. I was just bluffing to see what he’d say.”

“Anyway,” Lucy said, “there was no sign of his car in the vicinity yesterday. We walked nearly all the streets around there and we wouldn’t have failed to notice it.”

“True. But he’d know that his car is obviously recognizable, especially to Lisa. He might have taken a cab. Probably he would have done.”

“But I just can’t picture him like that.”

“That’s one of the things you have to learn Lucy. You can’t take anyone at face value. After all, what do we really know about him? I had a strange feeling when you showed him the picture.”

“How do you mean?”

“There was a cold look in his eyes. He seemed to dwell on the picture a tad too long and there was a look of almost hatred in his eyes. That’s the impression I had.”

“But he would hate the guy, wouldn’t he? If he thought he was responsible for Lisa’s problems. Particularly if he thought the guy was blackmailing her about something.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right,” I said. “It’s not enough to jump to any conclusions, but what we’ve just learned from Don is food for thought. It adds weight to my theory or theories.”

“In what way?” Lucy said.

“If Lisa collected a large sum of money yesterday to pay off the blackmailer, and if the blackmailer was the dead guy, then where’s the money?”

“Of course,” exclaimed Lucy. “The woman did him in – perhaps with somebody else’s help − and ran off with the cash. That’s probably why he was killed.”

“That’s one possibility. The other is that Don killed him, recovered the cash and took it home with him – slugging me when I inconveniently showed up at the apartment.”

“I think my theory’s better, because it would explain the absence of the woman from the scene,” Lucy said. “Suppose the woman was the − what’s the word − bag lady? She collects the dough from Lisa and then either she, or her accomplice, kills the creep to cut him out of the deal.”

“Or perhaps to keep him quiet,” I said. “If his part of the job was over it might have been convenient to dispose of him,”

“So he’s in the bathtub, getting ready to leave the place and having a drink and dreaming about what he’s going to do with his share of the money – then he’s taken by surprise, maybe by the mystery woman and an accomplice” Lucy said. “Then they take the bag he’s already packed for his getaway and leave – slugging you on the way out. That’d explain why none of his clothes or personal items were there. They were probably cleaning the place up when they heard you trying to get in and hid in the bedroom.”

“All perfectly plausible, I admit. But it’s still possible that Don killed him and took his stuff. There’s no evidence that the woman we saw yesterday had ever been to the apartment. We’ll probably know more after the police investigation. There’ll sweep the place for prints, and DNA too. If the murderer was disturbed by me going into the apartment there’s a good chance that he, or she – or they – wouldn’t have had time to clean up properly.”

“In the meantime there’s nothing more we can do at the moment is there? Why don’t we treat ourselves to a nice lunch out and then go back to my snug little home and watch a movie?”

I felt the lump on the back of my head. “Okay,” I said. And we can stop on the way home and get some liquor too.”

“Try not to drink too much,” Lucy said.

“I don’t have to try,” I said. “I just have to decide. Did you check out the new office?”

“They said it’ll be finished soon, so I’m going to arrange for the furniture you bought to be delivered.”

We stopped on the way back for some lunch. There was a new Thai restaurant that Lucy wanted to try. We ate green curried chicken and shared some Thai fried rice in a coconut shell. Lucy invented a new rule that we weren’t to talk shop during mealtimes unless it was really urgent. Afterwards I slipped into the liquor store which was conveniently right next door and then we headed home.

“So we’ll be driving over to Don’s place again tomorrow,” Lucy said. “But now the guy’s dead it’s unlikely she’ll be going anywhere, I should think.”

“For a grand a day I’m happy to be anywhere Don wants me to be. We’ll take both cars,” I said. “If Lisa does go to meet anyone we want to be in a position to keep both parties under surveillance.”

“We could go and buy my new car this afternoon, if you like,” Lucy said; “instead of watching a movie.”

“Let’s leave that for now. Your heap will be good enough for tomorrow,” I said.

Chapter Twelve

Partners in Crime

The morning was going to be sunny and bright, according to the guy on the radio, and I had two things uppermost in my mind as I sat at the dining table and sipped my first coffee of the day. The cold case files were still on the dining table and I went through the index to try to get some inspiration. It was six thirty in the morning and Lucy would be at least an hour away from consciousness. Unlike me she wasn’t a naturally early riser. In spite of the considerable amount of paperwork generated by the inquiry the key facts could be summarized succinctly.

The place of death had been a single room apartment which was rented in the name of the dead man. He’d lived there for little more than a month. A forensic examination of the scene had found no trace of any fingerprints, including those of the deceased. A number of items had been seized for forensic examination and tested for DNA. These included a cloth found in the trash can which was otherwise empty. There was a memo postulating the possibility that it was the cloth used to wipe the place clean of prints, but that was merely speculation. In any event it hadn’t been possible to extract a full DNA profile from the cloth, although it wasn’t from the deceased because the DNA came from a female. Two promising sources of DNA that had been profiled came from the neck of two bottles of beer that were on the kitchen counter. One was empty of beer, the other was partly consumed. The bottles had apparently been wiped clean of prints, or perhaps they’d been handled by somebody wearing gloves, but the necks of both bottles had male DNA. The police lab was only able to get a partial profile from one of the bottles and they couldn’t exclude the possibility that it was from the deceased, but the deceased was excluded as a possible donor from the swab taken from the other bottle. DNA from a female donor was found in several parts of the premises: on light switches, on the flush handle of the toilet and on the handle of a toothbrush in the bathroom. It was also extracted from the sheets that were on the bed, and strands of female hair found in various parts of the premises, including the sheets.

From this information it seemed to me that the deceased had a girlfriend or at least had a woman friend in the apartment, and apparently in his bed too. No woman had yet been identified from the DNA and, despite publicity and quite extensive local inquiries, no woman had been identified as a possible source of the DNA. It had, however, been concluded that the extent of contamination of the DNA from this female suggested she must have spent quite a bit of time in the apartment and had probably either cohabited with the deceased or at least been a frequent visitor to the premises. The presence of the beer bottles had led police investigators to conclude that they’d probably been consumed recently – perhaps at the time of the homicide or during the subsequent clean-up process. But in spite of the DNA there were no traces of fingerprints anywhere. Obviously DNA from the deceased had been found in various parts of the premises as well.

The neighbors had all been interviewed shortly after the finding of the deceased. The body had been discovered within about twenty-four to forty-eight hours of the death according to a combination of the medical examiner’s findings and information from the neighbors concerning the last sightings of the deceased. He’d been found when he failed to attend a meeting with his probation officer.

At seven-thirty I called Lance Calley. He didn’t pick up and I left a message. I told him it was urgent. Lucy had invited me to breakfast because she knew I wouldn’t bother otherwise. It was eight fifteen when I knocked at her door and eight seventeen when she opened it. It may have been bright and sunny but it was still cold.

“What took you so long? I’m freezing out here.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” she said, as I walked in and shut the door behind me. “Make yourself useful and scramble some eggs.”

Over breakfast I told Lucy that I was going to try and meet up with Calley.

“I’ve left him a message. I’ll see him somewhere downtown. There’s no need for you to come – in fact it’ll be better if I go by myself. You drive over to Don’s place and I’ll see you there at about eleven.”

“Okay,” she said. “Why are you seeing Calley – it’ll be too early to learn much yet, won’t it?”

“I’m going to tell him about the cold case. I want the fingerprint and DNA analysis hurried up from the new investigation. Lance will think it’s Christmas all over again.”

“How will he explain the possible link between the two cases? Was he involved in the cold case investigation?”

“No. But he’s about to find out that he’s the sort of guy who takes an interest in these matters, although as a matter of fact nothing could be further from the truth. As far as Lance is concerned the sooner an investigation that’s apparently going nowhere is put to bed the better it is. But I’ve invented a new Lance Calley, as I shall be explaining to him. The new Calley is a detective who eats, sleeps and lives his job. He’s going to suspect a possible link between the two cases.”

“Does he know about his reincarnation yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“So you’re going to hand him everything on a plate?”

“Oh I shall get some credit too if it turns out the cases are linked.”

“Go on then, tell me how?” Lucy said, as she popped the last piece of toast and scrambled egg into her mouth.

“Leave it to me,” I said, tapping the side of my nose with my forefinger.

*

Lance was at Duke’s before me. Duke’s is a bar downtown favored by off-duty cops; those of them who are regular drinkers that is, which is most of them. Lance was already nursing a bottle of beer in his hand although it was only ten o’clock.

“Hi Lance,” I said, as I slipped into the booth opposite him. “How’s it going?”

“Let’s cut the small talk and get down to business,” he said. He called over the waitress. “Another one of these, honey. You want one?” he said to me. I nodded and the waitress disappeared. Lance is a real charmer.

“Lance,” I said, “you’re supposed to say to me: “Pretty busy at the moment – new case over in South Boston. Guy found dead in the bathtub. No obvious cause of death, and nothing found to enable us to identify him yet.”

Calley looked at me as if I was crazy.

“Why would I tell you something you know about already?” he said. “Why don’t you get to the point? I’ve got better things to do than sit here chewing the fat with you.”

I doubted that. I sighed heavily. “Okay, it’s like this,” I said, as the waitress returned with a couple of Budweiser’s. “I happen to be working on a cold case file from the department at the moment. In my view there are striking similarities between that case and the one you got an anonymous tip about on Wednesday.” I stressed the word anonymous, opening my eyes a bit wider and nodding to see that he was getting the picture. He started nodding back to me, which was encouraging.

“So over a friendly chat you tell me about this puzzling new case you’re investigating and I say, “That’s interesting – I’m working on a case at the moment that sounds curiously similar.” And you say, “What case is that then?” And then I tell you – which is what I’m about to do now.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I get it. I think.”

I took along draw from my bottle and put it back on the table.

“It strikes me that there are some curious features about the South Boston homicide,” I said.

“If it was a homicide.”

I looked at Lance patiently. “The guy was dead in a bathtub full of water. There was a broken whiskey glass on the floor next to the bath and a lot of water on the floor. Seems like there’d been a struggle in there, but there were no apparent marks on the body. It looks like somebody held his head under the water until he drowned. None of his clothing or other personal items were in the apartment, except for what he was wearing before he got into the tub. Nothing was in the pockets of those clothes and none of the usual items were anywhere to be found – ID, driver’s license, keys, cell phone, money, credit cards – you get the picture? Whoever topped the guy took all his stuff with them.”

“For a guy who wasn’t there you know a hell of a lot about the case,” he said, grinning at me. “Yeah, we figured that much already,” he said, “but like you say we assume he drowned but we don’t know for sure how he died yet.”

“The cold case I’m working on happened seven years ago in South End. The circumstances of the death were similar. A dead guy found in a bathtub with no visible marks or injuries. Whoever killed the cold case guy did a pretty thorough clean-up afterward, but nobody can clean everything. There’s a good deal of profiled DNA which didn’t belong to the guy in the tub. There were no leads and the investigation petered out. The cause of death was never determined, other than it was sudden and instantaneous.”

“Hmm,” Calley said. I had his full attention now. I knew that because he hadn’t taken a swig from his bottle for over a minute.

“So,” I said, “you’re going to ask your boss to ask me to let you see the cold case files. I’ll expect the request to come from your side. I’ll tell them that I’d be happy to go over the files with you if you think it would be helpful. It’s up to you to make the internal request.”

Calley took a hit from his bottle again and drained the contents. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What’s your angle on this, Kane? You didn’t mess about with the scene did you – remove anything from the premises?”

“I wasn’t there, Lance, remember? I don’t know anything about the case. Look I’m not just doing this out of fondness for you, okay. I want to know if there’s a link too. I want to know who the victim is and I want to know how he died, and who else’s prints have been picked up. I want to know if any DNA was recovered and, if so, I want it cross-matched with the DNA from the other case. Since I’m dealing with the cold case you’ll be able to share that information with me legitimately. And if there’s a link – and especially if the link assists in solving either of these homicides − you’ll be eyeing a sergeant’s insignia I shouldn’t wonder; you know those elusive little inverted chevrons.”

Lance blew out his cheeks and exhaled loudly. He sat back, revealing a gut that’d grown several inches since our last meeting.

“So we’d be working together as a team. That’ll be one for the books.”

“We’ll be exchanging information with the full backing of the department. You could come out of it covered in glory. And anyway, if it turns out there’s no link after all, you’ll still be commended for your initiative.”

Lance was leaning back in his seat. He placed his hands, palms down, on the edge of the table in front of him and sighed. “Yeah,” he said, dreamily, “for my initiative.”

“So let’s not waste any more time. I’ll wait until I get a call from the department authorizing me to discuss the cold case with you. Your job is to get the investigation moving as quickly as possible your end, okay?”

“I’ll get on it right away. And…”

“There’s no need to say thanks, Lance, it’d bring tears to my eyes.”

I got up and left the bar, leaving him there daydreaming about those chevrons.

Chapter Thirteen

Starbucks

By eleven fifteen in the morning I was parked near The Prestige with a clear view of the parking garage exit. Lucy was parked a little way behind me. Shortly before eleven thirty the grill started to open and I watched as Don drove out, turned right and disappeared from view. I checked the laptop. The signal was fine. Less than five minutes after Don had left the grill started to rise again. As it reached its zenith Lisa’s car popped through the opening and headed in the same direction as Don’s car. Lucy and I set off in convoy. She was to keep directly behind me. If she lost me we’d stay in contact by phone.

After a while it was clear we weren’t headed to South Boston. Instead Lisa drove to the South End, and when we reached West Brookline she slowed, obviously looking for a parking spot. I called to Lucy, who was immediately behind me. “As soon as she parks I need you to follow her, even if you have to stop in a tow zone. We can’t afford to let her out of our sight.”

Lisa found a meter and I could see a spot free a few hundred feet away on the other side of the street. I headed on down there, but some guy eased into it before I got there. I drove on down the street until I found another free spot. It was about a quarter of a mile from where I’d seen Lisa park. I parked up and immediately called Lucy. She didn’t answer, but a few seconds later I got a message from her. They were in Starbucks on Tremont. I used the GPS to locate it. I moved out of the parking space again and headed in the direction of Starbucks. I needed to find a spot nearby. After a few minutes I found a meter and pulled over. I walked over the street to Starbucks where I could see both Lucy and Lisa. Lisa was seated in an armchair at a low table by the window. There was an empty seat opposite her but all the other seats in the place were occupied. Lucy was in the line but keeping an eye on Lisa at the same time. It took about five minutes for Lucy to get whatever it was that she’d ordered. In the meantime, the chair opposite Lisa remained empty. A couple of times someone approached Lisa and apparently asked if they could sit there. She said something and they walked away, so she’d obviously told them she was waiting for someone. I decided to remain outside. It was crowded in there and there was no way either of us was going to be able to get close enough to Lisa to hear any conversation. Lucy could see me on the sidewalk outside.

Lisa kept looking at her wristwatch and looking around her. After another five minutes or so her date showed up − the dead guy’s former companion walked into the shop. She walked over and sat down opposite Lisa. Neither of them said anything as far as I could tell. The woman produced a manila envelope from her purse and handed it to Lisa. The envelope was apparently not sealed and Lisa opened the flap and peered inside. She partially extracted some sheets of paper from the envelope, looked at them briefly, and then pushed them back inside. She put the envelope in the pocket of the dark green woolen coat she was wearing. She got up and walked out the door without a backward glance.

I called Lucy. “I want you to follow Lisa. I’m going to follow our mystery woman when she comes out. Only call me if it’s something urgent.” Lucy left and started after Lisa.

Almost immediately afterwards the woman got up and headed for the door. She set off down the street and I followed her. She occasionally stopped and pretended to be tying her shoe lace or waiting for someone or whatever. She was apparently checking to see if she was being followed. If she’d been tailed by a hack she’d probably have spotted him, but I’ve been in the game too long. I knew all the tricks of the trade to make myself invisible to her. Luckily the streets were quite crowded, which helped. After walking for about half a mile she stopped outside an apartment block. She looked around her as I walked straight on by and turned to cross the street. I saw her disappear into the apartment block. I didn’t follow her in there. I had a photograph of her – that should be enough. I waited on the opposite side of the street. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t simply a diversion. After more than thirty minutes I was fairly sure that she’d led me to her home, or at least to the building where her home was.

I called Tony Scipio on his cell phone; fortunately, he wasn’t busy.

“Nothing much doing since Christmas, boss,” he said.

“Okay, I’ve got something for you now.” I told him where I was. “How long will it take you to get here?” I asked.

“I’m over the other side of town,” he said. “Maybe forty-five minutes; depends on the traffic.”

“You won’t need any wheels,” I said, “so maybe you can get here a bit quicker.”

“Okay boss. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up.

Tony arrived just over half an hour later. We met in a coffee shop diagonally opposite the apartment building. I took out a picture of the woman that I’d downloaded and printed from Lucy’s phone and handed it to him.

“I believe this woman lives in the apartment block across the street,” I said. “Of course it’s possible that she’s just visiting someone, but she’s been in there for more than an hour now. I want you to watch for her. Give it another hour or so. If she comes out I want her tailed. But the main purpose of the exercise is to find out which apartment she’s in.”

I took a hundred bucks out of my wallet in twenties and handed it to him.

“This should be enough to find out,” I said. “I need to get in there as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” said Tony. “I understand. I’ll keep in touch. You gonna be in your office for the rest of the day?”

“No,” I said. “I quit the office. It’s a long story. But I’ll stay in the city. Call me as soon as you have anything good to tell me.”

I walked back to the Chevy and climbed in. I fired the engine and called Lucy.

“I followed her back home,” Lucy said. “She stopped on the way and I think she disposed of the envelope and whatever was inside it,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Okay, you may as well go home,” I said. “I’m going to stick around down here for a bit. I think I know where the woman lives, but not the apartment number. I’ve got Tony watching the building and I want to be close by when he finds out − if he finds out. I’ll see you later – but I don’t know how much later.”

I found a steak restaurant nearby and ordered some lunch. I sat and ruminated while I ate. I drank a beer, but only one. I ordered coffee. I suspected I was in for a long wait, but fortunately I had a paperback in my coat pocket. I always carried a book with me in case I needed to kill time. It was a collection of short stories by Somerset Maugham. I flipped to the back. There were three hundred and twenty pages of fairly small print. That should keep me busy for a while. By three-thirty I was the last remaining customer and on my third cup of coffee. I called out to the waiter:

“Is it okay if I sit here for a while? It may be a long while; I don’t have anything to do until this evening.”

“You sit there as long as you like, pal,” he said. “Ain’t no skin off my nose.”

Chapter Fourteen

Night Starvation

It was ten by the time I pulled up in my driveway. I locked the car and walked down to Lucy’s place.

“So,” she said, as she opened the door, “how’d it go?”

“Rather slowly,” I said. I hung my coat on the back of the door and went over to the sofa to sit down. Lucy went into the kitchen and came back with a mug of Horlicks, a malted milk drink that she buys on Amazon.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” she said. “It will ensure a relaxed and trouble-free sleep.”

“They used to have a commercial that claimed it cured ‘night starvation’,” I said, gingerly sipping the warm liquid, “whatever that is.”

“Any luck with the mystery woman?” Lucy said.

“Yes, Tony’s found out where she lives. I’ll tell you about it in a minute. First you tell me about Lisa.”

“I followed her home,” Lucy said. “When we were almost there she pulled over to the side of the road, by a dumpster. I couldn’t very well pull over behind her but I slowed down and in my rear view mirror I saw her throw something into the dumpster. I’m pretty sure it was the envelope she got from the woman in Starbucks. After she got home I drove back to the dumpster and tried to find it – but it was hopeless I’m afraid and I was getting some pretty strange looks from people on the street too. So I came home.”

I sighed inwardly. Lucy was going to have to learn a lot more about perseverance if she was going to make the grade. Still, I now knew where the blackmailer lived and I was sure she’d have kept a copy of whatever it is that was in the envelope, so hopefully all was not lost.

“Okay, well never mind. I lucked out this afternoon. The woman didn’t show again after I tailed her home, but Tony finally managed to find out where she lives. He didn’t give me the details but he called me when I was on the way home and told me she’s on the fourth floor – apartment 410. He went up there. He could hear the TV was on and he listened for a while at the door and he’s pretty sure no-one else was in there. He was still waiting outside when I spoke to him. He said he’d stick it out until about ten and asked me if I wanted June to keep an eye on the place tonight, but I didn’t think there was much point in that so we’re going to meet back there in the morning, about seven. We’ll keep an eye on the place from a café across the street and if she comes out I’ll get up there and search the place. He can follow her and let me know when she’s coming back. I can’t afford to wait, and even if she does come back while I’m in there she’ll have a few difficult questions to answer. She won’t be calling the police or the management.”

“So what are you going to look for?”

“Anything that gives a clue as to who she is and anything else which may give a clue as to what this is all about – and maybe find the money that we assume Lisa paid on Wednesday.”

“I’m sorry about the envelope. It would’ve been nice to know what was in that.”

“Well, it can’t be helped. I’d better send an email to Don. I’m not telling him where the woman lives though – just in case. It’ll be interesting to see if he asks.”

Lucy gave me a slightly forlorn look.

“Lucy it’s not what I want to believe either,” I said, “but the fact is we’re a little short on suspects here. The only people that we know of that have been involved in this thing is the mystery woman and the dead man. I’ve already explained why I don’t think she could be responsible – at least not by herself, and we haven’t seen anyone else. Look, I’m going to send Don an email and then, if you’re not too tired, we can run over what’s happened today and see if it takes either of my theories any further.”

“Are they both your theories?” Lucy said. “I thought one of them was mine.”

“We’ll share them, okay. We’ll call them collectively ‘our theories’,” I said.

“Okay,” she said.

I sent an email to Don. I told him that Lisa had met with the woman he’d seen in the photograph in a Starbucks in the South End. I told him about the envelope. I told him that Lisa had apparently discarded it on the way home but we hadn’t been able to recover it. I told him that I had a good idea where the woman lived and I was working on it. Finally, I asked if he could drop by at my place on Sunday morning. I printed the email and showed it to Lucy.

“So if you are able to search the woman’s apartment tomorrow we’ll be able to hopefully have more to tell him,” Lucy said.

“That’s not the only reason I’ve asked him to come here,” I said.

“What’s the other one?”

“I want a sample of his DNA,” I said. “It’ll be simple enough, we’ll just bag up his coffee cup after he leaves and I’ll send it over to Jill for analysis.”

Jill was a forensic expert who worked at a private lab over in Cambridge.

“I already have the profile of a male who was probably in the cold case apartment at the time of the victim’s death. It’s going to take some time obviously before we find out if there was any useful DNA left at the South Boston apartment. Maybe weeks unless Calley can hurry it up. But there’s no harm in getting a sample from Don analyzed in the meantime, although it’s not exactly an expense that I can ask Don to reimburse me for.”

Lucy laughed. “And if he is the murderer can we get him to pay us before he gets carted off to jail?” she said.

I smiled at her. “Why don’t you tell me what we’ve learned today,” I said.

“Well, the exchange that took place in Starbucks suggests that we’re right about the blackmail,” she said. “It seems fairly obvious that the envelope given to Lisa contained whatever documents were behind the blackmail. They obviously weren’t documents that she needed to keep since she threw them away afterward. We don’t know what kind of documents they were. I wasn’t near enough to see, and anyway she only partly pulled them out of the envelope. They may have been photographs. Maybe photographs of her in a compromising situation of some sort…”

“I think we should stick only to what we saw, and what we can infer from that. Let’s not speculate about anything else,” I said.

“And the location where the exchange took place was chosen because it was near the woman’s home, but she obviously wouldn’t want Lisa to know where she lived.”

“Right,” I said. “She was being careful to make sure she wasn’t being followed after she left Starbucks.”

“But not careful enough.” Lucy smiled.

“So I think we can be fairly sure that she was being blackmailed and that the basis of the blackmail was evidenced by whatever was in the envelope. As I said yesterday, blackmailers are notorious for trying to get a second bite of the cherry, so I may well find copies of whatever was in that envelope when I search the woman’s home.”

“So we are getting somewhere with all this, then?”

“We are indeed. Now I know where the woman lives it shouldn’t be too difficult to find out who she is. Plus, we have a picture of her with a man who was killed very shortly after the money was probably handed over by Lisa. The pair of them are also linked by Lisa who we know has met both of them. There may well be items in the mystery woman’s apartment that will shed more light on the relationship between her and the dead guy. I may even be able to locate the blackmail money. In due course there may well be evidence from the police investigation that the mystery woman had been in the apartment where the killing took place.”

“So I suppose we’re going to have to let the police know all this eventually, are we?”

“As to that we’ll have to wait and see. Obviously if Don is in any way involved in the death they’ll have to know. But if not then I’ll have to try and keep them both out of it. Don’s my client and it looks like Lisa’s a victim. We’ll just have to see how it all pans out.”

“There’s still one thing that’s puzzling me though,” Lucy said. “If Lisa handed over the money on Wednesday, why weren’t the documents given to her then?”

“Maybe they didn’t have the documents with them then. They may have anticipated a trap – maybe they were being cautious in case the police had been tipped off for example; they wouldn’t want the incriminating material on them. Anyway there’s not much point to speculate about that at the moment. I’m going to turn in; have an early night. I’ve got to get going early in the morning.”

Lucy was sitting next to me on the sofa, and as I went to get up she held my arm.

“Thanks, Kane,” she said.

“For what?”

“For trusting me; for letting me be part of your world; for everything.” Her eyes were glistening.

“Lucy you’ve been part of my world for almost as long as I can remember; don’t go all mawkish on me now,” I said.

I left before I got teary-eyed too.

Chapter Fifteen

Delmar Ditto

I met Tony, as arranged, at seven o’clock.

“I came early boss, just in case; been here since six, hanging around – this place only just opened.”

“Thanks Tony; any movement?”

“No, nothing yet. Hey, so what happened to your office then?”

“We’ve given it up. Lucy and I are going to work together from now on. I mean she’s going to help me with the investigative side of the business. We’ve decided – she’s decided – that we’re going to open a small office in Norbury and work from there – and from home. I think it’s a positive move. Lucy’s a smart girl, as you know, and my work’s growing. I need someone to work with that I can trust.”

Tony looked up at me over his cup of coffee and grinned.

“Whose idea was that, then? Honestly.”

“We both know that there’s no need for me to answer that question, Tony. But seriously I really think she’ll be an asset. I admit I was a bit reluctant at first, but…well, time will tell anyway. And it's made her happy, and if she's happy so am I.”

“For what it’s worth,” Tony said, “I think it’s a good move. You know I’ve been working with June for more than twelve years now; works out just fine for us.”

“That’s probably because you hardly ever see each other – what with you on days and June on nights.”

“They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he said.

“Lucy reckons her woman’s intuition will bring a whole new perspective to the business,” I said. “Whatever that means.”

“Who knows what anything a woman ever says really means?”

“So did you find out the mark’s name?”

“There she is,” said Tony. I looked across the street and saw the mystery woman from apartment 410. She came out the building, turned left and walked off down the street. She stopped to buy a newspaper or magazine and then kept right on walking.

“See you later,” said Tony as he left the café. “I’ll keep in touch.”

Tony had already confirmed that the only lock on the door to the apartment was a mortise lock, and I had a comprehensive assortment of picks with me for the job. Mortise locks are the most common types of lock for most households and the easiest to pick; I wasn’t anticipating any trouble there. I waited for about ten minutes to make sure she hadn’t just slipped out for a carton of milk or something and then I went in. I had no difficulty accessing the building. I chose the stairs rather than the elevator. Tony would call me if there was any sign of the mystery woman returning. I was optimistic that I would gain access and hoped I’d have sufficient time for a fairly thorough search.

It took me less than two minutes to get inside. I found myself in a rectangular living room of about two hundred and fifty square feet including the kitchen. There was one bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. There was a range of floor-to-ceiling closets in the bedroom. The apartment was comfortably furnished. The furniture looked like it came from Circle or one of the multiples. It was clean and tidy. I was mildly surprised even though I hadn’t had any preconceived ideas of how it might look.

The bedroom’s always a good place to start. The bed had been slept in and was unmade. I had a quick look in the bathroom, but only the usual toiletries and medicines were on the counter and in the small cupboard over the sink. The closets in the bedroom had two sliding doors, one of which was partially open. I put on some latex gloves, pulled the door back and looked inside. On the rails were some women’s clothes, but not many. I pulled back the door of the other closet. This one was full – of men’s clothing - suits, pants, jeans, shirts, overcoats. There was a cupboard tucked inside the closet with three drawers. The drawers contained male underclothing and socks, T-shirts and some sweaters. By the side of the drawer unit was a Gladstone bag. I looked inside. At first I thought it was empty, but then I noticed a black plastic bag at the bottom. I took it out and opened the bag. There were three things inside the plastic bag – a wallet, a cell phone and a bunch of keys. I opened the wallet and extracted an ID card with a picture of the dead guy staring out at me. His driver’s license was in there too. His name was Delmar Ditto, and his ID card had been issued by the State of Minnesota. He was thirty- one years old, or had been. So now I had a name and address and I’d only been in the apartment a few minutes. Then my cell phone rang – it was Tony.

“I think she’s headed back there, boss. You got maybe ten minutes – five to be on the safe side.”

I took out my phone and took a photo of the ID card and driver’s license. I put the items back in the plastic bag and put that back in the Gladstone. I closed the closet door. I’d have to come back another time to continue my search, but I had enough for the time being. I let myself out of the apartment and locked the door. That took a minute or two, and then I walked to the fire stairs and started on down. I hadn’t seen anybody. I didn’t see anybody in the lobby either. I didn’t want to run into the mystery woman so I waited at the foot of the stairs. There was a fire door there with a small glass panel and I was able to see the elevator. After a few more minutes I saw her approaching the elevator. As soon as she got in and I heard the doors close I walked out through the lobby and crossed the road. Tony was waiting for me in the café, which was diagonally opposite the entrance to the apartment building.

“Sorry, boss. She only went down the street a few blocks to an Asian supermarket. Not enough time, I guess.” He looked over at me and shrugged his shoulders.

“No; I’ll need at least half an hour or so, maybe a bit longer. But I was in there long enough to find something very useful. Did you find out her name?”

“No, not yet. Last night she came out about nine and made a trip to the deli just over there.” He pointed to the street corner across the road. “When she went back I followed her up there, so I didn’t have to use the notes you gave me. You want me to ask around, maybe – see if I can find out?”

I thought for a moment. “No, better not; she might get wind that someone’s been around asking questions. I don’t want to spook her. I’m not sure whether it’s her apartment. There were a lot of men’s clothes in the closet, and not much which could’ve been hers. On the other hand, I didn’t see anything in the bathroom that suggested a man was staying there. It’s a bit of a puzzle – I’ll have to think things through.”

“You want me to stick around?”

“Yeah, you better. Have you got a camera with you?”

“Of course.”

“Let me know if she meets anyone; or just generally where she goes. She’s involved in blackmailing a client’s wife and I want to know who else may be involved.”

We shook hands and I left the café. I walked a couple of blocks, climbed into the Chevy and headed home. I called Lucy on the way to say I’d be back before nine and I’d drop in for a chat.

“That’s quick,” she said. “No luck?”

“Quite a bit of luck, actually; I’ll tell you when I see you.”

Lucy was preparing some breakfast when I dropped by.

“I bet you went out on an empty stomach,” she said. “It’s not good for you.”

“It’s okay – at least I didn’t suffer from night starvation,” I said. She looked at me blankly for a moment, and then she got it.

“Well now you can break your fast with some eggs and hash browns,” she said, smiling, “and lots of piping hot coffee.”

“The dead guy’s called Delmar Ditto,” I said.

“Wow, how did you find that out?”

“I managed to get inside the apartment. Unfortunately, I was only able to stay a few minutes, but for some reason the mystery woman has kept his wallet. There were also some keys and a cell phone but I didn’t have time to look at them. I took a photo of his ID and driver’s license though.” I showed her the picture.

“That’s him alright,” she said. “Oh, Minnesota.”

“So it seems we have the Minnesota link.”

“Not a bad morning’s work,” Lucy said.

“I wish I’d had time to find out who she is. And locate the money that we assume Lisa gave them on Wednesday.”

“Maybe she’s banked it already.”

“Probably, by now; or it’s in a safe place anyway, but you never know. I’ve left Tony holding the fort for the time being but we’ll go and take over later. I need to get back in there and finish searching the place.”

“Come and eat some breakfast. It’s still only nine-thirty; I don’t expect she’ll be going out again just yet.”

“I’ve been thinking things over on the drive home,” I said. “This is my take on it so far. Delmar and the mystery woman are blackmailing Lisa. The basis of the blackmail is something contained in the documents handed to Lisa yesterday. They probably relate to her life before she met Don; her life in Minnesota. Lisa comes from a small town in Minnesota, that’s all we know – and all Don knows – about her background. Delmar also comes from Minnesota – according to his ID he’s from Minneapolis. Okay, different places, but within the same state. I don’t believe in coincidences like that. Delmar and the woman are working this blackmail together. As the deal apparently came to fruition – the day that Lisa went to the bank to get the money – Delmar was killed. Now, remember the cold case?”

“Uh huh”

“The dead guy in the cold case was apparently involved in some kind of blackmail racket before he was killed. There was a woman’s DNA all over his apartment. The word on the street was that he’d been killed to keep him quiet – but it’s equally possible that he was double-crossed by his partner in crime. The manner of his death was highly unusual and strikingly similar to Delmar’s death. I’m beginning to think that the mystery woman’s DNA might match that at the cold case crime scene.”

Lucy thought for a few moments, absorbing all this.

“So all you need to do is to get something from her apartment with her DNA on it. You could call Calley and he could get a search warrant for the woman’s apartment. They’d find Delmar’s stuff there – his ID, driver’s license etcetera. That would tie her to his death too. And then she’d be arrested and Lisa wouldn’t be at risk anymore. And if what you say is right then it puts Don in the clear. He couldn’t have possibly been involved in the cold case.”

“Hey, hold on,” I said. “It isn’t as easy as that. Let’s go sit down somewhere more comfortable.”

Lucy sat on the sofa, drawing her legs up underneath her, and I sat on the recliner opposite her.

“First of all, getting a search warrant isn’t that easy. We don’t know who that apartment belongs to. We don’t know whether she’s the tenant or not. Second, at this stage we’re the only ones who know about her association with Delmar. Only we know that they were together shortly before Delmar was killed. Only we know that the pair of them were apparently blackmailing Lisa. Only we know that she’s living in the South End apartment – and only we know that inside that apartment are identification documents relating to Delmar.”

“Oh,” said Lucy. “Yes, I see.”

For the police to obtain a search warrant for the South End apartment they’d have to convince a judge that they have probable cause – some evidence linking her with Delmar’s death. But they don’t have anything of the kind. Of course, they could apply on the basis of ‘reliable information received’. That might work, because I have a good track record with the police. But it would mean that I’d have to reveal everything – and I’m not at liberty to do that. I have to put my client’s interests first. Of course, if I had evidence that Don himself was involved in a crime then his right to anonymity would cease; but I don’t have such evidence. And I also have to keep Lisa’s interests in mind. She has gone to great lengths to keep whatever it is a secret from Don. She has a right to our protection too, provided that she hasn’t committed some crime either.”

“Yes, of course you’re right. It’s all so complicated isn’t it?” Lucy said.

“What I can do − and I’ll do it right now – is give Calley Delmar’s name and he can run a check to see if anything’s known about him. Eventually the police will run his prints themselves, but I need to know right away. The next thing is to get back inside the woman’s apartment as soon as possible. If it’s not her own apartment she could disappear at any time.”

I called Calley. His less than dulcet tones greeted me the other end of the line.

“You know who the dead guy is yet, Lance?”

“Nobody’s told me anything so far,” he said.

“He’s called Delmar Ditto,” I said, and I spelled the name for him.

“What kind of a name’s that?” he said.

“I want you to run his prints for me. You got a pen? Okay, here’s his ID card number – he’s from Minnesota.” I read the details to him. “If you want me to get this case moving for you I need the information pronto.”

“I’m supposed to take the wife and kids to the mall today,” he said.

“Take them another day. Meet them later. You know what’s at stake here.”

“Sure, okay,” he said wearily. “I’ll get on it. You wanna call my wife and apologize for me? You’ll need to hold the phone about a yard from your ear,” he said.

“Just think about those chevrons,” I said. We hung up.

“Do you think they’ll really make him a sergeant?” Lucy said.

“I doubt it, but with Calley a carrot works better than a stick.”

I called Tony. “She’s still home,” he said.

“Okay, I’m on my way over there again and I’m bringing Lucy. If there’s any movement before we get there let me know.”

“I’ll put the stuff in the dishwasher,” I said to Lucy. “You go and get ready for a day out.”

Chapter Sixteen

The Accident

Lucy and I arrived at the café in South End at about ten thirty. Tony said she was still home.

“I guess the two of you can handle it now,” he said.

“No, I still want you to stick around, Tony. If she takes a cab somewhere I’m going to need your expertise, and if she comes out and goes somewhere on foot I’d like you to follow her with Lucy. For one thing it’ll be less obvious, and for another Lucy is still a novice. She could learn a lot from you if you don’t mind giving her a bit of coaching.”

“Okay, I’d be glad to,” he said.

The three of us sat there and drank our way through countless cups of coffee as the morning wore on but finally, at just after twelve, she showed. She was dressed in a fawn-colored overcoat and knee-length suede boots and she was carrying a sling bag over her shoulder.

“Okay,” I said, time for you two to head off. I’ll wait a few minutes and maybe you can give me a call when you can work out if it’s going to be a long or a short trip.”

The pair of them headed off in the same direction as the woman but staying on the opposite side of the street. In less than a minute I’d lost sight of them. I walked across to the entrance of the apartment building and waited. After a few more minutes my cell phone rang. It was Tony.

“You’re set to go, boss.” He hung up.

I went back up to the fourth floor and let myself into apartment 410. I donned my gloves and went into the bedroom to check the Gladstone bag. If anything was missing it could be a sign that she knew someone had been there, but everything was as I’d left it. I rifled through the wallet. There was a credit card and a debit card. There were a couple of retail loyalty cards and about eighty bucks in cash. None of those things were of any interest to me. I looked at the men’s clothes hanging in the closet and soon satisfied myself that they had nothing to do with Mr. Ditto – they were too large. If I had time I’d come back and search the pockets, but I had more important places to look first.

I picked up the cell phone. I tried to turn it on but it seemed that the battery was flat. I peeled off the back. The Sim card was still in place. I was tempted to pocket it but I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t afford to leave any sign that it had been tampered with. The keys were just keys. There didn’t appear to be any car key on the ring.

I walked over to search the two matching bedside tables and drawers. The bed was still unmade and I could tell that she slept on the left side, so I looked there first. There was nothing there of any particular interest to me. A search of the other table was similarly unpromising.

I moved into the living room. I noticed a coffee cup on the drainer in the kitchen which hadn’t been washed. I took out some cotton swabs I’d brought with me and swabbed the rim of the cup, and put them in a zip lock bag in my pocket. There was a hardwood desk in the living room. None of the drawers was locked. Inside I found a number of receipts for utilities, cable TV and the apartment’s management fees. All were in the name of Paul Withers. I could find nothing bearing a woman’s name. Each of the drawers was about half full of assorted paraphernalia, but none of it was what I was looking for. I spent a long time looking carefully at various documents, searching for anything that related to Lisa Burrows, but to no avail.

There was a credenza, atop which was a flat screen TV. Inside was a DVD player, a router and some compact discs. There was a cocktail cabinet, liberally stocked with all kinds of bottles of various colors. I searched the bookcase, carefully looking between and behind the books. I opened the larger books and flipped through the pages to see whether anything had been tucked inside. I was drawing a blank. I looked at my watch. I’d been searching for over forty-five minutes. I scanned the room to see if there could be any places where documents or money could be secreted away, but I could see none.

I went back into the bedroom and started to search through the men’s and women’s clothing in the closets. I found nothing. More than an hour had passed. I hadn’t expected to find a charger for the phone in the Gladstone bag, and I didn’t. I made a note of the make and model. The best I could do was to get myself a charger and maybe come back another time. After my success earlier in the morning it was a major anti-climax. If the woman was in possession of anything relating to the blackmail – or anything incriminating at all – then she must have taken it with her. I went into the bathroom again and looked at the items there more carefully than I’d had time to do on my previous visit to the apartment. There was no shaver, nor anything else to suggest that a man was residing there. Whilst I’d been searching the desk it had occurred to me that Mr. Withers might suddenly walk in on me, but nothing I’d seen in the apartment suggested the recent presence of a male. I lifted the lid of the toilet tank, but there was only bluish-tinted water inside.

I went back into the living room. I checked the kitchen cupboards. I looked inside the dishwasher and found only dirty dishes; the washing machine was empty and so was the drier.

When I was finally satisfied that further searching was pointless I let myself out, locked the door again and went back to the café across the road. I wondered what Tony and Lucy were doing and where they were. I ordered a coffee and a sandwich and then, just as I was about to call Lucy, my cell phone rang. It was Tony.

“Have you had enough time yet?” he said.

“Yes, I’m all done,” I replied.

“Only I just called to say that if you need longer it’ll be okay. The lady won’t be back for some considerable time.”

“Oh, why’s that? Where are you both?” I said.

“There’s been an accident.” My heart jumped. “I’ll hand you over to Lucy,” he said.

“Lucy, what kind of accident? What happened?”

“The mystery woman was clipped by a taxi while she was crossing the street,” she said. “I don’t know how badly she’s hurt – she’s still conscious, I mean her eyes are open but she seems a bit out of it − but anyway the ambulance has just shown up.”

“Where are you?”

“Corner of Tremont and West Dedham.”

“I’ll get over there.”

“No, wait a minute.” There was a pause. “Tony says we’re going to follow the ambulance to see where they take her. It’ll probably be the Boston Medical Center. I’ll call you as soon as we know. Just a minute.” There was another pause. “Tony says because we’re witnesses it shouldn’t be too difficult to find out about her condition and stuff like that. I’ve got to go.”

Well, I thought to myself. We shouldn’t have too much difficulty finding out who she is now either.

Chapter Seventeen

A Moral Dilemma

I went to look for a charger for Ditto’s phone. It took me more than twenty minutes to find a shop that sold one, and then I went back to apartment 410. I let myself in and went over to the Gladstone bag in the closet. I took out the phone and plugged it into the charger. After a minute it glowed encouragingly. There were a few numbers which were stored in the phone rather than the Sim and I made a note of them. There were no messages, either sent or received. I removed the sim card, inserted it into my phone, and copied the contents. Then I replaced it in Ditto’s phone and took out my notebook. I unplugged the charger and put it in my pocket. I put the phone back in the Gladstone bag, let myself out and went back to the café across the street.

I knew I was going to be in for a long wait, but there wasn’t anything for me to do. I might as well stay where I was until I could arrange to pick Lucy up, but I couldn’t help turning things over in my mind.

What about the woman’s sling bag? I wondered what was in it. Now the sling bag would be in the hospital with her and out of my reach. I wondered where they’d all been while I was searching the apartment. I thought about the woman and what little I knew about her. She’d been with Delmar Ditto an hour or so before I found him dead. There was nothing to link the two events except suspicion on my part. I’d seen her give an envelope to Lisa which I assumed contained some kind of sensitive subject matter, but that was only my assumption. Lucy thought that Lisa had thrown the envelope into a dumpster near her home – but there was no proof that it was the envelope, and even if it was, so what? I’d searched her apartment – or at least the apartment where she was currently staying; it apparently wasn’t her apartment. In any event there was nothing in it of significance – except of course Ditto’s wallet, phone and keys. I assumed that whatever else had been in the Gladstone bag had been disposed of. It had probably contained some of his clothing and other personal items. I wondered why she’d kept the wallet, phone and keys. I guessed that the wallet and phone had been removed to slow down the identification of the victim.

The police wouldn’t have any interest in the injured woman, unless their investigation showed that the taxi driver was criminally liable in some way for the accident. I briefly wondered about Withers. I wondered who he was and whether he might in some way be connected to the whole affair. After a while I stopped wondering and dug out my Somerset Maugham. I decided to lose myself in that for a couple of hours.

About an hour later Lucy called to say that the woman had been admitted to Boston Medical. As concerned witnesses to the accident they’d been able to get some information about her condition. She had a concussion and she’d been taken for x-rays. The paramedics thought she’d broken a leg. She’d at least be kept there overnight for observation. They’d been given a number to call for further information. Tony had found out her name; it was Barbara Green. Should they come back to the café or would I pick her up? Tony would go home directly, unless I wanted to talk to him; but there was nothing he could tell me that she couldn’t.

“I’ll come over there and pick you up. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Lucy. “I’ll see you later.”

I walked to my car and set off to meet Lucy. I called her on the way and she directed me to a café where she was drinking a mug of hot chocolate.

It was after three when I got to the café. I ordered a coffee and sat down.

“So, tell me everything that happened,” I said.

“We followed her up Tremont. When she got to West Dedham, she went into the Post Office. I followed her in there and joined a line. She was mailing a package to somewhere. It was about the size of a large library book – one of those with a hard cover” Lucy said, indicating the approximate size with her hands. “Then she came out and we followed her again. I think she was going home, but when she got to the corner of Tremont and Dedham she must have been distracted or not paying attention. She stepped off the sidewalk as a taxi came around the corner and she tried to step back but the fender struck her somewhere and she just went down. A load of people tried to help her but there was one guy who kind of took control and said nobody should try to move her and that he’d already called for an ambulance. After about six or seven minutes the ambulance arrived and we asked where she was being taken and they told us BMC and then we took a cab and went there.” Lucy paused for breath.

“Okay – and you found out her name and that she’ll be kept in there for a while?”

“Yes, at least for observation. She went off to have an x-ray, or x-rays. We got a number to call to inquire about her later.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s hit the road before the traffic gets too bad.”

On the drive home I told Lucy about the less than fruitful search of the apartment.

“I managed to copy the numbers and address book from Ditto’s phone,” I said. “I had to go out and buy a charger for it. Oh, and I think I know who the owner or tenant of the apartment is – it’s a guy called Withers; Paul Withers. Judging by the relatively small amount of women’s clothing in the apartment I don’t think she’s been staying there long.”

“Not all women have lots of clothes,” Lucy said.

“You do.”

“I do not. Only compared to you, because you never buy anything; you just wear things until they fall to pieces.”

“So what’ll we tell Don tomorrow?” I said.

“We’ll just tell him what happened.”

“Her name; and where she lives.” I said.

“You don’t think …?”

“I don’t know what to think. He wasn’t driving the taxi was he?” I said jokingly. Lucy told me not to be silly.

“On the one hand he’s our client and I should tell him everything, but for the time being I’m playing it safe. After I followed Barbara to her apartment building yesterday and while I was waiting outside I called Don to tell him we’d successfully tailed Lisa. I switched off the caller display before I called. He answered the call.”

“So?”

“He told us he’d be in the gym, Lucy; the gym with no phone signal.”

“Oh,” she said. “But I’ve been thinking about Don, and about the cold case. Don couldn’t possibly have anything to do with that. Maybe the signal is intermittent down there – like our old office. Don’t you think you’re being a little over-cautious?”

“I admit it’s difficult to see how he could be connected to the other case. But then maybe the two cases aren’t connected at all. Maybe my theory’s wrong. Either way, it doesn’t mean he couldn’t be involved in Ditto’s demise one way or another. I accept there’s no evidence implicating him and that I may be being over-cautious, but it’s better to be over-cautious than incautious. And anyway, I was thinking about it earlier and what is there to tell him that would be of any real help?”

During the remainder of the drive home I went through my musings in the café about what we really knew about and what was just supposition.

“Let’s sleep on it,” Lucy said. “We can decide in the morning how much we should tell him.”

“I’m going to study Ditto’s phone records. I’ll drop you off and come by a bit later if that’s okay. Why don’t you send out for some Chinese?”

We pulled up outside Lucy’s place and I dropped her off and then motored the few hundred feet to my own house. I went inside, helped myself to a beer and stood at the counter drinking it. Then I helped myself to another and went to have a look at the phone.

*

“We haven’t told Don about the dead guy,” said Lucy “so…”

“He was called Delmar,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Lucy. “We haven’t told Don about Delmar’s death, and we can’t really tell him about it now. We’ve told him about everything else we saw involving Lisa. We haven’t told him yet about searching Barbara’s apartment – or the place where she’s been living. But since you didn’t find anything significant there ...”

“Except Delmar’s stuff,” I said.

“Well, since he’s dead I don’t suppose that matters really.” She thought for a while. “It’s an awkward situation really, isn’t it? I mean he’s paying us quite a lot.”

“It’s a moral dilemma,” I said. “I’ve never had a situation quite like this before.”

“Did you glean anything from Delmar’s phone?”

“Glean?” I said.

“Glean – find out − it’s a perfectly good word. What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing – it just doesn’t sound very Lucyesque,” I said.

“You’d be surprised by the extent of my vocabulary.”

“Nothing about you would surprise me anymore, Lucy.”

“Well that’s a pity. Don thinks a little mystery is good for a relationship.”

“Is that what we have,” I said, “a relationship?”

“Yes – sort of – it’s just a different kind of relationship from most people, that’s all.”

I smiled at her. “Anyway, the answer to your question is no. They’re just a bunch of numbers. Mostly Minnesota numbers, unsurprisingly. One or two local numbers, and I expect that Lisa’s number and Barbara’s are among them, but I don’t know what their numbers are, and there are no names next to those numbers.”

“No messages?”

“Alas no.”

“Alas?” Lucy said.

“Let’s not go there, shall we?” I said. There was a knock on the door. Fortunately, the Chinese food had arrived.

Chapter Eighteen

A Second Honeymoon

On Sunday Don arrived at eleven on the dot. He was clearly a punctual guy. He seemed in good spirits.

“I’m afraid we haven’t made any further progress,” I said, truthfully but perhaps being economical with the truth. We were seated in the living room and Lucy was brewing some coffee.

“While we’re pretty sure that the couple in the photograph were blackmailing Lisa about something, we’re no nearer discovering what it might have been. I use the past tense because it appears from our surveillance that the couple have been paid off and whatever it is they had which was troubling Lisa has been returned to her. Our suspicions aren’t something we can turn over to the police without Lisa’s consent, as I’m sure you understand.”

“I don’t want the police involved under any circumstances,” Don said. “My only concern in this whole matter is to get things back to how they were before. As a matter of fact, I’ve noticed a change in Lisa already. That’s probably because, as you say, these wretched people have been paid off. I don’t care about them. I’m glad she wasn’t in any kind of physical danger. And I don’t care whatever it was that Lisa felt she had to keep from me. I trust her, and I trust her judgment. I’m sure she was only trying to spare me some kind of perceived hurt or embarrassment. I don’t care about her past, you see. I care about our future.”

“That’s a very pragmatic way of looking at it,” I said.

Lucy came over with some coffee.

“So she’s more her old self again, is she?” Lucy said.

“I think we’re getting there. I’ve decided to take her on a short vacation, so we can put all this behind us. As far as she’s aware I know nothing about the whole thing anyway. Let’s keep it that way. And I want to thank you both for your efforts; I’m sure nobody could have done a better job.”

“Don,” I said, “you realize that this may not be an end to it? If it was blackmail, as we suspect, then it may rear its ugly head again. I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

Don smiled. “I don’t think that’s likely,” he said.

“You don’t think that we should follow up on Lucy’s idea. To try to find out from Lisa what it was all about?”

“No, I don’t think so. To be perfectly frank I don’t really want to know. I just want our life to go back to how it was before. It will now, I’m sure.”

“So where do you plan to go on vacation?” Lucy said.

“Florida. That’s where it all began. It’ll be like a second honeymoon.”

“Where did you go for your first honeymoon?” Lucy said, “if you don’t mind me asking.”

Don threw back his head and laughed. “Disneyland,” he said. “Lisa said she’d always dreamed of going there since she was a small child. Since our meeting and brief romance seemed so magical to us both it seemed that the Magic Kingdom was an ideal choice.”

“Well I hope the second honeymoon turns out to be as magical as the first,” Lucy said.

“Well,” said Don, looking at his wristwatch as he finished his coffee, “I need to be getting back. You’ll send me your invoice and a list of disbursements, won’t you? We’re leaving tomorrow so if you’ll forgive me I’ll deal with it when I get back. And thanks again to both of you. I think that more than anything it’s been a relief to share the problem with someone.”

As Don disappeared in his SUV I turned to Lucy.

“So what do you think?” I said.

“I think we’ll never know the truth.”

“But it’s not over for us yet, Lucy. It may be just the beginning. There’s been a murder, and I’m determined to solve it.”

“But we don’t have a client anymore,” she said.

“That’s the beauty of it – now we can operate without the fetters of a contractual relationship,” I said. Using a tissue, I picked up Don’s empty coffee cup and popped it into a zip lock bag. “We’ll have no-one to answer to but ourselves. And as long as there’s a chance that Lisa’s case and the cold case may be linked I’m bound to investigate it anyway.”

“Plus there’s Calley to think about,” Lucy said.

“I’d rather not spoil my Sunday by thinking about him,” I said.

Lucy laughed. Shall we take the rest of the day off then?” she said. “I wish we could have a vacation in Florida.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to settle for Minnesota,” I said.

Lucy looked at me. “You’re not serious,” she said, “are you?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I said.

Chapter Nineteen

In the Mood

In the morning I drove over to Complete Forensics in Cambridge for an appointment with Jill Bloom. On the seat next to me in the car were two plastic bags. One of them contained the swab that I’d taken from Barbara Green’s apartment and the other had Don’s coffee cup inside. As I drove I was planning my, or our, trip to Minnesota. I hadn’t decided whether to take Lucy along with me yet. Lucy had called the number provided to her by the hospital and discovered that Barbara had sustained a fracture of the left femur and a hairline fracture of the ulna in her left arm, and it was likely that she’d remain in hospital for a few days.

This was good news for me, if not for Barbara herself, because I no longer needed to worry about her disappearing for the time being. I was confident that at least some of the numbers in Delmar’s phone would lead me to people who could provide a wealth of information about him – maybe even his family. I needed to be there so that I could arrange to see them since generally people are reluctant to talk to strangers over the phone about a friend, colleague or family member. Delmar was the best clue I had as to what was behind the blackmail and I needed to know what it was that he knew about Lisa or had found out about her over there in Minneapolis. He could have been someone that she knew from her past or he might be a stranger to her. I needed also to find the link between Barbara and him. Was she from Minnesota too? How long had they known each other? Was the connection between them limited to their involvement in the blackmail I wondered?

There were two things I was undecided about. Should I take Lucy, and how to get there? The office was going to be ready to move into soon and Lucy should really stay to deal with everything there. On the other hand, if she wanted to come with me and I didn’t take her I’d never hear the end of it. As for transport, I considered driving, but I wanted to be there and back as soon as possible; better to fly and then hire a car − one that was used to semi-arctic conditions.

I drew up outside Jill’s lab. The lab didn’t belong to her but it was where she worked and she was one of the most accomplished forensic examiners there. We were friends too, although it was a friendship that had grown out of our business relationship. I’d occasionally been out with Jill and her husband. He was an enthusiastic fisherman; but not enthusiastic enough to be doing any fishing at this time of the year. I was on time and Jill was already in the reception waiting for me when I arrived.

“Here are the two items I told you about over the phone,” I said. “The swab is from a female, the cup from a male. I guess that’s all you need to know.”

“Okay, provided there are no unforeseen problems they should be ready in one to two weeks. We’re pretty busy at the moment – are they urgent?”

“Not especially; but as soon as you can.”

“How was your vacation?”

“Oh, you heard about that? It was interesting. Ten days in the Philippines. It was work really but, as they say, a change is as good as a rest; and I managed to stop over in Hong Kong to see an old acquaintance on the way, and then on the way back we had a couple of days in Bangkok. Visiting temples,” I said, making a sad clown’s face.

“You’ll be changing the name to Mark Kane International Investigations I guess.”

“I don’t plan any more trips anytime soon,” I said; “except Minnesota this week.”

“Dress warm. How’s Lucy?”

“She’s good. We’re working together now as a matter of fact. She’s my new assistant investigator. And we’re moving to a new office in Norbury in a week or two. I took out a new business card and handed it to her.

“Wow, when did this happen?”

“Very recently, actually; we’re working our first case together right now. Or rather our second – Lucy helped me with the investigation in the Philippines.”

“Is she going to Minnesota with you?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“You’ll need someone to keep you warm at night.”

“There is that,” I said.

I headed home again. On the drive home I thought over what Duncan had told me. I’d called him yesterday, after Don left. He’d worked with Don for several years, but when Don married he quit. He was financially sound and wanted to enjoy his life with his new bride. He and Duncan were strictly colleagues and had never socialized together; he’d never met Lisa and hadn’t seen Don at all since his marriage. He told me that Don traveled widely after leaving the army and worked as a mercenary, or as Don himself put it ‘a soldier of fortune’. He’d had several stints in Africa, and he’d also worked in South America and Asia. He’d go wherever he was needed.

“He was no Che Guevara, though,” Duncan said. “He fought for whoever would pay him. I’m not saying he’s unprincipled, in fact I think he has good moral judgement, but he wasn’t a crusader. He just enjoyed doing work he was good at.”

“What about his character?” I said; “his personal characteristics?”

“Extremely self-disciplined, total self-control, highly focused. Definitely loyal and trustworthy – the sort of guy you’d want on your side.”

“Okay, Duncan, here’s the big one, and I only want you to answer it if you think you’re qualified to. Bearing in mind how devoted he is to Lisa, if someone was bothering her – I mean threatening her or something like that – do you think Don’s the kind of guy that would have any qualms about taking that person out. I’m sure he’s physically capable that way, but in your opinion would legal or moral considerations get in the way?”

There was quite a long silence when I asked Duncan that question. I knew it was one that he’d need to carefully consider. Finally, he replied.

“Don’s evolved a high degree of self-preservation because of his former livelihood. If he thought that either he or somebody close to him was under serious threat I believe he’d be prepared to act according to his own set of values. I think he’d be capable of killing if the situation warranted it in his opinion.”

“Thanks, Duncan. Let’s hope I’m barking up the wrong tree, but I’ll let you know how it pans out.”

“Are you still on his case?”

“No. It’s kind of resolved itself for the time being. Lisa was being blackmailed and the immediate threat has gone. But I think there’s still a possibility that there could be further problems. I’m no longer on the payroll but I have reasons for continuing to investigate the matter on my own. On our own I should say now because Lucy’s been helping me.”

“How’s she shaping up?” Duncan asked.

“As well as I expected her to.”

“That’s a little cryptic.”

“It’s not meant to be. I had high expectations of her – despite my grouching, as she calls it. She’s made a promising start.”

Back home I told Lucy about my proposed trip to Minneapolis. She could stay behind and get the new office up and running if she liked. She gave me a look as if I’d said her ass was too big.

“I’m your assistant. From now on, where you go, I go,” she said.

“Well right now I’m going to the john.”

Lucy gave me a disapproving look, the way a teacher might look at a kid who hadn’t done his homework.

“In that case I shall go on the computer and check the flight schedules,” she said. “When are we leaving?”

“As soon as we can; tonight probably. At the moment we’ve got Babs where we want her; out of harm’s way – herself and anybody else’s. Plus she’s not going to do a disappearing act – although she’s no reason to think she has any need to. But I’d like to see her still in that hospital bed by the time we get back.”

Lucy was on the computer. “We can fly Delta non-stop; takes about three hours,” she said. “How about six thirty-five?”

“Okay. Check the temperature while you’re on the computer and pack accordingly. I’m going to call Calley to get the lowdown on Ditto and ask him to check out Babs at the same time.”

“Pity we can’t bill Don for the tickets. Maybe we’ll be able to if we find out what was behind the blackmail.”

“I doubt it. He said he didn’t want to know. He seems to think that if Lisa didn’t want him to know he should respect her judgement.”

I went into my kitchen to fix myself a coffee. I had a crafty look over towards Lucy who was glued to the computer and then slipped a cap-full of whiskey into the mug.

“You want a coffee?” I called over to her.

“Thanks, but I’ll take mine without the liquor,” she said, without looking away from the computer screen. Maybe what she’d told me about a woman’s intuition was right.

I called Calley. “Got something for me on Ditto?” I said.

“Delmar Ditto,” he said, pronouncing both names with an exaggerated slowness. “Got a rap sheet going back seventeen years; a couple of thefts as a teenager, vehicular theft at seventeen. Nothing violent. Been in the can three times for offenses of dishonesty – last one for fraud; release date was four months ago. He didn’t oughta be in Massachusetts – he was still under supervision.”

“Can you get me the contact details of his parole officer? I’m flying out to the Twin Cities tonight. I’m going to do a bit of digging around.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Did you put in a request to see the cold case files yet,” I said.

“Sure,” there was a pause. “You don’t need me to actually read all that stuff, do you?”

“Not unless you want to haul your ass over to my place sometime and camp in my living room for a few days. I’ve got a summary for you – that’ll tell you all you need to know. Why don’t you copy it and put your name at the bottom?”

“Really? Gee, thanks. We’re getting to be like Marlowe and Bernie Ohls,” he said.

More like Laurel and Hardy, I thought. But Calley’s comment had startled me; I didn’t know he’d ever read a book.

“How long you going to stay in Minneapolis?”

“As long as it takes, but hopefully no more than two or three days. I’ve got a couple of other names for you to check. Barbara Green. She’s a woman of about thirty to thirty-five. She may be a Boston resident, but I don’t have any other details right now. The other one is Paul Withers. I don’t know anything about him except his name.”

“It’s not a lot to go on – without a date of birth or anything – but I’ll give it a try.”

“Has there been any progress yet on the Ditto investigation?”

“Not unless you call a roomful of guys scratching their heads progress. The autopsy was inconclusive. We’re still not sure how he died.”

“Okay, I’ll be in touch,” I said, and I hung up.

“You want to go somewhere for lunch?” I said to Lucy.

“No, let’s stay home. You can come around to my place and then we can watch a movie. But first go and get your suitcase and some suitable clothes. I’ll do your packing for you.”

I went to my closet and chose an assortment of the warmest clothes I could find.

“What are we going to watch?” I asked Lucy.

“Fargo, you know – to get us in the mood,” she said, as she rummaged about in my suitcase.

“You’ll have to get something warmer,” she said. “You can’t wear these.”

“You should see the other guy,” I said.

Chapter Twenty

The Twin Cities

“Mister Ditto had a bad record,” I said to Lucy as we sat having lunch. “He’d recently finished a stint in the Correctional Facility in Minneapolis. He was still on bail. Calley’s trying to find out who his parole officer was which should be a useful lead.”

“What was he inside for – this last time I mean?”

“Fraud of some sort.”

“I wonder what brought him to Boston.”

“Something he found out, or already knew, about Lisa I guess. He probably found out she was married to a rich guy and decided he’d turn his hand to a spot of blackmail.”

“I’m dying to find out what it was,” Lucy said.

“Well let’s hope we can,” I said.

“Have you ever been there before? To Minnesota?”

“Nope.”

“It’s minus eleven today,’ Lucy said. “And that was before lunch.”

“Have you got plenty of warm stuff to wear?” I asked.

“Yeah – I’ve got all my old skiing stuff.”

“You haven’t been skiing for years.”

“So what?”

“You think they’ll still fit you?”

She looked across at me, her fork stationary between her plate and her mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

After the movie Lucy took me to a surplus store to buy some more clothes. She chose them, I just watched and paid for them.

“Got everything?” I said as we left the house for the airport. “I don’t want to have to turn around half way and come back because you’ve forgotten your nail polish or something.”

Lucy looked at me with a pitying expression and shook her head at me. Then we climbed inside the Chevy and set off for the airport.

*

It was ten forty-five when we checked into a budget motel on the outskirts of the city. I was paying for it myself and I didn’t want to waste money on anything fancy. The guy in the reception was a tall, gangly youth in his mid-twenties. He eyed us up and down and spent a good deal of time looking at what appeared to be a largely empty register.

“Staying long?” he said.

“We’ll just take it a day at a time,” I said. “Maybe two or three days.”

He continued to run his ballpoint up and down the register as if expecting a sudden change.

“We’re pretty tired,” I said. “Come a long way.”

He showed no sign of having heard me.

“There seem to be a lot of empty rooms,” I said, peering out of the window, “unless folk go to bed real early around here.”

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than two or three minutes, he made a decision. “Twenty-three,” he said, handing me the keys. As we passed a dozen empty rooms on the way I wondered what was wrong with twenty-one or twenty-two.

“So what’s the plan?” Lucy said as she unpacked the bags and I unscrewed the top of a bottle of jack Daniels I’d picked up at the airport.

“I told you on the plane,” I said.

“I was playing Candy Crush; I wasn’t paying attention. Tell me again.”

“Well tomorrow I’m going to call each of the numbers from Delmar’s telephone address book.”

“How are you going to explain to them how you got their number?”

“I’m hoping they won’t ask. Some of them will I guess.”

“Are you going to tell them he’s dead?”

“No, I don’t want them to think I’m from the police. If I say I’m a PI then I don’t think many of them are going to want to talk to me either.”

“Could you pretend to be from the parole office?”

“Not exactly, but maybe something along those lines. I’ve asked Calley to help.”

“Does Calley’s reach extend this far?”

“Not normally, no. But I asked him to contact Delmar’s parole officer and explain that Delmar’s been found dead. He’s to say that he’s working with me on official police business in connection with another murder enquiry which may be linked to Ditto’s death and he’d appreciate it if they could cooperate with me. I’m optimistic that they will, although Calley’s telephone manner leaves a lot to be desired. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“What help do you think you can get from the parole office?”

“If they agree to help then I’m hoping to be able to tell the people I telephone that I’m working with the parole office; that I’m trying to locate him. I assume at least some of the people in his phone-book will care enough about him to at least talk to me.”

“And if you meet any of them I’ll be coming too, right.”

“Of course; a woman’s touch may be just what we need. Some of the names are females. Maybe they’re girlfriends, or ex-girlfriends. Maybe even his sisters for all I know.”

“How many numbers are there?”

“Over forty.”

“Why don’t we split them up?” Lucy said. “I’ll call the women and you can call the guys.”

“I’ll drink to that,” I said, as I downed my glass of whiskey.

*

There’s cold and there’s very cold and Minneapolis was both of them. The parole office was downtown, near the Gateway District and not far from the river. The parole officer was named Jim Fellows, and we were introduced to him in his office. He wasn’t expecting two of us.

“Detective Calley didn’t mention that you had a partner,” he said to me.

“She’s my assistant, actually,” I said.

Lucy proudly handed him her card. I couldn’t help noticing that it was a gold embossed card.

“It’s much the same thing really she said. We’re like two sides of the same coin.”

Jim Fellows looked at her approvingly.

“You know,” she said, “he’s the head and I’m the tail.”

Fellows laughed. “Well now, I understand that you need as much background as I can provide about Mr. Ditto. The late Mr. Ditto.”

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do with the investigation directly, but I’m working for the Police Department on another homicide case which we have reason to believe may be related to this one. Detective Calley and I are therefore sharing information and we’re trying to assist each other as best we can. The nature of Ditto’s homicide was somewhat unusual.”

“I wasn’t told much. Only that he’d been found dead in a bathtub and identified by his prints.”

“Well I don’t need to go into detail, but there’s a reason to believe that his death might be connected with something that happened back here in Minnesota. Or maybe it’s connected with someone he knew from here.”

“I see.”

“The police don’t have any evidence that he was involved in any kind of criminal behavior in Boston, otherwise they’d have liaised with the Minneapolis Police department. The kind of information I need is to help me understand his background; particularly his recent background since he was released from custody.”

“He was serving three years for a fraud case. He’d served two years of his sentence and here in Minnesota he’s entitled to serve the remainder on parole, under supervision; my supervision. But of course I can’t keep tabs on parolees all the time, except those that are tagged. He wasn’t.”

“Can you tell me the last time he reported to you? That way we’ll have some idea how long he may have been in Boston. At least it will give us the maximum amount of time he could have been there,” I said.

“Almost three weeks ago,” Fellows said.

“Where was he living?”

“I can give you his address. I don’t know if he was living there with anyone else. I doubt you’ll find anything useful there, though – the police will already have checked it out.”

“Thanks, that would be a very helpful start,” I said. “I was wondering whether, if I can find anyone who might be able to shed light on Ditto’s recent past, I could say I’m working in conjunction with the parole office or something like that.”

“How about ‘with the approval of’?” he said. “It means much the same thing. I can’t officially sanction any inquiries you make you understand, but I don’t see any harm in that choice of words.”

“Yes, good idea. Thank you.”

Fellows went through Delmar’s file with us. It was full of information that I didn’t think would help much with our investigation. I really needed to find someone who could shed light on why Ditto had left for Boston. He would have known that it was a breach of his parole conditions and there was a good chance it would land him back in prison, so I figured he’d found something out which would be worth the risk in the long run.

After spending more than an hour with Fellows we left his office and went to look for somewhere we could get a hot drink. The hotel was too far away. I needed to check out where Delmar’s former address was. If we were lucky, there’d be people there who might be able to shed light on the purpose of his trip to Boston. I waited until we were in the warmth of a nearby coffee shop before I spoke to Lucy.

“Two sides of the same coin?” I said. “Head and tail; what did you think you were talking about?”

Lucy looked mildly offended. “I was just trying to break the ice,” she said.

“Was it supposed to be some kind of risqué joke?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, tail,” I said slowly, “as in a hot-looking woman, and head, as in…?”

“Oh my God,” Lucy said, her hand shooting up in front of her mouth for a second, “I never even thought of that!”

We both burst out laughing.

“Lucy, joking aside, you don’t even have your investigator’s license yet. You know how many strings I had to pull in the police department to even get you approved? Enough to string a tennis racket; and then only because I assured them that you’d been assisting me with my investigations for more than three years.”

“I’ve been assisting in your investigations for more than three years; for a lot longer than that.”

“You know what I mean. Just try not to stick your neck out too much until you get that ticket in your hot little hand.”

“You’re being a bully,” Lucy said sulkily. “I was only trying to help. And we’re miles from Boston anyway – it’s like being on another planet,” she said.

“Oh come on Lucy; I’m just being careful that’s all. We don’t want a promising career to be cut short. Just be satisfied with ‘assistant investigator’ for the time being, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, meekly.

“Nice business cards,” I said.

“They are, aren’t they? Of course they weren’t cheap, but they’ll probably last me for ages,” she said, smiling broadly and hunching her shoulders slightly.

“We need to find someone that knows why Delmar went to Boston,” I said.

“Like a close friend?”

“Or maybe even an enemy; or at least someone who didn’t like him much. Let’s go and see where he lived,” I said.

It was a dismal place. It was single room apartment, empty of life and pretty much anything else too. I got inside easily enough but could quickly see that it was a waste of time. When Delmar had left his home he’d clearly not had any intention of coming back there. He would have realized it was the first place the authorities would look for him and there’s no way that he would have left any clue behind as to where he’d gone, or why.

We decided to go back to the motel and start on the phone calls. It was the middle of the afternoon when we got back. We were starving. There was a book of local take-outs so we ordered a pizza from a local Italian joint. We ordered the biggest size possible with everything on it and then crossed our fingers while we waited. It turned out to be better than we expected, and it was still fairly hot when it arrived.

Meanwhile, Lucy had been to a nearby convenience store to buy some Gatorade and some coffee-bags. I offered to go but she said no, because I was still an invalid. We sat in the room and ate and drank. It was like being students again. When we finished our beggar’s banquet we made a start on the phone calls.

We made no real progress. Some of the numbers had expired, some simply rang with nobody answering and several went straight to message. We left messages. Briefly we said that we were working with the approval of the parole office and trying to contact his friends or family members in order to locate Mr. Ditto; there was concern that he may have come to some harm. For those who answered the phone we didn’t mention the death, we just said we were from Boston where he’d last been seen were and trying to contact his friends or family. Some said they hadn’t seen or heard of him for months or years; one told me that he was in the pen. I got one or two “who the hell are you?” answers and Lucy got a “If you find the bastard you can kick his ass for me”. Gradually we worked our way through all the numbers without getting anywhere, but for more than half of them we’d left messages and I was still hopeful.

We decided not to venture out. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere anyway. We thought of going to hire a car – there was a Budget rental lot down the street – but there didn’t seem much point to rent a car unless and until we had somewhere to go. So we lay on the bed and watched some old movies. We watched the last half of The General. Buster Keaton still made us both laugh. And then about six my cell phone rang and when I picked it up I noticed it was a local number.

“Hi,” said the voice on the other end, “you looking for Delmar?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Who is this?”

“I’m called Atterbury,” he said. “You working for the parole board?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Are you a friend of Delmar’s?”

“Yeah, long time. How’d you get my number?”

I decided to take a chance and change tack. “I’m a private investigator. Delmar’s dead and I’m trying to find out who killed him.”

There was a long pause and I thought I’d blown it.

“How’d he die?” Atterbury said.

“I think he was murdered,” I said. “The police in Boston are still investigating the circumstances. They don’t have any suspects yet.”

There was a fairly long pause. “Are you helping them?” he said.

“No, I’m not working for the police. I’m working for myself. I’m a private investigator from Boston and I’ve come here to see if I can find out what he was doing over there. If I can find that out it may help to find out who did this to him.”

There was another long pause. “You on the level?”

“Yes, I’m trying to help find his killer.”

“Del and me’s like brothers, man. We go back a long way, a real long way.” Another pause. “I know why he went to Boston,” Atterbury said. “Well, I know a bit about it – not everything though.”

“Are you willing to come and see me?” I asked him.

“I guess so. Where are you?”

I told him.

“That’s pretty far, man.”

“I’ll pay your taxi fare if you like. It’ll be easier for you to meet me than vice versa – I’ve never been here before and I don’t know my way around. Right now I don’t have any wheels, either.”

There was silence the other end.

“We can meet in a public place,” I said, “if that’s what’s bothering you. In the motel lobby; it’s a multiple and there are plenty of people about.”

“It’s not that. I don’t have enough for the fare,” he said.

“Okay then you tell the cab to come here and I’ll meet you out front and pay him.”

“Sure, okay,” he said. “You know Delmar and me go back a long way; a real long way. I’ll tell you what I can if you think it’ll help.”

“I’m sure it will. And thanks,” I said.

“Give me about an hour. If I’m longer’n that just wait; I’ll be there,” he said, and hung up.

“We’re in luck,” I said to Lucy. “Atterbury is on his way.”

Chapter Twenty One

Atterbury

The cab with Atterbury inside it turned up at seven-thirty. Lucy and I were sitting in the motel’s reception being ignored by the guy behind the desk when the cab showed up. A skinny guy in a hooded top and hunched up shoulders got out and started to look around him. I went outside to meet him.

“Atterbury?” I said.

“That’s me, man.”

“Get yourself inside. I’ll take care of the cab.”

He went into the reception and I followed a few moments later. Under the hood he was about the same age as Delmar I guessed. I introduced him to Lucy.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he said. He was rubbing the palms of his hands together. He wasn’t dressed for the weather. We went over and sat inside.

“Let’s go to the room,” I said. “You want something to eat or drink?”

“No, I’m okay man.” Then he thought. “Maybe a coke?”

“We can do that,” I said.

We settled down in the room and I looked at him. He didn’t look like he’d had much to eat lately.

“So what can you tell us, Atterbury?” Lucy said.

“We was like brothers, man, you know? We grew up together. Both done time but I’ve been clean now more’n five years. Ain’t been in no trouble since I last came out, no ma’am.”

“But you stayed in touch with Delmar?” I said.

He turned to look at me. “Sure. He came out of the pen a few months ago. He stayed with me for a while at first, but … well, we had a bit of a bust-up over somethin’. I wanted him to move out, so he did. It was cool though – we were still cool.”

“Why the bust-up?” I said.

Atterbury sighed. “Look man, I ain’t a saint or nothin’ but I cleaned up my act a few years back. I don’t wanna go back inside man, not ever. Things ain’t been easy but at least I get to choose who I hang out with and I’m not watchin’ my back the whole time. But Del, see, he’s different man. He just thought he’d been unlucky. He was always lookin’ for the big one, you know? The big score; then he was gonna settle down, buy a ranch or somethin’. He weren’t never gonna change man.” He paused for a while, thinking back. “He learned somethin’ when he was inside doin’ the last stretch. Somethin’ from the guy he shared a cell with. Said it was gonna make him a lotta money. He wanted me to join him, you know?”

“And you didn’t want to be involved? I said.

“Like I said man I ain’t takin’ no more chances. The dude was on parole. I told him he’d better find someplace else to go because I didn’t want no part of it.”

“Part of what? Did he tell you exactly?”

Atterbury sighed deeply again, and blew out his cheeks when he exhaled. “When he was in the pen he shared a cell with some dude who told him somethin’. He didn’t tell me what exactly coz I didn’t wanna know. He said it was information that was gonna make him wealthy. All I know was it was somethin’ to do with some rich chick out east. He had the goods to put the squeeze on her. That’s all I know. And that’s God’s honest truth.”

“Who did he share a cell with – did he tell you?”

“No man, and I never asked him.”

“And you don’t know what the information was – or what it was about?”

“No idea, man, except it was somethin’ to do with a chick. I guess he was planning to put the screws on her.”

“But according to my information he was released for several months before he travelled to Boston. Have you any idea why he didn’t go earlier?”

“Yeah, I know that,” he said.

“So…?”

“Look Del was strictly small-time, man. Same like me. He knew he couldn’t pull it off on his own – especially in a place so far from home. He wanted me to ask around – find someone who could help. But I left that kinda life behind me. I guess he finally found someone, but he never told me about it.”

“We think the person who helped him may be responsible for his murder,” I said. “It’s only a theory, but we think he may have been double-crossed by his partner. We know who she is. Her name’s Barbara Green. Does that name mean anything to you?”

He shook his head.

I handed Atterbury a copy of the picture Lucy had taken of Delmar and Barbara in the café. “This is a picture of her,” I said.

He shook his head again. “I ain’t never seen nor heard of her,” he said.

“You’ve been very helpful,” I said. “And you’ve done the right thing. Delmar may not have been an angel but he didn’t deserve to die like he did. We’re going to find out who did it and we’re going to make sure that whoever it was is held accountable. But in the meantime I want you to see if you can help us a bit more. Maybe you could ask around – see if anyone knows who he hooked up with in Boston. If you can’t, you can’t, but you’re the best shot we’ve got.”

“Sure, okay,” he said. “I’ll ask around, do what I can. How long you guys stickin’ around?”

“Probably two or three days; but it doesn’t matter.” I handed him my business card. “You can contact me anytime of the day or night on this number – even after we head back east. I want you to stay on this. If you get anywhere with it you call me, okay? Even if it takes six months. Even if it takes six years.”

“Okay.”

I took out my wallet and peeled off enough in twenties for his taxi fare home. Then I put a picture of Benjamin Franklin on top of it. I handed the money to him. He gave me the hundred back. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I know you mean well but I don’t want no blood money. I came here of my own free will to try and help my old buddy. You find his killer’nd it’ll be enough for me.”

“We’ll find the killer,” I said. “And when we do you’ll be one of the first to know about it.”

We shook hands. We didn’t talk anymore. We went over to the reception and ordered a taxi. When the taxi came Atterbury pulled up his hood and ran over there; in a few moments he was gone.

Back in the room Lucy and I had a pow-wow.

“We’re getting there,” I said. “We’re closing in.”

“I felt so sorry for him,” Lucy said. “I thought I was going to cry.”

“I know,” I said. We were sitting on the bed and I pulled her close to me. We sat up watching the TV until almost one o’clock. Nobody else called.

“All those numbers,” I said, “and only one hit. But it’s enough. We’re going to have to find out who Delmar shared a cell with.”

Lucy fell asleep first, with the remote held loosely in her hand. I put it on the bedside table and snuggled down under the duvet. Lucy turned in her sleep and put her arms around my neck, and in a few moments I was asleep too.

Chapter Twenty Two

Another Death

“So the priority today is to get back to Fellows and get him to find out who Delmar was sharing a cell with,” I said, as we sat eating breakfast at Denny’s just a couple of blocks from the hotel.

“What if the guy he shared a cell with isn’t there anymore – suppose he’s been released already?”

“Then it should be easier,” I said. “In Minnesota the last third of a prison sentence is served after release from custody and under supervision by a parole officer. So locating him shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Unless he disappears – like Delmar,” Lucy said.

“Let’s try and remain optimistic, shall we?” I said.

Lucy speared the last two pieces of hot cake on her fork and then swirled it around in the syrup. She looked up at me, noticing I was studying her.

“Waste not, want not,” she said as she popped the fork into her mouth. She chewed for a minute, swallowed and then drained her second cup of coffee of the morning.

“It’s not that I’m being pessimistic,” Lucy said. “I just want to cover all the possibilities so that we can have a back-up if things don’t go to plan.”

“I’m more concerned about how we’re going to get whoever it is to tell us what we want to know. He might not even agree to see us – we can’t force him.” I said. “Any ideas in that direction?”

“I’ll work on it,” she said.

But it was a real concern for me. We’d been luckier yesterday than I’d expected, and I went to sleep on a kind of high, but this morning niggling doubts were beginning to muster. Anyway, there was no point worrying about it – perhaps we were on a roll.

“I’ve been trying to puzzle out what the information could be,” Lucy said.

“And have you come up with any ideas?”

“Maybe Lisa was a man, and she’s had a sex change. Or she’s an alien, or a robot – you know, like the Stepford Wives.” She looked at me mischievously.

“Let’s keep at least one foot on the ground, shall we?” I said.

“There’s no need to be a grouch – I’m just trying to entertain you.”

“Do you think Lisa knows about Don’s former life as a mercenary?” I said.

“Maybe not; he doesn’t know about her life before they met,” she said.

“Only I was thinking, there are plenty of documented cases where soldiers become inured to the suffering of others and become like killing machines. They’re able to kill people without a second thought, without emotion or pity.”

“Like the My Lai massacre, for example, in Vietnam?” Lucy said.

“Yes, or the Rape of Nanking.”

“Who’s Nan King?”

“It’s a place, Lucy; in China. In the nineteen-thirties invading Japanese soldiers committed terrible atrocities there to women and even small children. Years later, when some of those soldiers were interviewed, they said they were able to do it because they’d been taught that the enemy wasn’t human. So it meant no more to them than killing a dog – or an ant.”

Lucy thought for a minute. “Do you still suspect Don? Only you told Atterbury yesterday that we thought Barbara was the key to Delmar’s murder.”

“I’ll have to take a rain check on that for the moment,” I said. “Don never told us where he was last Wednesday, did he? You know, when the class was canceled because of the damage from the burst pipe? He just said he rescheduled the class for the next day.”

“Well we didn’t ask him.”

“Let’s go see Fellows,” I said, draining the last grounds from my coffee.

*

Jim Fellows greeted us warmly. “Did you have any luck” he said, “at Delmar’s home?”

“No, we drew a blank there I’m afraid − the place was deserted. But we did uncover another very useful bit of information from another source.” I needed to be circumspect with what I told him. I didn’t want it to get back to Calley that I had Delmar’s telephone address book.

“I’m afraid the source of the information will have to remain confidential…”

“Yes, I quite understand,” Fellows said.

“But we’ve reason to believe that the reason for Ditto’s trip to Boston is linked to something he was told by his cell-mate when he was serving his last sentence.”

Fellows gave me a questioning look.

“We believe that Delmar’s cell-mate told him something about a local woman – I mean a woman from Minnesota – which could be used to blackmail her. That woman now lives in Boston. I’m not suggesting that the cell-mate gave him the information for that purpose – we’ve no reason to believe that the cell-mate knew what Delmar planned to do.”

“So,” Fellows said, “I guess you want to interview Delmar’s former cell-mate?”

“Exactly; can you help us identify who that was?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem – it’ll just be a matter of record, and I see no reason why it should be confidential. Whether you’ll be permitted to see him is another matter. That will be up to the Correctional Services. They’ll no doubt need to ask him whether he’s agreeable to seeing you, but I can put you in touch with the right person. If he’s reluctant to see you then the police in Boston will have to go through the normal channels to arrange an official interview, I guess.”

“That’s very helpful. How long do you think it would take to find out the name and prison number of the cell-mate?”

“Within this morning I should think. I’ll have one of my staff follow it up for you. Of course we’re assuming that the cell-mate is still in the custody of the Department of Corrections.”

“But if he isn’t then he’ll be under supervision won’t he – like Delmar?” Lucy said.

“That’s right – he might even be under my supervision. Give me a couple of hours or so. I should stay in this vicinity if I were you – it might not take long. Or if you prefer I can give you the information you need by telephone.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll stick around. The fact is that we don’t really have anywhere else to go and this is the only lead we’ve got.”

We stood up to leave. Fellows turned to Lucy. “Head and tail,” he said, smiling. “Very good; I’m afraid I didn’t click yesterday – I only got it after you left.”

As we left his office we could hear him chuckling to himself.

“God,” Lucy said when we got outside, “how embarrassing.” Her face was the color of a ripe peach.

We wandered around the downtown area, but soon slipped inside a mall for warmth, which suited Lucy very well.

“They’ve got the same stuff as we’ve got in Boston,” she said with surprise, as if she really thought she was on another planet. After a little more than an hour I had a call from Fellows. The cell-mate’s name was Cody Breen. He was at a facility about twenty miles from the city. Would we like to go back to his office?

I covered the receiver with my hand. “I’ve got the name, Lucy – Fellows wants to know if we need to go back to his office.” Lucy looked at me and shook her head frantically.

“No, it’s okay,” I said. “You’ve been a great help and we’ll be in contact again if we need your help to arrange a visit to see Breen.”

“I can give you the visiting information line there,” Fellows said. “Just a moment.” He read the number to me and the name of the prison. I jotted it all down in my notebook. “They’ll have all the information you need. If you want a contact visit then you’ll need an appointment. It may not be possible at short notice.”

I thanked him and we hung up.

“It’ll be all over the office by now,” Lucy said miserably.

“I shouldn’t worry; we probably won’t need to go back there again. Use your phone to find out where this place is,” I said. I handed her my notebook and she checked her iPhone.

“It’s about thirty minutes east of here,” she said, “and… about the same distance from our hotel.”

“We’ll have to call for an appointment anyway. It’s not even certain that we’ll be able to do it today,” I said. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel and then try and fix an appointment? Then if we have to hang about at least you’ve got the cable to watch, and there’s Wi-Fi.”

It was almost noon when we got back. We went up to our room and I called the number that Fellows had given me. When I got through I gave the guy on the other end Cody’s name and prisoner number and told him that I’d like to arrange a contact visit. I was put on hold. A few minutes later he was back on the line.

“Excuse me, Sir. I’ll need to put you through to the prison governor’s office.”

There was a long wait and then another guy’s voice came on the line.

“May I know who I’m talking to,” the voice said.

“My name’s Kane. I’m a private investigator from Boston. I need to talk to Mr. Breen in connection with a murder inquiry. I’m working in conjunction with the police department in Boston.” I gave him Calley’s office contact number. “You can check with detective Calley if you wish.”

“You got a shovel?” the guy said.

“Excuse me?”

“Cody Breen got shanked in the washroom about two weeks ago. He didn’t make it. He’s dead.”

Chapter Twenty Three

The Highlander

“He’s dead,” I told Lucy. “Cody’s dead – he got taken out a couple of weeks ago in the washroom.”

Lucy’s expression said it all. “I can’t believe it. We were getting so close. It’s as if some malign force keeps putting obstacles in our way,” she said.

“So there’s nothing left for us to do here,” I said.

“I’ll check the flight-times back to Boston,” she said. “We should be able to get on a flight tonight.”

“We’re not going to Boston,” I said.

Lucy gave me a puzzled look. “But I thought you said there was nothing left for us to do here,”

“We’re not staying here,” I said. “We’re going to Rapid Falls.”

“Lisa’s home town; what can we find out there?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a small town so it shouldn’t be difficult to find people who know her – and know about her. What do most small towns across this country have in common Lucy?”

“I don’t know – ice cream parlors?”

“Gossip. Pretty much everybody knows pretty much everybody else’s business. If there’s a skeleton in Lisa’s closet, we should be able to find it − if we dig deep enough.”

“That’s …”

“I know, a mixed metaphor.”

“How far is Rapid Falls?” Lucy asked.

“Why don’t you do some research?”

Rapid Falls was a six-hour drive in clear weather and no snow. It could be half as much again if we ran into problems. The guy at the rental company recommended a Toyota Highlander. Lucy was enthusiastic because it had heated seats.

“That should be able to deal with even the harshest conditions,” he said. “You better take wheel chains, too. Where you headed?”

“Rapid falls,” Lucy said.

The rental guy pursed his lips and inhaled audibly. “Not today, if you take my advice. There’s heavy snow coming in from the northwest. You don’t want to get caught in that,”

“How about tomorrow?” I said.

“It should be better – not great, but better. My advice is to head off real early in the morning. Get yourselves a good breakfast and just keep on going. You got a good sound system in there,” he said, nodding towards the Highlander. “Just as well − there ain’t a whole lot to see on the road to Rapid Falls.”

We decided to take his advice and wait until morning before setting off, because of the snow and because otherwise we’d be driving the last part of the journey in the dark. We took the car for a spin before going back to the hotel.

“It’s a pity we can’t make the trip today,” I said to Lucy. “I don’t want to be away too long. Why don’t you call the hospital – see how Barbara is? I’m going to call Calley.”

Lucy dialed the hospital number and went into the bathroom. I called Calley.

“Did you find anything on Green or Withers?” I asked him.

“Nothing’s known about either of them as far as I can tell. Not in this state anyway. If you want me to run a national check I’ll need their ID numbers or dates of birth at least. You find anything out over there?”

“Yeah – it’s cold.”

“Funny guy,” he said.

“I’m following a lead that might give a clue about what brought our friend to Boston,” I said. “I’ll let you know if it pans out.”

“Sure.”

I half expected Calley to ask me what friend I was referring to. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t ask me what kind of lead I had. He’d be interested if it panned out though; if I ever told him.

“She’s still in the hospital,” Lucy said. “She told them she lives alone and there’s no-one to take care of her so as a precaution they’re going to keep her in hospital until they’re satisfied that she is sufficiently strong and mobile enough to get around without help. They’ll be giving her physiotherapy and they think she’ll be there for about a week.”

“Nice to get some good news for a change,” I said.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“I don’t think she’s a very nice person,” I said. “Nothing on her or Withers I’m afraid.”

“Did you tell Calley about Atterbury?”

“Of course not – he doesn’t know I’ve got Delmar’s phone numbers.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”

“We’ll take it in turns,” I said.

“What?”

“The driving – tomorrow.”

“Okay – can I be first?”

We made rudimentary plans for the following day and the day after. Lucy suggested that a good place to start would be the local high school, and I agreed. There were bound to be records of Lisa Burrows there. It wasn’t much more than ten or twelve years or so since she would have been there, and there were likely still teachers who remembered her. If she had family, they might be able to help us locate them. We had both her name and her photograph, and her appearance couldn’t have changed too much from those days. I was buoyed up by optimism. Somebody somewhere must know what this was all about – or at least have a theory.

I thought of Lisa, sunning herself on the beach or by a pool, or sipping cocktails on a hotel balcony somewhere down there in Florida while she and Don held hands and watched the sun go down. She’d be mortified to know that a couple of strangers were delving into her past two thousand miles away; but a man was dead and I was determined to find out why.

We had no alternative but to do the round trip to Rapid Falls by car, and the journeys back and forth would take the best part of two days. We weren’t earning any money in the meantime and we were daily racking up irrecoverable expenses. I had a long and no doubt miserable drive ahead of me, and there’d be an equally long and miserable drive back. I looked over at Lucy. She was playing Candy Crush again – online with one of her friends.

“C’mon, let’s go out,” I said to her.

“Out where?”

“I spotted a massage parlor down the road. Let’s go and spoil ourselves, then grab a bite to eat. We’ve got a long day ahead tomorrow and I need to get out of this room.”

“A massage and dinner at Denny’s,” she said. “What girl could ask for more?”

Chapter Twenty Four

Rapid Falls

There are three words to describe our journey to Rapid Falls – bleak, tedious and grueling. We set off at eight in the morning under a thick blanket of grey sky tinged with dull yellow. The landscape was flat, mainly devoid of vegetation, and gloomy. The driving wasn’t difficult, for the most part. The snow plows had done their jobs and the roads were mainly clear, but there were long backups along the way, mainly caused by traffic accidents, and sometimes the poor visibility brought the traffic to a crawl. Flurries of snow blew across the road in front of us and the pale whiteness of the landscape had a kind of mesmerizing effect. We sang along to the hits of days gone by on the radio. There was something more than slightly incongruous about listening to surfing songs by the Beach Boys amidst that empty, forlorn landscape. Lucy and I took it in turns, changing every hour or so. We had two stops along the way for food and one for gas. Our traveling companions were mainly truckers, their vehicles and brains apparently operating on autopilot. The journey was a little under three hundred miles and mostly as flat as a kitchen counter-top, but during the last thirty minutes or so we started to climb gradually until we reached a sign that proclaimed us to be entering Rapid Falls. Our elevation was twelve hundred and ten feet and the population was seven thousand and thirty-nine at the last count. I wondered how often they had to change that sign and whose job it was.

We stopped at a motel on the edge of town. It had an illuminated yellow sign, edged in red and it said this: ‘Vacancies’. I wasn’t surprised. I drove in there and pulled up in the parking lot.

“Don’t you think we should drive around a bit, do a recce, and see what else is available?” Lucy said.

“No.”

“There might be better places than this.”

“I don’t care. I want a bathtub or shower, hot water and a bed. I’m easily pleased.”

We went inside and the guy behind the counter started to ask us a bunch of questions about our preferences.

“Any kind of room,” I said; “just for the night.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just doing my job. Forty seven’s free. It’s sixty-eight plus tax,” he said.

The way I was feeling I wouldn’t have cared if it was a grand.

“Need help with your bags?’ he asked.

“We’ll manage,” I said.

Inside the room I collapsed on to the bed, face up. Lucy turned on the overhead light.

“No lights, Lucy,” I said. “Not just yet.”

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”

“I never want to see the color white again,” I said.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Is that why you were wearing your ski mask when you were driving?”

“It cuts out the glare,” she said. “Anyway, white’s not a color. White is the absence of all color. Just as when something appears black it’s because the surface is absorbing all color; so neither of them is actually a color itself.”

“And you know this because…?”

“I paid attention when I was in school. I was very good at physics; I was very good at a lot of things as a matter of fact.”

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Oh, it’s one of your quotes, isn’t it?”

“Not mine,” I said, “Alexander Pope’s. He was a poet quite a long time ago − before you were born. Even before I was born.”

“They’ve got a tub. I’ll run a bath,” Lucy said.

A few minutes later she came back. “It’s a big tub – wanna share it with me?”

I opened my eyes and found Lucy’s eyes close to mine and wearing an expression which suggested a refusal would be a very unwise.

“Love to,” I said.

So we sat in the tub and scrubbed each other’s backs and then we sat opposite each other and made patterns with our legs.

“Feeling better?” Lucy said.

“A lot, yes. Thanks. Sorry for being a grouch.”

It was five o’clock. My vague plan was to spend the next day interviewing the locals to learn what we could about Lisa, drive back to Minneapolis on Friday, and hopefully fly back home the same evening.

Neither of us felt like eating anything. I dug out my Somerset Maugham. The next story was ‘Rain’, about Sadie Thomson, the loose woman. They’d made a movie of it in the nineteen thirties, with Joan Crawford. I asked Lucy if she’d seen it.

“All men are pigs,” she said.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” I said, “shall I?”

Chapter Twenty Five

Bob and Gladys

George Cranby leafed through his files. “I think the only member of our staff that goes back as far as that is Mrs. Applebee,” he said.

Cranby was the High School Principal and we were seated in his office. It was a little after nine o’clock.

“Would you be able to arrange for us to see her?” I said. “We’re on rather a tight schedule, I’m afraid. We’re only in town for the day.”

“She’ll be free after morning assembly for a short while. Perhaps you could speak with her in the staff room.”

“It’s rather a private matter,” I said. “Is there anywhere we could see her on her own?”

Cranby looked at his wristwatch briefly. “Well, I can let you have the use of my room if you like, so long as it’s not going to take too long.”

“Thank you Mr. Cranby,” I said, “it’s much appreciated.”

Lucy and I waited outside Cranby’s office where his secretary, Gillian, kindly made us both a cup of coffee.

“So you’re from the Twin Cities,” she said.

“No, Boston actually,” said Lucy, although we’ve been staying in Minneapolis for a few days.”

Gillian smiled dreamily. “Isn’t it wonderful there?”

“I’m afraid we didn’t see much,” Lucy said. “We’re here on business.”

“Well you must come back here in summertime; there’s so much to see,” Gillian said. “I’ve never been to the East Coast. I’ve never been to the West Coast either, so I’ve never seen an ocean. But you know I feel so blessed living in such a wonderful place as this. Minnesota is so beautiful.”

“We had a wonderful drive up here yesterday,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lucy staring daggers at me. Cranby returned to the room and introduced us to Mrs. Applebee. “Gladys,” she said, as we shook hands.

Cranby showed the three of us into his room. “I’ll leave you to have a chat,” he said. He turned to Gladys. “Let me know when you’re done,” he said.

“It’s very good of you to see us,” I said. “I’m a private investigator and Lucy here is my assistant. We’re making inquiries about a former student here and we understand that you’re the only member of staff who has been here long enough to perhaps remember her. Her name’s Lisa. She’s married now − very happily I’m pleased to say − but before that her name was Burrows. Recently her husband became concerned because of something that was troubling her; deeply troubling her I think I can say. He couldn’t get her to open up about the cause for her concern but it’s believed to relate to something that happened before he met her; something which happened here, where she grew up. I want to assure you that our enquiries are purely designed to help her. She’s done nothing wrong and her husband’s devoted to her. We’ve come here to see what we can learn about her background. Our sole concern is to help her.”

“And anything you are able to tell us, Gladys, will be in the strictest confidence,” Lucy said.

“I’d be pleased to help, but I don’t remember any Lisa,” she said.

I took the two photographs of Lisa from my wallet and showed them to her. She recognized her instantly.

“Elizabeth,” she said. “Why of course – Elizabeth Burrows. Well it must have been what… fifteen years ago? Such a lovely young girl.”

“How well do you remember her?” I said.

“I remember her very well. You know we have time for all our students but Elizabeth was, well, different. She was very bright, very smart but lacking in self-confidence. She was teased a lot by the other children, I think; bullied too.”

“Why?”

“Because she wasn’t like them. Elizabeth came from a broken home. As I remember, her father had left when she was still a baby. She was an only child and her mother was, well her mother was an alcoholic. Elizabeth had a hard life, and she didn’t have the nice clothes and the video games and all the things that her class-mates had. Children can be very cruel to each other, you know? Luckily most of them grow out of it, but she was a lonely child…I remember that.”

“What else can you remember, Gladys?” Lucy said.

Gladys thought for a moment. “She liked poetry,” she said. “I remember she told me once that it gave her somewhere to go. In her head, she meant. Like an escape. I’m so pleased that she’s happy now. You know that adage – give me the child and I’ll give you the man? Most of us teachers really do care about the future of the kids we teach. But our influence outside the classroom is limited I’m afraid.”

“Do you know what happened to her when she left school?” I said.

“She was fifteen, or maybe sixteen, when I knew her. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about her life after that.”

“Do you know where her mother is living?” Lucy said.

“Oh, her mother’s dead. I’m sorry, I do remember hearing about that. Elizabeth had to quit school as a result. She would have been about seventeen by then, I think.”

“And you don’t know what happened to her afterwards?” I said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. This is a small town though; there must be hundreds of people who can tell you about that. I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help.”

“You’ve been very helpful already,” I said. “Thank you.”

As we got up and prepared to leave Gladys said: “Would you do something for me?”

“Of course,” I said.

“When you see Elizabeth… Lisa, would you remember me to her. Here, I’ll give you my number – if she ever wants to call me…”

“Thank you,” I said. “I will.”

Lucy and I headed for the town. We decided to stay together, and we visited, in turn, each store, restaurant, café and bar which lined the sides of the main street. No-one had heard of Lisa, or Elizabeth. No-one recognized her picture. On the corner of the street there was a general store. The signage proclaimed that it was established in nineteen seventy-three. It was called ‘Norman’s’. A rosy cheeked congenial man who looked to be in his mid-sixties was behind the counter.

“Hi,” I said, as Lucy and I entered. “Nice store you got here – looks like you sell everything under the sun.”

The man behind the counter beamed proudly.

“Are you Norman by any chance?” I said.

“I am that,” he said. He had a slight Irish lilt to his voice.

“So you’ve been running this place for over forty years?” I said.

Norman eyed me uncertainly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m a private investigator. I’m trying to locate a girl by the name of Elizabeth Burrows. She used to live here.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know anyone of that name,” he said.

I took out the photograph and showed him. His eyes softened when he looked at it. He said nothing. “Do you recognize her?” I said.

“I don’t know her – I never seen her. Excuse me.” He turned to deal with a customer.

Lucy and I headed back to the motel. “He’s lying,” I said. “They’re all lying. What the hell is going on in this place?”

“Maybe she never went into that shop,” Lucy said.

“What, none of them? Ever? Did you see his eyes when I showed him Lisa’s photo?”

Back at the motel room I poured myself a slug out of what was left of my bottle of whiskey. “They’ve closed ranks, Lucy; all of them. Well perhaps some of them really don’t know who she is, but a lot of them do. They’re trying to protect her from something – but from what?”

I called Gladys and left a message. I was sorry to bother her again but I needed to talk to her. Could she please call me as soon as it was convenient?

“Come on Lucy,” I said. “Let’s go grab some lunch.”

Chapter Twenty Six

Till Death

Gladys called soon after four o’clock. She invited Lucy and me to dinner at her home.

“My husband, Bob, would like to meet you both, and we’d like to show you some small town hospitality.”

Gladys offered to pick us up but I told her we’d find our way there. Yes, seven o’clock was fine, I told her; we’d look forward to it. Shortly before seven we headed over there.

“Kane, and Lucy, right? I’m Bob − welcome to our humble abode.”

We walked into a small but cozy living room. A log fire was burning in the hearth and a polished wooden staircase wound up from the living room to the second floor.

“Gladys is in the kitchen, doing what ladies do best,” he said. “Come on through.”

We walked into a long and narrow kitchen where all sorts of pots were bubbling on a wood-burning range.

“Hello, Gladys,” I said. “You’ll be sick of the sight of us by the time we leave.”

“I should’ve invited you this morning,” she said. “I must have forgotten my manners for a moment. Please make yourselves comfortable. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour. Bob, fix Lucy and Kane something to give an edge to their appetite.”

Bob raised his arms skyward, hands facing up and smiled. “Better do as the lady says. What’ll you have?” he asked.

“Whatever you’re having, Bob,” I said. “Lucy, how about you?”

“I think I’ll go and help Gladys in the kitchen,” she said. “Maybe I’ll learn some new recipes.”

Bob and I sat down by the fireside.

“Gladys told me why you’re here,” he said. “Did you find out what you needed to know today?”

“No,” I said. “That’s why I called Gladys again. I need her help…or maybe yours.”

Bob looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “If I can, I will. I’m afraid I never met the girl, nor heard of her. At least, I may have done back then – Gladys does tend to bring her work home with her if you know what I mean – but I don’t have any recollection about that girl now.”

“Okay, I’m not going to beat about the bush. Lucy and I have drawn a blank – we can’t find anyone who admits to ever knowing or even hearing about her, but I know that’s impossible. For some reason people in this town are pretending they don’t know who she is. Now, I’ve been thinking about this a lot this afternoon. I’m a stranger from out of town and nobody knows me from a rat’s ass. I’m snooping around asking questions and they don’t want to give me the answers. There must be a very good reason for that. I need someone to tell these people that I’m a friend – not an enemy. I’m here to help Elizabeth if I can. I’m going to let you into a secret. Lucy and I have come here from Boston via Minneapolis to try to help. We’re paying our own way. We’re spending our own money. We’re doing that because we care. There’s something about Elizabeth’s background here that I need to know about before I can find a way to help her. Bob, if you can, help me find a way to help her.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“How long have you lived in Rapid Falls, Bob?”

“All my life. Most folks here are the same.”

“You know Norman – the guy who runs the general store in town?”

“Of course. We go to the same church. Norman’s wife has passed away, I’m afraid, but Gladys and I still see him every week. Norman and me are both Rotary Club members too.”

“Norman knows Lisa – Elizabeth,” I said. “He knows what this is all about, I’m sure. Can you talk to him? Tell him he can trust me, and get him to open up?”

Bob thought for a moment. “Leave it to me,” he said. “When are you leaving?”

“We really ought to go tomorrow. We’ve got some important unfinished business back in Boston,” I said.

“Gladys,” Bob shouted at the kitchen, “we got enough for another mouth?”

“Sure,” she said.”

“Give me half an hour or so,” he said to me. “I’m going out for a bit, honey,” he called out. “Hold everything until I get back.”

Bob winked at me. “Norman can’t resist Gladys’s cooking,” he said.

*

Bob was back before eight. Norman was with him and Bob introduced us. The food was already on the table.

“Let’s eat,” said Gladys.

During the meal we made small talk and the subject of Lisa wasn’t mentioned at all. We talked of their lives out west and ours back east. We talked a little about my occupation and Lucy’s new career. When the dinner plates were cleared away Lucy went to help Gladys in the kitchen and Norman, Bob and I sat around the hearth.

“I’ve told Norman about the purpose of your visit out here and I’ve urged him to trust you,” Bob said. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you Norm?”

“In principle I don’t have a problem,” Norman said, “but I’d like to know a little bit more about Elizabeth’s problem. Bob says that there’s something been troubling her and you’re here to find out what it is.”

“I’m going to put my cards on the table, Norman. Recently Lisa’s – that’s Elizabeth’s − husband could tell that she was worried, distracted and behaving out of character and he hired Lucy and I to try to find out what was troubling her. We discovered that somebody has been blackmailing her and we’re sure that the subject of the blackmail relates to someone or something back here – something that happened before she met her husband some five or six years ago. If we can find out what it is I’m confident that we can put an end to it for good. Whatever you’re able to tell me will remain confidential; I give you my word on that.”

Norman was nodding sympathetically as I spoke. When I finished he leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, and said:

“I first met Lisa − I’m going to call her Lisa because that’s who she is now – when she was about eight years old. She came to my store and asked if I had any chores she could do. I’m sure you already know from Gladys about her background. Her mother wasn’t abusive to her or anything like that, but because of the booze she didn’t work much and Lisa pretty much had to fend for herself. Over the next few years Lisa and me grew closer than a gnat’s eyes. She was a cheerful kid; everybody liked her. The other storekeepers used to help her out too – feeding her, and giving her little jobs to do, and generally watching out for her.”

Norman looked across at me before continuing.

“After her mom died Lisa started hanging out with a young crowd and she got involved with a local guy. I guess she was about twenty when that happened. I didn’t see so much of her during those two or three years, but one day she told me she was going to get hitched. So she did too, and for a year or so, I guess, everything seemed okay. But the guy started knocking her about, Kane. I’d see her with puffed-up eyes, black eyes, bruises and stuff. She’d tell me she fell down, or had some kind of accident. Pretty soon I knew what was going on. Her husband was beating her – regular and pretty bad. Eventually it got so bad that she tried to leave him. She tried to leave him several times, as a matter of fact, but he wasn’t having any of it. He’d find her, wherever she was and drag her back.”

Gladys came in with some coffee and placed it on a small table in front of us. We were sat in a semi-circle, the glow from the flames of the wood fire making patterns on our faces. Gladys left without a word and went back into the kitchen. There was a round wooden table in there and I could see through the doorway that Lucy was sitting there and Gladys was showing her albums of snapshots.

Norman sniffed. “Anyways, I tried to encourage her to get a divorce; we all did. But she told us that he wouldn’t let her go. If she tried to talk to him about it he’d beat her something terrible. She said he told her that when they wed she took a vow to stay with him till death, and she wasn’t going nowhere. She could run to the far corners of the earth and he’d find her and bring her back.”

Norman stopped to take a sip from his coffee mug. There was a tension in the air that was palpable. The only sound was the crackling of the logs on the fire and the murmur of voices coming from the kitchen.

“Then things got so bad that we encouraged her to make a formal complaint to the police. The guy was arrested and Lisa came to stay with me and my wife for a while. The matter went to court and they put a restraining order on her husband – he wasn’t allowed to go within five hundred feet of her. After a while she moved to her own place, and things were quiet. But she’d tell me he’d park opposite her house every night and just stare in there. She was frightened, but he wasn’t breaching the order and the police said there was nothing they could do.”

Norman sighed and rubbed the back of his forearm across his eyes. He took another sip of his coffee.

“Then one day she got home and he was sitting there in her living room. She never had a chance to run. He beat her real bad. I’ve no doubt he would’ve killed her if a neighbor hadn’t heard her screaming and called the police. They took him away that night and they took Lisa to the hospital. He was charged with aggravated assault and Lisa was supposed to be a witness. But one day she turned up at my place in her old Corvette. What little she had was in the trunk. She told me she was getting out. She told me she’d have to cut all ties with Rapid Falls and that meant she’d never be able to come back and never be able to see any of us again. She told me she’d find a place far away. Before she left she made me promise her something.”

“He’ll come looking for me Norm,” she said. “He won’t ever give up. If anyone ever comes looking for me here or asking questions about me I want you to promise you won’t tell them anything. Just tell them you don’t know me.”

Norman looked over at me. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve again.

“After she left we all got together – all her friends – and we made a pact. That’s why when you asked me about Lisa this morning I said I didn’t know her. I ain’t never seen hide nor hair of her since she left, and that’s all I can tell you Mr. Kane.”

There was silence for a few minutes. Norman stared into the glowing embers of the fire.

“What was his name, Norman? What was the husband’s name?” I said.

He looked across at me. “Cody,” he said, disdainfully. “Cody Breen.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Making Plans

“So now I guess I’ve broken that promise I made to Elizabeth all those years ago,” Norman said. “But if some good comes of it Lisa will understand. And what I told you ain’t going outside these four walls, right?”

I nodded. “I’ve got some news for you that’ll help set your mind at rest Norman. Cody Breen was stabbed to death in a correctional facility near Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago. He won’t be a threat to Lisa anymore.”

Norman put his hands up to cover his face. He started to sob, almost soundlessly. “I’m sorry” he said, “just give me a few minutes.” He went outside to the porch and closed the door behind him.

It was ten when we left Gladys and Bob’s house and made our way back to the motel. I’d already told Lucy the gist of what I’d learned from Norman, but she wanted to know about it in detail. When we got back to the room I told her.

“Why are there animals like that in the world?” she said. “How can one human being treat another one like that?”

“It’s all about possession and control, Lucy. Often an abuser like Cody is suffering from low self-esteem. People like that sometimes try to bolster their egos by trying to impose their will on others. But in this case it seems likely that Cody was psychopathic. Psychopaths care about nobody but themselves. They have no emotion, no empathy for others. It’s a psychological illness, and some people are born that way. Then again, maybe Cody himself was the product of an abusive upbringing. I guess we’ll never know.”

“But we know why Lisa was being blackmailed now,” she said.

“Cody must have told Delmar about Lisa’s disappearing act and perhaps her bigamous remarriage when they were in prison together. Since both of them are dead now we won’t ever know all the details.”

“But how did Delmar track Lisa down to Boston?”

“That’s probably another thing we’ll never know. Maybe Cody already knew where she was somehow and told Delmar. Or maybe Delmar hired someone to find out when he came out of prison. A search of marriage records would be a start. Lisa was still using her birth name when she married Don. But there are almost endless possibilities – she and Don might have been spotted somewhere else when they were on one of their vacations. Those things really don’t matter anymore. The important thing is that now we know we can ensure that Lisa is never troubled about it again.”

“We have to find a way to let her know about Cody’s death,” Lucy said, “to put her mind at rest.”

“Well find a way to do that.”

“So Lisa’s a bigamist. Or she was. Is she still one, even though Cody’s dead?”

“I don’t suppose the finer points really matter, do you? From what I’ve heard tonight I don’t think any court would hand down more than a token penalty; maybe a small fine. But there’s no need for anyone but Lisa and us to ever know about it.”

“What about Don?” Lucy said.

“I think it’s up to Lisa. Maybe when she finds out that Cody’s dead she’ll think about telling him. But she’s gone to great lengths to prevent Don knowing about her miserable past. I don’t see how it will help anything if he were to find out now. And remember, he told us he didn’t want to know.”

“But this case isn’t finished yet, is it?” Lucy said. “Because we still don’t know who murdered Delmar…or why. We still have two possible theories. I hope it had nothing to do with Don – I think Lisa’s had enough misery in her life without having to face the prospect of her husband – her second husband – being indicted for murder.”

“I hope you’re right too, Lucy.”

“So do you think we can catch a flight home tomorrow night? If we leave here early in the morning, we should be able to make it.”

“No, I want one more night in Minneapolis,” I said.

“Because you’ve grown so fond of the place?”

“I want to see Atterbury again.”

“Do you think that’s really necessary? I thought he said he’d call us if he found out anything.”

“But when we spoke to him we didn’t know what we know now,” I said.

“But how does that make a difference?” Lucy asked me.

“Some criminals,” I said, “a small proportion, may be beyond redemption. But many of them have boundaries they’re not prepared to cross. A thief may justify his actions to himself in various ways – for example, by telling himself that it’s only an insurance company that’s going to suffer in the long run. But such a person may not condone robbery, blackmail, or kidnapping. And the majority of criminals – even hardened criminals – are often horrified by crimes against women or children. Predators of young children – like pedophiles – often need to be segregated from the other prisoners out of fear of reprisals. And violent crimes against women are frowned upon by many of them.”

Lucy thought about this for a moment. “I see what you’re getting at,” she said.

“Suppose somebody knows something about the blackmail,” I said. “They may not be willing to divulge what they know. But if they find out about the background to the crime – the fact that at the very root of it was a hideously violent and abusive husband, they may well have a change of heart.”

“Especially if they also know that Delmar may have been double-crossed and killed by Barbara,” Lucy said. “Then they may be more likely to reveal what they know about her connection with the case.”

“Exactly; I think it’s worth an extra night in Minneapolis to put Atterbury fully in the picture, don’t you?”

“After finding out about the dreadful way Lisa was treated by Cody I’ll agree to anything that might help to put the blackmailers away,” she said. “However many of them there are.”

“Me too. And that brings me to another matter. We’ve yet to find out whether Withers may have played a part in this. If Barbara was responsible for Delmar’s death, she couldn’t have been acting alone. So far Calley hasn’t been able to find out anything about either Barbara or Withers.”

It suddenly occurred to me that he hadn’t even asked me why I wanted to know. I often wondered how Calley had lasted as long as he had in the police.

“It will help if we can find out more details about them,” I said: “ID numbers, dates of birth etcetera. It occurred to me that if Withers is the tenant of that apartment then the management are likely to have that information – or if not the management then the owner of the apartment – the landlord. When we get back we’d better look into that.”

“How about Barbara’s ID?” Lucy said, “Is there any way we can find that out, do you think?”

“Well the hospital is bound to know.”

“The hospital’s a...”

I looked at Lucy, cocking my head to one side and putting my hands on my hips. “And before you point out that a hospital is a building and therefore can’t know anything, you know perfectly well what I mean.”

Lucy poked her tongue out at me.

“Do you think we’ve still got a chance to recover the money that we assume Lisa handed over to the blackmailers?”

“Well we know Delmar didn’t have it. I doubt she’d have paid the money into a bank account. Maybe in due course we’ll find it in Barbara’s safe deposit box.”

“Or the police will,” Lucy said.

“I’m hoping that the police won’t need to be told about Lisa’s blackmail,” I said, “otherwise the whole story will have to come out – including the bigamy.”

“But how would we get access to Barbara’s safe deposit box – assuming she even has one?”

“I still haven’t thought that one out. Why don’t you dig out the laptop and find out what weather the Lord has in store for us tomorrow? I can’t say I’m looking forward to the drive back much.”

“Or indeed, at all,” Lucy said. She gave me a sideways look and opened her mouth, cheekily, running her tongue over her bottom lip and raising her eyebrows.

“Or at all,” I conceded.

“Ooh,” Lucy exclaimed from the bed where she was using the laptop in the way in which it was intended, “It’s going to be sunny tomorrow.”

Things were looking up. I dug out my bottle of Jack Daniels from the recesses of the closet where Lucy had attempted to hide it.

“And now,” I said, “I’m going to permit myself a celebratory drink.”

“Isn’t it a bit late?” Lucy said.

“It’s never too late for a celebratory drink,” I replied.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Taking Stock

The drive back to Minneapolis was a lot quicker and easier than the drive to Rapid Falls had been. Partly that was due to the weather and partly, I guess, because my mood was buoyed up by the success of our venture. As we sped along, largely unencumbered, I handed Lucy an envelope that Gladys had given me.

“Gladys gave me this note for Lisa,” I said, taking it out of my inside pocket. “Maybe you can keep it in your purse for the time being.”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know – good luck for the future or something like that, I guess.”

“They were a nice couple, weren’t they – Bob and Gladys?”

“We wouldn’t have got far without them,” I said. “We wouldn’t have got anywhere without them.”

“Atterbury, the Applebees,” said Lucy. “We’ve been very lucky really, haven’t we?”

“Let’s hope our luck holds,” I said. “So we can put this whole darn thing to bed.”

“I thought at one time there was some kind of malevolent force at work,” Lucy said, “trying to thwart all our efforts. But now we’re on the right track, it’s almost as if good is triumphing over evil. It’s rather encouraging isn’t it – and comforting − when you think about it like that?”

“We’re not home yet,” I said. “We’re going to need some more luck.”

“What’s our next move when we get back to Boston,” Lucy said, “assuming Barbara’s still in the hospital?”

“Well, Jill’s already in the process of profiling the DNA samples I gave her. One is Don’s of course and the other is Barbara’s. The police examination of any DNA found at the apartment in South Boston is likely to take some time, but Jill will have hers done in a few more days, I hope. I already have the profile of the female DNA from the cold case, so I’ll soon know if that matches Barbara’s. It’s probably a long-shot, but you never know. But it’ll be a while longer, I guess, before we can compare both with the DNA from the apartment where Delmar met his death. Fingerprint examination ought to be quicker, but with no prints on file for Barbara or Don that’s not going to help the police much.”

“What if the DNA from Barbara matches that from the cold case?”

“Then we’re in business. An anonymous tip to the police will tell them where to look for Barbara. If she’s still in the hospital, then a tip about where she’s been living too. A police search of that apartment would reveal Delmar’s personal effects, and bingo. No doubt the police would then pull out all the stops to get the profiling of the DNA from Delmar’s apartment speeded up.”

“Well let’s hope her DNA matches the other crime scene.”

We drove on for a few miles in silence before Lucy spoke again.

“And what about Don?”

“Well I don’t expect Don’s DNA to match anything found at the cold case crime scene – although there was male DNA found on a couple of beer bottles there. So in Don’s case we’ll have to wait for the DNA results from Delmar’s apartment. When that’s done, only I will know if any male DNA found there is Don’s.”

Lucy and I exchanged glances.

“And what if it does? Will you tell the police?”

“Well that’s another one of those moral dilemmas Lucy. You’re going to find out that these tend to crop up quite often in this line of work. On the one hand you could argue that Delmar was engaged in a dirty business and got what was coming to him. And then there’s Lisa to consider – we can only imagine the devastating effect that it would have on her if Don was implicated in Delmar’s murder. But on the other hand, we can’t have people taking the law into their own hands, and meting out their own idea of justice, or the streets would be full of vigilantes. We have a rule of law in this country. It makes the difference between a civilized society and an anarchic one.”

“Oh, I do hope he wasn’t involved,” said Lucy. “It’s very worrying.”

“Well even if Don’s DNA is found in Delmar’s apartment, it’s doubtful that it would be enough to convict Don of his murder,” I said.

“But how would he possibly explain it away?”

“DNA isn’t the all-powerful forensic tool that a lot of people think it is,” I said. “For one thing, a person’s DNA on an object may be enough to prove that he touched it; but there’s no scientific way of proving when he touched it, or where.”

“Sorry, I don’t quite understand,” Lucy said.

“Let’s say that a person’s DNA is found on a moveable object − like a beer bottle for example. The presence of the DNA can’t establish where the bottle was when it was touched. The same is true of fingerprints, of course. We both know that Delmar’s cell phone is in Barbara’s apartment. It’s highly likely that Delmar’s fingerprints are on the phone. But that doesn’t mean that Delmar has ever been to Barbara’s apartment.”

“No, I see,” Lucy said. “But suppose the DNA is found on a wall, a door or a piece of furniture – or a bathtub?”

“There’s still the question of when and how it got there. Supposing Don’s DNA was on something inside that apartment; even in the bathroom. He could just say that he knew where Delmar lived, because I told him. He believed that Delmar was blackmailing his wife. He went there to confront him, but when he got there he found Delmar dead in the bathtub. He went in to see if he was still alive, but when he discovered he was dead he panicked and left.”

“Do you think a jury would believe that?”

“He only has to raise a doubt, Lucy. The judge would be bound to tell the jury that in the absence of any other evidence linking him with the death it was highly speculative. I imagine that any defense attorney worth his salt wouldn’t have too much trouble with a case like that. Plus, he’d have the obvious sympathy of the jury.”

“Still, it would be better if his DNA isn’t found there,” Lucy said.

“Yes, of course. Although the absence of it wouldn’t prove that he wasn’t connected to the murder either. Supposing he’d been wearing gloves? But of course, if there’s no DNA then there’d be nothing to link him evidentially to the death, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

“I feel a bit better about it now,” Lucy said. “But if Barbara’s DNA is found in Delmar’s apartment and the cold case apartment, together with the fact that Delmar’s things are in hers, she’d be dead in the water, wouldn’t she? Metaphorically speaking of course.” Lucy giggled.

“It would certainly provide a strong circumstantial case against her, I agree. But even all that might not be enough.”

“But why?”

“Partly because she’d no doubt come up with some plausible explanation for those things; but mainly I think the Defense would have a field day with the manner of death of both victims.”

“You mean because her attorney would argue that she couldn’t possibly have done it because she would have been physically incapable of overpowering the victims by herself?”

“Exactly. The prosecutor would need to have some forensic theory as to how she could have done it. We haven’t had the autopsy report for Delmar yet – it’s possible that he may have been drugged or incapacitated in some other way. But for the cold case there’s no evidence to suggest that the victim was incapacitated before he was killed.”

“Well, that’s not really our problem, is it? It’s our job to investigate the case and then let things take their natural course.”

“That’s exactly right – as a private investigator you can’t afford to let emotion get in the way. We have to stay neutral and objective. We mustn’t let other considerations cloud our judgment.”

We were about halfway back and we’d arrived at a truck stop, so we went inside to freshen up and get something to eat.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Solja

Being creatures of habit we decided to stay at the same motel.

“Better the devil you know,” Lucy said.

The same guy was behind the desk but he showed no sign that he recognized us. He started the same apparently pointless rigmarole of studying his half-empty register.

“How about you give us the same room we had before?” I said. “Twenty-three. We got kind of attached to it.”

“I’m checking availability,” he said, without looking up.

Five minutes later I was unlocking the door to number twenty- three.

“What’s with that guy?’ Lucy said.

“I guess there’s not a whole lot for him to do,” I said. “Probably feels that he’s got to justify his salary somehow.”

We’d made good time; it was only a little after three o’clock. As soon as we were settled I called Atterbury. He didn’t pick up so I left a message. I told him we had new information that might assist with his efforts to find out more about Delmar’s trip to Boston. We were back in town, but flying out early tomorrow. I hoped we could hook up.

I had the Highlander until noon the next day, so I left it in the motel parking lot. We might need it to meet up somewhere with Atterbury. Neither of us felt like venturing out again so we ordered some food in and spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for Atterbury to call. At six I telephoned his cell phone again. He didn’t pick up so I left another message. I told him that we had some wheels now and we could meet him anywhere that was convenient.

As the evening wore on, with no word from Atterbury, Lucy started to become anxious.

“You don’t think anything’s happened to him, do you – I mean because of all this?”

“I don’t think there’s any cause for alarm,” I said. “When I called and left a message for him on Tuesday it was several hours before he got back to me.”

At eight we strolled down to the local diner for a snack. We didn’t stay away long in case Atterbury decided to turn up at the motel unannounced; but when we got back there was no sign of him. At midnight we decided to turn in for the night.

“I hope he hasn’t got into any trouble,” Lucy said. “You know, by going around and asking questions.”

“Maybe he’s decided to leave the whole thing alone,” I said. “He’s been trying to stay out of trouble, and he probably doesn’t mix with the kind of people he’d need to talk to anymore.”

“If anything’s happened to him it’ll be our fault,” Lucy said.

“He’s a grown man; I’m sure he knows how to look after himself – and it would be silly to blame ourselves. Nobody forced him to come here,” I said. It was something of an anti-climax though, and I lay awake for a long time before I was able to drop off to sleep.

My cell phone rang just after seven o’clock in the morning.

“Hi, it’s Atterbury,” he said.

Lucy stirred when the phone rang and now she sat up in bed. “It’s Atterbury,” I mouthed to her silently, pointing at the phone. Lucy let out an audible sigh of relief.

“I got somebody who wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Where do you want to meet,” I said.

“Are you in the same place?”

“Yes, and the same room.”

“We’ll come over there. Give us an hour.” He hung up.

“It looks like we may be in luck,” I said to Lucy. “He’s bringing someone to see us. Better get yourself up; he’ll be here in an hour.”

Atterbury’s companion was driving a navy blue Chrystler Imperial which had been lovingly restored. When he stepped out of the car I saw he was wearing an Abercrombie coat with a hood. The coat matched the color of the car almost exactly. He was a few years older than Atterbury. He was short and had a swarthy complexion and jet-black, lank hair swept back over his scalp. They came to the door and Atterbury introduced us.

“Soldier?” I said.

“Solja.” He spelled the name for me.

“You guys want some breakfast?” I said.

They looked at each other. “Sure…thanks,” Solja said. We walked over to Denny’s and settled in a booth.

“We were a bit worried about you when we didn’t hear from you, Atterbury,” Lucy said.

Atterbury looked nonplussed by the remark. “Solja was a friend of Delmar’s,” he said. “He knows a bit more’n I do about the case.”

The coffee arrived. “Let’s hear what you got,” I said to Solja.

“I hope you get the asshole that killed Delmar,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I know about it. Delmar had picked up some information from some guy when he was inside. He thought he could make plenty from it. There was some babe who was married to a rich guy back east and Delmar was planning some kind of shakedown. He didn’t tell me any details. He came to me coz I got contacts over there. See, he didn’t know exactly where to find her. Delmar didn’t even know how to use a computer, man, or any of that shit. So I asked around for him and eventually a guy I know over in Boston found this broad who knew how to do things like that – you know, locate people. But she wanted a whole lotta notes to do that and Delmar didn’t have nothing. So then he offered her a piece of the action instead. After about, I don’t know, maybe a month, this woman located the chick and Delmar headed off to the East Coast.”

“Do you know who this woman was? Do you know her name?”

“No, man, I never asked him about that.”

“What about your friend – the one who put him in touch with her?”

“Sorry, I can’t tell you that. I don’t want the dude in any trouble.”

“After Delmar headed off did you have any more contact with him?”

“I didn’t hear nothing man, till Atterbury called me and told me Delmar had bought it. Delmar was no saint man, but he didn’t deserve to get taken out like that,” he said, shaking his head.

“Okay, Solja. Thanks for your help. Let’s eat some breakfast.”

Back in the room Lucy went on line to book our flight home. There was no point hanging around anymore. She booked us a flight leaving early afternoon.

“So you decided not to tell Atterbury what Norman told you?” Lucy said.

“There didn’t seem to be any point. I think we’ve got all the information we’re likely to get here. Anyway we both know who the woman was that Delmar contacted. He was just a small-time hustler who got out of his depth,” I said.

*

We were home by early evening. After I unpacked I dropped around to Lucy’s place. She was just putting the finishing touches to some pan-fried grouper with lemon grass and some lightly boiled potatoes with mint dressing, which made a change from the ubiquitous rice of late. We’d even eaten wild rice at Gladys’s house. I’d picked up a bottle of sauvignon at the liquor store after I dropped Lucy off, and it was tucked under my arm. Lucy eyed it suspiciously.

“I think we can relax for a bit, don’t you?” I said. “We’ve had a fairly productive few days. Tomorrow I’m going to see what else I can find out about Withers. You should call the hospital and get an update on Barbara.”

“Then what?” she asked.

“There’s nothing much more we can do. It’s likely to be another week until I get the DNA results from Jill. I guess we’ll just have to bide our time and be patient. You can concentrate on organizing the new office,” I said.

Lucy called the hospital after dinner while I loaded up the dishwasher. She had quite a long chat, and when she’d finished she came over to the kitchen where I was brewing some coffee. She had a concerned expression on her face.

“What is it Lucy?”

“Barbara,” she said. “She’s being discharged on Monday.”

Chapter Thirty

A Race against Time

“So why the long face,” I said.

“I thought you were hoping she’d be kept there until we’d had a chance to get her DNA results from Jill. She might disappear when they discharge her and we might not be able to find her again.”

She had a point – I was fairly sure that the apartment where she was staying was only a temporary home. Now that the blackmail caper was over – at least for the time being − she might take off somewhere else.

“I don’t think we need worry for a while. If she’s had surgery they’re bound to have made a follow-up appointment for her at the hospital,” I said. “I’ll get Tony and June to keep an eye on her round the clock when she gets out. I’ll go to the apartment tomorrow and see if I can get some information from the management office.”

“Or at least from the people who work there,” Lucy said mischievously, “If not the office itself.”

I shook my head and raised my eyebrows at her. “I think that little joke’s wearing a bit thin now,” I said.

*

I arrived at the management office of the apartment building just before ten in the morning. There was only one guy on duty there and he was watching Fox News on TV. I told him I was a friend of Paul Withers, from out of town. I’d been trying to reach him for a couple of days but without success.

“Mr. Withers is in India,” he said, “visiting his family.” He read the expression on my face and added, “His mother’s Indian as you probably know.”

“Yes.” I lied. “We haven’t been in touch for some time. Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“He left before Christmas – said he’d be back in about six weeks,” he said. “There’s a lady looking after his apartment while he’s away – a Miss Green. She may be able to tell you exactly when he’s coming back if you’d care to leave her a note.”

“Oh that’s okay. I guess I’ll just leave it until I’m in town again,” I said.

I drove home and called Calley on his cell phone.

“Just thought I’d give you a call and let you know I’m back from Minneapolis,” I said. “In case you’ve been worrying about me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re in my thoughts every waking moment – why don’t you tell me what you want.”

“I need you to get the forensic report on any DNA found in Delmar’s apartment. I have a lead on who might be responsible for his death and I need the result sometime before she expires of old age.”

“That ain’t in my hands,” he said. “You think anybody’s going to listen to me?”

“Well,” I said, “just follow it up – do the best you can?”

“You said ‘she’.”

“Full marks for paying attention,” I said.

“I’ll check on it tomorrow,” he said, “but you know how long these things take.”

He didn’t ask me what had happened in Minnesota, so I didn’t tell him. I went next door to Lucy’s instead.

“Paul Withers is in India,” I said, “according to the guy from the management office. He says he left before Christmas. Barbara’s looking after his apartment while he’s away. If what he says is true, then Withers is a red herring.”

“A what?” Lucy said.

“He couldn’t have been involved with the blackmail nor Delmar’s death. If he really did go to India,” I said.

“You could check with the Immigration Department, couldn’t you?”

“They won’t have any record of him leaving,” I said. “And even if they did they wouldn’t know where he was going. There are ways of checking through the airlines’ central computer system, but I rather think that would be beyond Calley’s capabilities.”

“At least it shows you were right about it not being Barbara’s permanent home.” Lucy said.

“But according to what the guy told me he’s due back soon, so it probably means we don’t have too much time to play with.”

I called Jill on her cell phone.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s Kane. I don’t want to hassle you, but how much longer until the DNA results will be ready? I think I may be running out of time. I’ve got a full DNA profile from a female from the police lab. Is it okay if I fax the details to you so you can make a comparison as soon as you’re ready?”

“No problem,” she said. “But it will be a few more days yet, I’m afraid.”

“I understand – but I told you it wasn’t urgent before. I think it is now.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said. “How’s your new assistant shaping up?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Give her my love,” Jill said.

“I’ll see you later,” I said to Lucy. “I’m going to fax the DNA report from the cold case to Jill.”

During the short but chilly walk back home I realized that we may be in a race against time. It was almost February and I didn’t want Barbara to slip through my fingers. If I was wrong about her connection with the cold case, then there probably wasn’t much I could do about it. The police forensics lab wouldn’t have anything for a while yet and I had no idea where she might go when she left Withers’ apartment. It wasn’t hopeless, of course. If the police needed to pick her up they’d no doubt be able to find her; but I wanted her around for a while longer to try to wrap the case up.

As soon as I got home I called Tony. “I hope you’re available at short notice. Barbara’s due to be discharged from hospital on Monday and I’m assuming she’ll go back to the apartment – at least for a few days. When she’s discharged I’ll need you and June to keep tabs on her day and night for a few days, or at least from early morning until late at night. She’s got a broken leg,” I said, “so I don’t suppose she’ll be going far – but the apartment’s not her permanent home and I don’t want to lose her.”

“Sure thing, boss; we’ll look after it for you. Let me know her time of discharge and we’ll get right over there.”

“Good, she’s got stuff in the apartment so I’m sure she’ll be going back there; hopefully for a few days at least.”

“We’re on it,” Tony said, and we hung up.

Chapter Thirty One

Dr. Sanjit

Nothing much happened for the next couple of days. Tony called on Monday to report that Barbara had arrived home in a taxi just after lunchtime. She had a brace on her leg and was walking with the aid of crutches. The remainder of Monday passed, then Tuesday. I heard nothing from Jill, nothing from Calley, and Tony only called to say he hadn’t seen Barbara. He’d been up to the apartment and listened outside. He’d heard the TV, that’s all. But on Wednesday everything suddenly changed. Tony called me at about five in the afternoon.

“An ambulance showed up about half an hour ago,” he said. “A woman was just brought out on a stretcher and I was pretty sure it was Barbara, even though she had an oxygen mask on. I went up to the apartment and confirmed it; the paramedics were just finishing up in there. You want me to stay here or follow them to the hospital?”

“Just confirm where they’re going to take her,” I said. “I’ll take it from there.”

Tony called back about fifteen minutes later. They were taking her back to Boston Medical. I called Lucy who was in the new office, bawling out one of the contractors about something.

“You better get back here,” I said. “There’s been a sudden and unexpected development.”

Less than ten minutes later Lucy turned up. I repeated what Tony had told me.

“My God, I wonder what happened,” she said.

“Search me – I thought she just had a couple of broken bones.”

“Do you want me to call the hospital?”

“No, we’re going to go there,” I said.

“To do what?”

“I doubt they’ll give you any information over the phone. It’s not the same as after the accident – you were a concerned witness; but this is different. We need to go there and tell a few lies. Try to find out what’s happened to her. We’ll tell them we’re working for the insurance company or something – either hers or the taxi driver’s – I doubt they’ll check if we appear to know about the accident, her injuries and her treatment. We’ll tell them we heard she’d been taken ill and want to know whether her present condition is connected to her recent accident.”

“Now?”

“No, we’ll leave it until the morning. They’re going to need time to examine her and make some kind of diagnosis.”

“Maybe she had a fall in the apartment,” Lucy said.

“Let’s wait and find out. In a way this is a godsend – I’ll be able to access the apartment again and see if I can discover if there’s any clue as to where Barbara comes from. I wasn’t looking for anything like that before – but I’ll have to be cautious. We don’t know exactly when Withers is coming back.”

*

We arrived at the hospital at eleven o’clock and went to the admissions reception. I handed one of my business cards to the receptionist – one that had ‘accident and personal injury investigations’ printed on it. We were asked to wait. After a couple of phone calls we were told that doctor Sanjit would be down to see us shortly.

Doctor Sanjit was a tall and strikingly handsome Indian in his mid-thirties. He asked us to accompany him to a consultation room.

“We’re making enquiries about Miss Green on behalf of the insurers,” I said, careful not to say whose insurers, “in connection with her recent traffic accident. We understand she was discharged from hospital on Monday but was re-admitted yesterday. We’re enquiring as to whether there is any connection between the fractures that Miss Green sustained in the accident and her re-admission yesterday.”

“Miss Green has developed a subdural hematoma,” Sanjit said. “She’s presently being closely monitored. At this stage I’m not in a position to confirm that this arose from her recent accident, but it seems likely that it did.”

“Wouldn’t that have been picked up on her admission last week?” I said.

“Not necessarily. As you may know from your line of work, Mr. Kane, a subdural hematoma is a collection of blood outside the brain, usually caused by a head injury, from a fall, a motor accident or an assault. Blood collects between the layers of tissue that surround the brain. In a subdural hematoma, bleeding occurs between the outermost layer, the dura, and the next layer, the arachnoid. The bleeding in a subdural hematoma is therefore under the skull but outside the brain, not in the brain itself − but as blood accumulates, pressure on the brain increases. The pressure on the brain causes a subdural hematoma's symptoms. If pressure inside the skull rises to very high level, a subdural hematoma can lead to unconsciousness, and sometimes death.”

“But in this case why would the symptoms have been delayed for so long after the accident?” I said.

“People with a bleeding disorder and people who take blood thinners are more likely to develop a subdural hematoma, even after a relatively minor head injury. But the symptoms of subdural hematoma depend mostly on the rate of bleeding: a person may appear normal for days after a head injury, but slowly become confused and then unconscious several days later. This results from a slower rate of bleeding, causing a slowly enlarging subdural hematoma. In very slow-growing subdural hematomas, there may be no noticeable symptoms for more than two weeks after the bleeding starts. It’s probable that Miss Green fits into this category of case. I say that because she was able to confirm, after readmission yesterday, that she hadn’t suffered any other head injury, and the symptoms she described were consistent with that diagnosis.”

“And what symptoms were they?” I asked.

“Miss Green telephoned the hospital yesterday afternoon complaining of a persistent headache, drowsiness and nausea. After reviewing her hospital notes a decision was taken to readmit her immediately.”

“Is it too early to give a prognosis?”

“She’ll be treated conservatively initially. She’ll be given drugs to assist in the coagulation of the blood. She may have been on blood-thinning medication for some reason – she was rather confused when she was readmitted yesterday and we have no information either from her or from any other medical source about this. If that doesn’t work, and the symptoms persist or worsen, then we may have to consider a burr hole in order to drain the blood and thereby relieve the pressure on the brain. I’m afraid it would be unwise for me to give you any long-term prognosis at this stage. Patients can vary considerably from one case to another.”

“So even the CT scan on her admission failed to detect the hematoma?” Lucy said, eager to have at least some input to the conversation.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Sanjit said. “An MRI scan would have given a more detailed picture. But the history of the accident from both the patient and the witnesses didn’t seem to merit that at the time.”

“Well, we must let you get back to work, doctor. Thank you very much for your assistance. Let’s hope she makes a complete recovery.”

Doctor Sanjit nodded and led us out of the room.

“Well,” Lucy said as we left the hospital, “whatever happens it’ll give us more time to get the DNA analysis finished.”

“You’re all heart,” I said.

“She’s a blackmailer and probably a murderer – maybe even a serial killer – so it’s hard to feel any sympathy for her.”

“I agree,” I said. “Did you hear about the guy who was found asphyxiated by a mouthful of cornflakes? The police thought that was probably the work of a cereal killer.”

Lucy thumped me on the arm.

Chapter Thirty Two

DNA

When we got home I called Tony again. “I need you back on the job, Tony. It turns out that Barbara’s likely to be in the hospital for some time. I want to get back in the apartment for another search, but Withers, who’s either the principal tenant or the owner, is due back at any time. I need you to keep it under surveillance again until I’m satisfied that it’s safe. I’m afraid I don’t know what he looks like, though, so you’ll probably have to keep an eye on the actual apartment rather than the entrance to the building.”

“No problem, boss. After a rather slow start this is turning out to be a pretty good month. Still, I don’t want you to spend your money unnecessarily – I think I’ve got a better idea.”

“Okay, what?” I said.

“What’s the guy’s name again?”

“Paul Withers,” I said.

“I’ll tell the management office that I’ve got a package for him which he’ll need to sign for – I’ll tell them I tried to deliver it but no-one’s home. I’ll ask them to contact me when he gets back.”

“Not a bad idea Tony – you’ll need some credentials.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a trick I’ve used before – I’ve got a uniform and a business card with a fake company name on it.”

“You’re a man with many hidden talents, Tony,” I said.

“Pity nobody’s paying us for any of this,” Lucy said, after I hung up.

“You can say that again,” I said, “only please don’t.”

“When do you think Jill will have the results?”

“Hopefully by the weekend.”

“I wonder if Don and Lisa are still on vacation.”

“I hope not – we’re still waiting for his check,” I said.

“I could do with a little bit more to get everything in the office finished,” Lucy said.

“Why? Do you want to hire a window cleaner?”

Lucy smiled. “Among other things,” she said.

It was six o’clock when Jill phoned. The analysis was finished and the results were being collated. If I’d like to come to the lab at eleven o’clock tomorrow, everything should be ready. I called Lucy and told her. Jill and Lucy had known each other for years, but Lucy had never been to the lab before. I wondered whether there was a match. If not, then the investigation into Delmar’s murder would no doubt drag on at a snail’s pace whilst we waited for the crime lab to process their samples. Surely the fingerprint examination had been done by now, I thought. I made a mental note to call Calley in the morning. It was a shame I had no-one else to go to, but Calley was my only link to the police investigation.

Almost as soon as I put the phone down Don called. They were back from their vacation. He and Lisa had enjoyed a wonderful holiday. He’d love for us to meet her.

“Are you free for dinner over the weekend?” he asked. “I’ve told Lisa I used to work with your brother and that I met you both through him. I’m sure she and Lucy will hit it off, and it’s a small way of saying thanks for your help. No mention of the recent investigation obviously.”

“Thanks, Don,” I said. “We’d love to come.” Maybe he’d bring his checkbook with him, I thought.

“Ruth’s at eight on Saturday. Is that okay for you both?”

“Perfect, Don,” I said. “We’ll look forward to it.” I didn’t like to tell him I didn’t know Ruth or where her restaurant was – I’d ask Lucy; she was bound to know.

I walked over to Lucy’s place and told her.

“We’re driving over to Cambridge in the morning. Jill’s completed the DNA testing.”

“Is there a match?”

“I don’t know yet – we’ll find out tomorrow. And Don called. He wants us to meet Lisa. We’re going to Ruth’s, wherever that is.”

“Oh it’s fabulous. It’s a steak-house at the old city hall. I went there last year.”

“You didn’t invite me.”

“You were out of town,” she said. “How was their vacation?”

“Seems it all went very well.”

“You want some coffee?” Lucy said.

“Sure.”

“I wish there was some way of letting Lisa know about Cody,” she said. “And that Delmar won’t be bothering her again and that Barbara …”

“We’ll have to think of a way. Let’s just enjoy the evening tomorrow,” I said. “I plan to search Barbara’s apartment over the weekend. I don’t really expect to find anything – I did a pretty thorough job before, but I may have missed something. Let’s see what Jill’s come up with first.”

*

We arrived at the Complete Forensics laboratory at eleven. Jill came down to meet us. She hugged Lucy.

“I haven’t seen you in ages,” she said. “How’s the new job? I hope Kane’s not bossing you around too much.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Lucy said.

We went upstairs to Jill’s office. We sat down and she picked up a sheaf of papers from the desk. I think she was enjoying the suspense.

“As far as the female DNA sample and the DNA report you faxed me, there’s no doubt that there’s a match,” she said, handing a duplicate copy of the report to me. “You’ll see that in the report it’s worded ‘could be’, but that’s how these reports are always worded. If you read on, you’ll see the probability – in this case it’s over a billion to one.”

“So it is a match then – why does the report only say ‘could have been secreted from the same person’?” Lucy said.

“It’s just a matter of being cautious. Like fingerprints, nobody has ever found identical prints from two different people and it’s presumed we never will, but unless you examine everyone in the world you can never be scientifically certain. DNA analysis is a much newer science than fingerprinting. But you can rest assured that this DNA came from the same person.”

“Phew,” I said. “That’s a real breakthrough for me.”

“Did the swab you sent me come from the crime scene?” Jill said.

“No, the police are investigating that and they haven’t produced their results yet – or if they have I haven’t been told. But I’ve a good reason to believe that they’ll find this lady’s DNA there.”

“And if they do is it a slam dunk?”

I thought about it for a minute. “Not quite,” I said. “But together with your analysis of the DNA from the cold case it will make a strong prima facie case.” I thought about it again. “There’s another link, you see? The manner of death in each homicide was not only similar it was highly unusual, but …”

Jill waited.

“But there’s a problem,” I said.

“Which is?” Jill said.

“I’d better tell you the details – maybe it’s something you could think about?”

Jill looked at her watch. “Okay. I’ve allocated half an hour for this meeting – why don’t you tell me about it?”

“The victim in both homicides was found dead lying in a bathtub full of water. There were no physical signs of injury. Now I haven’t yet had the full results of the autopsy from the recent homicide, other than the fact that the cause of death couldn’t be determined, but I have full details of the other case. No external injury, no discernable physical ailments, such as a heart attack, stroke etcetera. There was some water in the airways, but insufficient to be conclusive that the victim drowned. No trace of any drug was found, neither was there a significant amount of alcohol in the blood or organ tissues. The cause of death was presumed to be drowning, but there was no explanation as to how it had occurred. The report said death was instantaneous. The victim was twenty-nine and apparently healthy. In the recent homicide the victim was a similar age, maybe a year or two older. There were no visible marks on him either to indicate that a struggle had taken place.”

“Okay,” Jill said. “So I take it that what you have – or expect to have – is the presence at the scene of the same woman, but of course, there’s no way of establishing when the DNA was secreted – is that the problem?”

“That’s part of it,” I said. “But there’s another puzzle. I have no evidence that anyone other than this woman was involved in the murders. I’ve seen her – we’ll call her Barbara – she’s of medium height, slim build, now in her mid-thirties I think. I can’t think of any circumstances where she’d have been strong enough to have carried out the killings.”

Jill looked at me. “I have a few questions,” she said. “Can you describe the relative size of the bath and the deceased in each case?”

“In the recent case I’d estimate the bath to be five to five-and-a-half feet. The deceased was about five nine, maybe a little taller. Slim build – I guess about one sixty. I don’t have those details for the other case. They’re probably in the papers somewhere but I haven’t looked at that – is it important?”

“One more question,” Jill said. “Was the foot of the bathtub against the wall, or was there room for a person to stand in that position?”

“I can’t answer that in relation to the first case without looking at the crime-scene photographs again. In the other case the tub – it was one of those Victorian replicas on fancy legs – was in the middle of the bathroom.”

I looked up and saw that Jill was smiling. “There’s a theory that might solve this puzzle for you,” she said.

Chapter Thirty Three

Sudden Death

“Exactly a hundred years ago a man named George Joseph Smith was hanged in England for the murder of his wife, who had apparently accidentally drowned in her bath,” Jill said. “During his trial it was disclosed that she was the third of his wives who had died in this way. At the inquest into the first of these deaths the jury had returned a verdict that she’d drowned accidentally after suffering a fit. But by the third death the police were sure that she, like the others, had been murdered. There was no direct evidence that Smith had been physically present in any of the cases – he’d carefully concocted alibis for himself. In each case he said that his wife was taking a bath and he later discovered that she had died. But as Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness’. Well, to lose three wives in a strikingly similar way seemed downright sinister.

“The problem for the prosecution was that there was no explanation as to how Smith had accomplished these murders without leaving any marks on the body indicating a struggle or fierce resistance. The answer was provided by a Dr. Spilsbury, a celebrated pathologist and expert witness for the prosecution in a number of high profile cases of the time. He postulated that Smith had sharply pulled the ankles of the victims resulting in the sudden immersion of the head under the water. That, he said, would cause an instant loss of consciousness. Thereafter it would be a simple exercise for Smith to have held the victims’ heads under the water, suffocating them by drowning. In such a case, the victim already being unconscious, a relatively small amount of water would be subsequently found in the airways. Moreover, there would be an absence of any marks on the body indicating that a struggle had taken place.

“His theory was actually put to the test during the trial. The jury were taken to a private room where a bathtub was filled with water and a volunteer, in a bathing suit, who was a fit and healthy professional athlete, duly stepped in and reclined, as one does when taking a bath. Dr. Spilsbury promptly pulled her legs by the ankles and the water rushed up her nose and into her mouth causing immediate unconsciousness. It was so effective she had to be revived by artificial resuscitation which, I may add, took more than half an hour.”

Lucy and I sat spellbound as Jill continued.

“Modern research has shown that a sudden rushing of water down the throat can put pressure on the vagus, one of the main nerves in the neck, causing a rapid slowing down of the heart rate and an instant faint. If that person was then held under the water then he or she would suffocate − death by drowning results from suffocation − and if the person was already unconscious their breathing would be shallow, so there’d be relatively little water found in the lungs or airways during a subsequent autopsy. Other research suggests that water suddenly entering the trachea can cause what’s known as ‘reflex cardiac arrest’ resulting in death. Such a condition wouldn’t show up in a subsequent autopsy, but a careful examination of the body can indicate that death was sudden and instantaneous – for example the flesh in such cases often has a goose-skin appearance. So even if it’s not possible to conclude how the person died it’s often possible to be sure that death was instantaneous or rapid.”

“That would explain something else,” I said. “It seems that the lady was well-known to her victims and may even have slept with them. In such a case the victim would probably think nothing of her presence in the bathroom whilst he lay naked in the tub. In fact it’s likely in the present case that she’d brought him a whisky from the kitchen and he was drinking it when he was attacked. And it might explain something else too. There was a substantial amount of water on the floor. The motion you’ve described would have made a wave of water that would probably have washed over the sides or ends of the tub.”

“All I can say is that it’s a possible explanation, in the absence of any other likely cause.”

“Jill you’ve been amazingly helpful, as usual. You may be asked by the prosecution to give assistance as an expert in this case in due course. You know the DA’s department holds you in high esteem.”

“I’m always happy to help,” she said, “you know that. What do you want me to do with the other results? The male DNA from the coffee cup?”

“You’d better keep them on file for the time being,” I said. “I’ll let you know if and when I want them.”

As Lucy and I headed home, armed with Jill’s report, I was in high spirits. A DNA match would be enough to arrest Barbara in connection with the cold case, at least for the purpose of interviewing her. It should also give a kick up the butt to the police forensics boys to speed up their examination of the present crime scene. Of course, I couldn’t reveal that I’d got hold of Barbara’s DNA sample. The police would have to devise a way of getting their own, since it was unlikely that she’d consent. But with her in the hospital I didn’t expect that to pose much difficulty. I needed to call Calley, and as soon as I got home I did.

“I think I know how Delmar was killed,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure I know who did it. I have a DNA match for the cold case crime scene too. Obviously I can’t disclose that, but it will be enough for the police to move on.”

“Geez, you’ve been busy, how…”

“Duke’s, this afternoon,” I said. “When can you make it?”

“Say three?”

“No, let’s say four. And you can use the time to get me a copy of the autopsy report on Delmar and chase up the crime lab. See if the lab has processed any prints they lifted from the crime scene, too.”

*

Unusually, on this occasion I actually got to the bar before Calley. He turned up about fifteen minutes later. We ordered some beers.

“Go ahead, shoot,” he said.

“You first, Lance. Did you get me a copy of the autopsy report?” Lance handed it over.

“How about the prints and DNA examination from the scene?”

“Soon,” he said. “Probably Monday − at least the prints.”

“Okay. There’s a woman in Boston Medical being treated for a subdural hematoma. The doctor in charge of her case is called Sanjit – nice guy. I managed to get a sample from her for DNA testing – don’t even ask; you got this information from an informant you’re not at liberty to disclose – and it matches the female DNA from the crime scene in the cold case. I don’t know where she lives, but I know where she’s been staying since the murder. A search warrant of those premises will turn up some of Delmar’s personal effects. The woman’s name is Barbara Green.” A spark of recognition showed in Calley’s hooded eyes.

“Yeah,” I said, “the woman I asked you to check on before.”

“How can we get a warrant before we’ve done a DNA on her? Why don’t you tell me who you got the test results from? We can subpoena them and get the goods on the DNA that way”

“Because one, the scientist who did the comparison for me doesn’t know who the sample came from, and two because if you start trying to subpoena a scientist who’s given valuable evidence for the prosecution in a number of cases you’ll have the DA jumping down your throat. Look, that’s why I need the prints; if Barbara’s prints were in Delmar’s apartment you’ll have enough probable cause to get the warrant.”

Calley looked at me uncertainly. “Lance this is your big chance − your chance to get the credit for solving two homicides,” I said. “Don’t screw up.”

As I drove home I felt a bit like Jesus must have felt when He ascended into heaven. If His disciples let him down, he had no plan B.

Chapter Thirty Four

The Letter

It was my day, my week; everything was coming together. When I got home I had a call from Tony with some more good news.

“He called me,” Tony said.

“Who called you?”

“Withers. He’d been given my card. He called to enquire about the package.”

“So he’s back? What did you tell him?”

“Well it wasn’t what I told him so much as what he told me.”

“Which was?”

“He’s been out of town, just got back; but he’s gotta fly down to New York for the weekend – can I deliver the package on Monday? So it looks like you can go in there whenever you want.”

Somebody up there likes me, I thought. “Thanks Tony,” I said, “you’ve done a great job. Have a good one.”

I looked at my watch; it was just after six. I climbed back in the Chevy and drove to the liquor store.

“I come bearing good tidings of great joy,” I said, as I stepped through the front door into Lucy’s living room.

“Yeah, and that’s not all you’re bearing,” she said, trying to look into the brown paper bag.

“If you have no other engagement this evening,” I said, “perhaps we’ll dine in and have a small celebration.”

“So how did it go with Calley?”

“As well as could be expected. He’ll be okay – I’ve done all the work and told him how to do his. I can’t do more than that. I’ve got some other good news.”

“Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess,” Lucy said.

“I’ve got a clear weekend to search Barbara’s apartment again. Withers came back, but he’s spending the weekend out of town again. Tony found out for me.”

“How?”

“He talked to him. It’s a long story… but it looks like I’ve struck a rich seam of gold in this investigation. So in the morning I’ll go and search the apartment again and…”

“I’m coming with you.”

“It’s okay; I’ll be fine on my own.”

“I’m coming with you so that after the search you can buy something presentable to wear for dinner tomorrow night,” Lucy said.

I looked at her nonchalantly. “I’ve got stuff in my closet,” I said.

“I looked in your closet – it’s a disgrace,” she said.

“With or without a warrant?” I inquired.

Lucy ignored me. “What time will we be leaving?” she said.

*

It was nine fifty by the time I’d found a parking space near the apartment. We had coffee in the café across the road before I headed off.

“Be careful,” Lucy warned. “I don’t want to have to come and rescue you again,” she said mischievously.

Inside the apartment I could at first see little to suggest that Withers had returned, but in the bedroom was a large suitcase on top of the unmade bed, with the lid open. There was a smaller suitcase I noticed by the side of the bed. I ignored these and instead searched the few items of women’s clothing in the closet. I hadn’t searched these thoroughly before; I’d been looking for something too large to fit in any of the pockets. As I searched the inside pocket of a beige jacket my lucky streak continued. There was an envelope addressed to Barbara Green. Inside was a printed letter promoting a local furniture store in Providence. The address on the envelope was in Providence too, less than an hour’s drive south. I wrote down the address in my notebook and put the letter back in the jacket pocket.

I continued to search but found nothing more of interest. I peeked into the other closet. The Gladstone bag was still there. I looked inside – Delmar’s cell phone, keys and wallet were still there too. I decided to take a chance on this. It seemed likely that Withers had spent only a short time in the apartment before heading off to New York. There was nothing in the kitchen to suggest he’d so much as made himself a cup of coffee and the suitcases obviously hadn’t been unpacked. I surmised that he’d probably taken a few items out of the suitcase on the bed, put them in a weekend bag and left for the airport. I took the Gladstone bag from his closet and placed it in the one with Barbara’s clothes. I thought it unlikely, when he returned, that he’d interfere with anything in there. I already had a plan to inform him of Barbara’s whereabouts.

I walked through to the living room. I decided to search the desk again to see if I’d missed anything which might tell me more about Barbara. Instead I found Withers’ passport, on top of a pile of papers in the top drawer. I took it out to look at it. There was an entry stamp from Mumbai immigration dated the twentieth of December and an exit stamp from Mumbai dated the thirtieth of January. There were no stamps between these dates to suggest he’d been anywhere else – at least not internationally.

I continued to sift through the items in all three desk drawers. From my recollection nothing had changed since my last search – nothing added and nothing removed.

After no more than thirty minutes I was back in the Chevy with Lucy.

“Did you find anything else?” she said.

“Only a letter. It was addressed to Barbara at an address in Providence,” I said. “I think it’ll be worth checking out. Oh, and I found Withers’ passport. It seems like he’s been in India since December twenty.”

“So that puts him in the clear,” Lucy said.

“I guess so. He obviously wasn’t involved in either the blackmail or Delmar’s death. Whether he knows anything about either of those matters is another thing, but it seems doubtful.”

“Can we go shopping now?” Lucy said.

“I’ve a little job for you first. I want you to write a note for Withers and put it in his mailbox. Tell him that you’re a friend of Barbara’s and she’s in the hospital. Sign it with whatever name you like.”

“Won’t the guy from the management office have told him that?” Lucy said.

“Maybe; but there’s no harm in being sure.”

I tore a page out of my notebook and handed it to her, together with my pen. After she finished writing it she showed it to me. It was signed ‘Nora Charles’.

I waited until she’d delivered the note then we drove downtown. After a tiresome couple of hours shopping we headed home.

“No lunch today,” Lucy said, “so we’ll enjoy the dinner.”

I dropped Lucy off and went home on the pretext of trying on my new clothes and poured myself a stiff drink. Things were going just a bit too well, I thought – something was bound to go wrong.

We met Don and Lisa as planned. I’d only seen Lisa a few times; once in her car, once in the café in South Boston and once in Starbucks – each time from a distance. Her photographs didn’t do her justice either. She was strikingly pretty but in an understated kind of way. She looked relaxed and happy. Don was positively glowing.

“This is Kane, Lisa,” he said, “and Lucy. Kane is Duncan’s younger brother and I’ve been meaning to get in touch with him for ages. I spoke to Duncan recently and he put me in touch.” He leant close to Lisa’s ear and said in a stage whisper: “Kane and Lucy are private detectives.”

She looked at both of us in turn. “How unusual,” she said. “I mean interesting not unusual,” she laughed. “And are you … two…”

“Friends,” I said; “close friends.”

The meal went very well in spite of the conversation I’d had with Lucy on the way to the restaurant.

“If Lisa asks you about your job,” I said, “you know, as an assistant investigator, try to tone it down a bit. We don’t want a repeat of your performance when we were in Subic; and try not to get bombed.”

Lucy had inhaled slowly and said with a haughty tone, “I’m not a child, and I shall speak to her in any way I choose.”

We talked mainly about their holiday, and Lucy told Lisa about the new office.

“I’ve been given a totally free hand with the design and décor. We’re hoping to move in next week, but there are still a few problems. A few things that the contractors haven’t finished to my satisfaction,” she said importantly.

“What do you think about it, Kane?” Lisa said.

“I haven’t seen it for a while. Lucy thought I’d be in the way.” Lisa laughed.

After the meal we moved over to the bar. Lucy and Lisa were drinking cocktails and Don and I drank brandy.

“My favorite’s Sex on the Beach,” I heard Lisa say.

“Oh, I had some of those in the Philippines – got completely canned unfortunately,” Lucy said.

“Wow, the Philippines. It sounds so exotic – tell me all about it,” Lisa said. They moved off to a table near the window together. I turned to Don.

“So is Lisa’s back to her normal self?”

“Yes, everything’s just like it was before. I’m so relieved that nonsense is all over. Oh, I’ve brought your check. I hope you’ll forgive me – there’s a little something extra to show my appreciation.”

At ten thirty we told Don we had to be going. “We’ve got an early start tomorrow,” I said. “We’re driving down to Rhode Island.”

“Sounds great. Be sure to enjoy yourselves,” he said.

We said our goodbye’s and set off home. “Don’s given us a bonus,” I said. “An extra grand.”

“Ooh, can I have it for the office?”

“I’ll have to cash it first, and then we’ll see. I hope you’re not getting too carried away down there – I doubt many people are even going to see it, Lucy.”

“Oh, I think we should be more office-oriented in the future – it’s more professional,” she said.

Chapter Thirty Five

Providence

We set off early and were in Providence soon after nine o’clock. We located the address on Barbara’s envelope without difficulty. It lay to the north of the city in a road which would be leafy again in the spring. It was a small bungalow standing in a sizeable lot and set back from the road. We walked over there and peered inside; it was currently unoccupied. You can always tell, somehow, when a house has been left empty for a while. The look of it is different in some indefinable way from a house whose occupants have gone shopping.

We walked over to the mailbox and opened it. There was a package inside. It was about the size of a large library book. We took it out. It was sealed securely with duct tape and bore a label which said: ‘Printed Matter’. We took it back to the car with us.

“I guess Barbara was planning to come home,” I said. “Are you going to open it, or shall I?”

“Me, me,” said Lucy. She produced a pair of nail scissors and cut through the duct tape. She sliced open the package and we peered inside. There was a layer of bubble wrap, and inside that were neat bundles of one hundred dollar banknotes.

“We’re rich,” she said.

Lucy took out the bundles and counted the notes. In all there was twenty thousand dollars. There was something else in the package too. It was a copy of a marriage certificate; the marriage certificate of Cody Breen and Elizabeth Burrows.

“Let’s go home,” I said.

*

I got a call from Lance Calley the next morning. There’d been a complication, he said. I felt myself squeezing the receiver hard in my hand. How simple did I have to make for this guy? I sighed heavily.

“What is it?” I said.

“The prints came through from the lab, so because of my tip-off a team went to the hospital to ask Miss Green if she was willing to voluntarily submit her prints and a sample of her DNA for analysis.”

“And?”

“Like I said, there was a complication. She’s slipped into a coma – she can’t give her permission for anything.”

“Are you in the office?”

“Yeah.”

“Well stay there. I’m coming on down.”

I drove into town and went to the station. The time had come to get a warrant to search the place where Barbara had been staying. They could support the application by a statement to the judge that they were acting on information from a reliable source. I knew the police would have no difficulty. They wouldn’t have to reveal my name to the judge – simply support their application for the warrant by telling him that the information came from a source that had proved accurate on several occasions in the past. I could only imagine the public outcry if the police tried to obtain fingerprint impressions and a DNA swab from a comatose patient. In any case the doctors were unlikely to let the police anywhere near her. They needed to search the apartment. They’d find Delmar’s property in her closet and Withers would confirm that she’d been staying in his apartment. The prints lifted from Delmar’s apartment had already been examined and some good specimens had been obtained, in addition to those from Delmar. The comparison of those prints and the profiling of Barbara’s DNA could wait, although I imagined the finding of Delmar’s property in Barbara’s apartment would speed things up quite a bit. Probably revealing me as his source would steal some of Calley’s thunder, but I couldn’t help that. He’d still have the cold case to claim credit for.

Over the next couple of days there was a flurry of activity. It was even enough to get Calley animated and he called me regularly to keep me in touch with developments. Barbara’s condition was unchanged. The burr-hole procedure had not been as successful as hoped. The problem was the continued seepage of blood into the subdural region. It was too long after the accident to suspect that she’d been on Warfarin or some other anti-clotting medication. The new theory was that she had a hematologic condition associated with a tendency to hemorrhage. They were considering other options.

The South End apartment was searched and Delmar’s effects seized. A sample of Barbara’s DNA was obtained from the hospital, though not directly from her. Fingerprint impressions were obtained; the doctors’ concerns about her medical condition over-ridden by the possibility that their patient was a serial killer.

On Tuesday afternoon Lucy called Atterbury. As usual he didn’t pick up but he did call her back later. She gave him a brief synopsis of the events that had unfolded since our return home. I sat and listened to the call.

“Everything points to Delmar’s accomplice being the killer,” she told him. “The matter’s in the hands of the police now and they’re confident of a conviction in due course. We couldn’t have done it without you Atterbury.”

After she hung up she said, “He was quite emotional on the telephone. I guess the whole thing has confirmed how wise his decision was to get out of that kind of life.”

“Well that’s everything wrapped up,” I said. “If the police screw things up now it’s out of our hands.” I looked over at Lucy. She was sitting quietly, a contemplative expression on her face. “Let’s get dressed up nice again,” I said. “We’ll find a fancy restaurant and I’ll buy you dinner.”

We’d promised each other that we wouldn’t discuss the case over dinner. We’d lived with it for long enough and it was time to give ourselves a break. But after the meal, as we walked to the car, there was something Lucy wanted to get off her chest.

“So we can be sure now that Don wasn’t involved in Delmar’s death, can’t we?”

“I guess so. Everything points to Barbara. She had Delmar’s stuff and his death was a carbon copy of the cold case. It would be remarkable if that was just a coincidence. Somehow I can’t quite get it out of my mind that Don went there though – maybe after Delmar had been killed. Maybe he saw him in the tub. Maybe it was him who slugged me.”

“Why do you think that?”

“A few things. But it was mainly the way he looked at Delmar’s photograph. You remember when Norman looked at Lisa’s photograph and said he didn’t know her? But something in his eyes told me that he did. There are some things you can’t hide, Lucy. And then there was the fact that he never offered us any explanation of where he was that afternoon. And the smile he gave when I warned him about the possibility of the blackmail continuing. None of these things mean much on their own, but…”

“Well, I guess we’ll never know for sure. Maybe that’s why he gave you the extra grand,” Lucy said, “to make up for slugging you.” She giggled, and dug me in the ribs with her elbow.

“How’s the new office coming along?” I said. “You said it’d be ready by the end of the month. It’s past the end of the month.”

“The contractors made a mess of some things,” she said. “I want it to be perfect before you see it; how about the weekend?”

“The weekend it is then,” I said.

Chapter Thirty Six

Lisa

It was shortly before eleven thirty on Wednesday morning and we were sitting in the Chevy outside The Prestige. After a while we saw the grill opening and we watched as a Mercedes SUV climbed the ramp, popped through the opening and disappeared down the street. We waited for a few minutes and then got out and walked round to the front of the apartment building and rang the bell for apartment 7C. Lisa’s voice came over the intercom.

“Hi, who is it?”

“It’s us Lisa, Kane and me,” Lucy said. “Can we come up?”

“Oh…sure,” she said, and the door clicked open. We rode the elevator to the top floor. Lisa was waiting at the entrance of the apartment.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ve missed Don – he’s just left for the gym. He coaches some kids over in Fenway on Wednesday – martial arts, that kind of stuff. I’m afraid he won’t be back until two thirty or maybe three. Would you like me to call him? He only just left.”

“It’s okay Lisa; it’s you we’ve come to see,” Lucy said.

Lisa had a slightly bemused expression. “Okay, well come in, please sit down. Can I get you anything?”

“Actually we’ve got something for you, Lisa. I think you’d better sit down. There’s nothing at all to be alarmed about, but we’ve some important things to discuss with you.”

Lisa sat down, her brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“I want you to know that we’re your friends, Lisa,” Lucy said.

“Okay.”

“We’ve got something that belongs to you,” said Lucy, handing Lisa the package we’d recovered from Barbara’s mailbox.

Lisa took hold of the package uncertainly.

“Go ahead,” Lucy said. “Look inside.”

Lisa opened the bag. She pulled out the neatly wrapped bundles of banknotes. Her jaw dropped. She looked up at Lucy.

“But how…”

“We’ve got a long story to tell you, Lisa. But don’t worry because it’s all good news.”

She looked from Lucy to me. I nodded.

“You know how much Don loves you,” Lucy said. “A few weeks back he was worried about you. He sensed that something was wrong. He came to us and asked for our help.”

“Without telling me?”

“Sometimes it’s necessary to keep a secret,” Lucy said, “even from someone you love very much.”

Lisa bowed her head and started to cry.

“There’s no need to cry because we’ve come here today to assure you that you have nothing to worry about anymore. Cody’s dead, Lisa, and so is Delmar.”

“Who’s Delmar?”

“Well maybe you knew him by a different name,” Lucy said. “He’s the guy who was blackmailing you. There was a woman too, wasn’t there? She murdered Delmar after she got the money from you.”

Lisa looked at us both in astonishment. “How do you know all these things and how…” She held up the packet of banknotes.

“It’s our job to find these things out, but we’re telling you in confidence. Don doesn’t know about most of this – that’s why we came to see you when we knew he’d be out.”

“And Cody’s dead? How…when?”

“He was killed by a fellow inmate at a correctional facility in Minneapolis about a month ago. Delmar shared a cell with him once and got to know about your marriage to Cody.”

Lisa started weeping again. “I’m so ashamed,” she said.

“You have nothing to be ashamed about Lisa,” I said. “Lucy and I had a trip to Rapid falls while you and Don were on vacation. We know all about what happened. Norman told us.”

“I should’ve told Don when we met. I would have told him everything, but I was still married to Cody and I knew he’d never let me go,” she said.

“Don knows nothing about our visit to Rapid falls. He knows nothing about your marriage to Cody.”

“But I thought you said he hired you.”

“In the beginning, yes. But after you’d paid the money he dispensed with our services. He was confident that everything would go back to being normal again.”

“But you didn’t tell him why I was being blackmailed?”

“We didn’t know then,” I said. “After you and Don went on vacation Lucy and I decided we’d carry on the investigation on our own. You see, paying off a blackmailer seldom puts an end to the matter – sooner or later they’ll be back for more; and although we knew Delmar was dead we didn’t know if anyone else might be involved.”

“Yes, I was worried about that,” she said. “But I told them it was all I could give them. It’s all I had. They wanted a lot more.”

“How much, Lisa?”

“A hundred thousand. It was impossible. They were angry at first but they finally accepted that I couldn’t pay more, so I thought that would be an end to it.”

“When we discovered the package with your money there was something else inside,” I said. “It was a copy of the certificate of your marriage to Cody. We destroyed it.”

Lisa bowed her head. “Ever since I met Don I’ve had this on my mind – the fear that one day Cody would find me and I’d lose Don. It was a terrible pressure, you don’t know.”

“I’ve been in this game for a long time Lisa,” I said. “I think I do know. That’s why we were determined to get to the bottom of this and put a stop to it once and for all.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Lisa said.

“There’s no need to say anything. We were just doing our job. It’s not always that we can help people, but this time it turned out okay,” I said. “But Don knows nothing about the reason you were being blackmailed. You see he said he didn’t want to know – he said that whatever it was he was satisfied with your judgement. He knew that if there was something you were hiding from him there must have been a good reason, and he respected your privacy.”

“I don’t deserve him,” Lisa said.

Lucy went over and sat next to her on the sofa and put her arms around Lisa’s shoulders. “Yes you do,” Lucy said. “You deserve happiness. You mustn’t ever think like that.”

“What…what happened to Delmar’s partner? You said she killed him?”

“All you need to know is that she won’t trouble you anymore. That’s a promise I can make with certainty. It’s in the hands of the police now, but I can assure you that the police know nothing about the blackmail. They’re only concerned with investigating the murder,” I said.

Lisa sat for a while looking out of the window. The apartment looked over the bay.

“How’s Norman?” she said. “I miss him.”

“Norman did you proud,” I said. “You’ll be happy to know that we met with a wall of silence when we started asking questions in Rapid Falls. It was only because of Mrs. Applebee and her husband that we were able to convince Norman that we were there to help.”

“Mrs. Applebee?” Lisa said.

“She was one of your teachers in high school,” Lucy said. “You probably don’t remember her, but she remembered you. She was your English teacher. In fact she asked us to give you this.”

Lucy handed her the envelope. She opened it and read the note. She started to cry again. She held the note limply in her hand.

“May I?” I said.

She nodded and handed me the note. There was a single line. I recognized it. It was a quote from the Greek philosopher, Euripides. It said this:

‘Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness’.

Chapter Thirty Seven

The New Office

It was Saturday morning and I was about to see the new office. Lucy was full of excitement and in high spirits, which the news of Barbara’s death had failed to dampen. Barbara had never recovered from her coma and her life had slowly ebbed away. We’d been told earlier in the morning.

“So she escaped justice?” was Lucy’s response to the news.

“Perhaps there’s a higher justice,” I said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“Well we’ve got better things to do than talk about her,” Lucy said. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

We drove the short distance to the new office. The sun was shining and the grey mush, which was all that was left of the snow, was rapidly melting.

“I guess if Lisa wants to go back and visit Rapid Falls again someday there’ll be nothing to stop her now,” Lucy said.

“I expect she will. She’ll want to see Norman again, and some of her other friends.”

“Maybe she’ll even take Don,” Lucy said.

We parked outside the unit and Lucy carefully placed the key in the lock and then opened the door with a flourish. Directly opposite me, on the wall of the reception area was a framed movie poster of Bogart and Bacall from The Big Sleep. I stepped into the room and Lucy sidled past me and sat on a leather sofa. It was the same leather sofa I’d sat on when I went to see a guy named Ray Delgado at a company called Fortune Investments & Securities last October.

I looked around the room. There were posters everywhere; Dick Powell, Robert Mitchum, and even Ronald Colman as Bulldog Drummond. I closed the door behind me and found Jack Nicholson staring at me from the back of the door, his nose covered with a band aid. And there, behind the reception desk, was a poster from The Thin Man; William Powell holding Myrna Loy in a tight embrace.

“Aren’t they great? Don’t you love ’em?” Lucy had drawn up her knees to her chest on the sofa and was laughing uproariously.

“Does it really matter what I think?” I said.

“Not really,” Lucy said, hunching her shoulders and grinning. “But that’s not all; this came yesterday. It’s our first letter – so I thought I’d let you open it,” she said, handing me the envelope and a letter-opener from the top of the well-equipped reception desk.

I sliced open the envelope. There was no letter inside, only a check in favor of Mark Kane Investigations. It was signed by Lisa Maddox, and drawn on the Citizens Bank.

It was a check for twenty thousand dollars.

***

Follow the adventures of Kane & Lucy in

Book Five: Missing. Please read on…

Dean Roberts is a sick elderly man with just one precious thing in his life -- his teenage daughter Marisa.  When she mysteriously disappears in Springfield, Missouri on a road trip across America the police draw a blank, so Dean hires Kane and Lucy to find her and bring her home.

When Kane and Lucy set out for Missouri to find a teenager who has gone missing whilst on a road trip across the States they soon realize that she and her traveling companion have been abducted by a sinister group whose victims are turning up dead – real dead. But what is the motive for her abduction? Nothing has been stolen from her bank account, no demand for a ransom has been made and a telephone call from the missing girl a few days after her abduction only adds to the mystery. In a race against time they enlist the assistance of local law enforcement officers and friends of the pair in a desperate attempt to find the two girls before it’s too late. (See it on Amazon)

To find out about all books in the series please read on…

A Word from the Author

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The Mark Kane Mysteries Series

A short synopsis of each book in the series appears on the next few pages.

Feedback from my readers is important to me, so if you have any suggestions, comments or observations about any of the books in this series please contact me.

John Hemmings

July 2015

Book One: Forget Me Not

A devoted husband has planted a carpet of Forget-Me-Nots in memory of his wife who has recently died from complications following the rapid progression of Alzheimer's disease…Or has she?

Greg Philips’ wife, Gloria, has recently died after suffering from chronic dementia, leaving her long-lost illegitimate daughter, Susan, a large slice of her estate. But is Susan who she claims to be? And was Gloria mentally competent when she made her will or was she manipulated in some way? Boston Investigator Mark Kane is hired to discover the truth, but as the investigation proceeds he soon finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery, and as the suspects mount up he needs all his wits about him to find out the truth, and prevent Greg’s adult sons from financial ruin or worse. As usual, Kane’s longtime companion Lucy is there to lend him a helping hand, but will she be able to help him solve the mystery? (See on Amazon)

Book Two: Ice

Kane is on the trail of a gang of International drug smugglers who'll think nothing of murdering anyone who gets in their way.

Jenny Garcia has returned to Boston from a vacation overseas little knowing that her suitcase contained a valuable haul of illicit drugs hidden inside. When the bag is stolen from her at the airport Boston investigator Mark Kane is given the difficult job of retrieving the suitcase and finding out who is responsible for putting Jenny in such terrible danger. But when the two men who could have provided the answers are found dead Kane has his work cut out for him. As Lucy stumbles upon a vital piece of evidence the case suddenly takes a new turn. Has Kane been looking in all the wrong places? And when a kidnapping puts the whole investigation on a different footing he needs to call on all his experience and cunning to save the victim from harm and bring the culprits to justice. (See it on Amazon)

Book Three: The Black Widow

Eight thousand miles from Boston the badly decomposed body of an American tourist has been found floating in the sea and Kane is about to get reluctantly involved in the case.

On vacation in Thailand Lucy befriends Dale Porter, a fellow American, but her idyllic break is cut short when Dale is arrested for murder. She enlists Kane’s assistance and they head to the Philippines to look for answers. Kane deputizes Lucy as his temporary assistant investigator and together they set out to solve the mystery of a body found floating in the sea and to try to prove that Dale was not responsible for his death. As they travel from Manila to Subic Bay in their quest for the truth they identify several suspects − including the dead man’s widow. But the victim had many enemies too. And why had Dale disguised the victim’s boat and concealed it in a secret location? As they struggle to unravel the victim’s complicated life Kane is finally driven to an unexpected and shocking conclusion. (See on Amazon)

Book Four: Till Death

A young woman is nursing a dark secret.  A serial killer is on the loose.  What is the connection?  The answer lies in a frozen backwater in small-town Minnesota.

Don and Lisa Maddox’ idyllic marriage is threatened when Lisa is targeted by blackmailers, and Boston investigator Mark Kane is hired to investigate − but he soon realizes that he is investigating more than just blackmail, and finds himself searching for a serial killer too − and with trouble at the office as well it’s one headache after another. But who is responsible for the bizarre deaths? And what secret is Lisa so desperate to hide from her husband? Kane and his newly appointed assistant Lucy head west to The Twin Cities to look for answers but they are plagued with setbacks and are met with a wall of silence. As Lucy observes, “It’s as if some malign force keeps putting obstacles in our way.” But Kane and Lucy must find a way forward if they are to thwart the blackmailers and find the killer.

Book Five: Missing

Dean Roberts is a sick elderly man with just one precious thing in his life -- his teenage daughter Marisa.  When she mysteriously disappears in Springfield, Missouri on a road trip across America the police draw a blank, so Dean hires Kane and Lucy to find her and bring her home.

When Kane and Lucy set out for Missouri to find a teenager who has gone missing whilst on a road trip across the States they soon realize that she and her traveling companion have been abducted by a sinister group whose victims are turning up dead – real dead. But what is the motive for her abduction? Nothing has been stolen from her bank account, no demand for a ransom has been made and a telephone call from the missing girl a few days after her abduction only adds to the mystery. In a race against time they enlist the assistance of local law enforcement officers and friends of the pair in a desperate attempt to find the two girls before it’s too late. (See it on Amazon)

Book Six: I Spy

When the police discover the body of Cynthia Hughes savagely beaten to death on the kitchen floor and her husband Bob hanged in the garage it seems like an open-and-shut case – a domestic murder/suicide -- but Bob’s mistress, Angela, doesn’t buy it and she hires Kane and Lucy to find the real killer; and as they investigate the deaths it soon becomes clear that the police have overlooked some key evidence in the case which points to a different culprit. Meanwhile Mike Kingsley’s son has died after being struck by a train and the police have ruled it an accidental death. But was it? As Kane and Lucy struggle with the two cases simultaneously they discover that they have something in common – neither case is quite what it seems to be… (See it on Amazon)

Book Seven: A Tangled Web

When Marjorie Griffiths learns that her husband has had a clandestine meeting with a young woman at a local motel, she hires private enquiry agent Dick Hampton to keep him under surveillance.

When Hampton informs her that her husband is in a room at the motel, with the same woman, she hurries over there and when she sees her husband leave and drive away she decides to confront the woman.

And then she vanishes, without a trace.

When Marjorie’s husband, Chuck, reports her missing, he becomes an immediate suspect in her disappearance. He hires attorney Oliver Davies to advise him, and Davies recommends Kane & Lucy to investigate Marjorie’s mysterious disappearance. But when traces of Marjorie’s blood are found in the matrimonial home and in her abandoned car, Chuck is arrested; and this is only the beginning of his nightmare, as demons from his past return to threaten and even destroy him.