Widow’s Walk

“That’s absurd,” A

I looked at Hawk. She saw me look and turned and looked at him, too. Hawk smiled.

“You fuck around with this,” Hawk said, “and they go

She was tough, but it rocked her. Hawk saying it made it somehow more forceful. I have often wondered how he got that effect, and have concluded that it is because he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care if she believes him. Doesn’t care if they kill her, too. She was too contained to show it much, but there was a faint look of strain around her eyes and in the way her mouth compressed.

“I have no idea,” she said, “what either of you is talking about.”

There was a short knock on her office door, and it opened immediately and Bobby Kiley walked in. He closed the door behind him.

“I’d like to sit in,” he said to his daughter.

“I don’t think I need any help,” A

“I’ll sit in anyway,” Kiley said. “How are you, Spenser?”

“Fine, Bobby. Nice to see you.”

He walked over to Hawk and put out a hand.

“Bobby Kiley,” he said.

“Hawk.”

Kiley nodded and walked back to sit in a chair beside me. He was a handsome guy with white hair and one of those slightly hollow-cheeked Irish faces.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Bobby,” A

“I know this guy.” He nodded at me. “I know somebody killed a guy we represent.”

“I can handle this myself,” A

Kiley shrugged and stayed where he was.

“You know Nathan Smith?” I said.

“Know of him,” Kiley said. “Know he was murdered.”

“I was hired by Cone Oakes to investigate his death,” I said.

Kiley nodded. A

“Rita,” Kiley said.

“Yep.”

“Hell of a lawyer,” Kiley said.

“And when I started looking into the matter,” I said, “people started to die. A woman at Smith’s bank committed suicide. Smith’s broker was killed in a hit-and-run. A kid named Kevin McGonigle tried to kill me.”

“Heard about that,” Kiley said. “You got him first.”

“Then Jack DeRosa got shot and his girlfriend with him.”

“Our client,” Kiley said.

“A

“And?”

“And that’s too many people dying in the same case.”

“I agree,” Kiley said. “So?”

“So Smith is on the board of a company named Soldiers Field Development, which had some of its employees following me after I started the case. We talked with them, and this morning we went out to talk with them again. They had packed up and left.”

“Suspicious,” Kiley said.

“There’s a guy who came in as Smith’s partner at the bank not too long before Smith was shot. Guy named Marvin Conroy.”

Kiley frowned a little. As if the name meant something.

“Marvin Conroy is an acquaintance of your daughter’s.”

Kiley glanced neutrally at A

“And A

“This is all very interesting,” Kiley said. “But I was hoping you might sort of get around to why you are here talking to my daughter.”

“This is the preeminent criminal law practice in the city. Maybe on the East Coast. What the hell are you doing with Jack DeRosa?”

“He was A

“That’s where we were when you came in,” I said.

Kiley smiled and didn’t say anything.

“So,” I said to A

“I decline to discuss my clients with you,” she said.

“Tell me,” Kiley said.

“Bobby,” his daughter said, “I am not going to talk about this with these men.”

“I want to know, A

Father and daughter stared at each other. I stayed quiet. Hawk leaned placidly against the wall, looking at the view. Then Kiley shifted his gaze to me.

“There any co

“Conroy was in the bank with Smith,” I said. “DeRosa was asked to kill Smith.”

“That’s hardly a co

“Yet,” I said.

Kiley shifted his glance to Hawk. “I been in the criminal defense business for a long time,” Kiley said. “I know what he does.”

“And well,” I said.

“He watching your back?”

“Yes.”

“So this is serious business,” Kiley said, probably to himself more than to me. He pointed his chin at A

A

I nodded. “I think A

Kiley said, “What do you think, A

“I think it’s preposterous,” she said.

“No,” Kiley said. “I know this guy. He thinks you’re in danger, we need to take it seriously.”

“For God’s sake, Bobby-”

“And cut the Bobby shit, for the moment. It’s fine while we’re colleagues, but I’m also your father, and I want to know what the fuck is going on. How come we represented Jack DeRosa?”

A

After a time A

“I’m having an affair with Marvin Conroy,” she said.

Kiley nodded. A

“It’s a serious affair,” she said.

Kiley nodded again. A

“He asked me to help him,” she said. “He was in trouble.”

Nobody said anything. The phone rang on A

“He asked me if I could find him someone to pretend something. He said I was a criminal lawyer, and I should be able to find someone.”

“And you found DeRosa,” Bobby Kiley said.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I was doing my a

“So when Conroy wanted a mug you remembered DeRosa.”

Kiley appeared calm. He seemed entirely focused on the questions he was asking and the answers he was getting.

“And Marvin asked me to be DeRosa’s lawyer, this time, too, to see that he stayed on message.”

“The message being?”

“That Mary Smith had approached him to kill her husband.”

“Which was not true,” Kiley said.

“No. I don’t believe it was.”

Kiley sat back in his chair. Hawk and I remained where we were.

A

Kiley stood and went to her and opened his arms and she fell against him and began to cry. As he hugged her, he looked at me.

“We can talk later,” he said.

“You will need security for her,” I said.

“I know,” Kiley said. “I can arrange that.”

“There’s more I need to know,” I said.

“She’s got nothing else to say,” Kiley said.

“I think she does,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter what you think,” Kiley said.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

It was Sunday. I was drinking coffee with my right hand and driving with my left. Pearl was asleep in the backseat, and Susan was beside me drinking coffee from a big paper cup which she held in both hands. We were on the road to Newburyport, and we had chosen to take the old Route 1, through the slow rural landscape north of Boston.