“Ever meet his mother or his sister?”
“No.”
“Know anything about them?”
“No.”
“Manfred, you are not being a help.”
“I’m trying, Spenser. I just don’t know nothing. I never heard of Rachel Whosis.”
“Wallace,” I said. “Rachel Wallace.”
22
Manfred and I chatted for another hour with no better results. Hardly seemed worth getting beat up for. When I left, Mrs. Roy didn’t come to say goodbye, and Manfred didn’t offer to shake hands. I got even—I didn’t wish them Merry Christmas.
It was a little after three when I got back out onto Commonwealth. The whiskey and aspirin had worn off, and I hurt. A three-block walk and I could be in bed, but that wouldn’t be looking for Rachel Wallace. That would be taking a nap. Instead I walked down to Berkeley and up three blocks to Police Headquarters to talk with Quirk.
He was there and so was Belson. Quirk had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up. He was squeezing one of those little red rubber grip strengtheners with indentations for the fingers. He did ten in one hand and switched it to the other and did ten more.
“Trying to keep your weight down, Marty?” I said.
Quirk switched the grip strengthener back to his right hand. “Your face looks good,” he said.
“I bumped into a door,” I said.
“About fifteen times,” Belson said. “You come in to make a complaint?”
I shook my head. It made my face hurt. “I came by to see how you guys are making out looking for Rachel Wallace.”
“We got shit,” Quirk said.
“Anything on those license-tag numbers I gave you?”
Quirk nodded. “The Buick belongs to a guy named Swisher Cody. Used to be a big basketball star at Hyde Park High in the Fifties, where he got the nickname. Dodge belongs to a broad named Mary Stevenson. Says she lets her boyfriend use it all the time. Boyfriend’s name is Michael Mulready. He’s a pal of Swisher’s. They both tell us that they were together the night you say they tried to run you off the road and that they were playing cards with Mulready’s cousin Mingo at his place in Watertown. Mingo says that’s right. Cody’s done time for loansharking. Mingo, too.”
“So you let them go,” I said.
Quirk shrugged. “Even if we didn’t believe them and we believe you, what have we got them for? Careless driving? We let ‘em go and we put a tail on them.”
“And?”
“And nothing. They both go to work in the Sears warehouse in Dorchester. They stop on the way home for a few beers. They go to bed. Sometimes they drive out to Watertown and play cards with Cousin Mingo.”
I nodded. “How about English?”
Quirk nodded at Belson.
Belson said, “Pretty much what you heard. He’s chairman of the Vigilance Committee.”
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” Quirk said, and squeezed his grip exerciser hard so that the muscles in his forearm looked like suspension cables.
Belson said, “Spenser been lending you books again, Marty?”
Quirk shook his head. “Naw, my kid’s taking U.S. History. He’s almost as smart as Spenser.”
“Maybe he’ll straighten out,” I said. “What else you got on English?”
Belson shrugged. “Nothing you don’t know. He’s got money—he thinks it makes him important, and he’s probably right. He’s got the IQ of a fieldmouse. And he’s got an alibi to cover any time Rachel Wallace might have been kidnaped. Did you meet his mother?”
“No. I’ve seen her picture.”
“Ain’t she a looker?” He looked at Quirk. “We ever have to bust her, Marty, I want you to send some hard-ass kids from the tac squad. You and me’d get hurt.”
“She as nice as she looks?” I said.
“Nowhere near that nice,” Belson said. “She sat in while we questioned sonny and tended to answer whatever we asked him. I told her finally, why didn’t she hold him on her knee and he could move his lips? She told me she’d see to it that I never worked for any police department in this state.”
“You scared?” I said.
“Hell, no,” Belson said. “I’m relieved. I thought she was going to kill me.”
“She active in the committee?” I said.
“She didn’t say,” Belson said, “but I’d guess yes. I have the feeling she’s active in anything sonny is active in. He doesn’t get a hard-on without checking with her.”
“You run any check on the family? There’s a sister.”
Quirk said, “What the hell do you think we do in here—make up Dick Tracy Crimestoppers? Of course we ran a check on the family. Sister’s name is Geraldine.”
“I know that, for crissake—Geraldine Julia English, Goucher College class of ‘68.”
Quirk went on as if I hadn’t said anything. “Geraldine Julia English. Married a guy named Walton Wells in June, 1968, divorced 1972. Works as a model in Boston.”
“Wells,” I said.
“Yeah, Walton Wells—slick name, huh?”
“Geraldine Julia Wells would be her married name.”
Belson said, “You were wrong, Marty. Your kid couldn’t be nearly as smart as Spenser.”
“What model agency she with?”
Belson said, “Carol Cobb.”
“She use her married name?”
“Yeah.”
“And her middle name instead of her first, I bet.”
Quirk said, “Nobody could be nearly as smart as Spenser.”
“She bills herself as Julie Wells, doesn’t she?”
Belson nodded.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “what we have here is your basic clue. Julie Wells, who is Lawrence Turnbull English, Junior’s, sister, was intimate with Rachel Wallace.”
“Intimate intimate or just friendly intimate,” Quirk said.
“Intimate intimate,” I said.
“How do you know this?” Quirk said.
I told him.
“Nice you told us first thing,” Quirk said. “Nice you mentioned her name at the beginning of the investigation so we could follow up every possible lead. Very nice.” There was no amusement in Quirk’s voice now.
“I should have told you,” I said. “I was wrong.”
“You bet your ass you were wrong,” Quirk said. “Being wrong like that tends to put your balls in the fire, too—you know that?”
“You’re not the Holy Ghost, Quirk. None of you guys are. I don’t have to run in and report everything I know to you every day. I made a guess that this broad was okay, and I didn’t want to smell up her rose garden by dragging her into this. Can’t you see the Herald American headline? LESBIAN LOVER SUSPECT IN KIDNAPING.”
“And maybe you guessed wrong, hot shot, and maybe your girl friend Rachel is dead and gone because you didn’t tell us something.”
“Or maybe it doesn’t mean a goddamned thing,” I said. “Maybe you’re making a big goddamned event out of nothing.” I was leaning back in my chair, one foot propped against the edge of Quirk’s desk. He leaned over and slapped the foot away.
“And get your goddamned foot off my desk,” he said.
I stood up and so did Quirk.
“Dynamite,” Belson said. “You guys fight to the death, and the winner gets to look for Rachel Wallace.” He scratched a wooden match on the sole of his shoe and lit a new cigar.
Still standing, Quirk said, “How much do you pay for those goddamned weeds anyway?”
Between puffs to get the cigar going Belson said, “Fifteen cents apiece.”
Quirk sat down. “You get screwed,” he said.
“They’re cheap,” Belson said, “but they smell bad.”
I sat down.
Quirk said, “Okay. Julie Wells is a member of the English family.” He was leaning back now in his swivel chair, his head tipped, staring up at the ceiling, his hands resting on the arms. The rubber grip squeezer lay on the nearly empty desk in front of him. “She is also an intimate of Rachel Wallace. Which means she’s gay or at least bisexual.” I put one foot up on Quirk’s desk again. “Her brother on the other hand is out picketing Rachel Wallace and calling her a dyke and telling her she’s immoral and must be stopped,” Quirk said.