“They don’t know,” Hawk said.
“That’s my guess.”
“They knew,” Hawk said, “they would have made a run at you already.”
I nodded.
“So we’re probably under their radar,” I said.
“There you go with that we again,” Hawk said.
“I leave you out and you get sullen,” I said.
“I always sullen,” Hawk said. “You thinking about letting them know you got the tape.”
“It’s an option,” I said. “Let’s see what develops.”
“You could just give the tape to Epstein,” Hawk said. “Then there’d be no reason for them to come after you.”
“And there’d be no way to smoke them out,” I said.
“You won’t give Epstein the tape,” Hawk said.
I shrugged.
“It’s our only hole card. Otherwise these people have no reason to show themselves.”
“They might get Alderson arrested,” Hawk said.
“You heard them,” I said. “Did he ever say anything that would get him jail time?”
“No.”
“But as long as there’s a tape and he wants it,” I said.
“If he wants it,” I said.
“Mr. and Mrs. Doherty died for a reason,” I said. “And the tape’s missing.”
“’Less you buy it’s suicide,” Hawk said.
“You?” I said.
“No,” Hawk said.
“So it’s a working hypothesis,” I said.
“I got another one,” Hawk said.
“Which is?”
“They killed these people on your time,” Hawk said.
“You could think of it that way.”
“You could and you do,” Hawk said. “I know you a long time.”
“I’ve tried to be a good role model,” I said.
“So you want the one gets them be you,” Hawk said. “Not Epstein.”
“At least I want fi rst position,” I said.
Hawk smiled widely.
“’Course you do,” he said.
23.
Epstein stopped by my office in the late morning and gave me a big brown envelope.
“Copy of Alderson’s fi le,” he said.
“What makes you think I’m interested,” I said.
“I know about you,” he said.
“Anything classifi ed?” I said.
“I work for a very large government bureaucracy,” he said.
“My fucking dick is probably classifi ed.”
“And should be,” I said. “You got anything new on Doherty or his wife?”
“Water in his lungs. He was alive when he went in.”
“And conscious?” I said.
“No way to know,” Epstein said. “No bullets in him, no discernible wounds on the body. But it’s been banged around on the rocks and chewed on by sea creatures. Nothing is certain.”
“Time of death?”
“Approximate with his wife, give or take twelve hours,”
Epstein said.
“Tidal analysis?” I said.
Epstein smiled.
“Body could have gone in most places north of the Cape,” he said.
“It was saltwater in his lungs,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Wearing his gun?” I said.
“Nope.”
“Holster?”
Epstein smiled again.
“Nope,” he said. “Nobody appears to have disarmed him. Gun and holster were in the top drawer of a bureau in his bedroom.”
“Did it appear to be her bedroom, too?” I said.
“Yes.”
“How was he dressed?” I said.
“Shirt, pants, shoes,” Epstein said. “Wallet in his hip pocket. He wasn’t wearing his suit coat or tie.”
“Sounds like they took him at home.”
“Which,” Epstein said, “leads me to wonder where she was.”
I nodded.
“You got any idea?”
“No,” I said.
“I was married once, twice actually, and I remember some of it, and one of our female agents went through the house too, and we agreed that there wasn’t enough makeup in the bathroom. Like she packed some and left.”
“After he heard the tape,” I said. “It would fi gure.”
“So where’d she go?”
“Ask around at the college?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Hotel?” I said.
“We’re running that now,” Epstein said. “Just thought you might save us a little time.”
I shrugged.
“Sorry,” I said.
Epstein sat quietly looking at me. Outside my window it was dark, with a lot of wind which drove short occasional bursts of rain against the glass.
“I talked with Martin Quirk about you,” he said. “Known you a lot longer than I have.”
“He’s always admired me,” I said.
“Sure,” Epstein said. “He told me you get sort of flighty upon occasion.”
“His admiration sometimes shades into jealousy,” I said.
“We agreed that you sometimes operate under the illusion that you’re Sir Lancelot.”
“Explains why my strength is as the strength of ten,” I said.
“That was Galahad,” Epstein said.
“Wow, a literate bureaucrat.”
“We also agreed that you were pretty good at this work and could go places and do things that cops are barred from,” Epstein said.
“Fewer rules,” I said.
“Mostly none, according to Quirk.”
I shrugged.
“And we agreed that you usually came out on the right side in the end,” Epstein said.
“When possible,” I said.
“At the end of this,” Epstein said, “you better be on the right side, which is to say, mine.”
“Do what I can,” I said.
“You better,” Epstein said. “You get the full force and credit of the U.S. government on your ass . . . we’ll win that one.”
“Eeek,” I said.
24.
It would have been helpful if Vinnie hadn’t shot the mystery man,” Susan said. I was driving, Susan beside me. It was dark. The wipers were moving gently. It embodied most of what I wanted in life, alone with Susan, going someplace, protected from the rain.
“It would be helpful if the tooth fairy came by,” I said, “and left a note under my pillow explaining everything.”
“I guess it was just Vinnie being Vinnie,” Susan said.
“Yes,” I said.
“It wouldn’t occur to him that the gunman might be a valuable witness.”
“It wouldn’t,” I said.
“And if it did?” Susan said.
“He wouldn’t care,” I said.
“Some nice friends,” Susan said.
“I’m not sure Vinnie is a friend, exactly,” I said. “But if I need him he shows up. He’s not afraid of anything. He keeps his word. And he’s a really good shooter.”
I was in Kendall Square, looking for a parking spot close to the college. Susan would hate walking in the rain. Unlike myself.
“Who seems to be without regard,” Susan said, “for any of the rules.”
“He has some rules,” I said.
“Like Hawk,” Susan said.
I spotted an unoccupied hydrant across the street from Concord College.
“Some,” I said. “He’s not as smart as Hawk.”
“Most people aren’t.”
“And he doesn’t have Hawk’s, what, joy?” I said.
Susan laughed.
“Oddly, joy is about right for Hawk,” she said. I let the traffi c pass, and U-turned back toward my hydrant.
“It’s almost as if we were talking about you,” she said.
“Which is kind of frightening.”
“I have more rules,” I said.
“I know.”
“And I have you.”
“Yes,” she said. “You do.”
I parallel-parked so adroitly that I was looking for applause. Susan had no reaction. She’d expected it. That was, after all, a kind of applause. We got out and headed across the street.
Susan had an umbrella. She offered me shelter under it. I declined, of course.
“This lecture,” Susan said from under her umbrella. “It’s by the man that Jordan whatsis was having an affair with?”
“Richmond,” I said. “Yes. Epstein gave me the FBI file on Alderson, or at least as much of it as Epstein felt I should see.”