“She was a good kid when she was little,” Matthew said. “Hell, she was always a good kid, but she was an awful mess, too.”
He was still looking at the pizza.
“How so?” I said.
“My parents,” he said, and shook his head. “My old man treated her like she was the carnival queen and captain of the cheerleading squad. My mother...” He raised his eyes from the pizza and looked at me as the conversation began to engage him. “My mother treated her like she was an ugly little slut that would fuck every guy she met.”
“Which one did she buy into?” I said.
“Both,” Matthew said.
It was a rainy day in Harvard Square, so the foot traffic through the atrium from Mass Ave to Mount Auburn Street was heavier than it might have been if the sun were out. A lot of people were carrying umbrellas, which most of them furled inside. I had always thought that Cambridge, in the vicinity of Harvard, might have had the most umbrellas per capita of any place in the world. People used them when it snowed. In my childhood, in Laramie, Wyoming, we used to think people who carried umbrellas were sissies. It was almost certainly a hasty generalization, but I had never encountered a hard argument against it.
“She promiscuous?” I said. “If the word still has meaning.”
“Some,” Matthew said. “And she was, ah, you know, bubbly and cute.”
“Vivacious,” I said.
“Yeah,” Matthew said. “Vivacious. Worked hard as hell at it.”
“She wanted to be popular?”
“More than anything.”
“Maybe valued for what she was?”
“If she ever knew,” Matthew said. “They really messed her up.”
“Your parents?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t seem,” I said, “at first glance, really messed up.”
“I was a boy,” he said.
“Different standards,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m two years older. I got good grades in school. When she came along, they expected that she wouldn’t.”
“And she didn’t disappoint them.”
“I guess not,” Matthew said. “I played sports in high school. She didn’t make cheerleader.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry to have to ask,” I said. “But have any thoughts about what happened to her?”
“She probably went with him,” he said. “She was impressed with movie stars.”
“Even fat, piggy ones?” I said.
“It never seemed to matter,” Matthew said. “If someone was interested in her, or she thought he was...”
“Was she interested in, ah, atypical sex?”
“Kinky stuff, you mean? I don’t know how old you are, but most girls nowadays do most things.”
“I’m sorry to press,” I said. “But I meant things that most girls don’t do nowadays.”
“Stuff that might have killed her, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, you know, strangulation stuff?”
“She appears to have died of asphyxiation,” I said.
Matthew shook his head and looked back down at his pizza. He took a slice of pepperoni off the pizza and ate it.
“We talked some about sex,” he said. “But not about that kind of stuff. You saying she coulda done it herself?”
“Or asked Jumbo Nelson to do it with her.”
“He did it,” Matthew said. “Didn’t he? Everyone says he did.”
“Don’t know exactly what happened,” I said. “But I will.”
“Who you working for,” Matthew said.
“The law firm that represents Nelson,” I said.
“So you’re trying to get the fucker off,” Matthew said.
“Nope, that’s the law firm’s job. I’m just trying to find out what happened.”
“And if you find out that he did it?”
“I’ll tell the law firm,” I said.
“And if they get him off anyway?”
“That’s how the system works,” I said.
“Well, the system sucks,” Matthew said.
“Often,” I said.
“So you’re willing to let him get away with killing my sister?” Matthew said.
“I’ll make that call when I have to,” I said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s a hard call to make. The law says if you can’t convict him, then he doesn’t get punished.”
“And what do you say?”
“Maybe he didn’t kill her. Maybe he did but it was an accident. Maybe he did it. I’ll decide what to do about it when I know what happened.”
“If you knew he did it, and told, would you get in trouble with the law firm?” Matthew said.
“Might.”
“What firm is it?”
“Cone, Oakes, and Baldwin,” I said.
“Would it matter if they were mad at you?”
“Be unlikely to hire me again,” I said.
“Could they blackball you?” he said. “You know, tell other law firms?”
“Possible,” I said.
“So it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to tell,” he said.
“It would not enhance my earning potential,” I said.
Matthew was silent for a time. The pizza was mostly uneaten. The wet people came and went in the atrium. At the open ends, I could see the rain falling hard.
Then he said, “So you won’t.”
“Might,” I said.
He repressed a scornful snort. And nodded knowingly and stood up.
“Thanks for the pizza,” he said.
9
Susan had occasional designer paroxysms in my office. Some were good. Some I didn’t mind because she liked them. Occasionally an idea was inspired. The couch was inspired. Susan and I used it every now and again when we were alone in the office and going to my place or hers just seemed a long delay in our plans. Also, when Pearl was visiting she spent much of her time on it. Another winner was the small refrigerator with an ice maker, which she had set up just in back of the file cabinet where the coffeepot sat. She said it was important in case a valuable client wanted a drink. That hadn’t worked out as fully as she had thought it might. But late in the day, I could sit with my chair swiveled and look out my office window, and sip scotch and soda in a tall glass with a lot of ice.
Which was what I was doing. It was nearly dark, and the rain was falling straight down, and quite a bit of it. I liked rain. I liked to listen to it. I liked to watch it. I liked to be out in it, if I was dressed for the occasion. And inside, with a drink, out of the weather, was good for feeling secure and domestic. I sat and thought, as I liked to do, about Susan and me and our time together. It always seemed to me that being with her was enough, and that everything else, good or bad, was just background noise. The rain flattened out on my window, and some of the drops coalesced into a small rivulet that ran down the glass. My drink was drunk. I swiveled around to make another one, and Martin Quirk came through my door.
“I’m off duty,” Quirk said. “I can have a couple of drinks.”
He took off his raincoat and shook it out, and hung it up. He took off his old-timey-cop snap-brim fedora and put it on the corner of my desk. While he was doing this, I made two drinks and handed him his.
“Soda?” I said.
Quirk shook his head.
“Rocks is good,” he said. “Gimme an update.”
“Scotch is Dewar’s,” I said.” I bought it...”
“Jumbo Nelson,” Quirk said.
“Ahh,” I said. “That.”
“That,” Quirk said, and drank some scotch.
I told him about my visit with Jumbo and with the Lopatas, including Matthew. He listened without comment.
“So except for pissing people off,” he said when I was done, “you’re nowhere.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Quirk nodded.
“Well,” he said. “You’re not there alone.”
“Whaddya know about Zebulon Sixkill,” I said.