“Will you stay with me?” Beth said.

“No.”

“We could have an awfully good time if you did,” Beth said.

“No,” I said. “We couldn’t.”

Beth stood up suddenly.

“Oh, go to hell,” she said.

She turned and stalked out of my office. Estelle looked at me and shrugged and went after Beth.

I continued to sit at my desk. It was not clear to me what had just happened. On the other hand, it often wasn’t, and I’d gotten used to it.

I WAS IN FRANK BELSON’S CUBICLE at Boston police head-quarters at Tremont and Ruggles.

“Found your name in a guy’s Rolodex,” Frank said.

“A dead guy?” I said.

“Wow,” Belson said. “You figured that out because I’m a homicide cop?”

“Want to tell me who it is?” I said.

“Guy named Chester Jackson,” Belson said.

I leaned back a little.

“I know him,” I said.

“Tell me about him,” Belson said.

“I gather he didn’t die of natural causes,” I said.

“Somebody put a forty-caliber slug into his head from about eight feet away, and a second one, from about three inches.”

“To make sure,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“When did he get it?” I said.

“Secretary says he left his office at five p.m. Nine-one-one got an anonymous call at five-ten. Saying someone had been shot in the garage. There was a car in the area. It arrived at five-thirty, and there he was.”

“What garage?” I said.

“Under International Place,” Belson said. “’Bout two light years down.”

“Was he parked there?”

“Yep. He was facedown on the floor with his car door open.”

“So somebody was waiting for him,” I said.

“This sounds more like me telling you than you telling me,” Belson said.

“We’ll get to me,” I said.

Belson nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “We will.”

“There’s security in that garage, isn’t there?”

“Yep. If you work there, you got a pass. If not, you have to be on a list.”

“You got the list,” I said.

“Amazingly, we thought of that,” Belson said.

“Anything?”

“Not yet,” Belson said. “Thought you might take a look.”

“I will,” I said. “If you walk into the lobby from the street and take the elevator down to the garage…”

“And aren’t carrying something that looks like an infernal device,” Belson said. “You’re in.”

“You’d be an idiot,” I said, “to drive into the garage.”

“Car was parked almost next to an elevator,” Belson said.

“Assigned parking?”

“Yep. Sign says ‘Reserved for C. Jackson.’ ”

“So,” I said. “If you knew Jackson, you’d know he was a big deal and would be likely to have an assigned spot.”

“So you could wander around the garage until you found it,” Belson said.

“Probably be near an elevator, so maybe you could cut down on the wandering,” I said.

“And you wait there until he shows up,” Belson said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Or you know him, you know where he parks, you know when he’s going to come for his car, and you get there a few minutes early,” Belson said. “And pop him.”

“No witnesses,” I said.

“Nope.”

“No suspicious-looking people hanging around,” I said.

“None reported.”

“How come nobody ever sees a shooting?” I said.

“Shooter might try to arrange it that way,” Belson said. “And it’s a godsend for us. Give us something to do so that we’re not in the bars drinking Jameson with a beer chaser by two in the afternoon.”

“God is kind,” I said.

“Tell me about Jackson,” Belson said.

He had a notebook on the desk in front of him, and as I talked, every once in a while he wrote things in it.

“I don’t know quite what he does, but I know he makes a lot of dough, and I know all of it isn’t clean.”

“He wired?” Belson said.

“I would say so.”

“Got any names?” Belson said.

“I know a name, but it’s a guy just did me a favor, and unless I think he did Jackson, which I don’t, I won’t name him.”

“We could insist,” Belson said.

“You could,” I said.

“We can be insistent as a sonovabitch,” Belson said.

“I know.”

“But you won’t tell us anyway,” Belson said.

“No.”

“Known you a long time,” Belson said.

“And yet here we are,” I said. “Still in the bloom of youth.” Belson nodded.

“You get a suspicion,” he said, “you let me know.”

“At once,” I said.

“Sure,” Belson said. “I’ll check with the organized-crime guys.”

“I would,” I said.

“What’s your connection to him?”

I told him everything, as it was, except that I didn’t name the other women. And I didn’t mention Tony Marcus.

“And how did you resolve the problem?”

“Tireless negotiation,” I said.

“Wife buy into it?” Belson said.

“She said she did.”

“Think she might have not meant it.”

“Probably,” I said.

“Think she might have aced him?”

“She might have,” I said. “But at the time Jackson was killed she was talking to me in my office with a woman named Estelle.”

“What a coincidence,” Belson said.

“It is,” I said.

“Estelle who?”

“Don’t know her last name. She’s a trainer at Pinnacle Fitness.”

“Want to tell me why they were there?”

“Beth said her life had been threatened and wanted me to protect her. Said her husband had been threatened, too. Estelle was there for moral support, I guess.”

Belson wrote in the notebook.

“Were you planning on mentioning this?” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “But I thought it would be good training for you to learn of it through sound investigative procedure.”

“Geez,” Belson said. “With your help maybe I’ll make lieutenant.”

“I think you have to take the lieutenant’s exam first,” I said.

“I’ll get to it,” Belson said. “You want to tell me about the wife, what’s her name”-he glanced at his notes-“Beth.”

I told him about her visit the previous evening.

“You remember what the note said?”

“ ‘Your husband had betrayed me,’ ” I said. “ ‘For this you both shall die.’ ”

Belson wrote it down.

“Didn’t seem to work out that way,” he said.

“Shit happens,” I said.

Belson nodded.

“You believe all of this?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Think she might have been setting up an alibi?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But if she was, was Estelle in it, too?”

“And Gary Cockhound?” Belson said.

“It was a fairly elaborate fake, if it was a fake,” I said.

“The kind amateurs use,” Belson said.

“True,” I said.

“On the other hand, since she didn’t actually do it,” Belson said, “who did? Eisenhower?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“What’s your gut tell you?” Belson said.

“My gut says there’s something wrong with this,” I said. “It also says that Gary Eisenhower isn’t part of it.”

Belson wrote in his notebook.

“On the other hand,” he said, “your gut isn’t too bright.”

“True,” I said. “Mostly it just knows when I’m hungry.”