Ms. Margolis did not look even vaguely pretty now.

“A man named Paul McFetridge told me he met you that night.”

“Fucked me on the beach and pushed me out the fucking door is what he did.” This was a very angry woman. “And he didn’t tell you because I never gave him anything but my first name.”

“Ms. Margolis, who else has talked to you since then? About that night, I mean.”

“I know goddamn well what you mean. And let me tell you, Mr. Junior District Attorney, I’ve got a deal, okay? So leave me the fuck alone or I’ll call your boss and your next job will be selling newspapers at the Tstation.”

And with that, Patty Margolis left me on the sidewalk in front of Margolis & Associates, CPAs, Center Street, West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

5

.

“IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU?” MITCHELL WHITE WANTED to know.

I said there wasn’t, although in truth I could have spent the better part of an hour telling him the opposite.

“Who told you to go see that woman?”

“Chuck, Chuck Larson.”

“Chuck, huh? Well, I can only imagine that he sent you there so you could learn for yourself there’s no evidence to support the latest crap that Bill Telford’s throwing around.”

“So she went ahead and called you, huh?”

“Why would she call me?” Mitch demanded, his voice rising, his mustache flaring.

“Because you know I talked to her and I haven’t told anyone.”

This threw the district attorney into total discombobulation. He twisted sideways in his big rolling chair so he could put his left forearm on his ink blotter and look at me over his shoulder. “You know, this isn’t your case, my friend. Your cases are operating under the influence and petty burglaries, and until you hear different that’s all I want you working on.”

“She told me she cut a deal.”

“With whom?” Mitch White’s little eyes popped behind his oversized glasses. “Not with me.”

“Oh, jeez, I knew that.”

That seemed to temper him a bit.

“But that leaves open the question of whom she did cut a deal with and what kind of deal she cut.” I felt a little bit like I had when I told Bonnie to throw the rope to the swimmers.

Mitch’s eyeballs receded, but he kept me in his sight, not sure what I was going to spring on him next. I let him swirl in uncertainty for a moment, then said, “I’m thinking whoever it was had a reason for cutting that deal. I’m thinking the deal could have had something to do with seeing Heidi Telford that night.”

“She say she saw her?”

“Nope.” It was hard to tell if he believed me.

“What did she tell you?”

“Nothing. But she was angry I found her.”

“She’s not talking; there’s nothing more we can do.”

Strange thinking, I thought, from the man with the power of a subpoena. “There’s one more person we can try,” I told him.

Mitch’s fingers were conducting a drumbeat on the pad. He was still sitting sideways. He hadn’t blinked in an extraordinarily long time. Now he looked as though he wasn’t planning on speaking again, ever. I helped him out.

“Jason Stockover. He was another guy who was there that night.”

“What night?”

Oh, very good, Mitch. “The night somebody buried a golf club in Heidi Telford’s head.”

The district attorney sucked in his lower lip. “And where is he?”

“I was hoping somebody could tell me. Then I’d ask your permission to go talk to him.”

“But right now you don’t need my permission because nobody knows where this Jason Stockover is.” Mitch was not stupid, just simple.

“Well, let’s put it this way—I don’t know where he is.”

Mitch had the exit he needed. He repositioned himself so he was facing me directly. He squared his bony shoulders, set his eyes on mine, and said, “Therefore, you will have no problem getting back to what you are supposed to be doing, which is prosecuting OUIs, right?”

I knew the answer he wanted. It seemed best to give it.

BARBARA BELBONNET ALSO WANTED to know what was wrong. Her concern was different from Mitch’s. Still, I told her nothing and set about arranging my files.

She came over and leaned her butt against my desk. She was wearing a sand-colored top that at first I thought was a T-shirt, but it was tightly woven material made to look more casual than it actually was. Once again she was wearing form-fitting slacks, black this time. She must have gone on a shopping spree.

“Want to tell me about it?” she said.

I looked down at her feet. She had shoes that matched the color of her top. “Tell you about what?” I wondered if women bought shoes to match their tops. Twenty tops, twenty shoes.

“Whatever it is that has you so worked up,” she said.

“I’m not worked up.”

“Oh.” She didn’t leave my desk. She raised her hand and brushed her almost-blond hair back from her face. For an instant the top that was not a T-shirt opened wide under her arm and I could see an expanse of smooth, fair skin. The hand came down. The skin disappeared.

I looked at my files again. I had a trial in the morning. A doctor had blown a .14 and thought he could beat it. I was supposed to wipe the floor with him. The doctor apparently didn’t have friends in the right places.

Barbara pushed off the desk. “I think I liked you better the way you used to be,” she said.

Which was funny not only because I didn’t think I had changed, but because I never knew she liked me before.

1

.

BOSTON, July 2008

IKNOCKED ON MARION’S DOOR.

A male voice asked, “Who is it?”

There was something familiar about that voice, but I did not immediately place it. I was thinking about Buzzy, and I knew it wasn’t him.

“My name is George Becket,” I said, “and I’m looking for Marion.”

There was a very long pause on the other side of the door. I was about to knock again, ready to explain my relationship with whomever was guarding her privacy when the door was pulled open and I looked into the taut face and cold eyes of Roland Andrews.

“Marion doesn’t live here anymore,” he said.

“But you do.”

“You’ve been a busy boy.” Roland Andrews came close to smiling. “Somebody has to look out for you.”

I may have sworn at him then. I can’t think of any other reason why Roland’s eyes suddenly lit up, why he grabbed my wrist, jerked me into the apartment, flung me against the wall, and kicked the door shut in one continuous, fluid movement. I was bigger than Roland, taller, heavier, but there I was, my feet dangling above the parquet floor, his forearm across my neck. “What did you say?” he demanded.

I did not tell him. I didn’t say anything else, either. At that moment I thought there might be a certain poetic justice in him hanging me on my ex-wife’s wall. There was, from what I could see, nothing else on the walls—no pictures, no art. Just me.

Roland applied one last bit of pressure to my throat and then let me slide down the wall to my feet as he backed away. He had hurt me, but I was not going to let him see that. I did not touch my throat or my wrist. I stood still and waited for my functions to return.

“Figured you’d be here sooner or later,” he said, as if now that he had asserted physical mastery we could move on to convivialities. He was wearing a gray T-shirt with a faded insignia over his heart that said Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The T-shirt fit tightly, particularly over his arms, and it was tucked into jeans that seemed equally tight. Tight, tight, tight—the man radiated tightness. I wondered what would happen if my fist shot out and hit him in the nose. Probably my hand would shatter.