"May I keep this?" I said.

"Oh, certainly, sir. We have them available just for that."

"Thank you," I said.

"Oh, you're very welcome, sir." I smiled.

She smiled.

I left.

Chapter 22

I SAT IN my office with my feet up, and the window open to let some air in, and thumbed through the press kit on Clint Stapleton. Mostly it was puffery. It did say that Clint was twenty-two, and a senior at Taft. That he had grown up in New York City, and attended Phillips Andover Academy, where he'd been captain of the tennis team.

I put the folder down for a moment. At twenty-two he was five years younger than Hunt McMartin, the guy who'd ID'd Ellis Alves. And the same age as McMartin's wife, who had also gone to Andover. This smacked of clue, but it had been so long since I'd found one that I remained cautious. The rest of the stuff was about how Clint was likely to be an all-American this year, and how Iie was planning to join the pro tour after graduation. His won-and-lost record was there, some xeroxed clippings, all laudatory, a head shot, and several action shots of Clint. He was wearing his kerchief in all of the action shots.

I sat for a bit and thought about the Andover connection and listened to the sounds of city traffic below my window. While I was thinking, Hawk came in with lunch.

"Nantucket Bay scallops are in," Hawk said. "Thought we ought to have some."

"What made you think I'd be hungry?" I said.

Hawk snorted and didn't bother to answer. He took out a bottle of dry Riesling, some plastic cutlery, two containers of broiled scallops, and a pint of coleslaw. I dug a corkscrew out of my desk drawer and, while Hawk opened the wine, I rinsed out two water glasses in the sink.

"Wine for lunch makes me sleepy," I said.

"Don't have to drink none," Hawk said.

He poured some in one of the water glasses and looked at me.

"I don't wish to offend you," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"'Course you don't," he said and poured some wine into the second glass.

We were quiet for a time while we sipped a little wine and sampled a couple of the bay scallops. The pint of coleslaw was communal. We took turns at it.

"Take a look at this," I said and handed the sports info folder to Hawk. "This is the guy that gave Melissa Henderson his letter sweater."

Hawk read through it. When he came to the pictures he stopped and studied the head shot.

"A brother," Hawk said.

"Sort of," I said.

"Suppose he met Melissa's parents?" Hawk said.

"Don't know."

"If he did," Hawk said, "you suppose he was wearing the do rag?"

"Looks like a trademark to me," I said.

"He tell you anything useful?" Hawk said.

"Started out pretending he didn't know Melissa," I said.

"Okay, so we know he ain't smart," Hawk said.

"He's not friendly either," I said. "He also says he never talked to the cops, but his coach says a detective who sounds like Miller, the State cop that busted Ellis, talked with him, the coach, not long after the murder and asked about Stapleton."

"So somebody knew about him right after she died," Hawk said.

"But either Stapleton's lying, or nobody talked to him."

"You talk to the cop?"

"Yeah. He wasn't friendly either. And he never mentioned Stapleton."

"Might want to talk to him again," Hawk said. "Sound like somebody lying."

"Almost certainly," I said. "Cops always talk to the husband or the boyfriend in a case like this."

"So why he lying?"

"Be good to know," I said.

"And how come the cop… whatsis name?"

"Miller."

"How come Miller don't mention Stapleton," Hawk said, "and Stapleton's name never come up in the transcript?"

I didn't even know Hawk had a copy of the transcript.

But I was used to that. Even I never really knew Hawk.

"That'd be good to know, too," I said.

"And who looking to get you run off the case?"

"That'd be dandy to know."

I swiveled my chair a little and looked out my window and sipped my wine. It had rained hard last night and cleared before dawn. The morning sun was bright, and outside my window everything in the Back Bay looked clean and morally alert.

"Another thing that bothers me," I said, "is that Stapleton went to Andover three years behind Hunt McMartin and coincident with McMartin's wife."

"They the people ID'd Ellis?"

"Yeah."

"So Stapleton's girlfriend get killed, and by coincidence people he went to prep school with ID the killer and nobody mention that?"

"Not to me," I said. "And it's not in the trial transcripts."

"'Course not everybody go to Andover know each other," Hawk said.

"True," I said.

"Still a coincidence," Hawk said.

"Un huh."

"You like coincidences?"

"I hate them," I said. "How about you."

"Got no feeling on it," Hawk said. "You the detective. I just a thug."

"You're too modest," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"Didn't mean to say I wasn't a great thug," he said.

"Another thing that's bothersome," I said, "is even though, according to the ME, there's no proof of rape they found no semen, for instance-everybody automatically refers to the fatal event as a rape and murder."

"That 'cause the alleged perp is a brother," Hawk said.

"And all you guys think about is ravaging our women."

"Not all," Hawk said. "Sometimes we think 'bout eating fried chicken."

"While ravaging our women?" I said.

"When possible," Hawk said. "What did she die of?"

"Strangulation."

"Manual?"

"No, some kind of ligature."

"Ligature," Hawk said. "Easy to see how you got to be a detective. I assume they never found this here ligature."

"Nope."

"And they didn't find her clothes?"

"Nope."

"They ever establish a, ah, prior connection between Ellis and the deceased?"

"Nope."

Across Berkeley Street from my office the tourists were posing with the bear outside of FAO Schwarz. The coffee shop on the first floor must have changed the grease in the frialator. There was a clean smell to it as it drifted up from the alley vent.

"They ever establish how Ellis got out to Pemberton?" Hawk said.

"The eyewitnesses said he was driving an old pink Cadillac."

"Yeah, that's what we drive," Hawk said. "They ever find the car?"

"Nope."

"They get the license number?"

"Nope."

"But there was one registered to Ellis."

"Nope."

Hawk ate the last scallop. I turned back to the desk and took a healthful bite of coleslaw.

"So," Hawk said, "Alves borrows or steals a car one night, an inconspicuous old pink Caddy. He drives out to Pemberton in his inconspicuous car, where there ain't no black folks, and the cops pay attention to any that they see. He cruises around in his inconspicuous car until he spots a white girl on a busy street, drags her into his inconspicuous car in front of witnesses, drives her somewhere, takes off her clothes and strangles her, though he maybe doesn't rape her, dumps her body in the middle of the Pemberton Campus, and rides on back home with her clothes and the aforesaid ligature in his inconspicuous car, so in case the cops stop him he can incriminate himself."