Spenser - 29 - Widow's Walk by Robert B. Parker

Author:Robert B. Parker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780425189047
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 2003-03-04T07:47:38+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I got through with the cops about 3:30 in the morning. During which time I drank too much coffee. The license plate on the Chrysler had been stolen earlier in the week from a 1986 Chevette, which belonged to an elderly woman in Amesbury. None of the cops recognized the kid I’d killed. The ME promised fingerprints by tomorrow night. Belson told me they’d probably need to talk to me some more, but there was nothing wrong with my story, and he couldn’t see any charges being brought. I agreed with him.

At 4:15 I was lying on my back in my bed, exhausted and wide awake. I had killed people before, and didn’t like it. I’d also had too much coffee. The way the kid’s face had looked with the pleasant summer rain falling on it made me think of Candy Sloan’s face, lying in the rain among the oil derricks, a long time ago. Susan was right. I had never quite put that away.

It was daylight before I got to sleep. I slept and woke up and slept and woke up until 2:30 in the afternoon, when I dragged out of bed, logy with daytime sleep. I took a shower and put on my pants and went to the kitchen, acidic still with too much really bad coffee. I made myself a fruit smoothie with frozen strawberries and a nectarine. I poured the smoothie into a tall glass and took it with me to the living room and sat in a chair by the window and looked out at Marlborough Street and drank some.

The soft rain of the night before had turned harder. It was dark for midafternoon and everything was gleaming wet. Cars were clean. The leaves on the trees were fat and shiny with rain. Good-looking women, of which the Back Bay was full, moved past now and then, alone, or walking dogs in doggie sweaters, or pushing baby strollers protected by transparent rainproof draping. The women often had bright rain gear on, looking like points of Impressionist paint in the dark wet cityscape. My apartment was quiet. I was quiet. The rain was steady and hard but not noisy, coming straight down, not rattling on the window. I sipped my smoothie. My doorbell rang.

I picked up my gun off the kitchen counter and went and buzzed the downstairs door open. And went and looked through the peephole, after a moment. The elevator door opened and Hawk stepped out. I opened the door and he came in, wearing a white raincoat and a panama hat with a big brim. And carrying a paper bag. I knew he saw the gun. He saw everything. But he had no reaction.

“Raspberry turnovers,” he said.

I closed the door. He held out the bag, and I took a turnover. I ate it while I made coffee and Hawk hung up his coat and hat.

“Been following your man Conroy,” Hawk said.

He stirred some sugar into his coffee.

“He make you?”

“Me?” Hawk said. “Vinnie?”

“I withdraw the question,” I said.

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