Pale Kings and Princes

I shrugged. “If you were around to consult on her and Emmy and Juanita...”

“And?” Susan said.

“And to help me cope with my sexual energy,” I said.

“Getting a little edgy staying out in Wheaton alone so long, are we?” Susan said.

“Maybe,” I said.

She drank the rest of her cocoa.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the deal, big guy. I’ll try to reorganize my schedule, which will take me a day or two, and then I’ll come out and join you.”

“Ah,” I said.

“On two conditions,” Susan said. “One, that we never eat again in the motel dining room...”

I nodded.

“And, two,” Susan said, “you call Hawk tomorrow and ask him to join you.”

“And if he refuses?” I said.

“I’ll call him.”

“Done,” I said. “It is great working with a pro.”

Susan turned toward me and put her mouth lightly against mine and said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

25

I got back to the Reservoir Court Motel at about twenty of one the next day. There was a message to call Brian Lundquist. I did.

“Same gun,” he said, “killed Rogers. Not the same gun killed Valdez.”

“You have anything on Brett Rogers?” I said.

“What I got is if you’d told me about him when you gave me the gun maybe we wouldn’t be looking at him dead now,” Lundquist said.

“Maybe,” I said. “And maybe you’d figured out the Valdez thing we’d all be windsurfing in the Bahamas.”

“Umm,” Lundquist said. “I’m having a meeting with a couple of the Wheaton people, you want to sit in?”

“When,” I said.

“Four-thirty this afternoon,” Lundquist said. “Wheaton police station.”

“I’ll be there.”

And I was, in fact I was there early and waiting outside when Lundquist showed up. We went in together. Henry, the potbellied captain, had taken over in Rogers’s office as acting chief. His pal J.D. was sitting in a straight chair near the desk.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Henry said when I came in with Lundquist.

“I asked him,” Lundquist said. “Figured he might be able to help.”

J.D. picked up a paper cup from the edge of Henry’s desk and spit tobacco juice into it and put the cup back on the desk.

“I don’t want him here,” Henry said.

“Don’t be a pain in the ass, Henry,” Lundquist said. “We need any help we can get on this thing.”

“We’re doing fine without him,” Henry said.

I pulled a chair away from the wall and sat down in it and put my feet straight out in front of me and crossed them at the ankles.

“You’ve had three murders in the last month including your own chief and you haven’t arrested anyone,” I said. “I’d hate to see it when you weren’t doing fine.”

“You gonna run off your fucking mouth once too fucking often,” J.D. said around his tobacco.

“I already have,” I said.

Lundquist said, “Shut up, Spenser. J.D., whyn’t you put a lid on it too. We got a project here that needs working on and yelping at each other won’t help.” He was looking at Henry. “You want to cooperate with the State Police in this investigation, don’t you, Henry?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Henry said. “Sit down.”

Lundquist sat beside me.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we got. We got the gun that killed Bailey. We traced the serial number. Manufacturer says it was made around 1916, sold to a firearms dealer in San Diego as part of a wholesale lot, and that’s the end of the line. The dealer doesn’t exist anymore, there’s no trace of the thing ever being registered anywhere, or sold to anyone. Spenser says the kid, Brett, told him he got the gun from Esteva. Kid’s mother confirms that she heard the kid say that too.”

“Caroline’s so hysterical you can’t count on nothing she says,” Henry said.

Lundquist shrugged. “You talked to Esteva,” he said to Henry. “What did he say?”

“Says the kid’s full of shit,” Henry answered. “Says the kid was fucking retarded anyway, and that Esteva kept him out of pity, as a favor to his old man.”

“And the hundred keys of coke that Spenser confiscated from the kid?” Lundquist said.

“Esteva says that he thinks it must be a frame or something. He don’t know nothing about it. He don’t know nobody in Belfast, Maine.”

“And you back-checked on Penobscot Seafood,” Lundquist said.

“Sure. Called the Belfast cops. They said the place is empty. Owner lives in Baltimore, says he hasn’t rented it for a year.”

“Do the Belfast cops know why trucks pull in and out of there?” I said.

“They say they don’t very much. Occasionally, they say, some trucker puts his rig in the parking lot for the night.”

“Where did you get that blow, Spenser?” J.D. said. “I think we ought to be booking you on possession, hundred keys looks like intent to sell from where I sit.”

“Where you sit is on your brains,” I said.

“Keep it up, pal, you won’t always have a state cop around to back you.”

“Don’t waste time,” Lundquist said. “We’re after a murderer here, probably killed three people.”

“We don’t know it ain’t Spenser,” Henry said.

“We don’t know it ain’t you,” Lundquist said. “Or me. But it doesn’t seem like the best avenue, you know?”

“Sure, Brian,” Henry said. “Sure, sure. What else you got?”