Painted Ladies (21 page)

The sergeant looked at me and said, “Who’s this?”

“My bodyguard,” Belson said. “You’ve looked at the site?”

“Yeah.”

“I want the building covered on all four,” Belson said. “I want the guys at each corner of the property in visual contact with the guy at the corners on each side of him. You’ve done this before.”

“Sure,” the sergeant said. “One question. Your buddy here a cop, or we gotta take care of him?”

“He’ll take care of himself,” Belson said. “Let’s get to it.”

The apprehension team went first, and we followed. They pulled up in front of the Herzberg Foundation and poured out of the car. In thirty seconds they had the place surrounded. Two guys with a short ram stood by the front door. The sergeant looked at Belson and nodded.

Frank and I went up the stairs and tried the door. It was open. Frank and I both took out our guns and went in. Nothing. The place throbbed with emptiness. No people. No papers. No coffeepots. No water bottles. Neat, clean, and deserted.

“Balls,” Belson said.

“Exactly,” I said.

Belson looked at the command sergeant.

“Make sure,” Belson said.

The sergeant nodded, and the team searched the house. It was as empty as it felt.

“They been a step ahead of us pretty much all along,” Belson said. “How’d they know.”

“Might be my fault,” I said.

“They decided to bail after you told them how much you knew?” Belson said.

“I was trying to bait him, get him to do something hasty,” I said.

Belson nodded.

“Case like this,” Belson said, “there’s not that much choice. You poke and push and see what happens. Better than doing nothing.”

“This time what happened is that they took off,” I said.

“Maybe,” Belson said. “Maybe something else.”

The sergeant came back and reported that the building was empty.

“Okay,” Belson said. “Canvass the neighborhood, see if you can learn anything.”

The sergeant nodded.

“When they left, how they left, where they went, whatever,” Belson said.

“We’re on it,” the sergeant said.

“And take off the armor so your people don’t scare the neighbors to death.”

The sergeant grinned.

“Some of my people look better with the armor on,” he said.

While the neighborhood was being canvassed, Belson and I walked through the building, opening drawers, looking in wastebaskets. We didn’t find anything.

“Could get the scientists in here,” Belson said.

“Prints?” I said.

“Whatever,” Belson said.

“It appears to me that this place was rented furnished,” I said.

“So there might be quite a few prints?” Belson said.

“An embarrassment of riches,” I said.

“You’re probably right,” Belson said. “But I’ll have them take a look, anyway. Makes them feel important.”

The sergeant came back into the building.

“Left a couple days ago,” he said. “Took a few boxes. In some kind of rental van. One guy thinks it might have been a Ryder. Nobody got an idea where they went.”

“I’ll check the rental van,” Belson said. “We’ll see who owns this building and who they rented it to. Something might turn up.”

“So you don’t need us no more, we’ll pack up and go home,” the sergeant said.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Belson said.

The sergeant looked at me.

“You carry a gun,” he said. “I seen you take it out when you went in the house.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said.

“You ain’t a cop,” he said.

“Not anymore,” I said.

“He’s a private license,” Belson said. “He’s been working on this case longer than I have.”

The sergeant nodded.

“Just asking,” he said.

When he was gone, I said, “Alert to any transgression.”

Belson nodded.

“Probably make lieutenant before I do,” Belson said.

“Might help,” I said, “if you take the lieutenant’s exam.”

“Fuck the lieutenant’s exam,” Belson said.

“Your position remains consistent,” I said.

“Ain’t gonna change,” Belson said. “I’ve been a cop a long time. I don’t need to prove myself in some fucking exam.”

“You do if you want to make lieutenant,” I said.

“Fuck lieutenant, too,” Belson said.

I grinned.

“No wonder we get along,” I said.

Belson looked at me without expression.

“Who says we get along?” Belson said.

I
f you didn’t know you were Jewish,” I said, “would you know you were Jewish?”

Susan looked at me carefully.

“Is this a trick question?” she said.

We were in bed. Having completed the more rambunctious part of our evening together, we had invited Pearl into the bedroom. She had tried to settle in between Susan and me, but I outmuscled her, and she settled for the foot of the bed. Dogs are adaptive.

“No,” I said. “I know you’re not religious. And your ancestors came from Germany. But . . .”

“But I’m Jewish,” Susan said. “I’m a Jew in the same way I’m a woman. It is who and what I am.”

“And if you didn’t know?” I said.

“I don’t believe in magic,” Susan said. “Although there are moments in a therapy session . . . No. No more so than I can speak Hebrew. The irony about Jewishness, I’ve always thought, is that it has been intensified by repression.”

“Containment enhances the power of explosion,” I said.

“Something like that,” Susan said.

Our earlier rambunctiousness had pretty well done away with the bedcovers. Susan made a weak effort at modesty by pulling one edge of the comforter over her thighs. She had been doing power yoga for some time now, and was pleased with her strength and flexibility. As she talked, she raised one naked leg and pointed it toward the ceiling, which pretty well took care of the modesty issue.

“Flexible,” I said.

“And strong,” she said.

“Good traits in a woman,” I said.

She smiled and raised the other leg. Pearl eyed the space that had been created but stayed put. I eyed her both legs pointing at the ceiling.

“Also comely,” I said.

“Jewesses are frequently comely,” Susan said.

“None as comely as you,” I said.

Susan flexed her elevated ankles.

“Doubtless,” she said.

“This thing with the paintings has been the most Jewish thing I’ve ever dealt with.”

“Except me,” Susan said.

“As always,” I said. “There’s you, and there’s everybody else.”

“All the bad guys appear to be Jewish,” Susan said.

“I’m beginning to feel like an anti-Semite,” I said.

Susan, with both legs still sticking up in the air, turned from admiring them to look at me.

“You’re not,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “Now, if I could just find Ariel Herzberg.”

Susan put her legs down, which was good news and bad news. The good news was I could think of something else. It was also the bad news.

“What is he like?” Susan said.

“I don’t know. I have no handle on him. I thought I could lure him into trying to kill me, and instead I lured him into disappearing.”

“Disappearing may be a bit solipsistic,” Susan said. “He’s not disappeared. He’s someplace. You just don’t know where.”

“My God,” I said. “I’m in bed with Noah Webster.”

“Think about it,” Susan said. “Worst case. He’s on the run. He’s alone. He has to go somewhere. If you were at the end of your rope and in his situation, where would you go?”

“To you,” I said.

Susan nodded.

“Does he have a me?”

“No one does,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “There’s an ex-wife. There’s a daughter.”

“Ex-wife doesn’t hold him in high esteem,” I said.

“ ‘Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,’ ” Susan said.

“It’s not Noah Webster,” I said. “It’s Robert Frost.”

“When people run,” Susan said, “they run home.”

“And the daughter thinks he’s heroic,” I said.

“It’ll be the wife,” Susan said.

“How do you know?”

“Shrink, woman, and comely Jewess,” Susan said.

“Oh,” I said. “That’s how.”

B
right and early, while the coffee was brewing in my office pot, I called Crosby at Walford.

“Can you see if you can locate Missy Minor?” I said.

“You want me to hold her?”

“I don’t even want her to know you located her. Just let me know.”

“I’ll be surreptitious,” he said.

“You don’t sound like a cop,” I said. “You got to stop hanging around the faculty lounge.”

“Oh, okay,” Crosby said. “I’ll be fucking surreptitious.”

“Better,” I said.

I hung up and dialed Shawmut Insurance and asked for Winifred Minor.
She was not in today.
I asked if she was ill.
That information was not available.
Of course it wasn’t. I hung up and checked the coffee. It was ready, so I poured some and added milk and sugar and sat down with it. I was on my second cup when Crosby called back.

“She don’t answer the bell at her dorm,” he said when I picked up the phone. “And she isn’t at the gym or anywhere like that.”

“And what were you going to say if she did answer the door?” I said.

“I told my guy to say, ‘There’s been a burglary in one of the dorms and we’re just warning all the members of the Walford community.’”

“Slick,” I said. “Might she be in class?”

“Only class today is twelve to three,” he said. “We’ll check when the time comes, let you know.”

“You know any of her friends?” I said.

“Don’t know any,” Crosby said. “Can find out. But I’d have to start asking around, and that’s not surreptitious.”

“True,” I said.

“Something cooking?” he said.

“If only I knew,” I said.

“Happy to help,” he said. “If I can. It’s almost like police work.”

“Thanks, Crosby,” I said.

“No problem, pal.”

“Anyone ever call you Bing?”

“No,” he said.

After we hung up, I sat and drank coffee and thought. Several doughnuts would have helped that process, but Susan had convinced me they were not nourishing, and I was trying to be loyal to her. Love is not always a simple thing.

He was there. I was convinced of that. What I was thinking about was what to do about it. I didn’t know if he was there holding them hostage, or if he was there being clasped to the bosom of his family. I didn’t want the cops, at least until I knew what the arrangement was. Once the cops are in, you no longer control anything. I wanted to keep Winifred and Missy out of it, if I could.

I finished my coffee and stood up.

Time to reconnoiter.

W
inifred Minor’s address was one of the palisade of condos that had gone up in the old navy yard after the navy moved mostly out. There was still a small presence fenced off at the city square end of the yard, but the rest was residential. There were some small shops to service the residents, but most of the effort and money had been expended on the waterfront, where you could look out your window at harbor traffic, and across the harbor at Boston.

Winifred lived in a gray clapboard town house at the end of a long corridor of gray clapboard town houses, all of which were elevated a level to permit parking underneath. This meant climbing a significant stairway and walking along a deck in front of the town houses until you found the number you wanted.

On the way over from my office I had carefully thought out the options for gaining entry, once I had scoped the place out a little. I reviewed my options as I climbed the stairs and moved down the deck. Winifred was located three from the water end of the row. The option I chose was breathtaking in its simplicity.

I rang the bell.

In an appropriate amount of time, Winifred opened the door. She opened it only a little, enough to see out. And when she saw me she stood and stared, with one hand on the open edge of the door.

“May I come in?” I said.

She blinked a couple of times, as if the question was too hard for her.

Then she said, “No, no, I don’t think so. We’re busy now.”

“How about I wait?” I said.

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “We’ll be busy all day.”

I nodded. Her face was stiff. But as I looked at her, she glanced down at the door lock where her hand rested, and as I looked down with her, she pushed in the little button that kept the door from locking automatically when it was closed.

“Perhaps I could come back tomorrow,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” Winifred said, and closed the door.

I pressed my ear against it and heard her steps receding up the stairs. I stayed where I was for a moment and then gently tried the thumb latch on the door. It was open. I went in very quietly and eased the door shut behind me. I was in a small hallway that led to a sitting room with a big window that looked out on the harbor. The room was furnished as an office. To the left, a stairway led up to what I assumed were the living quarters.

Vertical architecture.

I had a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber on my hip, and a short-barreled .38 in an ankle holster. But if there was shooting in the kind of space I seemed to be in, then Winifred and Missy were at risk. Me, too, but I had signed on for it. I was wearing jeans and sneakers, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket. The T-shirt had a little pocket on the chest. I took off the leather jacket and put it on the floor. I took the S&W off my hip and cocked it, and held it a little behind my right thigh and started quietly up the steps.