Painted Ladies (7 page)

“Doesn’t seem the girlfriend type,” I said.

Sandy shrugged.

“She never said much,” Sandy said. “But I know she was with him a lot.”

“You didn’t like him,” I said to Sandy.

“I thought he was a creepy old guy. I didn’t want to see him with his clothes off. . . .” She made a face.

“But you liked him,” I said to Bev.

I had no idea where I was going. I just wanted to keep them talking and see if anything popped out.

“Not really,” Bev said. “But I kinda liked the idea of bop-ping a professor, you know? Only once, though.”

“Ever meet his wife?” I said.

They both shook their heads.

“I didn’t know he had one,” Bev said.

“I guess neither did he,” Sandy said.

“Would it have mattered?” I said to Bev.

“Hell, no,” Bev said. “That’s between him and her. Not up to me to, you know, keep him faithful to his wife.”

“True,” I said.

We lasted another hour. I didn’t learn anything else. But they had gotten drunk enough so I wouldn’t have had much faith in anything they told me, anyway. I stood.

“Good night, ladies,” I said.

“How ’bout you,” Bev said. “You married?”

“Kind of,” I said.

“You cheat?” Bev said.

“No,” I said.

“Really?” Bev said.

“Really,” I said. “But thanks for asking.”

I
got Missy Minor’s campus address from Crosby, and in the mid-morning I fell into step with her when she came out.

“You’re that detective,” she said.

“Spenser’s the name,” I said. “Law and order’s the game.”

“I told you yesterday that I don’t know anything about Dr. Prince, except that he was an okay teacher and an easy grader.”

“I heard you were his girlfriend,” I said.

She was silent for a beat.

Then she said, “That’s crazy. Where’d you hear that.”

“I’m a detective, “I said. “I have my sources.”

“Speaking of which,” she said, “let me see your badge.”

I took a business card from my pocket and handed it to her.

“Private,” I said. “Working with the police.”

“ ‘Private’?” she said, looking at my card. “A private detective? I don’t have to talk with you.”

“But why wouldn’t you?” I said. “I’m a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I can see that.”

“Plus,” I said, “we have a connection.”

“What?” she said.

“I know your mother,” I said.

Again, a short silence.

Then she said, “You know Winifred?”

“I do,” I said.

“You been talking to her about me and Dr. Prince?”

“No,” I said. “If I did, what would I say?”

“My mother’s a worrier,” Missy said. “She heard any of your bullshit theory about me being his girlfriend, she’d go crazy.”

“Even though there’s no truth to it.”

“She’s a worrier,” Missy said.

“How about your father?” I said.

“Don’t have one,” Missy said.

“Ever?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” she said.

“Did you have any sort of relationship with Ashton Prince?” I said.

She shook her head again.

“Why do you suppose people had the idea that you did?” I said.

“You’re the detective,” she said. “You figure it out.”

“He hit on you?”

“He was my professor,” she said. “That’s all. I don’t see why you’re harassing me like this. It’s not my fault I was in his class, and it’s not my fault somebody blew him up with his damn painting.”

The other girls hadn’t mentioned the painting. It wasn’t secret. But you needed to be interested to remember that the infernal device had been the painting, or something everyone thought was the painting.

“I’m going to be late,” Missy said. “I wish you wouldn’t bother me about this anymore.”

“I’m sure I won’t need to,” I said.

She scooted off into the science building. I watched her go.
Liar, liar
,
pants on fire.

I
took Winifred Minor to lunch at Grill 23, which was handily equidistant between her office and mine. We sat at the bar. It was kind of early in the day for the warming pleasures of alcohol, so I ordered iced tea. She ordered a glass of chardonnay. “So,” I said, and raised my glass of tea. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

“You can’t toast wine with tea,” she said.

“You can’t?”

“No,” she said seriously. “It’s bad luck.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “Thank God you warned me in time.”

She smiled. But she didn’t pick up her glass until I put mine down. Then she raised hers for a sip.

“Missy Minor?” I said.

She finished her sip and put her glass carefully back down on the bar.

“What about Missy Minor?” she said.

“Your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Attractive girl,” I said.

“You’ve spoken with her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Winifred said.

“You know how this kind of thing works,” I said. “You got nothing, so you start snooping around, looking for a loose end to tug on.”

“And you decided my daughter was such?” Winifred said.

“I went over to Walford, where Prince taught, and talked with everyone I could find. Your daughter was one of them.”

“And you’ve singled her out?” Winifred said.

“Of course,” I said. “I find a woman in Prince’s class whose mother is handling the insurance claims on the crime in which Prince was killed?”

“There’s no connection,” Winifred said.

“I’m sure there isn’t,” I said. “But it’s too big a coincidence to let it slide.”

“Coincidences happen,” she said.

I had ordered a small shellfish sampler for lunch. She was having Caesar salad.

“They do,” I said.

I put some red sauce on a littleneck clam, and ate. She messed around with her fork in her salad bowl. But she didn’t put any food in her mouth.

“And I’d have been more willing to accept that,” I said, “if you had mentioned to me that there was a daughter.”

“I didn’t consider it germane,” Winifred said. “I was unaware that she knew Prince.”

“Was she an art major?”

“Yes.”

“At Walford?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “You know that.”

“How long were you with the Bureau?” I said.

“Fifteen years.”

I ate a shrimp. She appeared to be counting the anchovies in her salad. The bar was partly full. Mostly people having lunch but a sprinkling of thank-God-it’s-noontime people. Men, mostly, who worked in the big insurance companies. No wonder they drank.

“And you didn’t think someone would discover this coincidence?”

“That’s all it is,” she said.

“I hate coincidences,” I said. “They don’t do anything for anybody, and they muddy up the water to beat hell.”

She studied her anchovies some more.

“Who’s her father?” I said.

Winifred shook her head silently.

“I’m almost sure there has to be one,” I said.

“He died,” Winifred said.

“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Is it recent?”

“He died a long time ago.”

“What was his name?” I said.

She shook her head again.

“How come Missy won’t talk about him, either?”

Winifred took in a long, slow breath. It sounded a little shaky. Then she stood.

“Thanks for lunch,” she said, and left me alone with her anchovies.

Spenser, master inquisitor.

T
he special agent in charge of the Boston FBI office was a guy named Epstein who looked less dangerous than a chickadee, and had killed, to my knowledge, two men, both of whom had probably made the same misjudgment. I had coffee with him in a joint on Cambridge Street.

“Winifred Minor,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“She used to be FBI,” I said.

“Yep, but why do you ask?”

“You know I’m involved with that art theft where the guy got blown up,” I said.

“Ashton Prince,” Epstein said. “Hermenszoon painting.”

“Wow,” I said. “Sees all, knows all.”

“Only a matter of time,” Epstein said, “before I’m director.”

“No dresses,” I said.

“Prude,” Epstein said. “What’s your interest in Winifred Minor?”

There was a platter of crullers under a glass cover on the counter. I eyed them.

“She’s a claims adjuster now,” I said. “For a big insurance company.”

“Shawmut,” Epstein said.

“You keep track,” I said.

“I do,” Epstein said.

“They insured the painting,” I said.

“And the claim is her case,” Epstein said.

“And her daughter was a student of Prince’s, and probably they had a relationship.”

“Which is to say he was fucking her?” Epstein said.

“You civil servants speak so elegantly,” I said. “But yes. I believe he was.”

“Could all mean nothing,” he said.

“Could,” I said.

“But it’s probably more productive to think it means something,” Epstein said.

“You know who the father is, or was?” I said.

“Didn’t know Winifred was married,” Epstein said.

“Don’t know that she was.”

Epstein nodded.

“How old’s the kid,” he said.

“Nineteen, twenty,” I said.

“So Winifred was still with the Bureau,” Epstein said, “when the kid was born.”

I nodded. Epstein drank some of his coffee. I studied the plate of crullers some more.

“You ask either of them about the father?” Epstein said.

“I did,” I said.

“And?”

“They won’t talk about him,” I said.

“When the baby was born she probably used her health insurance,” Epstein said. “Bureau will have a record. I’ll see what I can find out. What’s the kid’s name?”

“Melissa Minor,” I said. “Goes by Missy.”

Epstein nodded. He didn’t write it down. He rarely wrote things down. I sometimes thought he remembered everything he’d ever heard.

“Why are you interested in the father?”

“Seems odd they won’t talk about him,” I said.

Epstein nodded.

“Anything’s better than nothing,” Epstein said.

“But harder to come by,” I said. “You know Winifred Minor?”

“Casually,” Epstein said. “Bureau regarded her as a good agent, maybe a little gung ho.”

“Aggressive?”

“Yep. Probably proving something ’cause she was a female agent,” Epstein said.

“She know anything about explosives?”

Epstein shrugged.

“No reason she should,” he said. “I don’t.”

“I thought special agents in charge knew everything,” I said.

“They do,” Epstein said. “I was just being modest.”

I
t had snowed in the night, and the world looked very clean, which I knew it not to be. But illusion is nice sometimes.

Susan was at a conference in Fitchburg, so Pearl was spending the day with me. We got to work a little before nine, and Pearl scooted into the office across the hall from mine to see Lila, the receptionist. Lila gave her a cookie, which she always did when Pearl came to visit, which may have been why Pearl was always eager to see her.

“Hi, big boy,” Lila yelled to me.

I stopped and stuck my head in her doorway.

I said, “How’s the modeling career, Toots?”

“I think I got a photo gig,” she said. “Car dealer on the north shore.”

“I hope you don’t get too successful,” I said. “I like seeing you across the hall.”

Pearl was sitting still and focused, studying the drawer in Lila’s desk where she knew the cookies were kept, on the off chance that today, for the only time, Lila would give her another one. But Lila and I had agreed that since Pearl was insatiable, and you’d have to say no eventually, you might as well say no after one cookie.

“Sooner or later,” Lila said, “we’ll have to stop meeting like this.”

I nodded sadly and jerked my head at Pearl. We went across the hall to my office. As I took out my keys, Pearl stopped stock-still and began to growl. It wasn’t her usual sort of rambunctious there’s-a-dog-I-don’t-know-passing-the-house growl. This was primordial. A low, steady sound that seemed to pulsate. I stared at her. The hair was up along her spine. Her nose was pressed against the crack where the closed door met the jamb. The growl was unvarying. It was as if she didn’t need to breathe. There was a hint of snowmelt on the floor. I looked down the hall. It was dry, except at Lila’s office, where I’d left some wet footprints. I stepped to the side, away from the door, and took Pearl with me.

Pearl was idiosyncratic. She could be growling at the doorknob. But the growl was so malevolent. I reached silently over and tried the doorknob. The door was locked. I leaned my head around the jamb and put my ear to the door. I heard nothing. Maybe Pearl was wrong, though she was certainly insistent. And someone had left a trace of melted snow outside my door. And I was working on a case involving people who had blown someone into small pieces.

I took Pearl by the collar and led her back into Lila’s office.

“Your door lock?” I said.

“Sure,” she said.

“Okay, give her another cookie while I go out. Then lock the door behind me and keep her here while I do a little business.”

“What’s going on?” Lila said.

“Official detective business,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“If anything unusual happens in the hallway or my office, keep your door locked and call nine-one-one.”

“ ‘Unusual’?”

“Yeah.”

“Unusual, like what?” she said.