Stardust (18 page)

39

B
Y
the time Susan left on Sunday night, Jill was talking. She wasn't saying much. But she said
yes
, and
no.
As in:

“Would you like more coffee?”

“Yes.”

“And would you like to take a walk?”

“No.”

On Monday morning a reporter from the
Herald
showed up and I was forced to threaten him. I got phone calls from the
Globe
and all three network affiliates in Boston. I told each that I would shoot anyone I saw.

A half hour later I got a call from Rojack.

“I want to know how Jill is,” he said.

“She's resting comfortably,” I said.

“I'd like a bit more than that,” he said.

“I don't blame you,” I said. “How'd you get this number?”

“I know a lot of people,” Rojack said. “Some of them are important.”

“Nice for you,” I said.

“I know you don't hold me in high regard, Spenser, but I care about Jill. I have the right to know how she is.”

“Un huh,” I said.

“You have no right to interfere. I want to see her.”

“No.”

“I love her, dammit, do you understand that?”

“Not in this case,” I said. “You can't see her. Later, maybe.”

“I'm afraid I must insist.”

“Sure,” I said. “That'll turn me inside out.”

“If I can get the number, I can get the location,” Rojack said. “Perhaps Randall and I will pay you a visit.”

“Perhaps I will stick Randall in the lake,” I said.

“Whatever you may think, Spenser, I love that woman. I want to help her.”

“The way you help her now is to leave her alone.”

“You won't change your mind?”

“No one sees her,” I said.

“We'll be up. You were lucky with Randall the first time.”

“I was kind the first time,” I said. “This time he'll get hurt.”

I heard the phone click. I hung up and looked at Jill sitting by the window in a straight chair looking at the lake, where the three dogs were busy sniffing out something. I picked up the phone and called Henry Cimoli and asked for Hawk. He was there.

“Remember I told you about a guy named Stanley Rojack?”

“Un huh.”

“Walks around with a big geek named Randall, thinks he's tougher than Oliver North.”

“Wow,” Hawk said.

“They say they're going to come up here and bother us,” I said.

Jill continued to watch the dogs through the window. If the name registered it didn't affect her.

“You want me to drive out and tell them not to?” Hawk said.

“Yeah,” I said, and gave him the address. “Randall does karate,” I said.

“Good,” Hawk said. “It's fun to watch.”

I hung up.

“That takes care of that,” I said to Jill.

She made no response.

Jill spent a lot of time with the dogs. She got dressed for the first time, on Monday, wearing some clothes that Susan had bought her, and sat on the floor trying to get the dogs to take turns retrieving a ball. She did this in so soft a voice that I didn't know what she was saying, and when she spoke to the dogs she leaned very close and whispered in their ears. She ate some potato and leek soup for lunch with a homemade biscuit, and after lunch when I suggested a walk she said, “Can we take the dogs?”

“Sure.”

And so we did. It was clear and sunny and maybe thirty-five degrees when we went out. Jill had on a red down-filled parka, and I wore my leather jacket. I had my gun on in case one of the squirrels got aggressive, and the three dogs raced out ahead of us, crisscrossing as we went, snuffling the ground and occasionally treeing one of the squirrels. When they did they'd moil silently around the base of the tree, leaping sometimes at the branch twenty feet above where the squirrel perched.
Hound's reach must exceed its grasp.

We were on an old logging road, where the sun had caused faster snow melt than under the trees, and the melting had caused a sag in the snow cover that defined our way. The snow was only a few inches deep here and packed harder by the melt and refreeze cycle. We didn't say anything as we crunched along. Ahead the dogs began to bark frantically and dashed off to the west of the road. When we reached the place where they'd left the road I could see rabbit tracks, the neat front paw marks, the long slur of the back feet. With the dogs out of sight Jill looked anxiously after them.

“They'll be back,” I said.

Jill nodded, but still she stared off in the direction of the dogs. In another minute the dogs reappeared, tongues lolling, bearing themselves proudly, as if they'd actually caught the rabbit. I could hear Jill's breath ease out in relief.

The road wound deeper into the woods, and where the trees had shaded it the snow was deeper and the going harder. Jill was beginning to puff, and I slowed my pace for her. She was slipping a little in the deeper snow, and I put my hand out. She took it. We walked on, holding hands. The dogs found a blue jay working on a pinecone and drove him up into the white pine tree behind him. One of them ran about for a while with the pinecone in his mouth. Finally he dropped it. The other dogs sniffed at it in turn but left it behind them as they ranged off in search of better. We were deep in the woods now, and there was no more trail. Jill held on to my hand as we went, and we crunched through the deeper snow in the evergreen woods. It was harder going, in deep; but she seemed to want to keep going. She was breathing hard and hanging on to me even harder when we broke from the woods and saw the lake again. It was frozen and snow covered, and there were the tracks of animals across it. We turned and walked along the margin of the lake. Here the sun had burned away the snow so that rocks showed and occasionally patches of earth with the grass dead and pale in the winter sunlight. The walking was easier. Ahead we could see the cabin. We had come in a slow loop back nearly to where we'd begun. The dogs saw the cabin and headed for it, running full out, heads extended, bodies bunching and flattening. They were milling at the front door when we got there and all three dashed for the water bowl and drank when I opened the door.

The fire was down and I added wood. There was electric heat in the place. The fireplace was more for show. But when it was going it warmed the room, and I turned the heat off. Jill took off her parka and hung it on the back of her chair and went and sat at the table and rested her chin on her elbows.

“I want a drink,” she said.

I mixed two, and brought them to the table and put one down in front of her. Then I sat at the table across from her.

“Here's looking at you, kid,” I said. I sounded exactly like Humphrey Bogart. Jill drank a little and so did I. The new wood on the fire had blazed up and the flames frolicked in the fireplace. The afternoon light came at a low slant through the windows.

“Tonight,” I said, “I'm going to grill chicken over the fire and serve it with succotash and hot biscuits with honey.”

Jill nodded.

“Maybe some coleslaw. Do you like coleslaw? I make it without mayo.”

Jill nodded again. The flames calmed a little as the logs settled in slightly on each other. The dogs were in their semicircle again, looking at us, waiting for dinner. I stood.

“Dogs are hungry,” I said.

“I'll feed them,” Jill said. And stood and went to the kitchen. She poured too much dry food into each of the three bowls and put them down and the dogs dug in. Then she came and sat down again and sipped her light scotch and soda and watched them eat. When she finished she held the glass out to me and I went and made her another light one. The dogs finished eating and settled in on the sofa, overlapping each other in ways that no human would find comfortable. The dogs seemed not to mind at all. In a minute they were asleep. Jill watched them.

“Have you ever wanted to go to bed with me?” Jill said.

“Every time I see you,” I said.

“Why haven't you?”

“In love with someone else. We don't sleep around.”

“She's a shrink,” Jill said.

I nodded.

“Can she help me too?” Jill said.

“Yes,” I said.

Jill was silent, thinking about this. She watched the dogs sleep while she thought. One of them shifted in his sleep and licked his muzzle with one slow sweep of his tongue.

“Why do you take care of me?” Jill said.

“No one else.”

She thought about this for a while too. She drank her drink, but not as if she had to get it in quick. She nodded to herself.

“Do you like me?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “And it hasn't been easy.”

Again she was quiet. The boss dog turned in his sleep and wriggled himself up on his back and slept that way, with all four paws in the air, legs flexed at the wrist, or whatever dogs called it, the paws hanging limp. The logs in the fireplace made a kind of sigh as they settled further, blending downward into the red mass of the coals.

“
He's
gone, isn't he,” Jill said.

“Yes.”

“You made him stop, didn't you?”

“He won't frighten you anymore,” I said.

She took another swallow of her drink. She studied the dogs. The afternoon was gone from the window and the night had arrived. The cabin was dark except for the firelight.

“He will frighten me forever,” Jill said.

“Maybe not,” I said.

 

 

Click here to see a list of more books by this author

Robert B. Parker
is the author of more than fifty books. He lived in Boston. Visit the author's website at www.robertbparker.net.

THE SPENSER NOVELS

Sixkill

Painted Ladies

The Professional

Rough Weather

Now & Then

Hundred-Dollar Baby

School Days

Cold Service

Bad Business

Back Story

Widow's Walk

Potshot

Hugger Mugger

Hush Money

Sudden Mischief

Small Vices

Chance

Thin Air

Walking Shadow

Paper Doll

Double Deuce

Pastime

Stardust

Playmates

Crimson Joy

Pale Kings and Princes

Taming a Sea-Horse

A Catskill Eagle

Valediction

The Widening Gyre

Ceremony

A Savage Place

Early Autumn

Looking for Rachel Wallace

The Judas Goat

Promised Land

Mortal Stakes

God Save the Child

The Godwulf Manuscript

THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

Split Image

Night and Day

Stranger in Paradise

High Profile

Sea Change

Stone Cold

Death in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

Night Passage

THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

Spare Change

Blue Screen

Melancholy Baby

Shrink Rap

Perish Twice

Family Honor

THE VIRGIL COLE/EVERETT HITCH NOVELS

Blue-Eyed Devil

Brimstone

Resolution

Appaloosa

ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

A Triple Shot of Spenser

Double Play

Gunman's Rhapsody

All Our Yesterdays

A Year at the Races

   (with Joan H. Parker)

Perchance to Dream

Poodle Springs

   (with Raymond Chandler)

Love and Glory

Wilderness

Three Weeks in Spring

   (with Joan H. Parker)

Training with Weights

   (with John R. Marsh)