Robert Parker - Rough Weather

“Unless they can hire some guy like you,” Healy said.

“There is no guy like me,” I said. “Except me.”

“And you don’t know anything about a ransom.”

“No,” I said.

“And you’d tell me if you did,” Healy said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Ah,” Healy said. “The spirit of cooperation.”

“What else you got?” I said.

“The final body count,” Healy said, “not counting the guy you say went off the cliff, we haven’t found him yet, is six.”

I counted on my fingers.

“The minister,” I said, “the groom, four security guys.”

“Shot?”

“Yep,” Healy said. “Single shot to the head, all of them.”

“Same gun?” I said.

“Probably,” Healy said. “We can’t find a couple of the slugs, and some of the ones we did find are so mangled from ricocheting around inside the vic that the lab can’t do anything with them. The ones we can use all came from the same nine-millimeter weapon.”

“Rugar had a Glock,” I said.

Healy nodded.

“Six people,” Healy said.

“In an afternoon,” I said.

Healy nodded.

“You find out where the chopper landed?” I said.

“No.”

“Hard to land one where nobody notices,” I said.

“Easy if you do it where choppers come and go all day,” Healy said.

“Good point,” I said.

“Minister was head of some big-time Episcopal church in NYC,” Healy said. “The groom is from a very wealthy family in Philadelphia. Pharmaceuticals. Father is very active in Republican politics. He was an ambassador somewhere, and then he was secretary of something for a while.”

“Which is his reward for being active,” I said.

“I wonder what the punishment would be,” Healy said.

“I know,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to do it, either. What did the kid do?”

“Vice president of one of the companies,” Healy said.

“How old was he?”

“Twenty-three,” Healy said. “Worked his way up.”

“If you’re going to practice nepotism,” I said, “you may as well keep it in the family. Where’d he go to school?”

“Penn,” Healy said.

“How’d he meet Adelaide?”

“Mutual friend,” Healy said. “It’s in the folder.”

“How about the Tashtego patrol guys?” I said.

“Usual. Two of them were cops in Westport, one had been in the Marines, one was an MP. All of them had a little college. Enough so they could talk to rich people without falling down.”

“Anything not usual?” I said.

“Nothing. No connection we could find to anyone. No criminal record, any of them. The security service was bonded.”

“Any of them get off a shot?” I said.

“No.”

“Clear the holster?”

“No.”

We were quiet for a while.

“He’s a piece of work,” Healy said finally.

“Rugar?

Healy nodded.

“Six people,” he said. “In a couple of hours.”

We were quiet again.

Then I said, “Whaddya think?”

Healy shook his head.

“It’s the worst way to kidnap somebody I’ve ever seen,” Healy said.

“And no ransom demand,” I said. “And didn’t they have any idea there’d be a damn typhoon?”

“I checked,” Healy said. “Weather people said it would miss us.”

“Of course they did,” I said.

“This smells bad,” Healy said. “The only thing that keeps it from smelling worse is that it’s so loony that maybe we’re missing something.”

“Rugar is no amateur,” I said.

“That bothers me, too,” Healy said. “And you bother me. What the fuck were you there for?”

“Arm candy?” I said.

“Besides that,” Healy said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You ask her?”

“I did. She told me the same crap about having a man at her side that she told you.”

“I bet she knows a lot of men,” I said.

“It’s like a radio signal, isn’t it?” Healy said.

“Loud and clear,” I said.

“So why hire one?” Healy said.

“She must have wanted a guy with my skill set,” I said.

“Must be the case,” Healy said. “But she’s got a security force on the island. Why hire you?”

“Because I am more powerful than a speeding locomotive?”

“But not as smart,” Healy said. “Be nice to know what she thought your skill set was.”

“I could ask her,” I said.

“And you could ask whoever recommended you to her,” Healy said.

“If we knew,” I said.

“You’re a detective,” Healy said. “Maybe you can find out.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll ask around.”

Neither Quirk nor Belson had had any contact with Heidi Bradshaw. In fact, Belson claimed not to know who she was.

“For crissake, Frank,” I said. “That’s like not knowing who Jackie Onassis was.”

“Who?” Belson said.

I think he was kidding.

I sat for a while with my feet up on my desk. Someone like Heidi would probably ask her lawyer. Her lawyers probably weren’t the kind who would know about the likes of me. So they’d call someone. Probably a criminal lawyer. The best one in this part of the country was Rita Fiore. I called her.

“You know who Heidi Bradshaw is?” I said.

“Of course.”

“She or anyone representing her get in touch with you and ask for a superhero?”

“As an attorney at law,” Rita said, “I am bound by the ethics of my profession to reveal nothing to you without at least extracting lunch.”

“I like a person with standards,” I said. “Grill 23 in an hour?”

“Upstairs,” she said. “It’s more intimate.”

“Intimate,” I said.

I got there first, climbed the curving staircase, and was at a table for four in a quiet corner, drinking iced tea, when Rita showed up. She might not have quite equaled Susan for gorgeous, but she was certainly as noticeable. A lot of thick auburn hair, some sort of close-fitting green outfit with a skirt that stopped above the knees, and boots that stopped below them.

Close-fitting is not always good news with lawyers, but Rita was quite precisely designed for it. She had large sunglasses pushed up onto her head, and was carrying a purse that would work as a hammock for Pygmies. She put the purse on an empty chair and sat down next to me. She leaned over and kissed me carefully, not messing up her lip gloss.

“My calendar is clear for the afternoon,” she said. “Shall we order champagne?”

“Between husbands?” I said.

“Even if I weren’t,” she said.

“Tea’s good for you,” I said.

“That’s what they said about spinach,” Rita said.

When the waiter arrived she ordered a champagne cocktail.

“So did you recommend my services to anyone?” I said.

“When I was a prosecutor,” she said, “in Norfolk County, I knew a guy in the same office named Jimmy Gabriel. He’s now the managing partner in the firm of Gabriel and Whitcomb in New Bedford.”

The waiter brought Rita her cocktail. She sampled it, looked pleased, and put it down.

“He called me and said that Heidi Bradshaw was looking for a smart, tough, presentable guy to be with her for a three-day wedding weekend. Tough and presentable, you were an easy choice,” Rita said. “I choked a little on smart but couldn’t think of anybody else.”

“He say why she wanted me?”

“No. I warned him that I had been trying for about twenty years to get you to spend a three-day weekend with me, but that you were the functional equivalent of married. He said that Heidi’s interests weren’t sexual.”

“Damn,” I said.

“Yeah,” Rita said, “I know. It’s disappointing to hear, isn’t it?”