Nora Roberts - Remember When

"You're from Boston, Mr. Pinkerton?"

"That's right." The Boston accent was one of Jack's favorites for its subtle snoot factor. He'd perfected it watching reruns of MASH and emulating the character of Charles Winchester. "I'm only here overnight. I'm scheduled to leave in the morning, but as I've yet to complete my purpose I may need to reschedule. I apologize for bothering you with my problems, Chief Burger, but I'm really quite concerned about Mr. Peterson."

"You know him well?"

"Yes. That is, fairly well. I've done business with him for the last three years-for my employer. Mr. Peterson is a rare-book dealer, and my employer, Cyrus Mantz, the Third-perhaps you've heard of him?"

"Can't say."

"Ah, well, Mr. Mantz is a businessman of some note in the Boston and Cambridge areas. And an avid collector of rare books. He has one of the most extensive libraries on the East Coast." Jack fiddled with his tie. "In any case, I've come down specifically, at Mr. Peterson's request, to see, and hopefully purchase, a first-edition copy of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury-with dust jacket. I was to meet Mr. Peterson for lunch-"

"Have you ever met him before?"

Jack blinked behind his stolen lenses, as if puzzled by both the question and the interruption. "Of course. On numerous occasions."

"Could you describe him?"

"Yes, certainly. He's rather a small man. Perhaps five feet six inches tall, ah... I'd estimate about one hundred and forty pounds. He's in the neighborhood of sixty years of age, with gray hair. I believe his eyes are brown." He scrunched up his own. "I believe. Is that helpful?"

"Would this be your Mr. Peterson?" Vince offered him a copy of the photo he'd pulled from the police files.

Jack pursed his lips. "Yes. He's considerably younger here, of course, but yes, this is Jasper Peterson. I'm afraid I don't understand."

"The man you identified as Jasper Peterson was involved in an accident a few days ago."

"Oh dear. Oh dear, I was afraid it was something of the kind." In a nervous gesture, Jack removed the glasses, polished the lenses briskly on a stiff white handkerchief. "He was injured then? He's in the hospital?"

Vince waited until he'd perched the glasses back on his nose. "He's dead."

"Dead? Dead?" It was a fist slammed into the belly, hearing it again, just that way. And the genuine jolt had his voice squeaking. "Oh, this is dreadful.

I can't... I never imagined. How did it happen?"

"He was hit by a car. He died almost instantly."

"This is such a shock."

Willy. God, Willy. He knew he'd gone pale. He could feel the chill under his skin where the blood had drained. His hands trembled. He wanted to weep, even to wail, but he held back. Peter Pinkerton would never commit such a public display of emotion.

"I don't know precisely what to do next. All the time I was waiting for him to meet me, growing impatient, even annoyed, he was... Terrible. I'll have to call my employer, tell him... Oh dear, this is just dreadful."

"Did you know any of Mr. Peterson's other associates? Family?"

"No." He fiddled with his tie, fussily, though he wanted to yank at it as his throat swelled. I'm all he had, Jack thought. I'm the only family he had. And I got him killed. But Peter Pinkerton continued in his snooty Harvard drawl.

"We rarely talked of anything other than books. Could you possibly tell me what arrangements have been made? I'm sure Mr. Mantz would want to send flowers, or make a donation to a charity in lieu."

"Nothing's set, as yet."

"Oh. Well." Jack got to his feet, then sat again. "Could you tell me, possibly, if Mr. Peterson was in possession of the book when he... I apologize for sounding ghoulish, but Mr. Mantz will ask. The Faulkner?"

Vince tipped back in his chair, swiveled gently side to side with his cop's eyes trained on Jack's face. "He had a couple paperback novels."

"Are you certain? I'm sorry for the trouble, but is there any way to check, a list of some sort? Mr. Mantz has his sights set on that edition. You see, it's a rare find with the dust jacket. A first edition in, we were assured, mint condition-and he'll, Mr. Mantz, he'll be very... oh dear, insistent about my following through."

Obligingly Vince opened a drawer, took out a file. "Nothing like that here.

Clothes, toiletries, keys, a watch, cell phone and recharger, wallet and contents. That's it. Guy was traveling light."

"I see. Perhaps he put it in a safe-deposit box for safekeeping until we met.

Of course, he wouldn't have been able to retrieve it before... I've taken enough of your time."

"Where are you staying, Mr. Pinkerton?"

"Staying?"

"Tonight. Where are you staying, in case I have something further on those arrangements."

"Ah. I'm at the Wayfarer tonight. I suppose I'll fly out as scheduled tomorrow. Oh dear, oh dear, I don't know what I'm going to say to Mr. Mantz."

"And if I need to reach you, in Boston?"

Jack produced a card. "Either of those numbers will do. Please do contact me, Chief Burger, if you have any word." He offered his hand.

"I'll be in touch."

Vince walked him out, stood watching as he walked away.

It wouldn't take long to check the details of the story, and to run the names Pinkerton and Mantz. But since he'd looked through those cheap lenses into Laine's blue eyes, he figured he'd find they were bogus.

"Russ, call over to the Wayfarer, see if they've got this Pinkerton registered."

He'd confirm that little detail, haul one of his men out of bed to keep tabs on the man for the night.

He'd have another look at the effects, see what O'Hara-if that was O'Hara-had been interested in finding. Since he was damn sure he didn't have a few million in diamonds sitting back in the property room, he'd just have to see if he had something that pointed to them.

***

Where the hell was it? Jack walked briskly for two blocks before he began to breathe easily again. Cop houses, cop smells, cop eyes tended to constrict his lungs. There was no ceramic dog on the list of effects. Surely even a suspicious cop-and that was a redundant phrase-would have listed something like that. So there went his tidy little plan to break into the property room and take it. Couldn't steal what wasn't there to be stolen.

The dog had been in Willy's possession when they'd split up, in the hopes that Crew would track Jack himself to give Willy time to slip away, get to Laine and give her the figurine for safekeeping.

But the vicious, double-crossing Crew had tracked Willy instead. Nervous old Willy, who'd wanted nothing more than to retire to some pretty beach somewhere and live out the rest of his days painting bad watercolors and watching birds.

Should never have left him, should never have sent him out on his own. And now his oldest friend in the world was dead. There was no one he could talk with about the old days now, no one who understood what he was thinking before the words were out of his mouth. No one who got the jokes.

He'd lost his wife and his daughter. That was the way the ball bounced and the cookie crumbled. He couldn't blame Marilyn for pulling stakes and taking little Lainie with her. She'd asked him, God knew, a thousand times to give the straight life a decent try. And he'd promised her that many times in return he would. Broken every one of those thousand promises.

You just can't fight nature, was Jack's opinion. It was his nature to play the game. As long as there were marks, well, what the hell could he do? If God hadn't intended for him to play those marks, He wouldn't have made so damn many of them.

He knew it was weak, but that was the way God had made him, so how could he argue the point? People who argued with God were prime suckers. And Kate O'Hara's boy, Jack, was no sucker.