Bad Business

35

I got a room at the Charles Hotel, and maneuvered Marlene I up to it. She thought we were going to throw off convention's thrall, but I got her to lie down on the bed for a minute first. She fell asleep at once. And I made good my escape.

I went across the river to my office, with the intention of opening my window, putting my feet up on my desk, locking my hands behind my head, and figuring out who killed Trent Rowley. I might have sat there a long time, but fortunately when I went in the light was flashing on my answering machine. Yea, a distraction, I pressed the new message button.

The voice said, "Quirk. I'm on Lime Street. Something you might be interested in. You'll see the cars."

L ime Street is on the flat of Beacon Hill, old Boston. Red brick, narrow access, town houses, money. It's not a very big street, and it was easy to see the half dozen police cars, parked wherever their drivers had felt like parking them. There was crime-scene tape strung around the entrance to a four-story brick town house. The front door had one violet pane in the window. I told the uniform at the door that Quirk had called me. He nodded and yelled back into the house.

"Guy to see the captain."

There was a moment, then a voice yelled something, and the uniform ushered me in.

A nother uniform said, "Captain's straight back."

I walked down the hall to the back room and into a bright room, with a lot of windows that looked out onto a tiny garden. There was a big-screen television and a music system, a wet bar and some heavy leather furniture. On the floor, facedown, was a dead man with a lot of blood on the back of his head. He was wearing a green terrycloth bathrobe. Quirk stood with his hands in his hip pockets, looking down at the body. Crime-scene people were dusting, and photographing, and shining lights. Belson stood next to a pair of narrow French doors that opened into the tiny garden. He was looking at the room. He didn't say anything when I came in. I knew what he was doing. I'd seen him study a crime scene before. He probably didn't know I was there.

"You called?" I said to Quirk. He looked up.

"Know this guy?" he said.

"Gotta see his face."

Q uirk was wearing white crime-scene gloves. He bent down and slipped one hand under the dead man's head and raised it. I squatted and took a look.

"Gavin," I said. "Security director at a company called Kinergy. Out in Waltham."

"Found your name in his Rolodex," Quirk said.

I looked down at Gavin. There was a nine-millimeter pistol on the floor a few inches away from his right hand. Behind me, Belson moved away from the French doors and began to move slowly around the room. I didn't have to look to know what he was doing. He always did the same thing. He looked at everything. Opened every drawer, picked up every lamp, moved every drape, every pillow, every seat cushion. He looked under rugs, behind furniture. The crime-scene people did what they did. Belson did what he did.

"Suicide?" I said.

Q uirk shrugged.

"Bullet entered the top of his mouth," he said. "Exited the top of his head in the rear. Consistent with a guy ate his gun. Piece is a nine-millimeter, Smith & Wesson. One round missing from the magazine. Been recently fired."

"Note?"

"On his computer screen. No signature."

Q uirk picked up a piece of paper from an end table near the couch.

"We printed out a copy." He handed it to me.

I killed Trent Rowley. I accept my responsibility. But I can no longer live with it.

I handed it back to Quirk.

"Sound like him?" Quirk said.

"Hard to say."

"You involved in the Rowley thing?" Quirk said.

"I am."

I looked out into the tiny garden. There was no one there.

"Let's you and me go outside, and I'll tell you what I know."

Q uirk nodded toward the narrow French doors and followed me out into the garden. There was a small stone bench next to a little pool with a miniature waterfall making a pleasant sound. The rest of the little space was flowers and herbs, and four tomato plants. I sat beside Quirk on the stone bench and told him what I knew about Gavin and Kinergy.

"I'll talk to Healy about the murder," he said. "You have any thoughts?"

"I don't have a thought. I have a feeling."

"Swell," Quirk said. "I'm a feelings guy."

"O'Mara is in this thing someplace. Everywhere I look I see the tip of his tail going around the corner."

"You think Gavin did it and felt bad, and popped himself?"

"No."

"Even though he says so?"

"Even though somebody says so."

"You think somebody else popped him?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know enough about him."

"I will," Quirk said. "In time."

O ne of the crime-scene people opened the back door. "Captain," she said. "Something you should see." "Come on," Quirk said, and we went back into the house. A small bookcase against the far wall had been moved aside and Belson was squatting on his heels. He was shining a flashlight on the wall just above the baseboard.

"Fresh patch here," Belson said. "Little one."

Q uirk and I bent over. The baseboard and wall were painted burgundy. About three inches up from the baseboard was a small white circle of something that looked like joint compound.

"Could be a bullet hole," Quirk said. "Or a phone jack, or a gouge in the plaster."

"Behind the bookcase?" Quirk said. "Dig it out."

I t was a bullet. Belson dug it out and dusted it off and rolled it around a little in the palm of his hand.

"There's a fireplace on the other side," Belson said. "Slug was up against the firebox."

Q uirk nodded. He bent over, looking at the slug in Belson's upturned palm.

"Looks like a nine to me," Belson said.

Q uirk nodded again and looked at the bookcase. "No hole in the furniture," Quirk said.

"So the bookcase was moved."

"Or it wasn't there in the first place," Quirk said. "When the shot was fired."

"Patching compound is fresh," Belson said. "Surface is hard, but you dig in and it's not dry yet."

"So it's recent," Quirk said.

"We can call the manufacturer," Belson said. "Get a drythrough time. Then we'll know how recent."

Q uirk glanced at Gavin's body on the floor.

"Can't be the bullet that killed him," Quirk said. "Unless he was standing on his head when he shot himself."

"The other slug, the one that killed him was high on the wall," Bclson said. "About where it should have been." Quirk looked at the wall where the first bullet had been dug out.

"Forensics will help us with that," Quirk said.

The three of us were quiet, looking at the dug-out bullet hole, low in the wall, behind where the bookcase had stood. Then Quirk went and sat on his heels beside the body and moved Gavin's right hand. He looked at it and looked at the bullet hole. He dropped the hand and stood.

"Let's not treat this as a suicide yet," he said.