Sudden Mischief

chapter twenty

STERLING'S APARTMENT WAS a second-floor walk-up on a middle-class street off Commonwealth Avenue, before you got to Washington Street, just this side of Brookline. Hawk was not impressed.

"Maybe Brad ain't as rich as he say."

We'd come properly equipped, which is a definite advantage for B&E, the pry bar and other things in a red Nike gym bag. It took us about ninety seconds to jimmy the door quietly enough so that nobody stuck their head out into the hall and said "hey"; and neatly enough so that when we closed it behind us the break-in wasn't obvious.

It was one room and sparsely furnished. Narrow bed, clean sheets, neatly made, table and chair, bureau, bath off one side, no kitchen. A long hook swung out from the back of the door for suits and sport coats to hang on, and a single window looked out on the air shaft. Hawk was even less impressed.

"Maybe Brad a lot less rich than he say."

"Maybe he simply prefers Thoreauvian simplicity," I said.

"Sure," Hawk said. "That probably it."

"Lucky Susan's not still married to him," I said.

"She don't prefer Thoreauvian simplicity," Hawk said.

"No."

Searching the place wasn't a challenge. Our only problem was that it was so small we got in each other's way. Brad was a neat guy. His socks were carefully rolled. His freshly laundered shirts were organized by color. His spare keys were in a small lacquer box, each key neatly labeled with little plastic tags. There was nothing very interesting about the labels. I put the keys in my coat pocket and put the box back in the drawer. Neckties lay on top of the bureau as neatly as in a haberdashery case. Three pairs of shoes were lined up under the foot of the bed. Under the head of the bed was a working flashlight, and a box which had once contained a pair of Rockport walking shoes. Now it contained a thick bundle of letters, still in their envelopes. Hawk dumped the box out on the bed and we each took a letter. The letters were handwritten in bright purple ink on lavender stationery in what I took to be a female hand. They were all addressed to Brad Sterling at this address. We each read our letter. The salutation was "My darling."

"If I wasn't such a dangerous and self-contained African American person," Hawk said, "I'd blush."

"Like me," I said.

"Just like you, 'cept the flush be darker. You know who writing these letters?"

"Mine is signed `J,' " I said.

"Mine too," Hawk said.

"Could be Jeanette," I said.

"Like Jeanette Ronan?"

"Like that," I said. "Or it could be Jane, or Janet, or Jean, or Jenny, or some private lover's nickname that we couldn't even guess."

"Life be easier if it's Jeanette," Hawk said.

We read some more letters. All starting "My darling." All of them signed "J."

"She not too inventive," Hawk said. "But she very concrete."

"This is less fun than you'd think it would be," I said.

The room had a stuffy, closed-up feel as we stood reading the mail.

"You the expert here," Hawk said. "You call these love letters?"

"She says she loves him," I said.

"That ain't what she spends her time talking about," Hawk said.

"It's a white thing," I said.

In the fifth envelope I picked up, tucked neatly inside the folded stationery, was a Polaroid picture.

"Jeanette Ronan," I said and held the picture up for Hawk to see. Jeanette was naked, standing smiling in front of a canopied bed.

"All of Jeanette Ronan," he said. "Guess life going to be easier for once."

"I wonder who took the picture?" I said.

"Say in the letter?" Hawk asked.

I read the letter. It alluded to the picture and was very detailed in what the naked woman pictured had in mind for the recipient. But it didn't tell me who took it.

"No," I said and handed the letter to Hawk.

He read it carefully. "You know, I never thought of doing that," he said.

"Hang around," I said. "You learn."

"Maybe `My darling' took the picture," Hawk said.

"It's a Polaroid. If he took it, then why did she mail it to him?"

"So you think somebody else taking nudies of her?" Hawk said. "And she mailing them to `My darling'?"

"That may be the definition of depravity," I said.

"Or thrift," Hawk said. "Two for one."

"Sometimes your cynicism achieves Shakespearean resonance," I said.

"Coming from you," Hawk said, "that a real compliment."

We continued through the letters. We found three more photographs of Jeanette Ronan nude. No useful explanation in the letters, though the pictures were mentioned. When we got through, we put everything back the way it was and closed up the shoebox. I put the shoebox in the gym bag.

"Look like sexual harassment to you?" Hawk said.

"Maybe she's harassing him," I said.

"How many straight single guys you know feel harassed by getting nude pictures of good-looking women in the mail?" Hawk said.

"Just a thought," I said.

There was a phone on the top of the bureau with an answering machine beside it. I went over and pushed the all-message play button. The first message began without preamble.

"Brad you sonovabitch," a woman's voice said. "You either send the goddamned support payment or I swear to Christ I'll have you back in court."

"Reach out and touch somebody," Hawk said.

"Hi Brad," another woman's voice. "It's Lisa. I'm feeling neglected. Call me."

We listened to all thirteen calls, the mechanical machine voice announcing time and day of call after each one. The calls spanned at least a week. Two were from the Brighton branch of DePaul Federal Savings asking him to please call. One was from an outfit called Import Credit Company in regard to his car lease payment, please call. There was a call from the Cask and Carafe Wine Shop saying that his check had been returned and asking when he could come in and settle his account. Another angry call about money. Another call from Lisa, this one more urgently wondering why he hadn't called. "I don't want to think I'm just another notch on your gun," she said. Five other calls from women following up on a recent evening, or looking forward to one in the offing.

I wrote down all the names.

"Brad seems to have mixed success with women," I said.

"But not from lack of trying," Hawk said.

"And he's living in one room in Brighton," I said, "and not paying his bills."

"So, unless he very thrifty," Hawk said, "the story he told Susan is right."

"Sounds near dissolution to me," I said.

"You find an address book anywhere?" Hawk said.

"No."

"Checkbook?"

"Nope."

"Maybe his office," Hawk said.

I reached in my coat pocket and took out the keys and found the one marked office.

"Maybe," I said.