The Professional

Chapter 49

I SAT WITH ESTELLE at the café counter in Pinnacle Fitness. I had coffee, and Estelle drank green tea. I didn’t care. I was still bigger and stronger than she was. The hell with green tea.

“Are you working on the murder case?” she said.

“I am.”

Estelle was wearing the tight black sweats and the tight white tank top that was apparently the Pinnacle trainer’s uniform.

“Who hired you?”

“I’m working on spec,” I said.

She looked at me as if I might be odd.

“Do the police have a suspect?” she said.

“No.”

“Have they had any success tracking the note?” she said. “You know, fingerprints? What machine it was written on? Kind of paper?”

“You’ve been watching those crime-scene shows,” I said. “Haven’t you.”

She smiled.

“Especially the one with David Caruso.” She glanced at me sideways. “He’s hot.”

“Hotter than myself?” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Of course.”

She must have had a thing for slim, handsome guys. How shallow.

“It was written on a computer,” I said. “Printed out on paper you can buy at any Staples. No fingerprints that mean anything.”

“ ‘Mean anything’?”

“Well, yours are on it, and Gary’s and Beth’s, and mine,” I said. “That’s because we handled it. There are no unaccounted-for prints.”

“Oh.”

She thought about it for a while.

Then she said, “So how do you solve a crime like this?” “You don’t always,” I said.

“But, I mean, how would you even go about it?” she said. “There’s, like, no clues.”

“You talk to people,” I said. “You ask them questions. You listen to their answers. You compare what they said to what other people have said. You try to assess body language. You try to listen for tone.”

“Is that what you’re doing now?” Estelle said.

“Yes.”

“How am I doing?” she said.

“You’re not telling me anything, but it is sort of enjoyable to study your body language.”

“Enjoyable?”

“It’s a dandy body,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You don’t really think I did it?” she said.

“I don’t think,” I said. “I just ask questions and listen to answers and study bodies.”

“I’ll bet you think,” Estelle said.

“Mostly about sex and baseball,” I said. “How’s Beth?”

“I am not interested in baseball,” she said, and looked at me sideways again.

“Good to know,” I said. “How’s Beth?”

Estelle’s face became serious.

“Poor thing,” Estelle said. “She’s devastated.”

I nodded.

“Devastated,” I said.

“Yes, to have your husband murdered?” Estelle said. “You don’t think that’s devastating?”

“Never had a husband,” I said.

“She’s staying with us for a while,” Estelle said.

“ ‘Us’?”

“Me and Gary,” Estelle said.

“You and Gary and Beth,” I said.

“You have a problem with that?”

I shook my head.

“Not my problem,” I said.

She frowned, though it seemed to me that she was careful that it be a pretty frown.

“It’s nobody’s problem,” she said. “Unless you’re some kind of mossback puritan.”

“Goddamn,” I said. “You’ve seen through my disguise.”