The Professional

Chapter 55

THIS ONE GOT Quirk’s interest. He stood with Belson and me, looking down at the body of Estelle, facedown near the edge of the Frog Pond in the Common.

“According to the contents of her purse,” Belson said, “her name is Estelle Gallagher. And she works at Pinnacle, where she is a certified physical trainer.”

“Appears to be the same Estelle,” I said.

She had been shot by someone who had apparently put the gun right up against the back of her head. She’d been shot twice. The second time probably as she lay facedown on the ground. One of the bullets had exited her face somewhere in the area of her nose, and it rendered a visual ID problematic. The three of us looked down at her in the harsh light of the crime-scene lamps. It made everything bright enough so that the crime-scene people could scoot about with cameras and tape measures and brushes and powders, and various kits containing nothing I understood. Several Boston cops, of lesser rank than Quirk, were going over the area foot by foot.

“Estelle Gallagher,” I said. “Never knew her last name.”

“Don’t look Irish,” Quirk said.

“No disgrace to it,” I said.

“Not now,” Quirk said.

He turned and walked to where a uniformed guy was standing with Gary and Beth. I followed him. Beth was holding on to Gary’s arm with both of hers. She was crying.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Quirk said.

“It’s terrible,” Beth said.

Gary looked dazed.

“Do you have any thoughts on who or why?” Quirk said.

“No,” Beth said, and cried some more.

“You, sir?” Quirk said to Gary.

He shook his head slowly.

“No one had any reason to do this to Estelle,” he said.

His voice was flat and not very loud. He looked as if Beth’s clutch on his arm was weighing him down.

“She lived with you two,” Quirk said pleasantly.

“Yes,” Beth said. “She was a friend.”

“She was my girlfriend,” Gary said in the same affectless voice. “Been my girlfriend a long time.”

Quirk didn’t say anything.

“When’s the last time you saw her?” he said. “Either of you?”

They looked at each other as if to compare notes.

“This morning,” Gary said. Beth nodded. “Before she went to the club. I was having some breakfast with her. Beth was still in, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, still sniffling. “But I heard you talking. I actually last saw her last night before I went to bed.”

Quirk nodded and looked at Belson.

“Frank,” he said. “We got a time of death yet?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, get a statement from these folks, and when the time of death is established, see if they got an alibi.”

“Alibi?” Beth said. “You think one of us would do this?”

“Course not,” Quirk said. “But it would be comforting to know you couldn’t have.”

He jerked his head at me and walked away.

When we were far enough away to talk, he said, “What’s this fucking threesome?”

“You may have nailed it,” I said.

“A fucking threesome?”

“Yeah.”

“And they all knew about each other?”

“I think so,” I said.

“I’m not sure any of the nuns at Saint Anthony’s told me about this,” he said.

“Probably not,” I said.

“First her husband, now her, ah, roommate. I was this Eisenhower guy, I’d be a little careful walking around with old Beth.”

“Or she with him,” I said.

“Or she with him,” Quirk said. “Tell me what you know.”

Which I did.