Walking Shadow

CHAPTER 26

I'd caught a large corporation in a big insurance scam last year and been awarded ten percent by the insurance company. I'd put most of it into the house in Concord, and the rest of it into a Mustang convertible, because I thought it would be dandy to solve crimes with the wind blowing through my hair. It was red and had a white roof, and when Susan was with me, I had to keep the top up because it messed her hair. And when Pearl was with me I had to keep the top up because she was inclined to jump out every time she saw a cat. And when I took it to Port City I had to keep the top up because it was always raining. The wipers worked good though, and I didn't seem to be solving crimes, anyway.

I went off the highway at Hill Street and wound down toward the waterfront, descending as I went lower into the Port City social strata. Hawk sat in the front seat beside me and Vinnie Morris was in back.

"Got a plan for today, Cap'n?" Hawk said.

"When all else fails," I said, "investigate."

"You mean clues and shit?" Vinnie said.

"Yeah. I need to look at Sampson's apartment, and show his picture to people, and go to bars, and stores, and movie theaters, and restaurants and ask people if they ever saw him, and if they did, who was he with."

"How come you didn't do that right off?" Vinnie said.

"Hawk?" I said.

"

"Cause the police do police work better than he do," Hawk said. "

"Cause they got a lot of bodies available to do it. And he only got him."

"That would be a problem," Vinnie said.

"So why do it now?

Because that Boston cop told you about the FBI prints?"

"Yeah," I said.

"DeSpain told me that they had no history on him. Said there was no record of Sampson's prints."

"DeSpain?" Vinnie said.

"Used to be a state cop named DeSpain."

"Same guy," I said.

"DeSpain was good," Vinnie said.

"Tough bastard, but good."

"So either he's not good any more or he was lying to me," I said.

"So you gotta go over all the ground you thought he'd cover."

"Un huh."

"This is likely to annoy Lonnie Wu," Hawk said.

"Maybe," I said.

"And maybe DeSpain."

"Maybe."

"And maybe somebody do something we can catch them at," Hawk said.

"That would be nice." '"Less they shoot your ass," Hawk said.

"You and Vinnie are supposed to prevent that," I said.

"And if we don't?" Vinnie said.

"You don't like the plan," I said.

"I'm open to suggestions."

"Hey," Vinnie said.

"I don't fucking think. I just shoot people."

"Sooner or later," Hawk said.

We reached the street where Sampson's apartment was, and turned into it and parked on a hydrant in front of his building.

"It'll probably take me a while," I said.

"Probably will," Hawk said.

I put a small flashlight in my pocket, and one of those multi combination survival tools, and got out of the car into the pleasant steady rain. Hawk got behind the wheel and Vinnie came up in the front seat. Hawk shut off the lights and the wipers and turned off the motor. The rain immediately collected on the windows, and I couldn't see them any more.

I turned and walked toward the house where Craig Sampson had lived. It was three stories, gray, black shutters, white trim.

There was a front porch four steps up, and a front door painted black. Narrow, full-length windows framed the front door. The windows were dirty. There were shabby lace curtains in them. The house paint had blistered away leaving long, bare patches, but the wood beneath was gray with age and soil so that it nearly matched.

There were three door bells. The first two had names in the little brass frames beneath. The top frame was empty. I peered in through the murky glass past the ratty curtains. There was a narrow hallway, an interior door on the right, and a staircase rising along the right wall beyond it. I tried the front door. It was locked. I looked at the doorbells. There was no intercom associated with them. I rang all the doorbells and waited. Inside the house the first floor door opened, and a thin, angry-looking woman opened the front door. I checked the name on the first floor bell.

"Hello," I said.

"Ms. Rebello?"

"What's your story," she said. She was nearly as tall as I was, and high-shouldered, and narrow. Her hair was about the color of the house and tightly permed. She was wearing a flowered dress and sneakers. The little toe of her right sneaker had been cut out, presumably to relieve pressure on a bunion.

"You the landlady?" I said.

She nodded. I took out my wallet and opened it and flashed my gun permit at her. It had my picture on it, and looked official. She squinted at it.

"Police," I said.

"I need to take another look at Craig Sampson's apartment."

I closed my wallet and stowed it. I knew she had no idea what she had just looked at.

"Well, I wish you'd be a little neater this time," she said.

"I'm going to have to rent that place."

"Lady, my heart bleeds," I said.

"All I got to think about is how somebody shot your tenant full of holes."

I figured nice didn't work with her.

"Yeah, well, you already looked once," she said.

"And I got no rent coming in from the place."

I nodded and jerked my thumb up the stairs.

"Just unlock the deceased's door," I said.

Still muttering, she turned and walked up the stairs ahead of me, limping on her bunion.

"I got a mortgage to pay… I don't get income out of this place, I still got to pay the mortgage… Bank don't care who got killed, or who didn't. I don't pay the mortgage, I'm out in the street… You people just take your own sweet damn time about it… What am I supposed to do with his stuff, anyway?"

At the third floor there was a tiny landing, lit by a 60-watt bulb in a copper-tone sconce. She took some keys from the pocket of her house coat and fumbled at the lock.

"Don't even have my glasses," she said.

"Can't see a damn thing without them."

She finally found the keyhole and opened the door and stepped aside.

"Close the door when you leave," she said.

"Downstairs too.

They'll lock behind you."

"Sure," I said and stepped past her into the apartment and closed the door. I listened for a moment and heard her limp back down the stairs. Then I turned my attention to the apartment.