Widow’s Walk

CHAPTER EIGHT

Pequod Savings and Loan was essentially a suburban bank. It had branches in Concord, Lexington, Lynnfield, and Weston. There was a home branch next to a gourmet takeout shop on the first floor of a good-looking recycled manufacturing building in East Cambridge, near Kendall Square. A clerk passed me on to a bank officer who questioned me closely and passed me on to the home-office manager. In less than an hour I was sitting in the office of the vice president for public affairs.

She was a good-looking smallish woman with thick auburn hair and large dark eyes and a wide mouth. She was wearing a pale beige suit. Her nails gleamed with polish. She had a big diamond on her right hand. An engraved brass sign on her desk read AMY PETERS.

“Would you care for coffee?” she said.

I had decided to cut back on coffee. Three cups in the morning was plenty.

“Yes,” I said. “Cream and sugar.”

“How about milk and sugar?” she said.

“Oh well.”

She stood and went out of the office. The pants of her beige suit were well-fitted. On her desk was a picture of two small children. On a shelf in the bookcase behind her desk was a picture of her with Bobby Orr. There was also a plaque recognizing her as Pequod Person of the Year. When she came back in carrying the coffee, she brought with her the vague scent of good cologne. She gave me one cup and took the other around behind her desk and sat and had a sip.

“So,” she said. “You are a private detective.”

I had some coffee. It wasn’t very good. I had some more.

“I am,” I said.

She smiled. Her teeth were even and very white.

“And what are you detecting here at the bank?” she said.

“You know that Nathan Smith has died,” I said.

“Yes. I understand that he was murdered.”

“Do you understand by whom?” I said.

“Whom? What kind of private detective says ”whom“?”

“Handsome intrepid ones,” I said.

She looked at me steadily for a moment, as if deciding whether to buy me. Then she smiled a little. “The papers say it was his wife.”

“They do,” I said.

“And what do you say?”

“I say I don’t know. Tell me about Nathan Smith.”

“Whom do you represent?” she said and smiled, pleased with herself for saying “whom.”

“I’m employed by Mary Smith’s attorney,” I said.

“So you are predisposed to assume she’s innocent.”

“Me and the legal system,” I said.

“Oh… yes… of course.”

“So what was Nathan Smith like?” I said.

“He owned this bank,” she said. “His father owned it before him and I don’t know how many generations back beyond that.”

“Un-huh. So who owns it now?”

“His estate, I assume.”

“Who’s running it now?”

“Our CEO,” she said, “Marvin Conroy.”

“Does he have any ownership?” I said.

She nodded. “He’s a minority stockholder,” she said.

“How about you?”

She smiled. “I’m an employee.”

“Any other minority stockholders?”

“Frankly, I don’t know. I’m here for public relations. I’m not privy to all of the arrangements Mr. Smith made.”

“It sounds like there were some,” I said.

“If there were I don’t know of them,” Amy Peters said.

“But you might speculate?”

“Public relations directors don’t get ahead if they make improprietous speculations.”

“What kind of banker says ”improprietous“?” I said.

She smiled and there was in the smile the same sense I’d had before, that she was considering whether I’d be worth the purchase price.

“Handsome sexy ones,” she said.

“I’m a detective,” I said. “I already noticed the handsome part.”

“And the sexy part?”

“I surmised that.”

“Good,” she said.

I smiled my most engaging smile at her. If you have an ace you may as well play it. Oddly, Amy Peters remained calm.

“What sort of private arrangements could a banker make?” I said.

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Have you been with the bank long?” I said.

“Ten years.”

“Before that?”

“I did PR for Sloan, Simpson.”

“Brokerage house?” I said.

“Yes. Am I a suspect?”

I smiled. Just the routine smile. If the A smile hadn’t overwhelmed her, I saw no reason to waste it.

“No.”

“Then why ask?”

“Information is the capital of my work,” I said. “I don’t know what will matter.”

She nodded.

“I went to Middlebury College, and Harvard Business School. I have two daughters. I’m divorced.”

“So you knew Nathan Smith before he was married.”

“I knew him professionally. He didn’t spend a lot of time at the bank, and when he was here, he didn’t spend a lot of time with the help.”

“Who did he spend time with?”

“I don’t really know. I work here. I worked for him. My job is to present the bank to the public in as favorable an image as I can. I do not keep track of the owner, for God’s sake.”

“And you’re doing a hell of a job of it,” I said.

She started to speak and stopped. “Goddamn you,” she said.

“Me?”

“Y. I am supposed to be a professional and you’ve waltzed in here and smiled a big smile and showed me your muscles and all my professionalism seems to have fluttered right out the window.”

“I didn’t show you my muscles,” I said.

“I saw them anyway,” she said. Beneath her perfect makeup there seemed to be a hint of color along her cheekbones.

“Are you married?” she said.

“I’m, ah, going steady,” I said.

“Going steady? I haven’t heard anyone say that in thirty years.”

I shrugged.

“How long have you been going steady?”

“‘Bout twenty-five years,” I said. “With a little time out in the middle.”

She leaned back a little in her chair and looked at me in silence for a considerable time.

Finally she said, “Of all the banks, in all the world, you had to walk into this one.”

“We’ll always have Cambridge,” I said.