Widow’s Walk

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I was in my office reading Tank Mcationamara and preparing to think about Mary Toricelli Smith some more when my door opened carefully and a woman poked her head in.

“Mr. Spenser?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She came in quickly and shut the door behind her.

“Remember me?” she said. “Amy Peters? From Pequod Bank?”

“Who could forget you,” I said.

I gestured quite elegantly, I thought, at one of my two client chairs. She sat and crossed her legs, holding her purse in her lap with both hands. I smiled. She smiled. I waited.

“I… I… don’t know quite how to do this,” she said.

“I can tell.”

“It’s… I’ve been fired.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It was… they said I had no business talking to you the way I did.”

“What would be the business of a PR director?” I said.

She smiled and shrugged. “I don’t even know what I said to you that was so bad,” she said.

“Who exactly is ”they“?”

“Mr. Conroy. He called me into his office and questioned me quite closely about our conversation.”

“And?”

“And when he was through he told me I was fired. The bank, he said, would give me two weeks’ pay. But as of this moment I was through.”

“What was the thrust of his questioning?” I said.

“He wanted to know what we talked about.”

“Specifically,” I said.

“He wanted to know what you asked about Mr. Smith, and what I told you.”

“And why are you telling me?”

She stopped as if she hadn’t thought about that before. I nodded encouragingly.

“I, well, I guess I thought it was important,” she said.

“Un huh?”

“I mean, you are investigating his death.”

“Do you have a theory about what the connection might be?” I said.

“They seemed pretty worried about you.”

“”They“ being Marvin Conroy?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you call him ”they“?”

“I don’t know. I guess…” She paused and thought about my question. “I guess it’s because I think there are people behind him.”

“How so?”

“I think he has allegiances outside the bank,” she said.

“Why do you think that?”

She was sitting very straight in her chair, sitting with her knees together, leaning forward from the waist. The position hiked her short skirt to mid thigh. I admired her legs.

“Well, he came in as a partner all of a sudden,” she said. “This was a family-owned bank for more than a hundred years and all of a sudden here comes this man who’s not a member of the family, and not, um, not of the social class you’d expect. And he wasn’t in the bank much. When he was, he was… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just an impression. But he was like some kind of court-appointed monitor, you know, like he was overseeing something.”

“What social class is Conroy?”

“I don’t mean he’s what my mother would have called low class. But Mr. Smith was always so civilized and charming and gentle. He’d never fire anybody. He always made sure people were taken care of if they were sick or on maternity leave or anything. If there was an employee problem, he would call them into his office and talk it through with them.”

“Conroy was a little less civilized?”

“He wasn’t a dese, dem, dose kind of man. He was obviously educated. But he was very…” She searched for a phrase. “He was a bottom-line person. Very hard-nosed, no nonsense.”

“Do you have an address for Conroy?” I said.

“Just the bank,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll go see him there.”

“You won’t tell him I spoke to you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“He’s so…” She fluttered her hand. “He’s so cold. He seems like someone who doesn’t care about people.”

“Does he frighten you?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be our secret,” I said.

She sat back, her body still straight, her knees still together. Both her feet were firmly on the floor, and she tugged the hem of her skirt slightly forward toward her knees. It was an automatic grooming gesture, like fluffing her hair. She probably didn’t know she was doing it.

I smiled at her.

She looked at me.

“That’s the other reason I came to tell you about this,” she said.

“Which is?”

“That he frightens me.”

I nodded.

“You seemed like someone to talk to if I’m frightened,” she said.

I didn’t have anything to say about that, so I smiled encouragingly.

“You seem like someone who would protect me,” she said.

“Do you think you need protection?” I said.

“No, not really. I think I’m probably being a bit of a sissy.”

“Anyone threaten you?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. Conroy said I wasn’t to talk of this matter, but he meant if I wanted a letter of reference for my next job.”

I gave her my card. On the back of it, I wrote Hawk’s name and cell phone number.

“If you feel threatened, call me, at any hour. If you don’t reach me, call the number on the back. It’s a large black man with his head shaved who could protect Australia if he were asked.”

“Will he know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“It’s silly, of course. But I feel better knowing there’s someone I can call.”

“Anyone would,” I said.