Widow’s Walk

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Susan’s eyes were big and dark and brilliant with interest. “You think Ann Kiley recruited the DeRosa man?”

“Yes.”

“If Marvin Conroy and Ann Kiley are so deeply in love that she’ll supply thugs, and bail them out afterwards,” Susan said, “would he leave without a word and she not know where he was?”

“Maybe she was the only one deeply in love,” I said.

“Maybe,” Susan said. “But it might be worth keeping an eye on her.”

I smiled, and said, “Great idea.”

Susan studied my face for a moment. “You’re already doing that, aren’t you?”

I shrugged.

“Not Hawk,” Susan said. “He’s watching you.”

I shrugged again.

“Vinnie?”

“Yeah.”

“Vinnie is watching Ann Kiley.”

“I thought it would be good if we knew where she went and who she talked to, and maybe offer a little protection.”

“I thought her father was arranging protection.”

“He was, but, you know, Vinnie is pretty good.”

“Depends how you define good,” Susan said.

“He’s the best shooter I ever saw,” I said.

“That’s how I thought you’d define it,” Susan said.

I was on a stool in Susan’s kitchen, supervising as she made egg salad for sandwiches. She was spooning Miracle Whip into a bowl with the hard-boiled eggs. Pearl was lying on her couch across the room, aging, but still alert to the possibility of a spoon to lick.

“I didn’t know they made Miracle Whip anymore,” I said.

“They do.”

“Many people use mayo,” I said.

“Miracle Whip makes a much better egg salad,” she said.

I nodded.

“You ever think of mixing in some chopped green peppers?” I said.

“No,” she said.

“I like a person clear on their preferences,” I said.

“Me too. Have you found any intersection between Mary Smith and the Levesque person on one hand, and Conroy and Ann Kiley and that group on the other?”

“Nathan Smith,” I said.

“Besides that,” Susan said.

“No.”

“Maybe there isn’t one,” she said.

“Sometimes I snip a few chives into the egg salad,” I said.

“I don’t,” she said. She stirred some chopped celery into the egg and Miracle Whip mixture.

“You think she killed her husband?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “The gun she gave Levesque to get rid of is the one that killed him.”

“Do you think Marvin Conroy is the one who killed all these other people?”

“He’s involved,” I said. “Soldiers Field Development might have something to do with it, too.”

“To do with what?” Susan said.

She spread out five slices of white bread and began to spread each with her egg-salad mixture.

“White bread?” I said.

“You eat egg salad on white bread,” Susan said. “What is it that Conroy and Soldiers Field had something to do with?”

“I don’t know. Something, I would guess, to do with real estate and mortgage money fraud.”

“Because it’s a bank and a development company.”

“Because of that,” I said. “I still need to talk with the guy that got beat up, Bisbee.”

“He was a real estate person,” Susan said.

She put a leaf of Bibb lettuce on each of the five egg-covered bread slices.

“Yeah. And Amy Peters was in banking, and Brink Tyler was a financial advisor, and Nathan Smith was a banker. And he was on the board of Soldiers Field Development, and they’ve disappeared, and he brought Marvin Conroy into the bank, and Marvin Conroy was Ann Kiley’s boyfriend, and he’s disappeared, and Ann Kiley represented Jack DeRosa, who lied that Mary Smith hired him to kill her husband, and who hired Chuckie Scanlan to beat up Thomas Bisbee and probably to kill me, and Ann represented him, too, and Conroy was investigating Nathan Smith’s sexuality, and Larson Graff was a friend of Nathan’s, and a boyhood friend of Mary’s and Roy Levesque, and Mary says she met Nathan through Graff, and Graff says he met Nathan because of Mary, and…”

“Jesus Christ,” Susan said. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“Lot of that going around,” I said.

Susan completed her five sandwiches with five more slices of white bread, then she cut them into cute quarters and put them on a small platter. Beside the sandwiches, artfully, she put a few cherry tomatoes and some cornichons.

“There’s a bottle of Riesling in the refrigerator,” Susan said. “If you’ll bring it out onto the back porch we’ll have lunch.”

I put the wine in an ice bucket, got two glasses and a corkscrew, and followed Susan. Pearl dragged off the couch and limped after us to the porch. It was a lovely August day. We sat at Susan’s little filigreed glass-topped table. Pearl sat beside Susan. Susan gave her a quarter of a sandwich.

“How,” Susan said, “on earth are you going to unravel all of that?”

I uncorked the bottle.

“Same way you do therapy,” I said.

“Which is?”

“Find a thread, follow it where it leads, and keep on doing it.”

“Sometimes it leads to another thread.”

“Often,” I said.

“And then you follow that thread.”

“Yep.”

I ate a bite of my sandwich. Miracle Whip maybe was good in an egg salad sandwich. Susan nibbled on a cornichon. I sipped some Riesling. I liked Riesling.

“Like a game,” Susan said.

“For both of us,” I said.

Susan nodded. “Yes,” she said, “the tracking down of a person or an idea or an evasion.”

“Or fixing something that’s broken,” I said. “Like home repair.”

“Or both,” Susan said. “Except sometimes it’s awfully hard.”

“Part of its charm,” I said.

“I know. I know. Can’t win if there’s no chance of losing. It’s true,” Susan said. “But not consoling in the moment.”

“No,” I said. “Not in the moment.”

Susan gave Pearl another quarter of the extra sandwich she’d made. Pearl chomped it briskly and wagged her tail.

“Speaking of consolation in the moment,” I said.

“She’s easily consoled,” Susan said.