Friday dawned a crisp April day, and a little too early. It wasn’t often that McBain felt nervous opening the door to his own office, but he knew what was coming this morning. Boston let him get two steps into the room.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
She was dressed in black, leaning on the front edge of her desk like a boxer itching to leave his corner. He held up his palms defensively.
“You’re angry, I understand,” he said. “You have every right. I only—”
She was angry, and not cold, silent-treatment angry. Irish redhead angry.
“For one thing, I have been working my ass off to get these two cases documented and closed over the next week so we can get paid.”
McBain opened his mouth to respond.
“Shut up,” she said. “For another, using your time and our connections to work on something that has no opportunity for us to make any money, and something you don’t want to tell me about, is a waste of time and an insult to me. Why the hell do we bother going through these requests to see if there is any merit to them, anyway? Maybe we should just hang out in bars or outside discount brokers and see what happens.
“Worst of all, trading on our business reputation to try to get laid is about the worst thing in the world you could do to us. We’ve spent the past four years building this business with word-of-mouth references from satisfied clients. You know how important this is to me. You’re lucky I showed up when I did. She looked like she was about to just walk out on you. And maybe tell all her friends about what a shit you are. Just think of what that could have set us back.”
McBain had been working on his defense half the night, and it made no more sense now than it had at three a.m.
“But I really did look into it on my own time,” he said.
Her eyes only got wider and greener. “Really? Well, if you had so much free fucking time, why didn’t you spend it in the office helping me clean up these last two clients so we could get paid faster? You know, paid? That is why we do this, isn’t it?”
“You know, I did take it seriously. How was I to know there was nothing to it until I looked at the file?”
He could tell he was just digging deeper from the way Boston was fingering the stapler on her desk.
“It’s not like I went from bar to bar. Sure, I had hit on her before. And got shot down. But I was minding my own business when she came up to me with this story about being robbed.”
“Oh please,” she said. “I saw what she looked like. And I’ve seen you in action before. If she had been a day over forty with one gray hair, you would have been out of there halfway through your first drink. So don’t try to sell me on your damsel in distress story. What the hell was wrong with our standard answer? Thanks, but I’m too busy right now helping my partner on other cases.”
She was walking back and forth now as she read him the riot act, waving her hands, which were empty for the moment. McBain threw his arms up in surrender.
“What was I supposed to do after she told me about the dead parents? And she didn’t even mention the part about it being a double suicide. After that, I had to do at least a little something to try to put her mind at ease. Which, as you saw, is going to be extremely difficult anyway.”
Boston stopped and glared over at him.
“Which is something you should have been thinking about when she first approached you. Our clients are emotional enough about losing money. And you have to take on one overcome with grief from dead parents? What were you thinking? As if I didn’t know exactly what you were thinking. And it serves you right to finally find out the punch line to that little scam anyway.”
He sank into the red velour chair in front of her desk, a disciplined schoolboy with his hands folded in his lap. Looking up, he took advantage of the icy lull that filled the room.
“And by the way, how did you know she was married?” he asked. “I didn’t see any ring on her finger.”
“How did you not?” she said. “You moron. You didn’t even bother to check the obit for the parents, did you?”
McBain swallowed hard. His ability to make such a rookie error notched up his sense of guilt, reddening his cheeks further.
“This is why there is a rule.” She was jabbing her finger at him. “You act stupid and unprofessional. And remember why the rule is in place. Because the first time you violated it, you cost us over two hundred grand in a fee that should have been a slam dunk. I knew you were up to something. That’s why I used my key to check your apartment. Then I called Dave and Dee. You’ve got some nerve asking them to keep things from me. Don’t ever do it again.”
Boston walked back to her desk and sat down. Her eyes sizzled with anger leveled at McBain. There was nothing beautiful about it.
“Your penance is to finish investigating her case,” she said with finality.
“I did investigate it,” he replied. “There is no case. I looked over the file, the investments. I had Dave and Dee check him out. The guy was just another loser in the market.”
“I mean a real, full investigation. On your own spare time, not our clock. Until you’re sure this guy is clean and there is no other lead to follow. Then you give her a full report. Then you say good-bye. Maybe if you’re lucky and do a good job, she’ll introduce you to her husband for good measure.”
McBain threw out his hands again in objection.
“You just said there’s nothing in it for us. Why bother?”
“Because I said so.” That was hard to argue with. “And because I like her. And because you owe me for the hours I put in here without your help while you were working your social life.”
Game. Set. Match, Boston O’Daniel.
“OK, OK. What do you want me to do? What will satisfy you?”
She shook her head. “It’s not me you need to satisfy, it’s Christina Baker. Ms. Baker to you, since she’s a client. And you can go down the whole laundry list I did at the restaurant last night. Friends, relatives, physician, and finally the suspect himself.”
McBain already knew the conversation was over. There would be no Red Sox games at Fenway for the foreseeable future.
“You realize how much time this could take?”
“Yep.”
He thought for a moment and tried one last appeal. “But what about helping you with the closes and the other case with the actress?”
“Not a problem,” she said. “You can do the interviews in your own abundant spare time. Then, if it takes longer and we don’t get any more paying business in the meantime, after you’re finished with the actress and Drysdale Securities, not to mention my philanthropy scam. Capiche?”
“You’re not Italian.”
He got a red eyebrow in return.
“Don’t try me today, McBain. I might get mad.”
The Bakers had been very popular. When McBain checked his inbox later that day, he found a short e-mail from Christina Baker with a file attached. For an only child, she certainly knew plenty of people. The file contained dozens of names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail information for friends of the family and acquaintances, thoroughly catalogued and organized. Most were in the Boston area. Some lived and worked in other towns or states that were accessible in a day’s drive.
The family had lived in Brookline for decades, but they got around. According to her note, both Phillip and Sarah Baker had been teachers at Wellesley College. He had been a professor of English literature, as well as random and obscure classes in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon languages. His wife had taught both French language and French poetry courses. The list reflected a wide range of friends and academic colleagues.
McBain grumbled as he read through the pages, trying to decide where to start and how to proceed. Just his luck. Whatever happened to the reclusive academic?
For a nanosecond, his mind settled on the notion of visiting only those people he could reach easily within the city. Then his common sense kicked in. Boston was mad enough already, and she would be checking up on him with random phone calls of her own.
He looked over the addresses closest to home first. The Bakers had a large number of friends in Boston. This meant visits to Beacon Hill, the South End, the North End, Charlestown, and Back Bay. After that, he would have to work his way outward around the city in a spiral, starting in Brookline and moving through Cambridge and other adjacent neighborhoods. Then there were the suburbs, such as Wellesley, Newton, Natick, and more to the west of the city. Finally he would have to drive to Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The end of the semester was fast approaching. Some of these college types would no doubt be heading out to summer homes on Cape Cod, the Vineyard, or Nantucket. And so would he if he didn’t hustle. If absolutely necessary, he decided, he would call on the few in New York.
For the better part of ten days, McBain spent his evenings paying visits to these people. Each person he was able to contact was all too happy to meet with him and talk about the Bakers. Unfortunately for him, that meant just about everyone on the list. Only a few did not respond to his calls or e-mails. So first by foot and the T, and then by car, he methodically sat with each of them to ask a few polite questions and hear them talk about Phillip and Sarah Baker for hours.
In a way, the conversations were quite touching. Like attending a wake for a beloved person who would be long remembered and missed. Many of the memories were fresh and vivid. Most of the comments laudatory and gracious. A few of the stories quite long.
In their early sixties, the Bakers had been married for nearly thirty-five years. Although they both came from old New England families, the couple hardly lived up to the image of the stiff and self-contained WASP. They had been gregarious and friendly, open and generous with their time to both friends and associates, eager to go the extra mile to help out a struggling student. They threw parties on a regular basis, both in their Brookline house and in impromptu settings, as befitting the scholarly eccentrics. Phillip loved wine and would go on endlessly about its place in literature, both fictional and among writers. Sarah regaled guests with French poetry late into the night. Above all, they were devoted to academic life, their students, and their college.
For decades they had lived in the house in Brookline. They had inherited a little money, but nothing to retire on. As Christina Baker had pointed out, they built their savings largely through thrift. They had each had successful careers, publishing works in academic journals as well as books in their field, but none of them had exactly been movie material. By all appearances, the marriage had been an archetype of professional, literary, and personal success.
One thing everyone agreed on: they loved their daughter with the passion of an artist for his greatest creation.
It was hard to imagine what might have pushed these people to take their own lives, money or not.
He could understand how their deaths would have appeared out of the ordinary. After weeks of evening tea and bad drinks, McBain could almost recite the family history by heart. All of these people were telling him wonderful things about the Bakers, but that only made the investigator even more certain of his initial findings. Not one of them had known or suspected anything about any money problems or trouble of any kind. And those who knew his name or had met him had nothing but glowing things to say about Richard Roche.
The day after one of his visits, McBain expressed to Boston the predictability of continuing these interviews, hoping to cut things short.
“The only thing that’s getting me suspicious is the fact that these people were so well thought of by everybody. I would have expected at least a couple would have been lukewarm or deliver some backhanded compliments. Academics aren’t usually afraid to bring out their stilettos when talking about their fellows. I guess when your colleagues are deceased, it’s another matter—never speak ill of the dead and all that. I hope people are as generous with me when the time comes.”
Boston simply looked at him, divining his intent.
“Well they better not ask me anytime soon. I’m more than happy to write your obituary myself, warts and all.”
Picking up where he had left off, he went back to work with an eye to finishing up his interviews as soon as possible and getting his evenings back.
Yes, the Bakers were too good to be true and didn’t seem like the type to just give up, even if they had been wiped out in a crash. So maybe there was something else they hadn’t been telling anyone, even their daughter. They didn’t have a psychiatrist, priest, or rabbi. That left one good possibility. McBain looked at the last few names on the list, cross-checked them against his scheduler, and then picked up the phone to schedule an appointment with a doctor.
****