On the monitors, there was a shot of her home in Jamaica Plain, then a splice jump and her face appeared on the screen, close up, her mouth contorted into something almost like a grin by the tightness of the gag. The camera zoomed back. She was on the floor in the back of the van, her eyes shiny in the pitiless light. On the bed she turned her head away. He reached out and gently turned it back.
"I have to see you, baby, don't be coy."
And he filmed her in time present watching films he'd taken of her in times past.
Chapter 3
I sat inside the frosted glass cubicle where the Homicide Commander had his office and talked with Martin Quirk about Belson.
"Frank's taking some time off," Quirk said.
His blue blazer hung on a hanger on a hook inside his door. He wore a white shirt and a maroon knit tie and his thick hands rested quietly on the near-empty desk between us. He was always quiet, except when he got mad, then he was quieter. Nobody much wanted to make him mad.
"I know," I said.
"You know why?"
"Needed a rest."
"You know about his wife?"
"Yes."
"Me too," I said.
"What do you know?"
"I know she's gone."
Quirk nodded.
"Okay," he said. "So I don't have to be cute."
"Is that what you were being?"
"Yeah."
"He's afraid she left him," I said.
"Happens," Quirk said.
"You've never had the experience," I said.
"You have."
"Yeah."
"I remember."
"There's nothing logical about your first reactions," I said.
"Must be why they call it crazy time."
"That's why," I said. "What do you know about her?"
"No, you got it wrong," Quirk said. "I'm the copper. I say stuff like that to you."
"Frank won't talk about her."
Quirk nodded. "But you, being a fucking Eagle Scout, are nosing around."
"That's how I like to think of it," I said.
"Frank's kind of fucked up about this."
"So what do you know about her?"
"Her name's Lisa St. Claire. She's a disc jockey at a station in Proctor, which is one of those jerkwater cities up by New Hampshire."
"I know Proctor," I said.
"Good for you," Quirk said. "Frank met her about a year ago. In the bar at the Charles Hotel. Frank had just gone through the divorce. The old lady didn't let go easy. You ever meet adorable Kitty?"
I nodded.
"So Lisa looked good to him. Hell, she looks good to me, and I'm happily married. Frank probably did the I'm-a-police-detective trick, always works great."
"How the hell do you know?" I said.
"Used to work great for me."
"You got married before you were a detective."
Quirk grinned.
"I used to lie," he said. "Anyway, she and Frank started going out. They moved in together about a month later, his old lady had the house. Maybe six months ago they got married and bought that place out near the pond."
"She got money?"
Quirk shrugged.
"How much does a disc jockey make?"
"More than a cop."
"'Cause they're more valuable," he said. "Frank worked a lot of overtime, probably had a little something put away, himself."
"That his wife didn't get?"
"He saw that coming for a long time," Quirk said. "Might have had a few bearer bonds someplace."
"You know how old Lisa is?"
"Nope, I'd guess around thirty. What do you think?"
"Lot younger than Frank," I said.
"And better looking. Frank was fucking blown away by how good looking she was."
"Yeah," I said, "but is she a nice person?"
"Maybe we'll find that out," Quirk said.
"You know where she's from?"
Quirk shrugged.
"Family?"
Shrug.
"You know where she worked before
Proctor?"
"No."
"Ever hear her program?"
"No. I'm too busy listening to my Prince albums."
"He doesn't call himself Prince anymore."
"Who gives a fuck," Quirk said.
"Nobody I know," I said. "She been married before?"
"I don't know."
"Thirty's kind of old for a first marriage," I said.
"For crissake, Spenser, you've never been married at all."
"Sure, that's odd, too. But I'm not missing."
"Kids get laid now. They live with people. They don't marry as early."
"How old were you?" I said.
"Twenty," Quirk said.
"Better to marry than burn," I said.
"Worked out okay for me," Quirk said. "But a lot of people got married so they could fuck six times a week. Then in a while they only felt like fucking once a week and had to talk to each other in between. Created a lot of drunks."
"You think she left him?" I said.
"I don't know," Quirk said. "If she left him it'll kill him. If she didn't leave him where the fuck is she?"
"Hard to know what to root for," I said.
The window behind Quirk looked out into Stanhope Street, which was little more than an alley. If you stood up and looked, you could see Bertucci's Pizza, where the Red Coach Grill once was. A pigeon settled on Quirk's window ledge and sidled across it, puffing up his feathers as he went. He turned sideways and looked in at us with one eye. Behind me in the squad room the phone rang periodically, sometimes only once, sometimes for much too long. A phone call to Homicide didn't usually bring good news.
I stood up. The pigeon watched me.
"I hear anything, I'll let you know," Quirk said.