“We’ll appreciate any help you can give us,” Toomey said. “Just don’t fuck with me.”

“You bet.”

“Or the DA. Are you familiar with the Berkshire County district attorney, Thorne Cornwallis?”

“No, I’m not.”

“People call him Thorny for a reason. So I look forward to any assistance you can render, and your cooperation with the district attorney’s office is something I know we can all count on.”

What was this, Chitlin Switch, Georgia? This was not the Berkshires I knew. Where were all the pretty James Taylor tunes?

I said, “If Fields is innocent, I’ll convince you of that, detective. If he’s guilty, he’s all yours. And Thorny’s.”

Gaudios said, “Thorne Cornwallis is an excellent crime-fighter. Jim and I have supported him for years. I am completely confident that he’ll put Barry Fields away in Walpole for the rest of his life, and I’m only sorry that Massachusetts no longer executes cold-blooded killers like Barry.”

“Steven,” I said, “I want to see justice done here as much as anybody. So, please tell me. What happened last night?” I thought Toomey might cut this off, but he was smart enough to see the advantage of having Gaudios go through his story one more time.

“Oh, it was so awful, Donald! So, so awful!”

“You were out for the evening?”

“I played bridge with Nell Craigy and two of her regulars. Trill Gallagher was ill, and they needed a fourth, and I volunteered. We had a few martinis – ” Gaudios noted Toomey’s presence and corrected himself ” – we had a few martinis but no more than two, and so I didn’t get out of there until ten forty-five. When I arrived home around eleven, I expected to find Jim in bed watching TV, but…” Gaudios began to choke up again. We waited for a long moment while he struggled and then regained control. He went on, “But I knew something was wrong when What-Not didn’t race to the back door when I came in and jump into my arms. The house was so… so still. And then I walked through the dining room and into the foyer, and… and… I saw them.” He shook his head and cried. Both Toomey and I lowered our gaze, though not so low that we weren’t keeping a peripheral eye on Gaudios as he recalled the grisly scene and reacted.

While Gaudios wept, Toomey picked up the narrative. “Jim Sturdivant had been shot three times, twice in the chest, once in the back of the head,” the cop said. So the shooter clearly wanted Sturdivant dead. “The dog apparently came to Mr. Sturdivant’s defense, and he was shot twice and killed. Sturdivant was facing his assailant when he was shot in the chest, and he fell backwards near the front door of the house. Apparently he had let the killer into the house, suggesting that the shooter was someone he knew.”

This got Gaudios back in action. “Barry! It just had to have been Barry!”

I said, “And no other shots were fired?”

“Just the five nine-millimeters,” Toomey said.

“Did anyone hear the gunfire?” I said. “There are all these houses nearby.”

“Several people did hear the shots,” Toomey said, “and phoned the county emergency dispatcher just after nine. Officers in a patrol car from the Lee barracks arrived at nine forty but, finding the neighborhood calm, left the scene. The neighbors have been interviewed, and none of them saw anybody arrive at or depart the Sturdivant home at the time of the gunfire. The shooter may have parked a block away and cut through back yards.”

“I suppose your forensics guys have checked the yards,” I said.

“Yeah, you can suppose that.”

“Did I see a swimming pool out back there? And a hot tub?”

Gaudios said, “Anybody going through the yard would see the pool. We’ve got floodlights with motion sensors back there. And the pool is fenced in. We’ll be… we would have been… I’ll have to close the pool soon. We start getting leaves this time of year.” He got teary again, and I thought about what my life would be like without Timothy Callahan, and then I pushed that thought out of my head.

I said, “The circumstances of this shooting don’t look to me like anger or pique – the kind of mayhem you’d expect if an amateur like Barry Fields went bonkers after a fight in a grocery store. This looks like an assassination. Professional almost. The killer walked in, shot Sturdivant and the dog, and walked out again.

“How do you know Fields is an amateur?” Toomey said.

I had no answer to that. For all any of us knew, six years earlier Fields could have worked for a Columbian drug cartel or the Pakistani intelligence services. I said, “Does anyone know if Fields owned a gun?”

“He never registered one. But in your line of work you must know about the ready availability of illegal firearms, Mr. Strachey. It’s like shopping for a leaf blower. Maybe easier. Certainly cheaper.”

“I do know.”

“No, Barry Fields is definitely our prime suspect. He attacked Jim Sturdivant earlier in the day yesterday, and he threatened to get rid of him, according to witnesses. And his flight pretty much nails it, to my way of thinking. I appreciate your wanting to earn your fee from Bill Moore. But you’re pushing against the obvious here.”

“What about Sturdivant’s business and personal life? Isn’t there anybody else who might have had it in for him?”

This got Gaudios’s prompt attention, but he said nothing.

Toomey said, “Mr. Sturdivant has been retired from the business world for four years. According to Mr. Gaudios, he didn’t have an enemy in the world and has pretty much devoted his life to performing good deeds for friends and charities.”

“But,” I said, “you must have spoken to Bill Moore. I know for a fact that his opinion of Jim Sturdivant was more critical. Maybe there were others who also thought ill of Jim.”

Gaudios’s face tightened, and Toomey gave me a bemused look that told me something I needed to know. So, I thought, Toomey knows about the loans and probably about the conditions. And Gaudios knows Toomey knows, and now they both know that I know that they both know.

“Don’t you worry, Mr. Strachey, that we’ll miss one single important angle,” Toomey said. “This crime was committed just last night, and my investigation has just begun. And now that we’ve met and I see what a solid professional you are, I’m going to want to count on you to share your skills and judgment and professionalism with those of us employed to solve this crime for the people of Massachusetts. Can I count on you?”

“You sure can, detective. I’m at your service. Yours and Thorny’s.”

Expressionless, Toomey studied me closely, and Steven Gaudios stood looking bereft and apprehensive.

Chapter Eight

Bill Moore’s house was set up on a hillside on the east side of Great Barrington, separated from the business district by the Housatonic River. The Housatonic’s pretty but modest flow would be labeled a creek or brook in New York State and most others, but in New England every topographical dribble was called a river, part of the region’s quirky old-country charm. Moore ’s white, wood-frame two-story house was identical to millions of others in the woodier regions of North America, and it was barely visible behind a profusion of bushes and trees. It seemed to be the abode of someone who preferred privacy or even anonymity, or maybe he just found it pleasant.

I parked in the driveway behind a beige Honda, climbed up six or eight steps, and rang the doorbell. There were some old green wicker chairs on the porch, but they looked dusty and unused. The door swung open.

“Donald Strachey?”

“Yep. Bill Moore?”

“Come on in.”

I saw why Fields had gone for a man twenty years older than he was. Moore was impressive to behold, with a middleweight college wrestler’s build and a green-eyed George Bellows-painting athlete’s mug. He had close-cropped light hair with some gray in it and rings of sleeplessness around his watchful eyes. Barefoot in old khakis and a faded red T-shirt, Moore carried just enough of an incipient paunch to suggest that although he liked to keep fit, he was not fetishistic about it.