The soft rain of the night before had turned harder. It was dark for midafternoon and everything was gleaming wet. Cars were clean. The leaves on the trees were fat and shiny with rain. Good-looking women, of which the Back Bay was full, moved past now and then, alone, or walking dogs in doggie sweaters, or pushing baby strollers protected by transparent rainproof draping. The women often had bright rain gear on, looking like points of Impressionist paint in the dark wet cityscape. My apartment was quiet. I was quiet. The rain was steady and hard but not noisy, coming straight down, not rattling on the window. I sipped my smoothie. My doorbell rang.

I picked up my gun off the kitchen counter and went and buzzed the downstairs door open. And went and looked through the peephole, after a moment. The elevator door opened and Hawk stepped out. I opened the door and he came in, wearing a white raincoat and a panama hat with a big brim. And carrying a paper bag. I knew he saw the gun. He saw everything. But he had no reaction.

“Raspberry turnovers,” he said.

I closed the door. He held out the bag, and I took a turnover. I ate it while I made coffee and Hawk hung up his coat and hat.

“Been following your man Conroy,” Hawk said.

He stirred some sugar into his coffee.

“He make you?”

“Me?” Hawk said. “Vinnie?”

“I withdraw the question,” I said.

Hawk took a turnover from the bag and ate some. I sipped some coffee. It didn’t feel so bad. It sat sort of comfortably on top of the smoothie.

“We picked him up where you left him,” Hawk said.

I nodded.

“I saw you,” I said.

“‘Cause you looking for us.”

“Sure.”

“So me and Vinnie, we double him, me on foot, Vinnie in the car. And he never knows we there. He goes back to the bank. Stays about an hour, then comes out and gets his car. I hop in with Vinnie and we tail him up to Boxford.”

“Long ride,” I said.

“Yeah. Deep into the fucking wilderness,” Hawk said. “Vinnie kept him in sight.”

“Vinnie’s good at this kind of work,” I said.

“He is,” Hawk said.

“But is he fun, like me?”

“Nobody that much fun,” he said. “You like these turnovers?”

“Yes.”

“Place in Mattapan, make the crust with lard, way it’s supposed to be made.”

“That would make them illegal in Cambridge,” I said.

“So Conroy drives to a house in Boxford,” Hawk said, “and parks in the driveway and gets out and goes in, and me and Vinnie sit outside, up the street a ways, and wait.”

I got a second turnover out of the bag and started on it. Lard. Hot diggitty! “How long he in there,” I said.

“He don’t come out,” Hawk said. “Lights go out about eleven-thirty. ‘Bout two in the morning we decide maybe it’s over. So I go check out the house. No name on the door. No name on the mailbox. There was a car in the garage, but I couldn’t see the license plate.”

“So you came home,” I said.

“Yep. Left Vinnie at the bank, pick him up when he come in for work.”

“What was the address up there?” I said.

“Eleven Plumtree Road,” Hawk said. “In a big honky development.”

“How do you know it’s honky?” I said.

Hawk chewed some turnover and swallowed and smiled at me.

“Boxford?” he said.

“Good point,” I said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

It was still raining when I drove up Route 95 to Boxford. It was early evening, after the commuter traffic had dissipated. It was maybe twenty-five miles north of Boston, where the city seemed a safe distance and there were cows. I turned off at Route 97 and plunged into the wet green exurban landscape.

Plumtree Road was the way into a big two-acre zoned development of expensive white houses with two-car garages and a lot of lawn. Hawk had been right. It was just the kind of place that affluent Anglo-Saxons seemed unable to resist.

Number 11 was just like number 9 far to its left, and number 13 far to its right, except that the shutters at number 11 were dark green. The front lawn that sloped to the street was undulant and wide. There were expensive shrubs along the foundation, which would someday grow and be beautiful. But now, like the rest of the development, they were too new. I pulled into the wide, gently curving driveway and parked in front of the big green doors of the two-car garage.

The lights were on in the house. I walked up the blue slate stepping-stones to the front door and rang. I was wearing my black Kenneth Cole microfiber waterproof spring jacket and my navy Boston Braves hat with a red bill. Anyone would be thrilled to find me standing on their front step at 7:15 on a rainy evening. The door opened and a good-looking blond woman in white shorts and a jade-green tank top looked at me. She did not seem thrilled. And I thought I knew why. It was Ann Kiley.

“Yes?”

“Ann Kiley,” I said.

“Yes?”

I was completely out of context. She had no idea who I was. I tipped my Braves cap back from my forehead. I smiled warmly.

“It’s me,” I said.

She stared at me.

“So it is,” she said finally. “What do you want?”

“I want to come in out of the rain,” I said. “And talk about Marvin Conroy.”

She didn’t blink, just looked at me for another ten seconds, then stepped away from the door. “Come in,” she said.

I went in and took off my hat, as my father and my uncles had always insisted I do when I went indoors. I was in a big entry foyer that opened into what looked like a very large living room.

“I was about to have a cocktail,” Ann Kiley said. “Would you care for something?”

“I would enjoy a big scotch and soda if you have it.”

“Certainly,” she said. “Hang your coat in the front hall closet.”

I did as instructed and followed her into the living room. She pointed me toward a big tan leather armchair with a matching hassock, and crossed to the bar. She made me a scotch and soda and herself a martini, brought me my drink, and sat down on the couch across the room and tucked her bare feet up.

“First one of the day,” she said and took a sip and smiled. “Always the best one.”

I sipped my scotch, and nodded.

“You’re right,” I said. “Tell me about Marvin Conroy.”

She didn’t flinch. She sat perfectly still with her martini and met my look. She had great eyes, not as great as Susan’s, but just as well made up, and there are degrees of greatness.

“What do you wish to know?” she said.

That was good. No who’s-martin-conroy? She had already understood that if I didn’t know something I wouldn’t be asking about him. Evasion would make it look worse. So she did the best she could in a difficult circumstance.

“A pleasure to observe a good legal mind,” I said. “You’ve remained noncommittal and your question puts it back on me. The more I say, the more you’ll know what I know.”

She smiled to acknowledge the compliment and sipped her martini. Neither of us said anything for a moment.

“My problem,” I said finally, “is that I don’t know what I wish to know.”

She nodded and was quiet.

“So I’ll tell you what I do know,” I said.

I took another pull on my drink. She’d made it well. A lot of ice, the proper balance of scotch with soda. Be nice to drink several of them with her. I leaned back a little and put my feet up on the hassock.

“Here’s what I know. Marvin Conroy is an executive at Pequod Savings and Loan, which was Nathan Smith’s bank and had been in the family since before Pocahontas. When I went to ask about Smith’s death, I talked to a PR woman named Amy Peters, who is now dead. Conroy refused to talk about it. After I talked with him, some people tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to kill me.”

Ann Kiley cocked her head a little as if she were glad to hear I hadn’t died.

“You represent Jack DeRosa, who says Mary Smith asked him to kill Nathan Smith. So both you and Conroy are connected to Nathan Smith in some way.”