“So who shot him?” I said.

“I don’t know.”

She closed her eyes and sat perfectly still for a moment. “I don’t even like to think about it,” she said.

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “But we sort of have to think about it. Because the cops think you did it.”

“I don’t know how they can think that,” she said.

I knew the remark was rhetorical. I let it pass. “You and Nathan get along well?” I said.

“Oh, yes. We were happy as clams.”

“Cops say you tried to have him killed a while ago.”

“I never did,” she said. “I never did any such thing.”

“You have a big fight with him the evening he was killed?”

“No.”

“Cops have witnesses,” I said.

“I don’t care what they got, Nathan and I were happy as clams.”

“Nathan have enemies?”

“No. Not at all. Everybody liked Nathan.”

“Almost everybody,” I said. “Anyone else in your life?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Boyfriends?”

“No. Of course not. Absolutely not.”

“How long you been married?” I said.

“Seven years.”

“You going with anyone before you married him?”

“I dated, of course, I mean, look at me. Of course I dated.”

“Anyone special?”

Her face brightened suddenly, and she smiled.

“They were all special,” she said.

“See any of them since your marriage?”

“Well, of course, you don’t give up all your friends when you get married.”

“Maybe you could give us a list of your friends.”

“My friends?”

“Somebody killed your husband.”

“I can’t give you a list of my friends. So you can go bother them?”

“I’m not your problem,” I said. “I’m working for you. Won’t your friends want to help you?”

“Well, of course.”

I spread my hands. It follows as the night the day. She frowned for a while. Which was apparently what she did when she thought.

“Maybe I could give you a list,” she said.

I waited. Finally she turned to her PR guy.

“Larson,” she said. “You could give them the guest list for the last party.”

“I have it in the computer,” Graff said. “If that would help.”

“Great,” I said. “That’ll be great.”

I could see Rita off to the right. She looked amused.

CHAPTER FOUR

I went with Belson to the new Suffolk County House of Correction in South Bay, where they were holding Jack DeRosa for trial on an armed robbery charge.

“So, as I understand it,” Belson said, “I’m trying to help you prove that our case against Mary Smith is no good.”

“Yep.”

“And what’s in that for me?” Belson said. “I helped put the damned case together.”

“Justice is served?”

“Yeah?”

“And I’m your pal.”

“Oh boy,” Belson said.

We met DeRosa in a secure conference room on the first floor. His lawyer was with him. DeRosa was a small guy with a big nose that had been broken more than once. There was enough scar tissue around his eyes to suggest that he’d been a fighter.

“Welterweight?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Any good?” I said.

“I was a palooka,” he said.

“So you found another line of work.”

DeRosa shrugged. His jail fatigues were too big, and it made him look smaller than he was.

“Whaddya want?” he said.

“Woman named Mary Smith asked you to kill her husband,” I said.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From me,” Belson said.

“We already have our deal in place,” DeRosa’s lawyer said.

She was stunning. Expensive blond hair cut short, dark blue pantsuit with a fine chalk line, white blouse, small diamond on a gold chain showing at her throat. She looked like she worked out, probably in bright tights and expensive sneakers.

“Where are you from?” I said to the lawyer.

“Excuse me?”

“What firm do you represent?”

“Kiley and Harbaugh,” she said. “I’m Ann Kiley.”

“Bobby Kiley’s daughter?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Wow!” I said.

“What can we do for you, Mr. Spenser?”

“I’m interested in who hooked DeRosa up with Mary Smith,” I said.

“And what is your interest, Sergeant?”

“I’m just along to learn,” Belson said.

“Are you here officially?”

“You mean if your client helps us out can I help him out?”

“Precisely.”

“Sure.”

She nodded slightly at DeRosa.

“Guy I know called me,” DeRosa said. “Told me this broad was interested in a shooter.”

“What’s the guy’s name?”

“Chuck.”

“Chuck.”

“Yeah. I don’t know his last name, just Chuck.”

“Where’s Chuck from?”

“In town somewhere,” DeRosa said.

“In town.”

“Yeah.”

“If I wanted to talk with Chuck, how would I reach him?”

“I don’t know. He called me.”

“So how’d you get in touch with Mary Smith?”

“Chuck give me her number,” DeRosa said. “I called it.”

I looked at Belson. He shrugged slightly.

“So,” I said. “A guy named Chuck, you don’t know his full name or how to reach him, calls you up and tells you that a woman wants her husband killed, and you call her up and offer your services?”

“Yeah.”

I looked at Belson again. He had no expression. I looked at Ann Kiley. She seemed calm.

“Okay. Tell me about your conversation with Mary Smith.”

“Hey, I already told about a hundred fucking cops and ADA’S,” he said. “Didn’t you read the reports?”

“It’s just an excuse,” I said. “You’re so goddamned charming that I just like to talk with you.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like saying the same shit over and over.”

“Sure,” I said. “Like you got important stuff to do in here.”

“It won’t hurt,” Ann Kiley said, “if you tell it once more, Jack.”

“Yeah? Well, she met me at some fucking restaurant in a fucking clothing store, for crissake.”

“Okay. How’d you recognize her?”

“I asked the hostess, or whatever, and they seated me.”

“What’d she say?”

“She just said she wanted her husband killed and could I do it?”

“How much she paying?”

“Fifty grand.”

“Why didn’t you take the job?”

“I did.”

“But you didn’t kill her husband.”

“No.”

“Because?”

“Because I don’t do that kind of work.”

“But you took the money.”

“Yeah, sure. I figure I take the dough and don’t do it. What’s she gonna do?”

“And you have fifty large in your pocket,” I said.

“Twenty-five. She give me half up front, half when it was done.”

“She say why she wanted him killed?” I said.

“Nope.”

“She ever follow up with you?” I said.

“No.”

“So she gave you twenty-five thousand, and you put it in your pocket and walked away and never saw her again.”

“That’s right.”

“How’d she give you the money?”

“Whaddya mean how? She fucking handed it to me.”

“Cash?”

“Yeah. In a bag.”

“Big bills?”

“Hundreds.”

I went over it with him another time, and Belson tried him once. The story didn’t change.

Finally Ann Kiley said, “I think it is clear that my client has told his story and he retells it consistently.”

“I think you’re right,” I said.

“You’ll speak to the district attorney,” Ann Kiley said, “about my client’s willingness to cooperate.”

“Sure,” Belson said.

As we walked to my car, I said to Belson, “Anything bother you?”

“Like what?” he said.

“Like an entry-level slu)o being represented by Kiley and Harbaugh,” I said.

“Pro bono?” Belson said.

“You think?” I said.

“No.”

“It bother you?”

“Sure it bothers me,” Belson said. “And it bothers me that he got into the deal through a guy named Chuck whom we can’t identify, and it bothers me that his story is so exactly the same every time. And it bothers me his lawyer let him keep talking about it with only my sort of casual comment that I’d speak to the DA.”

“I noticed that myself,” I said.

“However,” Belson said, “sergeants don’t get to be lieutenants by helping people unsolve a high-profile murder.”