She stood up, eyes lingering on me. I pushed the money back across my desk.

“You’re in luck, Mattie Sullivan,” I said. “I’m running a special this week.”

“What’s the special?”

“Investigative services in exchange for more of these,” I said, holding up a donut.

“Are you shitting me?” she asked.

“I shit you not.”

2

I sure am lucky to know you, Spenser,” Quirk said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

“I like to make people feel useful,” I said. “Commander of the homicide squad can be such a lonely job.”

“I got the file set up for you in a conference room down the hall,” he said. “I hope that’s to your liking.”

I lifted my eyebrows and tilted my head. “Service with a smile.”

“Had to have the thing printed out, too,” Quirk said. “You know cops these days use these devices called computers. You heard of them?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ve seen pictures.”

Quirk was a big guy with bricklayer’s hands who always looked buttoned-up and spit-shined. In the decades we’d known each other, I had never seen him with so much as a wrinkle. He was dressed in a navy suit with a white dress shirt and red-and-blue rep tie.

“Do you mind me asking why you’re looking into this?” Quirk asked.

“I have a client who thinks you got the wrong man.”

“I’ve heard that song before.”

“You read the report?”

“I was the one who printed the son of a bitch out.”

“What’d you think?”

“I think you’re wasting a perfectly good afternoon.”

“Solid?”

“The vic was stabbed, raped, and run down with a car,” he said. “We got her blood all over the suspect’s vehicle.”

“Blood match the deceased?”

Quirk looked at me like I should be wearing a cone-shaped hat. “Hmm. Gee, maybe we should’ve thought about that.”

“You mind if I grab some coffee?”

“Help yourself.”

“Bad as always?”

“Worse.”

The homicide unit kept their offices in a big open space on the third floor of the new police headquarters building off Tremont Street in Roxbury. The old headquarters had been within walking distance of my office and was now a boutique hotel called the Back Bay. The old headquarters was all gray stone with a lot of rugged charm. The new headquarters had all the aesthetics of an insurance company.

I spent the next two hours reading through the incident report, the coroner’s notes, and the detectives’ file. The file contained a copy of Julie Sullivan’s arrest record. She’d been arrested four times for possession of crack cocaine. And five times for prostitution and once for public intoxication.

Two weeks before she’d been killed, Julie Sullivan had entered into a plea deal on drug charges. She was set to enter a drug treatment facility in Dorchester a week later. I noted the name of the facility and date on the yellow legal pad I’d brought.

I also noted the dates and places of her drug arrests. The reports told me little else.

I wrote down Julie’s date of birth. She’d been twenty-six when she died. Her body had been found at a construction site off University Drive on Columbia Point. Not only did her blood match the blood on Mickey Green’s car, but tracks found at the scene matched his tires.

Mickey Green’s file was pretty thick. He’d been convicted of breaking and entering at eighteen, aggravated assault at nineteen. And twenty. And at twenty-one—twice. He stole some cars. He robbed a convenience store. He spent time in the pokey.

Green had been spotted at a drive-through car wash at Neponset Circle an hour before his arrest. But some of Julie’s blood and matted hair remained on the car, despite his efforts.

Outside the window, flags popped tight on their poles. Cold wind tossed trash and dead leaves down cleared sidewalks past banks of dirty snow. A sheet of newspaper lifted in the wind and disappeared under a Buick.

I’d been doing what I do for a long while now. In that time, I’d grown pretty good at knowing when I could poke holes in investigations and admitting when poking would do little good. This one had been fashioned of steel and concrete. I tapped my pen against my legal pad and let out a long breath. The case I’d just worked made me feel dirty and shabby but had also left me with a full bank account and a little time. The girl just wanted someone to listen and check things out. Despite everything I’d just read, she believed her mom’s killers were still out there and a family friend had been left holding the bag. Pretty weighty stuff on a fourteen-year-old. Sometimes a few hours of honest work was better than a bar of soap.

I leaned back into the seat. I was making a few more notes when Quirk strolled into the conference room and handed me a business card. On the back he’d written a cell phone number.

“Bobby Barrett,” Quirk said. “Works out of District Eleven. He can tell you about this Mickey Green guy.”

I took the card and thanked him.

“How far you get with the file?”

“Far enough,” I said.

“Like I said, the case is solid.”

“My client says she saw the victim with thugs a few hours before her death.”

“Then who the hell is Mickey Green?” Quirk asked. “The ice-cream man? Did you read his sheet?”

“I didn’t see any other suspects.”

“I don’t think there was a reason,” Quirk said. “He was driving the car used to kill her.”

I nodded.

“Girl like that gets around at night,” Quirk said. “You saw her priors. She could have had a lot of company before she ran into Green at that bar.”

“I don’t see a motive.”

Quirk smiled. “How many killings ever have a good motive? People get pissed off. Shit happens.”

“I’ll inform my client.”

“I’m not trying to bust your balls,” Quirk said. “I know you want to do right by the kid. I just don’t want you wasting your time.”

“I’ll talk to Barrett,” I said. “I’d also like to talk to someone in the drug unit.”

“What about the case detective?”

“Didn’t see much detecting done in the file,” I said. “I want to know some of the players in Southie. Drug unit would help.”

“Yes, sir,” Quirk said. “Your wish is my command.”

“Quirk, you really make me feel special.”

Quirk told me to go screw myself.

3

Locke-Ober was classic Boston, like the Old North Church or Carl Yastrzemski. There was a time when they didn’t allow women, but fortunately those days were over. The décor still had that men’s-club feel, with wood-paneled walls and brass trim. The waiters wore white.

I had gone home and exchanged my Boston Braves cap, leather jacket, and jeans for gray wool pants, a light blue button-down with a red tie, and a navy blazer sporting brass buttons. I had showered, shaved, and polished the .38 Chief’s Special I wore on my belt, behind my hip bone. The drape of my blazer hid it nicely in the hollow of my back.

I looked as if I deserved a solid drink. I ordered a dry Grey Goose martini and sat at the old bar, staring at an oil painting of a nude woman. The woman looked strong and curvy, with ample breasts and only a thin silk sash around her waist.

I heard Monk being played somewhere as my martini arrived. Very cold and slushy with ice, extra olives. I looked into the bar mirror and lifted the glass to myself.

“What should I make of that?”

I turned and smiled. Susan took the barstool next to me.

“Why would any club exclude women?” I asked, signaling the waiter for a glass of chardonnay.

“Repressed homosexuality,” she said.

“Mother issues?” I asked.

“Could be both,” Susan said. “A martini?”