I got out of the cruiser and opened my car door and took the gun out in its paper bag and got back in the cruiser and handed the gun to Lundquist. He opened it and looked in.
'Fingerprints?' he said.
'No,' I said. 'I wiped it.'
'Swell,' Lundquist said.
'Told you it was tricky,' I said.
Lundquist nodded. 'I think I'll keep this pretty much to myself,' he said.
'Me too,' I said.
I got out of the cruiser. Lundquist put the gun on the seat beside him, still in the paper bag, and put the car in gear and drove away. I watched him pull out into North Street and turn down the hill toward Main Street. Then I got back in the Mustang and sat.
Ballistics would prove that the Navy Colt had killed Bailey Rogers. A second .41 in the small circle I was snooping in was too big a coincidence. It meant that Esteva killed Rogers, or had it done. But that wasn't a bolt from the blue and it would still be hard to prove. The gun wasn't registered and there'd be no way to connect it to Esteva except through Brett's testimony. But that would open up the kid's connection with Esteva and the kid was not in shape for that. I wasn't sure what he was in shape for. His mother was in no shape for that either. So if I kept the blanket pulled up over Brett, what did I have. A reasonable and unprovable certainty that Esteva killed Rogers. If I'd never heard of Brett I would have had a reasonable and unprovable guess that Esteva killed Rogers. I could probably nail Esteva on the coke business, but again not without Brett. And I couldn't use Brett. Without Brett, Esteva was safe.
'Jesus Christ.'
I got out of the car and went into the library.
There was a pale young woman with glasses at the desk.
'Is Mrs. Rogers here,' I said.
'She's in the office,' the pale woman said. 'Left of the card catalogues.'
I went to the office. Caroline Rogers was sitting at a library table with a card-file drawer on the table in front of her. She looked up when I came in and her eyes widened.
I said, 'Where's Brett?'
'He's at work,' she said. 'We both thought it best not to stay home and brood.'
'Call him, can you?'
'Of course I can. Why should I?'
'If Esteva finds out that we know about him and the gun,' I said.
Caroline stared at me. 'Oh, God,' she said. 'Brett would never tell.'
'Let's just call him,' I said.
She swung around in her chair and picked up the phone from the desk behind her. She dialed and waited.
'Brett Rogers, please.'
She waited. There was a small coffee maker on a stand past the table with a pot of coffee almost boiled away on one of the burners. It made a harsh odor.
'He isn't?' Caroline said. 'You're sure. Thank you.'
She hung up. And turned in her chair. And looked at me.
'They said he's not there. That he didn't come to work.' She picked up the receiver again and punched out another number. She waited. I went over and removed the coffeepot from the burner. She hung up the phone. 'No answer,' she said. 'I'm going home.'
'I'll drive you,' I said.
She started to speak and then didn't. Her coat was on a hanger on the coatrack inside the office door. I held it for her while she slipped her arms through and then we were on our way. I spun the Mustang's wheels on the hard frozen ground in the parking lot and the back end fishtailed a little as I pulled out onto North Street. Caroline was silent for the ten minutes it took to drive to her house. I didn't have anything to say either.
I was beside her when she put her key into the front door and opened it. I pushed in ahead of her when I smelled the cordite through the open door. The living room was as neat and chintzy as it had been yesterday, except that in the middle of it, on the hand-braided rug, Brett Rogers was facedown with blood already blackening the back of his cotton flannel shirt. I went to a knee beside him and felt for a pulse. There was none. His skin was cold to the touch. I looked up at Caroline. She was standing in the open doorway with her hands at her sides, the door key in her hand, her face without expression and very pale. I shifted my body to try and block her view of the kid. As I did she slowly sank to her knees in the entryway, and settled back so she was sitting on her feet. And she began to scream. I scrambled over beside her and put my arms around her. She was as stiff and unyielding as a lawn chair and her scream was formless and guttural, as if it was torn loose from inside her. I rubbed her back in small aimless circles with my right hand. There was nothing to say.
Chapter 23
I drove the eighty miles from Wheaton to Cambridge and was in Susan's waiting room when her last patient finished. She came out of her office with the patient and saw me sitting in the green leather chair reading a copy of The New Yorker. She smiled at me. The patient was a sturdy woman in chino trousers carrying a maroon backpack.
Susan said, 'Good-bye, Ms. Lewis, I'll see you on Thursday.'
Ms. Lewis nodded and did not look at me and went out. Susan slid the bolt in the outer door after her and came
