'But when the kids were home, there weren't enough rooms. Now there are.'
He grinned and drank more of his martini.
'Keeps everything fresh,' he said.
'Tell me about DeSpain,' I said.
'Tell me why you want to know,' Healy said.
I told him.
'You do have a touch,' Healy said.
'Murder, kidnapping, illegal immigrants, and you've managed to annoy the Kwan Chang Tong.'
'Beats hanging around outside motels with a camera,' I said.
'You got backup against Kwan Chang?' Healy said.
'Hawk and Vinnie Morris.'
'Vinnie fucking Morris?' Healy said.
'He does what he says he'll do, and he's good with a gun.'
'I'll give him that,' Healy said.
'Never saw anyone could shoot as good as Vinnie.'
I said, 'Ahem.'
Healy ignored me and cut into his steak.
'You want to give me the name of your next of kin?' I said.
Healy grinned.
'My cholesterol is about 150,' he said.
'I weigh the same as I did when I got out of the Marine Corps.'
I looked at my cold seafood assortment. I looked at Healy's steak. I was glad I wasn't eating it. I was glad I was eating cold seafood. Cold seafood was virtuous.
'DeSpain and I started about the same time,' Healy said.
'He was tougher than a railroad spike, and smart. And stubborn. He got onto a case, he wouldn't let go of it. And he didn't act tough. He was folksy, like Will Rogers. Most people liked him.'
The waiter went by, and Healy snagged him, and ordered another martini. The waiter looked at me. I shook my head. Martinis didn't go that well with a cold seafood assortment.
'So he had a big/uture,' I said.
'Yeah. He should have been head of Criminal Investigations by now.'
'Instead of you?'
'Instead of me,' Healy said.
'DeSpain was an investigator for the Middlesex DA, working out of the Framingham barracks.
Some sort of stalking situation, and he got himself involved with the victim.'
I felt it like a jab in the solar plexus.
'A woman,' I said.
'Yeah. How many men you know get stalked?'
'One, maybe,' I said.
'Anyway, his marriage broke up, ugly, and it screwed his career.
Public Safety Commissioner hates it when we start sleeping with people we're investigating. DeSpain resigned, and I never knew where he went, until you called.'
'You don't know the woman's name?'
'No, should be in the file. You think she's involved up in Port City?'
'The kidnap victim, woman named Jocelyn Colby, who claims she was stalked, used to work with a theater company in Framingham.'
'Be a big coincidence,' Healy said.
'This broad up in Port City, she got anything going with DeSpain?'
'Nothing that shows,' I said.
'The course of true love,' Healy said, 'never did run smooth.'
CHAPTER 42
I was back and forth between Boston and Port City so much I felt like a carrier pigeon. We were back there again, with Mei Ling, in the Puffin' Muffin, on a rainy Saturday and I was tired of it. I was tired of the drive. I was
