'Because he told you?'
Albrano's expression of professional cooperation didn't change.
'I believe that is where I heard that, sir.'
I nodded.
'The victim had a boyfriend,' I said. 'You happen to come across him?'
'Didn't know she had one,' Albrano said. 'You actually think whatsis name, Alves, is innocent?'
'It's a working hypothesis,' I said.
'Be a pretty elaborate frame-up,' Albrano said.
'Yeah.'
'But if it was a frame-up,' he said, 'it was a smart move picking a loser like this Alves character.'
'Jury'd figure even if he didn't do it,' I said, 'he did something.'
Albrano shrugged.
'I don't know shit about juries,' he said. 'But it makes him a good-looking suspect. Arrest a guy for drunk driving that's done it three times before, you gotta like your chances.'
I didn't say anything. The pneumatic nailer was banging away across the half-finished room. A uniformed Pemberton cop stuck his head through the incomplete doorway.
'Making a run, Charlie,' he said. 'Want anything?'
'Large black, no sugar, and couple of Boston creams.' He looked at me. 'You want something?'
I shook my head. The uniform left. We sat thoughtfully for a little longer.
'You know,' Albrano said, 'now that you asked and I'm thinking about it, Trooper Miller called me and asked if we'd come up with anything on the murder of the college girl.'
I nodded.
'So I told him about the anonymous letter and he said send it in to me.'
I nodded again.
'I don't see that it means anything,' Albrano said. 'Do you?'
'Might mean he was impatient,' I said.
Chapter 19
MY DOOR WAS open. Hawk was sitting tipped back in one of my client chairs studying Lila in the design office across the hall. She was looking particularly Lila-esque today in a puffy-sleeved, ankle-length, black dress and a Chicago White Sox baseball hat. I was at my desk making a list of the people I had talked to about Ellis Alves. After each name I wrote a brief synopsis of what I had learned from them. It wasn't that I couldn't remember. It was that I was confused, and when I get confused I make lists. It doesn't usually solve my confusion, but it sometimes consolidates it.
'Lila know you're looking at her?' I said.
'Un huh.'
'She looking right back?'
'Un huh.'
'This could be the start of something big,' I said.
'Be big,' Hawk said. 'Won't be often.'
'Chatting with Lila in the morning might be wearing,' I said.
'I let you know.'
I was starting back through my list to see which ones I wanted to follow up when some guys came in without knocking and barred Hawk's view of Lila by closing the door behind them. I knew this would annoy Hawk, and it did. But unless you knew him like I did, you wouldn't notice. It was mostly the way his head cocked when he looked at them.
There were four of them. All chosen apparently for heft more than beauty. Two of them, who might have been related, slid to either side of the closed door and stood against the wall and looked at Hawk. The other two walked past Hawk and stood in front of my desk and looked at me. Symmetry.
'You Spenser?'
The speaker was wearing a watch cap and a pea coat. The coat, which hung open, was too long, as all his jackets would be. He was built like a beer keg.
'I am he,' I said.
I saw Hawk smile as he stood without apparent effort and went without any hurry to the olive green office supply cabinet next to the coat rack. The two guys that might have been related watched him carefully.
'You're working on the Ellis Alves case,' he said.
'Day and night,' I said.
