'How much did it cost to frame Ellis?' I said.
He stood without speaking.
'You don't know, do you?' I said. 'Because your old man paid.'
He glanced toward the kitchen.
'Your old man pay someone to crank Tommy, too?' I said.
The girl with the pink toenails came into the room carrying a silver carafe of coffee, a creamer, a sugar bowl, some spoons, and three cups on a big black lacquer tray. She gave the room a big smile.
'Here's coffee,' she said and set the tray down on a low table in front of the couch.
Clint looked at her as if she were a stranger, then he looked back at me the same way, then he said, 'I gotta go,' and walked to the front hall, grabbed a blue and gold warmup jacket from the hall closet, and went out the front door. The girl stared after him. I poured two cups of coffee, handed one to her, and added cream and sugar to mine.
'Don't feel bad,' I said. 'Means more for us.'
'Where is he going?'
'Probably to call his father,' I said. 'You known him long?'
'Clint? I met him when i was a freshman, but we didn't start dating until this year.'
'What year are you now, Trish?'
'Junior.'
'You live here, or just visiting?'
'Oh, no. I live on campus. I just come over on weekends mostly.'
'You love Clint?'
'Well, sure, I mean what's not to love, he's gorgeous, he's a big tennis star, lots of dough. He's very nice.'
'You think you'll get married?'
'Oh, no, I don't think so. I didn't mean I loved him that way.'
'What way do you love him?'
'Until I graduate, sort of. You know? I didn't mean, love and marriage kind of love. Who are you anyway?'
'I'm a detective,' I said. 'I think Clint is in quite a lot of trouble.'
'What kind of trouble?'
'I'm trying to find that out,' I said. 'He ever talk to you about Melissa Henderson?'
She shook her head.
'Tommy Miller?'
'I don't know anything about those people. I don't know anything about any trouble Clint is in. In fact, I don't believe you. I don't think he's in trouble at all. I think you're a nasty racist. And I think you should leave.'
'You ever meet his father?' I said.
'I think you should leave right now,' she said.
She was frowning, and it made a little vertical furrow between her eyes that would one day be a wrinkle, depending upon how much frowning she had to do.
'Okay,' I said. 'Most people don't pay any attention to my advice, and are probably wise not to, but I think you should stay away from Clint Stapleton.'
'You've got no right to tell me what to do,' she said.
I put down my cup of coffee, half drunk.
'Of course I don't,' I said and stood.
'Take care of yourself,' I said and went out into the front hall and out the front door through which Clint Stapleton had only recently fled.
Chapter 35
IT WAS A late Friday afternoon with a light snow falling steadily. Susan had two more patients to see and I was passing the time until she saw them by running along the Charles River. I ran east along the Cambridge side, past the boat house, and up onto the Weeks Footbridge that crossed the river and linked the rest of Harvard with the Business School.
The streetlights on both sides of the river were blurry in the snow, and pedestrians coming toward me looked slightly out of focus. It was barely freezing, just cold enough for snow. The river wasn't frozen yet and the black water moved opaquely, patched with light and shadow, curtained by the snowfall, toward the harbor five miles east. The footbridge has a barrel arch to it, and as I reached the peak of it I saw a tall man in a gray overcoat coming toward me through the snow from the Boston side. The brim of his gray soft hat was pulled down to shield his face from the snow. He had a gun.
The first bullet hit me just as I dodged to my left. It got me in the right shoulder, and the gun I'd almost gotten out of my jacket pocket plopped softly into the cushioning snow. The sound of the shot was gentle in the falling
