“His inheritance?” I said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Money he would leave her.”
“Yes.”
“Was there a gun anywhere around the house?”
“I did not see one.”
“Do you know anything I could use to prove that she killed him?” I said.
“She is a bad woman.”
I nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Just what I have told you.”
“Do you know anyone else who might have killed Mr. Smith?”
“No. It was she.”
I finished the last of my coffee.
“This is very good coffee, Mrs. Morales.”
“Would you wish more?”
“No. Thank you very much. I’ve kept you long enough.”
Esther walked me to the door.
“She is a terrible woman,” Esther said.
“Maybe she is,” I said.
I thanked her again and left and walked back toward Codman Square past a dark blue Ford with its motor on, to the convenient hydrant where I had parked my car.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Since she was a pillar of the community and adjudged not a flight risk, and because she had a dandy lawyer, Mary Smith was out on bail. So I could call on her in her home, rather than at the Suffolk County jail. It was nonetheless a daunting prospect. It was like talking to a dumb seventh-grader.
Rita Fiore let me in when I rang the bell. She was spectacular in a slim black and green polka-dot skirt and a bright green blouse.
“Mary asked me to sit in on your meeting,” Rita said.
“Doesn’t she get it that we’re on the same side?” I said.
“I think she doesn’t like to be alone with people.”
“They might use a big word?”
“Kindness, now,” Rita said. “Kindness.”
We went into an atrium that looked over the small spectacular garden that someone maintained for Mary in the not entirely nourishing soil of Beacon Hill.
Mary stood when we came in. She was wearing high-waisted gray slacks and a white silk scoop-neck T-shirt. She was barefoot. A pair of black sling-back shoes were on the floor near the couch. One of them was upright. The other had fallen over.
“Oh, Mr. Spenser,” she said, and put out her hand like a lady in a Godey print. “It is so lovely to see you. I mean it. It’s really lovely.”
“Gee,” I said.
“Will you have coffee?”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m trying to cut back.”
“Good for you.”
“Brave,” Rita said.
I ignored her.
“Mrs. Smith,” I said. “Do you ever eat in a restaurant located in a store?”
“Louis‘,” she said. “They have a lovely cafe. I often have lunch there.”
One point for DeRosa.
“Do you know a man named Roy Levesque?” I said.
“Who?”
“Roy Levesque.”
“I don’t think so.”
