“I know him,” I said.
“Yeah. He had your card in his wallet.”
“Just mine?”
“Hell no, he must have kept every card he ever got.”
“But you called me,” I said.
“I’ve missed you,” Belson said. “And I wanted to see you.”
“What happened?” I said.
“Near as we can figure, Brinkman was out jogging on the mall toward Arlington Street. He started across Berkeley Street and the car nailed him.”
“Find the car?”
“Not yet. But it should have some damage on the front.”
“Hit him at high speed,” I said.
“Body looked it,” Belson said. “ME’S guys say so.”
“What other cards he have in his wallet?” I said.
Belson took out a notebook and opened it.
“Well,” he said. “He didn’t have the Pope’s card. Or Puff Daddy’s.”
“Can I look?”
Belson handed me the notebook.
“Absolutely not,” Belson said. “This is a confidential police investigation.”
I read the list of names and businesses that Belson had copied off the business cards of the late Brink. I recognized maybe a dozen names, but none that meant anything to my case. I gave Belson back his notebook.
“He was Nathan Smith’s broker,” I said. “Mary Smith said he managed her finances.”
“So you went and talked with him.”
“Yep. That’s how he got my card.”
“And?”
“And Brink told me nothing, even though I asked really nice, and after I left his office, two guys assaulted me in the parking garage.”
“An assault you reported immediately to the proper authority,” Belson said.
“I told Susan,” I said.
Belson nodded. “These guys say why they were assaulting you?”
“They wanted to know what I’d talked with Brink about.”
“And you, being you, probably didn’t tell them.”
“Client confidentiality is job one,” I said.
“Sure,” Belson said. “You know who these guys were?”
“They’d been following me around since I took the case.”
“And you didn’t mention it,” Belson said.
“I wanted to see what got their attention.”
Belson nodded. “Maybe this guy got their attention.”
“Maybe.”
“And maybe he’d be alive now if you’d felt like telling us about him.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’s just an accident and the driver panicked and left the scene.”
“Didn’t some broad you talked to commit suicide?”
“That’s what you guys are calling it,” I said.
“And didn’t somebody try to hit you the other night over on A Street?”
“Yep.”
“And you talk to this guy and he’s accidentally run down at five in the morning, at the intersection of two empty streets?”
“Seems to be the case,” I said.
“That bother you?” Belson said.
“All of it bothers me,” I said.
“Maybe this wasn’t an accident,” Belson said.
“And maybe Amy Peters wasn’t a suicide,” I said.
