“Probably a clue,” I said.
A mailman in blue shorts came in carrying a packet of mail held together by a wide rubber band. He looked around.
“You guys moving out?” he said.
“Just rehabbing,” I said. “Closed for a couple of weeks.”
“You oughta notify us, fill out a form, have us hold your mail until you’re back in business.”
“What a very good idea,” I said. “My man here will be down to the post office later today to fill out the documents.”
“It’s just a form,” the mailman said. “What do I do with this mail?”
“I’ll take it,” I said.
He handed me the mail and left.
“My man be down to the post office?” Hawk said.
“I’m cleaning up my act,” I said. “There was a time I would have said my boy.”
“I love a liberal,” Hawk said.
I took the mail over to the reception desk and went through it with Hawk looking over my shoulder. We went through it twice. Each of us. To make sure we hadn’t missed anything. There was nothing to miss. People like this didn’t do business by mail. When we were through I left the mail in a neat pile on the reception desk.
“The more we look, the more there’s nothing there,” Hawk said.
I sat back in the receptionist chair and leaned back against the spring.
“We keep getting there just afterwards,” I said.
“Getting where?” Hawk said.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Least they didn’t shoot nobody and leave them for us.”
“No.”
“Maybe there ain’t no one left to shoot,” Hawk said.
I was rocked back, looking at the Celotex ceiling tiles, my hands laced over my chest.
“Ann Kiley,” I said.
“Ann Kiley?”
“She was DeRosa’s lawyer.”
“S.”
“She’s got no business representing a stiff like DeRosa.”
“Nice choice of words,” Hawk said.
I shrugged.
“If DeRosa was killed so we wouldn’t find out anything from him, what are the chances that his lawyer would know what that is?”
“The chances are good,” Hawk said. “And even if they aren’t, the people who killed DeRosa might think they were.”
I came forward in the spring-back chair, letting my feet hit the ground. I pointed my finger at Hawk and dropped my thumb like the hammer on a gun.
“Let’s go see her,” I said. “Right now.”
“So we won’t be afterwards again?”
“So that,” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Ann Kiley had the second biggest corner office on the twenty-fifth floor of a high-rise on Broad Street. Her father had the biggest, the one that looked out to sea. Ann had what the real estate ads would call cityscape views.
I introduced Hawk when we came in, and they eyed each other, evaluating potential.
“So where’s Harbaugh’s office?” I said when we were seated.
Ann pointed toward the ceiling.
“Big firm in the sky,” she said.
“So this place is really Kiley and Kiley.”
“Yes. But the name was familiar, so we decided to leave it.”
I could tell, as she spoke, that she was aware of Hawk. Silent, as he often was, there was still a lot of Hawk.
“Did you know that Jack DeRosa was murdered?” I said.
