“And report to me.”
“Anything I find out about Ann, I’ll report to you first.”
“Only,” Kiley said.
“Bobby, what if she’s in too far?”
“She’s my only child, Spenser. Her mother’s dead.”
“I can’t promise, Bobby. I can walk away from this conversation and say nothing to anybody. But I can’t promise you more than I can promise you.”
“You going to talk with Chuckie Scanlan?”
“Yes.”
“And if that leads you someplace and Ann’s in it really deep?”
“Then I’ll talk to you,” I said.
“Before you talk to anyone else?”
“Yes.”
“And what?” Kiley said.
“And we’ll decide,” I said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
It was a hot day and there was no air moving. Donovan’s Liquors was a big store with a big sign in the window that advertised the coldest beer in Boston. There was a burly woman with big brass-colored hair at the cash register when I went in.
“Chuckie Scanlan?” I said to her.
“He’s out back.”
“Mind if I go back and see him?” I said.
“Who are you?”
“New caseworker,” I said. “Wanted to say hello.”
It was a vague enough term to cover several jobs and I figured Chuckie would be covered by one of them. The big woman made an ushering sweep with her right hand and pointed me toward the back room. Chuckie was stacking cases of Budweiser. He was a short wide guy with very little hair.
“Chuckie Scanlan?”
“Yeah?”
“My name’s Spenser. We need to talk.”
Scanlan’s eyes showed a moment of something and then went dead again.
“About what?”
“You, Kevin McGonigle.”
“Kevin’s dead,” Scanlan said.
“And you’re not,” I said, “yet.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“We need to talk,” I said.
Scanlan jerked his head and we went out the back door into the heavy air and sat on a pile of wooden skids in the near corner of the narrow parking lot behind the store. Scanlan lit a cigarette.
“You a cop?” he said.
“Private,” I said. “I came from Bobby Kiley’s office.”
“Kiley?”
“Kiley and Harbaugh. They represented you a couple years ago.”
“Oh, yeah. The broad came down, got us sprung. Cops had nothing.”
“Broad’s name was probably Ann,” I said.
“Yeah, Ms. Kiley. Good-looking. Smart as hell,” Scanlan said. “How come you’re talking about me not being dead, yet?”
“You know Marvin Conroy?”
Scanlan took in some smoke and let it out slowly, squinting through it at me. “Conroy?”
“Un-huh.”
“I never met him. I think he was a friend of Jack’s.”
“Jack?” I said.
“DeRosa,” Scanlan said.
