Bisbee nodded again. I left.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
I sat with Vinnie Morris in my car parked on the second level of a parking garage beside a hotel in downtown Worcester, near the Centrum. Almost everything in downtown Worcester was near the Centrum.
“She drove out here this morning with an overnight case,” Vinnie said. “Checked in a little after one.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“You see any sign of Conroy?”
“Nope.”
I looked at the dashboard clock. It was 2:47. I didn’t like digital clocks. Nice phrases like quarter to three were becoming obsolete.
“You’d recognize him?”
“Yep.”
“He ever make you when you tailed him before?”
“Nope.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll hang here. They’d both know me. You go to the lobby and sit around and try to look like a hotel guest.”
“I’ll read a newspaper,” Vinnie said.
“Master of disguise,” I said. “If she goes out, follow her. If Conroy comes in, follow him. Find out what room he goes to. You got a cell phone?”
“Yep.”
I took out a business card and wrote my car-phone number on it and gave it to Vinnie.
“If they get together, stay with them and call me.”
“Okay.”
Vinnie got out and walked toward the stairwell. He moved very precisely. As if he’d been expertly crafted. He was medium-sized and liked Ivy League clothes. Except for the way he moved, he didn’t look anywhere near as dangerous as he was. I let the motor idle so the car phone would work, and punched in a number. My status was rising. I got right through to Bobby Kiley.
“Your daughter has checked into a hotel in Worcester with an overnight bag,” I said. “I’m waiting for Marvin Conroy to show.”
“Which hotel,” Kiley said.
I told him.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” he said.
“I don’t want Conroy spooked,” I said. “There’s a hydrant across the street from the main lobby entrance. Park there and wait for me to find you. What are you driving?”
“Black Lexus sedan,” Kiley said. “Vanity plates-Like-A-Will-More-A-N.”
“It’ll be me, or a guy named Vinnie Morris, who’s almost as good as me.”
“I’ll be there,” Kiley said. “Thanks.”
We hung up. I couldn’t find anything on the radio that was recognizably musical. I did not want to listen to the opinions expressed on the talk shows. I didn’t want to tie up my car phone, so I couldn’t call Susan up. When all else fails, think about the case.
I still didn’t know exactly what was happening. The business about taking the gun so it would look like murder was just the kind of smart move a couple of morons like Mary Smith and Roy Levesque would choose. The fact that the finger of suspicion would then point at Mary, his heir, would never have occurred to them. Or it could be a double fake to cover up the fact that they really had killed him and Roy was too dumb to get rid of the gun.
But I did know that the only connection between what seemed like two separate cases, but probably wasn’t, was Marvin Conroy. He was connected through the bank to the Smiths and Soldiers Field Development and that side. He was connected through Ann Kiley to Jack DeRosa and Chuckie Scanlan and that whole side, where people were getting killed. If I believed Bisbee, and there was no reason not to, Conroy and Soldiers Field and Pequod Bank were involved in some kind of swindle. The need for an inflated appraisal made me wonder if it was a land flip. But in wondering that, I exhausted my expertise. Rita would know. Or she would have somebody in the firm who would know.
At 4:53 my car phone rang.
“I’m on the seventh floor,” Vinnie said. “She’s in room 7112. He’s in there with her.”
“Here I come,” I said.
As I headed for the stairs to the lobby I looked down and saw Bobby Kiley’s Lexus. When I got to the seventh floor, Vinnie was standing outside the elevator, looking like a man waiting to go down.
“Turn right,” Vinnie said. “Halfway down the corridor.”
“He wonder about you when you rode up with him?”
“Maybe. But what’s he going to do?”
