Now and Then

“Christ, where do I start?” I said.

“About this case,” Belson said. “You holding anything back.”

“No.”

“You always hold something back,” Belson said.

“Don’t generalize,” I said.

Belson nodded. Epstein still stood, motionless, looking at the remains of Dennis Doherty, while the photographers photo 86 graphed and the measurers measured and the routine went on around him.

Two more unmarked cars arrived and men got out wearing dark jackets that said FBI on them.

“Help is on the way,” I said.

“Oh fuck,” Belson said.

22.

Hawk and i were working out at the Harbor Health

Club. Probably out of some loyalty to his own past, and because he liked Hawk and me, Henry Cimoli kept a small boxing area in the club that was otherwise full of gleaming machinery and chrome-coated weights. Hawk was hitting the little double-end jeeter bag with his left hand and I was doing combinations on the heavy bag. The more repetitious the exercise, the more you are likely to coast. I concentrated on punching through the bag. Hawk seemed to hit the jeeter bag without any effort or thought, except he hit it square every time and it danced rhythmically. He shifted hands without breaking the rhythm.

“You know what be bothering me,” he said.

“The question of intelligent design?” I said.

“I already know that,” Hawk said. “What I’m thinking is that if Vinnie ain’t there to drill the mystery shooter, that everybody be assuming that her husband shot her and killed himself.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So maybe somebody set it up that way,” Hawk said.

“And Vinnie showed up and ruined it,” I said.

Hawk began to hit the bag alternately with both hands. The rhythm was uninterrupted. I paused and watched. It was Hawk in essence. Like everything he did, it seemed effortless, as if he were thinking of something else. And yet the perfectly focused energy seemed to explode through the bag.

“Not their fault,” Hawk said. “They had no reason to think he’d be there.”

I went back to working my combinations on the heavy bag.

“That theory might lead one to speculate,” I said between punches, “that Doherty was murdered too.”

“Would,” Hawk said.

“And one might wonder who was responsible.”

“Alderson seem to be the honky in the woodpile,” Hawk said.

“She went straight there after her husband kicked her out,”

I said.

“She in there ’bout an hour,” Hawk said.

“Plenty of time to tell him what happened,” I said. Hawk shifted his feet a little and went back to hitting the small bag with his left hand.

“So why didn’t she spend the night?” I said.

“Maybe Alderson only like to fuck part-time,” Hawk said.

“It would explain why she went to the hotel,” I said.

“Lotta rejection,” Hawk said. “And the next day, she dead, and her husband missing.”

“Probably dead by then too,” I said.

“She know ’bout you?” Hawk said.

“Yes.”

I put a fi nal fl ourish of combinations on the heavy bag.

“Epstein tells me they haven’t found that tape among Doherty’s possessions,” I said.

“Doherty got no reason to get rid of it,” Hawk said.

“No. Be useful in a divorce proceeding.”

“Maybe he knew there wouldn’t be none,” Hawk said.

“You mean he hired someone to kill her?”

“People do.”