Wicked Business

in Cambridge in an hour,” he said. “See if you can get her to meet me. And I’d like to see Reedy’s office.”

“Was that your assistant?” I asked him when he disconnected.

“More or less.”

Diesel’s been through six assistants in the short time I’ve known him. I’ve stopped trying to remember names. They never have faces. They’re always just voices floating out of the hands-free car phone, brought to Diesel through the miracle of Bluetooth.

We took 1A to Boston. The landscape was interesting at first and then turned ugly with potholed highways and crazy angry drivers careening around insane traffic circles that shot roads off in all directions.

We left the North Shore and connected to Storrow Drive, rolling through Boston, following the Charles River. The back sides of four-story redbrick town houses hugged the left side of the road, with Boston’s high-rise office and condo buildings rising beyond them. I knew that tree-lined streets of prime real estate row houses ran for a couple blocks in from Storrow, ending with the two high-end boutique shopping streets, Newbury and Boylston. The Public Garden was at one end of Newbury, and the large indoor shopping mall was at the other end. And if you walked far enough south, you came to Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox.

A narrow patch of grass and a bike path stretched along the river side of Storrow. A few people pedaled along the bike path, and a few hardy souls were out on the river in small sailboats. We passed an empty bandshell and some Porta-Potties left from a weekend event.

Diesel drove the length of Storrow and took the bridge over the Charles River to Cambridge. I was in foreign territory now. I’d made lots of trips to downtown Boston since moving to Marblehead, but I’ve never ventured across the river to Cambridge.

“You look like you know where you’re going,” I said to Diesel.

“I spent some time here two years ago, looking for someone.”

“Did you find him?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Diesel stopped for a light. “It’s complicated.”

“You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“I don’t kill people.”

“Did you turn him into a toad?”

Diesel glanced over at me and smiled.

I wasn’t sure what the smile meant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, so I stared out the window at the passing buildings and sidewalks filled with college students. “Did we just pass Harvard?” I asked him.

“No,” Diesel said. “That was MIT. Harvard is a couple miles up Massachusetts Avenue.”

Mass Ave was four-lanes wide, and traffic was heavy but moving. Buildings were a mix of more high-rise offices and condos, plus lower-profile furniture stores, ethnic restaurants, bakeries, bike stores, car dealerships, churches, bookshops, and hotels.

Diesel’s phone rang and a woman’s voice came up. “Julie Brodsky will meet you in the front lobby of the Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street. Follow Mass Ave to Harvard Yard and bear right after you pass the Inn. The building is on the corner of Quincy and Harvard streets. I told her you were Daniel Crowley, Reedy’s cousin from Chicago.”

“Nice,” Diesel said. “Thanks.” And he hung up.

“Where does your assistant live?” I asked him.

“Don’t know.”

“Have you seen this one?”

“Nope.”

“You go through a lot of assistants.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Why do you suppose that is?” I asked him.

“I’ve heard rumors that I’m considered high maintenance with low reward.”

“Imagine that.”

“Listen, when I’m hunting someone down in the Thar Desert in India, I’ve got dysentery, and my camel runs away, I expect a new camel to show up fast.”

“Seems like a reasonable request. How often does that happen?”

“More often than I’d care to remember.”

CHAPTER SIX

Diesel drove past the Inn, turned right, and cruised around until he found on-street parking. Sidewalks and buildings were redbrick, there were a lot of grassy spaces, and I had the feeling I was in a small town inside a city. It was sunny, but there was a chill to the air, and people were wearing sweatshirts and sweaters and had long knit scarves wrapped around their necks.

We entered the courtyard to Barker Center from Quincy Street and had no trouble locating Reedy’s grad student. She was wearing jeans and a bulky, tweedy sweater, and she was hugging a copy of The History of English Sixteenth-Century Verse. She had brown, super-curly hair pulled back into a ponytail that was a big round puffball. No makeup. Large, round, red-framed glasses. Five feet, two inches tall. First impression was that she was twelve years old. On closer inspection, there were a few faint laugh lines around her eyes.

Diesel introduced himself as Daniel Crowley, and Julie’s eyes filled with tears.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said. “Dr. Reedy was a wonderful man.”

“I was hoping to see his office,” Diesel said. “I gave him a book several years ago that has sentimental value. I’d like it back, and it wasn’t in his condo.”

“Of course. I can take you to his office. The police have already been here, but they didn’t take anything. They looked around, rolled their eyes, and left. We’ve been waiting for his family to clean things out, but so far you’re the only one who’s come forward.”

We followed her one flight up, down the hall, and stopped at the doorway to Reedy’s office. It was instantly clear why the police rolled their eyes and left. The office was clogged with assorted professorial flotsam. Books overflowed the bookshelves and were stacked everywhere. Artifacts were stuck away in nooks and crannies. Rolled-up maps were scattered on the floor and desktop.

“Wow,” I said. “There’s a lot of stuff here. His condo was so neat. It’s like he was two different people.”

“He slept in his condo, but he lived here,” Julie said. “For that matter, I know there were nights when he worked late and slept here. There’s a couch buried under all those books and tapestries. His area of expertise was Elizabethan literature, but his passion was a forgotten poet of the late 1800s, John Lovey. Dr. Reedy stumbled upon some of Lovey’s sonnets ten years ago and was deeply affected by them. I think at heart Dr. Reedy was a true romantic.”

“Have you read the sonnets?” I asked her.

“Yes, but I have to admit I wasn’t as taken with them as Dr. Reedy.” She went to the desk and shuffled through some papers. “He wrote a scholarly paper on Lovey’s work and life. I know there’s a copy here somewhere. It’s very interesting. It seems that during Lovey’s time he was regarded as a visionary philosopher. Sort of an Ayn Rand. He had a small but dedicated cult following. They were all devoted to the search for true love.” She moved to a different stack of papers and began picking her way through it. “Lovey’s most ardent follower was a man named Abner Goodfellow. He lived in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Abner’s house is still in the Goodfellow family. Dr. Reedy visited Abner’s great-great-great-granddaughter, and she allowed him to prowl through the attic, which was filled to the rafters with all sorts of ancient treasures. At least Dr. Reedy said they were treasures, but I suspect much of it was the usual junk that collects over time in attics and garages.” She pulled some pages out of the pile and waved them in the air. “I found it!”

Diesel took the paper from her. “Can I keep this?”

“Of course.” She looked around the room. “Dr. Reedy was so absorbed in his work for the last couple months I’m afraid this office has gotten even messier than usual. Maybe I can help you find your book. What did it look