The Godwulf Manuscript

'Terry Orchard is it, Spenser,' he said.

'The hell she is.'

'She's it. Captain Yates is taking personal charge of the case, and she's the one.'

'Yates. That means you're off it?'

'That's right.'

'What else does it mean?'

'It doesn't mean anything else.'

I poured two more shots of bourbon. Quirk's hard face looked like he was concealing a toothache.

'Like hell it doesn't mean anything else, Quirk. You didn't make a special trip down here just to keep me informed on personnel shifts in the BPD. You don't like her for it, and you know it. Why is Yates on it?'

'He didn't say.'

I sipped some more of my bourbon. Quirk walked over and looked out my window.

'What a really swell view you've got, Spenser.'

I didn't say anything. Quirk came back to my desk, picked up the bottle, and poured himself another drink.

'Okay,' he said. 'I don't like the kid for the murder.'

I said, 'Me either.'

'I got nothing. Everything I've got says she's guilty. Nice simple murder, nice simple solution. Why screw around with it?'

'That's right,' I said. 'Why screw around with it?'

'I've been on the force twenty-two years. You meet a lot of liars in twenty-two years. I don't think she was lying.'

I said, 'Me either.'

Quirk was walking around the room as he talked, looking at it like he looked at everything, seeing it all, and if he ever had to, he'd remember it all. 'You went to see Joe Broz yesterday.'

I nodded.

'Why?'

'So he could tell me to butt out of the Godwulf Manuscript-Terry Orchard affair.'

'What did you say?'

'I said we'll see.'

'Did you know the manuscript is back?'

I raised one eyebrow, something I'd perfected after years of practice and a score of old Brian Donlevy movies. Quirk appeared not to notice.

'Broz suggested that was possible,' I said.

Quirk nodded. 'Any idea why Broz wanted you to butt out?'

'No,' I said. 'Any idea why Yates wanted you to butt out?'

'No, but there's a lot of pressure from somewhere up the line.'

'And Yates is responding.'

Quirk's face seemed to shut down. 'I don't know about what Yates is doing. I know he's in charge of the case and I'm not. He's the captain. He has the right to assign personnel.'

'Yeah, sure. I know Yates a little. One of the things he does best is respond to pressure from somewhere up the line.'

Quirk didn't say anything.

'Look, Lieutenant,' I said, 'does it seem odd to you that there are two guys looking into the Terry Orchard thing and both of us are told to butt out within the same day? Does that seem like any kind of coincidence to you?'

'Spenser, I am a cop. I have been a cop for twenty-two years, and I will keep on being one until they lock me out of the station house. One of the things that a cop has to have is discipline. He gets orders, he has to obey them?or the whole thing goes to hell. I don't have to like what's happening, but I do it. And I don't run around crying about it.'

'Words to live by,' I said. 'It was the widely acclaimed Adolf Eichmann who popularized that 'I obey orders' routine, wasn't it?'

'That's a cheap shot, Spenser. You know goddamn well the cops are right more than they're wrong. We're not wiping out six million people. We're trying to keep the germs from taking over the world. To do that you got to have order, and if someone gets burned now and then so someone gets burned. If every cop started deciding which order to obey and which one not, then the germs would win. If the germs win, all the goddamn bleeding hearts will get their ass shot.'

'Yeah, sure, the big picture. So some goddamn teen-aged kid gets fed to the fishes for something she didn't do. So you know she didn't do it and Joe Broz puts the squeeze on some politician who puts the squeeze on Captain Yates who takes you off the case. But you don't cry. It's good for society. Balls. Why don't you take what you got to the States?'

'Because I haven't got enough. The State cops would laugh and giggle if I came in with what I've got. And because, goddamn it, Spenser, because I can't. I'm a cop. It's what I do. I can't.'

'I know,' I said. 'But I can. And I'm going to. I'm going to have Broz and Yates, and you, too, if I have to, and whoever else has got his thumb in whatever pie this is.'

'Maybe you will,' Quirk said. 'I hear you were a pretty good cop before you got fired. What'd you get fired for?'

'Insubordination. It's one of my best things.'

'And maybe Broz will have you shot in the back of the head.'

I let that pass. We were silent.

'How much do I have to get for you before you go to the States?'

'I'm not asking you to get a damn thing for me,' Quirk said.

'Yeah, I know. If I got you proof. Not suspicion, proof. Then what happens?'

'Then the pressure will go away. Yates is impressed with proof.'

'I'll bet,' I said.

More silence. Quirk didn't seem to want to leave, but he didn't have anything to say. Or at least he wasn't saying it.

'What do you know about Cathy Connelly, Lieutenant?'

'We checked her out routinely. No record, no evidence of drugs. Roomed with Orchard before her boyfriend moved in. Now lives somewhere over on the Fenway.'

'Anybody interview her?'

'Couple of precinct boys in a radio car stopped by. She wasn't home. We saw no reason to press it. Do you?'

'Those two hoods had Terry Orchard's gun with them when they came to the apartment. How'd they get it?'

'If it's true.'

'Of course, if it's true. I think it's true. Cathy Connelly seems like the best person to ask about how they got the gun. Terry doesn't know, Powell is dead. Who's left?'

'Why don't you go ask her then?' Quirk said. 'Thanks for the drink.'

He walked out leaving the door open behind him, and I listened to his footsteps going down the hall.

Chapter 14

I went over to the university to call on Carl Tower. I hoped the campus cops weren't under orders to shoot on sight. Whether they were, the secretary with the ripe thighs was not. She was friendly. She had on a pants suit today, black, with a large red valentine heart over the left breast. Red platform heels, red enamel pendant earrings. Bright red lipstick. She obviously remembered me. I was probably haunting her dreams.

She said, 'May I help you?'