There was a pause while the woman on the phone thought about being sure.

"We are a government agency," she said finally.

"Which sort of means you are not sure of anything," I said.

"Maybe."

After she was off the phone I sat for a while and looked at my yellow pad. There were probably fifty thousand tall thin guys with good clothes in the metropolitan area. On the other hand, one of them was, in fact, Richard Gavin. The phone was working for me, even better than the yellow pad. I picked it up again and dialed Rita Fiore. May as well go with the hot hand.

"What do you know about Richard Gavin," I said when Rita answered.

"Just a minute," she said. "What about Hi-Rita-how-ya-doin'-beautiful-let's-have-a-drink-real-soon?"

"That too," I said. "What about Gavin?"

"Got his own farm. It says Gavin and somebody, but it's just him. Partner went a long time ago. I guess he liked the name."

"And?"

"And what do you want to know? He's primarily criminal law. His reputation is not very good."

"Not very good why?" I said. "Competence or honesty?"

"The latter," Rita said. "He's a very clever lawyer."

"Know any of his clients?"

"Not currently. When I was a prosecutor, he used to represent a lot of mob people on the South Sh.o.r.e. Now I am a mainstream corporate type. Yesterday I found myself looking at a Brooks Brothers catalog for women."

"Maybe Hawk and I should come over for an intervention."

"You're too faithful," she said. "But Hawk can come over and intervene anytime he wants."

"This guy Gavin got anything to do with Francis Ronan?" I said.

"Nothing I know about," Rita said. "I mean, he may have argued a case before him. Most of us have if we do a lot of trial work."

"You know him personally?"

"To say h.e.l.lo. I've never been out with him."

"Puts him in a select group," I said.

"Yeah," Rita said, "you and him."

"That's only because I'm taken," I said.

"Small consolation," Rita said. "How is the thing going with Ronan?"

"Slowly," I said.

"Didn't I read someplace that they found a dead person in Brad Whatsis' office?"

"Yes."

"Things do get vexious, don't they?"

"Rita," I said, "you have no idea."

"Tell me about it over a drink," she said.

"Where?"

"Boston Harbor Hotel. It's an easy walk for me."

"Five o'clock," I said.

I hung up and called Quirk. "You find Sterling yet?"

"No we haven't," Quirk said. "But thanks for asking."

"You got an identification on the body in the office?" I said.

"Name's Cony Brown. Long record in Rhode Island: mostly a.s.sault and extortion. Been charged twice in Rhode Island with murder, no convictions. Indicted and tried here in 1994 for a.s.sault. Case dismissed."

"Let me guess," I said. "The witnesses didn't show up."

"Close enough," Quirk said. "The plaintiff recanted."

"Who was the plaintiff?"

"Insurance broker named Rentzel, since deceased."

"Natural causes?"

"Heart attack."

"What's Providence say about Cony?"

"A shooter," Quirk said. "Freelance. Gets along with the Italians, but basically a contract guy."

"Any regular connection up here?"

"n.o.body knows one."

"You didn't come across a blue disk anywhere in the office, did you?"

"What do you know about a blue disk?"

"Same thing you do," I said. "It was mentioned on Sterling's hard disk."

"How'd you happen to come into possession of information from Sterling's computer?" Quirk said.

"I forgot."

"Sometimes maybe you get too cute," Quirk said.

"What do you mean 'maybe'?"

"And sometimes maybe you do it too often," Quirk said.

"Are you keeping track?"

"Yeah," Quirk said. "I am."

He hung up without saying if he'd found the blue disk.

chapter twenty-eight.

I WAS HAVING very little success following the Galapalooza trail. Which was why I decided to revisit s.e.xual hara.s.sment. Which is why I was sitting at my desk, studying the several nude pictures of Jeanette Ronan that I'd taken from Sterling's apartment, looking for clues. The fact that there were no clues didn't make looking a waste of time.

The existence of the pictures was a clue; so was the existence of the letters. Both raised a serious question about the validity of a s.e.xual hara.s.sment charge. You could certainly hara.s.s someone with whom you'd been intimate. But the pictures, and the letters, some dated after the alleged hara.s.sment, would make it hard as h.e.l.l to win a court case. Even if the complaint were legitimate, a lot of women wouldn't want to take it to court and have the pictures and the letters surface. Jeanette knew about the pictures. Did she really think he wouldn't keep them? Or did she have some reason to believe he wouldn't use them? Why wouldn't he use them? One good approach would be to ask her. I got the phone and called her number. She answered. I said my name. She hung up.

Maybe another approach would be good.

I looked into my case file on Sterling and found Olivia Hanson's number. I dialed. She answered.

"Spenser," I said, "with a rain check for lunch."

"The detective," she said.

"That's me," I said.

"With the short gun."

"But effective," I said. "How about that lunch now?"

She was silent for a moment.

"I won't ask you a single question about Jeanette Ronan," I said. "Or Brad Sterling."

She was still silent.

"Someplace you've been dying to go," I said.

"I don't know," she said.

"What are your plans for today?" I said. "Add a cup of hot water to some instant soup mix? Chicken noodle maybe? Watch some daytime TV?"

"You have a point," she said.

"Time to get out of the house," I said.

"Okay. But no talking about the case."

"Not a single question," I said.

"Will you pick me up?"

"Absolutely. When may I come?"

"I have to decide what to wear," she said. "And my hair... Come at noon."

"I'll be there," I said.

We had lunch in a place called Weylu's. It was on a hill off Route 1 in Saugus, overlooking a parking lot for school buses. The place looked like a Disney version of the Forbidden City. There was a small stream coursing through one of the dining rooms with a little bridge over it. The food wasn't bad, but given her choice of lunch anywhere she wanted, Weylu's seemed a modest aspiration on Olivia's part. Maybe Jeanette's circle wasn't as sophisticated as I'd been led to believe.

The waiter inquired as to c.o.c.ktails. I ordered a Changs...o...b..er to be authentic. Olivia had a gla.s.s of Cordon.

"So," Olivia said. "What's the best part about being a detective."

"Legitimizes nosiness," I said.

"And you get paid for it."

"Sometimes."

"How did you come to be a detective?"

She was through her first gla.s.s of wine already. The waiter was alert. He brought her another.

"I started out as a cop," I said.

"And why did you leave that?"

"I got fired," I said. "I had a problem with authority."

"Had?"

"I'm older now," I said.

She was leaning forward, her eyes on me, her whole person focused on me. It was flattering, but it was technical. It's what she did to be charming.