Esther frowned. I realized that she didn't understand the expression.

"What wasn't nice about her?" I said.

"She was bossy. She yelled at me. She yelled at Mr. Smith."

"What did she yell about?"

"She would yell about money."

Why should they be different.

"Anything else?" I said.

"I could not always hear them and, sometimes, when people speak too fast or speak oddly, my English..." She shrugged.

"How about Mr. Smith? He ever yell at her?" I said, "No. He was very kind to her. Sometimes she would make him cry."

"They have friends over?"

"She did," Esther said.

Esther disapproved of the friends.

"Female friends?" I said.

"No."

"How about Mr. Smith?"

"Only the young men."

"Young men?"

"Yes. He helped them. He was a, I don't know the word in English. Mentor."

"Same in English," I said. "He mentors young men?"

"Yes. He is very generous. He helps poor boys to go to school and learn to do work and get ahead."

"And they came to his house?"

"Yes. He would teach them at his home."

"How about Mrs. Smith. She ever teach them?"

Esther was too nice to snort, but she breathed out a little more than normal.

"And why do you think she killed him?"

"For money."

"His inheritance?" I said.

"I don't understand."

"Money he would leave her."

"Yes."

"Was there a gun anywhere around the house?"

"I did not see one."

"Do you know anything I could use to prove that she killed him?" I said.

"She is a bad woman."

I nodded.

"Anything else?"

"Just what I have told you."

"Do you know anyone else who might have killed Mr. Smith?"

"No. It was she."

I finished the last of my coffee.

"This is very good coffee, Mrs. Morales."

"Would you wish more?"

"No. Thank you very much. I've kept you long enough."

Esther walked me to the door.

"She is a terrible woman," Esther said.

"Maybe she is," I said.

I thanked her again and left and walked back toward Codman Square past a dark blue Ford with its motor on, to the convenient hydrant where I had parked my car.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Since she was a pillar of the community and adjudged not a flight risk, and because she had a dandy lawyer, Mary Smith was out on bail. So I could call on her in her home, rather than at the Suffolk County jail. It was nonetheless a daunting prospect. It was like talking to a dumb seventh-grader.

Rita Fiore let me in when I rang the bell. She was spectacular in a slim black and green polka-dot skirt and a bright green blouse.

"Mary asked me to sit in on your meeting," Rita said.

"Doesn't she get it that we're on the same side?" I said.

"I think she doesn't like to be alone with people."

"They might use a big word?"

"Kindness, now," Rita said. "Kindness."

We went into an atrium that looked over the small spectacular garden that someone maintained for Mary in the not entirely nourishing soil of Beacon Hill.

Mary stood when we came in. She was wearing high-waisted gray slacks and a white silk scoop-neck T-shirt. She was barefoot. A pair of black sling-back shoes were on the floor near the couch. One of them was upright. The other had fallen over.

"Oh, Mr. Spenser," she said, and put out her hand like a lady in a G.o.dey print. "It is so lovely to see you. I mean it. It's really lovely."

"Gee," I said.

"Will you have coffee?"

"No thanks," I said. "I'm trying to cut back."

"Good for you."

"Brave," Rita said.

I ignored her.

"Mrs. Smith," I said. "Do you ever eat in a restaurant located in a store?"

"Louis'," she said. "They have a lovely cafe. I often have lunch there."

One point for DeRosa.

"Do you know a man named Roy Levesque?" I said.

"Who?"

"Roy Levesque."

"I don't think so."

"You went to high school with him. Dated him for a while, I believe."

"Oh, that one."

"Yes."

Mary sat, quiet and attentive and blank. It wasn't like talking to a dumb seventh-grader, it was like talking to a pancake.

"You still see him," I said.

Mary smiled and shrugged.

"Old friends," she said. "You know? Old friends."

"Whom you just a minute ago said you didn't know."

She smiled and nodded. I waited. She smiled some more. Rita crossed her legs the other way.

"Tell me about the young men that your husband, ah, mentored," I said.

Rita glanced at me. Mary smiled some more.

"He was so kind to them," Mary said. "He'd been a lonely little boy, I guess, and he wanted to make it easier for other lonely little boys."

"He give them money?" I said.

"Oh, I don't know. I really never had much to do with our finances."

"Help them out going to school? Maybe?"

"I'll bet he did," Mary said. "He was such a generous man."

"He'd not been married before?" I said.

"No. He was a confirmed bachelor," she said. "Until he met me."

"Do you know why?" I said.

"Why what?"

I took in some air. It was tinged with her perfume, or maybe Rita's, or maybe both.

"Do you know why he was a confirmed bachelor?"

"No."

She shook her head. Eager to please. Sorry that she couldn't supply more information.

"Do you know that he'd taken in a partner at the bank?"

"Oh no, I know nothing about the bank, or any of the other things."