"Yes. Said she was despondent over being fired."

"Authentic?"

"Hard to say. She left it on the computer."

"Technology sucks," I said.

Below me the light changed and the traffic moved across Boylston Street toward the river.

"Thing bothers me," Belson said.

I turned away from the window and sat down with my back to the air drifting in through the open window. I waited.

"Found a card for a lawyer in there in her purse where we found yours."

I waited.

"Ran that down before I came here. Woman lawyer. Says that Amy Peters was planning to sue Pequod for s.e.xual discrimination for firing her."

"Which seems strange," I said, "if she was also planning to kill herself."

"Suicide's hard to figure," Belson said. "Women don't usually do it with a gun."

"What's the lawyer's name?"

"Margaret Mills. Firm is Mills and D'Ambrosio. You planning to help us on this?"

"Bothers me a little."

"She came to you scared and you sent her away and she ends up dead," Belson said.

"Something like that."

"Would bother me, too," Belson said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

I was in a booth in a donut shop talking to a gray-haired guy with a good-sized belly and a big mustache who had been for the last thirty years the youth service officer for the town of Franklin. His name was Pryor.

"His real name was Peter Isaacs," Pryor said. "Kids called him Peter Ike and it eventually became Pike."

"You remember him well?"

"Oh yeah," Pryor said. "Kid was a pain in the a.s.s."

He took a paper napkin from the dispenser and wiped powdered sugar from his mustache.

"Wild-spirited?"

"Mean-spirited. Nasty little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Did a lot of dope."

"He still around?"

"Yeah."

"How about Tammy Wagner?"

"She was his girlfriend," Pryor said. "Pike's. I don't know what happened to her."

"Joey Bucci?"

"Bucci... Yeah, sort of a f.a.ggy little kid, used to get bullied a lot. Hung with the burnouts because no one else would hang with him."

"You know where he is now?"

Pryor shook his head.

"No idea," he said. "He ain't around town."

"Where do I find Pike?"

"He's still here," Pryor said. "Works down the bowling alley. Sweeps up, cleans the rest rooms."

"Nice career choice," I said.

"Better than jail," Pryor said.

"Anything else you can tell me about Mary Toricelli?"

"No. Kind of a loser kid. The only reason I remember her is that she hung out with a.s.sholes like Isaacs and Levesque."

"You never got her for anything?"

"No. She was never into much. Just sort of dragged around after the hot shots. What'd she do, got a fast operator like you down here asking about her."

"Cops think she killed her husband," I said.

"Honest to G.o.d," Pryor said. "I didn't think she had the juice for it."

"I hope you're right," I said.

"So why do you want to talk to Isaacs?"

"See what he can tell me."

Pryor grinned. "Good thinking," he said. "You know what you're hoping to hear?"

"No."

"So how about if you hear it," Pryor said, "will you know it?"

"I hope so."

"Man, wait'll I tell the boys down at the station how I had coffee with a real private eye."

"You know how it goes," I said. "You get a case. You just keep poking around, see what scurries out."

"You get a case," Pryor said. "Currently I'm trying to catch the kids who spray-painted f.u.c.k on the middle-school front door."

"I guess you're not allowed to shoot them," I said.

"No," Pryor said. "They get to talk with a guidance counselor."

"How's that work?" I said.

"Keeps the guidance counselor employed," Pryor said.

I paid for the coffee. Pryor directed me to the bowling alley, and I drove on over to see Pike.

A couple of women in tight jeans and loose T-shirts were bowling candle pins in the first alley. The rest of the alleys were empty. The guy at the desk directed me to Pike, who was replacing the sand in the big free-standing ashtrays that stood near each lane. One of the women bowled a spare, and the clash of the pins echoed loudly off the hard surfaces. I showed him my license and we sat on one of the banquets where, when business was good, bowlers sat and waited for their turn.

Pike was a tallish guy with narrow shoulders and thinning blond hair that hadn't been cut. His face was red. When he sat next to me I could smell the booze on him.

"Jesus Christ, a f.u.c.king private detective? How about that? G.o.dd.a.m.n. You ever see that movie Chinatown?"

"What can you tell me about Mary Toricelli?" I said.

"You know, Jack Nicholson gets his nose cut, and he goes around with this f.u.c.king bandage on the whole freakin' movie."

"That's just what it's like," I said. "Mary Toricelli?"

"What about her?"

"What can you tell me about her?" I said.

"It worth any dough?"

"Maybe."

"Lemme see?"

I took a twenty out and showed it to him.

He grinned. "All right!" he said. "Whaddya wanna know?"

"Whatever you can tell me," I said.

"What if it ain't worth twenty?"

"Sitting there and saying nothing isn't worth anything," I said.

"So I may as well say something, huh?"

"May as well," I said.

One of the women rolled a strike. Both of them cheered and low fived each other.

"She turned out to be a lot better-looking than she was in school. You know? Sometimes that'll happen with a broad. She grows up and learns to take care of herself and turns out to be some pretty good-looking p.u.s.s.y."

"You've noticed that, too," I said.

"You should be talking to Roy Levesque. You know Roy?"

"We've met. Why should I talk to him?"

"He still sees her."

"And you don't?"

"Well, I mean I see her in town sometimes," Pike said. "With Roy. But I mean Roy's seeing her, you know?"

"They intimate?"

"Oh sure, Roy's been f.u.c.king her for twenty years."

"I heard she was married," I said.

"Yeah, some rich guy. Never bothered her and Roy though."

"Was she going with Roy before she got married?"

"Sure."

"How'd Roy feel about her getting married?"

"He liked it. All that dough?"

"He get some of it?"

Pike looked at me like I'd asked about the Easter bunny. "'Course he got some of it."

From the front desk the manager yelled at Pike. "Leagues start pouring in here at five," he said. "I need them ashtrays clean by then."