Widow’s Walk Read Online Free PDF Page A

now?”
    “His estate, I assume.”
    “Who’s running it now?”
    “Our CEO,” she said, “Marvin Conroy.”
    “Does he have any ownership?” I said.
    She nodded. “He’s a minority stockholder,” she said.
    “How about you?”
    She smiled. “I’m an employee.”
    “Any other minority stockholders?”
    “Frankly, I don’t know. I’m here for public relations. I’m not privy to all of the arrangements Mr. Smith made.”
    “It sounds like there were some,” I said.
    “If there were I don’t know of them,” Amy Peters said.
    “But you might speculate?”
    “Public relations directors don’t get ahead if they make improprietous speculations.”
    “What kind of banker says ”improprietous“?” I said.
    She smiled and there was in the smile the same sense I’d had before, that she was considering whether I’d be worth the purchase price.
    “Handsome sexy ones,” she said.
    “I’m a detective,” I said. “I already noticed the handsome part.”
    “And the sexy part?”
    “I surmised that.”
    “Good,” she said.
    I smiled my most engaging smile at her. If you have an ace you may as well play it. Oddly, Amy Peters remained calm.
    “What sort of private arrangements could a banker make?” I said.
    “I’m sure I don’t know.”
    “Have you been with the bank long?” I said.
    “Ten years.”
    “Before that?”
    “I did PR for Sloan, Simpson.”
    “Brokerage house?” I said.
    “Yes. Am I a suspect?”
    I smiled. Just the routine smile. If the A smile hadn’t overwhelmed her, I saw no reason to waste it.
    “No.”
    “Then why ask?”
    “Information is the capital of my work,” I said. “I don’t know what will matter.”
    She nodded.
    “I went to Middlebury College, and Harvard Business School. I have two daughters. I’m divorced.”
    “So you knew Nathan Smith before he was married.”
    “I knew him professionally. He didn’t spend a lot of time at the bank, and when he was here, he didn’t spend a lot of time with the help.”
    “Who did he spend time with?”
    “I don’t really know. I work here. I worked for him. My job is to present the bank to the public in as favorable an image as I can. I do not keep track of the owner, for God’s sake.”
    “And you’re doing a hell of a job of it,” I said.
    She started to speak and stopped. “Goddamn you,” she said.
    “Me?”
    “Y. I am supposed to be a professional and you’ve waltzed in here and smiled a big smile and showed me your muscles and all my professionalism seems to have fluttered right out the window.”
    “I didn’t show you my muscles,” I said.
    “I saw them anyway,” she said. Beneath her perfect makeup there seemed to be a hint of color along her cheekbones.
    “Are you married?” she said.
    “I’m, ah, going steady,” I said.
    “Going steady? I haven’t heard anyone say that in thirty years.”
    I shrugged.
    “How long have you been going steady?”
    “‘Bout twenty-five years,” I said. “With a little time out in the middle.”
    She leaned back a little in her chair and looked at me in silence for a considerable time.
    Finally she said, “Of all the banks, in all the world, you had to walk into this one.”
    “We’ll always have Cambridge,” I said.

CHAPTER NINE
    There had been something lurking behind what Amy Peters had said. She knew something about Nathan Smith. I didn’t know what it was yet. I drove out of the parking garage next to the bank. A moment of brightness flicked past me from across the street and I looked over at a black Volvo sedan across from the entrance. I thought I saw binoculars, which would account for the reflected flash. I turned onto Broadway toward the Longfellow Bridge. The car didn’t move. As I got on the bridge I checked the rearview mirror and the Volvo was there, two cars back.
    I punched up the number for the Harbor Health Club on the car phone. Henry Cimoli answered.
    “Hawk there?” I said.
    “Yeah,” Henry said. “Intimidating