Act of God

the other good-bye.”
    That seemed to give Rivkind a little trouble, but Proft nodded quickly, and she followed suit.
    “Fourth, coming at this from two sides will make it impossible to keep my investigation confidential. Given that, I’ll want you to lay groundwork for me with the people at the furniture store and Darbra’s apartment house.”
    Proft’s lips curled contentedly as he and I both realized I’d finally used his sister’s name, but Rivkind just said, “Whatever you need.”
    “Fifth, and I think last, since this is an open homicide, I have to start with the police.”
    Rivkind said, “I hope so.”
    “But, since Ms. Proft’s disappearance is the fresher trail, I’m probably going to visit her apartment before hitting the store.”
    Rivkind’s eyes told me she had more trouble with that, but she said only, “Whatever you think.”
    I looked at both of them. “So, we’re agreed?”
    Final, vigorous nods. As I asked them for the addresses and phone numbers they wanted me to use, I found I wasn’t nodding myself.

3

    I had a date with Nancy Meagher for that night . She’d been a little vague about what we were doing, just saying I should leave my Honda Prelude at the condo I rented in Back Bay. After my new clients left, I closed out the file on the runaway from Vermont , locked up the office, and went down to Tremont Street . It was barely five o’clock, but the relentless waves of summer commuters heading for the subway already had swamped the sketch artists, the New Yorker, and even Fred Astaire.
    I walked up Tremont on the east side of the street, the sun still hot over my left shoulder. I passed Dunfey’s Parker House and King’s Chapel and probably the best tobacconist still surviving in these politically correct times.
    Across from the curving red brick building called Center Plaza , I looked up to see vapor rising from the Steaming Kettle. The coffeeshop under the kettle emblem had been a favorite of Boston trial lawyers weary of battle in the Suffolk County courts, but the shop closed several years ago after the owner died. Somebody still pumps steam through the spout of the kettle itself, a massive copper replica of a teapot, supported over a doorway by steel braces and guy wires. My father used to buy coffee there when Government Center was still known as Scollay Square and an honest cup cost two cents. I wondered where all the lawyers went now that the Kettle and Purcell’s in City Hall Square and Slagle’s on Milk Street had all gone the way of the dodo.
    Nancy worked in a unit of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in the New Courthouse building. I cleared the Sheriffs Department metal detector inside the revolving door downstairs and took the elevator to the sixth floor.
    She was already at the front desk, a half-moon of oak with a computer, a telephone, and two plainclothes security guys who didn’t take their eyes off me until Nancy nodded. I said, “All this and punctual, too.”
    “I don’t want to miss the preview.”
    “We’re going to the movies?”
    A shake of the head. “Nineteen questions left.”
    When Nancy shook her head, her black hair swayed just a little but never strayed across her face. Which is fortunate, because if it did, you wouldn’t get to see the wide-spaced blue eyes or the batwings of freckles under them or the easy way her lips have of showing you what good teeth can add to a great smile.
    “So where are you taking me?” I said.
    She clucked her tongue. “Objection, ultimate issue. You wasted that one.”
    I walked up close and took her hand in mine. It fit just right, the nails on her fingers cut only as short as they had to be for working the keyboard on her computer comfortably. “Sounds like somebody had a difficult day in front of some judicial officer.”
    “A lot harder for the defense, actually.”
    “Want to tell me about it?”
    Nancy checked her watch. “As we walk.”
    Through the office door and down the elevator and out into the passably fresh air, she summarized the armed robbery case she’d been trying. The jury had come back against the defendant the prior afternoon, and given the guy’s record, the judge had ordered a sentencing hearing that morning.
    “So what did the defense lawyer have to say?”
    “Not much. He was pretty much reduced to arguing that his thirty-one-year-old client had been an altar boy from ages seven to nine.”
    “You’re kidding?”
    “God’s truth.”
    No pun