Robert B. Parker's Lullaby Read online

  NOVELS BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  THE SPENSER NOVELS

  Sixkill

  Painted Ladies

  The Professional

  Rough Weather

  Now & Then

  Hundred-Dollar Baby

  School Days

  Cold Service

  Bad Business

  Back Story

  Widow’s Walk

  Potshot

  Hugger Mugger

  Hush Money

  Sudden Mischief

  Small Vices

  Chance

  Thin Air

  Walking Shadow

  Paper Doll

  Double Deuce

  Pastime

  Stardust

  Playmates

  Crimson Joy

  Pale Kings and Princes

  Taming a Sea-Horse

  A Catskill Eagle

  Valediction

  The Widening Gyre

  Ceremony

  A Savage Place

  Early Autumn

  Looking for Rachel Wallace

  The Judas Goat

  Promised Land

  Mortal Stakes

  God Save the Child

  The Godwulf Manuscript

  THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues (by Michael Brandman)

  Split Image

  Night and Day

  Stranger in Paradise

  High Profile

  Sea Change

  Stone Cold

  Death in Paradise

  Trouble in Paradise

  Night Passage

  THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

  Spare Change

  Blue Screen

  Melancholy Baby

  Shrink Rap

  Perish Twice

  Family Honor

  ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  Blue-Eyed Devil

  Brimstone

  Resolution

  Appaloosa

  Double Play

  Gunman’s Rhapsody

  All Our Yesterdays

  A Year at the Races (with Joan H. Parker)

  Perchance to Dream

  Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler)

  Love and Glory

  Wilderness

  Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan H. Parker)

  Training with Weights (with John R. Marsh)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2012 by the Estate of Robert B. Parker

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Atkins, Ace.

  Robert B. Parker’s lullaby / Ace Atkins.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-58492-7

  1. Spenser (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Mothers—Crimes against—Fiction. 3. Private investigators—Massachusetts—Boston—Fiction. 4. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Lullaby.

  PS3601.T487R63 2012 2012006193

  813'.6—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  To Joan.

  Always the inspiration.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  1

  I spotted the girl even before she knocked on my door. I was gazing out my second-floor office window down at Berkeley Street, eating a cinnamon donut and drinking coffee with a little milk and sugar. The girl looked lost among the businesspeople and tourists hustling along the icy sidewalks. She wore a pink Boston Red Sox cap and an oversized down parka with a fur collar, and stared up at the numbers on the office buildings where Berkeley intersects Boylston.

  When she stopped at my building, she folded up a piece of paper and crossed the street with a lot of purpose. I had an open box of donuts and an uncashed check on my desk from Cone, Oakes. I’d done a little work for Rita Fiore and had been paid handsomely.

  The winter had been dark, bleak, and endless, but sometime in the last hour I had actually seen the sun. My computer was playing Helen Forrest singing with the Harry James Orchestra. Life was full of promise.

  I had a bite of donut just as I heard the knock on the door.

  I opened it.

  “You Spenser?” asked the girl in the pink Red Sox cap.

  “The one and only.”

  “People say you’re tough,” she said.


  “Did they mention handsome and witty?”

  “That you aren’t afraid to use a gun.”

  “Only when my feelings get hurt.”

  Her accent was South Boston, maybe Dorchester. Henry Higgins could have told me her exact address. I figured her for fifteen or sixteen. She stood about five-foot-five with straight reddish brown hair spilling from the Sox cap. Her eyes were green and very large, made slightly ridiculous with heavy eyeliner.

  “You really a private investigator?” she asked.

  “Says so on the door.”

  “And you didn’t get your license from the Internet or any-

  thing?”

  “No.”

  “Were you a cop or something?”

  “Or something.”

  “Thrown off the force for drinking?”

  “No.”

  “Police brutality?”

  “No.”

  “Then why aren’t you a cop now?”

  “I don’t play well with others,” I said. “Would you like to come in?”

  She peered around me into my office, checking out my desk, two file cabinets, and the couch where Pearl slept when it was take-your-dog-to-work day. I extended my hand toward my guest chair and sat behind my desk. She joined me.

  The girl had a full face with ruddy cheeks, a couple of moles on the right side. A cute kid if she’d sit up straight. But she slouched into her chair and nervously toyed with a Saint Christopher medal. “Who busted your nose?” she asked.

  “Jersey Joe Walcott,” I said.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Former heavyweight champ,” I said. “Before your time.”

  I pushed the box of donuts toward her. She looked down at my carefully chosen assortment. Then she looked back at me, still playing with the medal, and shook her head. I let the silence hang there for a moment. I figured if I waited long enough, she might tell me why she was in need of my services. After a long pause, she did.

  “Somebody killed my mom.”

  I took a deep breath and leaned forward. “When?”

  “Four years ago,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I want to find the bastards.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. “Why now?”

  “Nobody listens to kids,” she said. “I’m older now. You do this kind of stuff, right?”

  “I’m good at making people listen,” I said.

  “How much do you charge?”

  I told her the usual rate. She began to dig through her pockets, pulling out five crumpled twenties and a ten, flattening the cash on my desktop. “Will this get you started?”

  I glanced down at the money and again nudged the box of donuts her way. This time she accepted, choosing a chocolate-frosted. I complimented her choice. Giving away a whole donut was a major philanthropic gesture. I hoped she appreciated it.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mattie Sullivan.”

  “You take the Red Line into the city, Miss Sullivan?”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “I am a trained investigator.”

  I drank some coffee. I pulled a yellow legal pad and a pen from my left desk drawer. Ever the professional. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

  “They left her up on The Point,” she said. “By U Mass, where they tore down all those old buildings. You know?”

  I nodded.

  “She was stabbed to death.”

  I nodded some more. I took some notes.

  “She’d been raped,” she said. “They think.”

  Her face showed little emotion, telling the story as if she’d read it in the newspaper.

  “I’m very sorry,” I said.

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “How old are you now?”

  “Fourteen.”

  I turned my chair as I listened and could see the morning traffic on Berkeley. People continued to make their way down the sidewalk as an MBTA bus passed, churning dirty slush in its wake.

  “What did the police say?”

  “They arrested this guy the next day,” she said. “Mickey Green. He’s doing life at Cedar Junction.”

  “And you don’t think he did it?”

  “I know he didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Mickey is a screwup, but he’s a good guy, you know?”

  “Not much to go on,” I said.

  “I saw her with a couple men that night,” she said. “I saw them snatch her up and push her into the back of a car. She wasn’t with Mickey. Mickey wasn’t with her that whole night.”

  “Who were they?”

  “You gonna do this?” she asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “These are real mean guys.”

  “Okay.”

  “And young, too.”

  “‘O Youth! For years so many and sweet.’”

  “You’re an older guy. I’m just sayin’.”

  I tried not to take offense. I was fourteen once.

  “I don’t know their full names,” she said. “They just go by Pepper and Moon. Coupla shitbag drug dealers in the neighborhood.”

  “What neighborhood?”

  “I’ve lived in the Mary Ellen McCormack my whole freakin’ life.”

  The McCormack was down at the bottom of South Boston, close to Dorchester, a tough old brick housing project that headlined a lot of shooting stories in the Globe.

  “The last time I saw Pepper was six months ago. I don’t know about Moon.”

  “Why not go back to the cops?”

  “I did. A bunch of times.”

  “What’d they say?”

  “That Mickey Green is a true douchebag and got what he deserved. One time they gave me a pat on the head and a card about some shrink so I could ‘talk about my trauma.’ After a couple of years, they just stopped calling me back.”

  “You can vouch for Mickey’s character?”

  “He was friends with my mother,” she said. “They used to drink together at Four Green Fields. He helped her when our pipes would bust or if she needed groceries.”

  “Tell me what you saw that night.”

  “I saw her come into my room,” she said. “I’d put my baby sisters down to sleep after dinner, and my mom came in and went through my drawers for money. She didn’t know I saw her, but I was pissed. I followed her outside and was gonna yell at her, but before I could, I seen Pepper and Moon grab her and drag her to their car. They threw her in the backseat. They were yelling back and forth, but I couldn’t hear what they were sayin’. Or what she was sayin’. One of the guys hit her. It was a real mess.”

  “I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much else to say.

  Mattie dropped her head and nodded. She rubbed her hands together. Her nails, which were painted with black polish, had been bitten to stubs. She didn’t look like she’d smiled since elementary school. Her parka had seen a lot of winters; her wrists peeked out from the blackened sleeves, buttons barely hanging on. The knees of her jeans had been patched.

  “Where are your sisters now?”

  “We all live with my grandmother.”

  “Your mother’s mom?”

  She nodded.

  “Dad?”

  Mattie rolled her eyes.

  “So four years later, you just decide to set this straight?”

  “Me and Mickey been talking about it.”

  “You visit him in jail?” I asked. I leaned forward and made some notes.

  “He started writing me letters and sending me birthday cards and crap,” she said. Mattie ran her finger under her reddened nose. “He kept on saying how sorry he was and all, and that he would’ve never hurt my ma. And so I wrote him back and said, I know. I told him about Pepper and Moon. I said I tried to tell but no one was listening. Jesus, I was only ten.”

  She studied my face as I thought about what she’d said. I figured she was seeing the chiseled features of a man she could respect. She finally rolled her eyes and went for the money. “You�
��re not the only tough guy in Boston,” she said.

  “There’s another,” I said. “But we work as a team.”

  She left the money and looked at me with those sad, tough eyes. Her shoulders slouched some more, and she dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her old parka. The pink hat looked shabby. She reminded me a lot of Paul Giacomin when I’d first met him. Nobody in his corner.

  “Anyone else see your mom taken by these guys?”

  “I don’t know,” Mattie said. “Nobody wants to talk about it. And nobody wants to help.”

  She blinked hard, and rubbed her eyes with her tiny, balled-up fists. She sighed. “This was a stupid idea.”

  “Wait a second.”

  She stood up, eyes lingering on me. I pushed the money back across my desk.

  “You’re in luck, Mattie Sullivan,” I said. “I’m running a special this week.”

  “What’s the special?”

  “Investigative services in exchange for more of these,” I said, holding up a donut.

  “Are you shitting me?” she asked.

  “I shit you not.”

  2

  I sure am lucky to know you, Spenser,” Quirk said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

  “I like to make people feel useful,” I said. “Commander of the homicide squad can be such a lonely job.”

  “I got the file set up for you in a conference room down the hall,” he said. “I hope that’s to your liking.”

  I lifted my eyebrows and tilted my head. “Service with a smile.”