Free Five Classic Spenser Mysteries by Robert B. Parker

smoke, a wisp of which traced off to the edge of the picture. He was surprisingly ordinary-looking for a man who’d attracted Susan. He looked young, but his hair was already receding, and there was a quality of undefinedness to his face.
    Russell had a lot of clothes, three walk-in closets full, hung carelessly. Some had fallen from hangers and were crumpled on the floor. His shoes were in a pile on the floor of the closet.
    “Hard to get good help these days,” I said, looking at the jumble of shoes and clothes on the bottom of one of the bedroom closets.
    We moved on.
    There was nothing else that mattered on the second floor. We’d been looking for nearly an hour. If Hawk felt the strain of holding a .44 gun up under Costigan’s chin for that long he didn’t show it. My left hand felt cramped from holding Costigan’s belt.
    The first floor had, besides Costigan’s enormous living room, an enormous dining room, an enormous kitchen, a pantry, and a two-bedroom suite in a wing off the back. One bedroom was Costigan’s.It was very ordinary. Efficient and comfortable, but no more personal than the best room in a Ramada Renaissance Hotel. Off the bedroom was a sitting room that was obviously used as an office. It too was sparse. There was a phone on an oak table that was used as a desk. A swivel chair, an oak file cabinet, a Xerox machine, and a tape recorder. We went back into the hall.
    “My wife is in bed through the door on your right,” Costigan said.
    “No help for it,” I said. “Got to look.”
    “We three will go in,” Costigan said. “The rest will wait outside. Gary, you watch us through the door.”
    Gray Hair nodded. The others moved down the hall a few steps.
    We opened the door and went in. Mrs. Costigan was in bed watching television. She had her gray hair up in rollers and some night cream on her face and looked fifteen years older than her husband. Her bulk under the satin spread was considerable.
    She said, “Jerry—Jesus, Mary and Joseph …”
    Costigan raised one hand like a traffic cop. “Just be still, Grace,” he said. “This isn’t as bad as it looks.”
    “You’ll have to join us, Mrs. Costigan,” I said.
    “Why you want me to do that?” she said in a little-girl voice. “I’m in my pajamas.”
    “Get a robe,” I said.
    Mrs. Costigan said, “Don’t look.”
    Hawk said, “Hunh,” softly under his breath.
    Mrs. Costigan dragged the spread off the bed and held it around her as she went to the closet. She managed somehow to get an aqua velour robe around her fat body before she dropped the spread. No one saw anything. Everyone was relieved.
    Mrs. Costigan’s room was pink with gray woodwork and floor-length pink drapes. The carpet was gray and the furniture was white. There were pink satin sheets on the bed. A huge color television with a white cabinet stood at the far wall opposite the bed. Mrs. Costigan was watching
Dallas
. There was a sitting room off her bedroom as well, with French doors that opened onto a patio. The room was gray with pink woodwork and gray drapes and a pink carpet. One wall was all glass, and before it a large makeup table sat with lighting arranged around the mirror wall and adjustable spotlighting on the table.
    No one else was in the rooms and they were the last rooms. Costigan, Hawk, and I stood touching closely in the center of the dressing room. Mrs. Costigan hovered uncertainly near, and Gary watched quietly from the doorway.
    “What now,” Costigan said.
    “Now we talk and you tell us where she is,” I said.
    “Where who is?” Mrs. Costigan said.
    “Susan Silverman.”
    Costigan said, “Grace,” and Mrs. Costigan said, “At the lodge,” and their voices overlapped. Mrs. Costigan heard her husband and looked at him, startled.
    “If that’s all they want, let them have her,” she said. “Would you protect her instead of me?”
    Costigan said, “Grace, be quiet.” He said it with the kind of force you expect to hear in a