Paper Doll by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online Page B

exactly even, which they hadn’t been earlier. I checked my suitcase. Nothing was missing. There wasn’t much to be missing. I looked out the window. There was a dark blue Buick parked across the street.
    I thought about the Buick for a while, and about my room being searched, and about how the desk clerk had eyed me when I came in. I looked at the door. It hadn’t bejen forced. I thought about that. Then I went back down to the lobby and said to the desk clerk, “Has anyone been in my room?”
    She jumped. It wasn’t much, maybe a two-inch vertical leap, but it was a jump.
    “No, sir, of course not.”
    “What’s my room number?” I said.
    She turned alertly to her computer screen. “If you’ll give me your name, sir, I’ll be happy to check for you.”
    “If you don’t know my name or room number,” I said, “how do you know that no one’s been in there?”
    “I, well, no one goes in guests’ rooms, sir.”
    “My watch is missing,” I said. “I left it on the bureau and it’s gone.”
    “Oh, my,” she said. “Well, he wouldn’t…”
    I waited. She didn’t know what to say. I had time. I didn’t mind the silence. From the bar down a hallway from the dining room, I could hear a man laughing. I waited.
    “I’m sure he wouldn’t have stolen your watch, sir.”
    “Who?”
    “Officer Swinny.”
    “A cop?”
    “Yes, sir. That’s the only reason I let him into your room. He’s a policeman. He said it was an important police matter.”
    “Alton Police?”
    “Yes, sir. He’s a detective with the Sheriff’s Department.”
    “You know him?”
    “Yes, sir. He was in high school with my brother.”
    “He drive a dark blue Buick sedan?” I said.
    “I don’t know, sir. I didn’t see him until he came in the lobby. He said it was official police business. Sedale might know about his car.”
    “Sedale the black guy in the green uniform?”
    “Yes, sir. Officer Swinny said I wasn’t to tell you. He said it was official business.”
    “Sure,” I said. Then I smiled and looked deliberately at my watch. It was 3:10. She showed no sign that it registered.
    I went out onto the wide veranda. Sedale was sweeping off the steps.
    I said, “Excuse me, Sedale. You know Officer Swinny of the Alton Police?”
    Sedale smiled a little.
    “She can’t keep a secret for shit, can she,” he said.
    “Not for shit,” I said. “You know what kind of car Swinny drives?”
    “Came here he was driving a Ford Ranger pickup. Red one with a black plastic bed liner.”
    “Happen to know who owns the blue Buick parked across the street?”
    Sedale looked over at the Buick and then back at me and shook his head.
    “Can’t say I do,” he said.
    “You know Swinny was in my room,” I said.
    “Sure,” Sedale said. “I let him in.”
    “How come?”
    “She told me to.”
    “You stay with him?”
    Sedale shook his head again.
    “Just let him in. Don’t hang around cops no more than I need to.”
    “You know when he left?”
    “Sure. Left about twenty minutes ago. ‘Bout ten minutes ’fore you come back.”
    I looked at the Buick again. It had no telltale whip antenna. But there was a small cellular phone antenna on the back window. The windows were darkly tinted.
    “Anybody in the Buick?” I said.
    Sedale shrugged.
    “Been parked there since I came out,” he said. “You in trouble?”
    “Not yet,” I said. I stepped off the porch and started across the street toward the Buick. There was someone in it, and as I approached, he drove away.

chapter fourteen
    I WENT BACK in the hotel and called Farrell in Boston. Then I got directions from Sedale and walked on down toward Canterbury Farms. The racing stable was across town, but in Alton across town was not a voyage of discovery.
    It had been early fall when I left Boston. But in Alton it was late summer and the thick leaves of the arching trees dappled the wide streets with sunlight. Traffic was sparse and what there was moved easily, knowing