Paper Doll by Robert B. Parker Page B

somebody.”
    “Yessir.”
    I had a copy of the portrait I’d found in the victim’s living room. I took it out of my inside pocket and showed it to Jefferson.
    “Sure look like Miss Livvie,” Jefferson said. “This woman said she was Olivia Nelson. She was married to a prominent Boston white man, lived on Beacon Hill, and had two college-age children.”
    “Can’t be Miss Livvie,” Jefferson said. His voice was matter-of-fact, the way you’d remark that the world was round.
    “Do you know a woman named Cheryl Anne Rankin?” I said.
    “No, sir,” Jefferson said.
    He was lying. He said it too quickly and with too much resolve.
    “Her picture’s on the wall at the track kitchen,” I said. “Woman there says she’s her daughter.”
    “Don’t know nothing about that, sir.” I nodded again.
    “Be all right with you, sir, you don’t tell Mr. Jack I writing to Miss Livvie?”
    “No need to, Jefferson,” I said. “But I bet he knows anyway.”
    “Sure he do, sir. But he wouldn’t want me to know he knows.”
    “You sure you don’t know anything about Cheryl Anne Rankin?”
    “Don’t know nothing about that, sir. Nothing at all.”
    Jefferson stood and I stood, and we went upstairs to the front door. I put out my hand. Jefferson took it. His hand was slender and strong and dry as dust.
    “Nelson is lucky to know you, Jefferson,” I said.
    Jefferson smiled. “Yessir,” he said.

chapter twenty-one
    THE PHONE IN my room at the Alton Arms had a long cord on it. You could stroll around the room as you talked. I was looking out my window while I told Quirk about Jefferson’s story.
    “You got an address for her in Nairobi?”
    Quirk said.
    “Yeah, took it off the envelope,” I said and gave it to him.
    “We’ll give her a call,” Quirk said. “If she’s actually there, we’ll maybe get somebody from the American Embassy to go over and interview her.”
    “Farrell going to come down here?” I said.
    “Somebody will,” Quirk said. “Say the stuff about Cheryl Anne Rankin again.”
    “All I got is her picture in the track kitchen. Looks just like Olivia Nelson did in her high school graduation picture. Looks like she’d grow into that portrait in the living room in twenty-five years.”
    “You think they’re old pictures?”
    “Yeah. And the woman who says she’s Cheryl Anne’s mother is probably around seventy.”
    It was bright and hot outside the hotel window. The trees across the street seemed to hang lower than usual, and their leaves were motionless. The blue Buick pulled up as I was looking at the trees, and swung in and parked in front of the hotel. A cruiser pulled up behind it and then another one. The shield on the side said Alton County Sheriff. Uniformed deputies began to unload. They spread out around the hotel, trying to be inconspicuous. A couple headed around back in case I made a dash through the kitchen.
    “You thinking she could be the victim?” Quirk said.
    “She looks too much like the victim to ignore,” I said. “But right now I got another problem.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I think I’m going to get busted by the Alton County Sheriff’s Department,” I said, and described the arrivals. There was a knock on the door.
    “Here they are,” I said. “Tell whoever comes down to see if I’m in jail.”
    “I’ll come down,” Quirk said.
    I hung up and took my gun out of my holster and laid it down on the bedside table with the muzzle facing away from the door. Then I opened the door and smiled at the cop who had her hair done in Batesburg.

chapter twenty-two
    THEY DIDN’T BOOK me. They just took my belongings, including my gun, and stuck me in a cell by myself, in the Alton County Courthouse. Nobody said anything much. But the deputies hovered close and looked as alert as they were able to, until I was locked up. Then everybody departed and I was alone in a cell about 8 by 10 feet in the cellar of the courthouse. There were no windows and only a single