Read Online Right to Die by Jeremiah Healy - Free Book Online Page A

How’s about a beer?”
    I again started to say no when the female customer turned on her stool. Nina, the student from Strock’s office. Lifting the box of files from the bar, I asked Bandy to bring us two drafts and walked over to her.
    “Mind if I sit with you?”
    She barely looked up. “Sit. Don’t talk and don’t touch.”
    I set the carton on the floor as the beers arrived. I paid Bandy and took one, Nina draining the mug she’d had in front of her.
    “For you,” I said, pointing to the second full one.
    She looked at me a little closer. “You’re the guy who was waiting to talk with Strock, right?”
    “Right.”
    “I can pay for my own.”
    “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
    Nina cocked her head. “All right. Why does a man who knows the difference between ‘imply’ and ‘infer’ want to buy me a drink?”
    I showed her my identification, which she had to hold up to the light as Grace Jones finished on a warbled high note and the radio station’s deejay segued into a group called the After-Births.
    “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Professor Strock.”
    Nina closed the ID holder and handed it back to me. “You know a sergeant on the Mets named Nick Russo?” Anywhere in Boston outside of sports bars and Fenway Park “the Mets” means the Metropolitan District Commission Police, a force that patrols major roads, parks, and waterways.
    “Never met him.”
    “He’s my father. Just so we know where we stand.”
    “Fine.”
    Nina Russo took a gulp of the beer. “Why are you interested in Strock?”
    “I can’t tell you.”
    She considered that, nodded. “Why should I talk to you about him?”
    “Because you don’t like him, and I won’t tell anybody else what you tell me.”
    A tired smile. “Maybe I ought to cover the beer.”
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “Mister, law students get trained not to believe a lot of things. Especially things some stranger promises them in a bar.”
    “You know Lieutenant Robert Murphy, Boston Homicide?”
    Russo perked. “No.”
    “How about Sergeant Bonnie Cross, also Boston Homicide?”
    “No. Why, could they vouch for you?”
    “Uh-huh. How about Officer Drew—
    “Enough.” She took a little more beer, then rearranged her fanny on the stool, “Let me tell you a few things, okay? Then you can decide if you want to talk to me.”
    “Okay.”
    “I’m not the first person in my family to go to college, but a lot of them had to do school off-shift or weekends. I am the first one to go past college, which kind of makes me the center of attention that way. The flag bearer, get it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, I want to specialize in Family Law, Domestic Relations. That means mostly divorce, but it also gives you adoptions, appointed work for abused kids, the chance to do some good for people who are in the worst time of their lives and really need the help. Strock teaches Family Law here. Before that, he was this big-time divorce lawyer. Doesn’t talk about it, but I think he got tired of the hassle and decided to sort of retire to teaching. He maybe consults for some of the dom/rel firms in town, to keep his hand in, but mostly he’s just a teacher and a... mentor.”
    “What kind of mentor?”
    “The kind that can make or break your resume.”
    “Like by who he chooses for research assistant?”
    “And he chooses the assistants with a critical eye.”
    I was beginning to get it. “As in eye of the beholder?”
    “The student who beat me out of the job is named Kimberly. She has long hair that I actually heard her call ‘flaxen’ once. If Strock’s sitting down, she has to tuck some of that hair up and over her ear when she leans forward to look over his shoulder and glance at him sideways.”
    “Sexual harassment?”
    “No. At least not the way you mean it. Kimberly was angling for the job more than Strock was angling for her, I think.”
    “But on the merits, you should have been picked?”
    “Hands down. I