“You’re not the kind of person who embarrasses easily—I just can’t picture you getting that worked up about some letters, even if they are personal … Come to think of it, why would two people in the same city write each other anyway?”

She flushed below the rouge. “We were on tour.”

“How did you meet Boom Boom?”

“At a party. A man I know was thinking about buying a share in the Black Hawks and Guy Odinflute invited some of the players. Boom Boom came.” Her voice was cold.

Odinflute was a North Shore tycoon with a flair for business matchmaking. He’d be the ideal person to bring together buyers and sellers of the Black Hawks.

“When was that?”

“At Christmas, Vic, if you must know.”

I’d seen Boom Boom a couple of times during the winter and he’d never mentioned Paige. But was that so strange? I never told him who I was dating either. When he got married, at twenty-four, I first met his wife a few weeks before the wedding. That was a little different—he’d been slightly ashamed to introduce me to Connie. When she left him three weeks later and received an annulment, he’d gotten gloriously drunk with me, but still hadn’t really talked about it. He kept his private life emphatically private.

“What are you thinking, Vic? You look very hostile, and I resent it.”

“Do you? Henry Kelvin was killed last night when some people broke into Boom Boom’s place. They tore it apart. I want to know if they were looking for the same thing you were. And if so, what?”

“Henry? The night watchman? Oh, I’m so sorry, Vic. Sorry to get mad at you, too. If you’d only told me, instead of playing games with me … Was anything stolen? Could it have been a robbery?”

“Nothing was taken, but the place was sure chewed up pretty thoroughly. I think I saw everything Boom Boom had in his files and I can’t imagine what value any of it would have to anyone besides a hockey memorabilia collector.”

She shook her head, her eyes troubled. “I don’t know either. Unless it was a robbery. I know he kept some share certificates there, even though I kept telling him to put them in a safe deposit box. He just couldn’t be bothered with stuff like that. Were those gone?”

“I didn’t see them when I was there on Tuesday. Maybe he did take them to a bank.” Another point to check with the lawyer Simonds.