Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay (28 page)

J
esse came upon Elena Wheatley's house much as he had Molly's, from behind. But unlike Molly's house, there were no woods to cover his approach nor much of a real fence. Only a three-foot-high stone wall separated the rear of Elena's lot from the rear of her backyard neighbor's lot. He surveyed the house as he crept slowly along the side wall of the neighbor's house. Nothing about the back of the house gave anything away. Like many houses in Paradise, Elena Wheatley's had a small one-car garage tucked behind the house, and it was only when Jesse climbed over the low stone wall and took a look through the dingy garage window that his worst fears were realized. His guts twisted up at the sight of Suit's cruiser.

Leaning against the side of the garage, Jesse sent a text message. Then he put his phone away and collected his thoughts. If he had been a praying man, this would have been the time to get to it. But Jesse knew that this was it, and one way or the other, Peepers was never going to have another chance to spread his brand of terror and fear. Somehow Jesse had known that when the final confrontation came, it would be on Peepers's terms and that it would be between the two of them. That all of Kahan's and Healy's machinations
wouldn't be enough. He took one last deep breath, racked the slide of his nine-millimeter, and walked up onto the square patch of concrete at the back door to Elena Wheatley's house.

He found the three of them tucked cozily in the little den just beyond the front vestibule. Suit, naked from the waist up, was lying on his left side on the floor. His arms were behind him, wrists cuffed with his own cuffs, his feet bound together with duct tape, nylon rope binding his taped ankles to the handcuffs. He was semiconscious, his face a swollen, bruised mess, and there was a small bullet wound to his right shoulder. It was bleeding, though not profusely. But it was Elena Wheatley's situation that startled Jesse.

She was dressed only in a beige sports bra and white cotton panties. There were tear stains on her face, but no tears. She had cried herself out. Although she was shaking with fear, her face was impassive, as she had apparently retreated into herself. She was on her knees in front of a fussy old couch, an assault knife in front of her, a ring of duct tape around her neck, which was attached to the barrel of Suit's pump-action shotgun. And there seated on the couch, holding the butt end of the shotgun, was Peepers, his pale white little fingers close to the trigger.

“Hello, Jesse Stone, it's been a while,” he said, a smile in his nasally, high-pitched voice. “I knew you'd figure it out in the end. I would never hurt Jenn.”

“That's what Belinda Yankton told me. She said she thought you were fond of Jenn.”

“Very fond. How is my rude blonde these days?”

“How do you think?”

“Well behaved and properly mannered, I expect.”

Jesse held his nine-millimeter up and began to kneel in order to place it on the floor.

“Oh, no, Chief, don't do that,” Peepers said, a smug smile now on his face and in his voice. “You'll be needing your weapon very shortly.”

“Why's that?”

Peepers's smile broadened. “You know better than to ask a praying mantis why. It's quite simple, really. You're going to kill that imbecile officer of yours by rolling him onto his back and shooting him in the liver. I missed his liver last time, but you won't miss it, Jesse, not from this range,” he said, kicking Suit's wounded shoulder. Suit groaned in pain. “Then you're going to slit your own throat with that knife there in front of our mousy little hostess.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Then I hope you have a dry cleaner who is good at removing blood, skull, brain, and hair from clothing, because you'll be wearing a lot of this woman's head in a few seconds.”

Jesse lied. “The house is surrounded. You won't get twenty feet.”

Peepers removed his glasses with his free hand and patted his eyes dry against the sleeve of his blue polyester sport jacket. He replaced the glasses, and when he did, the smiles had vanished from both his face and voice.

“You will be beyond worrying about my exit, and please don't treat me like a fool, Jesse. It's beneath the both of us. You know there's a debt to pay. I'm here to both pay mine and collect yours. Get on with it.”

“Let her go.”

“I will, but only after we've settled accounts. I imagine you know exactly where the liver is, Jesse. And please, no more talking. I give you my word that I will release the woman after you do what you must. One more thing, don't even attempt to swing that sidearm my way,” he said, pulling a .22 out of his jacket pocket and aiming it at Jesse. “She'll be dead before you can fire and so will you.”

“Let them go and I'll do what you ask.”

Peepers was laughing a twisted laugh. “Bargaining. They always bargain. I usually enjoy this part of things, when they try to trade things as if they had any control of things anymore, as if they had anything at all to trade. But not today, Jesse, no bargaining today. I love the begging as well. I really love the begging. Again, not today. The bill is the bill and it must be paid in full. Now do it.” Peepers yanked on the shotgun. Elena gasped. Peepers raised the .22. “Now!”

“Sorry, Suit,” Jesse said, rolling his friend onto his back, “I'm really sorry.”

Suit nodded. “Do it,” he slurred. “Just save her.” Then he squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

As Jesse was about to fire, he heard footsteps behind him. He fired into the floor next to Suit. That got Peepers's attention just long enough. Jesse turned to see if the wild card he had played was enough to win the hand. But when he saw who it was and caught the look on Peepers's face, he knew it had all gone wrong.

P
eepers did not hesitate. With amazing speed, he wacked Elena in the back of the head with his .22 and shoved the shotgun forward. As Elena fell unconscious, face-first into the carpet, Peepers swung the .22 up toward Jesse's right side and fired. And in that briefest of seconds between the muzzle flash and explosion, Jesse dived to his right to try to catch the bullet with his body. As he dived he prayed. He bargained, too. He prayed for the bullet to hit him, to hit him anywhere, as long as it didn't make it past him. Dying was the least of his fears. As he fell, there was a second shot, and a third, louder shot. Then the front door flung open and Vinnie Morris, Jesse's ace card, came into the den. It was already too late.

Jesse thumped to the floor, unwounded, waiting. And there it was, the thing he had prayed so mightily against, the thing he had bargained silently to prevent: a second thud. He rolled over, sick with fear and regret at what he knew he would find. There was Diana Evans, a red dot above the bridge of her nose and blood on her blouse above her heart, dead on the floor behind him. Healy stood behind her, in his hand an old Smith & Wesson .38, smoke drifting up out of its barrel.

Peepers was screaming. Jesse turned to look at him, and when he did, Peepers smiled at him through the pain. The little man's lower abdomen was covered in blood.

“Let me have him, Jesse,” Vinnie Morris said. “For Gino and for you, let me have him.”

Jesse looked up at Healy and over to Suit, who was wriggling his body to get close to Elena. Both men nodded yes as the wail of sirens imposed themselves into the conversation.

“Out the back,” Jesse said.

And with that, Vinnie Morris slammed his fist into Peepers's face. He gathered the man's lapels in one hand and dragged him up to his feet. They were out the back door a full twenty seconds before Molly, Peter Perkins, and Gabe Weathers came barreling into the house. When they got there, Healy was cutting the tape off Elena Wheatley's neck and checking to make sure the cut on the back of her head wasn't severe. Suit had managed to get close enough to her to lay his head on her thigh. And Jesse was cradling Diana in his arms.

T
hey had each told roughly the same story to the state investigators. Peepers had an accomplice who came bursting into the house just after the shots had been fired. He grabbed Peepers, knocked Healy over, and exited through the back door. They didn't get a good look at the accomplice and had no idea where he'd taken Peepers. Elena, who suffered a severe concussion, had no light to shed on any of the events of that morning or the day before. There was a small blessing in that.

None of it seemed to matter much to Jesse, who had been AWOL since receiving Diana's autopsy results. He'd buried himself in his house, blaming himself and drinking himself into a stupor. Whenever he would come out of it, he would beat himself up again for neglecting to order Molly not to share information with Healy or Diana. So when Healy, impatient for news, called Molly that morning, she told him about Suit's engagement and their assumption that Peepers had gone to Elena Wheatley's house. It didn't help Jesse's state of mind that Diana's father had made it clear he didn't want Jesse anywhere near Diana's funeral. What did it matter? She was dead because of him and there was no getting over that.

Tamara Elkin had come to the station to try to comfort Jesse and to enlist Molly's help.

They were discussing how to approach Jesse when he came out of his office. He smiled at seeing Tamara. It was a sad smile, the saddest smile she thought she had ever seen or was likely to see. Then again, most people don't smile at the medical examiner. The ME seldom has the kind of news anyone is apt to smile about. She had handed Jesse the autopsy file, but without the photographs. She knew that not even Jesse Stone, the toughest man she had ever met, would be able to forget those photos. Still, she knew Jesse would want to see the report for himself. Molly and Tamara sat by helplessly as Jesse read the results.

“Did she feel it, do you think?” he asked, putting the folder down.

Tamara shook her head. “No, Jesse, death would have been pretty much instantaneous.”

“But she knew. There had to be a split second when she knew.”

Tamara stood up and came to stand by him. She placed her hand on his shoulder.

“I don't know that, Jesse. No one knows the answer to that.”

“I don't like thinking that she knew or that she felt pain.”

“Jesse, please don't—”

There were no tears in his eyes, but he looked as shaken as Molly had ever seen him. “Do you think she felt pain?”

Tamara pointed to a line in the report. “I can't answer that, Jesse. It's very possible she didn't. If she did, it didn't last long.”

Jesse handed the folder back to her. Molly nodded at Tamara to go, to give Jesse time to process things in his own way. Tamara understood.

“If you need me, Jesse, I'm a phone call away,” she said.

Jesse went back into his office and finished the bottle of Tullamore Dew he had bought to celebrate Healy's retirement. He hadn't been back in since Gabe Weathers drove him home that night. Jenn, Hale Hunsicker, Jed Pruitt, and Scott Kahan had all called and left messages. Many messages. Jesse ignored them all.

—

There was a knock on his door. He was in between bouts with himself and in the mood for a real fight, so he answered the door, hoping someone would give him an excuse to throw a punch. But it was Vinnie Morris, dressed as always in a few thousand dollars' worth of designer clothing. He had a bottle of Black Label in one hand and a large brown envelope in the other.

Vinnie nodded. “Stone.”

“Morris.”

“All right if I come in?”

Jesse didn't answer. He walked away from the open door and headed toward the bar in his den. Vinnie closed the door behind him and followed Jesse in, noticing the house was in disarray. Vinnie liked things smooth and orderly, neat and clean, but he understood.

“I heard you aren't doing so good,” he said. “I can see for myself that's true.”

Jesse ignored him. “What's that?” he asked, pointing at Morris.

“You don't recognize a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, you're worse off than I heard.”

“Stop it, Vinnie. The envelope. What's in the envelope?”

A thin smile rose at one corner of Morris's lips.

“Proof of death,” Vinnie said, tossing the envelope at Jesse's feet. “Thought you might want to see how badly Peepers suffered on his way to hell. Though I gotta say, the photos don't do it justice. I
woulda made a video for you, but I think you understand why I didn't.”

Jesse knelt down and collected the envelope. “He's dead?”

“Never seen anybody deader or suffer more on the way to dead.”

“Thanks for that. I owe you.”

“No, you don't. The accounts are closed.” Vinnie put the bottle down on the coffee table. “See you around, Stone.”

When Jesse heard Vinnie close the door behind him, he went to open the envelope but stopped himself. He decided there was nothing in the envelope he wanted to see if it couldn't change the past. And there was nothing he'd ever seen or known that could turn that trick. Diana was gone, and Peepers, too. Nothing would undo that. Morris had said the accounts were closed, but he was wrong. There was a balance to be paid and Jesse would be paying it off for the rest of his life.

Jesse twisted off the cap and drank straight from the bottle of Black Label Vinnie Morris had left behind. He looked at the envelope with the death photos of Peepers, shook his head, and laughed. He tossed the unopened envelope into the fireplace, threw a few logs on top of it, and put a long match to it. He sat in his recliner, drinking, watching it burn until there was nothing left—no fire, no envelope, no smoke, only ashes. He stood up and turned to the long-neglected poster of Ozzie Smith. Jesse raised the bottle and drank a giant gulp in a single swallow. After a short period of real possibility, it was back to being just the two of them: the great shortstop and the police chief. One frozen in midair, the other now just frozen.