Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay (7 page)

J
esse was just dialing the Boston detective in charge of Gino Fish's case when he gave a cursory glance at the ballistics report Molly had left on his desk. He didn't pay it much attention, as he was more focused on what he was going to say if the detective picked up the phone. Cops, especially detectives, can be very territorial, and Jesse was about to intrude on turf that was most definitely not his. Not only was he about to step on the Boston PD's turf, he was probably going to ruffle some feathers. It wasn't difficult to anticipate the chilly response he was bound to get after mentioning the discrepancies Tamara Elkin had noted.

It was one thing to point out differences between conclusions drawn by different MEs. Cops accepted that stuff like that happened. It was something else to question how detectives were handling their cases. That was the stuff feuds were made of and no department as close to Boston as Paradise could afford getting frozen out by the BPD. The Boston Police Department had resources a small-town department couldn't touch. If he pissed the wrong people off, Jesse's contacts at the BPD would dry up. And with Healy
putting in his papers, the state police might not be as helpful, either. Jesse's title or his past in Robbery-Homicide in the LAPD wouldn't matter. He was taking a calculated risk, but given the marker Gino or Vinnie could have called in on him, Jesse felt it was a risk he was duty-bound to take. Honor and keeping one's word might not be fashionable in today's world, but they still meant a lot to Jesse Stone.

Jesse went utterly still for a second even as he heard a voice in his ear. He slammed the phone back down in its cradle.

“Molly!” He screamed, loudly enough to be heard on the street, never mind beyond the walls of his office.

“What is it, Jesse?” she asked, poking her head into his office. “Is everything all right?”

“Have all the reports on the tire shootings been logged in to the system yet?”

“Just the preliminaries, but I was going to get to that later to—”

Jesse shook his head violently. “Never mind that. Get all the files and bring them in here. Now!”

“What is it, Jesse?”

“Now.”

Molly didn't hesitate. When Jesse issued orders to her this way, which was infrequently, she knew something was up. Something big. She came back into his office without knocking and placed the folders in a neat stack on his desk.

“Here they are, Jesse. What is it? What's going on?”

“Sit,” he said. “Take half the files. Tell me the make and model of car in each incident.”

“I don't have to sit for that and I don't have to open the files.”

Jesse looked up at her, the corners of his mouth turned down. The sickly feeling he got in his belly when he first noticed the caliber of bullet used in the last incident was now full-blown.

“All Honda Civics more than five years old,” he said, not an ounce of joy in his voice.

Molly glared at him. “For goodness' sakes, Jesse, if you already knew that, why all the shouting and—”

He raised his palms to her. “I'm sorry, Molly. Do me a favor and get Healy on the phone for me. I've got to think.”

“Don't worry about raising your voice at me. Not the first time and I'll live, but what is it?”

Jesse pulled open his desk's right-hand drawer. He searched through some papers piled up inside and came out with a brown envelope. He handed it to Molly. “Go ahead, open it.”

Inside was an 8x10 color photograph of Jenn. It was a candid shot of her in the sun at an outdoor café.

Molly was confused. “It's not Jenn at her best, but so what?”

“Flip it over.”

On the back was a handwritten note, the lettering neat and square. The note read:

Do you ask a praying mantis why?

Now Molly got that same sickly feeling in her belly and said, “Oh my God, Jesse. It's him.”

Jesse nodded. “Uh-huh. Mr. Peepers.”

“You still want me to get Healy on the phone?”

“I do . . . and get Suit in off patrol. Get him in here right now. He's got to be alerted.”

Molly was gone. Jesse picked his old glove off his desk and pounded the ball into the pocket so hard it might have shaken the windows.

S
uit wasn't having any luck with his concentration that morning. Patrol was going smoothly enough, like it almost always did. He supposed he had liked his life well enough, but it had been pretty boring. Being a cop in Paradise wasn't exactly life on the mean streets. It was mostly parking tickets, the occasional bar fight, and traffic control when the town filled up during the annual regatta. He thought about how different it had been for Jesse. Jesse had done things, big things, in his life. Besides being one step away from Dodger Stadium, Jesse had been out there in the world. He'd kicked ass and solved murders. He'd been married to a newscaster, for crissakes. The glory in Suit's life had come and gone with his high school graduation. Suit knew that his constantly comparing himself to Jesse was unhealthy. It had nearly gotten him killed. But it wasn't Jesse or the scars on his abdomen that were ruining his concentration, not today.

“Car four to base,” Suit said into his car mic.

“What's up, Suit?”

“What's up with you? You sound out of breath.”

“Jesse's got me running around looking for reports.”

“It's quiet out here. I'm going ten-sixty-three.”

“Little early for lunch,” she said.

“Never too early for lunch,” he said, letting Molly believe it was food he was stopping for.

“Roger that.”

Suit pulled the car up in front of Elena's house, but he didn't get out. He sat there for a few minutes, frozen with panic over what he was about to do. He wasn't given to profound thoughts, not that he wasn't smart. It was just that he tried not to dwell on things. Yet after reconnecting with Elena, it had occurred to him that he had been lonely for too long. He had never lacked for friends. Suit knew he was a likeable guy. Imposing as his size made him, people felt comfortable around him. Nor had he lacked for the company of women. The problem was his relationships with women were usually short-lived and often carried out under cover of darkness. There was never any future in them, just temporary comfort. But nothing focuses a man's mind like facing his own mortality. As hard as he tried not to think about getting shot, it was impossible to escape.

He took three deep breaths and got out of the cruiser. He stuck his hand in his pocket, got panicky again when he couldn't find the ring. Then relaxed a little bit when he found it. He had thought about doing this in some romantic way like they did it in the movies. He'd meet her down in Boston or even New York for a weekend, making dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant, and then having the ring delivered to the table as part of her dessert. He'd considered taking her to a Sox game and having a plane fly overhead, trailing a banner with his proposal on it. But he realized that he loved her too much for that stuff and that Elena would be embarrassed by it. She was too private a person. And they had both agreed to keep their relationship to themselves until they had a sense of where it would go.

Luther “Suitcase” Simpson had a sense of where he wanted it to go from the first time he had seen Elena Wheatley all those years ago. Now he was sure of where it was going and he was sure life was too short to spend another minute apart from her if he didn't have to. He wanted to share his joy with the world and the rest of his life with Elena.

He stepped around the cruiser and up the walk. The beads of sweat on his brow had nothing to do with the heat of the day. He knocked at her door, not wanting to let himself in. He hadn't let her know he was coming. He was about to knock again when the door pulled back. Suit beamed at the sight of her in a bathrobe, her wet hair dripping onto her shoulders.

“Luther . . . this is a happy surprise,” she said, smiling, waving him inside. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine, good. Everything's good.” His voice was brittle.

Elena threaded herself between his big arms and pressed her body close to his. The light coconut-and-floral scent of her conditioner filled up Suit's head and he was lost for a second. Then Elena tilted her head back and said, “So what's up, Officer Simpson?”

He didn't speak, plunging his right hand into his pocket, fishing for the ring. Then, just as he was about to pull it out of his pocket, the radio crackled.

“Suit.” It was Molly. “Get back in here. Now.”

He dropped the ring into his pocket, raised his right arm, and pressed the talk button on the mic on his shoulder. “But I'm—”

“Right now, Suit. Jesse wants you in immediately.”

“Roger that.”

“What's that about?” Elena asked.

Suit shrugged and kissed her hard on the mouth. “I've got to go.”

“I love you, Luther.”

He smiled at her, kissed her on the top of her head. “Me, too. Very much.”

Back in the cruiser, he patted his pocket and hoped it would go easier the next time he tried to propose.

H
e had called Healy, but hadn't explained why he'd asked him to come to the station house. After talking to Healy, he'd called back the Boston Homicide detective to apologize for hanging up on him. Jesse made a perfectly reasonable excuse about an emergency situation popping up just as he'd called. The detective seemed only too willing to accept the little-town chief's excuse and rushed him off the phone without bothering to ask why he'd called in the first place. That suited Jesse fine. The bigger issue was that Jesse suddenly knew things that other cops would want to know, but he wasn't sure he could risk telling them . . . at least not yet. That was where Healy would come into it.

Suit, still wound up over having nearly proposed marriage, was annoying Molly, eating donuts, and drinking coffee. Suit was basically his old self now that he was back on patrol again, but Jesse worried about him. He had always worried a little more about Suit than he did about his other cops, even before the shooting. Suit was a living example of the adage that men grow old, but never grow up, and his still-boyish face only served to drive the point home. He was a kid in a big man's body. The question in Jesse's head was, What
would happen if Suit ever had to pull his weapon again? Would he hesitate? Worse, would he be too quick to shoot? The department shrink had given Suit a clean bill of health, but Jesse worried just the same. Back in L.A. he had seen what violent encounters could do to even the most experienced cops. Shooting another human being, even one as detestable as Mr. Peepers, comes at a price. Getting shot yourself comes with an even bigger price.

When Healy showed up, Molly called in to Jesse to let him know.

“You and Suit come in, too. Tell Suit to bring in two extra chairs.”

Healy was in golfing mode today but had already managed to make his attire look well lived-in. The worry over his wife was evident in his eyes. Molly was concerned. You could read it on her face like a bold headline. Suit was Suit. He would take things as they came and deal with them then. Jesse took the bottle of Tullamore Dew out of his drawer and waved it at Healy. Healy nodded his approval.

“Molly? Suit?” Jesse asked.

Molly nodded, too. Suit looked at Molly like she'd sprouted a second head. For Molly to drink on duty, things had to be seriously wrong.

“You better have one, too, Suit,” Jesse said, pouring three shots into the red plastic cups.

“What's going on, Jesse?” Suit asked, taking the cup off the chief's desk.

Jesse said, “I'll get to that in a second, Suit. First I need to talk to Captain Healy, but you two should stay.”

“You got my attention,” Healy said, sipping at the fine Irish whiskey.

Jesse stood, turned his back to the others in the room, and stared out his window at Stiles Island beyond.

“Healy, what if I told you that I'm sure Gino Fish didn't kill his
receptionist and that he only killed himself to save himself from an even more painful death?”

The captain laughed a strange, strangled kind of a laugh, but stopped when he noticed no one else was laughing with him. “I'd say you should start drinking again, because being sober isn't doing a damned thing to make you more clearheaded.”

“And what if I could tell you who killed the old woman, the cabbie, and the dog in Salem?”

Healy didn't laugh this time. “Yeah, who?”

Jesse didn't answer, not directly, this time turning to look at his old friend. “And what if I told you that the same person was responsible for both crimes and for all the tires getting shot out in Paradise over the last few weeks?”

“I'd say I'm getting tired of you asking me questions and that I'm ready to hear your answer.”

“Fair enough,” Jesse said. Then he turned to Molly. “Go to the evidence locker and get out any two of the bullets recovered from the car tires.”

Molly did as she was asked.

“What's going on, Jesse?” Healy asked the same question both Molly and Suit had asked before him.

Jesse didn't answer, choosing to wait until Molly returned. When she did, she handed two plastic evidence bags to Jesse, who in turn put them in front of Healy.

“You have your ballistics guys run those with the bullets the ME pulled out of the Salem vics and they'll match.”

Healy held the bags up to the light. “Yeah, they look like .22s, but even in Massachusetts, there are a lot of .22 handguns floating around.”

“Same gun,” Jesse said. “Same ammo. I'd bet on it.”

“Okay, so let's say what you claim checks out. Then what? I still need a name. Do you have a name for me?”

“Sort of.”

Healy banged his empty cup on Jesse's desk. “‘Sort of'?”

“Sort of.”

“Are you going to share with the class, Jesse, or do you expect me to guess? You know I got a lot going on in my life right now and I don't have a lot of patience for this stuff.”

“Here's my problem, Healy,” he said, pouring a second shot into the captain's cup. “If I tell you the name, I need you to sit on the information. Lives depend on it. Probably the lives of the people in this room and their families.”

Healy didn't flinch. “I can do that for a few days, sure. Wouldn't be the first time I sat on things.”

Jesse shook his head slowly. “Not a couple of days, Healy. A month, maybe a little more.”

Healy looked sick, as if the whiskey had turned to battery acid in his belly. “I can't do—”

Jesse took the brown envelope back out of his desk and pushed it over to Healy. And when the captain saw the writing on the back of Jenn's photo, he knew as Molly knew before him.

“Jesus!” he said. “Not him again.”

Suit had had enough. “Not who again? C'mon, guys. I'm tired of being the only one in here who doesn't know the secret. Who are we talking about?”

Molly, Healy, and Jesse looked at one another, then all turned to look at Suit.

“Mr. Peepers,” they said, as if in a single voice.

And for the first time in all the years they had worked together, Jesse saw real fear on Suit's face.