The Nomination (31 page)

“You can't be responsible for somebody else's happiness,” said Jessie softly. “Nobody can do that.”

“My mom made him happy,” Katie whispered. She dropped her forehead onto Jessie's shoulder, but her arms remained rigid at her sides, as if she was fighting the urge to return Jessie's hug.

“Nobody will ever take your mom's place,” Jessie said.

She felt Katie stiffen. She was afraid that the girl would pull away from her. But after a moment, Katie said, “Was Simone really your mother?”

“I think so.”

“I met her,” said Katie.

“I wish I had,” said Jessie.

“She was really nice.”

Jessie nodded.

Katie was silent for a moment. Then, in a whisper, she said, “So how does it feel, having your mother die before you even got to meet her?”

“It makes me sad,” said Jessie.

Katie put her arms around Jessie's waist, gave her a quick, tentative hug, and then pulled away. “I've got to stir the sauce,” she said. She turned to the stove.

“What can I do to help?” Jessie said.

“You can set the table if you want.”

That
, thought Jessie,
is progress
.

THAT EVENING AFTER dinner Jessie sat on the bed in Mac Cassidy's guest room and took out her cell phone. She realized she'd forgotten to call Jimmy Nunziato. He worried about her, which was sweet, and he wanted her to call and tell him she was all right.

Speed-dial eleven, he'd said.

It rang four or five times before it clicked over to voicemail. Then a recorded female voice said, “We are sorry. This person's mailbox is full. Please try again later.”

Jessie hit the
end
button. Hm. That was totally unlike Jimmy Nunz. He deleted all his messages as soon as he heard them. In his business, any kind of record was risky. Nunz was extremely careful. His clients depended on it. He carried his cell with him and answered it when it rang. If for some reason he couldn't answer, he retrieved the message as soon as he could and then erased it.

She tried it again, and got the same message.

She bunched the pillows up and lay back with her head propped up on them. She tried to understand it.

She didn't like what she was thinking.

She went to her duffel bag, took out her laptop computer, and put it on the little desk where there was a cable hookup. Five minutes later she was Googling the name James Nunziato.

There were way more James Nunziatos than Jessie had ever imagined. She narrowed it to “Chicago” and found the item she expected—and feared—from Sunday's
Tribune
.

“Chicago Printer Murdered,” the headline read.

Her eyes raced over the brief story. James Nunziato, age fiftyseven, found Saturday morning in his print shop on West 16th Street. He'd been shot twice. According to the police, it appeared that he'd interrupted a burglary.

Jessie hugged herself.

Interrupted a burglary. Right.

Bullshit.

She had Dave Aronson's cell phone number stored in her computer.

He answered on the third ring. “Lieutenant Aronson,” he said. “Who's this?”

“It's Jessie,” she said. “Jessie Church.”

“Jesus,” said Aronson. “Jessie. Where the hell have you been? You okay?”

“Dave, listen. I've got a question for you.”

“Yeah,” he said, “me, I'm fine, the kids are both doing good, growing up, you know, and the wife, she's okay, tryin' to lose some weight, and my mother had that stroke, but she's hanging in there, thanks for asking.”

“Aw, hell,” said Jessie. “I'm sorry. I'm just kind of frantic here.”

“Sure, Jess. Don't worry about it. What can I do for you?”

“Jimmy Nunziato. What happened?”

“You knew Jimmy Nunz, right?”

“Yes,” said Jessie.

“Then you know what he did for a living, who he associated with.”

“I know all that, yes. And I see that he got killed. What can you tell me about it that I didn't read in the papers?”

Aronson hesitated. “There was one thing.”

“What's that?”

“This is between us cops.”

“Sure,” she said. “Of course.”

“They, um, did a pretty good job on Jimmy before they shot him.”

“You mean . . . ?”

“Nunz knew something, and by the looks of him they used a knife, Jess. It wasn't pretty.”

Jessie took a deep breath. Then she said, “Okay, Dave. I was hoping it was something else, but it's what I needed to know. Thanks a lot. Give my best to your wife and kids and mother, okay?”

“Any time, Jess.”

Jessie lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

Howie Cohen
, she thought.
You son of a bitch
.

Then she thought:
I've really gotta get away from here
.

J
essie stared up at the ceiling in Mac Cassidy's guest room. Aside from the bluish glow of her laptop computer screen, the room was dark. Ghostly shadows danced across the wall, leafy tree branches swaying in the breeze, backlit by a streetlight. When she was a kid, night shadows like that scared her. She supposed they still did.

What happened to Jimmy Nunziato was her fault. She had no doubt about that.

She knew it would forever be on her conscience. She should never have involved Nunz. It was sloppy and inconsiderate and ultimately fatal. She should've known that Howie Cohen would latch on to him sooner or later. Jimmy was an old friend. That was no secret. And what he did for people who wanted to disappear was widely known. It was a simple deduction for Cohen to figure out that Jessie would go to Jimmy Nunz, and it was logical for him to send a couple of his men to find out what Nunz knew.

Knowing Jimmy Nunziato, she was sure he'd held out as long as he could. But eventually he would've had to tell them what he knew. No matter how brave he might've been—and Jimmy Nunziato was as tough as they came—a man can tolerate only so much cutting.

So Cohen would now know that Jessie's new name was Karen Marie Donato, that her hair was short and blonde, that she was driving a Jeep Cherokee with Illinois plates registered to Mary Ferrone.

What Cohen didn't know, because Jimmy Nunziato couldn't possibly have told him, was Jessie's destination. She'd been careful to drop no hints when she'd been with Jimmy. She might be heading east. That's the most he could've said.

Sooner or later, Howie Cohen would track her down. He had nothing but time—the rest of his life in a federal prison in Maryland, to be exact. He'd sent that man Lesneski to the Muir Woods to kill her, and if he hadn't done it already, pretty soon he'd send somebody else to Concord, Massachusetts . . . or wherever she ended up. And if she changed her appearance again, and got a new identity, and found some out-of-the-way place to hide, it would still only be a matter of time. Something would happen, like her picture finding its way into a newspaper.

Men like Howie Cohen never gave up.

After Jimmy fixed her up with her new identity, her new car, her new cell phone, Jessie had begun to allow herself to feel safe. She should've known better. It was a dangerous illusion. The first rule in undercover work: Sooner or later, feeling safe would kill you. Thinking you were out of harm's way was fatally harmful.

She'd let Mac take her to that Thai restaurant where she'd been noticed, no doubt, by people who knew Mac, knew what had happened to his wife. His neighbors and acquaintances, people around town, they'd remember her. They'd talk about her, a little harmless gossip over the back fence. That poor Mac Cassidy, lost his wife a year ago? He had a date the other night. What do you think of that? A pretty blonde, Asian eyes, looked a bit younger than him. Never saw her before. Katie, his daughter, poor child, she was with them . . .

Who knew how many neighbors had spotted her and had noticed the Jeep Cherokee with Illinois plates that was parked in Mac Cassidy's driveway?

And who knew what Katie might've told her friends, and her friends might have told their parents, and on and on, about this blonde woman with the Asian eyes who just appeared out of nowhere, who was staying in their guest room, who her father seemed to have a crush on. Her name was Karen Donato.

No longer would that name hide Jessie's true identity from Howie Cohen. If she wasn't safe, then as long as she was in Mac's house, neither were he and Katie. She needed to put as much distance between herself and them as possible. With a sense of dread, she thought of Simone's killers. Mac and Katie were already in danger. Jessie was one of the few people who could protect them. If she stayed, they were at risk, if she left they were at risk. Either way, she lost.

Jessie went back to her laptop and checked the train and bus schedules leading out of Massachusetts. Even without a credit card or an automobile, you could get to anywhere from anywhere in this vast country if you had enough cash.

She had plenty of cash. All she had to do was pick a city, an absolutely random city where she had no friends or connections of any kind. A city where Howie Cohen would never think to look for her. A city where she could get a fresh start.

Or maybe it was time to put that passport to use. Just get the hell out of the country once and for all. Portugal, maybe. Or Thailand. Those were two places Jessie had always wanted to see.

JESSIE WOKE UP early, but she waited in her room until she heard Katie leave for school. She wanted to keep this as simple and uncomplicated as possible.

She pulled on jeans, T-shirt, sneakers. She took her little Colt Mustang automatic out of her duffel bag and made sure it was loaded. She dropped the gun, along with a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses, and her cell phone, into her shoulder bag, which already held a roll of twenties and fifties, a can of Mace, a whistle, a pair of handcuffs, a Swiss Army knife, and a roll of duct tape—the standard precautionary items that she'd been carrying with her since the beginning of her days with the cops.

She found Mac downstairs in his office peering at his computer monitor. She stood in the doorway and cleared her throat.

He turned, looked her up and down, and smiled. “Hey. Good morning. Going somewhere?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I've got some things to do. I'll be back later to pick up my stuff, and then I'll be on my way.”

He nodded. “You going to need money or anything?”

“I'm all set with money,” she said, “but when I get back, I need you to do me a favor. You'll be around?”

He shrugged. “Sure. No problem.”

“Okay, good, thanks.” Jessie smiled. “Well, okay. Gotta go.” She gave him a quick wave, turned, and got the hell out of there.

She realized, with a little shock, that she was sorry she wouldn't have the chance to get to know Mac Cassidy better.

JESSIE DROVE HER Cherokee toward Boston. She'd been to the old city several times, and she liked it. It had personality, not to mention great restaurants. Boston had the same neighborhood feel to it as San Francisco. What she mainly remembered about it, though, was the confusion of the streets, how they were laid out so haphazardly, how most of them were narrow and one-way—almost always the wrong way, no matter where you were trying to go—and how the people who'd been driving her around always seemed to get lost, even though they were supposedly Boston natives.

Well, this time Jessie didn't care where in the city she ended up. Her mission was simple.

She took Route 2 eastbound from Concord, and pretty soon she found herself on Storrow Drive heading into the city, with the Prudential and John Hancock buildings towering off to her right and the Charles River on her left. It was a sunny June day. Sailboats and skulls skimmed over the water, and joggers and inline skaters and cyclists were cruising the pathways along the riverbank, and young people were sunbathing on the grass. It gave Jessie a pang to see how carefree they all seemed to be.

She couldn't remember a time when she'd been carefree. She had no idea what it felt like not to have worries and problems and pressures.

She turned onto Charles Street so that she wouldn't have to negotiate the bridges and ramps and exit options that she saw looming ahead of her. Charles was narrow and one-way, of course, with cars parked densely along both sides. It curved around the bottom of Beacon Hill.

She took the first left off Charles, a one-way street that climbed steeply up the hill. It was narrow and quiet and leafy and lined with brownstones and townhouses. Very few cars were parked at the curb. Jessie read one of the signs: TOW ZONE. RESIDENT PARKING. PERMIT ONLY.

Perfect.

She pulled the Cherokee against the curb right under one of those signs. She emptied the contents of the glove compartment—Mary Ferrone's registration, a few road maps, a couple of gas receipts—into her bag. She looked under the seats, front and back, and assured herself that it was clean.

She left the key in the ignition.

Then she got out, took her cap and sunglasses from her bag, put them on, and walked down the hill, heading for the subway station she'd noticed at the end of Charles Street.

She figured if the Cherokee didn't get stolen first, it would accumulate parking tickets for a couple of days before some resident complained. Then the traffic police would have it towed to a lot somewhere in the city, where it would wait for its owner to come and bail it out.

She didn't know what would happen when nobody claimed it. Maybe they'd try to get in touch with Mary Ferrone, in whose name the car was registered in Illinois. Maybe it would just sit there and rust.

Jessie didn't care. She was rid of it, and Howie Cohen couldn't use it to track her down.

She had more things to do before she could get her new life underway. But dumping the car was an important first step.

As she walked down Charles Street, she came upon a hair salon between an antique shop and a French restaurant. She peered in the window and saw that two hairdressers were standing by the front counter talking. All the chairs seemed empty.

So Jessie went in, and they took her right away. Turned her into a redhead. Gave her curls.

When Jessie looked at herself in the mirror, she grinned. She liked it. She'd never been a redhead before.

The Boston subway system seemed to be about as haphazard as the layout of its streets, but eventually Jessie made it to the North Station, which was the terminus of the metropolitan commuter train system.

The next train wouldn't get to Concord until 3:25 in the afternoon. By the time she walked from the station to Mac's house, it would be close to four.

She had hoped not to have to say good-bye to Katie, but she figured the girl would be home from school and it couldn't be avoided.

She liked being with them. She felt sort of motherly with Katie. And with Mac . . . ?

She wished her life were different. She wished she could be ordinary, just be Jessie and not Carol Ann Chang or Karen Marie Donato. She wished she could just relax and allow herself to love a man. Maybe to love this sweet, sad man, this Mac.

But she couldn't.

MAC SPENT THE morning on the Internet, collecting and storing in his computer everything he could find about Judge Thomas Larrigan.