Trouble in Paradise (17 page)

”Oh, yes,“ she said.

”Chief Stone. What brings you here?“

”Well I was hoping to talk with Mr. Smith. Is he home?“

What did he want? Why was he here? The thing on Stiles Island had already started. How could it be a coincidence? She had to make him talk. She had to know.

”No, I’m sorry. He’s not, may I help you with something?“

Faye noticed that there were at least two more cops below in the cruiser.

”I don’t know,“ Jesse said.

”May I come in?“

”Of course.“

She stepped away from the door, and Jesse went into the apartment. The wall opposite was all glass and looked straight out onto Boston Harbor, with the Boston skyline across the water. The doorway to the bedroom was ajar, and Jesse noticed that the ceiling was mirrored. Atta girl, Mrs. Smith. She was a good-looking woman.

Nice body, looked strong.

”Coffee?“ she said.

”Or something stronger? I suppose I shouldn’t say that, should I? You being a policeman on duty and such She did the fluttery housewife thing pretty well, Jesse thought, but if you paid attention there were a lot of little details that suggested strength, not flutter.

“Nothing, thank you, Mrs. Smith. May I sit?”

“Of course. Please call me Rocky.”

“Short for?”

“Roxanne,” she said.

Jesse nodded. Faye marveled at how she’d pulled “Roxanne” out of the air. What the hell would “Rocky” be short for?

“Do you know anyone named Wilson Cromartie?” Jesse said.

“Wilson Cromartie, no. I can’t say I do,” she said.

It was an easy lie for Faye because when he said the name, it didn’t mean anything. Only as she was saying it over, did she realize that it was Crow.

“Maybe you don’t know him by that name,” Jesse said.

“He’s an American Indian. Says he’s Apache, calls himself Crow.”

“I’m sorry, Chief Stone. I really don’t know anyone like that.”

Jesse nodded again. He was pleasant and easy speaking. But Jimmy had said he was more than he seemed.

“How about anyone named James Macklin?” Jesse said.

Jesus Christ. Faye felt the thrill of fear jag through her intestines. How much does he know?

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“You’re not sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. It’s just that you meet so many people…”

“A maroon Chevy van registered to Wilson Cromartie was parked underneath this condo Sunday night, and three men, one of whom appeared to be an American Indian, came out of this condo and got into the van and drove away.”

He knows something’s up, Faye thought. But he doesn’t know what. If he knew what, he wouldn’t waste time talking to me like this.

“They were here to see Harry,” she said.

“I don’t think he knew them very well.”

“What were they here to see Harry about?”

“I don’t know. They had some sort of business proposal. I believe Harry wasn’t interested.”

“What’s Harry’s business?” Jesse said.

Mrs. Smith smiled.

“He always says he’s like a strapless gown no visible means of support,” she said.

“I guess you’d say he was an entrepreneur. Real estate. Banking. Stocks and bonds. Buys a business, builds it up, sells it at a profit. I frankly don’t pay a bunch of attention to my husband’s businesses.”

“Wilson Cromartie is a career criminal,” Jesse said.

“He is? My God. I didn’t spend any time with them, but he seemed perfectly nice when I let them in.”

“I thought you should know,” Jesse said.

“I’ll tell Harry. Maybe he knows. Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t do business with them.”

Jesse sat quietly looking at her. Everything she said was plausible. And Jesse didn’t believe any of it. Something was going on. But he had no basis to arrest her or search her home or do anything else but what he’d done. He took a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Mrs. Smith.

“Please ask your husband to give me a call when he comes in,” Jesse said.

She put the card down, face up, on the glass-topped coffee table.

“Of course,” she said.

Jesse stood. She stood with him and walked with him to the door.

Driving out of the Navy Yard, Suitcase glanced at Jesse.

“Just the woman in there?”

Jesse nodded.

“So you didn’t need us?”

“Nope, I was able to hold her at bay.”

They were quiet as they drove toward City Square. Jesse sat beside Suitcase. Anthony De Angelo sat in back.

“You happen to fuck her, Jesse?” Anthony said.

“Not this time,” Jesse said.

“Good to know there’s someone,” Anthony said.

He and Suitcase chortled lengthily as the cruiser turned onto the ramp and headed north over the Tobin Bridge.

Jesse said, “You guys have little interest in making sergeant, I assume.”

This made both of them chortle harder, as the cruiser headed back to Paradise.

FORTY-FOUR

Nothing had happened to her, and maybe nothing would.
Harry and the Indian had paid no more attention to her as she lay on the couch. Two other men came in.

Would they do something to her? The taller of the new men had a red ponytail;

the other one was smaller and had his black hair slicked into a duck tail My Godt a duck tail Both men looked at her curiously.

“Dessert?” JD said to Macklin, Marcy felt the terror again, rippling through her like an electric serpent.

“Leave her alone,” Macklin said.

“Shame to waste her,” JD said.

“You touch her, and you’ll have to explain it to Crow after we’re finished,” Macklin said.

JD looked at Crow. Crow glanced at him for a moment. JD made a motion that might have been a shrug or a shiver.

“She’s safe with me,” JD said.

“She better be,” Macklin said.

“I’m going to ask her when we come back.”

Marcy felt the serpent again. They had come in here and pointed a gun at her and tied her up and gagged her, but she had already begun to see them as protectors. She didn’t want them to leave her with these other men. She made a noise.

“You breathing okay?” Macklin said.

She nodded.

“Want to go to the bathroom?”

Marcy shook her head.

“You’re scared of these guys,” Macklin said.

“No need. They won’t touch you, will they Crow?”

“They won’t,” Crow said.

Marcy could hear in his voice what the two men heard, and she realized they wouldn’t dare cross him. She felt grateful to the Indian.

“Sit tight,” Macklin said to Fran and JD.

“Don’t answer the phone unless it’s me. Monitor the calls on the answering machine. We’ll be back in half an hour.”

Mr. Smith and the Indian went out the door and Marcy was alone with the two strange men. They both looked at her silently for a moment and then ignored her.

The Stiles Island Patrol was part of a security company called Citadel Security, which was run by a former Marine captain named Kurt Billups. Billups dressed his men like drill instructors complete with campaign hats tilted sharply down over their noses. There were no fat, aging rent-a-cops on the Stiles Island Patrol. All his men were trim and neat. Their pistol belts were polished. Their shoes gleamed. The khaki shirts had military creases in them. The red and white Ford sedans they drove were always clean. Like most of the patrol, Michael Deering and Dan Moncrief were Marine Corps veterans. Deering had been to the Gulf. Moncrief had spent his full enlistment in San Diego. Deering was driving, and both were drinking the first coffee of the day as they came over the hill on Sea Street with the morning sun warming the car.

They were on the seaward side of Stiles Island, at the point farthest from the bridge. There was a long section of Sea Street reserved as green space by the resort planners. There were no houses on that section, and the trees came down to either side of the road.

Kids used it sometimes to drink beer and smoke pot. And people with dogs brought them here to let them run despite the Island leash law. This morning there was a maroon Chevy van skidded off the road, and a man lying in the street beside it. As Deering and Moncrief drove toward the scene, a man struggled out of the van and crouched beside the prone figure. Deering pulled over on the opposite side of the street, and he and Moncrief got out and walked across.

“What happened?” Deering said.

The man on the ground rolled over onto his back and shot Deering through the forehead. Moncrief didn’t even get his hand onto his gun before the man on the ground shot him through the forehead too.

“Nice,” Macklin said.

Crow got up, let the hammer down on his gun, dropped the magazine from the handle, methodically replaced the two rounds, slapped the magazine back up into the handle, and holstered the weapon. Then he and Macklin pulled the two dead men by their ankles into the woods. Macklin stripped the uniform shirt from Deering. Crow began to cover them with leaves and branches.

Macklin drove the patrol car into the woods on the other side of the street and piled boughs they had already cut to conceal it.

They got into the van together, Macklin driving, and pulled away. The killings and concealment had taken three minutes and eight seconds.

“Gatekeeper?” Crow said.

“Yep.”

“Who you going to put in there?”

“On the bridge? Fran. He says he can blow the bridge from there.”

“Perfect.”

FORTY-FIVE

Jesse was in the donut shop with Suitcase Simpson.
Suitcase had two Boston cream donuts on a paper plate in front of him.

“Suit, those things will kill you,” Jesse said.

“Then I’ll go happy,” Suitcase said and put half of the first donut into his mouth.

As he chewed, he fished in his shirt pocket and got out his notebook. Suitcase put the notebook on the counter and leafed through it with his left hand while he held the donut in his right, leaning over the counter so that it wouldn’t leak onto his notebook.

When he got enough of the donut chewed and swallowed, Suitcase said, “I got some stuff on this guy Macklin.”

Jesse sipped his coffee. It was 10:00 in the morning. The donut shop was almost empty after the early commuter rush, and the counter people were bustling around cleaning up napkins and newspapers and throwing away stray paper cups. A guy in a white apron and tee shirt brought out a big basket of new donuts, and the smell of them mixed happily with the scent of coffee.

“Macklin’s a career criminal,” Suit said.

“Mostly armed robbery. Got out of MCI Concord about six months ago. Done time in Arizona and Florida and Michigan. Got a girlfriend named Faye Valentine been with him as far back as we go.”

“Description?”

“Better,” Suitcase said and produced a mug shot.

“Harry Smith,” Jesse said.

Suitcase nodded. He was proud of any detective work he did, even if it were simply back-checking. Jesse handed the picture back to Suitcase.

“Nice work, Suit,” he said.

Suitcase’s naturally high color deepened.

“There’s more,” he said.

“There’s a notation that anybody got information on Macklin should contact a homicide detective at Boston Police Headquarters.”

“Which you did,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, I went to see him.”

Jesse knew that Suitcase could have called, but the chance to go into the big city police station and talk with the big city homicide cop, man to man, was more than the kid could resist. It made Jesse want to smile. But he didn’t. And it wasn’t a bad thing for a young cop to be excited by the job. Suitcase took a moment to finish his first donut. He wiped some cream filling off the corner of his mouth.

“Sergeant named Belson,” Suitcase said.

“Been trying to catch Macklin for ten, fifteen years, he said.”

“Homicide cop?”

“Yeah. Says he knows Macklin murdered some people but he can’t prove it, and he has taken, like, a personal interest.”

“Macklin’s his hobby,” Jesse said.

Suitcase looked at Jesse with nearly blatant admiration.

“Yeah, that’s just the expression Belson used. Hobby. Macklin is his personal hobby, he said.”

Jesse nodded. He knew that Suit would file that phrase and eventually somewhere in his career would use it, and, because he was going to be a good cop, would in fact make somebody his personal hobby some day.

“He tell you about it?”

“Yeah. He says Macklin’s a stone killer. Says there was a hostage situation in a liquor store heist couple years back in Brighton, before Macklin went to Concord. Robber held the clerk and two customers hostage when a silent alarm tripped and the cops showed up and caught him in the act. Store was in a mall, and they sealed off the front and the back. But he apparently found a way out by going through the cellar and up the stairs into one of those discount department stores next door. Nobody ever got a good look at the robber, except the hostages. When our side got in, the hostages were shot dead and the perp was gone.”

“Belson thinks it was Macklin.”

“Says he knows it was. Says a snitch he trusts told him off the record. But he could never come up with anything other than the snitch’s word, and the snitch wouldn’t testify.”

“Scared of Macklin?”

“Terrified, Belson says. And even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t be enough. It’s hearsay.”

“Why’s he so sure it’s Macklin?”

“He was in the area. They’ve established that. He’s living good with no visible means. Weapon was a nine-millimeter handgun. Not a rarity, but Macklin’s gun of choice. And, Belson says, it’s Macklin’s style. He doesn’t mind killing people. Back as far as Belson can trace him, he’s solved his problems by shooting them. Doesn’t seem to bother him at all.”

“Belson know anything about Wilson Cromartie?”

“No.”

“Anything about Faye what’s-her-last-name?”

Suitcase checked his notebook.

“Valentine,” he said.

“Just that he knows that she’s been with him a long time.”

“Odd a guy like that is faithful,” Jesse said.

“Maybe he ain’t,” Suitcase said.