Robert B. Parker's the Bitterest Pill

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Selectman?”

  “This won’t do, Chief Stone. It cannot stand. She was a lovely girl, and, if you were unaware, my goddaughter.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “As always, you are ever so effusive.”

  “I’m already looking into it.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing yet. We know what killed her. Now we have to find out where she got it and why she was using it.”

  “Keep me apprised.”

  Jesse was tempted to say some things he would regret. Regardless of his time on the job here and in L.A., he could never stomach people who thought any one victim was more important than another simply because of their good looks, the color of their skin, or the size of their bank accounts. If Heather Mackey had been the daughter of a family from the Swap, Jesse wouldn’t have cared any less. But Jesse, who had never enjoyed playing politics, had come a long way because of the things he had learned in AA. He couldn’t control what R. Jean Gray thought, said, or believed, but he could control his own actions.

  “I will let you know when we make progress, Mr. Selectman,” Jesse said. When Gray walked away, Jesse said a few other choice things only he could hear.

  * * *

  —

  MOLLY HAD GONE back into the viewing room, and Jesse saw she was visibly shaken. Two of Molly’s girls were in college, but two were still at home and one of them was a junior like Heather. He wanted to throw his arm over her shoulders but was very careful to never show any form of intimacy with Molly in public. Her job was difficult enough without having to deal with whispers about the two of them. If there was one lesson about small-town life that Jesse had learned early on, it was that rumors spread fast and there was no way to fight back.

  The casket lid was raised, and all the ugly autopsy stitchery on her body was covered by her dress. Owing to his past, Jesse had always found those brutal stitches reminded him of the seams on a baseball. Not just then. He had been through this ritual hundreds of times in L.A. and here in Paradise, but this was the first time since Cole had come into his life. Jesse both hated and loved the ways in which Cole had changed him. It bothered him that he was having trouble distancing himself the way he had always been able to previously.

  It occurred to him that he might already have been changed if he had seen Diana in her coffin, but her family blamed Jesse for her death and had banned him from attending. They weren’t alone in their beliefs. Jesse blamed himself, too, and there was no way they could punish him any more than he punished himself. His guilt over her murder is what had driven him so deeply down into the bottle of Johnny Walker Black. When he finally hit the bottom he made the choice, with help from Tamara and Molly, to swim back up and climb out forever. Forever was a long way away. Jesse was concerned only with each individual day.

  Molly wasn’t the only person shaken by Heather’s death. Obviously, her parents were devastated, and both were up front, both were crying. That wasn’t exactly unexpected, but the death of a teenager sends shock waves through a community. It also reminded everyone of just how fragile and vulnerable they all were. There were lots of tears and stunned faces in the room and very little talking.

  Jesse checked his watch. He had to get something to eat and get to a meeting. He tried not to skip too many days without a meeting if he could help it, and Heather’s death had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. That used to be a prescription for a half-bottle of Black Label in the company of Ozzie Smith’s poster. These days it meant a meeting and/or a call to Bill.

  “Molly,” he said in a whisper. “I’ve got to get to a meeting. Please give our condolences and tell the Mackeys I’ll be by tomorrow to share what progress I’ve made with them.”

  “Not tomorrow, Jesse. Funeral is tomorrow. Besides, you haven’t made any progress.”

  “The next day, then. I’m going to ask them questions, but I don’t need them to be any more tense and upset than necessary.”

  “Got it. And you don’t want them to prepare answers.”

  “Yeah, Molly, that, too.”

  * * *

  —

  OUTSIDE, JESSE SAW the parking lot was filling up, and many people passed by him on the way into the funeral home. Some stopped to shake his hand. Some nodded. Others waved. Most walked by him, zombielike, girding themselves for what they knew awaited them inside. When he got to his Explorer, he noticed a kid, a teenage boy by the parking-lot entrance, smoking the life out of a cigarette and pacing along the sidewalk under a streetlamp. There was something about the kid, dressed in black jeans, hundred-dollar red Nikes, and a black hoodie, that held Jesse’s attention. He wasn’t sure what it was, maybe the way the kid paced or his fidgety hand movements with the cigarette. He clicked the Explorer doors closed and walked toward the kid. He was on the short side, broad-shouldered, his dark blond hair spilling out of the left side of the hood. He was obviously distracted, lost in his own head, maybe, but whatever the reason, he didn’t seem to notice Jesse’s approach.

  Jesse was no more than ten feet away when the kid looked up. Jesse could see in the kid’s expression and in the reddened rims of his very deep blue eyes that he recognized him. The kid hesitated a beat, turned, and ran. Jesse wasn’t sure what to make of that. It wasn’t like a kid had never run away from a cop before, even an innocent kid. Still, there was something about the kid, and Jesse meant to find out what it was. He took off after the kid but lost him after he turned the corner.

  Thirteen

  After the meeting in the synagogue’s basement in Salem, Jesse debated whether to head straight home or to do what he was about to do. Though he had put in his work at the meeting, the kid in front of the funeral home kept pushing his way into Jesse’s consciousness. Some of Heather’s friends were at the viewing, but he could speak to them tomorrow, after the funeral. The kid with the blue eyes had been crying, but if he was that close to Heather, why not go in like everyone else? During the coffee break at the meeting Jesse realized the kid outside the funeral home was acting guilty. The question was, guilty of what?

  One of the things Jesse had learned early on in uniform was to watch the crowd that gathered at a crime scene. Some of them were there out of idle curiosity. Some were simply nosy. Some had no life and fed off the woes of others. But sometimes the guilty party was right there in the crowd, behind the sawhorses or the yellow tape, watching. They were curious, too. But their curiosity was neither idle nor innocent. Some, like arsonists, got off on seeing the results of their handiwork. They enjoyed watching the thing they’d lit up burn down. Others hung around to see what they could see and hear what they could hear about the investigation. It was amazing what you could learn at a crime scene if you knew how to observe one. Still others felt guilty for what they had done. They were the ones you saw in movies, the ones detectives said wanted to be caught. That was how the kid had seemed to Jesse, and that was why Jesse was standing next to the Pembroke Art Gallery and at the door of the adjoining warehouse.

  He pressed the buzzer to Maryglenn’s apartment/studio above the warehouse. He knew he could just as well have waited until morning and gone back to the high school, but there was something else on his mind besides the kid. Yesterday at lunch, both Daisy and Maryglenn had seemed odd. And when Jesse had asked about Maryglenn’s past, she changed the subject. Through the big old door Jesse heard Maryglenn coming down the steps.

  “Who is it?”

  “Jesse Stone.”

  The locks clicked and the door pulled back. Jesse was surprised to see Maryglenn out of her usual artist’s black pants and shirt. Instead she was wearing an elaborately patterned Asian robe made of a fabric that hung loosely off parts of her body and tightly to others.

  “I’m not used to seeing you out of uniform,” he said, smiling.

  There was a brief moment of confusion on her face. Then, when she realized what Jesse m
eant, she smiled back at him.

  “I do indeed own clothing that isn’t black or splattered with paint. Do your boxers have your badge number embroidered into them?”

  “How did you know?”

  She shook her head at him. “What’s up?”

  “I need to talk. Can I come up?”

  “This official business or some other kind of business?”

  “A little of both, I guess.”

  “Come on. Lock the door behind you.”

  * * *

  —

  JESSE HAD BEEN in Maryglenn’s place before, seen some of her work in progress, but those visits were during the madness surrounding the most violent incidents in Paradise since the assault on Stiles Island. This would be different on many levels. He knew it. She knew it, too. After scaling the stairs, Maryglenn pushed the door open and gestured for Jesse to go on in.

  “Tea?” she asked, closing her apartment door behind him. “Coffee?”

  “I just came from an AA meeting.”

  She seemed to understand. “Lots of coffee and cigarette breaks.”

  “Exactly. How do you know?”

  There it was again, the smile disappearing just like at lunch. “Water?”

  “Fine.”

  Maryglenn dug a plastic bottle out of her fridge and handed it to Jesse. Their hands touched as she gave it to him, and there was a spark there. They both felt it and they both knew it. But Jesse twisted off the cap and drank, while he stared out the windows on the backside of her studio and admired the view of the harbor area and of Stiles Island.

  She cleared her throat. “Jesse, not that I’m unhappy you’re here, but do you suppose you could fill me in on your reasons.”

  Jesse told her he had been at Heather’s viewing. He described the kid pacing out front, smoking a cigarette. “He had dark blond hair and red-rimmed blue eyes.”

  “Oh,” Maryglenn said, obviously disappointed, and plopped into a beat-up and scarred brown leather chair. “That’s Chris G.”

  “G.?”

  “Chris Grimm,” she said. “Told me once the family had changed their name from Grimolkowicz.”

  Jesse laughed. “I could understand that. Tough name to handle. Tell me about him.”

  “Kind of a shy, intense kid. A lot going on inside his head.”

  “Did you ever see him together with Heather?”

  “Not that I recall. Different types, Chris and Heather. She was a cheerleader and he was, you know, the brooding punk type. An outsider.”

  “You sound sympathetic to him.”

  “I was him, sort of,” she said. “Artists aren’t usually the popular kids with the rah-rah, sis-boom-bah ethic. You were a star athlete, so you probably knew lots of Heathers.”

  Jesse wanted to deny it, but lying wasn’t his thing. “I did.”

  Then he did something he couldn’t quite believe he was doing. He walked over to where Maryglenn was sitting, put down his bottled water, and lifted her out of the chair. He started to say something but just kissed her instead. The first kiss was a tentative one. He had to be certain he hadn’t misread her. The way she kissed him back indicated that he hadn’t, and things took their course from there.

  Fourteen

  Things happened so quickly after she kissed him back that neither of them thought to stop to make sure this was what they wanted. On some level, of course, it was. They knew that. For the most part, Jesse thought, opening his eyes in the darkness, people do what they want. He also understood there were many times a second’s hesitation would save people a lot of heartache. He climbed out of Maryglenn’s bed and stumbled his way into the bathroom. He tried not to make too much noise as he showered, but as he showered he got lost in thought.

  The sex had been good, a little awkward for both of them, as it was bound to be with people unfamiliar with each other’s body. And Jesse realized there was a small part of him that felt a twinge of guilt. Maryglenn was the first woman he’d been with since Diana. It was also true that Maryglenn was the first woman he’d been with since he was sober. Problem was, he couldn’t be sure what their being together like this meant. Was this going to be a casual, itch-scratching kind of thing he’d shared with many women over the years, or was it something more? Less?

  Maryglenn must have been reading his mind, because when she pulled the curtain back and joined him in the shower, she kissed him on the cheek, looked up at him, and said, “I really needed that, Jesse. I haven’t been with a man in a very long time. But don’t worry, I won’t be showing up at your doorstep or cooking your pet rabbit on the stove. Let’s just see how this goes.”

  “Works for me.”

  Then she handed him the soap and a washcloth and asked him to wash her. Ten minutes after that they were back in bed. Only this time, things were much less awkward and less fraught.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT TIME he opened his eyes, the sun was just coming up over the edge of the Atlantic and its light making itself known to the sleepless and early risers. Maryglenn was already up, dressed, and at her easel, painting. She didn’t look back, but said, “There’s coffee waiting for when you get out of the shower.”

  Jesse climbed out of bed, walked over to her, put his arms around her shoulders. She kissed his forearm.

  He said, “Thank you. Can we do this again?”

  “I believe there’s a dinner pending.” She looked back at him and smiled. “We’ll see about it after that. Go ahead and shower. I put some fresh towels on the rack.”

  Dressed in his clothing from the night before, drinking coffee, and admiring the sunrise, Jesse said some things he had meant to say to Maryglenn sometime before they got close to doing what they had spent the night doing, but the moment never seemed right. And before last night, they hadn’t really spent much time together.

  “Do you know about me?” he asked.

  “I’ve heard some things.”

  “About Diana?”

  She kept her focus on her work. “Your late fiancée? Yeah, I’ve heard.”

  “I haven’t been with anyone since.”

  Maryglenn turned to look at him finally. “I don’t know how to respond to that, Jesse. Am I supposed to be honored or something? Can’t we just be happy about what it was?”

  He laughed, realizing how she might take it that way. He wasn’t very good with this part of relationships. Sharing his feelings—in spite of his time with Dix, in rehab, and at AA meetings—was still a challenge for him. Volunteering them at all was a new behavior. He guessed what Molly said about his self-containment was more accurate than he wanted to admit.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I guess that was pretty clumsy of me.”

  She was back at her painting. “I take you at your word, Jesse. Look, I like you. I’m obviously intensely attracted to you, but I’m not on the hunt or anything.”

  “Got it.”

  She put her brush down, stood up, and came over to where he was standing. “Good, because I really enjoyed last night a lot.”

  He answered with a smile. “I’ve got to get going.”

  “Where to?”

  “Home first to get back into what passes for my uniform, and then back to Paradise High. I need to look into this Chris G. kid.”

  “You think he knows something?”

  Jesse nodded. “After that, Heather’s funeral is this afternoon.”

  That knocked the smile off Maryglenn’s face, which, in turn, reminded Jesse of the other thing he’d come to get answers about. But he didn’t think this was the right moment to start asking about her past and the weirdness between her and Daisy, curious as he was. He leaned over, kissed her gently on the lips, and left, putting his coffee cup down on the kitchen counter as he went.

  Fifteen

  He stopped in at Daisy’s on his way home, figur
ing he’d catch up with Cole. He figured wrong. And Daisy was as strange and evasive as she had been the other day. Jesse could be as patient as need be, but maybe because he was tired or because this involved his son, he didn’t feel like being patient.

  “Look, Daisy, what’s going on with Cole?”

  “Didn’t you ask him when you saw him last night?” she asked, her smart-aleck expression and tone more in keeping with the Daisy Jesse knew and loved. “He is your son, last time I checked, and you do still live together.”

  “I wasn’t home last night.”

  Daisy raised an eyebrow and gave him a sour look. “Were you with her?”

  “‘Her’?”

  “Little late in the game for the both of us to start playing coy, Jesse Stone. You know exactly who ‘her’ means.”

  “What if I was?”

  Daisy said, “Forget it. None of my business.”

  “Since when did that ever stop you?”

  “Since right now.”

  Jesse shook his head. “Little late in the game for us to start playing coy, Daisy,” he said, throwing her own words back at her.

  “Ask her, Jesse.”

  He supposed Daisy had a point. If he was curious about Maryglenn, he should ask Maryglenn.