by Mike Lupica
“This goes on all the time, of course, all around the country,” he said. “Most of the times, when our side has won, it turns out that there was no federal sign-off on land like this. And when tribes have been able to prove it, they’ve been able to prove that nobody can sell it, because it still belongs to this tribe or that. At the very least, if there is authentic proof, it becomes a fate worse than death for the person trying to sell the land and the one trying to buy it, because of a thing called ‘clouded title.’ ”
“But it sounds like Neil might have been suggesting that basically your people might have gotten to the property being sold first.”
“Fuckin’ ay,” Terry Harvey said. “Back in the day we didn’t have the kind of political power that we have now.”
“What proof do you think Neil might have had?” Jesse said.
It had been jarring, and more than somewhat, hearing Neil’s voice again.
“It could be any number of things, easily verifiable by experts,” Harvey said. “Something as simple as a title, or treaty, no one knew existed. It was the Europeans who started the title system. To show you have a good one, you follow a chain all the way back to an original owner. Maybe he found the kind of artifacts that were often buried with children, if it is a burial site. Religious objects. Skeletal remains would be best. There’s a laundry list of things that could throw into question that whoever claims ownership to the land now never did acquire it legally in the first place from our tribe. If we felt as if we had real evidence, and as crazy as this sounds, we could invoke something called the Nonintercourse Act from the late 1700s, and challenge the fact that the approval from the federal government was never given in the first place. But this sort of litigation, all across the country, has often turned out to be a bear.”
He paused. “And without getting further into the weeds, there was a case not long ago where three tribes of Oneida Indians brought suit for damages and won for land that had been conveyed right before the turn of the nineteenth century.”
“But if the proof exists, and it does turn out to be authentic . . . ?” Jesse said, his voice trailing off.
“Do you have the proof in your possession?” Harvey said.
“Not yet,” Jesse said.
And maybe not ever.
“Well, if and when you do, I would very much like to see it,” he said. “So would our lawyers.”
“Not as much as I want to see it,” Jesse said.
“Once I heard the message today, I read back a little more on what’s happening in Paradise,” he said. “Seems to be the whole process of that land being sold to one of those two developers is pretty much a foregone conclusion. Isn’t the vote in a few days?”
“It is,” Jesse said. “But there was an old Yankee who said, ‘It ain’t over ’til it’s over.’ ”
“Yogi,” Terry Harvey said. “Even Red Sox fans know that one.”
“This deal has gotten two people killed so far,” Jesse said. “And nearly a third.”
“So maybe the land really doesn’t belong to this Thomas Lawton?” Harvey said.
“And maybe never did,” Crow said. “Maybe his family engaged in old white-man custom known as stealing.”
“Tell me how I can help,” Harvey said. “We’re obviously very invested now.”
“Keep this between us for now,” Jesse said.
Harvey grinned at them and held up his right hand, palm facing Jesse and Crow. “You have my solemn word.”
“Say we do find proof,” Jesse said. “What happens then?”
“At the very least,” Terry Harvey said, “we slap an injunction on this guy Lawton, and the whole thing ends up in federal court, perhaps for a very long time.”
“But Lawton, if we find what we need to find in time, would have no legal standing on selling the land?” Jesse said.
“Not unless he wants to pick a fight with a tribe a lot more dangerous than mine is,” Harvey said.
“Which one?” Crow said.
“My old law firm,” the leader of the Peccontac Nation said. “The tribe known as Cone, Oakes.”
SIXTY
When they were back in Paradise, Crow said he was going over to the hospital. Jesse told him that he’d instructed the nurses and doctors to call him if there was any change in her condition.
“So if there’s a change, I’ll make the call instead,” Crow said.
Suit was at his desk when Jesse walked in. He said he was still waiting on the subpoena that would allow them to search Richie Carr’s Land Cruiser. For now it sat in the big lot for impounded cars in Marshport that Mike Pearl let the PPD use sometimes, waiting for the red tape to part, somewhat like the Red Sea. Suit said that at least he’d gotten no sense that Ellis Munroe was going to slow-walk them on this one.
Jesse occasionally thought that red tape like this was a form of domestic terrorism.
Before Suit left for the day, Jesse told him what he and Crow had learned in Clifton.
“This is a big deal, right?” Suit said.
“Not without proof it’s not,” Jesse said. “And do not mention this to anyone, including Elena.”
Suit thumbs-upped him.
“You just need to find the thing,” Suit said. “Or things.”
Jesse said it sounded a lot simpler when you put it that way.
He had already begun to feel an interior ticking clock as he drove home from the station. Maybe he could stop the deal even after Ed Barrone or Billy Singer ended up with the winning bid. But he knew the best way to stop it was before the vote.
Find the MacGuffin.
Did Neil hide it? Did Ben Gage hide it?
And hiding it from whom?
No one had beaten Neil O’Hara before he was shot. But it appeared they’d drugged him. Somebody had beaten Ben Gage. The same person, or persons? Somebody wanted Neil’s death to look like a suicide. But not Ben Gage’s. He’d either told them what they wanted to know, or not. He was going to end up dead either way.
Goddamn, I could use a drink.
The urge still came up on Jesse that quickly. That easily. In the old days, that was how it started. Quickly, easily. He got out of his chair and drove over to Marshport for the six o’clock AA meeting. He hadn’t been in a while. But then the wolf hadn’t been back at the door lately.
The speaker was a Catholic priest who’d spent the last six months in rehab. Six months. Jesse thought it might be some kind of world’s record, at least from the stories he’d ever heard in these rooms, or when he was in rehab himself. Insurance paid for only twenty-eight days. Those companies didn’t have the kind of money the Catholic Church did.
Jesse didn’t stay around for coffee. He drove back home and turned on the Sox game and thought about calling Sunny. Even took out his phone and was about to speed-dial her. But then put the phone down as quickly as he’d pulled it out. Watched the game until it slogged its way into the fifth inning and went to bed early.
Somebody was lying to him. Maybe more than one of them was lying. Or all of them were. And him an officer of the law. The town really was going to hell.
SIXTY-ONE
Jesse and Molly and Suit were in the conference room. The subpoena on Richie Carr’s SUV had been approved by the judge, so Jesse had sent Gabe Weathers over to Marshport to search it, including the car’s navigation system.
“Am I looking for anything in particular?” Gabe had said.
“Anything and everything,” Jesse said.
“Oh, good,” Gabe said. “That narrows things down considerably.”
“Come back with something I can use or you’re fired,” Jesse said.
“Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that one,” Gabe said.
“We all do,” Molly said.
Jesse had been explaining to Molly and Suit that he couldn’t come up with a single good reas
on for going to Gary Armistead with what he’d learned from Terry Harvey, the message Neil had left for him, the implications of it for Lawton and Singer and Barrone and Harvey and the town.
“Gary would want to see some proof, too,” Jesse said.
“Which we don’t have,” Suit said.
“Yet,” Jesse said.
“Roger that,” Suit said.
“How about this?” Molly said, brightening. “How about we leak it to Nellie Shofner that the ownership of the land might be in question, and have her write that up for the Crier.”
“Thought of that,” Jesse said.
“Did not,” she said.
“Here we go,” Suit said.
“For now, putting it out there doesn’t get me to where I want to go,” Jesse said. “It also brings the tribe into it for no good reason. And maybe has Armistead fast-track the process even more.”
Jesse had brought donuts. Suit ate another one. Molly gave him a look. He said he was just trying to be polite.
“Say we do find proof,” Suit said. “What happens next?”
“I’m no lawyer . . .” Jesse said.
“Though you have slept with a few,” Molly said.
“. . . but I did do some reading,” Jesse continued. “And it confirmed what Terry Harvey told me. They would slap a temporary restraining order on Lawton, and drop-kick the whole thing to federal court like champions.”
“Once it gets there,” Molly said, “the deal is as good as dead.”
“And two people are dead for nothing,” Jesse said.
Molly said, “Another one is fighting for her life.”
Jesse pointed to the last donut and told Suit to go for it.
“I’m missing something here,” Jesse said. “I know it.”
“You never miss anything,” Molly said.
“Always a first time,” he said.
He thought about going over to Marshport and helping Gabe search the car. He told Molly and Suit that he was going to make one last pass through Neil O’Hara’s house instead. He was sitting behind Neil’s desk when he heard the front door open. He kept his hand on his gun as he walked into the hallway and saw Kate O’Hara standing there.
SIXTY-TWO
“They told me when I stopped by the station that you were here,” she said.
“What were you doing at the station?” Jesse said.
“I wanted to stop by and say goodbye,” she said.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to be leaving soon,” she said. “Thought I might start in Paris. It’s time to be somewhere besides Paradise. And perhaps be someone else.” She smiled. “Such an odd name for a town, isn’t it? Especially when it’s so often the opposite of that.”
Jesse walked back into Neil’s den. Kate followed him.
“I guess this is a way for me to say goodbye to Neil, too,” she said.
“Have you found what you’re looking for in here?” she said to Jesse.
“Nothing even remotely resembling a clue,” Jesse said.
“Good old Jesse,” she said. “Still a dog with a bone.”
“Keeps me out of trouble,” he said.
She smiled again.
“I was under the impression, Chief, that you frequently go looking for trouble.”
Her eyes seemed to take in the whole room at once.
“My husband the hoarder,” she said. “He had a room like this at our house. I still walk in sometimes, even though he cleaned it out, and feel as if the stuff is still here.”
“What’s going to happen to all of it?” he said. “His stuff?”
“I’ll eventually put the house up for sale,” she said. “I was going to have everything packed into some boxes and put in storage. His only living relative is a half-sister who lives in Hawaii. She’s still afraid to fly, even after COVID-19. She can keep what she wants, I suppose, if she ever makes it back.
“What specifically were those people looking for when they broke in here?” she said. “And when they broke into my house?”
“Beats me,” Jesse said.
She smiled at him again. It was a sad smile, in a room filled as much with sadness as Neil’s belongings, but somehow still dazzling, at least to him.
“There aren’t many things I’m going to miss in this town,” Kate said. “But you’re one of them, Jesse.”
“You know the drill,” he said. “Right place, wrong time. Happens to the best of us.”
“Do you ever wonder how things could have worked out differently?”
“All the time,” he said.
It was a lie, he knew, but one that cost him nothing.
She stepped forward now and kissed him lightly on the lips, then put a hand to his cheek.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Kate,” Jesse said.
Another smile.
“I was about to say the same thing to you,” she said.
She left him standing there in her late husband’s den. Another one that got away, Jesse thought. By now there were enough of them to form a conga line.
SIXTY-THREE
“Talk to me,” Dix said to Jesse.
Dix had always told Jesse that if he ever needed him on a weekend, all he needed to do was call. So they were in Dix’s office on Sunday morning.
Dix looked as he always did, backlit by the sun slashing through the partially closed blinds behind him, bald head gleaming, white shirt looking dry-cleaner crisp, hands perfectly manicured even though Dix had once admitted he tended to his nails himself, desk so neat it looked as if he were expecting some kind of inspection. Somehow almost completely still, but completely alert at the same time.
Jesse had never been able to picture him as the drunk cop Dix had once been.
“It’s not personal today,” Jesse said. “What I’m here for.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Dix said.
“I mean,” Jesse said, “I have an unresolved situation with Sunny. But nothing has changed with resolving it since the last time I was here.”
“Or the time before that,” Dix said. “Is she still in Los Angeles?”
“Yes.”
“Want to talk about that?”
“I don’t,” Jesse said. “It’s actually not making me crazy.”
“Stop using those complicated clinical expressions,” Dix said. “And stop self-diagnosing.”
“It’s the case that’s making me crazy,” Jesse said.
“Talk to me,” Dix said again.
Jesse took him through it. He’d actually brought notes, the timeline he’d worked out, so he didn’t leave anything out. Dix called it a cheat sheet.
“I may have left some things out,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“I’d like you to look at it like a cop,” Jesse said.
“It’ll be a stretch.” Dix smiled again.
Then he said, “You know the professional is always personal with you, right?”
“Maybe more personal this time because of Neil and those two kids,” Jesse said.
“You couldn’t save him,” Dix said. “But I get the sense that you feel as if there were more you could have done to save the kids. The young woman in the hospital especially.”
“More than somewhat,” Jesse said.
Dix leaned back in his chair, clasping his fingers behind his head, staring up at the ceiling fan above them. When he leaned forward again he said, “I think you might be looking at this wrong.”
“Tell me how.”
Dix said, “I’m thinking, just listening to the way you laid it out, that maybe Neil didn’t die for what he had, necessarily. It may have been because of what he knew that night. The proof itself, in that moment, seems secondary to me, whether he actually had it in his posses
sion or Ben Gage did.”
Jesse waited.
Dix said, “I think whoever killed him, and then killed the young man, just wanted to close the circle as quickly as they could, and then figure out finding the relics or whatever the hell it is they were looking for, afterward.”
“You’re saying somebody panicked,” Jesse said.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense to me,” Dix said. “Somebody found out what Neil knew, and what the kid had, and killed them both.”
“I still don’t know where Neil went after he called the museum that day,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled brilliantly now.
“We still talking cop to cop?” he said.
“Always,” Jesse said.
“Find out, for fuck’s sake.”
SIXTY-FOUR
Stone was right, Crow thought.
They were missing something.
Crow grinned at himself in his rearview mirror.
Look at me, he thought. Trying to think like a cop.
But if they weren’t missing something, they would have tamped this thing down solid a long time ago and he would be on his way out of town now.
Where to? He hadn’t played that out in his head yet. He wasn’t going back to Vegas; he knew that Billy Singer might put a bounty on him if he didn’t get the land. Crow just knew he couldn’t stay here. And knew why, too. He didn’t want to be close to her, start imagining a life with her he could never have, even thinking about it for one minute made him feel like a fool.
One thing for sure.
She could still get under his skin.
The girl lying in that hospital bed had gotten under his skin, too.
He hadn’t seen that coming.
It seemed like ten years ago that he had showed up here working for Billy. He was thinking about Billy a lot tonight. He’d actually believed Billy the night he’d scared the shit out of him after putting Santo and Baldelli in the trunk. When Billy said he didn’t know anything about Richie Carr shooting the girl and Molly. Just because Billy knew the consequences of lying to Crow.