Death In Paradise js-3

by Robert B. Parker

  “But there is a sort of path,” Jesse said. “Kids probably bring beer in, drink it by the lake.”

  He paused, looking at a broken branch on one of the short bushes. He pulled it toward him a little and looked at it.

  “Leaves are still green.”

  “So it hasn’t been broken very long,” Simpson said.

  Farther down the slope was a pair of branches, barely above ground level, that had been broken as well.

  “He gets to the lake,” Jesse said. “And he puts her in. Does he just leave her there?”

  “If he didn’t care about her being found, he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,” Simpson said.

  “So he wanted her to sink,” Cox said.

  “But not right here,” Jesse said. “First kid came down here with a Miller Lite would spot her.”

  “So he had to drag her out a ways,” Simpson said.

  He was excited. It was like a real murder investigation.

  “She’d have dragged easier in the water,” Jesse said.

  He stepped into the lake. It was barely knee high. It deepened only gradually as he waded out. He stopped when the water reached his crotch.

  “If he wanted her to sink,” Simpson said from the shore, “he’d have weighted her.”

  “But not on shore,” Jesse said. “It would have made dragging her that much harder. He wouldn’t want to weight her until he got her deep enough to let her sink.”

  “I read the ME’s report,” Simpson said. ” ‘Fore I came out here to sweep the place. There’s no sign of any weight being attached.”

  “How many shoes she have on?” Jesse said. “When we found her?”

  “Shoes? One.”

  “What if he tied the weight around an ankle,” Jesse said. “And after it was in the water for a while the body began to decompose and become more buoyant at the same time it was becoming less, ah, cohesive, and the rope dragged off her ankle and took a shoe with it?”

  “So, the weight and the rope should be in the water around here.”

  “It should,” Jesse said.

  Chapter Eight

  Jesse could hear the music from beyond the curve. As he came around the curve he could barely squeeze his own car between the cars parked on both sides of the street. He could see the blue light revolving on the roof of Arthur Angstrom’s cruiser parked in the driveway of a big, sprawling Victorian house that sat at the top of a rolling lawn. Angstrom stood beside the cruiser talking to a short man with a dark tan. The man was partially bald. His remaining hair was gray and hung to his shoulders.

  “You’re Chief Stone?” the man said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Norman Shaw.”

  “I know.”

  Shaw looked gratified. “Good,” he said. “Your officer here appears to think there’s a crime being committed here.”

  Shaw’s eyes were bloodshot, and beneath the tan on his face was a web of broken veins. He was wearing shorts and a white oxford shirt with the tails out. His legs were tan and skinny and nearly hairless. He wasn’t fat, but he had an assertive belly that pushed against the shirt.

  “Actually he’s not my officer,” Jesse said. “He’s yours. He works for the town.”

  “Casuistry aside,” Shaw said, “I like to talk with the man in charge.”

  “That would be me,” Jesse said.

  “Young for the job,” Shaw said.

  “I’m aging fast, though.”

  “Well, I am sure you’re old enough to explain to this officer…”

  “Angstrom,” Jesse said. “Officer Angstrom.”

  “I’m sure you can explain to him that Party Patrol is not the best use a policeman can make of his time.”

  “You had a complaint?” Jesse said to Arthur.

  “Noise,” Angstrom said. “Obstructing access. Drunk and disorderly. Public lewdness. Littering. Urinating on a private lawn.”

  “Punishable by death?” Shaw said. “It’s a party, for God’s sake. The Lieutenant Governor is here. Michael DeSisto came all the way from Stockbridge. There are state reps. A congressman. My attorney. Do I have to get my attorney down here?”

  “Chills run up and down my spine,” Jesse said. “You’ll have to move some cars.” He turned to Angstrom. “You got the names of the complainants?”

  “Yep.”

  “Will they point out the culprits?”

  “They say so.”

  “Move cars?” Shaw said. “You expect me to go from person to person asking if they own the fucking blue Mercedes or the black Saab?”

  “Yes.”

  “And take all the juice right out of the party?”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” Jesse said.

  “Well, I’m not doing it.”

  Jesse shrugged. “Call Frankie’s Tow,” he said to Arthur. “Have them start hooking up.”

  “Tow?”

  “Yep.”

  “You can’t tow all these cars.”

  Jesse ignored him. “Then get John Maguire out here, and Peter Perkins. They’re on shift. Have John supervise the towing. You and Peter get the complainants over here and start arresting the guests.”

  “For what?”

  “Noise,” Jesse said. “Obstructing access. Drunk and disorderly. Public lewdness. Littering. Urinating on a private lawn.”

  “You are going to get yourself in serious trouble,” Shaw said.

  His face was flushed under the tan, and he was breathing harshly. “You have no idea what kind of guest list is here.”

  “Gee, maybe we’ll make the papers,” Jesse said.

  A woman in tight calf-length pants and a glistening silvery tank top came down the lawn carrying a cocktail.

  Martini, Jesse thought.

  The woman stopped beside Shaw and stood so that she was touching him.

  “What’s going on, Normy?”

  She was taller than Shaw, with straight blond hair worn long. Her breasts pushed hard against the silvery tank top, and the pants fit tight over her thighs. Her features were elegantly proportional. And her teeth were even and perfectly white. Everyone had teeth like that in L.A.

  Bonded, Jesse thought.

  “These… policemen feel that we are entirely lawless,” Shaw said.

  He took the martini from her and drank some and handed her back the glass.

  “Oh, pooh,” the woman said and smiled at Jesse. “Have a drink. Lighten up.”

  “No drinks, ma’am.”

  “Oh my,” she said, “so solemn. I’m Joni Shaw.”

  She put out her hand to Jesse. She was quick. She had already figured out who was in charge. Jesse didn’t shake hands.

  “Jesse Stone,” he said.

  She smiled. The smile was very strong. Jesse could feel it.

  “And do you really want to ruin our party? It’s Normy’s annual publication party.”

  “We don’t want to ruin your party,” Jesse said. “But cars need to be moved. Behavior needs to be modified.”

  “Every year when his new novel comes out, we throw this huge bash. Normy’s agent is here. There are film people. Publishing people. Politicians. The Lieutenant Governor is here.”

  “Mr. Shaw mentioned the Lieutenant Governor,” Jesse said. “Get on the radio, Arthur. Call the tow company.”

  Angstrom slid into his car and started his call.

  “We’ll move the cars,” Joni Shaw said.

  “And keep people from wandering into the neighbors’ yards?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I’m going to have your job,” Shaw said.

  “Probably not,” Jesse said.

  He smiled at Joni Shaw. She smiled back at him.

  Chapter Nine

  “They moved the cars,” Angstrom said as he came into Jesse’s office. “And she went around and told people to cool it.”

  “You leave Perkins there?”

  “Him and John,” Angstrom said. “I’m sorry I had to drag you out there.”

  �
��It’s why I get the big bucks, Arthur.”

  “My wife wore pants as tight as Mrs. Shaw I wouldn’t let her out in public,” Angstrom said. “How the fuck she get them on?”

  “She’s probably a strong-willed woman,” Jesse said.

  “What’s casuistry mean?” Arthur said.

  “I have no idea,” Jesse said.

  Suitcase came into the office with Doc Lane. He was carrying a big evidence bag, which he held up as if he’d caught a record-breaking fish. Doc had a cinder block in each hand, which he set on the floor by Jesse’s desk.

  “Doc found it,” Simpson said.

  “Rope and shoe?”

  “Tied to a couple of cinder blocks,” Doc said.

  He was a rangy, weathered guy who fished, and tended bar at night, and did the diving for the police when there was any to do.

  “Any gun?”

  “None that I could find,” Doc said. “The bottom is muck, Jesse. Gun could be under ten feet of it, if it’s in there at all.”

  Jesse looked at the rope. It was the kind that you buy in fifty-foot lengths at lumber yards, about the size of clothesline, but made of nylon. When you cut it, you needed to burn the ends, so the rope wouldn’t unravel.

  “The ends are frayed,” Jesse said.

  “Two of them are mine,” Doc said. “I had to cut it loose from the cinder blocks.”

  “I see that. The other ends are starting to unravel. Means he probably cut it at the time he used it, and didn’t have time to melt the cut end.”

  “Or he was in the water,” Simpson said, “and the matches were wet.”

  There was one small shoe tangled in the rope.

  “Looks like the one she was wearing,” Jesse said. “We’ll get a size match.”

  It was the first time either Simpson or Angstrom had seen one of the shoes. Neither had looked at her when she came out of the water.

  “Penny loafer,” Angstrom said. “I got three daughters and none of them had any penny loafers.”

  “A retro girl,” Jesse said.

  “You need me anymore, Jesse?” Doc said.

  “No. Thank you. Send me a bill, and I’ll buck it over to the town clerk.”

  Doc left. Jesse stood and went around his desk and squatted on his heels and looked at the cinder blocks. They were still damp.

  “New,” Jesse said. “Arthur, now that you’ve brought law and order to Paradise Neck, go around to hardware stores and lumber yards and see if anyone bought two cinder blocks and some nylon rope in the last month or so.”

  “In what area?”

  “North shore,” Jesse said. “To start.”

  “Lot of people buy rope and cinder block.”

  “Yeah, but how many buy two cinder blocks and some rope at the same time?”

  “You think the guy was that stupid?” Simpson said.

  “Maybe. And maybe he used a credit card,” Jesse said.

  “That would be amazingly stupid,” Simpson said.

  “We can hope,” Jesse said.

  Chapter Ten

  Jesse wasn’t in uniform when he walked into Swampscott High School. He wore jeans and a blue blazer and a white shirt with the collar open. Summer school was in session and kids with bad grades, or bad attitudes, or overzealous parents, were in their classrooms. Jesse felt the old feeling as he walked along the empty corridor. He had always disliked school. Had always thought it full of cant and nonsense. And in his adulthood, he was sometimes startled at how early in life he’d been right.

  In the outer office, at her desk, behind her computer, guarding the principal’s gate, was a portly woman with a tight gray perm and a long blue dress. She looked at Jesse as if he’d just been loitering in the hall.

  “Jesse Stone?” he said. “For Lilly Summers?”

  “Do you have an appointment with Doctor Summers?” the guardian said. She underscored the “Doctor.”

  “I do.”

  “Regarding what?”

  Jesse took out his badge holder and flipped it open. The guardian craned her neck at it as if it were too small to see.

  “Are you with the police?” she said.

  “I am.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wait here.”

  Jesse smiled as the guardian lumbered into the principal’s office. She’ll keep me waiting longer than she needs to, he thought. Make sure I know that Dr. Summers is important. It took almost five minutes for the guardian to deliver the fact of Jesse’s presence and for Dr. Summers to agree that, in fact, Stone had an appointment. Finally the guardian came out and left Dr. Summers’s door open and frowned at Jesse and stood aside. Given her heft, she had to stand a good distance aside for Jesse to get by.

  Inside, Dr. Summers stood and put out her hand. She was a slender woman with a young face and silver hair. Jesse wondered if she was older than she looked, or if her silver hair was premature. He decided she was young, and the hair made her look distinguished. If she were older she’d color her hair to look younger.

  “Jesse Stone,” he said.

  “Sit down, Mr. Stone,” she said. “You’re with the Paradise Police?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s something…” She looked distressed. “About a murder?”

  He noticed she wore no wedding ring. It meant less than it once might have, Jesse knew. A lot of married women, especially married professional women, no longer wore wedding bands.

  “Yes,” Jesse said. “Last week we found the body of a young woman who’d been dead for several weeks, in a lake in Paradise.”

  “How awful.”

  “Especially for her,” Jesse said. “She had been shot in the head.”

  “Someone killed her?”

  “Yes. On a chain around her neck was a Swampscott High School ring, class of two thousand.”

  Jesse took the ring out and placed it on the desk in front of Dr. Summers. Dr. Summers was wearing a black linen suit and a crimson shirt. As she shifted in her chair to look at the ring, Jesse saw that the suit fit her very well. She was wearing a nice perfume, too.

  “My God,” she said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Is there a way to know whose ring this is?” Jesse said.

  “From the size,” Dr. Summers said, “I assume it was a young man.”

  “And a member of the class of two thousand.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any way to know which one?”

  “We graduated a hundred and thirteen young men in June,” Dr. Summers said.

  She crossed her legs. Jesse noticed that her legs looked good.

  “Do you have any young women from the school that are missing?”

  “None that I know of. It is, of course, summer. I’d have no way to know once school ended.”

  “And the victim doesn’t have to be from your school,” Jesse said. “Does every graduating senior get a ring automatically?”

  “No. They have to be ordered. And some students don’t bother.”

  “To show you they don’t like the school,” Jesse said.

  “I imagine so,” Dr. Summers said. “They are often among the more disaffected.”

  “Not a bad thing,” Jesse said.

  “Disaffection? No, not at all. Were you disaffected, Chief Stone?”

  “You bet,” Jesse said. “Do you have a record of the orders?”

  “No. We order from a company called C. C. Benjamin, in Boston. Did you attend college?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “I went from high school to a minor-league baseball team.”

  “Really? Did you ever play major-league baseball?”

  “No. I was a shortstop. Got as far as Albuquerque and tore up my shoulder.”

  “The one you throw with?”

  “Yes.”

  “That would be a bad injury for a shortstop.”

  “Fatal,” Jesse said. “You follow baseball, Dr. Summers?”

  “Lilly,” she said. “Yes, v
ery closely.”

  “Did your husband play?”

  She smiled at him. “There is no husband, Chief Stone.”

  Jesse smiled back at her.

  “Jesse,” he said.

  They looked at each other silently for a moment, and just as he realized suddenly that she was good-looking, he understood suddenly that she was sexual. Her eyes. The way she moved. The way she held herself.

  “How will you identify her?” Lilly said.

  “We’ll ask everyone who ordered a class ring to account for theirs.”

  “And if they can’t?”

  “It narrows the list. Then we ask around as to which of these guys had a girlfriend, and what was her name, and see if she’s missing.”

  “Labor intensive,” Lilly said.

  “It is,” Jesse said.

  “Is it usually this laborious?” Lilly said.

  “No, usually you got a pretty good idea that it was the husband, or Uncle Harry or whatever, and you set out to prove it. Murder is fairly unusual anyway, especially in a town like Paradise. Most of it is drunk driving and lost dogs and kids smoking dope in the town cemetery. But here we don’t even know who the victim was yet.”

  “And there’s no missing-person’s report that would be her?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t that unusual?”

  “Yes.”

  Lilly crossed her legs the other way. Jesse waited.

  “How did you go from shortstop to policeman, Jesse?”

  “My father was a cop,” Jesse said. “In Tucson. When I couldn’t play ball anymore, it seemed like the other thing I might know how to do.”

  “And how did you end up in Paradise?”

  “I was a cop in L.A. I got fired for being a drunk. And my marriage broke up. And I figured I’d try to start over as far from L.A. as I could.”

  “Are you still drinking?”

  “Mostly not,” Jesse said.

  “Was that why your marriage broke up?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “It didn’t help the marriage, and the marriage didn’t help it. But there were other things.”

  “There always are, aren’t there.”

  “You’ve been divorced?”

  “Twice.”