Death In Paradise js-3

by Robert B. Parker

  A woman in a flowered yellow dress opened the front door of the market and stepped out and ran. She ducked behind DeAngelo’s cruiser and fell to her knees.

  “He wants to talk to Stone,” she said. “He says he wants Stone to come in.”

  She was having trouble getting enough air in.

  “He said he was going to kill us all,” she said. “He’s drunk. He has a bottle and he keeps drinking.”

  Jesse crouched beside her.

  “Where is he?” Jesse said.

  “He put the gun right in my face,” the woman said.

  She was blond, with a lot of dark eye makeup.

  “Where is he standing?” Jesse said.

  “In the back. He said he was going to kill everybody, himself too.”

  “Where are the other hostages?”

  “With him. Sitting on the floor except for one woman he hangs on to. I think it’s his wife.”

  “Where on the floor?”

  “I don’t know, just on the floor.”

  “No. You do know. If I’m facing him, where are the hostages? To my right or my left?”

  The woman thought for a moment.

  “Right,” she said.

  “How far?”

  “They’re all sitting against the wall under the service counter, except the wife.”

  Stevens was crouched behind the squad car beside them.

  “Service counter is in the right rear corner of the store,” Stevens said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Tell me about the hostages,” Jesse said to the woman in the yellow dress. “How many men? How many women?”

  “Two men,” she said and paused, her breath still rasping, counting in her head. “Four women, five if you count the wife.”

  Jesse stood.

  “Okay,” he said to no one in particular.

  He walked to his car, and standing behind it, out of sight of the store, he rearranged his revolver on his belt. Then he got a long-barreled .22 target pistol out of the car, made sure there were bullets in the cylinder, and stuck it in his belt at the small of his back, under his jacket. Then he walked back to DeAngelo.

  “I’m going in. Call Suit and tell him I’m going in. I want you all to hold still. If you hear a shot then I want all of you to come, front and back… double time.”

  DeAngelo nodded and undipped the microphone from his epaulet. Jesse turned and walked toward the market.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  It was a small market, the kind that delivers phone orders. There were four aisles. Jesse could see the edge of the back door at the left corner. A sign that said CUSTOMER SERVICE hung from the ceiling in the right back corner. An arrow pointed straight down. The two-counter checkout was to the right of the door. The store was dead quiet.

  “Snyder,” Jesse said.

  “Stop right there.”

  “I’m stopped,” Jesse said.

  Snyder appeared at the end of the cereal aisle. His wife was in front of him. In his right hand he held what looked like a nine-millimeter handgun. Semiautomatic, maybe a Colt. At least seven rounds, maybe twice that. Not cocked. The gun was pressed to his wife’s neck. In his other hand he had an open bottle of Chivas Regal.

  “Take off your coat,” Snyder said. “I wanna see you gotta gun.”

  Mrs. Snyder’s face was chalk white with deep lines. Her body was rigid. Her eyes were bulging.

  “Sure I’ve got a gun,” Jesse said. “I’m a cop.”

  He slid the blue linen jacket off and let it fall to the floor. His short-barreled .38 was on his left side, butt forward.

  “Take it out and throw it on the floor,” Snyder said. “Way over.”

  Jesse tossed the .38 on the floor near the bread rack. Then he waited.

  Snyder took a pull on the Chivas Regal.

  “My life ain’t worth shit to me,” Snyder said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “I got nothing to lose,” he said.

  Jesse waited. Snyder was being dramatic, but self-dramatization was what this kind of situation was often about.

  “So don’t fuck with me,” Snyder said.

  “That what you wanted to tell me?” Jesse said.

  “I wanted to tell you that you fucked my life. I wanted to tell you I was married and we was happy until you.”

  “Un-huh.”

  “I wanted to fucking tell you that I’m going to kill her and then you and then maybe everybody else in this fucking store,” Snyder said.

  “Un-huh.”

  Snyder began to cry.

  “I fucking loved her all my fucking life. Now she goes, I got fucking nothing.”

  Mrs. Snyder’s voice was barely a squeak.

  “I won’t go,” she said.

  “Shut up. You already went, bitch.”

  “You need help with this,” Jesse said. “We can get you some help.”

  “Help,” Snyder said. “Fucking help. I’m her and she’s me and you broke us up, you lousy fuck. You think you can get me help when my fucking life is completely fucking fucked?”

  “It’s not fucked yet,” Jesse said. “Don’t do something that will permanently fuck it.”

  “I got no life without her,” Snyder said. “She ain’t leaving me. And I ain’t leaving her. Ya unnerstan? Not fucking ever.”

  He drank too big a drink from the bottle, and spilled some on his shirtfront. He was crying.

  “We can help you with the booze,” Jesse said. “We can still fix this.”

  “Fix fuck,” Snyder said. “All I got now is booze.”

  He took another drink. Then he dropped the bottle and put his left arm around his wife’s neck. He waved the handgun at Jesse.

  “I’m going to shoot her,” he said.

  Snyder started to thumb back the hammer. Only his face showed over his wife’s shoulder. Jesse took the long-barreled .22 from the small of his back, leaned toward Snyder as he pulled it, and with his gun arm fully extended and steady, shot Snyder once through the middle of the forehead. It made a small, neat, dark hole. Mrs. Snyder stood still and screamed, as Snyder’s arm went limp and slid off her neck and he fell over and lay still.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Jesse sat on his deck alone in the early evening. Still light. On the table next to him was a fifth of Dewar’s and a bucket of ice and a big bottle of club soda. He held an unused glass in his hand, turning it slowly as he sat. The salt wind came tentatively off the harbor. There were cocktails being drunk on a couple of the cabin cruisers moored near the town dock. Jesse could hear a radio somewhere. A ball game. Probably the Sox. Funny how you could tell what it was by the sound of it, without quite being able to hear what was said. Across the harbor the pennants strung along the yacht club dock moved with the declining evening air.

  Thank God it’s… what is today… Tuesday. Thank God it’s Tuesday.

  He turned the glass in his hands. It was a squat glass, thick, with a hint of green.

  He’d had to shoot him. Snyder would have done it.

  He stood and put some ice in the glass. The ice took on the green tint even more faintly than the glass.

  If he loved her so goddamned much, why was he going to shoot her?

  He poured four ounces of scotch over the ice. The ice showed translucent through the amber scotch.

  Maybe it wasn’t love, maybe it was need.

  He unscrewed the top of the soda bottle.

  Which was not the same thing.

  Jesse poured soda over the ice on top of the scotch.

  So, if he needed her, why would he shoot her?

  Jesse stirred his drink slowly by moving the ice cubes around with his forefinger. A rowboat moved across the surface among the moored boats. A man sat in the back. A boy was rowing. The boy was having trouble keeping the boat on course, but the man didn’t seem bothered by it. He let the boy make his own adjustments. Jesse held his glass up and looked at the way the light came through it. There was moisture on the outside of the glass.

 
It was about control.

  He could hear the water move below the deck. Occasionally he heard a seagull squawk. There was the faint sound of music to go with the ball game. And occasionally laughter from the partying power boats.

  That was why Snyder beat her up. He had to know he could control her and then he could know he wouldn’t lose her. Shooting her would be complete control.

  Jesse swirled the glass a little, listening to the sound the ice cubes made against the glass.

  The dumb bastard thought he loved her.

  The rowboat reached the wharf and after a struggle the boy brought it around so that it was against the landing float. The man reached out and held it steady while the boy climbed out. Then the boy held it steady for the man. Jesse made a gesture of toast toward them with his glass.

  The man and boy took some tackle out of the rowboat and walked up the wharf and out of sight. Jesse sat turning his glass in his hands. Then he stood and walked to the railing of his deck and looked down at the cola-colored water rocking against the seawall below him and dropped his drink, glass and all, into the ocean.

  Chapter Sixty

  Alan Garner was eating a slice of pepperoni pizza and drinking a diet Sprite at the counter of a place on Dartmouth Street when Jesse and Brian Kelly came in and sat down on either side of him.

  Jesse said, “Hi.”

  Kelly didn’t speak.

  Garner looked for a moment at Jesse. Then he remembered.

  “The police chief,” he said.

  “Paradise, Mass.,” Jesse said.

  Garner nodded.

  “This is Detective Kelly,” Jesse said. “Boston.”

  “How ya doing,” Kelly said.

  Garner chewed the last bite of his pizza, and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He swallowed some diet Sprite. Then he smiled.

  “Am I in trouble with the law?” he said.

  “You want to talk about it here?” Jesse said.

  “We could sit in a booth,” Garner said.

  “Sure.”

  The two cops moved to a booth opposite the counter. Garner paid his bill, then he took his diet Sprite bottle and sat beside Jesse. Kelly sat across from them.

  “So, guys, what’s up?” he said.

  “Tell us about Billie Bishop,” Jesse said.

  “Who?”

  “Billie Bishop,” Jesse said.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about Billie Bishop,” Garner said.

  He took a little diet Sprite from the bottle, his elbow resting on the table so that he had to dip his head to drink.

  “Tell us about Dawn Davis,” Jesse said.

  Garner put his diet Sprite down.

  “Dawn Davis,” he said.

  “Dawn Davis,” Jesse said.

  “I don’t think I know her,” Garner said.

  “How do you know it’s a her?”

  “I, oh, Dawn/Don, I see, I guess I just assumed because you were asking about a girl before.”

  “Billie Bishop?” Kelly said.

  “Yes.”

  “How did you know Billie Bishop was a girl?” Kelly said.

  Garner opened his mouth and closed it. He looked at his bottle of diet Sprite. He looked across at the counter man. Both cops were silent. Garner drank some diet Sprite. He looked at his watch.

  “I… I don’t have anything to say.”

  “Where do you live?” Kelly said.

  “Cohassett.”

  “Where in Cohassett?”

  “Jerusalem Road.”

  “Where Gino Fish lives,” Kelly said.

  “I live with Gino.”

  “You his new tootsie?” Kelly said.

  “We have a relationship,” Garner said.

  “I’m glad for you,” Kelly said.

  “And you work for him?” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  The cops didn’t say anything.

  “Why?” Garner said.

  “Why what?” Jesse said.

  “Why are you asking about Gino?”

  Jesse took a small notebook from his pocket and thumbed through the pages for a moment.

  “You used to live in Brighton?” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  “Market Street?”

  “Yes. But I moved last year.”

  “In with Gino,” Jesse said.

  “Yes. There something wrong with that?”

  “You remember your phone number in Brighton?”

  “Five six… something.”

  Jesse read it to him.

  “Could be it,” Garner said. “You know how many numbers you have these days.”

  Jesse read another number. “How about that one?” he said.

  “You must have checked that. It’s my number at work.”

  “In Gino’s office,” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  Again they were silent. The diet Sprite bottle was empty. Garner looked at the door.

  The poor bastard, Jesse thought. He came in here, feeling good, going to have a nice piece of pizza, and now he’s fucked and he knows it.

  The silence got longer.

  Finally Garner said, “What do you want?”

  “We want to know what happened to Billie Bishop,” Jesse said.

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  Jesse looked at Kelly. Kelly sighed.

  “Here’s what we got,” Kelly said. “We got you for procuring. We got you for living off the earnings of a prostitute. We got you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Probably several minors.”

  Garner shook his head slowly as Kelly spoke.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “We got a statement from Dawn Davis. We got a statement from T. P. Pollinger. We have your ass,” Kelly said.

  “I want a lawyer,” Garner said.

  “Sure,” Kelly said. “As soon as we arrest you.”

  “Maybe we can work something out,” Jesse said.

  “Work out my ass,” Kelly said.

  “Maybe he can help us,” Jesse said.

  “Fuck him,” Kelly said.

  “I want to know who killed Billie Bishop,” Jesse said.

  “I don’t know,” Garner said. “I honest to God don’t know.”

  “Maybe you killed her,” Kelly said.

  “No.”

  “Maybe we could hang it on you anyway,” Kelly said.

  “No.”

  “Maybe,” Jesse said, “what we need to do is to discuss this with Gino.”

  “Gino?” Garner said.

  “Sure. Since you were using his phone number, I figure you were doing it for him.”

  “Gino’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Really? You mean he doesn’t know you’re running an escort service for pedophiles out of his office?” Jesse said.

  “Gino has nothing to do with this,” Garner said.

  He looked scared.

  “So, if he doesn’t know,” Jesse said, “and we tell him, maybe he’ll be grateful and help us with our case.”

  “Tell Gino?”

  “Sure,” Jesse said.

  Garner looked around the room. It was 2:20 in the afternoon. The counter man was talking through the serving window to the pizza chef. No one else was in the restaurant.

  “No,” Garner said.

  “No what?”

  “You can’t tell Gino.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’ll kill me.”

  “What a shame,” Kelly said.

  Garner looked around the room again, as if he were looking for a way out. The two cops sat quietly. Jesse could hear Garner’s breathing.

  “If I tell you what I know,” Garner said, “can you give me a break?”

  “Of course,” Jesse said.

  “And Gino doesn’t have to know.”

  “Mum’s the word,” Jesse said.

  “It started as nothing,” Garner said. “A girl tried to pick me up. She was a kid. And I knew a
guy liked kids, so I started talking to her and one thing led to another and I figured maybe she could use a little management.”

  Garner fiddled with his empty bottle.

  “She a runaway?” Jesse said.

  “Yes. Was staying at the shelter in JP with the nun. So I started setting her up with guys,” Garner said. “And we’d split.”

  “How much did she get?” Kelly said.

  “I did all the work,” Garner said. “Took all the risks. Paid the rent, bought the clothes and makeup. All she had to do was have sex for half an hour or so.”

  “So what’d she get? Ten cents on the dollar?”

  Garner shrugged.

  “So that was working pretty good, and I thought, hey, why not expand?” Garner smiled. “The American way, you know?”

  “And…” Jesse said.

  “I specialized. Young girls seem to like me. I’m fairly attractive, you know. And I don’t seem threatening. So I started to, um, cull them from the shelters, and clean them up and… put them in touch with clients.”

  “And Gino didn’t know.”

  “It was before I met Gino.”

  “When you were still living in Brighton.”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you moved in with Gino, you didn’t want to give up your career.”

  “I think it’s important,” Garner said, “for a boy to have an independent income.”

  “Billie Bishop work for you?” Jesse said.

  Kelly had leaned back in the booth with his arms crossed, looking without expression at Garner. His gaze was steady.

  “Yes. I met her at the shelter.”

  “She know you were in another program?” Jesse said.

  Garner smiled.

  “I’m in both programs,” he said.

  “Doubles the odds for a date,” Kelly said, his stare steady on Garner.

  “So the girls, like Billie Bishop, thought maybe you were their boyfriend,” Jesse said.

  Garner nodded.

  “Tell me about Norman Shaw,” Jesse said.

  Garner sat back in the booth as if he’d been shoved.

  “Norman Shaw?”

  Jesse had his forearms resting on the tabletop, leaning toward Garner as he talked.

  “Who’s Norman Shaw?”

  Neither Kelly nor Jesse spoke. Both sat as they had been sitting and waited.

  After a long silence, Garner said, “You mean the writer?”