The Jesse Stone Novels 6-9

by Robert B. Parker

  They met her at the Sixth Precinct station house.

  “According to the precinct commander,” she said as they walked out on West 10th Street, “I’m yours, as long as you need me…in a professional sense.”

  “You the newest detective?” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  “So you catch all the stuff like this,” Jesse said.

  “I do,” she said. “You ever on the job in a big city?”

  “L.A.,” Jesse said. “Robbery Homicide.”

  “Hotshot?”

  “You bet,” Jesse said.

  “You think Bratton can make a difference out there?”

  “He made a difference here,” Jesse said.

  “Good point,” she said. “What’s our plan?”

  “We’re going to visit a woman at her condo on Perry Street.”

  “Not one of the big new ones?” Rosa said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, good,” she said. “I been dying to see what they’re like inside.”

  “While we’re in there, we’ll conduct an interview, which Officer Simpson will covertly record.”

  “Is that a tape recorder that he’s got in his purse,” Rosa said.

  “It’s a shoulder bag,” Suit said. “I bought it for the occasion.”

  “Sure,” she said. “You won’t be able to use the tape in court.”

  “Don’t plan to,” Jesse said. “I plan to see what she says, and then interview a guy in Boston and see what he says, and then, maybe, if what they say doesn’t match…”

  “You’ll play each other’s tapes for them.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “You ready, Suit?”

  “Yeah. I tested everything in the hotel room. I’ll start it before we go in. Leave the bag unzipped. Tape’ll run for ninety minutes.”

  “What’s your first name?” Rosa said to Suit.

  “Suit, short for Suitcase,” he said. “I mean, that’s not my real name. My real name is Luther, but there was a ballplayer named Suitcase Simpson…”

  Rosa nodded.

  “And it’s a lot better than being Luther,” she said.

  “Well,” Suit said, “maybe a little better.”

  Rosa was wearing black boots with a medium heel, black pants, a white shirt, and a yellow blazer. When they got to the front door of Lorrie Weeks’s building, she reached into the pocket of her blazer and took out her badge. As they walked past the doorman, Jesse noticed that she shifted slightly into a cop swagger. He smiled to himself. He wondered if he did that. Because she was pretty and small, it was probably more noticeable.

  At the reception desk, Jesse said, “Lorrie Weeks?”

  The woman at the desk said, “Who may I say is calling?”

  Rosa held up her badge.

  “Detective Sanchez,” Rosa said firmly, “New York City police.”

  The reception woman made the call and then took them up to Lorrie Weeks’s apartment. In the elevator, Suit put his hand inside his shoulder bag and turned on the tape recorder. Lorrie’s place was one of only two on the floor. She looked worried when she opened the door. But people often do, Jesse thought, when the cops come calling.

  “Oh,” she said when she saw Jesse. “It’s you. What is it?”

  “We need to talk,” Jesse said. “You remember Officer Simpson. This is Detective Sanchez. Since we’re in New York, she’ll be the law in the room.”

  Lorrie stepped away from the door. The reception lady looked like she wanted to know more, realized no one was going to tell her more, and walked discreetly away back to the elevator. Jesse went into a vast living room with huge picture windows.

  “What is it?” Lorrie said. “Is it anything bad?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “We just have some new information, and we wanted to see if you could help us interpret it.”

  “I’ll be glad to try,” she said.

  “Good,” Jesse said.

  55

  Rosa Sanchez stood in front of the big window wall and looked at the view. Suit sat in a green-and-gold brocade chair with his notebook, and Jesse sat at one end of a big green leather couch with Lorrie at the other. She was wearing a short summer dress, white with big red flowers on it, and when she crossed her legs she showed a lot of thigh.

  Good thigh.

  “Your maiden name was Lorrie Pilarcik,” Jesse said.

  “How did you know that?” Lorrie said.

  “Advanced investigative techniques,” Jesse said. “And you married Walton Weeks on August twenty-sixth, 1990. In Baltimore.”

  Lorrie nodded. Her eyes were open very wide, her lips slightly parted and glossy. She touched her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue.

  “At the Harbor Court Hotel,” Jesse said.

  Lorrie nodded again.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was quite lovely.”

  Jesse smiled at her and nodded back.

  “I’ll bet it was,” Jesse said. “Was it your first marriage?”

  Lorrie blinked, her mouth still slightly open, the tip of her tongue moving back and forth on her lower lip.

  “I beg your pardon?” Lorrie said.

  “Was it your first marriage?” Jesse said.

  Again silence and the nervous movement of her tongue. Jesse waited. Detective Sanchez continued to gaze out at the river view. Suit was quietly writing in his notebook.

  “Second,” Lorrie said.

  “How long before?”

  “Before?”

  “How long before you married Walton Weeks did you divorce your first husband?”

  “Oh God, I don’t remember, a long time.”

  “You were granted a divorce,” Jesse said, “in Las Vegas on August fifteenth, 1990, after six weeks of residency.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Lorrie said. “Why are you asking me these things and trying to trick me?”

  “Trying to give you a chance to be honest,” Jesse said. “What was your first husband’s name?”

  Lorrie stood suddenly and stood in front of Jesse with her hands on her hips and leaned slightly toward him.

  “Conrad Lutz,” she said. “Okay? Is that what you want to hear? I was married to Conrad Lutz.”

  Rosa Sanchez turned from the view and folded her arms and looked at Lorrie. Suit continued to make notes.

  “Which is how you met Walton Weeks,” Jesse said.

  “So?”

  “Tell me about that?” Jesse said.

  “There’s nothing to tell. Conrad and I were at the end of our relationship, and Walton and I were just beginning.”

  “Did they overlap?”

  “It happens,” Lorrie said.

  “How did Conrad feel about it.”

  Lorrie said, “He knew we were done.”

  “So it wasn’t Weeks that broke up the marriage?”

  “No.”

  “What did?”

  “Why do you care?” Lorrie said.

  Jesse smiled.

  “Advanced investigative technique,” he said. “Just covering all the bases.”

  Lorrie nodded.

  “So what broke up your first marriage?” Jesse said.

  “Boredom, I suppose…and…” Lorrie stopped.

  “And?”

  “Well, I don’t know how to say it without sounding terrible.”

  “We won’t judge you,” Jesse said.

  “I…I don’t come from circumstances as elegant as you might think,” Lorrie said. “When I was a young woman, it was exciting to marry a policeman.”

  “At any age,” Jesse said.

  Across the room, Rosa Sanchez smiled.

  “But then he went to work for Walton,” Lorrie said. “And I started to move in a different world. And meet different people. And…it wasn’t so exciting anymore to be married to a policeman.”

  “Or a bodyguard.”

  “Or a bodyguard,” Lorrie said.

  “And Lutz didn’t mind?” Jesse said.

  “Well, I suppose, of course, he must have
minded,” Lorrie said.

  “And do you think he minded when you married Weeks?”

  “Well, I guess,” Lorrie said. “I suppose so.”

  “But he stayed on as Weeks’s bodyguard.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It was a good job,” Lorrie said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Do you think he might have minded enough to kill Weeks and hang him in a public park?” he said.

  “Oh my God,” Lorrie said.

  Jesse waited. Lorrie’s tongue flicked her lower lip.

  “Oh my God,” Lorrie said again.

  “Whaddya think?” Jesse said.

  “Well, I, my God…of course Conrad had some violence in him. A policeman. A bodyguard. He carried a gun….”

  “Maybe?” Jesse said.

  “There was a lot of force in Conrad,” Lorrie said. “A lot of passion.”

  “So you’re saying he might have done it?”

  “I suppose.”

  They were quiet.

  After a moment Lorrie said, “It could have been Conrad.”

  “Any idea why he waited so long?” Jesse said.

  Lorrie looked faintly startled.

  “So long?” she said.

  “You married Weeks in 1990,” Jesse said.

  “Conrad could be like that, very patient, very calculating, very cold.”

  “But forceful and passionate,” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  “And having been patient and calculating all this time,” Jesse said, “have you any thought as to what might have caused him to act now?”

  “I…maybe it was because Walton was going to fire him.”

  “You know that?”

  “Walton mentioned to me that he was considering it.”

  “He say why?” Jesse asked.

  “No. Just that he was thinking about it.”

  “Once he didn’t have the good job,” Jesse said, “there would be no reason not to kill Weeks.”

  “You know,” Lorrie said. “That sort of makes sense.”

  “And the girl?”

  “Maybe he had to because she saw him do it,” Lorrie said.

  “Good thought,” Jesse said. “Have you seen much of him lately?”

  “Not really, not since Walton died,” Lorrie said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Is there anything else you could tell us about all this?”

  “It’s just that I never thought of Conrad,” she said.

  “But now that you have?” Jesse said.

  “I hate to even think it, but it makes a kind of sense.”

  “Yes,” Jesse said. “It does.”

  56

  How come you didn’t tell her how we saw her with Lutz and Hendricks, taking turns?” Suit said as they were drinking coffee with Rosa Sanchez near the station house on West 10th.

  “We can always ask her later,” Jesse said. “I was sort of interested in how far she’d go with Lutz.”

  Suit took the tape recorder from his shoulder bag and put it on the table. He pressed play.

  “It’s just that I never thought of Conrad,” Lorrie said.

  “But now that you have?” Jesse said.

  “I hate to even think it,” Lorrie said, “but it makes a kind of sense.”

  Suit pressed stop.

  “Just making sure we got it?” he said.

  “You’re going to play selected portions for this Lutz fella?” Rosa said.

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  Suit nodded.

  “And we got our pictures,” Suit said.

  “Worth a thousand words,” Jesse said.

  “You think this guy Lutz did your murders?” Rosa said.

  “Maybe.”

  “You think the woman is involved with him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And you’re going to use her to try and shake him loose,” Rosa said.

  “Yep.”

  “And him to shake her loose?” Rosa said.

  “Yep.”

  “You think they’re the ones?”

  “She’s been lying about absolutely everything since I started talking to her. He has never told me any of what you heard me talk with her about.”

  “We both know it doesn’t mean they did it,” Rosa said.

  “And we both know it doesn’t mean they didn’t,” Jesse said.

  “That’s right,” Rosa said. “It’s grounds for suspicion.”

  “She didn’t mention that Weeks was divorcing her,” Suit said.

  “Her husband that’s dead?” Rosa said. “The talk-show guy?”

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  “Was it going to be a good deal for her?” Rosa said.

  “No.”

  “No money?”

  “Not enough,” Jesse said. “That was going to go to the woman who died with him, and their unborn son.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Rosa said. “A motive.”

  “Sounds like one,” Jesse said.

  “But?”

  “But I need to figure out where Lutz is in this,” Jesse said. “I doubt that she could have done it alone. And why in hell would he do it for her?”

  “He’s been seeing her,” Suit said.

  “So has Hendricks,” Jesse said.

  “Who’s Hendricks,” Rosa said.

  Jesse told her.

  “He got something going with what’shername Lorrie?” Rosa said.

  “So I’m told.”

  “And we got our pictures,” Suit said.

  “Suit did the photography,” Jesse said. “He’s very proud.”

  “A job worth doing…” Suit said.

  “You think he’s in?” Rosa said.

  “Hendricks? Don’t know. Can’t rule him out.”

  Rosa took a card from her purse and gave it to Jesse. “You guys need me again, call. Deputy superintendent says I’m yours when you need me, unless something comes up.”

  “Thanks, Rosa,” Jesse said.

  “It was a pleasure watching you work in the interview, smooth, pleasant, keep her talking, show her a way to look good, and, if she’s guilty, throw the blame someplace else,” Rosa said. “You’re pretty good.”

  “Thanks for noticing,” Jesse said.

  “She may have killed her husband and his girlfriend and their unborn child,” Rosa said. “And she might have two male accomplices, and she might be bopping them both.”

  “And she looks like a charity-ball trophy wife,” Jesse said.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” Rosa said.

  “But not forever,” Jesse said.

  57

  Molly brought Lutz into Jesse’s office. He looks tired, Jesse thought.

  “Thanks for coming in,” Jesse said.

  Lutz nodded and sat down. Molly left.

  “I’m not going to fuck around with this,” Jesse said. “I think you’re in a mess.”

  Lutz had no reaction.

  “Here’s what we know. We know you were a cop. We know you once busted Weeks for public indecency, and went on to become his bodyguard. We know you were once married to Lorraine Pilarcik, now known as Lorrie Weeks. We know you and she got a Vegas quickie divorce eleven days before she married Weeks. We know you seemed to have weathered this domestic upheaval and continued in Weeks’s employ. We know you were just with her in New York, and continue to have a relationship with her, which gives the appearance, at least, of intimacy.”

  Lutz didn’t speak. He sat straight in the chair. His arms crossed. His face blank.

  “We know that Carey Longley was pregnant with Weeks’s baby. We know that Weeks, prior to his death, had filed for divorce from Lorrie, which would have meant that all he owned would go to Carey and the unborn child, once the divorce happened.”

  Lutz didn’t move. He looked at Jesse with the dead-eyed cop stare that Jesse himself had mastered so long ago. It was like they issued it with the badge. Even Molly could do it if required.

  “We know you were a
cop, so we assume you know how to shoot. We assume you had some knowledge of the degree to which storing a cadaver in a refrigerator would muck up the medical examiner’s conclusions. We know you’re a big, strong guy and could, if you had to, drag a dead body around and string it up on a tree in the park. And, as a former cop, you might have a better idea than some why doing so would confuse the murder investigation.”

  Jesse picked up his coffee cup, saw that it was empty, and stood to pour some more.

  “You want coffee?” Jesse said to Lutz.

  Lutz shook his head. Jesse put sugar in his coffee and some condensed milk and stirred it and brought it back to his desk.

  “Care to discuss any of these issues?” Jesse said.

  Lutz shook his head.

  “Care to discuss the relationship with Lorrie Pilarcik?”

  Lutz shook his head. Jesse shrugged. He took a tape recorder from his desk drawer, put it on his desk, and punched play. It was the tape Suit had made of the interview with Lorrie in New York.

  “And Lutz didn’t mind?” Jesse’s voice.

  “Well, I suppose, of course, he must have minded.” Lorrie’s voice.

  “And do you think he minded when you married Weeks?”

  “You recognize the voices,” Jesse said.

  Lutz made no answer.

  “Well, I guess.” Lorrie’s voice. “I suppose so.”

  “But he stayed on as Weeks’s bodyguard.”

  “Yes.”

  Lutz was perfectly still as he listened.

  “Do you think he might have minded enough to kill Weeks and hang him in a public park?” Jesse’s voice.

  “Oh my God…of course Conrad had some violence in him. A policeman. A bodyguard. He carried a gun….It could have been Conrad.”

  Jesse let the tape roll to the end, and stopped it and hit rewind. Lutz was impassive.

  “She seems to think you murdered Weeks and his girlfriend.”

  Lutz didn’t move.

  “She was nice about it. She hesitated and lowered her eyes and licked her lower lip a lot, you know how she does, with the tip of her tongue. But very demurely and sweetly, pal, she fingered you for the murders.”

  Lutz moved slightly. Jesse couldn’t tell if he was nodding his head or faintly rocking his whole upper body.

  “Want to hear the tape again?” Jesse said.