The Jesse Stone Novels 6-9

by Robert B. Parker

  Lutz shook his head. Jesse took a couple of eight-by-ten blowups of Hendricks and Lorrie that Suit had taken. He pushed them toward Lutz.

  “You know the afternoons you spent with Lorrie recently in New York? She spent the nights with Alan Hendricks.”

  Lutz made no move toward the photographs, but Jesse knew Lutz could see them from where he sat. He stared blankly toward them. Then without a preamble he stood and turned and walked out of Jesse’s office, and kept going.

  58

  Molly came in with a paper plate, on which there were two apple turnovers.

  “You didn’t want to hold him?” Molly said.

  She put the paper plate in front of Jesse. Absently, Jesse picked up one of the turnovers.

  “I got not one single piece of evidence that he has ever in his life committed a crime of any sort,” Jesse said.

  He took a bite of the turnover.

  “His ex-wife says he could have done it,” Molly said.

  Jesse chewed and swallowed.

  “Yum, yum,” he said. “But she didn’t say that he did do it. Any defense attorney in America would listen to that tape and see that I led her to it.”

  Jesse ate some more of the turnover.

  “Plus,” Molly said, “if it came to that, he could argue that she did it, and she could insist that he did it, and that would create reasonable doubt.”

  “So, no, I didn’t hold him,” Jesse said. “This is an excellent turnover. You get it at Daisy Dyke’s?”

  “I baked it,” Molly said.

  “Baked it?”

  “Yeah, you know, peeled the apples and made the crust and added the cinnamon and put in the sugar and folded it up and put it in the oven.”

  “You know, turnovers are like donuts. They just seem to be. You don’t think of anyone making them.”

  “I made them,” Molly said.

  “Wow,” Jesse said. “Wife, mother, cop, baker.”

  “Department sex symbol,” Molly said.

  Jesse finished the turnover.

  “Molly, I mean in no way to downgrade that, but you are the only woman in the department.”

  “So unless some of the guys are gay,” Molly said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Which I don’t think they are,” Molly said.

  Jesse nodded again.

  “Well, it may be a meaningless distinction,” Molly said, “but it is a distinction, and I’m claiming it.”

  “Can I eat the other turnover?” Jesse said.

  “Sure.”

  “Did you make them specifically for me?” Jesse said.

  “No. I made them for my husband and children. But I saved two for you.”

  “Well, you’re right, one takes the distinctions one can get,” Jesse said.

  “Besides, maybe a couple of the guys are secretly gay, and you actually are a department sex symbol.”

  “I’d prefer not to go there,” Jesse said.

  59

  Jesse rang the bell at the front door of Timothy Lloyd’s condo in the Prudential Center, and held up his badge in front of the peephole. After a minute the door opened.

  “I’m Jesse Stone, the chief of police in Paradise. We need to talk.”

  “Paradise, Mass?”

  “Yes, may I come in?”

  “Yeah, sure, what’s up?” Lloyd said and stepped away from the door. Jesse went in and closed the door behind him. He tucked the badge away in his shirt pocket.

  “I am also Jenn Stone’s former husband,” he said.

  Lloyd’s face sagged a little, and Jesse hit him hard with a straight left. Lloyd took two steps back and then lunged at Jesse. Jesse hit him with a left hook and then a right hook, and Lloyd stumbled backward and sat on the floor.

  “You can’t come in here and do this,” Lloyd said.

  It always amazed Jesse what people said in extremis.

  “Of course I can,” Jesse said. “I just did. And I may do it every day unless we have a thoughtful and productive discussion.”

  Lloyd scooted on his butt backward away from Jesse and scrambled to his feet. Jesse could see his eyes shifting, looking for a weapon. Lloyd picked up a brass candleholder from the dining-room table, charged at Jesse, and tried to hit him with it. Jesse deflected Lloyd’s swing with his left forearm, grabbed him by the hair, and ran him forward behind his own momentum into the wall headfirst. Lloyd let go of the candlestick holder and went to his knees and stayed there, trying to get his legs under him. He had more stuff in him than Jesse had expected. Jesse’s business was to get rid of whatever stuff Lloyd had. He kicked him in the stomach and Lloyd yelped and fell flat on the floor and doubled up in pain and a kind of fetal concealment. Jesse walked to a red leather armchair near the front door and sat in it and said nothing. Lloyd stayed doubled up on the floor, groaning softly and occasionally.

  Something annoying impinged faintly on Jesse’s consciousness. He listened. There was a television on somewhere in the apartment. He couldn’t hear what was being said. But he knew from the sound of it that it was blather.

  After a time when the only sound in the place was the distant and indistinct blather, Lloyd stopped groaning on the floor.

  “I never did anything to your wife,” he said.

  “You’ve been stalking her.”

  “I never—”

  “I’m not here to debate,” Jesse said.

  He stood and walked over to where Lloyd lay on the ground, took his gun from his hip, and bent over and put the muzzle of the gun against the bridge of Lloyd’s nose.

  “If you stalk her again, or bother her in any way, or have anything at all to do with her, I’ll kill you,” he said.

  “Jesus Christ, Stone.” Lloyd’s voice was up a full octave.

  Jesse pressed the gun harder against Lloyd’s forehead.

  “You understand that?”

  “Yes, Jesus Christ, yes. I promise I’ll never go near her again. I promise.”

  Jesse stood motionless for a moment, the gun pressed against Lloyd. He could feel the air going in and out of his lungs. He could feel the latissimus dorsi bunch. He could almost feel it. It was as if he were able to project himself ahead into the sudden discharge of energy that came with a gunshot.

  “Please,” Lloyd said. “Please. I won’t ever bother her again.”

  Jesse took in all the air his lungs would hold and let it out slowly, and straightened and put the gun back in its holster.

  “Get up,” he said. “Sit in a chair. Tell me your side of it.”

  Lloyd got painfully to his feet. Jesse made no attempt to help him. Half-bent and slow, Lloyd got himself to a big, barrel-backed chair and sank into it. They looked at each other.

  “I don’t want to make you mad,” Lloyd said.

  “Let’s keep it simple,” Jesse said. “You leave Jenn alone, you’ll have no problem with me. You bother her again and I’ll kill you.”

  Lloyd nodded slowly.

  “Can I get a drink?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “You want one?” Lloyd said.

  “No.”

  Lloyd went stiffly to the kitchen, filled a lowball glass with ice, poured a lot of Jack Daniel’s over the ice, and brought it back. He sat and looked at Jesse and took a drink.

  “I, you’re sure you don’t want something.”

  “I’m sure,” Jesse said.

  “I, ah, I liked Jenn a lot,” Lloyd said.

  The normalness of having bourbon on the rocks in his living room made Lloyd a little calmer. Pretty soon, Jesse knew, the whiskey would help as well…. Coupla good old boys, Jesse thought, having a Jack on the rocks, talking about broads.

  “And I thought she liked me,” Lloyd said. “But I think now that she just wanted me to get her into modeling, and television commercials, and, you know, help her career.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “She was using me.”

  “Probably she wanted both,” Jesse said.

  “What do you mean?”
<
br />   “Probably wanted to be in love with you and wanted you to help her, and she couldn’t separate the two out either.”

  “I don’t get it,” Lloyd said.

  “No,” Jesse said. “You probably don’t.”

  60

  They sat on the seawall at the town beach in the early evening, looking out across the deserted beach at the empty ocean. Sunny looked great, he thought. Black sleeveless top, white jeans, big sunglasses. Jesse looked sideways at her. She was staring straight out to sea. He’d never been able to figure out what made a face look intelligent.

  “You spoke to Tim Lloyd,” Sunny said.

  “Yes.”

  Maybe it wasn’t in the face. Maybe it was behind the face.

  “And?” Sunny said.

  “He felt used,” Jesse said. “He felt she was exploiting him to get ahead.”

  “I’m shocked,” Sunny said, “shocked, I tell you.”

  Jesse nodded. He had stopped studying her face and was also looking at the ocean.

  “He stalked her so he’d feel powerful,” Sunny said.

  “I know,” Jesse said.

  “To compensate for feeling so not powerful,” Sunny said, “after she ditched him, or however he experienced it.”

  “I know.”

  They stared out at the ocean together. It was calm as evening arrived. The water moved gently and the surface of it was almost slick.

  Jesse said, “He and I agreed that he’d stay away from Jenn.”

  “Does Jenn know?”

  “Yes. But I’m not sure she’s trusting the agreement.”

  “I’ll stay on him,” Sunny said, “for a while, see if he keeps his end of the bargain.”

  “He will,” Jesse said.

  “No harm making sure,” Sunny said.

  “Thank you,” Jesse said.

  “Did Jenn have anything else to say when you told her about the agreement?” Sunny said.

  Jesse smiled at the blank ocean.

  “She asked if we’d had a fight,” he said.

  Sunny shook her head slowly.

  “That’s so Jenn,” Sunny said.

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “What a thrill,” Sunny said, “to have two men fighting over her.”

  Jesse was quiet.

  “I know what you’re like,” Sunny said. “He wouldn’t have had a chance for it to be a fight.”

  “He’s an amateur,” Jesse said.

  “Sure,” Sunny said. “And you’re not. What’s sad is that she doesn’t know that, and she doesn’t know what you’re like.”

  “And you do,” Jesse said.

  “Yes,” Sunny said. “I do.”

  Jesse nodded. He was motionless where he sat. He didn’t look at Sunny. Nor she at him. They remained fixed on the slow ocean in front of them. A herring gull came in and landed in front of them, and snapped up a piece of empty crab shell. There was no sustenance in it, so the gull put it back and hopped down the beach looking for better. Jesse watched it.

  “She knows,” Jesse said.

  “And doesn’t care?” Sunny said.

  “She cares,” Jesse said.

  Sunny continued to look out at the horizon.

  “And she also doesn’t know and doesn’t care,” Jesse said.

  “We who are about to shrink salute you,” Sunny said.

  “I know her,” Jesse said. “I don’t understand her, but I know her. A while back, I thought we’d move back in together and it would be over. We’d be together. She wants that. I want that. And it didn’t work.”

  “I like her better than I expected to,” Sunny said.

  “People do,” Jesse said.

  “She’s everything you could want a person to be,” Sunny said.

  “Except when she isn’t,” Jesse said.

  “Which is often,” Sunny said.

  “But not always,” Jesse said.

  A hundred yards down the beach, the herring gull gave up and flew away. The beach was empty now except for the two of them and the gentle, repetitive, heedless roll of the water.

  “She have a shrink yet?” Sunny said. “I know she’s had several. But I have a good one. If she’d go.”

  “She’ll do what she’ll do,” Jesse said.

  “And you’ll do it with her,” Sunny said.

  Jesse didn’t answer. The sun was down. It was still light, but the ocean had darkened. The wind had died entirely, as it often did at sunset.

  “I think we need to say good-bye,” Sunny said.

  Jesse nodded silently.

  “It doesn’t mean I’ll never see you,” Sunny said. “It doesn’t mean I won’t help you. I don’t know what it does mean, exactly.”

  She slipped off the seawall and stood in front of him.

  “Except,” she said, “right now it’s time to say good-bye.”

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  His voice was hoarse. He stood. They put their arms around each other. Neither spoke. Neither moved. They stayed where they were, hugging each other beside the nearly inanimate ocean as the twilight continued to fade.

  61

  Jesse stood in the back of the room in the Town Hall auditorium while Molly held her daily press briefing.

  “There is a development in the Walton Weeks murder,” Molly said. “We have identified two suspects, and are pursuing several leads, though at this time we do not have sufficient evidence to arrest anyone.”

  A television reporter in front said, “Can you give us names, Moll?”

  Molly smiled.

  “Sure,” she said, “how about Cain and Abel?”

  “I mean names of suspects.”

  “Oh,” Molly said. “No, I can’t give you those names.”

  “Why not,” someone yelled.

  “Don’t want to,” Molly said.

  “When do you expect an arrest?”

  “Or arrests,” Molly said. “As soon as we develop our leads more fully.”

  “Do you have a timetable?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Molly said. “ASAP. Margie, you have a question?”

  “I understand the governor has become actively involved in the case,” a woman said.

  “He has?” Molly said. “I’ll be damned.”

  “You didn’t know that?” Margie said.

  “Nope,” Molly said. “Had no idea.”

  “Is there a political overtone to this case,” a man said.

  “Here,” Molly said, “in the Bay State? Hard to imagine.”

  “Are you saying the governor is involved and you don’t know it?”

  “I’m not saying what the governor’s involved in,” Molly answered. “I have no knowledge of any involvement by the governor in this case.”

  “Are you implying that his involvement is useless?”

  “No.”

  “Useful?”

  “What part of ‘no knowledge’ don’t you understand, Jim?” Molly said.

  “What’s the governor’s position on this case?”

  “I don’t know,” Molly said.

  “He’s not made it clear?”

  “I haven’t spoken with the governor,” Molly said.

  “About this case?”

  “About anything,” Molly said. “I’ve never met him in my life.”

  “Has Chief Stone spoken with the governor?”

  “Don’t know,” Molly said.

  “Why doesn’t Chief Stone ever meet with the press?”

  “Doesn’t seem to want to,” Molly said.

  “What about the public’s right to know?”

  “Chief Stone is mostly about protect and serve,” Molly said.

  “He doesn’t care about the public’s right to know?”

  “Deeply,” Molly said. “He cares about that every bit as deeply as you do, Murray. As we all do.”

  “Then why doesn’t he talk with us?”

  “He likes to have me do it,” Molly answered. “He says I’m more fun. One more question?”

  “W
hat kinds of clues are you pursuing?”

  “The ones we’ve got,” Molly said. “Thank you all very much.”

  By the time Molly shoved her way through the reporters and got back to the station house, Jesse was there already.

  “I saw you up back,” Molly said. “Do I get a raise for not directing them to you?”

  “Better than that,” Jesse said. “You keep your job.”

  “I hope the two-suspects thing didn’t get buried by the governor bullshit.”

  “There are enough reporters out there. A couple of them will recognize actual information,” Jesse said.

  “Think it will get anything moving?”

  “I don’t know. The tighter things feel,” Jesse said, “the more likely something is to come squeezing out.”

  “As far as I can see, their best bet is to sit tight and do nothing.”

  “That’s because you’re not feeling squeezed,” Jesse said.

  “Except by the fucking press,” Molly said.

  “I thought Irish Catholic mothers of four didn’t say fucking.”

  Molly smiled.

  “We generally don’t,” Molly said. “On the other hand, we’re not ignorant of the phrase. There’s the four kids.”

  “Worth remembering,” Jesse said. “Lutz at least knows I know he did it. I don’t know yet how much involvement she had.”

  “I’m guessing a lot,” Molly said.

  “Me too,” Jesse said.

  “So when they read about suspects and leads and stuff, they’ll know we’re talking about them.”

  “And maybe they won’t be smart enough to sit still and do nothing. The whole crime has already been overthought,” Jesse said.

  “The refrigerator and the corpse display?” Molly said. “That sort of thing?”

  “We both know,” Jesse said, “when all is said and done, the ones you can’t solve are the ones where somebody walks in, aces somebody, disposes of the murder weapon, and walks away. No motive. No witnesses. Nothing. This thing with Weeks and his girlfriend was badly overproduced.”

  “So they’ll be inclined not to sit still,” Molly said.

  “It’s why I think Lorrie’s involved,” Jesse said. “Lutz is an ex-cop. He should know better.”

  “What if he prevails this time,” Molly said. “What if they do sit tight?”