Robert B. Parker's Colorblind

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  There was a desk, a black office chair, and a card table and some folding chairs. A fleshy man in his sixties, bald, with intense gray eyes, sat in the office chair. He stared across his desk at a man twenty-five years his junior who was standing at ease—legs spread, hands clasped behind his back. The younger man, dressed in jeans, black work boots, a black turtleneck, and a camo vest, looked straight ahead, eyes unfocused.

  “See that behind you, son?” asked the man behind the desk, pointing at the old Nazi flag. He didn’t wait for an answer. “That flag was rescued from Berlin in April of 1945. A lot of brave Aryan men died defending that flag and what it stood for. We’re engaged in a desperate struggle to reclaim, for its righteous owners, the body and soul of our great nation. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you understand the concept of winning a battle only to lose the war?”

  “Of course I do, sir.”

  “Then why on earth did you permit to happen what took place last night?”

  “I was not directly part of the operation, sir,” said the younger man, still looking straight ahead. “But I take full responsibility for the actions of those under my command.”

  “Under your command!” The fleshy man pounded his desk. “Given what occurred last evening, son, I might choose to use another word than command.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did they give you an explanation for their actions?”

  “They did, sir.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “The group leader said that the woman kneed and scratched him. Then she ran away and nearly escaped capture. He said he wanted to teach her a lesson.”

  The older man pounded the desk again, this time jumping out of his chair. “A lesson! He wanted to teach her a lesson! He’s not a fucking professor and the lesson to be taught needs to be taught to him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you explain to those nimrods that they may have dealt a severe blow to our cause?”

  “I did, sir.”

  The older man seemed not to hear, strolling out from behind his desk to straighten a framed black-and-white photograph of a burning cross surrounded by hundreds of white hooded men.

  “All they were supposed to do was to shake her up, smack her around a little bit, to serve as a warning of things to come. And because she hurt your man’s pride, they nearly beat the bitch to death?”

  “Nothing like this will happen again, sir.”

  “You’re goddamned right it won’t, son.” He reached under his jacket and pulled out a vintage Luger. He walked over to the younger man and pressed the muzzle to his left temple. The younger man didn’t flinch. “You take responsibility for what your men did?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “You ready to die for their mistakes?” He put his finger on the trigger.

  “I am, sir. They were my responsibility.”

  The older man holstered his pistol. “When the time comes for sacrifice, you know now who the lamb must be.”

  Those words made the younger man react in a way not even the threat of being shot in the head could. He winced and stuttered, struggling for the words. “But . . . sir, he . . . he’s—”

  The older man shouted, “Son, when the time comes, do you know who the lamb must be?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “Good. Now take two boxes and get the fuck out of my sight. I expect not to have to have any future little talks like this one with you again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now get over there and get those distributed as you’ve been instructed. The time for the clarion call is almost upon us. Listen for it.”

  The younger man picked up two boxes and left without looking back.

  7

  Jesse watched Drake Daniels amble over to where the Explorer was parked. He looked the role of an aging small-town cop. His gray hair was kept neat and short under his brown trooper-style hat. The same couldn’t be said of his gut, which had long ago reached critical mass, straining the bottom buttons of his tan uniform shirt and spilling over the edge of his black belt. His ample face was clean shaven and he smelled of too much Old Spice.

  “You wanted to see me, Chief?” he said in a clear, strong voice.

  Jesse nodded, staring into Daniels’s eyes, challenging him. Daniels met the challenge. The cop stared right back at Jesse. His clear blue eyes stood in sharp contrast to his sleepy demeanor. Jesse answered him with more silence. He wanted to see how the cop would react, whether Daniels would fidget or paw at the ground with his shoe. Jesse knew people had tells in life just like in poker and that their tics sometimes said more about them than their words. But Daniels was cool, standing right in front of Jesse, relaxed and looking straight at him. Jesse had to give the guy some credit. He seemed to understand that Jesse was attempting to unnerve him.

  Finally, Daniels spoke. “I figure you’re pretty curious about how I knew about the similarities between this crime scene and the one at Paradise Junior High all those years ago.”

  Tammy Portugal was a divorced mother of two who had gone out clubbing. Her naked body was found in the parking lot of Paradise Junior High School just as Jesse was first settling into his job as chief. SLUT had been written across her abdomen in red lipstick. She had been picked up at a local club by a muscle head named Jo Jo Genest. He’d raped and beaten her and broken her neck before dumping her body like so much trash.

  “Uh-huh,” Jesse said. “I’m curious.”

  “It’s not that complicated, Chief. I was good friends with Anthony deAngelo. We grew up together and I got on the job here a year or two after he got hired in Paradise. He was first on the scene of the Portugal woman’s murder and he talked to me about it. It kind of freaked him out a little because he had never seen a murder victim before. Too bad about what happened to him.”

  Jesse got a sick feeling in his belly, remembering how shaken Anthony was when he showed up at the scene that day long ago. Worse, though, was the fact that Anthony deAngelo was one of Jesse’s cops who’d been killed in the line of duty. He’d been working undercover at the mall, trying to catch a thrill-killing couple. The wife shot Anthony in his head as she and her husband fled.

  “Anthony was a good cop,” Jesse said.

  “Good friend, too. I miss him a lot sometimes.”

  Jesse moved on. “So what was it that made it click for you?”

  Daniels knew what Jesse was asking. “Naked woman in a school parking lot with SLUT written on her in lipstick . . . not exactly a common occurrence in these parts, Chief. Thank God our vic was still breathing.”

  Jesse asked, “You share this observation with anyone except your chief?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not even with your friends I saw you hanging out with over in the lot?”

  Daniels shook his head emphatically.

  “Okay, Officer, thanks. I have no jurisdiction here, so I can’t demand you keep this between you and your chief, but I’d appreciate it.”

  “You don’t think the cases are related, do you?”

  Jesse didn’t answer and thanked Daniels again. The Swan Harbor cop turned and went back to the scene. A minute or two later, Lundquist, who’d kept a close eye on the conversation between Jesse and Daniels, walked over to the Explorer.

  “So?”

  “I don’t know,” Jesse said. “He gave me the right answers.”

  “You don’t seem happy about it.”

  “I’m not. Says he knew about the similarities because he was friends with one of my murdered cops, a good guy named Anthony deAngelo.”

  “Healy told me about that. That was the serial-killing couple.”

  Jesse said, “That was them.”

  “What don’t you like about what Officer Daniels had to say?”

  “How many stories have
you read about the volunteer fireman who just happens to be driving by a burning house and rescues a family from the flames? Then it turns out that the hero fireman—”

  “Set the fire,” Lundquist said, finishing Jesse’s sentence. “You think Daniels had something to do with the assault?”

  “Not my case, but I’d keep an eye on him is all I’m saying.”

  “Given her condition, it’ll probably be my case soon. This town’s chief couldn’t win at Clue even if he cheated. I’m heading over to talk to the boyfriend. You want to tag along? I’m interested to hear what you think.”

  “Sure.”

  As they drove away from the school in Lundquist’s blue Ford, Jesse noticed that the knot in his belly hadn’t gone away. It had only grown and gotten tighter.

  8

  The boyfriend wasn’t what Jesse expected. Steven Randisi was a tall white man, maybe thirty years old, with a neatly trimmed crop of prematurely gray hair. He was a handsome man, but one with a grave, deeply etched face and light brown eyes, thousand-yard eyes. His eyes weren’t red-rimmed or teary. Randisi stared directly at Lundquist and Jesse, yet he seemed far, far away. Jesse had seen a lot of grieving faces in his time. He’d seen one in the mirror frequently over the last several months since Diana was killed. Still, Jesse thought, there was more than grief in Randisi. This was grief plus. That plus didn’t seem like fear or guilt or even confusion. And when Randisi pulled his left hand out of his jacket pocket, Jesse figured he knew what it was.

  “Lost it in Afghanistan,” Randisi said, tapping the back of his prosthetic hand against the table. “I’m being fitted for a fully functional one. They tell me I should have it in a month or two. Helluva thing, losing a piece of your body.”

  Lundquist saw an opening. “Having your girlfriend beaten nearly to death is also a hell of a thing.”

  “She wasn’t—isn’t my girlfriend.”

  “What is she, then?”

  “We dated a few times and we got along. Felicity said she was coming up here to see the fall foliage and asked if I wanted to tag along.”

  “You sleeping together?” Lundquist asked.

  Randisi nodded.

  “Any problems there?”

  “I lost my hand and most of my forearm. The rest of me still functions pretty well, and no, we didn’t have any problems there. As far as I could tell, we were a good fit in bed.”

  “How about out of bed?”

  He shrugged. “We’re still feeling each other out. We are kind of an odd match, I guess. She’s studying for her Ph.D. in African and African American studies at Harvard. Me, I was helping out my dad at his auto-parts store and going to Bunker Hill Community College just to keep occupied.”

  Jesse decided to play the good cop and asked, “So where’d you guys meet?”

  Randisi smiled, remembering. “Legal Seafood in Harvard Square. It was a long wait and we both asked for tables for one. Felicity said that we should just eat together. I think maybe she saw I was looking a little lost and felt sorry for me. I don’t know.” He held up his prosthetic hand. “You always see in TV commercials and stuff, men and women with prosthetics looking all brave and courageous. Me, I felt like a freak, like all that people could see of me was this. And all I could see was that Felicity was beautiful and kind.”

  It went on like that for about a half-hour. Lundquist’s questions getting more intense, taking on accusatory tones. Where were you last night? Why weren’t you together? Did you fight? Why didn’t you go running together? Was she running away from you? Can you account for your whereabouts? When did you alert the local police? Why not sooner? If you didn’t beat her, who did? Did you know anyone who wanted to do her harm? Jesse would mix in questions to ease the tension, turning things back to the more personal. His questions were more about where the relationship might’ve gone and what kind of future Randisi saw for himself. When they were done with him, Randisi looked pretty shaken.

  “One more thing,” Jesse said, as they parted. “You said you lost your hand and part of your forearm.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “How’s the strength in the rest of your left arm?”

  “The shrapnel fucked up my biceps and shoulder, too, but they were able to put me back together well enough to save my upper arm. I’m never going to win any arm-wrestling tournaments, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “What do you think?” Lundquist asked Jesse as they made their way to his car.

  Jesse said, “One look at the bruises around her neck will tell you he didn’t do it. She had deep bruising on both sides of her neck.”

  “Maybe he had help.”

  “I don’t know, Brian. I’d be looking somewhere else.”

  “I’ll check him out anyway. So, if not him . . .”

  Jesse said, “Randisi says she went jogging. Should be easy enough to find witnesses. Not many black faces in Swan Harbor. My guess, she ran along the beach. That’s where a lot of folks in Paradise do their running.”

  “Good supposition, Jesse. It was the beach. There was what looked to be sand in her hair, under her fingernails, and between her toes. That was only a cursory exam. And, Jesse . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The word that he wrote on her, let’s keep that between us.”

  “No one’s going to hear it from me, but a lot of locals and troopers saw it. I asked Officer Daniels to keep it quiet, but you might have some trouble containing it.”

  “I know. The whole damned Swan Harbor PD was there.” Lundquist shook his head in disgust. “It was like they all came for a peek. I’ll be able to keep the troopers quiet, at least. C’mon, let me get you back to your vehicle. Will you please send over the old file on the Portugal woman’s murder? I don’t know what relevance it will have, but I have to be thorough.”

  “Sure. Soon as I get back to Paradise. And, Brian, keep me in the loop. I don’t have a good feeling about this one. Let me know if she survives.”

  “A woman was beaten into unconsciousness. What’s there to feel good about?”

  Jesse had no answer for that.

  9

  Jesse had made it through rehab pretty easily. He hadn’t done it on discipline alone, on his ability to simply shut off his drinking for long periods. For his own sake, he knew he couldn’t afford to act the part of cleaning himself up, and that, for lack of a better expression, he had to let it all hang out. He had been open with the shrinks, with the counselors, and with the groups about destroying his career in L.A. and about his tangled and doomed relationships with women. He’d even gotten some laughs from the others in the group when he explained that he’d got the job as chief of police in Paradise not because he’d been a good detective, not in spite of being a drunk, but because he was one.

  Until today, Jesse hadn’t given much thought to his arrival in Paradise almost two decades ago, but the brutal assault on Felicity Wileford couldn’t help but cause him to reflect on those early days. And he had plenty of time for reflection on his drive down to Boston. One of the things he’d been told over and over again while in rehab was that he needed to go to AA meetings every night, that he had to find a sponsor, and to do it sooner rather than later. Dix had made the same point to him when Jesse had called from the road on his way back from rehab.

  “You got through this part, Jesse,” Dix had said. “Good for you.”

  That was as close as Dix had ever come to an “Attaboy!” and probably as close as he would ever come, but he didn’t stop there.

  “It might be more of a challenge once you get home in familiar surroundings. And you can’t depend on me for reinforcement. You’ve got to go to meetings and be with other alcoholics. They’re your tribe, Jesse. They’re your people and they’re the ones you need to rely on. You’ve got to find a sponsor.”

  It made sense to Jesse and he felt Dix was right, though the thought of standi
ng up in front of a room of drunks and telling his story gave him pause. It was one thing to be in rehab for a few weeks with complete strangers, people he would likely never have contact with again. It was something else to do it close to home, when there was every chance he could run into these folks during the day. Although his alcoholism wasn’t exactly a secret in Paradise, he had, for the most part, limited his public displays of drunkenness, and he had missed work only a few times because of his drinking. Still, he felt he couldn’t risk a meeting in Paradise, Swan Harbor, Salem, or any of the other close-by towns. Dix had anticipated Jesse’s reaction.

  “Your default setting is self-reliance, Jesse. Some people can pull it off by themselves, but it would be a mistake for you. You’ve tried it that way before and it’s never worked. So if you’re worried about the discomfort of a meeting in or around your town, drive down to Boston.”

  There were meetings all over Boston, but Jesse had chosen one in the basement of an Episcopal church in Cambridge. He supposed he’d chosen the meeting there because he used to look at the church steeple from Diana’s bedroom window, and just lately he had finally been able to think of her and smile again. Some memories of her were of her and her alone or of their time together, memories free of his grief and guilt over her murder.

  He was a few minutes late, but no one did more than give him a cursory glance as he came into the room. To them, he was just another drunk. A guy in his early thirties with a shaved head and a mustacheless beard and wearing a beat-up leather jacket was in the front of the room telling his story. Jesse cringed.

  This part of the meetings, the public-confessional stuff, was anathema to him. It was too self-indulgent for his taste. Even when he was in the minors, Jesse hated public displays by other ballplayers meant to draw the crowd’s attention to them. He never flipped his bat after a home run or stood at the plate admiring his handiwork. He hustled around the bases as if trying to beat out a bunt. He tried never to pump his fist or to celebrate or pout in front of others. There were several parts of the twelve steps that cut hard against Jesse’s self-contained nature, though he had begun to compile the list of people to whom he had done wrong and to whom he would have to apologize. It was a long list. Some were his old partners from his time in Robbery Homicide in L.A. Molly, Suit, and Alisha were on the list, too. Sadly, many of the people on the list were in the ground and beyond his apologies.