“Nor I,” said Ron Patel. “So far, we’ve been treated wonderfully by our neighbors and people in town.”
Liza added, “Until tonight.”
“About that,” Jesse said. “Listen—”
Liza Patel’s face turned an angry shade of red. “Is this where you tell us Paradise isn’t ‘that’ kind of town and that it must have been done by someone from outside of Paradise? That you’re so sorry and that some of your best friends are from the subcontinent?”
“Look, I know you’re upset. You’re scared for your kids. You have every right to be.”
“Well,” she said, “now that we have your permission, that makes it all better.”
“Liza!” Ron said. “Let the man speak.”
“What I was going to say is that I will leave a car outside your door for as long as you want. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure we catch the person or persons who did this, whether they come from Paradise or not.”
“Thank you, Chief—Jesse,” Ron Patel said.
Jesse had a warning for them. “Be prepared for the press. Once they catch wind of this, they are going to be all over you. You might want to have a talk with your kids about it.”
Liza Patel got red-faced again. “Are you trying to intimidate us so we’ll cover this up?”
“You don’t know me,” Jesse said. “I get that, but the only people who I’d intimidate in this situation are the people who did this to you and your family. I was just thinking of your kids. No hidden agenda. Nothing more complicated than that.”
She turned away from Jesse. “Ron, I’m going upstairs to check on the kids.”
When he was sure his wife was out of earshot, Ron Patel said, “Liza doesn’t understand. How can she? I have been the target of this sort of thing for many years. Some of it was hurtful but meant to be harmless, like when my college roommates used to ask me to say ‘Would you like a Slurpee with that?’ After 9/11, as you can imagine, it was very bad. Jesse, is there any way we can report this as simple vandalism? I don’t want to put my children through more trauma and I don’t want to give a victory to the morons who did this thing to us.”
“What about Liza? She doesn’t seem like someone who’ll back down.”
“You leave the explanation to me. There are hard lessons for us all to learn.”
“Are you sure?” Jesse asked. “I can do what you ask and you can make book on the fact that we’ll be looking hard for the people who did this to you. But I have to inform the mayor and the selectmen. You understand that once I share it, I can’t control who says what. Still, I’m pretty sure no one will want to spread this around.”
Ron Patel shook Jesse’s hand and wished him good night.
13
As Jesse left the house and made his way to Alisha’s cruiser, he asked Peter Perkins to join him.
“You guys did great,” Jesse said. “Alisha, like I said inside, I want you out here all night. I’ll have someone pick you up some coffee and something to eat. Peter, keep doing what you’re doing, but we’re going after this quietly.”
Perkins nodded and went back to his task without a word. Alisha’s reaction was different.
“Quietly! What do you mean, ‘we’re going after this quietly’?”
“It means Dr. Patel asked me to have you report this as simple vandalism.”
“Simple vandalism?” she said, agitated. “A family that just moved into town had a cross burned on their lawn.”
“It’s their lawn and it’s their lives.”
“But the law is the law, Jesse.”
“Right may be right, but you’ve been around long enough by now to know better about the law. The law can be pretty flexible, and that’s not always a bad thing.”
“But—”
“Never mind. The law and how it’s enforced and prosecuted is situational. You may not like it. I may not like it, but that’s the fact. Alisha, I know what you think is the right thing to do here and it may be the right thing in the end, but they’re worried about what the press attention might do to their kids.”
“It’s not right to sweep this under the carpet.”
“That’s not what’s going on here.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
Jesse encouraged his cops to speak their minds. He didn’t want things left unsaid to fester. But he couldn’t help but remember what Molly had reported to him about the incident with the bikers at the Scupper.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I said quietly. I didn’t say we weren’t going to go at this hard,” he said. “We’re going to pursue this until we find out who did it.”
That seemed to break the tension, though Alisha’s expression wasn’t exactly a cheery one. Jesse took a step toward his Explorer, then turned back. He walked around to the passenger side of the cruiser and let himself in.
Jesse said, “I was going to talk to you about this tomorrow, but now works better. Explain to me what happened at the Scupper between you and those assholes.”
“Molly told you?”
“She was acting chief. It was her duty to tell me, but I want to hear it from you.”
She bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Jesse.”
“I’m not interested in apologies. I’m interested in what happened.”
“I stepped between the bikers and several bar patrons. I warned them all not to take their disagreements any further because I would arrest anyone who incited violence or acted in a violent manner. I suggested the bikers should consider leaving.”
Jesse half smiled. “Suggested?”
“Strongly suggested.”
They both laughed, but when the laughter faded, Jesse continued, “I’ve been told that when Suit and Gabe showed up, things were pretty heated. True?”
“True.”
“I also heard you didn’t take kindly to them interceding. True?”
“True.”
“They’re senior officers, Alisha. From what I can tell, they acted appropriately to defuse the situation.”
“I know that now, but . . .” She stopped speaking.
“Finish what you were going to say.”
“Is that an order, Jesse?”
“It is.”
“One of the bikers called me a nigger and I guess I just lost it.”
“People are going to call you a lot of things as long as you wear that uniform and pin that badge to your shirt.”
“I know. It won’t happen again.”
Jesse changed subjects. “Are you still dating that security guy from Stiles Island?”
She snapped her head around. “Huh? You asking about Dylan Taylor? That’s my personal life.”
He seemed not to hear her. “You know about the assault in Swan Harbor?”
She nodded, though still confused. “What’s that got to do with what happened at the Scupper or my personal life?”
“The vic in Swan Harbor was an African American woman and the man she was staying with at the B-and-B was white.”
“Holy sh—”
“You see where I’m going with this, Alisha? Somebody’s targeting interracial couples.”
“I’ll be careful, Jesse, and I’ll let Dylan know.”
“Do that. You’re a good cop, Alisha.”
Jesse didn’t say another word and let himself out of the cruiser.
14
Jesse didn’t pretend he could read tea leaves or pick up the scent of trouble blowing in off the Atlantic, but he knew enough not to ignore signs of danger when they were tapping him on the shoulder. And what was going on was more than shoulder tapping. It was a gut punch. Something was wrong. The thing was, how to stop it?
What people misunderstood about police work was that it was reactive. Cops rode the wave or followed the wave onto the beach. It wasn’t their job to get ahead of it. Cops were really l
ike the guys who followed the parade with brooms and shovels, cleaning up the mess the horses and the spectators left behind.
Instead of heading straight to his new home from his old one, Jesse drove slowly through the darkened, damp streets of Paradise. It had been a ritual of his almost from the day he arrived in town all those years ago. He particularly enjoyed it on nights like this, when a light rain was falling and the pavement glistened in the street light. He wasn’t looking for anything specific, he didn’t expect to stop a robbery in progress or help deliver a baby. It was just his way of taking stock of things. Taking stock of his life was also part of the program, and he didn’t see why he couldn’t do both at the same time.
As the rain plinked the roof of his Explorer, his mind drifted back to the church basement and to the meeting. He thought about how kind Bill had been to him, pictured Bill’s business card in his wallet with his cell number written on the back. Anytime, day or night, weekend or holiday, you need to talk, you call me. We’ll get you through it. He thought about Anya’s nervous tics, the lost look in her eyes. Had he ever been that lost? There was no denying his dependence on alcohol, yet it wasn’t in his nature to be completely lost. Jesse always had something to anchor him in a storm, but he was damned if he could explain it. And there was a part of him that worried the anchor wouldn’t hold quite so well without alcohol in his life. He worried the alcohol was the anchor.
He pushed that thought away, and what took its place was Callie’s face. Jesse wasn’t going to beat himself up for seeing beauty in a woman’s face, especially after a day so full of violence and hate. When he came back into the present, he realized that two months away had given him back the ability to see Paradise with fresh eyes. He liked that he could once again smell the salt air, a scent he had grown nose-blind to over time. He remembered his first day in town and how he noted that the Pacific and the Atlantic were different in more than name alone.
But as he turned into the Swap, toward his condo, the skies opened up and Jesse saw something ahead of him that got his full attention. Cole Slayton, the kid Jesse had kicked loose earlier in the day, was up the street from the Paradise Tavern, hitching a ride. Jesse drove past him and pulled to a stop.
Cole rushed to the passenger door, opened it, and said, “Thanks, man, I really—” He stopped speaking when he saw who the driver was. “It’s you. Never mind.”
“Get in.”
“Nah, that’s okay.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Cole. Just get in out of the rain.”
He hesitated for a second, but the increasingly heavy rain made up his mind. “Okay.”
Slayton plopped himself down in the passenger seat. His open UCLA hoodie and white T-shirt beneath were soaked through, as were his jeans and Nikes. He was shivering. Jesse turned up the heat.
“UCLA? You from L.A.?”
Slayton didn’t answer, staring straight ahead.
“I was LAPD Robbery Homicide,” Jesse said, reaching into the backseat for a towel he carried there just in case. “Here, dry yourself off. You from the city or the valley?”
“Woodland Hills.”
“Nice.” Jesse smiled, remembering his good days in L.A. He could almost feel the sun on his face, smell the eucalyptus in the air. He had never been a backward-looking man. Nothing back there except trouble and pain. Rehab and the process of taking stock had changed that. “I liked that area. Lived there for a while when I first got on the job.”
“Why’d you leave if you loved it so damned much? You like raw wind and cold rain, or were you running away from something?”
The smile vanished from Jesse’s face. The sun and eucalyptus replaced by the stink of alcohol sweat and the sound of his captain’s voice demanding his shield and his gun. You’re done here, Stone.
“Hitching is illegal inside town limits.”
“You going to arrest me for hitching in the rain?”
“No, I’m just letting you know. Where can I drop you off?”
The kid hesitated and then gave him the address of the Benson’s B-and-B off Scrimshaw. Jesse had his doubts about that but didn’t say anything. He just put the Explorer in drive. Slayton didn’t say a word during the ride across town. When Jesse let him out, the kid managed a grudging thank-you. And when he tried to give back the towel, Jesse said, “Keep it. You can drop it off at the station anytime.” The kid slammed the door shut and walked toward the bed-and-breakfast’s doorway. Jesse drove up the street, clicked his lights off, and parked, watching Cole Slayton in his rearview mirror.
15
As Jesse suspected would happen, the kid never went through the door of Benson’s. He’d walked up to the entrance, stayed in the shadows of the overhang, and thirty seconds later emerged back onto the street. When he did, he craned his neck, looking in the direction Jesse had driven. Then, satisfied that Jesse’s SUV was gone, he threw his hood up over his head, placed the towel over that, and walked in the opposite direction toward the water.
Jesse circled the block and followed him. He was careful to hang far enough back so the kid wouldn’t spot him. It wasn’t easy following a walker in a car, especially along empty streets. It helped that Slayton’s head was covered, though he did occasionally check behind him. Eventually, Jesse parked his Explorer. The rain that only moments before was coming down in sheets had let up and was now nothing more than mist. It was easier tailing the kid on foot. Jesse could hang back in the shadows, use doorways and parked cars to cover movements.
After a minute of trailing the kid this way, Jesse realized that he wasn’t exactly sure why he was bothering. He didn’t suspect Slayton of having a connection to Felicity Wileford’s assault. He’d been in the Paradise lockup during the attack in Swan Harbor. And he doubted the kid had anything to do with tonight’s cross-burning. It would have been a hell of a walk to Jesse’s old house and back to the Swap. Besides, the kid didn’t seem the type. Sure, Slayton was full of attitude and clearly had demons, but they seemed like personal demons. Jesse knew about those. Maybe that was why he was following the kid, because Jesse was aware that sometimes all people had to hold on to were their demons and that the trick of survival was not letting them hold on to you.
When Slayton crossed Berkshire, MacArthur, and Salter Streets and passed the meetinghouse, Jesse had a pretty good idea of where the kid was headed. This was the oldest part of Paradise, where the founders had built their first houses close to Pilgrim Cove before moving into their big Victorians up on the Bluffs. There was never much of a problem with homelessness in Paradise, but on the rare occasion that his cops would run across someone living rough, they would usually be camping out in Pilgrim Cove. The Paradise side of the cove was rocky and largely hidden from the street. To get down to the little sliver of beach below, you had to either take the one set of stairs on the Stiles Island Bridge side of the cove or climb down the rocks. Jesse caught up to Slayton as he was starting to climb down to the beach.
“Stop right there, Cole,” Jesse said with a smile in his voice.
But Slayton, startled by Jesse’s voice, lost his grip. Jesse grabbed on to the sleeve of his hoodie and held him long enough to let the kid regain his footing. He then helped pull him back up to the street.
Slayton was anything but thankful. “You following me? What are you following me for?”
“Because this is my town and I’m responsible for the safety of the people in it. That includes you, whether you like it or not.”
Slayton didn’t like it. “Leave me alone. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. If I go down there, will I find your belongings tucked away in the rocks?”
“So what if they are? Wait, don’t tell me. I can get arrested for that, too.”
“For living on the beach, that’s right,” Jesse said. “But I’m not interested in arresting you.”
“Just leave me alone.”
“That’s not goi
ng to happen. You’ve got two options.”
“I’m listening.”
“You seem determined to end up in our jail, so you can spend the night there again. No arrest, just a place to sleep in out of the rain for one night.”
Slayton shook his head. “What’s option two?”
Jesse ignored the question. “Go get your stuff and come back up here.”
“What’s the—”
“Whatever the other option is, it isn’t sleeping in Pilgrim Cove. Go get your things.”
Five minutes later, Slayton, a backpack strapped around his shoulders and a green duffel bag in hand, was standing in front of Jesse.
“C’mon, my Explorer’s a few blocks that way.”
Jesse started walking, Cole Slayton followed.
“Why are you here, Cole? What does Paradise hold for you besides trouble?”
He didn’t answer but laughed at that second question.
“Do you mean to stick around?” Jesse asked, then added, “And don’t tell me it’s none of my business. It is my business.”
“I’m staying.”
“Then you need to find a job and a place to stay. I can help with that.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You’re going to get it anyway.”
That angered Slayton. “Why the fuck should you care?”
Jesse stopped in his tracks and turned to face the kid. “Watch your mouth and lose some of that attitude. Why do I care? I don’t know. Maybe because someone who I never met before was generous to me tonight.”
He turned and walked ahead. The kid followed and caught up.
“What’s that place, a church?” the kid asked, pointing to a large rectangular building with white clapboards and a spire. “Where’s the cross?”
“That’s the old meetinghouse. It was kind of a church once. Now it’s a town landmark because it was part of the Underground Railroad. There was a tunnel built that ran from Pilgrim Cove to a secret room beneath the meetinghouse where runaway slaves stayed on their way up to Canada.”
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