“That’s a coincidence,” Molly said. “I wonder how, out of all the criminal lawyers in the Commonwealth, she picked him.”
“I wonder.”
* * *
—
WHEN JESSE GOT BACK FROM THE DONUT SHOP, he noticed the Porsche Cayman parked just to the side of the station house. The curvy two-seater’s Guards Red paint job fairly screamed “Look at me!” and, if Jesse were colorblind, the fact that the Porsche was parked illegally would have gotten his intention.
Monty Bernstein was right where Jesse expected to find him, kneeling down before the front desk, chatting up Molly in a raspy whisper. Molly, who regardless of her long night and worries, had a sparkle in her eye that hadn’t been there ten minutes earlier. Even Jesse had to admit that Monty was one of those people who lit up the room. He was good-looking, for sure—forty, athletic, black-haired, blue-eyed, with perfect white teeth and an angular jawline—but the real secret was his charm. The kind that worked on both men and women. He was confident without being cocky, interesting but without trying too hard. And, like Vinnie Morris, he dressed the part in the finest clothing. Still, Jesse could tell it had been a long, hard night for the lawyer, too.
That didn’t stop Monty from turning it on when he noticed Jesse standing there, donuts in hand.
“Excuse me, Molly,” Monty said, walking up to Jesse. “I’d shake your hand, but your hands seem to be occupied.”
Jesse gave him a cold stare. “Your vehicle is parked illegally.”
Monty didn’t skip a beat. “That should be my worst problem . . . and yours.”
Jesse smiled. The lawyer smiled in turn.
Jesse put the donuts down on the front desk. “C’mon into my office.”
As the lawyer trailed Jesse to his office, he winked at Molly and gave her a smile. That lifted her spirits for a few seconds. Then she remembered why Monty Bernstein was there in the first place.
40
Jesse shook Monty Bernstein’s hand. It was a warm handshake that lasted a long time. Jesse gestured at the chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“Sit.”
The lawyer said, “I’m curious, Jesse. How did Officer Davis get my number?”
“Typical lawyer,” Jesse said, “asking a question he already knows the answer to.”
Monty nodded. “You don’t know the answer, don’t ask the question.”
“This isn’t the courtroom, Counselor.”
“Hell of a case you got me involved in.”
“Last I heard, you were free to turn it down.”
Monty half smiled. “This case? No way am I turning it down. I believe in my client and I like the notion of Paradise paying my fees. I won’t have to waste time chasing my money down.” The lawyer’s expression changed, his smile vanishing. “Jesse . . . I heard about . . . you know, Diana. I’m so sorry. Did that monster Mr. Peepers actually get away?”
“Thank you.” Jesse held up his palms. “Let’s focus on why you’re here now.”
The lawyer leaned forward, lowered his voice. “I know you’re not officially part of the investigation.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think Alisha may need all the help she can get.”
“What kind of help?”
“Off the record?”
“I’m police chief, Monty, not a journalist. There isn’t really an ‘off the record’ with me.”
The lawyer sat back in his chair, dragged his hand across the light stubble of his unshaven cheeks.
“Okay, let’s start over. First, I want to tell you that, if need be, I’ll be able to get any statements Officer Davis made last night before my arrival thrown out. She was clearly still in shock when I spoke to her and she was in no state to be giving statements to anyone.”
Jesse didn’t react to that but said, “You mentioned help, Counselor.”
“Is Officer Davis—wait, let me rephrase that. Before this incident last night, would you have believed Officer Davis the type of person to shoot an unarmed suspect or to fire her weapon without being fired upon first?”
“If I thought she was, she wouldn’t be on the PPD. None of my cops would be. But—”
Bernstein said, “That’s all I needed to hear.”
“Are you deposing me, Monty?”
“Sorry, Jesse. I’m good at my job, very good.”
“Yeah, I saw the Porsche out front.”
Monty smiled, but it quickly faded. “The thing is, as it stands, I don’t know who could win this case. She says she was fired upon first, but without the other gun . . . Listen, I’ve dealt with liars my whole career: con men, murderers, crooked gamblers, bent cops, you name it. But I don’t think she’s lying. I’m sure she’s not.”
“It comes back to one thing: no gun. There’s no way around that.”
“I know how this looks, Jesse. Young, legally drunk, inexperienced, female African American police officer shoots an unarmed white man. The only way it could look worse was if Vandercamp had been holding a baby. The press is going to have a field day with this, never mind the politicians, but—”
Jesse cut him off. “It gets worse.”
“Worse? How the hell could it get worse?”
Jesse explained about the incident in the Scupper between Alisha and the bikers, the vicious assault in Swan Harbor, and the cross-burning in town.
“And the vic—dead man.” Jesse couldn’t yet bring himself to call him the victim.
“John Vandercamp. What about him?”
“Alisha didn’t tell you?”
“She was pretty scattered last night, but she said she was chasing this guy because he was a suspect in a vandalism case.”
“The cross-burning. It was reported as simple vandalism.”
“Oh, shit!” Monty’s jaw dropped.
Then Jesse handed the SS leaflet to the lawyer. He took his time reading it.
“Okay, Jesse, it’s a slightly less obvious, more polished version of the racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, xenophobic crap I’ve run across before.”
“His father is Leon Oskar Vandercamp, the leader of the Saviors of Society.” Jesse checked the Seth Thomas clock on the wall. “And he’s coming to town this morning to ID his son.”
As the words finished coming out of his mouth, Molly knocked on the pebbled glass of Jesse’s office door. She stuck her head in without waiting for word.
“Mr. Vandercamp’s here.”
The office door swung back and a heavyset man with a bald head barged past Molly. He had the coldest gray eyes Jesse Stone had ever seen.
41
Monty Bernstein knew his being there was awkward and potentially embarrassing for Jesse. He stood to go. Molly, her face red with anger at the man barging past her, stayed at the office door.
“Thank you, Chief Stone,” said the lawyer. “I’ll be in touch.”
Jesse nodded to him and waved at Molly to shut the door. “Go on, I can handle this.”
The heavyset man stood perfectly still at the center of the office, watching, listening.
“Mr. Vandercamp,” Jesse said. “Please sit.”
Vandercamp had other ideas. “Who was that man in here when I came in?”
Jesse wasn’t frequently torn. He knew how he felt about things and how he should act in most situations. This wasn’t most situations. He disdained organizations like the Saviors of Society and bullies like Leon Vandercamp, but the man’s son had just been shot to death in Jesse’s town by one of his cops. Diplomacy and charm weren’t Jesse’s usual default settings, but he understood that there were times to treat even the worst of people with respect and patience. This was one of those times.
“That man was Officer Davis’s attorney, Monty Bernstein.”
Vandercamp’s fleshy face broke into a cruel smile. “Bernstein, huh? Figures.” He grunted wh
at passed for a laugh.
“How does it figure?” Jesse asked, knowing full well what Vandercamp meant.
Jesse would give the man space, but not unlimited space.
Vandercamp sat in the chair Monty had just vacated. “What was he doing here?”
“His job. But I had to inform him, as I will tell you, the investigation into your son’s shooting—”
“His execution.”
Jesse ignored that. “The investigation is being handled by Detective Lieutenant Mary Weld of the state police, so I couldn’t be of much help to Mr. Bernstein. This morning is bound to be difficult for you. Before we head over there, can I get you some coffee, Mr. Vandercamp?”
“Keep your damn coffee. You can get me some justice for my boy.”
Vandercamp was trying to provoke Jesse. Strange behavior, Jesse thought, for a father in mourning. Stranger still, Vandercamp didn’t even seem particularly grief-stricken or outraged. He was saying all the right words—execution, justice, et cetera—but the affect didn’t quite match. Jesse let it go. People had a right to the way they felt and how they dealt with hard things. Even Leon Vandercamp.
Molly was at the door again. “Jesse, the mayor is here to see you.”
“Send her in.” Jesse knew Molly would have warned the mayor about Vandercamp.
Connie Walker dressed the part in a conservative black suit. “Chief Stone,” she said, nodded to Jesse, and then headed directly to Vandercamp. Vandercamp didn’t get up. “Mr. Vandercamp, I’m Constance Walker, the mayor of Paradise. I am very sorry for your loss. I can assure you—”
“I’m not interested in your assurances,” he said, standing at last. He sneered down at her. “I’m not interested in his, either. I want justice for my murdered son.”
Connie Walker didn’t fluster easily, but as she half-turned to Jesse, he could see she needed some help.
“If you could excuse us, Mr. Vandercamp,” Jesse said. “The mayor and I have to talk. I’ll call ahead to the medical examiner’s office to let him know we’ll be heading over there in a few minutes. Officer Crane will get you what you need.”
Vandercamp wasn’t the kind of man to be dismissed and go without the last word. He looked away from Jesse and back to the mayor.
“Let me assure you of something, Mayor Walker,” he said, pointing his index finger at her nose. “I’m going to get justice for my boy at all costs. We’re going to have people marching in the streets of your sewer of a town every single day until that murderer gets the punishment she deserves.”
When he was done, he brushed past the mayor without acknowledging Jesse.
“I dislike that man,” Connie said. “I dislike him a great deal.”
“I don’t think he cares. He enjoys pushing people’s buttons.”
“I spoke to the state investigator, Jesse. She didn’t come right out and say it, but—”
“I know how it looks.”
“Do you think Officer Davis shot an unarmed suspect?”
He shook his head. “That’s the question of the day.”
“What’s the answer?”
“The answer is what the evidence says it is.”
“Jesse . . .”
“I know, Connie. I hired Alisha in spite of the selectmen’s objections. I appreciate that you backed me up. If this goes badly, I’ll resign.”
“If this goes badly, Jesse, your head won’t be enough. We’ll both get swept out. I suppose I came here hoping you’d tell me things weren’t as bleak as they seem.”
Jesse couldn’t help but smile.
Walker was confused. “Am I missing something?”
“If you’re coming to me to cheer you up, Connie, we really are in trouble.”
Mayor Walker shook her head and laughed quietly. By the time she got to the office door, she was no longer laughing. Jesse picked up the phone to call the ME. He wasn’t laughing, either.
42
Vandercamp insisted on taking his own car to the morgue. Jesse had no issue with that, but when he got outside the station, he got a hint of what Paradise had coming. There were twenty vehicles—everything from pickups to 4×4s, to classic Mustangs and beat-up Buicks—lined up behind Vandercamp’s five-year-old garnet Chevy Silverado. The vehicles had plates from all over the country, and many of the vehicles had flags—all snapping in the autumn wind blowing in hard off the Atlantic—attached to small plastic poles clipped to their rear door windows. The pickups had bigger flags on long poles attached to the sidewalls of their cargo boxes. Some of the flags were American flags, others were the flags of the Saviors of Society—curved swastikas et al.—but there were a few flags in particular that caught Jesse’s eye. These featured bold black block lettering against a field of bright red.
ARYAN LIVES MATTER
MOURN OUR MARTYR
PUNISH HIS RACIST EXECUTIONER
Jesse knew that technology enabled you to get almost anything printed almost immediately, but he was skeptical. It had been less than twelve hours since the incident in Newton Alley. Everything, even the way the father had acted in his office, felt choreographed. It seemed that a spectacle was to be made of the younger Vandercamp’s shooting. Jesse was further convinced of the father’s intentions when he noticed that the last vehicle in the motorcade was a satellite news truck. Vandercamp meant to make a campaign out of his son’s death.
Before the elder Vandercamp could close the passenger door of his pickup, Jesse stopped him.
“Listen, you want to use your son’s death for your purposes, I can’t stop you.”
“Damn right you can’t.”
“But let’s be clear. You do it within the law.”
“Within the law!” Vandercamp sneered at Jesse. “Was your officer acting within the law when she murdered my boy?”
“Save your speeches for them,” Jesse said, pointing at the cars behind the pickup. “Spread the word for them to put their headlights on and that I don’t want to hear horns blowing in town, especially not near the morgue. You want to make theater out of this, fine, but other families have lost loved ones, too. Families without agendas. Understood?”
Vandercamp didn’t answer Jesse but turned to his driver. “James Earl, go do as Chief Stone says.”
Jesse looked past Vandercamp at the driver, hoping the man might be the soldier he’d been searching for. No luck. The driver was a younger version of Vandercamp, probably another son. He was in his early forties, not as heavy, sported a full head of blond hair, and possessed those cold gray eyes.
“I’ll pull my Explorer in front of you and then we’ll go,” Jesse said, slamming the pickup’s door shut.
* * *
—
THE MOTORCADE MADE IT TO THE MORGUE without incident, though Jesse couldn’t help but notice the disgusted looks on people’s faces as it passed. Vandercamp and James Earl were out of the pickup by the time Jesse got to their truck.
“I take it James Earl is John’s older brother,” Jesse said.
“Half-brother,” James Earl was quick to point out.
Jesse had no doubt which half. James Earl looked even less genuinely upset by the death than his father. It seemed to Jesse that James Earl couldn’t wait to get this over with so he could find a place to get a morning drink. Jesse knew a drinker when he saw one or smelled one. James Earl wore too much cheap cologne, but it did little to cover up the stink of scotch sweat leaking out of his pores.
“Only you two,” Jesse said.
The three of them walked in silence toward the building that housed the ME’s office and the morgue. Being here reminded Jesse he should call Tamara. He hadn’t had time to miss her since getting back into town, but he did miss her now. He stopped them just before they got to the front entrance.
“Listen to me,” Jesse said. “I’ve been through this process too many times with too many paren
ts identifying their children. You may think you know what this is going to be like, but it’s going to be harder than that. Be prepared. After you make the ID, I’ll give you all the time you want with John.”
James Earl shook his head and made a face. If his father wasn’t there, he’d have probably snapped his fingers and told Jesse to speed things up. C’mon, c’mon, let’s get this over with. The elder Vandercamp didn’t exactly start weeping, but he was taking loud, exaggerated breaths.
Jesse asked, “Ready?”
The father nodded. As they walked forward, the doors parted.
Jesse got what he expected from each man. James Earl took one look at his half-brother’s body and was ready to move on. But Leon Vandercamp couldn’t seem to stop staring at his son’s body. While he didn’t get weak-kneed or start wailing, he was definitely affected, probably more than he anticipated he would be.
“I’ll give you some time,” Jesse said. “I’ll be in the ME’s office when you’re ready.”
As he started down the hallway, James Earl caught up to him.
“Listen, Sheriff Stone—”
“Chief Stone.”
James Earl rolled his eyes but made the right noises. “Sorry, Chief. Anyplace to get coffee in here . . . a vending machine or something?”
“Rough night?”
“You could say that.” James Earl understood what Jesse meant and patted the right-front pocket of his jeans.
Jesse saw the familiar outline of a hip flask or small bottle.
“No vending machine, but I know they’ve got a coffeemaker in the break room. If you ask, I’m sure they’ll brew up some for you.”
“Wanna share a cup, Chief?” James Earl patted his pocket again.
“No, thanks. Don’t let me catch you driving under the influence in Paradise.”
James Earl winked and smiled as if they were members of the same brotherhood. “Understood.”
Jesse walked away, thinking that James Earl might be a way for him to keep tabs on things for as long as this mess lasted.
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