Blue Screen

by Robert B. Parker

  Felix smiled. I think.

  “Nobody I know of, that specialized,” he said.

  “Is it a good way to kill somebody?”

  “They’re all good,” Felix said. “Depends what you want. Try to make it look like an accident? Maybe. Probably don’t work. Most MEs can spot that pretty quick. Got to do it real quiet? Maybe, no gunshots, nothing like that. But if you miss it first try, you get a lot of screaming.”

  “And you might miss it,” I said.

  Felix made his growly sound again.

  “Sure,” he said. “You don’t get to practice too much.”

  “So if you were sneaking into a heavily guarded place to kill a woman, what would you use?”

  “Knife,” Felix said. “You’re any good at all, you can cut her throat and even if she don’t die right away, she don’t make any noise.”

  I nodded.

  “You thinking about Moon for the murder you’re working on, that broad in Paradise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Broad ever leave the house?” Felix said.

  “Often.”

  “Alone?”

  “I suppose. I don’t really know. But there should have been no reason not to,” I said. “So why not do it then? Why do it in a heavily guarded compound?”

  Felix nodded.

  “Wasn’t Moon,” he said.

  57

  SO YOU’RE SAYING Buddy’s too puny to have broken her neck,” Jesse said.

  “Yes. Not just because he is puny. But because he knows he’s puny. He wouldn’t try it.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “And Felix says that Moon wouldn’t kill her that way?”

  “He does.”

  “Felix is probably right,” Jesse said. “If he killed her as a warning to Buddy, it wouldn’t be like that. Too much risk, not enough gain.”

  “Moon’s way would be the two guys in LA.”

  “Which would make Moon Cronjager’s problem,” Jesse said. “If we’re right.”

  “You could put Cronjager in touch with Captain Healy,” I said.

  “Already did.”

  “He probably ought to talk with Martin Quirk, too,” I said. “My father knows him.”

  “The Boston homicide boss. Healy said he’d do that.”

  “Way ahead of me,” I said.

  “Remember,” he said, “I am THE CHIEF!”

  “I know,” I said. “I have to fight this compulsion to salute.”

  Jesse’s eyes brightened for a moment.

  “That’s how I felt,” Jesse said, “in Jere Jillian’s dressing room.”

  I felt as if I might be blushing.

  “Will you please let that go,” I said.

  “Absolutely not,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “So, if I’m right about Buddy,” I said, “and Felix is right about Moon, then we’re down to Erin or Gerard.”

  “Or a mysterious person or persons unknown,” Jesse said.

  “How useful a theory is that?”

  “Useless,” Jesse said. “Unless Erin and Gerard turn out not to have done it.”

  “So let’s assume one of them did,” I said.

  “Or both,” Jesse said.

  “Or both.”

  We sat for a moment in Jesse’s office and contemplated the state of our theory.

  “A motive would be nice,” I said.

  “Why would Erin kill her sister?” Jesse said.

  “By breaking her neck,” I said. “I would think that would be sort of a rage thing. I mean, it takes someone pretty cold to walk into the exercise room planning to snap her sister’s neck.”

  “Might have been an accident.”

  “They had a fight and Misty’s neck got broken?”

  “Could happen,” Jesse said.

  “The medical examiner says someone was holding her face.”

  Jesse got up and came around the desk.

  “Here,” he said. “Stand up and take hold of my face.”

  I did.

  “Now,” he said, “suppose we’re having a vigorous discussion about…oh, say, the dressing room at Jere Jillian.”

  “Stop it,” I said.

  “And you’re holding my face to keep my attention, and I’m twisting to get away, maybe, if you’re strong, and I twist one way and you twist the other…”

  “I see what you mean,” I said. “I don’t think it could happen with you and me. But Erin’s stronger than I am, and maybe Misty’s neck isn’t as strong as yours.”

  Jesse sat back down at his desk.

  “And of course,” Jesse said, “Gerard’s strong enough.”

  “The only people who know if our theory of the case is correct,” I said, “would be Erin and Gerard.”

  “And if they keep shut up we’re screwed,” Jesse said. “We got nowhere to go.”

  “I can keep talking to Erin,” I said. “She’s a pretty messy emotional scene.”

  “Got little choice,” Jesse said. “Gerard’s three thousand miles away, and not likely to do anything stupid.”

  “If he thought Erin were in jeopardy,” I said.

  “Because he loves her?”

  I nodded.

  “You still believe him, that he loves Erin,” Jesse said.

  “I do,” I said. “He might kill her for Erin.”

  “I’m taking your word on this one,” Jesse said.

  “Because I’m a woman.”

  Jesse grinned again. “Because of the dressing room,” he said.

  “That wasn’t about love,” I said.

  “No?”

  “No. That was about fun.”

  “Just fun?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course, I wouldn’t have done that with someone I didn’t like. But it wasn’t lovemaking. It was play.”

  Jesse tilted back in his chair and stared at me. “Is that good or bad?”

  I thought about Richie, and about other men, and about Dr. Silverman. I thought about Jesse.

  “When I was with Richie,” I said, “we were always careful to call it lovemaking. Never sex. Never cute names like ‘poon tang.’ Never ever called it ‘fucking.’ We always thought that was sort of dehumanizing.”

  Jesse was quiet. He seemed to be listening with all of himself. It was one of the things that made him different from most people. Probably made him a good cop. He listened completely.

  “But if it was lovemaking,” I said, “what happened if one of us didn’t want to, for instance? Did it mean we didn’t love one another?”

  “Shouldn’t,” Jesse said.

  “But it did. The act of sex came with too much weight attached.”

  “God yes,” Jesse said.

  “You understand,” I said.

  “I did the same thing,” he said. “Everything Jenn and I did sexually was she loves me, she loves me not.”

  “When you love someone,” I said, “everything you do is making love. Having breakfast, food shopping…”

  “Talking about a murder case,” Jesse said.

  “Talking about a murder case,” I said.

  We had come awfully close to it and we both knew we had. We were silent for a minute.

  “So in that sense,” Jesse said after a while, “sex is making love. Like breakfast.”

  “Yes. And if it doesn’t work one day, it’s no worse than burning the toast.”

  “Maybe you and I both required more of sex than sex can deliver,” Jesse said.

  “It might be fine if it was just sex. Fun in the context of love.”

  “Wow,” Jesse said. “You’ve been talking to your shrink.”

  I nodded.

  “Maybe I’ll talk to mine,” he said.

  58

  AT THE TIME I thought of it as better to be lucky than good. In retrospect maybe it was because Jesse and I kept pushing and poking until we finally dislodged something. Whatever it was, it resulted in Erin calling me at ten minutes before noon on Tuesday morning.

  “You have to hel
p me,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m on my cell phone…in the bathroom…with the door locked…so they can’t hear me.”

  “They?”

  “Buddy,” she said. “He won’t let me leave. He says I’m hysterical. He says I’m crazy.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I said.

  “Come get me.”

  “Will he let me take you?” I said.

  “No. But you can do something. I have to get out of here.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “I have to get out,” she said.

  I could hear the tremor in her voice. Buddy may have been right. She sounded hysterical.

  “I have to get out,” she said. “I have to go someplace…. You have to take me…security…everywhere. I have to get out.”

  “I’ll come right over,” I said.

  “They won’t let you in.”

  “I’ll think of something,” I said.

  I called Jesse from the car.

  “Something’s up with Erin Flint,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “Tell me.”

  I told him.

  “Okay,” Jesse said. “I’ll meet you there. We don’t want to make a federal case out of this. We’ll tell them I wish to bring her in for questioning. Which will be true.”

  We hung up. We went through the Ted Williams Tunnel, past the airport and Orient Heights. As we passed Suffolk Downs, Rosie, who had been asleep on the passenger seat beside me, stood up suddenly and jumped onto the floor. She curled up close to the heater vent, put one paw on top of her nose, and went back to sleep. After we figured Erin Flint out, maybe we could think about Rosie for a while.

  Jesse was there in front of SeaChase when I arrived, sitting in a squad car with the big, young cop I’d seen before. Named after some ballplayer I’d forgotten.

  “You and Rosie hop in,” Jesse said. “We’ll run the gate gauntlet together.”

  We got in the back. Rosie looked annoyed at being removed from her heater, but then she saw Jesse and gave a big wag, and all was forgiven.

  “Take her in, Suit,” Jesse said.

  Suitcase Simpson.

  “Take her in?” Suit said.

  “I been watching some old navy war movies,” Jesse said.

  The cruiser pulled up to the gate. Jesse smiled at the gate guard and held up his badge.

  “I’ll have to call ahead, sir,” the guard said.

  “Obviously,” Jesse said pleasantly, “you don’t realize that I’m the fucking chief of fucking police. For the fucking chief of fucking police you open now, and call after.”

  “I…”

  “Open it.”

  The guard opened the gate and we headed up the long driveway. There were the usual blazers around, and Randy, the head blazer, met us at the door. We got out.

  “You and Rosie hold her steady here,” Jesse said to Suit.

  “Jesus,” Suit said, “I hope you don’t start watching musicals.”

  Jesse grinned. He was wearing jeans and a blue softball jacket. His badge was clipped to the jacket near the neck.

  “We need to see Miss Flint,” Jesse said to Randy.

  “Miss Flint is indisposed,” Randy said.

  “Dispose her,” Jesse said.

  Randy’s face was expressionless.

  “Wait here, please,” he said, and turned down the hall. Jesse nodded at me and we went right behind him.

  “Excuse me,” Randy said. “Don’t you need a warrant?”

  “I have reason to believe that Miss Flint is being held against her will. I need no warrant.”

  “Against her will?”

  “Get her out here, Randy.”

  “Buddy said…”

  “That’s right, Buddy said. So she is being held against her will.”

  “Wait a minute,” Randy said.

  “Sunny,” Jesse said to me. “Is ‘held against her will’ sort of like kidnapping?”

  “I believe so,” I said. “And kidnapping is, like, a really big felony.”

  “To which you, Randy, appear to be an accessory.”

  Randy was silent for a moment. We stood in the vast hallway and waited.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll get her.”

  “And we’ll go with you,” I said.

  Randy looked at Jesse. Jesse did an “after you” gesture, and the three of us headed down the hall. Erin’s bedroom was in the medieval castle wing of SeaChase. The door was wide oak planking with black iron strap hinges. Randy knocked.

  “Miss Flint,” he said. “The police are here.”

  I said, “Erin it’s me, Sunny.”

  The door opened. Erin stared at Jesse and looked at me.

  “Chief Stone and I need you to come down to police headquarters,” I said.

  “Now, please, Miss Flint,” Jesse said.

  Erin put on a long, silver coat, made of suede, with a fur collar, and followed us out. In the downstairs hallway Buddy was standing, with a can of Coke in his hand.

  “What the hell is going on?” he said.

  “Step aside,” Jesse said.

  “Where the fuck are you going with her?”

  We kept walking. Buddy’s voice went up an octave.

  “You fucking hick,” Buddy said. “You wanna keep your fucking job you’ll hold it right there.”

  We kept walking toward the front door.

  “I said hold it,” Buddy shrieked and stepped in front of us.

  “Buddy,” Jesse said. “If you interfere with a police officer in the performance of his duty I will have to arrest you, and in the process, you may lose some teeth.”

  “You threatening me?” Buddy said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “You keep your mouth shut, Erin,” he trilled. “I’ll be down there with my lawyer.”

  Jesse looked at me.

  “Oh, oh,” he said. “The lawyers.”

  “I’m all atremble.”

  I took Erin’s hand and we walked out of the house. Jesse followed behind. From the open doorway Buddy was screaming at me.

  “And I’ll get you fucking disbarred, bitch.”

  Erin and I got in the back. I still had her hand. She was shaking. Rosie, who had been up in front with Suit, jumped in back with me. Erin shrank a little away from her but was quiet. Jesse got in the front. He turned and grinned at us.

  “I didn’t know Buddy knew your nickname,” Jesse said to me.

  “He got the threat wrong, too,” I said.

  Jesse nodded. “Take her home, Suit,” he said.

  Suit shook his head slowly as he put the cruiser in gear.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  59

  AS WE ROLLED across the causeway, Erin said, “I didn’t want the police.”

  “I know,” I said. “But there was no other way. They had me outnumbered.”

  Jesse turned sideways in the front seat to talk with us.

  “Where would you like to go?” Jesse said.

  “Go?”

  “Yes,” Jesse said. “You’re out of there, where would you like to go?”

  “You said you were taking me to the police station.”

  “I made that up,” Jesse said.

  “We used that to get you out of there,” I said. “Now, if you’ll tell us what you need and where you want to go and why, maybe we can help you.”

  “I…”

  Rosie wiggled down between us and got herself comfortable. Erin looked down at her.

  “Why do you take this dog everywhere,” Erin said.

  “I love her,” I said. “Tell us what you need.”

  Erin tried to think of what she should do. We waited.

  As we reached the other side of the causeway, Erin said, “I have to see Gerard.”

  “Where is he?” I said.

  “Here,” Erin said.

  “Here where,” I said.

  “Here, Boston, in a hotel.”

  Suit looked at Jesse; Jesse nodded. Suit
headed straight out past the beach at the end of the causeway, not right to downtown and police headquarters.

  “What is he doing here?” I said.

  “I called him,” Erin said. “I have to see him.”

  “Why?”

  Erin’s breath came heavily, as if she’d just finished a sprint. She didn’t speak. I didn’t press her. We rode in silence for a while. Erin’s breathing didn’t improve.

  Finally she said, “My life is falling apart. I’m falling apart…. My sister’s dead…. If I play baseball, I’ll be a laughingstock…. Buddy says if I don’t play, I won’t make any more movies…. He says I’m already a laughingstock as an actress…. I have to do ugly sex things with him…. I need Gerard. I have to see Gerard.”

  “Because?” I said.

  “Because he loves me. He’s the only one. He loves me. I have to see him.”

  I looked at Jesse. He raised his eyebrows, but he nodded.

  “Okay, we’ll take you to him. Where is he?”

  “He won’t like there being anybody else.”

  “It’s the only way you’ll get to him,” I said.

  There were tears on Erin’s face. I took her hand again. Our held hands rested on Rosie’s back. If Rosie minded, she didn’t say so.

  “Make a deal with us,” I said.

  “I got nobody else,” she said. “Just Gerard.”

  “And us,” I said.

  She turned her head away from me and stared out the window of the car at the expensive houses we were passing.

  “Gerard came all this way,” I said, “because you called him.”

  Erin nodded.

  “We came and got you out of Buddy’s house,” I said, “because you called me.”

  She nodded again.

  “Jesse and I will go in with you. The four of us will sit down, you and Gerard, me and Jesse. We will talk this out. We will find a way to help you.”

  “Stop the car,” Erin said. “I want to call him and I don’t want you to hear me.”

  Suit looked at Jesse. Jesse nodded. Suit pulled the car over. Erin got out with her cell phone and walked twenty feet away.

  “What if she runs,” I said.

  “Suit is like a gazelle,” Jesse said.

  “When did that happen?” Suit said.

  “Maybe it’s me that’s like a gazelle,” Jesse said.

  Erin spoke for a while on her cell phone. Then she folded up her cell phone and walked back to the car.