Monty wasn’t so tired or distracted that he didn’t take in his surroundings. Quaint seaside inns weren’t his thing. Monty was all about elliptical machines, a golf course, spas with mud facials and four kinds of massages, and tai chi classes. His taste ran to boutique hotels with Michelin-rated restaurants and rooftop bars that had lists of fine ports and sherries as long as the Old Testament. Places like the Osprey Inn Bed and Breakfast, with its heavy burgundy velvet drapes, oak paneling, pendulous hanging fixtures, and cranky staircases reminded him of his grandma Hanna’s apartment. The air in the Osprey was a clash of unpleasant and opposing scents. There was the predominance of lavender and orange-rind potpourri, pounds of which seemed to fill bowls on every flat surface in the lobby. But just beneath the floral and citric assault came the even less appealing grace notes of camphor and mildew. For crissakes, Monty thought, if the cook had been stewing some stuffed cabbage, the place would have smelled like Grandma Hanna’s apartment.
Salter was sitting alone at a small round table for two, his unlit pipe resting on the fussy lace tablecloth. Dressed in a suit and a tie, he was reading The Wall Street Journal, which was folded up and over into a neat rectangle. Monty checked his watch and couldn’t believe that Salter was dressed in a suit and tie. Paradise wasn’t a suit-and-tie kind of town, and no one else in the Osprey was dressed in anything more formal than a sweater and khakis. Then again, Monty couldn’t recall ever seeing Harlan when he wasn’t dressed in a suit and a tie. He probably slept that way. Also had an iron rod permanently stuck up his ass.
“Good morning, Harlan,” Monty said, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite his client.
Salter didn’t acknowledge Monty’s arrival. He kept on reading. Monty flagged down the waitress and made the universal sign for coffee.
“Is it done?” Salter said, finally conceding he was no longer alone, but without moving the paper away from his face.
“The meeting went well.”
“It could scarcely have gone worse than your meeting with the chief last evening.”
“I told you in the car on the way up here that Stone was no fool,” Monty said in his own defense. “I wish you wouldn’t have let him bait you like that.”
The coffee arrived. The waitress asked Monty if he would like something to eat. Before the lawyer could answer, Harlan Salter made a choked kind of bark that passed for a laugh.
“Mr. Bernstein will have fresh berries and yogurt,” Salter said to the waitress and then turned to his lawyer. “They don’t serve the usual compost you put in your body here. No golden beet, alfalfa, and carrot concoctions today, I’m afraid.”
“That’s fine,” Monty said to the waitress, and she left.
“From where I stood, it was you who looked like a fool. Stone was goading you.”
“He was goading me, but it was to get to you. Please, Harlan, from now on, let me be the one to handle the chief. Besides, I don’t think the chief will be an issue much longer.”
That got Salter to finally put the paper down. “Meaning?”
Monty said, “I got a call last night. Blocked number. A voice I didn’t recognize. Sounded Southie with a vague hint of Dublin.”
“And . . .”
“And the voice said that the next time you’re made a generous offer and you refuse it, it won’t be a poor girl who loses her life. That Ben would be returned to you after you’d had some time to reflect upon how you—he emphasized you—were responsible for an innocent girl’s murder.”
“What else?”
“He said that we’d be contacted in very short order by a party familiar to you and that you’d be wise to quickly agree to the now-somewhat-less-generous terms.”
Salter’s jaw clenched again; a vein pulsed in his neck. His pale face turning an angry shade of red. “Did he say how we’d be contacted? Did you inquire?”
“It wasn’t a conversation, Harlan. He spoke and I listened. But at least we know who has Ben and that he’s safe. It’s just as we suspected.”
“Why do I find no comfort in that?”
“Because he’s your son and you love him and you won’t feel better about any of it until you have him back.”
“Stick to what you know best, Monty. Don’t discuss my feelings as if you had any notion or concept of what they might be,” Salter said, a sneer on his face. “Are the arrangements in place?”
“Things have been set in motion.”
Salter picked up his pipe, leaned across the table, and poked the tip of the stem into the lawyer’s chest. “Not until I have Ben back. Is that understood?”
“I made that clear to them, Harlan. Nothing is going to happen until I give the green light.”
Salter sat back, pulled the paper in front of his face, and didn’t say another word.
21
The phone vibrated and rang on the blond-wood table an arm’s length away from her bed. It took her so long to wake up and answer it that the phone had nearly danced its way over the edge. Still only semiconscious, she grabbed the phone and put it in bed next to her. While she didn’t have a hangover like she had when she’d woken up in Jesse’s bed the previous morning, she was still a little high. Kayla had come back from the stupid farewell dinner and the two of them had gone out drinking to celebrate their coming adventure in Boston and Paradise. They’d talked about getting away from Vic and his ridiculous reunion. Have you ever met a less interesting group of men? They make all the men back in Scottsdale look like Einstein and da Vinci. Kayla and Dee talked about Jesse Stone, Kayla giving a friendly warning.
“If he will, I will, Dee. I made a wrong turn back then, and seeing him again . . .”
“Don’t worry about it, Kay. I can stand the competition.” She didn’t mean it for a second, but couldn’t afford to alienate Kayla, not now, not with some air back in her balloon.
The more interesting part of the conversation had come during their cab ride back to the Standard. Kayla was pretty drunk by then, and the veil of melancholy, which had lifted for most of their bar hopping, was settling back down around her.
“Something’s up with Vic,” Kayla said, resting her spinning head on Dee’s shoulder in the backseat of the cab.
“By up, do you mean wrong?”
“I guess. He’s worried.”
“About what? He didn’t seem worried when I saw him today. He just seemed like Vic.”
“You guys may be tennis and gun buddies, Dee, but you don’t know my husband. He’s worried about something. When I got back to the hotel this afternoon, he was in the room, drinking by himself. In all the years we’ve been together, I’ve only seen him do that a few times—drink by himself, I mean. When he knew he didn’t have it anymore and had to retire. And when the economy went to shit. He did it every day there for a little while.”
“This time do you think it’s got to do with our trip to Paradise?”
“Probably . . . maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know why I should care. I don’t even know why I mentioned it,” Kayla said, her words slurring into one another.
But she had mentioned it and Dee had hardly been able to get to bed thinking about it.
That was hours ago. Now Dee finally put the phone to her ear without checking the screen. “What?” she said, yawning, stretching her muscles. The sun streaming through her windows.
“Hey, Diana, you called me last night, remember?”
“Abe Rosen?”
“You know anyone else stupid enough to risk his job the way I am?”
“Me.”
“You don’t count. Me, I’m taking a risk for a friend. What you’re doing is professional suicide.”
“Then it’s an assisted suicide.”
“Don’t remind me,” he said.
“What time is it?”
“Nine-forty-seven, sleepyhead.”
“Anything?”
<
br /> “Yes, as a matter of fact. You’re either second-sighted or you got a tip. There was a homicide in Paradise, Massachusetts, two days ago.”
She sat up in bed, her head clearing as if by magic. “Victim?”
“Martina Mary Penworth of Huntington Beach, California. Female. Caucasian. Eighteen years of age. Freshman at Tufts. Two gunshot wounds. Probably nine-millimeters. One to the heart, one head shot.”
“What was she doing in Paradise?”
“That’s the interesting part,” Rosen said. “The prime suspect, the only suspect, is another Tufts freshman named Benjamin Holden Salter. Rich kid. Scene of the homicide was the family homestead in Paradise.”
“What’s so interesting about that?”
“Kid’s still at large, but left his car at the scene.”
“So what? The kid killed the girl, panicked, and ran. Not exactly a unique scenario,” she said, her enthusiasm fading.
“Maybe, maybe not, but the kid’s not really the part that will interest you.”
“Abe!”
“It’s the kid’s father, Harlan Salter IV. The father and his brother Owen are the majority partners in the Coastline Consultants Group, a small but very profitable asset-management concern out of Boston.”
“Holy shit.”
“Holy shit indeed, Batgirl.”
“Thanks, Abe.”
“I’m not sure you should thank me, Diana. Before you, I didn’t understand what an enabler was.”
“Don’t worry, when this whole thing blows up, I’ll make sure you get some roses tossed your way.”
“Keep the flowers and watch your ass.” He hung up.
Diana pumped her fist and jumped out of bed. Then, when she realized her joy had come at the cost of murder, she crossed herself and showered in silence.
22
Lorraine Frazetta lit up like a road flare at the sight of Vic Prado at her door. Lorraine, Vic, and Mike went back a long way, all the way to Lowell. Joe Breen, too, but Lorraine didn’t want to think about that asshole, not with Vic standing in front of her. Vic had always been the golden boy, and for a long time everyone just assumed Lorraine would be the golden boy’s dark angel. They had dated all through high school and it seemed predestined that they would marry after Vic got drafted, but nothing is really predestined. If Lorraine or Vic or Mike had once believed in fate, as it was easy for high-schoolers to believe, they didn’t anymore. Lorraine guessed she had landed on her feet in the end and that she had it pretty good with Mike. He loved her, had been a good enough husband. He was pretty good-looking. Was good enough in bed. But for Lorraine good enough wasn’t ever going to be good enough, because Mike Frazetta, as rich and feared and powerful as he was, wasn’t Vic Prado.
Vic got her juices going at the mention of his name. Now, with him standing so close to her . . . forget it. She loved the way he had aged, the way he smelled, the athletic, confident way he carried himself. It had always been so, and she guessed it would always be so. And yet she’d been the one to throw her golden boy away. Lorraine wasn’t a regretter by nature, but losing Vic was the big regret at the center of her life. One stupid night of jealousy and revenge during their senior year had changed her universe forever, and all because she had overheard Vic telling Mike how hot he thought Fatima Borrego looked in her sparkly magenta majorette outfit. Fatima fucking Borrego, Lorraine thought, who was now as big as a house and lived on food stamps and welfare back in Lowell. That night, the night she heard Vic confide his teenage lust for Fatima, Lorraine seduced Mike in the backseat of his car. It wasn’t much of a seduction, really. Mike had never been very good at hiding his crush on her. Problem with revenge sex is that it too often bites the wrong party in the ass, and in Lorraine’s case, the bite was deep and particularly brutal. Two weeks before baseball’s amateur draft, when Vic found out about what had happened between Lorraine and Mike, he broke up with her and stopped talking to Mike. A month later, Lorraine found out she was pregnant by Mike. She married Mike, and when Lorraine miscarried only a few weeks later, it was already too late. She didn’t think about it much. As her mom used to say, “You can’t uncook the ziti if you leave it in the water too long.” But when she saw Vic, when he was standing so close to her, it was impossible not to beat herself up for what she had done.
She asked, “Where’s Kayla?” What she wanted to ask was where is that sad, stuck-up bitch wife of yours?
“Not here,” he said, winking at Lorraine.
Vic smiled, remembering how she had been his first. He wondered if she realized that her screwing Mike all those years ago had made his life a whole lot simpler. He had planned on dumping Lorraine anyway. She was fine for a Lowell girl, but he was going to be a star. He was going to play in the bigs, make wads of money. He wasn’t going to be one of those dopes who would be saddled to his high school sweetheart his whole life. Vic thought about all the guys he had met during his time in the minor leagues, either the guys who pined away for girls back home or the dumber ones who schlepped their girlfriends with them.
Standing there next to Lorraine, it was clear to Vic that she still had it bad for him, even after all these years. She made that painfully obvious to him every time he saw her. The thing was, he’d never given Lorraine a second thought. Getting girls, then women, had always been easy for Vic. Then, when he met Kayla, a rich college girl who was rebelling against her folks, he was smitten. He had to have her one way or the other, Jesse Stone or no Jesse Stone. She was everything the girls he had known back home in Lowell were not. Not only was she drop-dead beautiful, but she was classy. She knew about art and music and poetry and had eaten things beyond chorizo and red sauce. She had been around the world. Before he made it to the minors, Providence had been the far point of Vic Prado’s travels. They’d been happy for a while, Kayla and him. He couldn’t quite recall when Kayla’s sadness had set in. Nor could he point to the date when Kayla had made her feelings evident about having married beneath her station.
He looked at Lorraine, really looked at her for the first time since they were high school seniors. She had aged fairly well, but she looked the part of the mobster’s wife in her expensive, gaudy jewelry and clothing. Her features had hardened and the jet-black dye job on her hair was a joke. Still, since he’d found out that Joe had killed an innocent girl and that Mike Frazetta couldn’t have cared less, Vic had been thinking about sleeping with Lorraine again. It was a coward’s revenge, but it was revenge. And he wanted to sleep with a woman who wanted him back, not because he was rich or famous or because it was part of the bargain.
“Where’s Mike?” he said.
The smile vanished from her face. “In there with Joe.”
He hesitated, put his lips close to Lorraine’s left ear. “I want you.” Then he turned and walked toward Mike’s TV room. When he looked behind him, Lorraine was a road flare once again.
23
Jesse Stone figured the back deck of the Lobster Claw was a better place to speak to Jim Penworth about Martina than his office at the station. Grief was as personal as DNA, and experience had taught Jesse that some people, especially men, didn’t quite know what to do with it. Penworth seemed relieved, if not glad exactly, to have a beer in his hand. And Jesse wasn’t exactly complaining about drinking a Black Label and soda in a tall glass.
“Your wife back at the hotel?” he asked.
“She is. The doctor Officer Crane recommended gave her something. Thank her for that. Jan needed to get some rest.”
Jesse took a sip of his drink. “Did you make arrangements to bring your girl home?”
“All taken care of. They’re re- . . . leasing her to- . . . tomorrow.” Jim Penworth’s words stuck in his throat as they had that morning. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I just don’t know what to do with myself, Chief Stone. One minute I want to fall apart. The next minute I want to go to the
morgue and just be with her even though I know she’s not there, not really. Then I lose my patience with Jan. That’s the worst, my anger. Why would I be angry at Jan? You prepare yourself for all sorts of things in life, you know? You plan for all contingencies, but . . . not all, I guess.”
“Call me Jesse. Paradise is a first-name police department. Don’t beat yourself up, Jim. No way for a man to prepare for this. No parent should have to. There’s no instruction booklet for bringing them into the world, and there’s none for when they leave.”
“You have kids?”
Jesse shook his head, noticed that Jim Penworth needed another beer, and signaled to the waiter. “No. Never been that lucky.”
“But it seems like you really get it.”
“I was a Homicide detective in L.A. for almost ten years. I’m sorry to say that I get it because I’ve been through this too many times.”
“Does it get easier, Jesse?”
“For me, no. For you, I hope it will with time. Someday you’ll stop thinking of Martina as a murdered girl who was stolen from you. Someday you’ll just remember that you and your wife made a great kid and you’ll miss her.”
Penworth smiled at that but changed subjects. “L.A., huh? I knew you weren’t from here. Born there?”
“Tucson.”
“I like Tucson,” Jim Penworth said in that grief-distracted way, looking out at the Atlantic. “Weird ocean, the Atlantic. So cold. I used to surf professionally. Now I sit at a computer all day long. I used to hope that Martina would take up surfing. I wanted to teach her, to share that with her. I used to nag her about trying it. I used to—”
Jim Penworth was sobbing, head bent, arms folded across his abdomen. The waiter bringing his beer stopped in his tracks at the sight of the crying man. Jesse waved him to come ahead. The waiter put the bottle of Sam Adams lager on the table and fairly ran away.
Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot Page 7