Fool's Paradise

by Mike Lupica

  “We’ve tried it multiple times,” Jesse said. “Somehow she manages to keep losing me.”

  “And yet,” Sunny said, “here we are.”

  Molly finished her drink, put it down, said to Jesse, “Go home now. If this is going to be a sleepover, Sunny and I need to start dishing about boys.”

  Sunny walked Jesse out, neither one of them saying anything, as if they didn’t want to disturb the night hush around them, until Jesse said, “You think this guy worked out some kind of plan? Or is he just making it up as he goes along?”

  “When a guy shot Richie and then started going after members of his family one by one,” she said, “my therapist told me that whatever he was doing made perfect sense to him.”

  “In the middle of it,” Jesse said, “he came after you.”

  “Only because I dropped my guard,” she said.

  “Got it up now?” Jesse said.

  “Would it be somewhat less than ladylike,” Sunny said, “for me to tell you that ought to be my line?”

  They were on the driver’s side of the car. Suddenly quite close to each other. Close enough for him to smell her hair.

  They were kissing then, like teenagers, outside a parked car. Here we are, Sunny had said. Here they were, under the streetlight in front of Molly Crane’s house, lost in the moment, oblivious to whether Molly or anybody else was watching them until Sunny pulled back, still smiling but out of breath now, saying, “To be continued.”

  “It’s wrong to lie to the chief of police,” he said.

  “Not lying,” she said, and kissed him again, as fiercely as before.

  She turned and walked back into the house then. Jesse watched her go, sure there was an extra swing to her hips in her tight jeans.

  He was the chief, after all.

  Paid to notice everything.

  Twenty-Two

  In the morning Jesse called Vinnie Morris at the office he kept above his bowling alley on Concord Turnpike.

  “You need somebody capped?” Vinnie said.

  “Capped?” Jesse said.

  “I was binge-watching some Sopranos last night,” he said. “So shoot me.”

  “I see what you did there,” Jesse said.

  Vinnie Morris was a legendary shooter, all the way back to his days working for Boston crime bosses Joe Broz and Gino Fish when they were still alive. It was, Jesse knew, a stretch to say that Vinnie had gone straight. He just wasn’t as crooked as he once was. And more on the right side of things, since Gino died, than not.

  They had each done favors for the other in the past. There had been a time when Vinnie had crossed lines that Jesse would not, knowing that Jesse would not. On top of that, he was a friend of Spenser’s and Sunny’s. If Jesse and Vinnie Morris weren’t friends, they had a relationship now with some history to it, based on respect and trust.

  And Jesse knew that if the situation called for it, Vinnie Morris could shoot the seams off a baseball.

  “You busy these days?” Jesse said.

  “I just finished a thing in Miami.”

  “A thing.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “A thing. For a guy needed one.”

  “You mind me asking what kind of thing?”

  “I do.”

  “And for whom?”

  “Guy I owed a favor.”

  “You have to cap anybody?”

  “No,” Vinnie said. “Was more an implied-type thing that I could if necessary. Turned out it wasn’t.”

  “Necessary,” Jesse said.

  “Whatever,” Vinnie said. “An accommodation was reached.”

  “I’m always a sucker for a happy ending,” Jesse said.

  Jesse had been to the bowling alley. He’d always thought that Vinnie owning it was like some kind of private joke with himself. Jesse could picture him behind his desk, the shooting-range target on the wall across from him. Something else to amuse Vinnie, even though not much did.

  “What do you need?” Vinnie said.

  “A favor for which I am willing to pay you,” Jesse said. “Out of what I think of as my discretionary fund.”

  “You don’t have to pay me,” Vinnie said. “We owe each other. I do something for you, you do something for me someday.”

  “Something legit?”

  He thought he heard Vinnie make a snorting sound.

  “I didn’t suddenly forget who I was talking to,” Vinnie said.

  Then Jesse told him what he needed. Vinnie said, “I can do that. How long?”

  “Hoping not very,” Jesse said.

  “What if I need to shoot somebody?”

  “This one I’d like to have alive,” Jesse said.

  “Wasn’t like that the other time,” Vinnie said.

  “I know,” Jesse said.

  “And Sunny’s got Molly?”

  “She does.”

  “You sure you don’t need me on them?”

  “If I put you on them and Sunny finds out,” Jesse said, “we’re both opening ourselves up to heartbreak. And if I decide I need more backup, I can always get Spike into the game.”

  “He’s good,” Vinnie said. “For a gay guy.”

  “Most straight guys wish they were as good as Spike.”

  “Not this straight guy,” Vinnie said. There was a pause and then he said, “While all this watching is going on, who’s watching you?”

  “See, there,” Jesse said. “You did forget who you were talking to for a second.”

  Twenty-Three

  Lundquist had called before Jesse went to bed, and convinced him to let him send some backup to Paradise, at least in the short run.

  “Maybe four guys during the day, another four at night,” Lundquist said. “I’ll tell ’em to flash their lights and badges every chance they get.”

  “Show of force,” Jesse said.

  “Exactly.”

  “No,” Jesse said.

  “Why not?”

  “I told you,” Jesse said. “I got this.”

  “Unless this maroon finds a way to dial things up.”

  “Maybe I’ll bring back stop-and-frisk if my guys see somebody suspicious,” Jesse said.

  “Boy, those were the days,” Lundquist said.

  In the late morning, Jesse called Molly and Sunny and Suit into the conference room.

  “Suit and I will stay on the Paul Hutton case,” he told them. “Eventually we’re going to start filling in the blanks on his past. I’m going to find out the connection between him and the Cain house. There had to be a reason why he went there that night.”

  He turned to Molly then and said, “And you keep going through those files to find out who’s put a target on us.”

  “Still could turn out to be the one who put a target on Hutton,” Molly said.

  “Feeling a little left out here,” Sunny said, “other than my responsibilities for watching Molly’s ass.”

  “My very well-conditioned ass,” Molly said.

  “Thought that went without saying,” Suit said.

  “Shut up, Luther,” Molly said.

  “Not leaving you out,” Jesse said to Sunny. “It can’t hurt to have a fresh set of eyes on Molly’s list of suspects.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “How long can you stay?” Jesse said.

  “Long as it takes,” Sunny said. “I’ve got no need to be in Boston right now.”

  “What about Rosie?”

  Her dog.

  “With Spike,” she said. “I’ll bring her up if I decide to extend my stay.”

  “You know I plan to pay you,” Jesse said. “And don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  “Wasn’t planning to,” Sunny said. “I lost my amateur status a long time ago.”

  Suit grinned.

  “How
old were you when you turned pro?” Suit said.

  “Shut up, Luther,” Sunny said.

  Suit went back to his desk. Molly said she was going to make more coffee for her and Sunny. Just Jesse and Sunny in the conference room now.

  In a low voice, Sunny said, “You need to make a plan for us to get some alone time.”

  “You sure?” Jesse said. “The ‘us’ part?”

  “Hell no,” Sunny Randall said.

  Twenty-Four

  Jesse got ready to leave the office at a little after six o’clock. Molly and Sunny and Suit were on their way to have dinner at Molly’s house. Jesse told them he might stop by for dessert. Molly said he hadn’t asked what they were having for dessert. Jesse said it didn’t matter, the worst he ever had was great.

  “Where are you going right now?” Molly asked.

  “Marshport,” Jesse said. “I want to go back to where it started and then hope something develops.”

  “Always one of your best strategies,” Molly said.

  He parked across from the First Episcopal Church, and pictured Paul Hutton coming out and getting into Luis Andujar’s taxi that night. He knew they were halfway through the six o’clock meeting, and wondered if his friend Laura was in there. Jesse had found her smart and attractive. But now Sunny was back. Maybe in a bigger way than he could have anticipated.

  He thought: Down, boy.

  He drove from there to Lily Cain’s house, as Andujar had that night with Paul Hutton in his backseat. Who had he gone to see? What had Hutton been thinking on his way to the mansion at the edge of the water in the last few hours of his life?

  Just another dead drunk, Bryce Cain had said.

  As Jesse sat in the Explorer across from the front gate to the Cain house, he thought about how hard it had been for him to get sober. All the times he’d gotten sober. Another old joke: Of course I can quit drinking, done it plenty of times. This time he had made it stick, at least for now. Paul had been making it stick. Had thought his whole life—his new, sober life—was ahead of him.

  Yeah, Jesse thought to himself now, car windows down, listening to the sound of the waves in the distance.

  You want to make your Higher Power laugh His ass off?

  Tell Him about your plans.

  How did Paul Hutton get from here to the lake?

  Suit had checked all of the car services around, including Luis Andujar’s, even one town over. He’d check with Uber and Lyft. There had been no pickup here that night. There had been seven pickups in town, all kids who’d been drinking, according to the drivers. Two had been dropped at the lake, probably to party. Neither fit the description of Paul Hutton.

  Jesse set the trip odometer and drove to the lake now, taking the most direct route through town. The distance was 2.7 miles. So Hutton could have walked. If he had walked, he was going into town to meet somebody.

  Maybe there had been a change of plans with whomever he thought he was meeting at Lily’s house.

  But who? Lily herself? Bryce? Karina, the nurse?

  “Fuck,” Jesse said.

  He was out of the car now, having walked down near the water to where Christina Sample had discovered the body. Darkness had come early tonight.

  Had it been the killer who set up the meet? Was it a setup or a random killing? But if it was random, what was Paul Hutton doing at the lake in the first place? Then whoever put one in the back of his head knew enough to take his phone, if indeed he’d had one in the first place. Phones had SIM cards. They had memories. They told stories.

  “Fuck,” he said again.

  No phone. No credit card, at least not yet. But who didn’t have a credit card in the modern world, where people even used them to buy a cup of coffee?

  Maybe a guy who didn’t have a phone or credit card was one who liked living off the grid.

  But looking to connect with someone that night.

  Or something.

  Maybe I should give this up, Jesse thought. Focus on our would-be rapist, would-be shooter, would-be Unabomber.

  Because who was the bigger threat in Paradise right now?

  Easy.

  That asshole was.

  Jesse heard something then from the woods behind him.

  As soon as he did, he dropped to the ground and rolled to his right, clearing his gun from the holster on his hip as he did.

  Jesse waited.

  There was just the sound of the wind in the trees now, and the soft lap of the water on the shore behind him. Had it been footsteps he’d heard, or a small animal?

  Like he always told Suit: Nobody ever died from being too careful.

  Jesse quieted his own breathing. Waited and listened.

  But then he did hear footsteps from the woods, twigs snapping, somebody running away from him, in the direction of the softball field.

  Jesse was up then, gun out, into the darkness of the woods, wondering where a big moon was when he needed it. There were lights at the field when they had a game. Just not tonight.

  Jesse couldn’t tell how close he was to the runner ahead of him.

  Maybe close enough.

  He had his gun in his right hand and shielded himself from branches with his left as he ran. He knew there was a small clearing up ahead, then more woods. Then the ballfield.

  He fired a shot into the air, no fireworks tonight to muffle the sound, or disguise it.

  He tried to make out a shape in front of him. Could not. He thought he was catching up to the sound of the footsteps but couldn’t be sure. If whomever it was knew the area, they wouldn’t head toward the field, they’d run to the left now, to more woods running parallel to the water.

  There was already the sound of a siren in the distance. Somebody had already called in a gun being fired. Cavalry to the rescue, Jesse thought.

  Mine.

  He came into the small clearing and stopped. There was some light now. He looked up and saw the moon no longer covered by clouds, just too late to do him any good.

  It was their guy, he was sure of it. Maybe Jesse was the one who’d dropped his guard tonight. He had to have been followed to Marshport, then to Lily’s, then the lake. But he hadn’t noticed a thing.

  Was the guy getting ready to take another shot before he’d made enough noise to get Jesse’s attention?

  Whatever.

  He was back.

  Jesse saw the flashing lights from the softball field then, walked over there, saw Gabe Weathers stepping away from his car, own gun drawn until he saw it was Jesse walking from the outfield in his direction.

  “Oh, good,” Gabe said. “I don’t have to shoot my boss.”

  “Well, not tonight,” Jesse said.

  Gabe nodded at him.

  “You discharge your weapon, sir?” Gabe said.

  “Warning shot,” Jesse said.

  Gabe grinned.

  “Those don’t even work on cop shows,” he said.

  Twenty-Five

  Jesse thought about swinging by Molly’s, but decided to go home instead. He’d been checking for tails for the past couple days, but had seen nothing on the way to Marshport, or Lily’s, or the lake. The only way somebody could have known Jesse was at the lake was if he was somehow able to track him.

  Jesse had put a spy app on his phone a long time ago, which left one more possibility. When he got to the condominium, he parked the souped-up new Explorer in his designated space on the side of the building, got a flashlight out of the back, checked the wheels, and slid underneath and found nothing. Made a thorough search of the inside. Found nothing there, either.

  He’d been lucky twice.

  Strike two.

  When he got upstairs he realized he hadn’t eaten, and fixed himself a bologna-and-cheese sandwich, garlic pickles and chips on the side.

  And immediately thought
how good a cold beer would have gone with that. They talked about triggers—people, places, things—in all the AA literature. Maybe somebody had talked about it tonight at the First Episcopal Church. Sometimes the thing was as simple as a bologna sandwich.

  But almost everything made him think about drinking.

  It was like the old joke about the psychiatrist doing a word-association exercise with a patient, and no matter what word he uses, the patient always responds with “sex.” When the psychiatrist wants to know why, the guy says, “You keep using all those sexy words.”

  Jesse got himself a Coca-Cola instead. Caffeine-free. He’d long since decided he liked the world better when everything wasn’t something-free.

  Twenty-Six

  When Molly and Sunny arrived at the office, they informed him that they’d already been to the gym. Jesse told them he was happy for both of them.

  “I thought you were coming over for dessert?” Sunny said.

  “Why does every other thing you two say to each other sound dirty?” Molly said, shaking her head.

  “You have a dirty mind?” Jesse said.

  Molly put up her arms, as if in surrender. “Well,” she said, “you got me there.”

  Then he told them what had happened at the lake.

  “You think he had you lined up again?” Molly said.

  “If he did, I caught another break,” Jesse said.

  “Are you sure,” Sunny said to him, “that I’m not shadowing the wrong member of this department?”

  “Wishful thinking,” Jesse said.

  “Again with the talk,” Molly said.

  She and Sunny headed for the conference room, which had been turned into a war room. Jesse sat back down at his desk, finished the corn muffin he’d bought at Dunkin’, and called Lily Cain.

  “Got a few more questions about my dead guy,” Jesse said.

  “For me?” Lily said.

  “I was actually hoping I might talk to the nurse about the night Paul Hutton got dropped off there,” Jesse said.

  “I asked her again,” Lily said. “She said no one called from the gate before she went to bed.”

  “I’d just like to hear for myself,” Jesse said. “Why would the guy go to the trouble of going there and then not try to get into the house?”