by Mike Lupica
Molly thought: For high school boys with raging hormones, a fate worse than death.
“So you went along,” she said.
“You know what they say: Go along to get along.”
Neither Molly nor Sunny said anything to that.
Feeney said, “And Troy and I have been paying for it ever since. And maybe Bo, too, if he somehow became capable of taking any responsibility. Now here we all are, still talking about it all this time later.” He blew out some air. “You pay and pay and pay,” he said.
Molly started to speak. Feeney put up a hand to stop her.
“You think I don’t see it on your face?” he said.
Talking to Molly now.
“You think I don’t hear the contempt you still feel for me?” he said. “For all of us? You don’t think I see it from people who were around then, every day of my life?”
“But you chose to come back,” Molly said.
“Wherever I went, somebody would have found out eventually,” he said.
Molly could hear his phone buzzing. He took it out of his pocket and said, “On my way.”
“I can’t lie to either one of you,” Kevin Feeney said when his phone was back in his pocket. “If one of us had to be fished out of the water, I wish it had been Bo.”
“You could be in danger, Kevin,” Molly said. “If he came for Troy, he might come for you next.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “If I have to, I can go somewhere Bo would never be able to find me.”
When they were in the parking lot Molly said to Sunny, “I’ve been bitching at Jesse for more than ten years that none of those kids did real time. But maybe, in the end, they all did.”
Forty-Five
Jesse and Vinnie Morris sat with Cokes in front of them at the Gull in the middle of the afternoon. Candace Pennington would be at Jesse’s office in an hour, having told him that she’d make the trip up from Newton, that he didn’t have to come to her. Suit was the one who had tracked her down. When he’d gotten her on the phone and told her that he was calling about Bo Marino and friends she said, “I hope something terrible has happened to all of them.”
Vinnie said, “You still think this guy Marino is a threat to youse?”
Jesse smiled. Vinnie still sprinkled just enough of the old neighborhood into his conversation to remind you where he came from and who he was. But Jesse never needed reminding, even when their interests were aligned, the way they were now.
“He is until I establish he’s not,” Jesse said. “But I told you when you came up that you should leave whenever you needed to.”
“Still looking at this shit as a working vacation,” Vinnie said.
Vinnie wore a summer blazer the color of eggshells, a white polo shirt underneath buttoned to the neck. His mannerisms, as always, were as neat and precise as a neurosurgeon’s. He sipped some of his Coke, put the glass down on its coaster. Jesse was about to ask him if he’d recently had a manicure but was worried Vinnie might shoot him in broad daylight.
“Marino is missing,” Jesse said. “The other one who was a part of the rape of that girl just went into the water.”
“World’s a random place,” Vinnie said. “But my experience is that it ain’t that random.”
It was Vinnie who had dealt with Mr. Peepers, the man who’d killed Jesse’s fiancée, Diana. Jesse had allowed it, if not sanctioned it. There had been times in Jesse’s life, in his career as a cop, when he knew that the legal system would fall short of true justice. That was one. Vinnie had asked Jesse once about that, if he had any regrets. Jesse told him only that he wasn’t able to do it himself. Vinnie had said they were probably more alike than Jesse liked to think. Jesse told him not to let that get around. Somehow their similarities had never gotten in the way of their differences, at least so far.
They sat quietly now and looked out the front window.
“I was thinking today,” Vinnie said, “that looking at the water is like looking at ass. You think you’d never get tired of it, but you do.”
Jesse smiled.
Vinnie said, “Who you think will leave town first, Sunny or me?”
Jesse smiled again.
“You asking me to choose?”
“Just curious.”
“Unclear,” Jesse said.
Now Vinnie almost smiled.
“You think about it,” he said, “what the fuck isn’t?”
Jesse said, “Who watches Elena when you’re not?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Vinnie said.
“I’m the chief of police,” Jesse said. “Makes me a worrier by nature.”
“No shit,” Vinnie said. “Why I’m here.”
* * *
—
Candace Pennington was no longer the scared, wounded teenager that Jesse remembered. She was a beautiful and confident young woman, entering Jesse’s office as if she wanted to sell him something, or buy the whole place. She was very blond now, wearing a rose-colored summer dress. The strap of her Apple Watch seemed to try to match the color of the dress. Maybe she had a collection of them. He noticed a simple gold band on the ring finger of her left hand.
She sat across from Jesse’s desk, in one of the two visitor’s chairs. Molly sat next to her.
“I appreciate you making the ride up here,” Jesse said.
“My first time here in years,” she said. “What’s the old line? Happiness for me was Paradise in my rearview mirror.”
Molly said, “How are your parents?”
“Divorced,” Candace said. “My dad’s still an architect, working in New York City now. My mother is full-time on Nantucket.” She sighed. “Trying to live her best life.”
There were things that stayed with you. Jesse could still remember Margaret Pennington slapping the back of Candace’s head from the chair in which Molly sat now.
“I liked your dad,” Jesse said.
“I do, too,” she said.
“Still remember him slugging Bo and his dad,” Jesse said.
“He’s still grateful that you let him.”
“Better him than me,” Jesse said.
Candace Pennington folded her hands in her lap.
“I heard about Troy,” she said. “Did he kill himself?”
“To be determined,” Molly said.
“And you think Bo might have had something to do with it?” Candace said.
“Also to be determined,” Jesse said.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Candace Pennington said.
“We’re not saying you should be,” Molly said. “We just wanted you to be aware.” Then told her about the attacks against Jesse and her and Suit, about Bo’s house seeming to have been abandoned, now Troy’s death.
“Have you noticed anything in your own life lately out of the ordinary?” Molly said.
“My life since high school has been out of the ordinary,” Candace said.
“Are you married?” Jesse said.
“Not that it’s relevant, Chief Stone,” she said, “but I am.”
“Has your husband noticed anything out of the ordinary?” Jesse said.
“Wife,” Candace Pennington said. “And no.”
Jesse saw Molly smiling at Candace Pennington. “Chief Stone,” she said, “sometimes isn’t nearly as modern as he likes to think he is.”
“We’re not trying to alarm you,” Jesse said. “Just wanted you to be aware of our circumstances. And how they might impact your own.”
“So you’re still looking out for me,” she said.
“In a way,” Jesse said, “I guess I am.”
“What about the other one, Kevin Feeney?” Candace said. “Whatever happened to him.”
Molly told her.
“So he left and came back,” Candace said. “Maybe he finally grew a
pair. He always seemed to be the weakest of the three.”
“He said what you said,” Molly said. “He’s no longer afraid of Bo Marino.”
Candace smoothed out the front of her dress.
“I let all of them control my life for a long time,” she said. “For far too long after I left town. I have no plans to ever let them do it again.” She looked at Jesse. “There was a time when I wanted to kill all of them. Would it shock you to know I learned how to shoot a gun?”
Jesse smiled.
“Forewarned is forearmed,” he said.
“I wish I’d had a gun back in those days,” she said.
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Not one of them ever sought me out to apologize,” she said. “I’m not sure I would have accepted it. But none of them even tried. Not even Kevin, the one the other two made fun of because he didn’t want his turn.” Her eyes were still closed. It was as if she were talking to herself. “You know the only boy in the whole school who apologized? A friend of theirs who didn’t go along with them that night. Jerry Brock.”
Molly said, “He’s still in town. I think he’s in real estate now.”
“He swore he had no idea that it would go that far,” Candace said. “But that he should have said something to me.”
Then she asked Molly if she could have a private moment with Jesse before she left. Molly shook her hand and left. Then it was just Jesse and Candace, in the same office where they’d met when she was a girl scared of everything and everybody: Bo and Kevin Feeney and Troy Drake and her classmates. And her bitch of a mother.
“You were there when I needed you,” she said. “I’ll never forget that.”
“Part of the job.”
“But you don’t have to worry about me anymore,” she said. “You know what they say. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“Glad to hear it,” he said.
“And I’ll tell you a little secret,” she said. “When I fire my weapon, I hit what I’m aiming at.”
She gave him a quick hug before she left. As she did she said, “You better find him before I do.”
“Wasn’t aware you were looking for him,” Jesse said.
“Figure of speech,” Candace Pennington said, then was gone.
Forty-Six
They had skipped dinner and gone straight to bed.
“I feel like a babysitter fooling around with my boyfriend,” Sunny said, “while I’m on the clock.”
“Should I have tried to finish before Mom and Dad got home?” Jesse said.
Sunny grinned.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you finish?”
“We could be getting better at this.”
“This meaning sex,” she said, “or us?”
“Thinking both.”
“Michael Crane isn’t going to be away at sea forever,” Sunny said. “And when he’s back, I’m back to Boston. And real life.”
“This isn’t real?”
“You know what I mean.”
He did. She knew he did, as they lay in the big bed, Jesse just having gotten up to open a window. He’d kept it closed before because he said he didn’t want to frighten the neighbors.
“Do we need to talk about this now?” he said.
“This meaning us?” she said.
“And feelings?”
She grinned again. “You can do it, soldier.”
Jesse said, “They tell us in my club not to project.”
“The club does seem to be working for you.”
“Day at a time.”
“Like us,” she said.
“Long as we don’t project.”
“In the old days,” Sunny said, “we’d be having a drink right now.”
“Those were the days,” Jesse said. “Until they weren’t.”
“You still miss it?”
“Every damn day,” he said.
“And night?” Sunny said.
“More at night,” he said.
He heard a boat horn in the distance, then another. He turned to look through the window at the splash of pale color in the sky, as if daylight were hanging on as long as it could. Another day sober, he thought. But way too early to spike the ball. He hadn’t been to a meeting since his last one at Marshport. Maybe tomorrow. It was one of his dirty secrets about drinking. One of many. Sometimes talking about it made him miss it more. Went against all the talking they did in the rooms. There it was, anyway.
Sunny turned to face him, chin cupped in her hand, blond hair covering half her face.
“You think you’ll ever drink again?” she said.
“Cole always asks me that,” he said.
“What’s the answer?”
“Yes.”
“Really.”
“Really,” he said.
“When?”
“When I’m old,” he said. “Just don’t know how old. But you’ll be the first to know, if you’re still around.”
“Just not today.”
“So far.”
They turned into each other, at almost the exact same moment.
“We need to change the subject,” he said.
“And talk shop?” she said.
“No,” he said.
He kissed her. She kissed him back.
“Oh, that,” Sunny said.
Forty-Seven
It turned out Jesse didn’t have to go looking for Karina Torres, she came to him.
She was waiting in front of Jesse’s building when he came out the next morning, a little after eight o’clock, Sunny already on her way to the gym. Karina was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, sneakers, and a baseball cap with the yacht club emblem on the front.
She told him they needed to talk.
“Agreed,” Jesse said. “But we could have talked at the station.”
“I did not want people to know.”
“The Cains, you mean.”
She shrugged. Jesse said, “Let’s take a walk.”
They headed for the beach, the same route Jesse had taken the night he’d gone after the shooter in the rain. But when they got to the water today, he saw how calm it was, and quiet, the waves hitting the sand as softly as a pillow hitting a bed.
Karina had been silent on the walk over, occasionally looking over her shoulder, as if someone might be watching them.
“So what’s on your mind,” Jesse said.
“Mr. Bryce Cain,” she said. “He is a bad man.”
“Not exactly breaking news,” he said.
“He was terrible to his father until the end,” she said.
“Evidenced in what way?”
“The fighting,” she said.
“About what?”
“Money,” she said. “What else do the rich fight about?”
They walked in the direction of the Stiles Island Bridge. Jesse saw some fishing nets in the distance, assuming that the nets had been hauled and they were on their way back in. Jesse liked fishermen as well as anybody in Paradise. They were hardworking, no-bullshit people. Like him. He envied them sometimes, their workday ending as his was usually beginning. And he liked looking at the boats. Vinnie Morris might be tired of looking at the ocean, but he was not. For all the Higher Power talk in AA, the ocean was one of the things that actually made Jesse believe there was one.
She retreated again into silence. Jesse saw a long, thick piece of driftwood ahead of them. He gestured at it. They sat.
“What about money?” Jesse said. “Is Bryce afraid they’re going to run out sometime before the world ends?”
“He had gotten very upset about his father’s will a month or so ago,” she said, “though I do not know why. Mr. Bryce would always make me leave the room when they’d start to argue. O
ne time I was in the hall and heard Mr. Cain say that it was still his money. And Mr. Bryce said, ‘Not for long.’”
“One big happy family,” Jesse said.
“Never,” she said.
He reached down, picked up a small, smooth stone, side-armed it from a sitting position into the water. And felt the same pull he always did behind his shoulder when he tried to make any kind of throw, like being pulled back into the past.
“They could not wait for him to be dead,” Karina said. “And for the money to be all theirs.”
“You say them,” Jesse said. “That include Lily?”
“They would fight, too,” she said.
“About the money?”
“Not the money,” she said. “Sometimes I thought they fought like people just trying to stay in practice. The worst was about six months ago. She went to Florida and came back and said she was selling the Florida house, it was just sitting there empty now. He said it was the only place where he had happy memories, and she’d have to do it over his dead body. I was in the room this time. And she smiled at him, not in a nice way, and said, ‘Have it your way.’”
Jesse threw another stone into the waves. The pain wasn’t as bad this time. Maybe he was just getting warmed up.
“There are secrets in that house,” she said. “Maybe you can find out what they are. I will not be around long enough.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Mr. Cain the son told me I could stay until the end of the month,” Karina said. “He fired me like I was one of the landscapers.”
Jesse stood now, reached down with his hand to help her up. The sound of the waves had picked up force and volume.
“Why’d you really come to me today?” Jesse said.
“Are you a spiritual person, Chief Stone?” she said.
He told her that he supposed he felt the presence of God when he was this close to the water as much as he did anywhere else.
“But do you believe in the spirit world?” she said.
“You mean ghosts?” Jesse said.
She nodded. “There are ghosts in that family,” she said.
Jesse said, “I thought we were just talking about secrets. Whit talked to me about secrets the last time I saw him.”