Fool's Paradise

by Mike Lupica

  “Maybe,” Jesse said, “he’s always been obsessed with Candace.”

  “And saved her for last,” Dix said. He leaned forward slightly, chin resting on his hands, focus as intense as it always was.

  “Maybe he loved her,” Dix said.

  “And then stood by while the others had her,” Jesse said.

  “The guilt would be as powerful as the rage,” Dix said. “Until you wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other.”

  He nodded at Jesse.

  “You got a lead?”

  “Maybe,” Jesse said.

  “You need to find them,” Dix said.

  “Fuckin’ ay,” Jesse said.

  He went outside and called Candace Pennington’s phone, hoping for a miracle, that she’d pick up and tell him why she’d been missing, and that she was safe.

  Went straight to voicemail.

  “It’s Jesse Stone,” he said. “We think it’s Feeney.”

  Fifty-Six

  Suit was able to fast-track the credit card from Feeney this time, with Wells Fargo. Didn’t bother with anything except charges from Vermont. It turned out there were plenty, last year alone, from the Manchester area. Too many for him to just have been passing through. Molly came up with a property listing for a Mr. K. Feeney, in a town a half-hour from Manchester called Danby.

  Jesse knew the chief in Manchester, a guy he’d met at a couple New England law enforcement seminars. Captain Pete Ciccone. Jesse knew that procedure dictated that he ought to call Ciccone, who had jurisdiction in his state. But if Feeney was there, he might be ready to blow. Jesse was sure Ciccone was a good cop, operating an even smaller department than the one in Paradise, and trusted him.

  Jesse trusted himself more.

  Before he left the office, Molly asked if he had a plan. He told her he was going up there in the morning, and she said she was going with him, and was sure Sunny would want to go, too.

  “We missed the signs,” she said.

  “If it’s him, we all missed them,” Jesse said.

  “It’s still on us as much as anybody,” she said.

  “All of us,” Jesse said.

  “We still don’t know for sure that it is him, or that he’s up there,” Molly said. “Or that he’s got Candace with him.”

  Jesse told her that at this point, the list of things they didn’t know about this case could stretch from here to the Green Mountains.

  “We should maybe think about going up there tonight,” Molly said.

  “Let me think about it,” he said. “But be ready to move.”

  Kevin Feeney wasn’t the only one who could lie.

  When Jesse got home, he called Pete Ciccone, told him he had a possible missing person, technically true, asked if he could get close to the address in Danby without being seen.

  “You think this guy might be a runner?” Ciccone said.

  “Hope that’s all he is for now,” Jesse said.

  “You want me to wait until dark?” Ciccone said.

  “No,” Jesse said.

  Ciccone called back forty-five minutes later, said he’d gotten to within a couple hundred yards of the house. No lights on inside, no cars. Said there were some tire tracks on the dirt road, but that didn’t mean anything, as there were a couple hunting cabins farther up the mountain.

  “I got pretty close,” Ciccone he said. “Place looks deserted. Could the person you’re looking for be out getting food or something?”

  “Or I’m dead wrong about this,” Jesse said.

  “Hard to put a guy there without him being seen,” Ciccone said. “Just the way the property is. But I could circle back in a couple hours.”

  “You coming up to check it out yourself?”

  “Thinking about it,” Jesse said.

  Lying his ass off now.

  He ended the call with Ciccone, grabbed a couple bottles of water, couple energy bars, locked up behind him, and got ready to drive to Danby, Vermont.

  * * *

  —

  He was just outside Paradise when his phone chirped. The screen on the dashboard said “Biddeford PD.”

  The voice at the other end came through the Explorer’s stereo system. The caller identified himself as Sergeant Nason, and said his captain had given him Jesse’s number. Said they might have a lead on the case Deputy Chief Crane had been up there working on.

  “Is this about Bo Marino?” Jesse said.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Nason said. “A couple rabbit hunters found a body a few hours ago, out past Clifford Point. What’s left of it, anyway. Face is pretty much gone. I just got back from there.” He cleared his throat and said, “Can’t say for sure, but it looks like somebody tried to blow the guy’s head off with a shotgun. Or some kind of hunting rifle.”

  Jesse said, “So no ID.”

  “Thinking dental records aren’t gonna be in play, sir,” Nason said. “Other’n that, not sure the Lord himself could identify him at this point. We’ll run his prints through the system, see if we get a hit.”

  “But white male?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Average size?”

  Nason said it appeared so. Then he said, “Aw, goddamn it all to hell and back,” he might never unsee what he’d just seen. Not just because of what the gun had done. Animals, too. Bear country, he said.

  “You had any missing persons up there lately?” Jesse said.

  “Other than a homeless guy from Kennebunkport couple months back we never located, no, sir,” Nason said.

  It was quiet in the car.

  “You still there?” Nason said.

  It came out “they-ah.”

  Jesse told them that he was still there, and was on his way north, part of the same investigation that had sent his deputy chief up to Biddeford. He told Nason that if they somehow identified the body, to call back. If necessary, he could spend the night in Vermont and be there in the morning.

  “You believe in coincidence, Sergeant Nason?” Jesse said.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Coincidence,” Jesse said. “Cops in Maine believe in it?”

  “Not as a general rule, sir, no,” he said.

  “Me, neither,” Jesse said.

  He ended the call. The inside of the car was quiet as Jesse drove north, toward the night. Thinking there was at least a chance that the ghost, from the start, might have been Bo Marino.

  “And then there was one,” Jesse said.

  Fifty-Seven

  Jesse picked up 91 north of Greenfield, crossed into Vermont with New Hampshire to the east, got on Route 11 heading toward Londonderry, finally on Route 7, driving fast when he had two lanes, slowing down when it was back to one lane heading into Dorset. The mountains were all around him. Maybe Candace Pennington really was up here somewhere.

  Maybe he wasn’t too late.

  He was just getting on 7 when he saw the incoming call, this time from Molly Crane.

  “Fucking bastard,” she said.

  In the background he heard Sunny say, “What she said.”

  “When I didn’t hear from you, I decided to check your location on my phone, just out of curiosity,” Molly said. “Lo and behold, I found out that my lying boss was on the move.”

  “Some things I still need to do alone,” he said.

  “It’s my case, too.”

  “I know that, Mols,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said, and hung up.

  Jesse thought more about what Dix had said about Feeney and his possible pathology, all the feelings he might have repressed since the night of the rape until he couldn’t. Including feelings for Candace. If he was right, Jesse had practically handed her over to the son of a bitch.

  Jesse didn’t know how far up Bear Mountain Road the Feeney
house was. He parked at the bottom of it. It was completely dark by now. Woods dark and deep. Who’d written that? Molly would know. He’d ask her later, when she was talking to him again.

  He saw one light in the distance.

  Now somebody was home.

  He checked his phone and saw that he had two bars. He knew he should call Ciccone for backup, but if they were in there, no time for that now. Jesse shut off the phone, put on the duty belt he wore with his jeans, no Taser or flashlight, just cuffs hooked to the back, in case. He made his way up the hill toward the house, staying at the edge of the tree line.

  One foot in front of another, they said at AA.

  He finally reached the house, a two-story cabin with a porch in front. In the back, he thought he could make out a tree house.

  The light was coming from the front of the first floor. Not much of a light at that. Like one lamp was lit.

  Going somewhere Bo can’t find me, Feeney had said.

  Truth and lies.

  Jesse took his gun out of its holster, came in a low scrabble out of the woods, footsteps on his old gray New Balances lost under all the night sounds around him, briefly wondering what kind of animals you could encounter in the mountains of Vermont.

  He was at a side window now, shade halfway drawn, slowly raising himself up so that the window was nearly at eye level. Wanting to see if Feeney was in there.

  Praying they both were there.

  He was still in his crouch, gun in his right hand, when he felt the barrel of the gun in his back and heard a voice he somehow recognized, after all these years.

  “Don’t make me shoot you, asshole,” he said.

  Bo Marino barked out a laugh.

  “Least not yet.”

  Fifty-Eight

  Marino had established a safe zone between him and Jesse, protecting himself from a sudden move.

  “Gun on the ground, gently,” Marino said. “Then hands up.”

  Jesse dropped the gun to his side, put his arms in the air.

  “Now kick the gun back to me,” Marino said.

  “Not a soccer player.”

  “You used to say a lot of smart-mouthed shit when you were the one with the gun,” Marino said. “When you were the one in charge. But I am now. You do what I say. Kick the fucking gun back to me.”

  Jesse did.

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “Front pocket.”

  “Take it out and toss it back here.”

  Jesse did that, too.

  Thinking: I came up here because I wanted to take control of the situation.

  “Where is she?”

  “That what you came up here to find out?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Well, I don’t give a shit what you want,” Marino said. “I’m the chief now.”

  “Maybe I didn’t come alone,” Jesse said.

  “Yeah, asshole, you did. Know how I know? Because my boy Feens has a surveillance camera on a tree at the end of the drive. He used to get fraidy scared when he was alone up here at night.”

  “Where’s he, by the way?”

  Marino hit Jesse hard on the back of his head with either Jesse’s gun or his own, the force of the blow surprising him and nearly putting him on the ground.

  “Now do something else,” Bo Marino said. “Reach behind you and take those cuffs off your belt and put them on.”

  Jesse unhooked his cuffs, but fumbled trying to put them on behind his back.

  “You’re going to have to help me,” he said over his shoulder.

  “So I have to get close to you?” Marino said. “How dumb do you think I am?”

  How much time do you have?

  Jesse kept fumbling with the cuffs and finally Marino said, “Fuck it. Front will do. You’re not going to have them on for very long.”

  Jesse put on the cuffs, over the fat part of his hands, bitching as he did that they were too tight. But at least his hands were in front of him now. Wasn’t much, he thought. But wasn’t nothing.

  “Where’s Candace?” he said.

  “Inside,” Marino said. “Waiting for the show to start.”

  “What show?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “What about Feeney?”

  “Up the mountain where I stashed my van,” Marino said. “I don’t need him yet.”

  “For what?” Jesse said.

  Marino barked out another laugh.

  “To look like he killed both of you, the poor bastard, before he killed himself,” Bo Marino said, shoving Jesse toward the door.

  Fifty-Nine

  Marino had moved a queen-sized bed into the living room area. Candace Pennington was tied to its posts, hands and feet. Wearing the same clothes she’d worn to Jesse’s office. Gray duct tape over her mouth, eyes frantic, makeup around the eyes a raccoon mess. A bruise was darkening on her left cheekbone.

  “Had to tape her mouth,” Bo Marino said. “Some shit never changes. She still won’t stop screaming.”

  He motioned Jesse into a chair maybe ten feet from the end of the bed, facing it. When Jesse was seated, Marino came up quickly behind him and threw what Jesse saw was the kind of rope harness that climbers wore over him, then pulled it tight.

  “Fuck you,” he said to Bo Marino, who swung the gun again and hit him in the back of the head. It felt like a baseball bat.

  But thinking: Second and a half.

  Two, tops.

  Jesse sat there, cuffed hands in his lap. Took a better look at the man that Bo Marino had become. Heavier than he’d been in high school. Some kind of neck tat showing near the collar of a flannel shirt. Long hair, mountain-man beard. Carpenter jeans with big pockets on the sides. Work boots.

  The gun in his hand appeared to be a .22. Jesse’s .40 was stuck in his jeans, in front.

  Jesse saw a semi-automatic rifle leaning against the wall near the bed, wondering if it might be the one Marino had used that night in the rain.

  Marino sat down himself at the end of the bed, between Candace’s splayed legs. Waving the gun in front of him as he began to talk. Some were like this. Not all. Some. Wanting to tell you all about it. Maybe Bo Marino had been waiting to tell somebody all about it his whole goddamn pathetic life.

  “Want to know the best part?” he said. “You leaving that message for her telling her to watch out for Feeney. Feeney? Are you fucking kidding? You think he had the balls to pull off any of this? He couldn’t find his balls with a fucking tracking device.”

  Keep him talking.

  “Why’d you kill Drake?” Jesse said.

  “Because he ratted me out same as Feeney did, is why,” Bo Marino said. “Both of them blubbering to you like little babies to save their own asses. But when I called him, I told him I wanted to apologize for everything finally. Gave him a lot of bullshit about how sorry I was. How I’d changed. He was so happy I thought he might start blubbering all over again. Told him we needed to take a walk over the bridge like we used to. Sharing a bottle of Maker’s Mark, just like the old days.”

  “You told your father you stopped,” Jesse said.

  “I tell that mean fuck a lot of things,” Bo said. “One of these days I’m gonna come for him, too.”

  “So you got him drunk.”

  “Not much of a freaking challenge,” Marino said. “Finally we stop and look at the water, up there at the highest point. He said he was feeling dizzy. Started to sway a little. Reached for me to help him.” Marino shrugged. “Over he went,” he said. “Pretty shitty dive, you ask me.”

  Jesse thought: He sounds proud of himself.

  “How’d you end up here at Kevin’s place?”

  “The fuck you talking about, Kevin’s place?” he said. “This place belonged to his old man. Kevin Feeney Senior. After we got our licenses we u
sed to come up here to get wasted.”

  He looked around.

  “Those were the days.”

  “I can see why you went after them,” Jesse said. “Why me and my cops?”

  “Because I saw you, that’s why. All it took. There I am, the night they opened the movie theater back up, back in town for the first time in forever. I was maybe fifty feet behind you in the crowd. There you were, along with the bitch cop and the doofus you call Suit. You know what I was thinking that night? I wished I’d been the one to burn down that theater, and the whole freaking town along with it.”

  “You would have needed to be better at that than building a bomb,” Jesse said.

  “And you need to be a better cop,” Marino said.

  “Where’d you get the parts?”

  “Stole them from my old man one night when he was the one passed out drunk. And then you thought Drake did it? No shit, that made me laugh my ass off. Yeah, he was a menace to society same as Feeney.”

  “You followed me to the lake that night?” Jesse said.

  “Wondered where the hell you were going,” Marino said. “But when you ended up there, nobody else around, I grabbed the rifle out of the trunk. It was going to be a much easier goddamn shot until you heard me. Pissed me off.”

  Jesse’s eyes locked on Candace’s. He nodded.

  I will get you out of this.

  For the moment, her own eyes seemed calm. Smaller. She nodded back, as if reading his mind, Marino’s back to her.

  Then she showed Jesse that she had freed her right hand. Marino turned slightly then, as if catching the hint of movement. But her hand was already back where it had been.

  “But all of the shit in my life started with her,” Marino said, jerking his head in Candace’s direction. “Everywhere I went, and I went a lot of goddamn places, they’d look me up and find out what I did, and then I was the one getting it up the ass all over again. All because of her.”

  “All her fault,” Jesse said. “And ours.”

  “Goddamn right.”

  “Was that you who tried to rape the other woman in the park that night?” Jesse said.

  Marino laughed again.