“I,” Perkins started and stopped, looking for what he wanted to say. “I don’t like this thing, Jesse.”
“What thing?”
“The slut thing. The cruiser, now the cat. It’s an escalation.”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “It is.”
“Maybe this isn’t some kid.”
“Maybe not,” Jesse said.
“Maybe it’s serious,” Perkins said.
“Maybe you need to take the microscopic blood samples into state forensic,” Jesse said.
“It’s still on the cat’s claws,” Perkins said.
“So take the cat.”
“Jesus, Jesse.”
“I’ll call over there,” Jesse said. “Sort of smooth the way for you.”
Perkins nodded. He was not happy.
“You think it could be important, Jesse?”
“I got no idea, Pete. I’m just trying to accumulate data.”
Perkins nodded. He wanted to say something else. But there wasn’t anything else to say. He hesitated another minute, then turned to leave.
“I’ll get right on it, Jesse.”
Perkins went out and closed the door quietly behind him. Jesse leaned back again with his feet up and his lips pursed and his mind relaxed and laced his hands behind his head.
Chapter 26
Freedom’s Horsemen were practicing squad maneuvers in the wooded area along the railroad tracks in back of the high school.
In full battle dress, camouflage fatigues with a white-handled .45 revolver in a shoulder holster, Hasty Hathaway directed his troops through a bullhorn.
“I want first squad along the track embankments to the right.”
His voice amplified by the bullhorn had lost its human sound.
“I want second squad on the high ground back here under those trees.”
The mechanized voice sounded odd in the leafy margin where the tracks went out through a low salt marsh.
“You spread out,” the voice boomed, “under the trees so the helicopters can’t see you, and you lay your field of fire down, so it’ll intersect with first squad, the way we laid it out. Noncoms stand by your men, and await my command.”
The late-summer afternoon buzzed with the low hum of locusts, and the sound of a bird’s odd cry which was more like hiccup than song. The salt marsh supported a large number of flying insects with big translucent wings who hovered close to the surface of the brackish water between the salt hay hummocks. Bobbing on the water among the clumps of sea grass were several bright beach balls.
The mechanical voice over the bullhorn spoke again.
“Commence firing.”
And a fusillade of small-arms fire snarled over the salt marsh. The beach balls exploded as the bullets tore through them, and the water between the clumps of marshland spurted and roiled as the bullets sloshed into it. The gunfire was mixed. There was the crack of pistols and the harder sound of rifle fire and the big hollow sound of shotguns.
After a few moments of sustained fire, the mechanical voice boomed, “Cease firing,” and the marsh, ringing with the memory of sound, was now entirely silent, devoid even of the odd hiccupping song and the locust buzz. No insects flew over the surface of the marsh, and the beach balls had vanished from the waterways. Only the bright scrap of one clinging to a reed remained as evidence that they had been there.
“Assemble on me,” the bullhorn voice said. And the men dressed up like soldiers came out of the woods and from behind the railroad embankment and gathered around Hathaway, who stood on a pile of railroad ties, a hundred yards down the track from the football field behind the high school. He put the bullhorn to his mouth again and the voice spoke.
“Fellows, first let me congratulate you. Had this been the real thing, and not an exercise, we would have prevailed entirely. The fields of fire interlocked, the firing discipline was maintained, each of you did his job and I’m proud of every one of you.”
The men stood in a semicircle around him, thirty-one of them, carrying a variety of shotguns, hunting rifles, modified military weapons, and side arms.
“And make no mistake about it, men, one day it will be the real thing. And men like us will be what stands between the one-worlders and this White Christian Nation. We who have remained true. We who abide by the constitutional mandate for a well-regulated militia. We who exercise our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We will keep safe the heritage of this country. And if someday we must die to serve this cause, well, then, it will be a good day to die.”
Hathaway handed the bullhorn to Lou Burke, who was standing on the ground beside the pile of ties. Then he turned back toward the assembled men and came to attention and saluted them. They returned the salute and Hathaway yelled, his voice much smaller without the bullhorn.
“Dismissed!”
The men broke their ranks and wandered down the tracks toward the parking lot near the commuter station off Main Street. They stowed their guns in trunks and backseats and drove home in their Toyota sedans and Plymouth Voyagers to take off their uniforms and watch television until bedtime.
The parking lot had been empty for several minutes and the insect buzz and birdsong had resumed around the salt marsh and along the railroad tracks when Jesse Stone walked out of the woods, cut through the high-school football field, and walked back toward the town hall in the lavender twilight.
Chapter 27
Cissy Hathaway lay facedown on the bed, her face buried in the pillow, holding on to the white iron headboard, while Jo Jo Genest spanked her naked backside quite gently with a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt. Each time he struck her she made noise into the pillow and her body twisted as if trying to get her grip loose from the headboard.
The room was small and spotless. The walls were white. The floor was polished oak. There was no rug. Opposite the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers painted white, and on the wall beside it was a full-length mirror with a white plastic frame. There was no night table, no lamp. The overhead light was very bright above them. Jo Jo’s naked body under the bright overhead glistened with sweat. The muscles and veins were so prominent, stretched so tight against his white skin, that he seemed an anatomy specimen as he sat beside her on the edge of the bed, hitting her gently while she sobbed and moaned into the muffling pillow.
Finally she twisted, releasing her hold on the headboard for a moment as she rolled onto her back, her body arching toward him. She gripped the headboard again and raised her knees and he eased his huge body onto her.
“You’ve got me now,” she gasped. “You’ve really got me.”
Later, standing on a chair at the foot of the bed, Jo Jo aimed carefully through the Polaroid camera at Cissy Hathaway, naked on the bed. Jo Jo snapped six pictures and placed them carefully on the top of the dresser while they took form. He stared at himself for a moment in the mirror. Then he brought the pictures to the bed and held them up for Cissy to see. She looked at them intently.
“Take more,” she said and assumed a different pose. “Different.”
“Boy, you are some sick bitch,” Jo Jo said.
His pale body seethed with muscles, the veins in his arms distended from steroids. He crouched at the foot of the bed and took some pictures. Then he stood, and reloaded the camera, and went to the far side and took some pictures. He continued to move around her, snapping pictures and letting them cure on the bureau top while he took more. As he snapped, Cissy arched her body into different positions. Finally he ran out of film. He went and stared down at the twenty-four pictures of Cissy that lay faceup on the top of the dresser. He picked one up and touched it to see if it was dry. It wasn’t quite, so he blew on it and put it back down.
Behind him on the bed, Cissy said, “Show me.”
Jo Jo turned and looked at her for a moment, a
nd shook his head, and brought the pictures to the bed. Sitting on it while she lay back against the pillows, he held the pictures up one at a time. She studied each one carefully, her eyes shiny, her breathing shallow.
“Hard to figure,” Jo Jo said, “how you ended up marrying a geek like Hasty.”
“I don’t feel comfortable,” she said, “that you have those.”
“You want to keep them at your house?” Jo Jo said.
“No, you know I don’t dare do that.”
“Want me to burn them?” Jo Jo said.
“No.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to be uncomfortable, huh?”
Cissy nodded. She seemed disoriented. Her manner was vague. Her eyes were wide and her pupils were so dilated that she seemed almost to have no iris. She got off the bed and began to dress while he carefully stowed the pictures of her in the top drawer of the dresser.
“See you next Thursday,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
“Your old man ever wonder where you go on Thursday nights,” Jo Jo said.
“No,” Cissy said. “Hasty always conducts field training on Thursday nights. I’m home before he is.”
“He ever wonder why your ass looks so red?”
Cissy hated it when Jo Jo talked so coarsely. But she tried not to show it. If she showed it she knew he’d just do it more.
“He rarely sees me undressed,” she said.
“Well, ain’t that a trip,” Jo Jo said. “Everybody else in town sees you that way.”
“Must you?” Cissy said.
“Well,” Jo Jo said with a wide grin, “maybe not everybody, but I’ll bet I ain’t the only one, am I right?”
Cissy shook her head without answering.
“Well, I’m not,” Jo Jo said. “One guy once a week ain’t enough for you. Maybe you do different things. Maybe Thursday’s your night for rough trade. But I’m not the only guy.”
A flush smudged along Cissy’s cheekbones. She took her small straw purse from the top of the dresser, put her lipstick in it, closed it carefully, and then, without looking again at Jo Jo, went out of the bedroom. Jo Jo made no move to go with her.
Jo Jo said, “Good night, slut,” but she was probably too far down the stairs to hear him.
He closed the door, and began to strip the bed. He put the sheets and pillowcases in the old-fashioned wicker laundry hamper in the bathroom, and remade the bed with clean sheets. When he was done he went into the bathroom and took a long shower. After he got out and toweled dry, looking at his muscles in the mirror, he rubbed a little Neosporin ointment into the scratches on his hand.
Chapter 28
Lou Burke always looked as if he were ready for inspection. His uniform was tailored and pressed. There were military creases in his shirt. His badge shined. His shoes were spit-shined. His pistol belt and holster gleamed with polish. What little hair he had left was always freshly cut. He was carefully clean-shaven, and he smelled faintly of cologne.
“So tell me about this militia group you belong to,” Jesse said.
Burke shrugged. Carefully, Jesse thought.
“Freedom’s Horsemen?” Burke said.
Jesse nodded.
“Just a bunch of guys, like to shoot, like to stay ready,” Burke said.
“Ready for what?”
“For whatever comes. You know, like the Constitution says, a well-regulated militia.”
Jesse nodded.
“Everybody got paper for the guns?”
“Sure,” Burke said. “Mostly F.I.D.’s. Guys with handguns got carry permits.”
“And discharging a firearm within town limits?”
Burke smiled.
“No problem. Selectmen made that legal, four, five years ago, look it up, as long as it is not done in a way to endanger life or property,” Burke said. “Besides, even if it were illegal, you going to arrest half the town government, including the head selectman?”
“Not me,” Jesse said. “Any automatic weapons?”
“Nope. These guys wouldn’t know where to get one. Hunting rifles mostly, some shotguns, couple old M1’s, couple of M1 carbines that fire semi only.”
“Hasty the commander?”
“Yeah. He’s real serious about it.”
“Any talk of, you know, white supremacy, Jewish conspiracy, that kind of stuff?”
“Hell no, Jesse. We’re a self-defense force that enjoys getting together one day a week and doing some maneuvers. You know I wouldn’t be a part of anything that wasn’t straight.”
“Any blacks in the self-defense force?”
“No, but hell, there’s no blacks in town, are there?”
“Good point,” Jesse said.
“Probably why a lot of people move here, get away from what’s going on in Boston.”
“What’s going on in Boston?”
“Aw, come on, Jesse. You worked in L.A. You know you get a bunch of blacks you get crime and drugs and guns and the neighborhood goes to shit. It’s not prejudiced to say that. It’s just reality.”
“Who finances the Horsemen?”
“What’s to finance? The guys buy their own uniforms, supply their own weapons and ammo. We have a couple parties a year. I think Hasty pays for them.”
Jesse nodded slowly. He tapped the fingers of his left hand softly on the desktop, and pursed his lips in a facial gesture that Burke had seen before. It meant Jesse was thinking. Burke felt a bit uncomfortable.
“You got a problem with any of this, Jesse?”
Jesse continued to purse his lips and drum gently on the desk. Then he stopped, and grinned at Burke.
“No. Hell no, Lou. I got no problem with any of it.”
Burke did not feel entirely reassured. Sonova bitch doesn’t miss much, Burke thought.
Chapter 29
The apartment was very still when Jesse got home. The small sounds of a functioning building only underscored the silence. Jesse walked to the sliders that opened onto the little deck, and looked out at the harbor. There was still enough light to see all the way across to the Neck. A single lobster boat came in toward the town dock, otherwise the boats that bobbed on the calm surface of the harbor were moored and empty. Jesse liked the silence. It was comforting. He stood for a while looking at the quiescent harbor and let the silence sink in. Then he went to the kitchen and got the bottle of Black Label from the cabinet and poured some over ice. He let it sit for a moment while he hung his coat on the back of a chair. Then he picked up the glass and walked into the living room and looked out the window and took his first drink. First one at the end of a day was always a home run. He sat down on one of the armchairs that had come with the apartment, and put his feet up on the coffee table. He sipped again. The silence made him feel strong. And the whiskey made him feel strong. He tried to simply feel the strength and let his mind go, let it be part of the silence and the whiskey and not think about Jenn. He felt strong about Jenn. Right here at least. Right now. The prospect of life without her seemed for the moment filled with possibility. He drank again and got up and added some ice and poured some more scotch. He took the drink back to the window and looked out again. He could think about who killed Captain Cat, but he tried not to. He pushed the thoughts over to the periphery of his mind, let them drift there with thoughts about Freedom’s Horsemen. They would work on their own if he didn’t force them into the center of his consciousness and hold them too tightly. He swallowed some whiskey. The evening had come down upon the harbor. The Neck was no longer visible. Only the lights from some of the houses shone across the dark water. The lobster boat was docked now, nearly motionless against the dock in the bright mercury lamps of the town landing. Abby made things easier. He drank more whiskey. He liked her. But he knew better than to go from on
e monogamy to another. Abby would be the first of many. He liked the idea. He drank to it. His glass was empty. He got up and got more ice, holding the glass under the ice dispenser in the refrigerator door. He poured scotch over the ice. He looked at the bottle. There was an encouraging amount still left in the bottle. Happiness is a jug that’s still three-quarters full. It was exciting to go out with a woman and be talking pleasantly and maybe having lunch and knowing that in a few hours, or maybe next week, after another date, that you’d see her with her clothes off. It was nice. He remembered the frantic scuffle of his adolescent dates. As an adult there was a calmness and friendliness to it all. Adults made love. How soon depended on circumstance. But all concerned knew it would happen and it took all the desperation out of the procedure. Jesse hated desperation. Life, if he could make all the rules, would proceed in a stately manner. Dating as an adult was sort of stately. Stately. He liked the sound of it.
“Stately,” he said.
His voice seemed loud and not his in the thick silence of the almost empty apartment. He took his drink to the kitchen and made himself a ham-and-cheese sandwich and ate standing at the counter, sipping his whiskey between bites. When he was done he made a fresh drink and walked back to the living room and sat back down. He tried to count how many he’d had.
“More than two,” he said.
Again his voice was loud and alien. Stillness was the norm here. He tipped his head back against the chair. Stately, he thought. I like things to be stately.
He fell asleep and woke up in the hard darkness of late night, feeling thick and stupid. He went to bed and didn’t sleep well and got up at daylight with a hangover.
Chapter 30
It was the first week after Labor Day and it still felt like summer except that the kids were back to school. Jesse was glad he wasn’t a kid as he walked past Paradise Junior High School on his way to Carole Genest’s house. Every once in a while one or two leaves on an otherwise green tree would show yellow as he walked along Main Street. There were adults, mostly female, moving about in front of the shopping center, and there was a back-to-business quality that seemed to settle in on a town once school was in session. Jesse had hated school, always. It had something to do with hating to be told what to do, he supposed. On the other hand he’d liked playing baseball and being in the Marines and being a cop in L.A., all of which entailed being told what to do. Maybe he didn’t like being told what to do indoors. Or maybe he didn’t like being instructed. But he didn’t mind being coached . . . He couldn’t figure it out, but it was not a problem he needed to solve, so he put it aside. The big oak tree that loomed over Carole Genest’s driveway was entirely green. Jesse paused under it and looked at the bright lawn that rolled down to Main Street from the big white house. Ten rooms maybe, and a big yard in the middle of town.
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