Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5

by Robert B. Parker

  “There’s that cynical thing again,” Lilly said.

  “You have any idea where Billie might be now?”

  Lilly shook her head. They both stared out the window for a time at the ocean, always in motion, going nowhere.

  “If she’s missing, wouldn’t her parents have reported her missing?”

  “You’d think so,” Jesse said.

  “But they haven’t?”

  “Not that I can find out. Swampscott cops have nothing.”

  “Do you think the girl in the lake is Billie?” Lilly said.

  “Be my guess,” Jesse said.

  13

  On Saturday morning, a Swampscott patrolman named Antonelli took Jesse to visit Billie Bishop’s parents. The Bishops lived on Garland Terrace, off Humphrey Street, maybe half a mile away from the ocean. It was a two-story colonial house faced with brick. The shutters were dark green. The front door was white. Ivy had grown halfway up the front of the house.

  Mrs. Bishop answered the doorbell.

  The Swampscott cop said, “I’m Officer Antonelli, ma’am. Swampscott Police. This is Chief Jesse Stone from Paradise.”

  “Is there anything wrong?” Mrs. Bishop said.

  “Just a routine investigation, ma’am. May we come in?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  Maybe forty-two, a lot of blond hair, a lot of eye makeup. She might have been a cheerleader. Hell, Jesse thought, she might be a cheerleader. She was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt that hung down to her thighs. In blue letters across the front was printed PERSONAL BEST.

  “Hank,” she said into the kitchen, “there are some policemen here.”

  Hank appeared drinking coffee from a large mug that had the word MUG printed on it.

  Everything’s labeled, Jesse thought.

  “Hank Bishop,” he said. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “Just routine,” Antonelli said. “Could you tell us where your daughter is?”

  “Carla’s here,” Bishop said.

  A girl, maybe thirteen, was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Jesse smiled and nodded at her. She had no reaction. Antonelli looked at Jesse.

  “How about Billie?” Jesse said.

  “I have no daughter named Billie,” Bishop said.

  “Elinor Bishop?”

  “No.”

  Jesse looked at the cheerleader wife. “Mrs. Bishop?”

  She shook her blond head firmly.

  “No,” she said. “We have no Elinor Bishop.”

  “Do you have any other children?”

  “Yes,” Bishop said. “Carla’s older sister, Emily.”

  “And where is she?”

  “Mount Holyoke College,” Mrs. Bishop said quickly.

  “In the summer?” Jesse said.

  “Many students go to college in the summer,” Mrs. Bishop said. “Emily plans to graduate in three years.”

  Jesse was watching Carla. She was motionless in the doorway. Neither in the room, nor out of it. Her face was blank.

  “We have a young woman dead in Paradise,” Jesse said. “We have reason to believe her name is Elinor Bishop, and we were led to believe that she was your daughter.”

  “You were misled,” Bishop said.

  “You have no daughter named Elinor Bishop?”

  “We do not,” Bishop said.

  Jesse looked at Mrs. Bishop. She shook her head firmly. He looked at Carla in the doorway. She seemed stiff with immobility. Her face perfectly inanimate. Jesse nodded. With his head he gestured Antonelli to the door.

  “Thank you very much for your time,” he said.

  14

  It was Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday nights he always spent with Jenn. Jesse looked at his watch: 4:20. He took a deep breath.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see if we can make this thing work out.”

  Molly was in the room, as she always was when they’d arrested a woman. She leaned against the wall beside Suitcase Simpson. Seated in front of Jesse in two straight-backed chairs were an unattractive man and woman who smelled strongly of alcohol. The woman had an evolving bruise on her cheekbone under her left eye. Her lower lip was fattening.

  “There’s nothing to work out,” the man said.

  He was a middle-sized man with a beard and curly black hair. It made what showed of his face look very pale. His aviator glasses were gold-framed and tinted amber.

  “It’s four-twenty in the afternoon and you’re both drunk,” Jesse said.

  “You never had a few drinks?”

  “And you were rowdy enough to cause the bartender at The Sevens to call us.”

  “We had a fucking argument,” the man said. “You never had a fucking argument with somebody?”

  “And when Officer Simpson arrived you were punching out your wife in the parking lot.”

  “I wasn’t punching her out,” the man said.

  “How many times did he hit you, ma’am?” Jesse said to the woman.

  The woman shook her head.

  “There’s some evidence on your face for at least twice,” Jesse said.

  “He didn’t hit me,” she said.

  Jesse glanced up at Simpson.

  “I saw him hit her twice with his right fist,” Simpson said.

  Molly said, “When Suit called it in I checked the computer. This is the third time they’ve been in here.”

  “Same occasion?” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  “And we let it go why?”

  “Mrs. Snyder wouldn’t file a complaint,” Molly said.

  “How about this time?” Jesse said to Mrs. Snyder.

  “He didn’t hit me,” she said.

  “Sure he did,” Jesse said. “Didn’t you, Mr. Snyder.”

  Snyder shook his head. “I didn’t hit her.”

  Jesse put his left elbow on the arm of his swivel chair and rested his chin in the palm of his left hand. He looked at the Snyders for a while without speaking, then he spoke to Molly.

  “There’s three times we know about,” Jesse said. “How many times you suppose it happened and we don’t know about it?”

  “It’s usually a lot more than is reported,” Molly said.

  “You got no right talking about us like that,” Snyder said. “We didn’t do anything but have a few drinks and get in a little squabble.”

  The word came out “schkwabble.” I know the feeling, Jesse thought.

  “Molly,” Jesse said. “I think you better take Mrs. Snyder down to Channing Hospital Emergency Room and get her face cleaned up.”

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Snyder said. “It’ll be fine.”

  “And while she’s there have them examine her whole body.”

  “Hey,” Snyder said. “What are you gonna do, strip her down?”

  “Suit, put Mr. Snyder in a cell, for his own protection, until he’s sober.”

  “I ain’t drunk. I ain’t going in no drunk tank. No way I’m letting you take her down to the fucking hospital and make her strip.”

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

  Jesse got up from behind his desk and walked around and stood in front of them and leaned his hips on the front edge of the desk.

  “What’s your first name, Mr. Snyder.”

  “Jerry.”

  “Jerry, we got you for assault.”

  “I didn’t assault nobody.”

  “We have the bruised victim. We have the eyewitness testimony of a police officer, and I’ll bet we could find some bruising on your knuckles.”

  Snyder looked quickly at his hands and caught himself and looked quickly away.

  “We got plenty of grounds for putting you in
jail.”

  “Not for doing nothing you don’t.”

  “But we’re trying not to turn this into something bigger than it is,” Jesse said. “So you’ll have to sit it out here for a couple hours while we get some medical opinion on the extent of the damage.”

  “You can’t arrest me, I don’t got a lawyer.”

  “We’re not arresting you, Jerry. We’re detaining you in the interests of public safety, and your own. You’re too drunk to be out loose.”

  “I won’t go in no jail cell,” Snyder said.

  He stood up, his face less than a foot from Jesse’s.

  “Come on, Viv,” he said to his wife. “We’re walking.”

  Jesse shook his head slightly and kicked Snyder’s ankles out from under him. Snyder went down suddenly, on his left side. Before Snyder could reorient himself, Simpson stepped from the wall, snapped the cuffs on him, and got him on his feet.

  “Jerry,” Mrs. Snyder said.

  “You’ll see him in a couple of hours,” Jesse said. “Nobody’s going to hurt him.”

  “He didn’t do nothing,” she said as Molly steered her out of the room.

  15

  They went to the Gray Gull every Wednesday night. They sat outside in the warm night where they could look at the town dock and the harbor and across the harbor at Paradise Neck and Stiles Island. Jenn had a glass of Chardonnay. Jesse drank cranberry juice and soda.

  “Are you solving your murder?” Jenn asked.

  “Not exactly,” Jesse said.

  “Progress?”

  “Some.”

  “Try not to be such a blabbermouth,” Jenn said.

  Jesse smiled. “I’m preoccupied with you,” he said.

  “I’m not sure that’s good for you. But I guess I like it.”

  “I thought I had the dead girl ID’d,” Jesse said. “But the people who were supposed to be her parents say they have no such daughter.”

  “Well, they would know, wouldn’t they?”

  “One of the daughters they do have was there,” Jesse said. “Younger. Maybe twelve, thirteen.”

  “So?”

  “There was something wrong. Kid looked like she’d been frozen.”

  “Wrong?”

  “Yep.”

  “You think parents would pretend not to have a child? When they really did?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe she was bad. Maybe it was one of those never darken my door again, I no longer have a daughter things.”

  “So you can find that out, can’t you?”

  “I can. I haven’t yet.”

  “They have any other children?”

  “Yes. An older daughter. She’s at Mount Holyoke College. We called and left a message. She hasn’t called back.”

  “How can a parent deny a child?” Jenn said.

  “I’ve seen it before,” Jesse said. “Kid disappoints the parent. Parent can’t stand the disappointment. If the kid doesn’t exist, then the disappointment doesn’t exist.”

  He sipped some cranberry juice and soda.

  “It’s hard to live with the fact of your own failure every day,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “We both live with that,” Jesse said.

  “It’s my fault,” Jenn said. “I’m the adulteress.”

  “And I’m the drunk,” Jesse said. “It does no good, Jenn.”

  “I know.”

  The black water moved quietly against the pilings beneath the deck. The light gleamed singularly at the end of Paradise Neck. Some of the big pleasure boats in the harbor were lighted. People sat, mostly on the afterdeck, and drank cocktails.

  They looked at their menus. They both ordered lobster salad.

  “You know what my shrink told me?” Jenn said.

  Jesse smiled. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

  “He said that the bond between us was truly impressive.”

  “Even though we’re divorced,” Jesse said.

  “Maybe more so because we’re not together.”

  “So the bond has to be strong,” Jesse said.

  “It’s all there is to hold us,” Jenn said.

  “Maybe it shouldn’t,” Jesse said. “Maybe we should move on.”

  “We should,” Jenn said.

  “But we don’t,” Jesse said.

  “We can’t,” Jenn said.

  “But we don’t get married.”

  “I can’t,” Jenn said.

  “And we’re not monogamous.”

  “When I think of it,” Jenn said. “You and me, till death do us part . . . I feel claustrophobic.”

  “You and the shrink figured out why that is?”

  “Not yet,” Jenn said.

  Jesse looked at Jenn’s face. He knew it so well. He felt the need begin to rise like water filling a glass. He wanted a drink. Something more than cranberry juice. He felt that need rising too, and the needs became one need. He took in some air. Hang on. He took in a big breath and exhaled slowly, trying not to let it show. Jenn put her hand out and rested it on his hand.

  “But we will,” she said.

  “I hope so,” Jesse said.

  His voice was flat with the effort of repression.

  “I do too,” Jenn said.

  “Maybe you and he will find a way to break the bond,” Jesse said.

  “I don’t think so,” Jenn said.

  “Good.”

  “This is very hard,” Jenn said.

  “It is.”

  Jenn’s hand was still resting on his forearm.

  “But we’re still here,” Jenn said softly.

  “We are,” Jesse said.

  16

  “What makes you think she’ll show up here?” Molly said.

  She sat beside Jesse in his unmarked car, parked across from an ice cream stand on the Lynn Shore Drive, above the beach.

  “Lilly Summers told me the kids hang out here.”

  “The principal?”

  “Un-huh.”

  “Did she also tell you that school records show Billie Bishop’s parents to be Henry and Sandra Bishop?”

  “Actually,” Jesse grinned at Molly, “she told you that when you called her.”

  “Nice to be remembered,” Molly said. “So why don’t you just confront them with the record?”

  “I thought I might learn more by talking to the kid first,” Jesse said, “before everybody shuts down because they’re scared or mad or defensive or whatever they’ll get.”

  “You only saw her that one time,” Molly said. “You sure you’ll recognize her?”

  Jesse smiled.

  “Of course you will,” Molly said. “Cancel the question.”

  It was a still July day. There was no air movement. The foliage in the little park looked thick and permanent. The ocean was still. Insects hummed. Around the ice cream stand young kids gathered in a colorful confusion of tee shirts, shorts, high-priced sneakers, and expensive bicycles. Occasionally someone bought ice cream.

  “They’re the right age group,” Jesse said.

  “Twelve to fourteen,” Molly said. “I got a couple.”

  “Tough being that age,” Jesse said.

  “Tough being a kid,” Molly said.

  Jesse nodded. He looked steadily across the street at the kids.

  “This principal,” Molly said, “Dr. Summers?”

  Jesse nodded.

  “How’s she look?”

  “Good,” Jesse said.

  Molly waited. Jesse kept looking at the kids.

  “Anything there?” Molly said.

  “You mean sex?” Jesse
said.

  “Sure,” Molly said. “Or romance, or companionship, or fun.”

  “Not while you’re still around,” Jesse said.

  Molly laughed.

  “I’m a married Irish Catholic,” she said. “I don’t do any of that stuff.”

  “So how come you got four kids?”

  “I have to sleep sometime,” Molly said. “What about Doc Summers?”

  Jesse smiled.

  “If she presses me,” Jesse said, “I may have to sleep with her.”

  Carla Bishop pedaled up on a black mountain bike with green striping.

  “There’s the sister,” Jesse said.

  Carla was talking with some animation to three other girls near the corner of the ice cream stand. The two cops got out of the car and moved across through the crowd. Molly was in uniform. Jesse was not. Those kids that noticed at all eyed the two adults with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. Jesse stopped in front of Carla and waited until she finished a sentence.

  Then he took his badge out and showed it to her and said, “Hello, Carla, remember me?”

  She turned and stared at him. She looked at Molly in uniform beside him.

  “Jesse Stone,” he said. “I was at your home the other day.”

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “This is Molly Crane,” Jesse said.

  “She your wife?”

  “She’s a cop,” Jesse said. “Like me. We need to talk with you, and are willing to bribe you with the ice cream of your choice.”

  “Big fucking deal,” Carla said.

  “Okay, no ice cream. We still need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  The other kids had gathered into an audience and Carla was playing to them.

  “About Billie.”

  “Billie?”

  “Your sister,” Jesse said.

  “My sister’s name is Emily and she’s at college.”

  “Your other sister. Billie. The one your parents won’t talk about.”

  Carla was silent.

  Someone in the audience said, “Billie the Bopper.”

  Some of the kids snickered.

  “Shut up,” Carla said.

  “Why don’t we go sit in the car,” Molly said, “and we can talk.”

  “How come you’re a cop?” Carla said to Molly.