Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5

by Robert B. Parker

“Yes.”

  Someone had turned the field lights off. They could see the moon at the low arc of the horizon. They were quiet. There was something surprisingly romantic about sitting in a silent car with the windows down on a summer night. Maybe the memory of going parking, Lilly thought, memory of the uncertain groping in parked cars when everyone first had their license. It had all been starting then. She had not contemplated, then, being twice divorced at forty, living alone in an uninteresting condominium.

  “Is the police work more important than Jenn?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe it should be.”

  Jesse drank the rest of his beer.

  “Because?”

  “Because you can control the police work,” Lilly said. “At least some of it.”

  “And I can’t control Jenn.”

  “Nobody can control anybody,” Lilly said.

  “I don’t want to control her, I just want to love her.”

  Lilly smiled in the darkness. She thought of all the psychotherapy that had escorted her through two bad marriages. Shrinks must get bored, she thought. Always the same illusions. Always the same mistakes.

  “You can do that now,” she said to Jesse. “What you want is for her to love you. You have to trust her to do that.”

  Jesse stared out through the windshield at the opaque surface of the darkening lake.

  “I’m not sure I can,” he said after a time.

  “That’s the bitch of it,” Lilly said.

  The parking lot was getting empty. Most of the beer was gone, and the Boys of Evening were drifting back to home and wives and children. Back to adulthood. None of them would have given that up to play ball forever in the twilight. But all of them were grateful for the evenings when they could.

  Beside him in the front seat Lilly said, “I feel as if we ought to neck.”

  “If we can do it without breaking a rib on the storage compartment between us,” Jesse said.

  “When you were seventeen that wouldn’t have bothered you,” Lilly said.

  “When I was seventeen I didn’t have an apartment to neck in.”

  “And now you do.”

  “And now I do.”

  “Well then,” Lilly said. “Lets go there.”

  “And neck?”

  “For starters,” she said.

  37

  Jesse, out of uniform, sat in his own car on Tremont Street and watched the front door of Development Associates. He had been doing that, when he could, off and on, for two weeks. Brian Kelly had done it when he could, off and on, for two weeks. They had learned that Alan Garner arrived every morning by nine. That Gino and Vinnie showed up when they felt like it. And that nobody else showed up at all.

  It was hot. The windows were open. There was no breeze. The city smelled hot. Close hot. City hot. Hot asphalt. Hot metal. Hot brick. Hot exhaust. Hot people. The Explorer had air-conditioning. But a car parked all day with its motor running would, after a time, attract attention. Jesse had learned a long time ago how to sit almost motionless for as long as he needed. He’d learned how to relax his shoulders and widen his mind, and breathe easily, and sit.

  As he sat, Brian Kelly came to the car and got in beside him.

  “Gino come out and confess yet?” Kelly said.

  “Surprisingly, no,” Jesse said.

  “Well, maybe I got something for you,” Kelly said. “I called your office and they said you were here.”

  “I’m here a lot,” Jesse said.

  “That nun,” Kelly said. “Sister Mary John. She wants to talk with you. But she forgot what police department you worked for.”

  “And called you?”

  “No. She called Bobby Doyle. He called me. Didn’t you leave a card?”

  “She must have lost it.”

  “Well,” Kelly said. “She’s probably thinking of salvation and all that.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “She say what she wanted?”

  “No. Just that she wants to see you.”

  Jesse looked at his watch.

  “Been here all morning?” Kelly said.

  “Since quarter to nine,” Jesse said.

  “And the pretty boy comes at nine. And unlocks the place.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Gino and Vinnie show up yet?”

  “Not this morning,” Jesse said.

  “They must be developing something off-site.”

  “For all I’ve seen,” Jesse said, “they haven’t ever developed anything on-site. Nobody but the pretty boy and Gino and Vinnie ever come here.”

  “That’s the evidence I’ve developed,” Kelly said.

  “If there’s something going on with young girls, it doesn’t seem to be going on here.”

  “Not while we’re looking,” Kelly said.

  “Which, between us, is most of the time.”

  “But not all,” Kelly said.

  “No.”

  They were silent. The heat pressed on them. The street was nearly empty. The metal exterior of the car was too hot to touch.

  “You’re putting a lot of time on this,” Kelly said.

  Jesse nodded.

  A single yellow cab rolled by, going slowly, as if it were too hot to drive fast.

  “I worked homicide for a while,” Kelly said. “I always hated it when it was a kid.”

  “Yes.”

  They were quiet again. Kelly shrugged.

  “Not every case gets solved,” Kelly said. “You worked homicide for a while. You know that.”

  “I do,” Jesse said.

  They were quiet again.

  “I’m up the street,” Kelly said after a while. “You want to go see that nun, I can sit here and do nothing for a while.”

  “That would be good,” Jesse said.

  “You find out anything interesting, you’ll let me know.”

  “I will,” Jesse said.

  38

  The basement room was cool. There was an air conditioner in the window near the ceiling. Sister Mary John was wearing cutoff jeans and a tank top.

  When Jesse came in, he said, “Jesse Stone.”

  “I remember,” Sister said.

  “You have something helpful? About Billie Bishop?”

  “I don’t know. Most of the girls that we have here come and go without a trace. We have a first name, or a nickname, and no last name, and no address. They are not required to tell us any more about themselves than they wish to. Our rules are simple. No drugs. No alcohol. No sex partners.”

  “Sex partners?”

  Sister smiled.

  “Some years ago one of the girls was using the shelter as a place to ply her trade. We cannot allow a bordello to operate under our auspices, so we added a ‘no men’ rule.”

  “And things changed, so in the interests of sexual equality . . .” Jesse said.

  “You understand,” Sister said.

  “I do. We now call our people police officers.”

  “It is good to be current,” Sister said.

  “It is,” Jesse said. “Billie Bishop?”

  “Some of the girls, like Billie, when they depart, leave us a phone number or forwarding address. It occurred to me that if I went through our file of those, I might find a pattern.”

  Sister paused. Jesse waited.

  “And I believe I have,” Sister said.

  “Sister, social worker, counselor, sleuth,” Jesse said.

  “A renaissance nun,” Sister said. “There were, in the past five years, fifteen girls who left us a phone number or address. There was no correlation among the addresses, but in the last year two of them left the same phone number.”

 
; “Did they leave here at the same time?” Jesse said.

  “No. They left about six months apart.”

  “Did they overlap?”

  “You mean were they here at the same time? No.”

  “Did you call the number?”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “It is no longer in service.”

  “But you have written it down for me.”

  “Yes.”

  Sister handed Jesse a piece of blue-lined notepaper with a phone number written on it in a very smooth and graceful hand.

  “In this area code?” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  Jesse took the notepaper and folded it and tucked it into his right hip pocket.

  “Can you find out who had that number?” Sister said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it will be helpful?”

  “We’ll see,” Jesse said. “Do you have anything else?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry, Sister. You do good work.”

  “God’s work,” she said.

  It was odd to hear her talk that way, Jesse thought. Even though he called her Sister, he didn’t think of her, in her tank top and shorts and ornate Nike running shoes, as religious.

  “He’s lucky to have you,” Jesse said.

  39

  Across the table, through the candle flicker, Jenn’s face looked like no other. Objectively, Jesse knew there were other women as good-looking as Jenn. But that was, at best, a factual conceit. At the center of his self, Jesse knew that she was the most beautiful woman in existence.

  “You don’t see that Abby person anymore, do you?” Jenn said.

  She was wearing a short red-and-blue-flowered dress with thin shoulder straps. When he had arrived at her condo, Jesse had noticed the amount of leg showing between the hem of the dress and the top of her high black boots.

  “No,” Jesse said. “Not socially.”

  “How about Marcy Campbell?”

  On the table between them was a bottle of Riesling, a bottle of Merlot and a bottle of sparkling water. Jesse poured her some Riesling and himself some sparkling water.

  “I see Marcy sometimes,” Jesse said. “We’re friends.”

  “Sex?” Jenn said.

  “Do I ask you about your sex life?”

  “Yes,” Jenn said. “You do.”

  “And do you tell me about it?” Jesse said.

  “I admit to one.”

  “Me, too,” Jesse said.

  The table was set with linen napkins and good china. Jenn always liked a nice table. On a board between them she had set out an assortment of cheeses. There was French bread on a cutting board. There were apples and black grapes in a bowl.

  “You don’t want to walk into the sunset with Marcy,” Jenn said.

  “No. We’re friends. We sleep together sometimes. Neither of us wants to marry the other one.”

  “She came to see me after Stiles Island,” Jenn said. “We talked about you.”

  Jesse sliced some bread, took a piece, and ate it with some blue cheese. He sipped some sparkling water. With the good bread and the strong cheese, the sparkling water tasted thin.

  “She likes you,” Jenn said. “She wondered what the future was for you and me.”

  “What did you tell her?” Jesse said.

  “That I didn’t know.”

  “At least you’re consistent,” Jesse said.

  “Anyone else in your life?” Jenn said.

  “Woman who’s a school principal in Swampscott.”

  “And of course you’re sleeping with her, too.”

  Jesse nodded.

  He felt the hot feeling he always felt with Jenn when they talked about sex: anger, and desperation, and excitement, and confusion. About her, about himself.

  “I like her,” he said.

  “Because you can fuck her?” Jenn said.

  “No. The other way,” Jesse said. “I can fuck her because I like her.”

  Jenn turned her wineglass by the stem. Jesse drank some more sparkling water. He hated the insufficiency of the water. It was like breathing at a high altitude.

  “And you like her why?”

  “She’s smart,” Jesse said. “She’s good-looking, she seems nice, and she likes baseball.”

  “You know I date,” Jenn said.

  “Yes.”

  “I often sleep with my dates,” Jenn said.

  “I know,” Jesse said.

  Jenn stopped twirling her wineglass and drank from it.

  “And still,” Jenn said. “Here we are.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Between a rock and a hard place,” Jenn said. “I can’t be with you and I can’t give you up.”

  Jesse got up and went to the cupboard in Jenn’s kitchen and found a bottle of Dewar’s scotch. He put a lot of ice in a big glass, and poured a lot of the Dewar’s over it. He brought the glass back to the table.

  “So much for sparkling water,” Jenn said.

  “So much.”

  Jesse took a large swallow. He could feel it spread through him. His breathing seemed deeper. He could handle this.

  “I meet men I like,” Jenn said. “I find them attractive. I think I could, if not marry them, maybe, at least live with them. And I can’t.”

  Jesse took another drink. Usually he had it with soda.

  “Because?”

  “On the surface it’s because they turn out to be badly flawed. Drink too much, or selfish, or womanizers, or dishonest, or emotional cripples, or people for whom sex is entirely about them . . . something. And I have to break up with them.”

  Jesse waited.

  “My shrink says maybe their flaws are their appeal.”

  Jesse was quiet. Jenn finished the wine in her glass and Jesse poured her some more.

  “He says maybe I find this kind of man because it’s what I deserve for leaving you,” Jenn said. “And maybe it ensures that I won’t marry them and leave you for good.”

  The scotch was working. The hard weight in his center was less.

  “And all this is unconscious?” Jesse said.

  “Mostly,” Jenn said. “But it’s right. I know it is. It resonates the way something does when it’s right.”

  “So you don’t want to leave me for good.”

  “I can’t,” Jenn said. “I can’t even think about a life without you in it.”

  “But you don’t want to be my wife again.”

  “I don’t know. God Jesus, don’t you think if I knew what to do I would do it? Sometimes I get so scared of losing you I can’t breathe.”

  “And when you think about coming back?” Jesse said.

  “I get so scared I can’t breathe,” Jenn said.

  Jesse drank the rest of his scotch. He got up and went to the kitchen and got more ice and more scotch and brought it back to the table. He sat across from her with the candlelight moving softly between them. Jenn put her hand out on the tabletop toward him.

  “I’ll get better,” Jenn said. “I’m doing good in therapy. I’ll get better.”

  Jesse put his hand on top of hers.

  “Well,” he said, “I think my best bet is to hang around and see how it comes out.”

  Jenn started to cry gently. Jesse patted her hand. He knew how she felt.

  40

  Jesse had a lunch scheduled with Norman Shaw on Paradise Neck at the Boat Club. He arrived a few minutes late and found Shaw at the bar, talking with someone.

  “Chief Stone,” Shaw said. “Michael Wasserman.”

  Jesse shook the man’s hand.

  “Was
serman’s organizing an event,” Shaw said. “And I’m agreeing to be honorary chair.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “I’ll get a table,” Jesse said. “You can join me when you’re through.”

  “I always sit at the same table,” Shaw said. “Just tell the girl you’re joining me.”

  The table was at the window, and from it, Jesse could see the town proper, rising up from its working waterfront, to the town hall bell tower at the top of the hill. He watched Shaw shake hands again with Michael Wasserman and come across the room toward him. Shaw had on cream-colored slacks and a raspberry-colored linen jacket over a forest green polo shirt.

  “Great view, isn’t it?” he said as he sat down.

  “Yes.”

  A gray-haired, motherly looking waitress appeared immediately.

  “Want a drink?” Shaw said.

  “Iced tea,” Jesse said.

  Shaw made a face as if the thought of iced tea were repellent.

  “Ketel One on the rocks,” he said without looking at the waitress. “Twist.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Shaw,” the waitress said, and plodded away.

  Shaw picked up a menu.

  “Food’s mediocre here,” he said. “But the view’s great and they mix you a hell of a cocktail.”

  Jesse thought about the mixing skill involved in putting together a vodka on the rocks. What Shaw meant was what most drinkers meant. The drinks were large.

  The waitress brought their drinks, took their lunch order, and left them alone. The vodka was in a wide lowball glass. Shaw took a long pull on it, the way people drink beer.

  “So, Stone,” Shaw said, leaning back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”

  As he spoke he didn’t look at Jesse. He looked around the room.

  “I’m interested in your relationship with Gino Fish.”

  Shaw continued to scan the room. “Why?” he said.

  “His name came up in a case,” Jesse said.

  “What case?”

  “Have you spent much time with Gino?” Jesse said.

  “What’s this about? You talked with my wife, didn’t you? Gino’s a casual friend.”

  Shaw spotted someone on the other side of the dining room, and smiled, and nodded and with his forefinger made a little jabbing gesture of recognition.