Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5

by Robert B. Parker

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t tell,” she said. “Don’t swell. Grateful as hell.”

  “I’ve heard that,” Jesse said.

  55

  Dick Pettler had an office over a sandwich shop on Broad Street, across the street from a Japanese restaurant. The sign on his office door read R. J. PETTLER, INQUIRIES. Jesse went in.

  Pettler was tall and bony with rimless glasses.

  “Mark Hillenbrand called me,” Pettler said. “Told me you’d be coming by.”

  “You did the snoop work on Norman Shaw’s divorce from Felicia Feinman,” Jesse said.

  Pettler smiled, his teeth gleaming.

  “I like to call it discreet inquiry,” he said.

  “But you did it?”

  “Sure.”

  “You got affidavits from several hookers,” Jesse said.

  “I could have gotten them from a hundred,” Pettler said.

  “How old were they?”

  Pettler rocked back in his swivel chair and looked thoughtfully at Jesse.

  “Pretty good question,” he said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “They were babies,” Pettler said. “I can’t guarantee how old, but they all looked about thirteen.”

  “He have an MO?” Jesse said.

  “Sure. He’d meet them in a motel, sometimes four, five nights a week. Couple times he had more than one in the same night.”

  “Same motel?”

  “Usually.”

  “Boundary Suites,” Jesse said.

  “Hey,” Pettler said, “pretty good. Yeah. Boundary Suites right there in your neighborhood.”

  “He take them there?”

  Pettler shook his head.

  “Nope. When he got there, with me behind him, he’d go straight to the motel room. You know Boundary Suites?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you know it’s a lovers’ hideaway,” Pettler said. “Drive up to the door of the room. Go right in. No lobby to go through. Nobody to see you.”

  “You know how he set it up?” Jesse said.

  “Nope. I assume by phone.”

  “You know who supplied them?”

  “Nope. Not my job.”

  “The girls always very young?” Jesse said.

  “Everyone I saw.”

  “If I needed you in court, could you prove what you’re saying?”

  “Sure. I got photos. You want to see?”

  Pettler got up and went to the gray metal file cabinet to the left of his window. He took out a folder and brought it back and put it on the front of his desk where Jesse could look through it. There were pictures of a clearly recognizable Norman Shaw and different very young women, in sexually explicit action in a motel room. Shaw looked better than he did now. His belly seemed flat and he had more hair.

  “Through the window?” Jesse said.

  “Yeah. There’s a little hill behind the room. I’d go around there with a telephoto. He never shut the lights off.”

  “Or pulled the curtains.”

  “Maybe he liked people to watch,” Pettler said.

  “Maybe you been doing this too long,” Jesse said.

  “Maybe I’m right,” Pettler said.

  “You never saw him pick up these kids?”

  “Nope. Never saw him pick up anybody,” Pettler said. “Just showed up at the motel. Stayed a couple of hours and went home. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”

  “You never saw anybody deliver them?”

  “Nope. Shaw was my job. I was behind him. The broads were already there when he arrived.”

  “And you don’t know anything about his habits after the divorce?”

  “Nope. But I’ll bet he hasn’t changed,” Pettler said. “I don’t know shit about psychology. But I’d say this is a guy doing something he needs to do, you know? Has to do.”

  “I’d like to copy these pictures,” Jesse said. “I’ll see that you get them back.”

  “Keep ’em,” Pettler said. “I still got the negatives.”

  Jesse stood and put out his hand.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Pettler shook hands without getting up.

  “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you want to know all this?” he said.

  “That’s right,” Jesse said. “I’m not.”

  “Not my job, anyway,” Pettler said.

  56

  “We still can’t connect Shaw with Billie Bishop,” Jesse said.

  He and Kelly were in Kelly’s car parked along Day Boulevard near Carson Beach. They had coffee in paper cups. A bag of donuts was on the seat between them.

  “Everything but,” Kelly said.

  “But we still can’t connect him specifically to Billie Bishop.”

  “Or Billie Bishop with Alan Garner,” Kelly said.

  “Or Shaw with Garner,” Jesse said.

  “Shaw’s the one,” Kelly said.

  “You think?”

  “Yeah. The sonovabitch jumps out at you.”

  “Nice if we could prove it.”

  “At least we know where to look,” Kelly said.

  “What we can prove,” Jesse said, “is that Shaw likes young hookers.”

  “And that he took them to a motel on the North Shore, and Billie Bishop checked into that same hotel.”

  “Can we prove that he took Billie Bishop there?” Jesse said.

  “You tell me,” Kelly said.

  “No.”

  “And if we could prove he took her there, can we prove that he killed her?”

  “No.”

  They were silent. Kelly took a cinnamon donut out of the bag and shook it to get rid of the loose cinnamon.

  “The only connection we’ve got is Garner to Shaw through Gino Fish,” Jesse said.

  Kelly took a bite of the donut, leaning far forward over the steering wheel so as not to get cinnamon on himself.

  “Because Billie Bishop called Gino’s phone number,” he said.

  “Yeah. But it might be that she called Garner at Gino’s office.”

  “I don’t like Gino for this,” Kelly said.

  “Because?”

  “Not his style,” Kelly said. “Why would Gino pimp for a fucking pedophile? Risk is big and money’s small.”

  “Favor for a friend?” Jesse said.

  “Gino?”

  “He doesn’t value friendship?” Jesse said.

  “He’s never experienced it.”

  “So you think Garner was working out of Gino’s office?”

  “And maybe Gino don’t know nothing about it.”

  “Which makes the Shaw connection kind of a problem,” Jesse said.

  “Big coincidence,” Kelly said.

  “You can’t assume coincidence,” Jesse said.

  “No, you can’t,” Kelly said. “Garner could know Shaw though Gino.”

  “So?”

  “So we’re right where we were,” Kelly said.

  Jesse broke off a piece of cinnamon donut and popped it in his mouth. He chewed carefully and took a sip of coffee.

  “How would Gino feel if he found out Garner was running a prostitution business out of Gino’s office?”

  “He would be offended,” Kelly said.

  They were both silent, watching a flatbed tow truck hook up to a Dodge pickup that was parked in a tow zone. A motorcycle cop was supervising.

  “You think we’re next?” Jesse said.

  “Traffic division’s a menace,” Kelly said.

  The tow truck driver squirmed under the pickup and hooked his cable on the frame. Then he stood beside his truck and worked the lever
and the pickup began to winch up onto the flatbed.

  “So,” Jesse said. “If Garner found out we knew about him, and were planning to talk with Gino about it . . .”

  Kelly smiled and said, “Bingo!”

  57

  There were two blue-and-white Paradise cruisers, one pulled up onto the sidewalk, nose in, blue lights still flashing, parked in front of the Atlantic Market. Jesse parked on the street behind them and got out. Behind the car that was up on the sidewalk were Anthony DeAngelo and Eddie Cox. Cox had a shotgun.

  “Hostage,” Anthony DeAngelo told him. “I think it’s Snyder and his wife. You know, the one beat her up all the time?”

  “Where are they?”

  “Back of the store, I think,” DeAngelo said. “By the service counter.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Some customers. Couple of store people. I don’t know yet how many.”

  “Anybody here from the store?”

  “We got one of the cashiers,” Cox said. “She’s the one came running out hollering. Store manager’s on his way.”

  “Got the back covered?”

  “Suit and Buddy.”

  “Anybody made contact?”

  “I went to the front door,” DeAngelo said. “Guy yells at me from the back. Says he’ll kill her and everybody else if I try to come in.”

  “I said I was just there to help. Was there something he wanted,” Cox said.

  “And?”

  “He said I should get out or he’d start shooting. Then he says to the broad, ‘Tell him,’ but she don’t talk. I can hear her crying.”

  “What about the other people in the store?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see anybody.”

  “Okay,” Jesse said, “where’s the cashier?”

  “In Eddie’s cruiser,” DeAngelo said.

  In the distance there was the sound of another siren.

  “That’ll be Arthur,” DeAngelo said.

  “Call Molly,” Jesse said. “She covers the station. I want everyone else down here.”

  DeAngelo nodded and began to speak into the microphone clipped to his epaulet. Jesse walked to the other cruiser and got in. An adolescent girl with a lot of brown hair worn up, and braces on her teeth, was sitting in the passenger seat hugging herself.

  “I want to go home,” she said.

  “Anybody coming to get you?” Jesse said.

  “No.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Kate.”

  “Kate what?”

  “Ryan.”

  “What’s your phone number, Kate?”

  She gave it to him.

  “But no one’s home,” she said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “You got a work phone for one of your parents?”

  “My father works in Boston,” she said. “My mother sells real estate.”

  She gave him both numbers.

  Jesse picked up the radio and called Molly and gave her the phone numbers.

  “Get a parent down here for Kate Ryan,” he said.

  “I’m on it,” Molly said. “What’s happening?”

  Jesse put the mike away without answering.

  “They’ll be here soon,” he said to Kate. “So what happened?”

  “He came in the front door and right past me.”

  “Snyder?”

  “I don’t know his name. I never seen him before.”

  “You were at the checkout?”

  “Yeah and he went right past me and he took out his gun and he said he was going to kill her.”

  “Mrs. Snyder?”

  “Yeah. She just started working, customer service, and he said he was going to kill everybody and I run out and seen that cop, and started screaming and . . .” She shrugged and spread her hands. “What if they can’t find my mother or father?”

  “She’s a cop,” Jesse said. “She’ll find them. What kind of gun did he have?”

  “Just a gun. I don’t know nothing about guns.”

  “Was it a handgun or something longer like a rifle or a shotgun?”

  “Hand.”

  Jesse took his .38 off his belt.

  “Did it look like this?” Jesse said. “Kind of round, or was it more square?”

  “It might have been more square,” she said. “I don’t know. It was a gun.”

  Jesse put the gun back in its holster.

  “Okay,” he said. “Did you hear him say anything else?”

  “No. I run out as soon as I saw the gun and he went past me.”

  “Who was in the store besides you?”

  “Mario, from the meat counter . . . Ray the vegetable guy . . . some customers . . . Bethany, the other cashier, was on break.”

  “How many customers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ten?”

  “No. Not that many.”

  “Five?”

  “Maybe. Can you call her and see if she got my mother and father?”

  “They’ll be here,” Jesse said.

  Peter Perkins and John Maguire had arrived.

  “Murphy and Friedman are around back with Suit and Buddy,” Perkins said. “Molly says she can’t raise Martin yet.”

  “Okay. Put on the vests and start clearing people out of the adjacent stores. John, take Kate across the street and stay with her.”

  Jesse got out of the car. As she walked across the street with Maguire, Kate looked back once at Jesse. He smiled at her.

  “They’ll be here,” he said.

  DeAngelo came over with a balding red-faced man who seemed out of breath.

  “This is Mr. Stevens,” DeAngelo said. “Store manager.”

  “Jesse Stone. How many ways out of the store?”

  “Three.”

  “Where?”

  “Back door. Front door. And loading door in the cellar.”

  “Where’s the cellar door open?” Jesse said.

  “In the back, right near the back entrance but lower.”

  “Any private rooms in there?”

  “My office, which is up some stairs beside the service counter.”

  “Bathroom?”

  “Yes, behind the stairs to my office.”

  “Everything else is market space?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any connecting ways between your store and the ones on either side?”

  “No.”

  “Is there a phone near the service booth?”

  “Yes, sir. Inside the counter.”

  Jesse handed him a cell phone.

  “Dial the number,” Jesse said.

  Stevens did, and handed the phone to Jesse. Jesse waited. It rang without result. Jesse counted ten rings, then broke the connection. No need to irritate Snyder.

  “There a window in the bathroom?” Jesse said.

  “Yes,” Stevens said. “Frosted glass.”

  “How about in your office?”

  “Yes. But it’s on the second floor, remember.”

  A crowd had gathered across the street.

  “Peter,” Jesse said. “Get those people out of the line of fire.”

  Perkins nodded and started across the street. The air was still. The high summer sound of an insect lingered above him. It was a sound he’d heard all his life. He never knew what made it, exactly. Crickets? Grasshoppers? He dialed the store again. Again he let it ring ten times and broke the connection. He had on a light blue linen blazer and a gray tee shirt, jeans and sneakers. His gun was on his right hip, under the blazer. He stood silently for a minute, staring at the store and the police cars and the crowd and the c
ops in their bulletproof vests. For a moment it all looked motionless, like a frozen frame in a movie. He took in some air.

  A woman in a flowered yellow dress opened the front door of the market and stepped out and ran. She ducked behind DeAngelo’s cruiser and fell to her knees.

  “He wants to talk to Stone,” she said. “He says he wants Stone to come in.”

  She was having trouble getting enough air in.

  “He said he was going to kill us all,” she said. “He’s drunk. He has a bottle and he keeps drinking.”

  Jesse crouched beside her.

  “Where is he?” Jesse said.

  “He put the gun right in my face,” the woman said.

  She was blond, with a lot of dark eye makeup.

  “Where is he standing?” Jesse said.

  “In the back. He said he was going to kill everybody, himself, too.”

  “Where are the other hostages?”

  “With him. Sitting on the floor except for one woman he hangs on to. I think it’s his wife.”

  “Where on the floor?”

  “I don’t know, just on the floor.”

  “No. You do know. If I’m facing him, where are the hostages? To my right or my left?”

  The woman thought for a moment.

  “Right,” she said.

  “How far?”

  “They’re all sitting against the wall under the service counter, except the wife.”

  Stevens was crouched behind the squad car beside them.

  “Service counter is in the right rear corner of the store,” Stevens said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Tell me about the hostages,” Jesse said to the woman in the yellow dress. “How many men? How many women?”

  “Two men,” she said and paused, her breath still rasping, counting in her head. “Four women, five if you count the wife.”

  Jesse stood.

  “Okay,” he said to no one in particular.

  He walked to his car, and standing behind it, out of sight of the store, he rearranged his revolver on his belt. Then he got a long-barreled .22 target pistol out of the car, made sure there were bullets in the cylinder, and stuck it in his belt at the small of his back, under his jacket. Then he walked back to DeAngelo.

  “I’m going in. Call Suit and tell him I’m going in. I want you all to hold still. If you hear a shot, then I want all of you to come, front and back . . . double time.”