Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5

by Robert B. Parker

  “For me at least,” Jenn said. “I want you in my life.”

  “Are you sure divorcing me is the best way to show that?”

  “I can’t imagine a life without you in it.”

  “Old habits die hard,” Jesse said.

  “It’s more than a habit, Jesse. There’s some sort of connection between us that won’t break.”

  “Maybe it’s because I don’t let it break,” Jesse said.

  “You don’t,” Jenn said. “But then here I am.”

  “Here you are.”

  “I could have been a weather girl in Los Angeles, or Pittsburgh or San Antonio.”

  “But here you are,” Jesse said.

  “You’re not the only one hanging on,” Jenn said.

  “What the hell is wrong with us?” Jesse said.

  Jenn put her glass out. Jesse freshened her drink.

  “Probably a lot more than we know,” Jenn said. “But one thing I do know: We take it seriously.”

  “What?”

  “Love, marriage, relationship, each other.”

  “Which is why we got divorced and started fucking other people,” Jesse said. “Or vice versa.”

  “I deserve the vice versa,” Jenn said. “But I don’t keep deserving it every time we talk.”

  “I know,” Jesse said. “I’m sorry. But if we take it so seriously, why the hell are we in this mess.”

  “Because we wouldn’t let it slide,” Jenn said. “Because you wouldn’t accept adultery. Because I wouldn’t accept suffocation.”

  “I loved you very intensely,” Jesse said.

  There was half a drink left in the shaker. Jesse added it to his glass.

  “You loved your fantasy of me very intensely,” Jenn said, “and kept trying to squeeze the real me into that fantasy.”

  Jesse stared at the crystalline liquid in his glass. Jenn was still. Below them the harbor master’s launch pulled away from the town pier and began to weave through the stand of masts going somewhere, and knowing where.

  “That you talking or the shrink?” Jesse said.

  “It’s a conclusion we reached together,” Jenn said.

  Jesse hated all the circumlocutions of therapy. He sipped the lucid martini.

  “Why do you think I’m so wonderful?” Jenn said.

  “Because I love you.”

  Jenn was quiet. She smiled slightly as if she knew something Jesse didn’t know. It annoyed him.

  “What the fuck is wrong with that?” he said.

  “Think about it,” Jenn said.

  “Think about shit,” Jesse said. “Just because you’re getting shrunk doesn’t mean you have to shrink me.”

  “You think I’m wonderful because you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  They were both quiet. Jesse stared at her defiantly. Jenn looking faintly quizzical.

  After a time, Jenn said, “Not the other way around?”

  Jesse nodded slowly as if to himself, then got up and mixed a new martini.

  9

  Jesse’s hangover was relentless on Monday morning. He sat behind his desk sipping bottled water and trying to concentrate on Peter Perkins.

  “We spent two days going over that guy’s apartment,” Perkins said. “We didn’t even find anything embarrassing.”

  “And him a stockbroker,” Jesse said. “So what do you know?”

  Perkins looked down at his notebook.

  “Kenneth Eisley, age thirty-seven, divorced, no children. Works for Hollingsworth and Whitney in Boston. Parents live in Amherst. They’ve been notified.”

  “You do that?”

  “Molly,” Peter Perkins said.

  “God bless her,” Jesse said.

  “Coroner’s through with him,” Perkins said. “Parents are coming tomorrow to claim the body. You want to talk to them?”

  “You do it,” Jesse said.

  “You pulling rank on me?” Perkins said.

  “You bet,” Jesse said. “How about the ex-wife?”

  “She lives in Paradise,” Perkins said. “On Plum Tree Road. Probably kept the house when they split.”

  “Seen her yet?”

  “No. Hasn’t returned our calls.”

  “I’ll go over,” Jesse said.

  “Swell,” Perkins said. “I get to question the grieving parents, you talk to the ex-wife, who is probably delighted.”

  “Not if she was getting alimony,” Jesse said.

  “That’s cynical,” Peter Perkins said.

  “It is,” Jesse said. “What’s the ME say?”

  “Nothing special. Shot twice in the chest at close range. Two different guns.”

  “Two guns?”

  “Yep. Both twenty-twos.”

  “Which one killed him?”

  “Both.”

  “Equally?”

  “Either shot would have done it. They both got him in the heart. You want all the details about what got penetrated and stuff?”

  “I’ll read the report. We figure two shooters?”

  “Can’t see why one guy would shoot someone with two guns,” Perkins said.

  “Any way to tell which one shot first?”

  “Not really. Far as the ME could tell they entered the victim more or less the same time.”

  “Both at close range,” Jesse said.

  “Both at close range.”

  “Both in the heart,” Jesse said.

  Perkins nodded. “Gotta be two people,” he said.

  “Or one person who wants us to think he’s two people,” Jesse said.

  Perkins shrugged.

  “Pretty elaborate,” Perkins said. “And it gives us twice as many murder weapons.”

  Jesse drank more spring water. He didn’t say anything.

  “We got his phone records,” Perkins said. “Anthony and Suit are chasing that down.”

  “Debt?” Jesse said.

  “Not so far. Got ten grand in his checking account. Got a mutual fund worth couple hundred thousand. I’m telling you, we’ve got nada.”

  “Somebody killed him and they had a reason,” Jesse said. “Talk to people where he worked?”

  “No. I was going to ask you. Should I call, or go in to Boston.”

  “Go in,” Jesse said. “It’s harder to brush you off.”

  “You did a lot of this in L.A.,” Perkins said. “You got any ideas.”

  “When in doubt,” Jesse said, “cherchez la ex-wife.”

  “Wow,” Perkins said, “it’s great working with a pro.”

  10

  She was taking the photographs of Kenneth Eisley down from the big oak-framed corkboard in the office.

  “Leave that head shot,” he said.

  “Memories?” she said.

  “Trophy,” he said.

  She smiled, and handed him the pile of discarded pictures.

  “Shred these,” she said. “While I put up the new pictures.”

  He began to feed the discarded photographs through the shredder.

  “What is our new friend’s name?” she said.

  “Barbara Carey,” he said. “Forty-two years old, married, no children. Her husband’s name is Kevin. She’s a loan officer at the in-town branch of Pequot. He’s a lawyer in Danvers.”

  “They happy?”

  “What’s happy?” he said. “They go out every Saturday night, usually with friends. They go to brunch a lot of Sundays. The second picture up, they’re coming out of the Four Seasons. They don’t fight in public. They both drink, but neither one seems to be a drunk.”

  “They own a dog?” she said.

  “No sign,” he said. “
I think they’re too busy being successful young professionals to get tied down by a dog.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “I still feel worried about Kenny’s dog.”

  She glanced at the remaining photograph of Kenneth Eisley.

  “Somebody will find the dog and adopt him,” he said.

  “I hope so,” she said. “Dogs are nice.”

  He fed the last photograph into the shredder.

  “Kevin usually leaves the house first in the morning,” he said. “She leaves about a half hour later, at eight-thirty.”

  “That means she’s home alone for half an hour every weekday morning.”

  “Yes, but it’s a neighborhood where everyone is home looking out the window,” he said.

  “So where will we be able to do it?”

  “She does the food shopping,” he said.

  “At the Paradise Mall,” she said.

  She pinned the last of the pictures onto the corkboard with a small red map tack, then stepped back beside him and the two of them looked at thirty-five photographs of Barbara Carey going about the business of her public life.

  “Big parking lot,” he said. “At the Paradise Mall.”

  11

  Molly Crane had a pretty good body, Jesse thought, for a cop with three kids. The gun belt always looked too big for her. She adjusted it as she sat in the chair across from Jesse’s desk.

  “I’ve been doing a little off-hours snooping,” Molly said.

  Jesse waited.

  “Into the rape thing.”

  “Candace Pennington,” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  “How you doing?” Jesse said.

  “Well,” Molly said, “mostly I’m just watching. I park outside in my own car, no uniform, and watch her come to school, and go home. During lunch hour, I hang out in the cafeteria kitchen and watch. I know the food service lady down there, Anne Minnihan.”

  “Find out anything?”

  “Maybe,” Molly said. “There was a moment this morning in the cafeteria. Three boys sort of circled her and they stood and talked for maybe two minutes. They were all big and she was against the wall, and you could barely see her. One of them showed her something. The boys laughed. Then they moved away.”

  “How did Candace react.”

  “Scared.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. She was terrified, and . . . something else.”

  “Something else?”

  “Yes. I can’t quite say what. It was like whatever they’d shown her was . . . horrifying.”

  “Know the boys?” Jesse said.

  “Not by name, yet,” Molly said. “But I’d recognize all of them.”

  “Okay,” Jesse said. “We don’t want to cause this kid any more pain than she’s already in. You need to ID these three boys without them knowing it.”

  “They were big, one of them was wearing a varsity jacket. I’ll check the sports team photos in the lobby,” Molly said.

  “Out of uniform,” Jesse said. “Just a suburban mom waiting to see the guidance counselor.”

  “Hey,” Molly said. “I’m not old enough to have kids in high school.”

  “Vanity, vanity,” Jesse said.

  “Cops can be vain,” Molly said.

  “Sure,” Jesse said.

  “You’re thinking especially if they’re female, aren’t you?”

  Jesse leaned back in his chair and put his hands up.

  He said, “I don’t have a sexist bone in my body, cutie pie.”

  “Anyway,” Molly said, “I’ve lived in this town my whole life. I’ll get them ID’d.”

  “Okay, as long as you keep the kid in mind.”

  “Candace?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hard to investigate a crime without anyone knowing it,” Molly said. “For crissake, we can’t even talk to the victim.”

  Jesse smiled. “Hard, we do at once,” he said. “Impossible takes a little longer.”

  “Oh God,” Molly said, “spare me.”

  Jesse grinned. “Just be careful of Candace,” he said.

  “You’re very soft-hearted, Jesse.”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  12

  Kenneth Eisley’s former wife had resurrected her maiden name, which was Erickson. She worked as a corporate trainer at a company called Prometheus Plus, which was located in an office park in Woburn, and Jesse talked to her there, sitting in a chair made of silver tubing across from her desk. The desk too was made of silver tubing, with a glass top.

  “Do you have any idea why someone might kill your former husband?” Jesse said.

  Christine Erickson laughed briefly and without amusement.

  “Other than for being a jerk?” she said.

  “Was he enough of a jerk to get himself shot?”

  “Not that kind of jerk,” she said. “He was a harmless jerk.”

  “Such as?” Jesse said.

  “He thought it was important, I mean he actually thought it was seriously important, who won the Super Bowl.”

  “Everybody knows it’s the World Series that matters,” Jesse said.

  Christine looked blankly at Jesse for a moment. Jesse smiled. Her demeanor was calm enough, Jesse noticed, but her movements seemed tight and angular.

  “Oh,” she said. “You’re kidding.”

  “More or less,” Jesse said. “What else was annoying about him?”

  Christine was wearing a dark maroon pantsuit with a white blouse and short cordovan boots with pointy toes and heels a little too high to be sensible. She was slim and good-looking, with auburn hair and oval wire-rimmed glasses. Behind the glasses, her eyes were greenish.

  “He believed the ads on television,” she said without hesitation.

  She’s talked about his faults before, Jesse thought.

  “He thinks what matters is looking good, knowing the right people, driving the right car, owning the right dog. . . . Oh God, what about Goldie?”

  “He’s healthy,” Jesse said. “Dog officer has him.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “I was hoping you’d take him,” Jesse said.

  “Me. God no. I can’t. I work twelve hours a day.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “Can you find him a home?” Christine said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “You think I should take him,” Christine said, “don’t you?”

  “I do,” Jesse said.

  “I can’t have him home alone all day, peeing on my rugs.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “Well, I can’t,” Christine said.

  “ ’Course not,” Jesse said.

  “Hell, he was never my dog. Kenny just bought him because he thought they’d look good running on the beach together.”

  “They do that often?”

  “Five nights a week,” she said. “Kenny was always obsessing about his weight.”

  “Regular?”

  “Kenny? Oh God, yes, he was a schedule freak. Same time for everything. Always.” Suddenly she smiled a thin smile. “I mean everything.”

  “Good to know,” Jesse said. “Do you have any idea who would want him dead?”

  “Oh,” she said, “God no.”

  “Does he pay you alimony?”

  “No. I got my house in lieu of alimony. Hell, I make more than he does anyway.”

  “Where were you last Thursday night?” Jesse said.

  “Me?”

  “Have to ask,” Jesse said.

  She glanced at her date book, then looked up and met his gaze for a moment. He could see her thinking.

  She said,
“I was in bed with Neil Ames.”

  “All night?”

  “We were together from five-thirty in the afternoon until nine A.M. the next morning.”

  “I’ll need to verify it,” Jesse said. “Where do I find Mr. Ames?”

  “Two doors down,” she said. “He’s the marketing director.”

  “Does he think the Super Bowl matters?” Jesse said.

  “No.”

  “What does he think matters?”

  “Money.”

  “No fool, he,” Jesse said. “Can you tell me anything at all that might shed light on Kenneth Eisley’s death?”

  “Have you tried at work?” she said. “Maybe he lost somebody’s life savings.”

  “As we speak,” Jesse said. “Any other thoughts?”

  “No.”

  Jesse took a card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Christine.

  “Anything occurs,” he said, “call me.”

  “Even if it’s not about the case?”

  “Sure,” Jesse said. “Maybe we can schedule something.”

  Again the tight smile. Jesse smiled back. Then he went down the hall to talk with the marketing director.

  13

  Jesse stood in the living room of Ken Eisley’s condominium, listening to the silence. Jesse liked to go alone to places where victims lived, and visit for a while. Rarely did the silence whisper to him anything worth hearing, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t, and being there helped him think. The condo was a mirror image of the one where Angie Aarons lived. On the living room floor, near the gas fireplace, was a big plaid dog cushion. On the low oak coffee table was a bottle of single malt scotch and two short thick glasses. Above the fireplace was a four-inch-thin wall-mounted television set that Jesse knew cost about $7,000. On an end table was a baseball enclosed in a plastic case. The ball had been signed almost illegibly by Willie Mays. To the right of the fireplace was a small maroon and gold replica model of an Indian motorcycle. In the kitchen was a set of stainless steel dog dishes in a black metal rack. There was a king-sized walnut sleigh bed and a large-screen television in the bedroom. On the bedside table were two copies of a magazine about men’s health and exercise. In the bathroom was a wooden container of shaving soap, a brush, and a double-edged razor. The razor and the shaving brush each had an ivory handle. A bottle of bay rum stood on the shaving ledge beside them. Everything was obviously new.