Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  There she is again, Jesse thought. Young Molly. There was something so happy and pure about her joy in speaking about the past, he couldn’t help wishing he had known her then.

  “Johnny sounds like a pretty friendly guy,” Jesse said. “Ever get too friendly?”

  Molly tilted her head in confusion, stepped away from him. “What?”

  “Man surrounds himself with a bunch of pretty young girls. Spends a lot of time with them—”

  “Johnny was a good man. He never did anything inappropriate with us.”

  “No hugs that lasted a little too long? No pats on your ass when you got a hit? No special time or attention paid to any of you girls?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “And Mary Kate, did she ever say anything about—”

  Molly turned to Jesse, her face red with anger. “Nothing.”

  “Sorry, Molly, but we have to know what we have to know.”

  “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it,” she said. “Without obvious suspects, we work from the family out.”

  “The mom stayed.”

  “Yeah, Tess—that’s Mary Kate’s mom—she stayed. Like Johnny couldn’t stay, Tess couldn’t leave.”

  “Happens all the time,” Jesse said.

  “What does?”

  “Tragedy.”

  “What about it, Jesse?”

  “Blows families apart.”

  “Or brings them closer together,” Molly said.

  “Uh-huh. Tell me about the mother.”

  “Tess, right. She was quieter than Johnny. More religious. I think Johnny would’ve been fine with his kids going to public school, but Tess wouldn’t stand for that. She used to go to Mass every morning and volunteered at the church. But she was—is, I guess—a very sweet person. I haven’t seen her in years. She was always nice to us, too. Just not in an outgoing way like Johnny was.”

  “So Mary Kate was more like Johnny?” Jesse asked.

  Molly nodded. “She was just like her dad,” she said. “She even looked like him. Her sisters were like their mom, in looks and temperament.”

  As they took the short walk up to the front door, Molly nodded at a street-facing window on the second floor.

  “See that, Jesse?”

  “Electric candle in the window? Hard to miss.”

  “That was Mary Kate’s room. I guess Tess was hoping Mary Kate would come home someday.”

  Jesse shook his head. “Turns out she never really left.”

  12

  Molly rang the bell. As they waited, Jesse noticed the front shades were pulled down. They were frayed and sun-bleached as if they were always drawn. Several years’ worth of rotting leaves clogged the rain gutters, the gutters pulling away from the house under the weight of the leaves. A pane of glass in the front window was missing and had been replaced by cardboard and duct tape.

  The door pulled back. A short, frail woman stood at the threshold. She was gaunt and ashen-skinned. She held a rosary in her hand, the cross dangling in the cold air like an unasked question and its unspoken answer. She was dressed in a pilled gray sweater and blue polyester pants, both long out of fashion and too large for her by several sizes. Her brown eyes were dull and unfocused. Jesse supposed she was sixty or so, but looked much older. Then a light seemed to snap on behind her eyes. A smile came across her bare lips.

  “Little Molly Burke!” Her voice was surprisingly strong. “Is that you?”

  “It’s Molly Crane now, Mrs. O’Hara. And as you can see, I’m all grown up. This is Chief Stone. He’ll want you to call him Jesse.”

  Tess O’Hara nodded at Jesse, her smile fading. “Jesse.”

  “We need to come in, Tess,” Molly said. “Would that be all right?”

  Tess O’Hara didn’t speak. She simply walked into her living room, leaving the front door open behind her. They followed her in, Jesse closing the door. Tess had taken a seat in a big recliner in front of an old TV set. The recliner was a study in duct tape and the TV set was a big, bulky beast in a chipped wooden cabinet. The paneled walls were bowed and warped, but were covered in photos of children and grandchildren. At the center of the photo display was a large framed shot of Mary Kate at her tenth-grade graduation ceremony. There were crosses and/or crucifixes on every wall. There were religious sayings painted on wooden plaques, too. The kinds of things you might find at flea markets or church sales. One in particular caught Jesse’s attention.

  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

  HEBREWS 11:6

  Mrs. O’Hara noticed Jesse notice, but didn’t say anything.

  Jesse and Molly sat on a lifeless sofa at an angle to Mrs. O’Hara. Molly recognized the sofa as the same one she’d sat and watched TV on a hundred times. When they were little, Mary Kate and Molly would play with their dolls together on that couch. Those memories made Molly smile. Remembering why they were here made it disappear.

  The thing Jesse noticed most was the smell of the place. Beneath the overwhelming odor of the morning’s burnt coffee and overcooked eggs, there was a dank, musty scent. Colonies of black mold must have been thick beneath the carpeting and walls. Her daughter was dead, but it was Tess O’Hara who had entombed herself. Jesse wished he hadn’t seen the phenomenon before, but he had.

  “Do you know why we’re here, Tess?” Molly asked.

  Tess didn’t answer. She started to rock slightly, rolling the rosary in her fingers, mumbling a Hail Mary almost to herself.

  Jesse opened his mouth to speak. Molly shook her head. Jesse closed his mouth. When Tess repeated the prayer, Molly joined in.

  “. . . full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

  “Amen,” Jesse said loudly with the two women.

  The women crossed themselves.

  Molly repeated the question.

  “You’ve found my Mary Kate.”

  “We have,” Jesse said. “I have some hard things to say, Mrs. O’Hara, but I have to say them. Do you want us to call anyone for you? Would you like anyone to be here with you while we talk? One of your daughters? A neighbor?”

  Tess reached out and took Molly’s hand.

  “Molly was my Mary Kate’s best friend in the world. Who else could I want here? So say your hard words, Jesse. Ask your questions.”

  “I’ve read the police reports from back when Mary Kate went missing,” Jesse said. “At the time you said you had no idea where she might have gone or who she might have gone off with.”

  Tess nodded.

  Jesse nodded, too. “Okay, but it happens that with the passage of time things come to us. We think of things or we hear something that makes us rethink what we thought we knew for sure.”

  “Sorry, Jesse,” she said. “I have searched my mind every day since that July fourth. I have prayed on it, but nothing has come to me. I’ve asked my other girls so many times they won’t even talk to me about it anymore.”

  “Did you ever suspect anyone in your own family of having anything to do with Mary Kate’s disappearance?”

  Tess O’Hara looked up and stared into Jesse’s eyes as if he had asked the question in a foreign language.

  Molly said, “What he means is—”

  “I know what he means, Molly,” said Tess. “I know what he’s really asking and the answer is no.”

  Jesse didn’t push her. Not out of delicacy, but because he knew it would be a waste of time.

  “You said back then that Mary Kate had no boyfriends. Is that right?” Jesse asked.

  “That’s right.” There was an air of proud defiance in Tess’s voice.

  This time Jesse didn’t surrender quite as quickly. He was silent for nearly a
minute, hoping the discomfort would work on Tess, but clearly this was a woman used to long silences.

  Then he said, “I don’t know, Tess. She was an awfully cute girl with beautiful eyes. Sometimes girls don’t tell their moms things, but moms know better.”

  “Not my Mary Kate. Just ask Molly. She’ll tell you.”

  It went on like that for another half hour. After the conversation, Molly and Jesse knew nothing more about the circumstances surrounding Mary Kate O’Hara’s disappearance and subsequent homicide than they had when they’d entered the house. In her years of grief and unanswered prayers, Tess had turned her daughter from a cute and mischievous sixteen-year-old girl into a saint. No surprise there. The human heart is an amazing editor. Jesse had witnessed it before. He’d seen murdered gangbangers, men who had themselves tortured rival gang members to death, turned into innocent lambs by their grieving families. Why not Mary Kate O’Hara? Molly and Jesse did get the addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses for the rest of the family. Tess hadn’t granted her husband a divorce, but it hadn’t stopped him from abandoning his family. She had no idea where he was, nor did she seem to care.

  Before they left, Jesse told Molly to show Tess O’Hara the photograph they’d brought along.

  “What’s this?” she asked, staring at the photo.

  “It’s a tattoo,” Jesse said.

  “I can see that, but what’s it mean?”

  “We were hoping you might recognize it, Tess,” Molly said. “It was on the chest of the man we found alongside Mary Kate and Ginny.”

  “Looks like a two-headed snake twisted around a cross. Blasphemy!” She threw the picture onto the floor.

  Molly picked it up. “So you don’t recognize it?”

  Tess O’Hara shook her head violently.

  Jesse nodded that it was time to leave. They may have been done with Tess, but she wasn’t done with them.

  “How was Mary Kate killed?” Tess asked, swallowing hard.

  Molly went pale.

  “I’m afraid Mary Kate’s remains were skeletal, Mrs. O’Hara,” Jesse said. “So while the medical examiner is fairly certain of her findings, they are not—”

  “How?”

  “Multiple stab wounds. I saw the evidence myself last night.”

  Jesse could see Tess wondering if she should ask for specifics. She decided against it, though she did ask another question.

  “You’re certain it’s her?”

  “It’s her,” Molly said, kneeling down by Tess’s side. “But she wasn’t alone, Tess. Ginny Connolly has been with her this whole time.”

  Molly’s words didn’t seem to register.

  “The medical examiner has released Mary Kate,” Jesse said. “If you tell us where you’d like her taken, we can arrange that for you.”

  Again, nothing.

  “Give us a minute, Jesse,” Molly said.

  Pacing as he waited for Molly to finish up, Jesse thought about how someone like Tess O’Hara reconciled her faith with her daughter’s murder. He knew that if it had been Jenn or any of the children he’d never had found murdered and left to rot in the floor of an abandoned factory building, chalking it up to God’s plan wouldn’t have been answer enough for him. But his curiosity or satisfaction wasn’t the point. Those two girls found down there needed a voice, and he meant to give it to them.

  13

  That night Jesse found he didn’t have much appetite for anything but amber liquid swirling around two clear ice cubes. Ritual was part of the joy, sure, but so, too, was the beauty of it. The sound of the cubes tinkling against the glass, against each other. The smoky aroma. The earthy hints of peat. Then there was the heat. The pleasant burn on the back of his tongue. The burn in his throat going down. The warmth in his belly. The electricity on the surface of his skin as the warmth spread over him. There had been a time in his life when he’d been able to enjoy the full experience of it, the permission Johnnie Walker granted him to surrender to his lesser angels. He had once been able to drink without hearing Dix’s voice in his head. No more.

  They had been round and round about Jesse’s drinking so many times that he was dizzy from it. They had dissected the reasons, tossed the pieces up into the air, reassembled them a hundred different ways, but there was Jesse with another scotch in his hand. And there was Ozzie Smith on the wall. And the world spinning around in its own good time. One reason Jesse convinced himself that he drank was that it helped him with his silence. Silence was a great asset for a cop. He had learned that early on. If you keep quiet, the people you’re interviewing can’t bear it. They will fill up the empty space with their own chatter and sometimes, if you’re lucky, they fill it up with answers. When they would yammer, Jesse would think of drinking. Of course his drinking had helped him to an early retirement from the LAPD. He wasn’t thinking about that now.

  There had been many instances over the course of his time in Paradise that he had given up drinking for weeks, even months, at a time. During those times, was he a better chief? Worse? He couldn’t say. He was certainly an unhappier one. Because during those weeks or months it was just a show, to prove something either to himself or to someone else. When he realized no one was applauding or handing out cash rewards for his efforts, he went right back to it. But there were nights that he knew exactly why he was drinking. Nights like this night.

  The case was getting to him in a way that few cases did. He wasn’t a man to let things get under his skin. He prided himself on it, but this case had gotten under his skin, deep under it. And it wasn’t just one thing. It was everything. It was that he had been blindsided by it. That neither Molly nor Suit nor anyone on his own force had ever bothered mentioning it to him. It was Tess O’Hara burying herself alive. It was that they still didn’t have an ID on the guy in the blue tarp. It was the sight of the skeletons juxtaposed with the photos of the girls. It was that these girls had known Molly. That Molly had been part of their lives and now part of their deaths. It was what the case was doing to Molly.

  For his decade-plus in Paradise, Jesse had been able to count on Molly to be Molly. Sure, he loved her, but it was love at arm’s length. Sure, he knew her husband and kids, but he didn’t involve himself in their lives. It was love born of his need for routine, and no one, not even Johnnie Walker, was more reliable, more rock-solid, than Molly. Until now. She had always been there when he needed her. He trusted her. Her judgments. She wasn’t anything like the other women Jesse had been attracted to in appearance or attitude. She wasn’t blond or classically beautiful. She wasn’t needy. She didn’t need or want to be rescued. Suddenly, that had all seemed to change.

  It was more than that, too. More than Molly. It was that Jesse had always been good at seeing cases for what they were and what they were not. He had the knack of perspective. Not all cops do. He could almost immediately see how a case would come together, which pieces were missing and which ones were solid. Not with this case. And there was his sense that even though the investigation had only just begun, everyone was holding something back. Molly included. That didn’t bode well for a case where the entire town had a twenty-five-year head start on him.

  Angry with himself for his self-doubt, Jesse poured himself another. He raised the glass to Ozzie.

  “You were the better shortstop, Oz, but not even you would know what to make of this case.”

  It wasn’t all bad. He had finally met the new ME and there was something about her that had gotten his attention. Something more than her sarcasm. Maybe it was that one smile she’d deigned to share with him. He had to admit that he found it hard not to stare at her face.

  “What do think, Ozzie? Was I flirting with her?”

  Ozzie kept his opinion to himself.

  14

  They met at the Rusty Scupper in the Swap. The Scupper—a shot and tallboy chaser joint—was as close as Paradise came to a dive bar. It wasn�
�t the kind of bar where you could order an appletini and not draw stares. The Scupper stank of past accidents, of spilled beers, of overturned ashtrays, and of emptied stomachs. It was also a place that kept its secrets. The two of them sat at a wooden booth covered in generations of carved graffiti: mostly the names of drunk men and the women they loved, longed for, or lamented. There were a lot of four-letter words, too. Even the first two lines of a limerick.

  There once was a girl from Japan

  Who searched the streets of Tokyo for a man

  That was as far as the poet had gotten. One of the men at the booth read the lines as he had many times before and laughed as he always did.

  “Why you think the guy stopped there?” he asked his booth mate. “I always think about that, whether he just couldn’t think of nothing else to write or if he got too drunk or his arm got tired or something. Maybe he got into a fight or the tip of his knife broke off. What do you think?”

  But the other man was lost in his own dark recesses. He fidgeted, spinning his beer bottle like a prayer wheel. Peeling off pieces of the bottle’s wet label, then rolling the wet, sticky paper around on his fingertips and flicking the balls away.

  “So what do you think?”

  “Huh?” the fidgety man asked.

  “About the girl from Japan.”

  “I don’t know about no girl from Japan,” he said, scratching at the label with his dirty thumbnail.

  “But what do you think?”

  “I think we’re fucked.” He patted his jacket pockets. “I need a smoke.”

  “Chill, man. We’re okay. There’s nothing to connect us to Zevon.”

  “Nothing but that they found his body right next to the girls. Why did he do that, stick Zevon next to the girls?”