Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “It’s a black mark against the town. Paints everybody who lives here with a big, broad brush. They all just want it to go away. In a sense, they’re punishing the girls for going missing and getting killed. None of them would tell you that, but deep down, that’s what’s going on.”

  “Captain Healy said something like that to me,” Jesse said.

  “Smart man.”

  Jesse turned to look at the newspaperman.

  “You all right, Stu? You don’t look like you’ve slept in a week.”

  “Rough night with Martha,” he said. “Lots of bad nights lately.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “I’m going to get up to the church now, Jesse.”

  Jesse closed the window and watched Cromwell make his way up the hill in the snow. He noticed that people were beginning to show. He recognized most of them. Saw Molly arrive with her mom. He noticed Bill Marchand’s SUV pass by the church and pull into the lot. Jesse was willing to bet Marchand was the only politician who’d show his face today. When the selectman approached the church entrance, he turned and spotted Jesse’s Explorer. He smiled, waved, then made his way down the hill.

  When Jesse lowered his window, Marchand offered his right hand. Jesse shook it.

  “Any progress, Jesse?”

  “None.”

  “I’ll keep the mayor off your back as long as I can.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “I don’t know how much good it’s going to do. The funerals are going to amp up the pressure on your department to get these murders solved.”

  “You mean the pressure on me.”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll live with it.”

  “What are you doing parked down here?” Marchand asked.

  “Watching.”

  “For?”

  “For faces that don’t fit.”

  “Sounds like you’re grasping at straws.”

  Jesse shook his head. “Never understood that expression.”

  “Me, either.”

  They both laughed.

  “It’s a sad day, though,” Marchand said.

  “Did you know the girls?”

  “I was older, but I knew who they were. Paradise is a small town, Jesse. It was even smaller back then. As a selectman, I just felt like I had to make an appearance.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything, but he was caught off guard by how closely Bill Marchand’s words paralleled what Alexio Dragoa had said on the subject. But he wasn’t exactly shocked. Healy and Stu Cromwell were right. Everyone in Paradise had found a way to distance themselves from the girls’ disappearance and now the discovery that they had been murdered. It felt to Jesse almost as if they had all rehearsed the same answers. Answers that were meant to insulate them from the horror and the guilt. It wasn’t hard to understand. Then he saw a vehicle pull up to the church that got his full attention.

  Jesse said, “Isn’t that Alexio’s Dragoa’s pickup?”

  Marchand shook his head in disgust. “That’s his rusty POS, all right.”

  “Wonder what he’s doing here.”

  “Got me.” Marchand patted Jesse’s shoulder. “I better show my face up there now, Jesse. By the way, I ordered those new softball uniforms.”

  Jesse nodded, but he was barely conscious of Bill Marchand. All he could think about was Alexio Dragoa and why the fisherman kept turning up in the middle of things.

  42

  After waiting outside the church for the service to conclude and following the funeral cortege to Saint Paul’s Cemetery on the outskirts of town, Jesse had driven over to Paradise Taxi’s garage. No one was particularly happy to see him again. Unless you called them, cops showing up at your door usually meant one thing: trouble.

  “Yeah, Chief, what can I do for you this time?” said the dispatcher, a heavyset, unshaven man who smelled of cigars and spilled coffee.

  “Your driver, Wiethop.”

  “Jeez, him again? What about him?”

  “He have a record?”

  The dispatcher made a face and gave a shrug. “Maybe. I don’t know. He never stole from us as far as I can tell. We don’t do background checks. Most of our guys live in town and have been with us for years. Don’t matter anyways, because he ain’t my problem no more.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He blew off his last few shifts. Didn’t even freakin’ call in last night. Just didn’t show. I called him, but he never answered. When he comes in for his last paycheck, I’m gonna rip it up in front of the bastard. Let him sue me.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  The fat man rubbed his cheeks. “About an hour after you was here the last time. He said he left something in his cab the night before. He went out to the garage and came back in here to say he wasn’t gonna be in that night.”

  Jesse asked, “Did he find what he was looking for?”

  “Must’ve.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He was all happy and smilin’ like he hit the lotto or something.”

  “I’m going to be sending some people over to look at his cab.”

  The fat man gave Jesse a stained-tooth smile. “Sorry, Chief. That’s going to have to wait. It’s on the road.”

  “Get it back in here.”

  “But it’s been vacuumed and washed twice since—”

  “Get it back here. Pronto!”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jesse and Peter Perkins were standing on the landing half a flight of stairs below Rod Wiethop’s apartment. Jesse gave the thumbs-up to Peter. Peter nodded that he was ready. Guns drawn, they took the remaining steps slowly and as quietly as the moaning old stairs allowed. At the threshold, Peter and Jesse stood on opposite sides of the door. Jesse nodded to Peter. Perkins reached over and pounded the door.

  “Rod Wiethop,” he said, “this is the Paradise Police Department. Open your door.”

  Nothing.

  Jesse spun his index finger for Peter to try it again.

  Perkins pounded the door, harder this time.

  “Rod Wiethop, c’mon. This is the police. Open up.”

  This time there was stirring, but not from Wiethop’s apartment. The door to the left side of the staircase opened and a white-haired old Yankee with wire-rimmed glasses, a flannel shirt, and jeans worn shiny at the knees stepped out into the hallway.

  “Please get back inside your apartment,” Jesse said.

  “Relax there, pups. That Wiethop fella ain’t been in since near around eleven last evenin’.”

  Jesse kept his .38 drawn, but turned to the old man.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I own this buildin’, son. Name’s Borden, Lyle Borden, and I keep a pretty good eye and ear on the goings-on around here. You don’t believe me about Wiethop, I’ll show you.”

  He pulled a fistful of keys from his pocket, found one in particular, and took a step toward Wiethop’s door. Jesse blocked his way.

  “Peter, try it one more time.”

  Same results.

  “Okay, Mr. Borden. Open her up.”

  When Borden had opened the lock, Jesse stepped in front of him and asked him to stay in the hall.

  Wiethop’s apartment was the same charmless place it had been before, and though the cabbie wasn’t in, it still stank of cigarette smoke and vodka sweat.

  “I’ll take this room and the bathroom,” Jesse said. “You take the bedroom.”

  Jesse found pretty much what he expected to find in the medicine chest. Some amphetamines, a little pot, lots of generic painkillers.

  “Jesse, you better get in here.”

  When he walked into the bedroom, he found Peter Perkins on his hands and knees, flashlight aimed under the bed. He got down on the floor next to Peter. In the beam of Peter’s flash, J
esse saw Maxie Connolly’s missing bag. And draped over the bag, between the handles, was a pair of black panties that shone in the light.

  43

  “He left first around nine,” Borden said, pouring Jesse a cup of coffee. “Then, like I told you before, Rod came back around eleven and left again.”

  Jesse took a sip.

  “Good coffee.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re sure of your times, Lyle?”

  “Don’t sleep much since the wife died last year. That old woman used to make me nuts, but since she’s passed . . .” Lyle Borden shook his head. “Well, anyhoo, I’m sure of my facts, Chief. Old man like me don’t have much to fill out his hours, so he holds on to the little things he has.”

  “Can you tell me anything else about last night? Did you see Wiethop come and go?”

  Borden sat down across from Jesse and took a swallow of coffee. “No. Only heard him. That third apartment, the one over on the other side of the stairs, is vacant. Has been for going on two years. So after the sandwich shop downstairs closes, it’s just my renter and me moving around up here.”

  “How long has Wiethop been—”

  “Well, Chief, now wait a second,” Borden said, interrupting Jesse. “Maybe there was one thing.”

  “One thing?”

  “About last night that I noticed, come to think of it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When Rod come back and left that second time—”

  “At eleven.”

  “That’s right, about eleven. He must have had a load on,” Borden said.

  Jesse took another sip of his coffee. “You mean he was drunk?”

  “Sure sounded that way to me. Real heavy footsteps on the stairs. Real deliberate. You know how you get when you’ve had too much?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He sounded like that, and when he got to the door, I could hear him fumbling a lot with his keys. Dropped ’em once or twice. Put the wrong key in the lock a few times. I haven’t tied one on like that for many years.” The old man smiled, his eyes unfocused.

  “How long did Wiethop stay in his apartment before heading out again?”

  “Five minutes. Maybe not even that long.” Borden made a whistling sound and snapped his fingers. “In and out, just like that.”

  “And his car is gone?”

  “Take a gander for yourself, Chief. If you look out my bedroom window to the right, you’ll see his spot in the alleyway is empty.”

  “Would you know the make and model of Wiethop’s car?”

  Borden laughed. “Rod must have had a sense of humor.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Don’t know the year, but his car is an old Ford Crown Victoria like all the police cars on the TV.”

  “Color?”

  Borden nodded. “White.”

  When Jesse finished his coffee and stood to leave, Perkins knocked and came through.

  “It’s all been photographed, bagged, and tagged, Jesse,” he said. “I’m going to run it to the station. The state forensic guys will be over here after they get done going over Wiethop’s cab.”

  “I’ll meet you back at the station.”

  Jesse shook Borden’s hand and left. When he got to the head of the stairs, he about-faced, dipped under the crime scene tape strewn across the threshold of Wiethop’s door, and stepped into the apartment. He stood there in the dingy front room trying to figure out what bothered him so much about finally making some progress.

  44

  Silent tears poured out of Al Franzen’s eyes as he stared at the photos. Seeing his late wife’s possessions like that had the effect of bringing Maxie back to life for him while once again forcing him to experience the pain of her death.

  “Are these her things?” Jesse asked.

  Franzen nodded.

  “Is that a yes, Mr. Franzen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please look at the photo of her wallet and the contents. Is anything missing?”

  “All of her credit cards are gone,” Franzen said, choking down his tears.

  “Did she carry cash with her?”

  Franzen smiled sadly. “Did she carry cash with her? My God, she didn’t go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without bringing cash. She had at least five hundred dollars with her always. She said it was a scar from how she was raised. I grew up poor. I understood. I was glad to give her money. I have enough of it. Why, was there no cash in her wallet?”

  “There was only some spare change in the bottom of the bag. See?” Jesse pointed at one of the photos. “But that was it. No bills.”

  Franzen’s mood changed from grief to confusion. “But I don’t understand. Where did you get these things from?”

  “We found them in the apartment of the cabdriver who took Maxie up to the Bluffs.”

  “Why would he have them? Are you telling me he killed Maxie?”

  “That’s not what I’m telling you.”

  Franzen became agitated, rising up out of his seat, his face turning bright red. “Then what are you telling me, for chrissakes? Why did this man have my wife’s underwear? Did he rape her? Oh my God, he raped her and robbed her.”

  Jesse put a hand on Franzen’s shoulder and gently urged him back into his seat. “Relax, Mr. Franzen. He didn’t rape her. We know she didn’t have intercourse the night she died. It might be that he came back up to the Bluffs after Maxie committed suicide and took the things she left behind. Or he took her up to the Bluffs and robbed her. We don’t know.”

  “But her underthings! How did he get them?”

  “We don’t know that, either.”

  Franzen was out of his seat again. “Why don’t you know that? Won’t he tell you? Let me talk to that bastard. I’ll get him—”

  “We don’t know the answer because the cabbie’s gone,” Jesse said.

  “Gone where?”

  Jesse ignored the question. “We’ll find him.”

  “Can I please go now, Chief Stone? I’m not feeling very well.”

  “Sure. I’ll have someone drive you back to the hotel.”

  He watched Suit walk Franzen slowly to his office door. Jesse thought about how particularly unfair the end of a long life could often be. How to a man like Al Franzen it might feel like punishment. He wondered if Franzen would go to his grave asking himself what he had done to deserve it. Then, as Franzen reached the office door, he stopped. He turned back to Jesse.

  “You know what I think, Chief Stone?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Most of the time he loses, but sometimes the devil wins.”

  Jesse couldn’t disagree. He had been a cop for too long, worked too many homicides, seen too much of the pain and damage humans can inflict on one another, often over insignificant things. He had his doubts about the devil, but he had no doubt there was evil in the world. And he didn’t have to look beyond the borders of Paradise to find it. There was another thought in Jesse’s head, one he didn’t want to share yet, certainly not with Al Franzen. After Suit led the old man out of his office, Jesse called Tamara Elkin.

  45

  He met Tamara at one of those big chain restaurants in a shopping center in the next town over. A cheery hostess greeted them and led them to a booth. They sat silent as they half listened to an even cheerier server ramble on about two-for-one drinks and the sizzling shrimp fajita special. Jesse ordered coffee. Tamara ordered a Diet Coke.

  “What’s going on, Jesse?”

  “I’m not sure, but I figured you’d be the person to talk to.”

  She said, “I didn’t figure you for a fan of these types of restaurants.”

  “When I was in the minors, a place like this would have been beyond my means. Ate a lot of eggs, canned soup, and hot dogs and beans.”

  “S
ounds dreamy.”

  “I would trade everything I’ve ever had to have those days back.”

  Tamara was skeptical. “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  His tone left little room for her skepticism.

  “Okay, Jesse, come on, why the cloak-and-dagger? Why meet here?” she asked, noticing he wasn’t wearing his PPD hat or his ever-present Paradise police jacket.

  “I have to talk to you about something and there’s still too much press in town. I didn’t want to give them anything to speculate about.”

  She said, “We could have met at your house again.”

  He shook his head. “We can’t do that every night. Not even my liver can take that. And this is kind of official in nature.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of this, Jesse. What is it?”

  “Is there any possible way Maxie Connolly’s death wasn’t a suicide?”

  Tamara Elkin looked gut-punched. She wrapped her arms around her midsection. Jesse didn’t think she was even aware of it. She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could say a word, the waiter arrived with their drinks.

  “Have you had a chance to look at the menu?” the waiter said, cheery as ever. “I’d recommend the corn chowder. It’s—”

  Tamara cut him off. “Scotch,” she said. “A double, neat.”

  The waiter looked perplexed even as he kept that practiced smile on his face. He then explained that scotch wasn’t part of the two-fers. Jesse shooed him away with a promise of a big tip and kept quiet until the waiter was out of earshot.

  “What’s wrong, Doc?”

  “How did you know, Jesse?”

  He was confused. “Know what?”

  She got that gut-punched look again. “About what happened to me in New York.”

  “I don’t know anything about what happened to you in New York.”

  She smiled, but it quickly vanished. “Remember when I told you that it would take some twisted logic for me to explain how taking the medical examiner’s job here was career advancement?”

  “A long story for another time,” he said.