Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

by Reed Farrel Coleman

“Some?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Jesse shook his head.

  Now Marchand shook his head, too, only in a more exaggerated manner. “I don’t get you, Jesse. I’m trying to help.”

  “See, Bill, that proves my point. Nobody knows anybody else.” He held the bottle up. “A little more?”

  “I haven’t finished this one yet.”

  There was another knock at the office door. This time Suit stuck his head in.

  “What’s up, Suit?”

  “You got a Captain Giulio from the NYPD on line two.”

  “About?”

  “He wouldn’t say, but he asked for the chief. Last time I checked, that was you, Jesse.”

  “Thanks, Suit.”

  Marchand stood and pantomimed leaving, but Jesse waved at him to stay and finish his drink. Marchand sat back down and Jesse picked up the phone.

  “Captain Giulio, Chief Stone here.” Jesse didn’t speak for the next two minutes. He made a few noises in the right places to indicate that he was listening and that he understood what the captain was saying on the other end of the line. He jotted a few notes, then said, “Okay, Captain, if you think so, sure. Fax his photo over and I’ll have someone meet him at the bus station in Boston. I appreciate the help. If I can ever return the courtesy, let me know. Thank you. Bye.”

  “What was that about?” Marchand asked.

  “Probably nothing. Some wounded Afghanistan war vet named Jameson with PTSD got into a fight in Manhattan last night. He was picked up by the NYPD.”

  “That’s too bad, but what’s it got to do with Paradise?”

  “This Jameson guy says he can identify our John Doe, and this Captain Giulio believes him.”

  “Do you?”

  “We’ll see. He’s scheduled to arrive in Boston tomorrow morning around eleven.”

  Marchand finished his drink. “Thanks for that. I’ve got to get going.”

  “All right.”

  “Listen, Jesse, I’m sorry about how all of this is turning out. You know how highly I think of you.”

  “That’s fine. I’ve still got a few more days.”

  Marchand said, “That’s true. Things could turn around.”

  “Bill, you never did tell me why you came here today.”

  “It was nothing, forget it.”

  With that, the selectman was gone. And Jesse went back to thinking about John Millner and trick rabbits.

  63

  Jesse took Marchand’s visit as a sign that the clock was ticking on him faster than he had been led to believe. Although Marchand had promised him seven days, what did that matter? One more bad turn in any of the cases and the mayor and/or the selectmen could decide to cut him loose and name an acting chief. He also realized that the arson and Millner’s smug attitude meant he had finally gotten some traction. So he decided he would push the envelope of lies and half-truths even further than he’d already dared to. He had no clue whether this war vet could identify his John Doe or not, but that’s not what he planned to tell people.

  On his way out of the station, he was mobbed by the usual throng of reporters.

  “Chief Stone,” a faceless voice called out to him from the crowd, “any word on the DNA results?”

  He lied. “Yes, as we stand here now, the state police are checking the results against existing databases.”

  “What do they hope to accomplish by that?” the same reporter asked.

  “To find a killer.”

  Someone else called to him, “What’s your reaction to the situation in Framingham?”

  Jesse didn’t know what the reporter was referring to, but he didn’t let on. “It would be improper for me to comment on other jurisdictions.”

  There was another question. “Are there any other developments?”

  “Yes. Someone will be here tomorrow who has come forward who can help us identify our John Doe.”

  “You’re referring to the man in the blue tarp?” a fourth reporter asked.

  “Exactly,” Jesse said. “Once we have his identity, the rest of the case should fall into place. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Jesse pushed through the crowd and made his way to his Explorer. Healy called as Jesse pulled out of his spot.

  “What’s going on in Framingham, Healy? I just got ambushed by a reporter outside the station asking me about it.”

  “It’s a mess. A triple homicide in the tony part of town. Three DBs and not a stitch of clothing between them. All done execution-style.”

  Jesse asked, “Why are the staties involved?”

  “One of the victims is a congressman’s brother and neither of the two murdered women found with him was his wife. You know how that goes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Three vics, one man and two women. Kind of like what you’re dealing with in Paradise.”

  “At least your victims were all killed in the same century.”

  “Good point. Listen, Jesse, I’m sorry to have to do this, but I gotta pull my man off Dragoa. He’s too good a man for surveillance duty with this triple dumped in my lap. Framingham is an all-hands-on-deck situation,” Healy said. “If this thing gets cleared up soon, I’ll give him back to you.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Stuff happens.”

  “Bad stuff, yeah, and a lot of it all at once.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jesse said. “Let me give you a heads-up. I lied to the press again. Told them you guys were comparing my DNA results to the state database.”

  “I’ll cover for you. It’s the least I can do since I’ve got to pull my man.”

  Healy clicked off and Jesse headed to the morgue.

  64

  Jesse didn’t usually associate the morgue with friendship, but that was about to change. He didn’t think what he had to say should be said over the phone, nor did he think he should let it wait. And the truth was that he liked the arrangement he had with Tamara Elkin. It kind of reminded him of his relationship with Marcy, but that was a friendship with perks and it had run its course years ago. Not that the perks hadn’t been great. They had been. Marcy certainly seemed to enjoy their intimacy as much or more than he did. It was just that sometimes Jesse got the sense that there was an element of revenge in it for her, a kind of middle finger to her ex-husband and the men who’d done her wrong. Maybe there was an element of revenge in it for him, too. In any case, things had changed since then. He had changed.

  Tamara was just coming out of the autopsy room when he ran into her. At first she smiled at him, then the smile evaporated as she remembered what had happened between them the previous evening.

  “You didn’t exactly catch me at my best,” she said, gesturing at blood on her scrubs.

  “That’s okay. About last night, I wanted to apolo—”

  She waved her hand at him. “Don’t. Please, don’t. I’ve got to get cleaned up. Why don’t you go wait in my office for me? I’ll be in as soon as I can. Here.” She handed him a file. “You can save me the trip by putting that on my desk for me.”

  “Rough one?” he asked, pointing at the autopsy room behind her.

  “Yes and no. An old woman with late-stage Alzheimer’s. She fell at the care facility, so they needed an official COD. The autopsy was pretty routine, but these cases . . . I don’t know. I’ve seen death in all its various forms, probably some that not even an ex–homicide detective has seen, and there’s just something about Alzheimer’s that scares the hell out of me.”

  “Me, not so much,” Jesse said.

  “You die of almost anything else and at least you have something to hold on to on the way out. But with Alzheimer’s you’re just lost and confused.”

  He thought she might cry and, without thinking, reached out and stroked her cheek. She let him.


  “You don’t know who you are coming into the world,” he said. “Why worry about it as you leave it?”

  She smiled a weak smile at him. “I’ll see you in my office in a few.”

  Jesse sat in Tamara’s office and did what people do alone in offices. He looked around. Looked at the photos on her walls, the diplomas, the knickknacks on her desk. Funny, but Jesse often found a person’s workplace as or more revealing than his or her bedroom. During homicide investigations, he had always made it a point of visiting the victim’s and/or the suspect’s workplace. People who were meticulous and guarded at home could sometimes betray themselves at the office, at their desk, or in their school locker. He didn’t expect to come to any great revelations about Tamara Elkin. She had come to him, armed only with a bottle of Black Label and the truth.

  Jesse smiled at the photos of her in her track outfits, the shots of her leaning forward as she came across the finish line ahead of the other runners. He liked seeing her with the ribbons and medals around her neck. There was one photo of Tamara—in high school, he guessed—holding a bouquet of roses and standing in between a man and a woman Jesse thought must be her parents. The pride on her parents’ faces was remarkable to see. And for some reason, at that precise moment, he thought of Suit. Jesse laughed at himself. He decided he needed either to start drinking more heavily again or to begin seeing Dix as often as he could.

  “What’s so funny?” Tamara asked, catching Jesse in the act.

  “Me.” He pointed at the photo. “These your folks?”

  “That’s them. Dad’s a gastroenterologist. Mom’s an English professor.”

  “Any smart people in your family?”

  She laughed and then saddened. “They’re both from New York and moved us down to Dallas when Dad went to work at Baylor University Medical Center. They were both so proud of me when I got that ME position back home in New York. Wasn’t really my home. I was little when we moved.”

  She sat behind her desk and Jesse sat across from her.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this,” he said, “but I’m sorry about last night. Jenn and I . . . we can’t ever seem to totally let go even after we’ve let go.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it. I acted like a jealous little girl.”

  He nodded.

  “What I said about us being friends, I meant it, every word, and so far I think we’re really good for each other. But that doesn’t mean that when I’m with you that I don’t want your full attention. No one wants to be treated like a disposable razor.”

  “Okay. I hear you.”

  “Good.”

  He asked, “Are we allowed to go to dinner together?”

  “A date?”

  “Friends don’t go on dates. They just go eat together and split the check.”

  She smiled.

  He smiled back.

  “Where?” she said.

  “Not the Gull.”

  She reached for a pen and a pad, wrote something down, and handed him the sheet of paper. “My place. Friends cook for each other sometimes, too. Eight?”

  He stood. “See you then.”

  65

  John Millner had gotten out of the taxi two blocks away from the marina, paid the cabbie, and, just like he’d been told, walked away from the harbor for a few blocks before doubling back. He thought all the James Bond stuff was a bunch of crap and he was still confused about why them two houses had to get torched. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was to call attention to himself and what they had done all those years ago. He just didn’t see the upside. Still, he had to admit that he liked sticking it to Jesse Stone and that jerk Luther Simpson. He enjoyed the hell out of it.

  But the way he figured it, they got away with what they done to them girls for twenty-five years, and that with Zevon out of the picture, all they had to do was wait it out. They all had bad moments before when the guilt got really intense, but those moments passed. Sure, he felt sick about how that had come down. He always felt crappy about that, they all did, but he couldn’t undo what they done. None of it. None of them could. It wasn’t like in the street games he played as a kid in the Swap. No do-overs in murder, whether you meant it to happen or not. Nobody meant for them to get hurt like that. And Zevon? Well, screw him, he brought that trouble down on his own head. He as much as signed his own execution papers the minute he walked back into town. He had to know that, the stupid bastard.

  The marina was a ghost town this time of year and it was creepier than a freakin’ cell block a few hours after lights-out. You just knew some bad stuff was going down in the dark, but no one dared cry out or call for help. That was the worst part of being inside: the dark. And Millner didn’t like knowing there was water under his feet. He didn’t like the slickness of the planks or the way they swayed to the will of the water. The thought of slipping off the dock and into the icy-cold water scared the hell out of him. He couldn’t swim worth a damn and drowning scared him more than anything. Even now he panicked at the thought of water rushing into his mouth, choking him, his lungs seizing up. He didn’t want to die cold and alone. That was the worst part of what they did to the girls, leaving them in that cold, dirty hole all them years. At least they was together.

  He hoped this wasn’t going to take long, because he had hated boats. Always had. If he hadn’t been so drunk that night, he wouldn’t’ve gotten into that damned rowboat and none of this stuff would be his worry. But he had gotten in that damned little rowboat, Ginny Connolly sitting next to him, taking big swigs of Southern Comfort and gagging, then taking some more in between tokes. Mary Kate sitting behind them, refusing the bottle, passing the joints every time they came her way, asking, like, a million times if Warren was going to be there. You’re sure he’s gonna meet us there? He’s gonna be there, right? If that idiot Alexio hadn’t stabbed her when things got crazy, Millner thought, he would have stabbed her himself just to shut her the hell up about Zevon.

  Millner saw the Rainha dead ahead of him in the dark, its cabin lights lit. Of all the boats he hated, he had a special hatred for the Rainha because it smelled like rancid old fish guts. He laughed to himself, thinking that most of the time Alexio didn’t smell too much better. He tried thinking back to high school, when they played ball together. Did he stink so bad then? He couldn’t remember. It was stupid to look back. That’s all he did when he was inside, look back. There was some stuff he liked remembering, like about the other girls he’d been with and about when they all played ball together.

  That’s what Millner was thinking when he stepped up to the Rainha and a hand came out of the dark to help him aboard.

  “Where’s Alexio?” he asked.

  “He’s below, drunk as a skunk. You know how he gets. Looks like I’ll be skippering our little excursion tonight.”

  Millner shook his head. “Stupid Alexio and his drinking.”

  “You bring the gun?”

  “Yeah, here,” Millner said, handing the revolver over. “I don’t want no part of that thing no more.”

  “I don’t blame you. When we get out a little ways we’ll toss it and the knife into the water. Wash our hands of it all, finally.”

  Millner liked the sound of that. “Good thinking. Be rid of that stuff forever. What’s Dragoa drinking? I could maybe use something, too.”

  “We all could. Do me a favor and untie her. Then go keep Alexio company below while I get us out of here.”

  Millner shrugged. “Whatever, but let’s move it, huh.” Then he carefully climbed back onto the dock, untied the Rainha, and climbed even more carefully back aboard.

  When the Rainha had moved several miles out of the harbor into the Atlantic, Alexio Dragoa and John Millner felt the engines cut back.

  “I got to use the head, man,” Millner said. “Then we can get this stupid nonsense over with and I can get back on land.”

 
Dragoa nodded, so drunk he could barely speak.

  While he steadied himself in the bathroom, Millner heard footsteps on the short staircase that led to the cabin. There was a brief moment of strange quiet, then he heard Alexio slur, “What the fuck?” Less than a second later, the world flipped over. Two shots roared through the Rainha’s cabin and something banged to the deck with a hollow thud. Millner zipped up, flung the door open, and stepped out of the head.

  He opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, but the only sound that came out of him was a gasp. He looked down, not understanding the jolt of pain in his guts—the likes of which he had never felt—nor the sudden weakness sucking the strength out of his limbs. And looking down, he saw Bill Marchand’s hand pulling the knife out of his liver and shoving it back in again and again. Millner looked up at his old teammate and instantly understood that he and Alexio had been set up to take the fall for what the three of them had done.

  Millner tried to clamp his big hand around his old pal’s throat and squeeze, but it was useless. Any strength left to him, his body was using to keep upright. Marchand laughed at him, swatting the maintenance man’s hand away as if it was a mosquito.

  “I hear it really hurts, getting stabbed in the liver,” Marchand said. “I hope it does, you dumb son of a bitch. Before you got here, Alexio told me what you did to Zevon before you killed him. You shouldn’t have beat him with a pipe that way, Johnny. You shouldn’t have done that. He was the best friend I ever had.”

  In his head, Millner’s last word sounded like a scream. It came out a whisper. “Alexio?”

  “Look behind you, moron. You shot him while he was stabbing you. That’s how Jesse Stone will see it, anyway. Really too bad, the way that worked out for you guys. You shouldn’t have turned on each other when you thought the cops were getting close. At least I’m almost out from under. Jesse’s going to find nearly everything he needs to tie up the case with a pretty red bow. Good-bye, Johnny.”

  With that, Marchand stuck the knife into his old friend one last time and pushed Millner to the floor. But Millner wasn’t dead. As Marchand went back up to bring the boat closer to shore, Millner crawled behind him.