Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  Marchand looked down at him from the top deck. “Good boy, Johnny, keep coming. You always were a dumb bastard, but a stubborn one. Your blood on the stairs will make it look like even less of a setup. When I’m done with you and Alexio, there’ll be just one last detail to take care of.”

  Millner looked up at Marchand, shock taking control of him, his mind failing. He was gripped with fear like he had never felt before, not even after what had happened with the girls on Stiles Island that night. It wasn’t fear of dying. He knew that was coming, soon. It was the fear that Bill Marchand might throw his body overboard or, worse, throw him overboard while he still had some life in him. He couldn’t let that happen, so he gave in to gravity, sliding back down the stairs greased with his dark, almost black blood, and surrendered to the long-overdue bill waiting for him on the other side.

  66

  Tamara Elkin’s condo was in a new development built to look old. It was in Swan Harbor, the village just to the north of Paradise. Swan Harbor was a lovely place with its own rocky beaches and bluffs. It was a little more upscale and a bit snobbier than Paradise, owing to the fact that it was founded when burning witches and handing out scarlet letters were the favorite local pastimes. Tamara’s development was close to the center of town, near enough to the beach to get great views of the ocean. Problem was that most of her unit’s windows faced due west.

  “Too bad the Rockies block your views of the Pacific,” Jesse said, looking out her living room window at the Swan Harbor firehouse.

  “Who says police chiefs don’t have a sense of humor? Wine or scotch?” she asked, holding a bottle of each.

  Jesse pointed at the wine. As he watched the wine pour into the glasses he thought that he should consider moving back into the heart of Paradise. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his house. He did. It was awfully pretty out where he lived—peaceful, too—but it had never quite suited him. He wasn’t lonely, not exactly. While not a total disaster, his experiment with cat ownership hadn’t done the trick. His house was the kind of place to share with a woman and he was less sure now than ever that he would get married again.

  He supposed that if Sunny Randall had been able to extricate herself from her marriage, they might’ve worked together. But she was equally inept at distancing herself from Richie as he from Jenn. Though they still kept in touch, that ship had sailed. He thought about Diana again. They could definitely work. He would be willing to try. The thing was, he didn’t know if she was willing. She made the right noises about it and when they were together that one weekend none of the magic between them had gone away. He wondered if Diana was too independent and too much about the action to be tied to a small-town police chief. Her physical beauty notwithstanding, the things that attracted Jesse to Diana probably made her an unlikely bride. Maybe that’s why he had never fully let go of Jenn.

  Jesse shook his head at himself. All this wondering, all these what-ifs, were new to him. He had never been the type of man to go round and round with himself like this. He’d never been a man to second-guess or to waste too much energy on regret. Then he laughed silently to himself. Jesse had a sneaking suspicion that Dix’s views on these matters would likely differ greatly from his own. He would probably never know, as Dix seemed to delight in not sharing his own feelings about Jesse with Jesse. He could hear Dix’s voice in his head. It’s not important how I feel about it. How do you feel about it, Jesse? Suddenly, Jesse got out of his own head, stopped looking at the wine being poured, and readjusted his eyes to the woman doing the pouring. He just felt very lucky that Tamara Elkin had come to the door.

  “You seem deep in thought,” Tamara said. She handed him his wine and sat down on the sofa next to him. They clinked glasses and sipped. “What were you thinking about?”

  “Luck.”

  “What about it?”

  He shrugged. Tamara moved farther away from Jesse so she could study his expression.

  “What?” he said.

  “You’re an interesting fella, Jesse Stone.”

  “Better than being a dull one, I guess.”

  “Interesting’s not the right word.” She tilted her head as she continued staring. “No, definitely not.”

  He took a long sip of wine and played along. “Then what is?”

  “You’re what my daddy calls a Chinese box.”

  “A Chinese box?”

  “Beautiful on the outside, full of secrets, and impossible to open.”

  “Not impossible,” he said.

  “Certainly not easy.”

  “What fun is easy?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know. Sometimes easy ain’t too shabby.”

  He nodded. “Point taken. Then let’s go back to the beautiful-on-the-outside part.”

  “After dinner,” she said. “Dinner was promised and dinner you shall have.”

  “We can skip a meal if you’re not up for it.”

  “Not this one, Jesse. I’m hungry. Get in the dining room.”

  “Sure, Doc.”

  Jesse stood, wine in hand, and walked to the table. As he walked past Tamara she shook her head at him.

  “A Chinese box, all right,” she said. “A Chinese box.”

  67

  Suit had been happy to once again escape the front desk and didn’t much care how or why. Getting to go into Boston was just an added benefit, and he liked that Jesse had let him take a Paradise cruiser to collect their “guest.” Suit knew he should have been long past the stage where strutting around in his uniform or driving a marked car mattered, but it did. He didn’t think he would ever get over his love of being a cop, though the bullet scars across his abdomen and the last month inside the station house had surely put a strain on that romance. So, too, had the drive from Boston back to Paradise.

  Suit was no Sigmund Freud, but it was easy to see that this Jameson guy he’d collected at the bus station had a few pieces missing from his jigsaw puzzle. His hard blue eyes were very far away and staring at something no one else could see. And it was pretty clear, too, that he was either homeless or most of the way to the street. He smelled of old sweat and smoke, and a razor hadn’t touched his face in months. His beard was ragged, long, and black. His jeans were filthy and the cuffs were frayed to the point of disintegration. His once-beige desert boots were now blackened, scuffed, and held together with layers of duct tape. He wore an equally tattered fatigue jacket that bore the bald eagle sleeve patch of the 101st Airborne and the name JAMESON written across the left side of the chest. Most of the snaps and buttons were missing or broken and the zipper pull was gone. Beneath the jacket he was wearing a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company T-shirt that had to be as old as the movie.

  Although Jameson had saluted when Suit introduced himself, it had taken all of Suit’s golly-gee and aw, shucks charm to get the guy’s rank—corporal—and that was all he got. He wasn’t about to offer up a first name or much of anything else. Getting him into the cruiser wasn’t easy, and even then Suit wasn’t sure that his passenger would stay planted in the backseat. At every traffic light and stop sign, Suit steeled himself, preparing to deal with Jameson if he tried to jump ship. Suit knew that with the cage between the front and back seats and with the back-door security locks in place, it was nearly impossible for a prisoner—or, in this case, a passenger—to escape. But none of that meant Jameson wouldn’t attempt it. Prisoners, the drunk and drugged-up ones, the crazies, sometimes did. They’d try to kick out a window or claw through the cage. It was never pretty and it could be dangerous for everyone involved. Suit finally relaxed a little when they hit the highway.

  He tried to make conversation with Jameson, but had no luck with that. All Jameson did was keep his head on a swivel during the whole ride up to Paradise. Out of frustration, Suit asked Jameson if he’d like something to eat or drink. That usually worked to break the ice with everyone. Jameson was the exception. But when they passed the r
oad sign that welcomed visitors to Paradise, Jameson stopped swiveling his head. He leaned forward in his seat as far as his shoulder belt would allow.

  “Do you know Molly Burke?” he asked.

  It was all Suit could do to keep his concentration on the road. Maybe this guy really was legit, Suit thought, but he wasn’t sure he should answer. When he didn’t say anything, Jameson spoke again.

  “She was very pretty.”

  Suit figured he better say something. “I know a Molly.”

  “Is she very pretty?”

  Suit ignored the question. “How do you know your Molly?”

  It was Jameson’s turn to ignore Suit’s question. “He said Molly was very pretty. The prettiest girl he ever knew.”

  “He? Who’s he?” Suit asked.

  All that did was get Jameson to withdraw. He sat back in his seat and once again began scanning the road from side to side.

  Suit tried to rescue the conversation. “Yeah, the Molly I know is very pretty.”

  But it was no good. Jameson had gone back to that faraway place in his head. When he pulled up to the station, the reporters all rushed the cruiser. Suit called in to get some help, to clear the way, but it was too late. Jameson was in full-fledged freak-out mode, kicking at the street-side back-door window. Suit hopped out of the car, yanked open the roadside passenger door, and grabbed Jameson. The guy may have been a mess, probably twenty pounds too skinny for his frame, but even Suit had a tough time handling him.

  “Listen, buddy, I know this is some crazy stuff going on here,” Suit said in his calmest cop voice, one that let his earnestness and sweetness show through. “But let’s you and me get this over with. Ten, fifteen steps with me leading the way and we’ll be inside. We can do it, man. Just me and you. Let me help you.”

  Suit felt Jameson stop fighting him. He let Suit help him out of the back of the cruiser. Suit closed the cruiser’s door.

  “Ready, Corporal?” Suit asked.

  Jameson nodded, but that was when things went cockeyed. An engine revved, a loose tailpipe rattled, tires screeched. Although it would all take less than a second or two, Suit sensed what was going on, but thought he’d be powerless to stop it. The pickup truck was a blur from out of the corner of his eye. Jameson sensed it, too, and was in the first step of his retreat when Suit threw himself between Jameson and the pickup. The pickup’s front bumper clipped Suit and literally sent him flying into Jameson. Jameson’s head bounced off the cruiser’s front door. Both men crumpled to the pavement, motionless.

  68

  Jesse and Healy paced in opposite directions along the floor in the waiting room, anxious for the doctors to give them something to hang their hats on. At least Suit had pretty quickly regained consciousness, though he wasn’t making any sense. He kept talking about Molly when Jesse asked him if Jameson had said anything of value on the ride up from Boston. Things weren’t looking as bright for Jameson. He was still unconscious when they wheeled him into the ER.

  Healy said, “I’m sorry, Jesse. If I had left my man on the fisherman, this might—”

  “Forget it. All your man would have done is follow him. He wouldn’t have known what Dragoa was going to do and he couldn’t have stopped it. How’s that thing in Framingham?”

  Healy shook his head and made a sour face. “People are such idiots.”

  “Really?”

  “Sarcasm’s not usually your style, Jesse.”

  “Sorry. Okay, I’ll bite. How are people idiots?”

  “The wife put two high school kids up to it. They left a trail a blind man could have followed.”

  “She sleeping with them?”

  Healy nodded. “Of course. Here’s the sickest part. They were friends of her daughter.”

  “It’s been done before,” Jesse said. “Old story.”

  “Yeah, they made a movie about it with Cruise’s ex. You see it?”

  “I like Westerns.”

  “Don’t make many of those anymore.”

  “There’s your answer, then.”

  Healy changed subject. “You’re sure it was Dragoa?”

  “It had to be Dragoa,” Jesse said, a bit of hesitation in his voice. “He did it in front of reporters, cameramen, and photographers. We’ve already got pictures of the truck, tag center of the frame. Trust me, that rusty old piece of crap he drives is unmistakable.”

  “Then why do you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself instead of me?”

  “Doesn’t figure, him doing it like that. It’s as good as a confession that he murdered the girls.”

  Healy shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t figure, but he did try to run your man and this Jameson guy over. No denying that. He probably fell for all the crap you’ve been feeding the press. You say this Dragoa guy’s a real hothead and drinker, right?”

  “Uh-huh. Major-league.”

  “Okay, so he feels the walls closing in on him. He ties a big one on and loses it. Desperate people do desperately stupid things, Jesse. You know that. I’ve heard you say it.”

  Jesse wasn’t convinced. The phone buzzed in his pocket before he could say so to Healy. It was Molly on the phone.

  “We found Dragoa’s pickup in back of the Lobster Claw, but his boat’s gone.”

  “I guess that seals it,” Jesse said, still sounding less than positive about it.

  Molly heard it in his voice. “Come on, Jesse. How many people saw him do it? Anyway, how’s Suit?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “The other guy, Jameson?”

  “Same. We don’t know. Listen, Molly, alert the Coast Guard and the staties’ marine unit.”

  “Little boat, big ocean,” she said. “And Dragoa probably knows every cove and inlet from Maine to New Jersey.”

  “He hasn’t had much lead time.”

  “True. Okay, Jesse.”

  “Molly.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know why Suit would be muttering your name after Dragoa ran him down?”

  She laughed. “Secret long-term crush?”

  “No, that would be me, not Suit.”

  “You’ll make me blush,” Molly said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

  “So you have no clue about why Suit would be talking about you?”

  “Sorry, Jesse.”

  “One more thing. After you call the Coast Guard and the staties, have someone get the names of John Millner’s most recent cell mates. His alibi might be airtight, but I wonder if his old pals can account for their movements on the day of the fires. I think we need to have a talk with the ones that are on the outside.”

  “Should be easy enough to get that info.”

  “Thanks.”

  When Jesse put the phone back in his pocket, Healy tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the doctor coming their way.

  69

  The doctor was in his mid-thirties, but he already had the you-can’t-show-me-anything-new attitude that trauma specialists and veteran cops develop to insulate themselves from the tragedies that surround them. He wore his long brown hair in a rubber-banded ponytail like a biker, but sported a pair of eyeglasses that cost him more than a couple bucks. His blue scrubs were a size too big. What Jesse noticed most of all were his matching blue Crocs.

  “Dr. Crier,” he said, offering his hand to Jesse and Healy. It was a practiced gesture, neither sincere nor insincere. It was just what he did, a part of the ritual. “Your cop is going to be fine. He’s got some pretty nasty bruises and some scrapes. Has he been a recent victim of gunshot trauma?”

  “Uh-huh. About six months ago.”

  Crier was pleased with himself. “I knew it. Anyway, he just needs some rest. I gave him something for the pain and wrote him a prescription. Nothing too strong. Just something to take the edge off. He’s going to be pretty sore for about a week,
but he can go home tonight.”

  “No concussion?” Jesse asked.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Forget it. What about Mr. Jameson?”

  Dr. Crier frowned. “Still unconscious. No skull fractures. Some swelling, but nothing that appears too serious. We hope he comes around in the next several hours. Longer than that and we might have cause to worry.”

  “We’ve already got plenty of that,” said Healy.

  “Excuse me,” the doctor asked, only half hearing Healy.

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, I’ve admitted him. He’s already up in ICU. Check on him in the morning. We should have a better idea of his prognosis by then.”

  Jesse noticed the doctor shaking his head as he spoke about Jameson.

  “What is it, Doc? What aren’t you saying?”

  “Mr. Jameson’s had a rough life. He’s been an intravenous drug user. He’s definitely been wounded in battle. He’s had a lot of work done on his legs and there’s pretty extensive burn scarring as well.”

  Healy asked, “But how do you know he was in the military?”

  “The tattoos. And believe me, I’ve seen battle scars. Those are battle scars.”

  Jesse remembered his own words in describing his John Doe to the press. The tattoo, the intravenous drug use.

  “Doc, does Jameson have tan lines?”

  Both Crier and Healy looked at Jesse like he had suddenly sprouted antlers.

  “That’s a bizarre question,” the doctor said.

  “Humor me.”

  Dr. Crier shrugged. “As a matter of fact, he does. Pretty intense ones.”

  Jesse asked, “Can we see him?”

  “He’s unconscious.”

  “Then he won’t mind, will he?”