Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Fair question. How’s Martha doing?”

  “Just a matter of time for her.”

  “Matter of time for all of us, Stu.”

  “She’s got less of it than most,” the newspaperman said, finishing the rye in his glass and pouring some more. He didn’t offer any to Jesse. “If she wasn’t in so much pain, I’d say she was the lucky one. But there I go again, feeling sorry for myself.”

  “Sorry it’s been rough.”

  “Sorry. Yeah, me, too, for a lot of things. You know Edith Piaf, Jesse?”

  “The singer?”

  Cromwell nodded, taking another drink. “She has this song, ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.’ I have no regrets. I wonder if she meant it. Do you think she meant it? You think it’s possible to have no regrets? I wonder sometimes what that would be like, having no regrets.”

  “Everybody’s got regrets.”

  Cromwell laughed, but it was unclear exactly why. “I had a roommate in college, Jeff Rosen. His dad was a rabbi. He told me once that his dad used to say that to live was to have regrets. Do you think that’s true? I guess you do.”

  “What’s going on, Stu?”

  Cromwell ignored the question.

  “Regrets. We all have ’em. Some of us more than others.”

  Jesse asked the question he had asked before. “What’s going on?”

  Cromwell went silent and looked at Jesse as if just realizing Jesse was really there with him. “Why are you here, Jesse?”

  “To keep my word. I’ve got something for you.”

  Cromwell laughed that odd laugh again and tossed some legal-looking papers at Jesse. “The bank’s foreclosing on me.”

  “Sorry to hear it. Isn’t there anything you can do? Can you stall them?”

  Cromwell finished his drink and poured the remainder of the bottle into his glass. “We’ve depleted most of Martha’s inheritance propping the paper up and they’ve already restructured the loans three times. This is the end, das Ende.”

  “What will you do?”

  He laughed. It was a hollow laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll open up a self-defense dojo for broken old men. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Chief,” Cromwell said, an unfamiliar nasty edge to his voice. “I’ve got black belts in jiujitsu and aikido, though I haven’t trained in years. I’m the world’s most dangerous newspaperman . . . ex-newspaperman. Maybe you can use me on the Paradise PD. I hear you’re another man short. Suit okay?”

  “Banged up.”

  “And the other man?” Cromwell asked, unable to turn off his newspaper instincts.

  “Not great. Still unconscious. When are you closing shop?”

  Cromwell looked at his watch. “As of two hours ago.”

  Jesse stood and offered his hand to Cromwell, but Cromwell was off in his head somewhere again.

  “Old men do very foolish things, Jesse. Desperately foolish things. They do things to hold on to the crumbs they’ve accumulated, only to find out the crows have already eaten the crumbs. But you can’t take things back, can you? You can’t undo things once they’re done.”

  “If we could undo things,” Jesse said, “Piaf would be right and Rabbi Rosen would be wrong.”

  “So even though I have no paper to print the story in, let me feel like a newspaperman one last time. Tell me what you came to tell me. Please.”

  “It’s about Maxie Connolly. Doesn’t matter now.”

  Cromwell finished the rye in his glass and with tears in his eyes began singing in French, “‘Non, rien de rien . . .’”

  Jesse closed the door behind him. Even halfway down the stairs, he could still hear Cromwell singing.

  75

  Jesse had a long talk with Ozzie Smith over a few Black Labels. The thing with Suit hadn’t hit him until he was on the way home that evening. He’d taken his usual drive around town, but added a slow cruise along Trench Alley past what was now a cracked concrete slab where the bodies had been found, and a drive up into the Bluffs. With the exception of the detour down Trench Alley, it was the same route he’d taken the night of the nor’easter. That storm had brought more with it than wind and snow. It brought with it the past.

  As he sat in his Explorer on the grounds of the old Rutherford mansion, the place where he’d confronted John Millner the night of the storm, Jesse remembered something he’d once read in a magazine on a long bus trip from Vero Beach to Fort Myers. That’s what you did in spring training, you rode buses to away games. And on those long, boring bus rides, you read or played cards or listened to music. That was a special spring, the spring he’d been anointed, the spring when the GM of the Dodgers told him that if he hit at all in Triple-A, he’d be a September call-up to the big club.

  The article he’d read on that long-ago bus ride was about an almost perfectly preserved P-38 Lightning discovered in the North African desert. It had disappeared in late August 1944 and the military had given up all hope of ever finding it. The article said that this sort of thing wasn’t that unusual. That in the scheme of things, given the enormous scale of Allied air force operations during the war, dozens of planes had gone missing in every theater of battle, the most famous being a B-24D Liberator called Lady Be Good, lost in Libya in 1943 and discovered in 1958. The remains of the crew were discovered miles away from the wreckage in 1960. He remembered that he’d heard about the Lady Be Good even before reading about it. You grow up in Arizona, the home of the airplane graveyard, you hear stories. And the Lady Be Good incident had inspired one of his favorite Twilight Zone episodes.

  The thing about the P-38 that made it different was that it had been buried in a sand dune for forty years and it had been uncovered, finally, by a historically violent sandstorm. Another thing that made it different was that the remains of the pilot, who’d apparently been killed on impact, had been found in the plane. Not only had the plane been preserved, if somewhat flattened by the weight of the dune, but so, too, had the remains of the pilot. He had been sort of mummified by the sands. It was no wonder to Jesse why he should be thinking about that long-ago bus ride and the article he’d read. The parallels were obvious enough. But there was something eating at him. Something about the article that he’d forgotten, that he wanted to remember yet just couldn’t.

  By the time he’d made it home, his mind had turned back to Paradise’s own case of history delayed and his complicated feelings about Suitcase Simpson. Suit had acted with incredible valor, shielding Jameson from Dragoa with his own body. Jesse wasn’t sure he would have reacted as quickly as Suit had. So why had he been unable to bring himself to pat Suit on the shoulder for a job well done? Ozzie Smith was of no help.

  “I don’t know, Wiz,” Jesse said, shaking his head at Smith’s poster. “At least I can get a reaction from Dix. I may have to pinch-hit for you next inning.”

  76

  When he walked into the station, he was surprised to see Molly Crane at the desk.

  “What are you still doing here?”

  “We’re short cops and I could use the overtime,” she said.

  “That’s if I can get any overtime authorized.”

  “You’ll figure something out. I have faith in you.”

  “Don’t you Catholic girls believe faith is only really rewarded in the next life?”

  “I can wait,” she said. “Besides, I would be climbing the walls at home, thinking about . . . you know.”

  “Warren?”

  She nodded. “About that. I think I might be able to track down his brother. I made a few calls to old friends. One thinks he might’ve moved to New York and one says at least one of Warren’s parents might be alive and down in Florida.”

  “Good. Where’s Millner?”

  “Not here,” Molly said.

  “What do you mean he’s not here? Did a judge kick him loose?”

  “He wasn’t at home. And he hasn�
��t been to work for two days. Hasn’t called in. He just never showed up.”

  Jesse clenched. “Damn! He ran.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay. Let everyone know,” he said.

  “Already done.”

  “Healy know?” Jesse asked.

  “First call was to him.”

  “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

  She folded her arms and made a face. “Just one reason?”

  “One or two.”

  Molly said, “Al Franzen called a little while ago. He’s checking out of the hotel tonight and heading home.”

  “Any news on Dragoa or his boat?”

  “Still nothing.”

  “I’m going to go over to the hotel.”

  “I thought you might.”

  Ten minutes later, Jesse was at the Whaler Lounge in the hotel with Al Franzen. Franzen ordered a frozen strawberry margarita and Jesse a Black Label neat. Franzen raised his drink to Jesse. They clinked glasses.

  “To Maxie,” Jesse said.

  “To my Maxie.”

  When he sipped the margarita, Franzen made a sour face.

  “Feh!” he said. “I hate these froufrou drinks, but my Maxie loved them. She loved drinking. She loved anything with alcohol in it.”

  Jesse smiled. “Yeah, I didn’t figure you for a frozen-margarita man.”

  Franzen seemed not to hear. “My Maxie . . . who am I kidding? She was never mine. She wasn’t the type of woman who could ever really belong to any one person. Sometimes I don’t even think she belonged to herself. I hated that about her, but I also loved her for it, too. I’m not making much sense, am I?”

  “You’re making perfect sense.”

  “She was such a restless woman. It’s funny, Jesse, but I can’t imagine even death could tame her.”

  “I only met her once and I know exactly what you mean.”

  “But now she has her girl back and the pain is over with.” He gulped the pink drink. “It is a terrible kind of pain, a grinding, gnawing pain that leaves you empty. Maxie tried to fill it up with . . . I’m repeating myself, aren’t I?”

  “It’s okay, Al. It’s okay.”

  A slender African American man in his early twenties came into the lounge and called out Al Franzen’s name. Franzen waved to him. “Over here.”

  “Mr. Franzen,” he said, “your car to the airport is here. I’ll load your luggage into the trunk, if I may?”

  Franzen slipped him a ten-dollar bill and told him to go ahead. When he’d gone, Franzen got off the bar stool and shook Jesse’s hand.

  “Thank you, Jesse. You’ve been very good through all of this.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss. Maxie was something else.”

  Franzen took a step, then stopped. “I hope you find out who killed Maxie’s girl and the other girl, too. But if you don’t, I’ll understand. Maxie would understand. She knew what I told you the last time we talked. Sometimes the devil wins. It has always been so, I think.”

  Jesse watched Al Franzen make his way through the lobby and vanish behind the night-colored glass of the lobby doors.

  77

  When Jesse stepped out of the shower the following morning it was to a chorus of ringing phones. He chose the landline because it was closest.

  “Jesse Stone.”

  “Morning, Jesse.”

  “What’s up, Molly?”

  “Two things.”

  Jesse asked, “Good, bad, or mixed?”

  “Good. Jameson is coming out of it, but the doctor says he’s not up for visitors yet.”

  “Not even the cops?”

  “Especially not with cops. He’s agitated and confused.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “I got a line on Millner,” she said.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “A little. Then I came in early. Don’t you want to hear what I’ve got?”

  “Sorry, Molly. You were saying you got a line on Millner.”

  “Two nights ago he took a cab from the Swap to over by the marina.”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That Millner hid out on Dragoa’s boat and then they both split after Dragoa tried to run Jameson down.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “It’s them, Jesse. It’s got to be them who killed Mary Kate, Ginny, and Warren. It’s got to be.”

  “Evidence, Molly. Evidence. They look guilty, but looking isn’t being. Wake Peter Perkins up and tell him to get down to the station. Call the DA and get warrants for Dragoa’s house and property, and for Millner’s apartment and for the maintenance shed at Sacred Heart,” Jesse said, walking over to his dresser to retrieve his cell phone. He looked at the message and saw it was from Healy.

  “Anything else, Jesse?”

  “You believe in prayer?”

  “I guess.”

  “Then start praying.”

  He put the phone back in its cradle, toweled off, and got dressed. He went downstairs and put up some coffee before calling Healy.

  “About time you called back,” Healy said.

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  “Our guys found it,” Healy said. “About an hour ago.”

  “The boat?”

  “Yep, the Dragoa Rainha. They found her just a little ways up the coast from you, north of Swan Harbor in a little rocky inlet called Shelter Cove. Blood everywhere, but no bodies.”

  “No bodies?”

  “I was getting to that. Swan Harbor cops found two bodies washed up onshore about two miles north. Male Caucasians tentatively identified as—”

  “Alexio Dragoa and John Millner,” Jesse said before Healy could finish.

  “How’d you know?”

  “I didn’t know, exactly. Molly tracked down a cabbie who took Millner to the marina area two nights ago.”

  “One of my guys has seen the bodies. They still had their wallets in their pockets. He says Dragoa’s got two holes in him and that Millner’s guts look like Swiss cheese. I think your case is finally closed, Jesse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “There’s a confession. Come on up. I’ll meet you there.”

  78

  An hour later, Jesse, Captain Healy, and assorted cops—state and Swan Harbor—stood on the rocks at Shelter Cove, a small wedge-shaped cut-in two miles north of the Swan Harbor town line. If the boat had drifted into the cove at night, it was easy to understand how she’d been missed. In the dark, she’d be nearly impossible to see. Now, ten feet below them, the Dragoa Rainha, secured to some makeshift moorings, bobbled gently in the water. Jesse had never been to Shelter Cove before, but he’d seen a photo of it. He just couldn’t remember where he’d seen it.

  “My guys are almost done in there,” Healy said. “Then you can have a look before the marine unit tows her back to wherever the hell they tow boats to. Jeez, that boat smells of fish.”

  “Fishing boats are like that.”

  “Funny man, Jesse. Funny man.”

  Jesse asked, “Where are the bodies?”

  “On the way to the morgue.”

  “You said something about a confession.”

  Healy smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Jesse scowled.

  “What bug crawled up your nose this morning?”

  “It’s too neat.”

  “You won’t be saying that when you’ve had a gander belowdecks. Looks like the floor of a butcher shop without the sawdust.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Jesse said.

  “Then what?”

  “These two guys, Dragoa and Millner, they weren’t the confessing types.”

  “I don’t know,” Healy said. “A man, any man, carries a bur
den long enough, the weight will begin to drag him under. Maybe that’s what happened here.”

  Jesse shook his head.

  Healy kept at him. “Look, aren’t you the one who’s always saying to follow the evidence?”

  “I am.”

  “Then follow it. You haven’t even seen the damned confession or the shape of the boat.”

  Jesse asked, “Which one of them wrote it?”

  “Millner.”

  “Okay, that’s better. If you said it was Dragoa, I would have called bullshit on that.”

  “Why, the fisherman a man of few words?”

  “Few words that weren’t swearwords,” Jesse said. “Let me see it.”

  “Tommy,” Healy called to one of his men. “Tommy, get me the confession letter.”

  A few minutes later, Tommy handed him an evidence bag. Jesse could read the typed note through the clear plastic. The letter was addressed to him. He read it aloud.

  Cheif Stone

  I guess I shoud start by saying that me and Alexio killed Mary Kate and Ginny all them years ago. Not that it means nothing now, but we didn’t mean to do it. I swear. It just started out as some fun that went bad. Me and Alexio and Ginny was high and shitfaced. That bitch Mary Kate woudnt get high or drink or nothing. If she hadn’t gone all psycho on us, none of this woud of happened. We was all just supposed to go out to Stiles to Humpback Point and have some fun. Ginny Connolly and me kind of had a thing for each other and I asked her to meet me at the park that night and then to go out to Humpback Point with me but she said she woudn’t go out to Stiles without Mary Kate with her. And the only way I could get that bitch Mary Kate to come was to tell her Zevon woud meet us there because she was all hot for him. I figured if Mary Kate had to come along, I woud bring Alexio with me because we was pals. You wasn’t around then, Stone. Zevon is what we used to call Warren Zebriski. We was all on the Sacred Heart hoops team together. Anyways, we get out to Humpback and me and Ginny are getting naked and stuff and Alexio got carried away and started trying to kiss Mary Kate. She was screaming her head off and shit and Alexio ripped her clothes off and forced her. Ginny pushed me off her and went to help Mary Kate. When she tried pulling Alexio off Mary Kate, Mary Kate kneed him. That’s when it got real bad. Alexio lost it and stabbed Mary Kate and kept stabbing her like a million times. Finally I get him to stop but Mary Kate is dead. Then Ginny is freaking out, Stone. Next thing I knew I had a big rock in my hand and Ginny was on the grass there naked and not moving or nothing. Alexio took the rock out a my hand and hit her in the head again. He said we wouda had to kill her anyways. We waited until it was real late and the harbor had gotten emptier. We loaded the girl’s bodies on the rowboat. Alexio said he knew what to do. He knew a place to ditch them that nobody would find them. We rowed to a place Alexios dad told him about. A secret place where you could get into Pennacook Inlet. The rest was easy. That old building on Trench Alley was easy to get into. We scuttled the boat in the inlet. It’s still probably there. We was crazy nervus for a few months then things were cool. Then when Zevon came home that next summer him and me got drunk one night and I got all guilty and confessed. Me and Zevon was tight and he kinda freaked out. I was scared he would go to the cops but he didn’t. He just went away and if he stayed away I woldnt be writing this. But he came back saying he found God and needed to tell what he knew and that he hoped that me and Alexio would go with him and confess our sins. We coudnt do that, so me an Alexio, we done the one thing we had to. We killed Zevon the night of the big storm in the shed. Alexio was ditching his body next to the girls when the building started to go down. He figured he’d come back and get Zevon next morning and dump him out in the ocean but it was too late. Killing Zevon brung it all back to me and I coudnt take it no more. Alexio told me I shud get somebody to burn down the two houses because of DNA stuff you was talking about and to throw you off me and his tails. So I paid a guy I knew a few hundred bucks to do that and get rid a my van. Im going to tell Alexio that I gotta confess. I hope I got the balls to do it. Tell Mrs. O’Hara I didn’t mean it and I guess neither did Alexio. He was just crazy drunk. I think I’ll be telling Maxie Connelly myself soon.