The Bitterest Pill

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Shut up and do as I say or I shall surely blow a hole through your throat.”

  The nurse quieted just as the patrol cars stopped at the parking-lot gate, their sirens finally silenced.

  “Sarkassian,” Jesse said, “you can’t get out of here.”

  “Oh, but I will, one way or the other, Chief Stone. The question is who I will take with me. That is in your hands. Now drop your weapon and order your people away from the exit.”

  “Take me,” Jesse said, dropping his nine-millimeter. “Let the nurse go and take me. I’ll toss my cell. My people won’t shoot while I’m in the car.”

  “Do not take me for a fool, Chief. Go to the gate and order your people away. Now!” For emphasis, Sarkassian yanked on the nurse’s hair and put the barrel of his weapon in her mouth.

  Jesse didn’t bother trying to retrieve his gun and walked to the parking-lot gate. Gabe Weathers and John Spellman met Jesse there.

  Before Jesse could speak, Gabe said, “Two hit men killed Brandy Lawton. Suit got one of them.”

  “Dead?”

  “Dead. The other got away. He was driving a white van. Word is out.”

  “Hurry, Chief,” Sarkassian said. “I am not certain the nurse will live much longer.”

  “Deploy your spike strips on either side of the exit. We can’t afford him seeing them as the car pulls out. When the spikes are out, move your cars away.”

  Jesse went back into the lot and walked toward the Camaro, hands raised above his head. As Jesse got within ten feet of the Camaro and the cruisers pulled away from the parking-lot gate, Sarkassian removed the gun from the nurse’s mouth.

  “That is sufficiently close, Chief Stone. Be assured no harm will befall this woman as long as you try nothing foolish. Now step away, please.” When Jesse had walked back ten paces, Sarkassian turned to the nurse and said, “Drive, quickly.”

  She put the car into drive, the tires squealing when she stepped down hard on the gas. The black-and-yellow barrier arm smashed against the windshield as the car barreled through the exit. Turning left out of the lot, there were four barely distinct pop-pop-pop-pops as spikes dug into the tires. The Camaro slowed, but skidded because of the speed and the severe angle of the turn. Sarkassian was thrown against the door. By the time the Camaro came to a stop and Sarkassian had reoriented himself, Gabe Weathers had his nine-millimeter pointed at his head. Officer Spellman had already gotten the nurse out of the vehicle.

  Sarkassian dropped his weapon. He wept as he was laid facedown, frisked, and cuffed.

  * * *

  —

  AT THE STATION, Jesse and DA Malmon sat across from Arakel Sarkassian. The digital video camera was pointed at the prisoner, a yellow legal pad was on the table in front of him, a pen atop the pad. For the time being, the camera was switched off. None of them said a word, but for this once, Jesse wasn’t willing to let silence be his weapon of choice.

  “I have Brandy Lawton in a holding cell, Sarkassian,” Jesse lied. “DA Malmon is in a deal-offering mood today. Isn’t that right, Mr. DA?”

  “It must be the warm weather, but yes.”

  Jesse said, “You are the bigger fish, Mr. Sarkassian, so you get first crack. But if you don’t supply us with a full confession and accounting of the mechanics of your operation, we’ll march from here into Brandy’s cell, and given the fact that she is willing to say just about anything for a Vicodin . . . She may not be able to give us much, but she can sure as hell give us you.”

  Sarkassian laughed. “You need not threaten me, Chief Stone. A man can only drown himself once. I believe I have already accomplished that feat. You may turn on your camera.”

  Jesse hesitated. “First, the name and location of the men in the white van.”

  “Gladly.” Sarkassian smiled. “Sending them away will almost make my sins worth it.”

  After gleefully giving up Stojan and Georgi, Sarkassian explained as much of the network as he could. He explained how they used area doctors and the pill mills to find candidates like Brandy to use for their purposes. He explained how addicts like Brandy were eager volunteers and were willing to do anything to keep their drugs coming.

  “She would find someone like Chris or this Petra, seduce them, and we would exploit their weakness for Brandy to distribute our products. Foolishly, I had let Brandy introduce me to Chris. I helped arrange for him to sell the goods he received in trade with Precious Pawn. I should never have done such things. It was inexperience on my behalf. And then I came to very much like the boy . . .” Sarkassian’s voice faded away.

  He remembered what he had witnessed Stojan and Georgi do to Chris and how they had turned him into a murderer. When he spoke again, any hint of gleefulness was gone from his voice.

  Eighty-two

  Maryglenn was standing on the tarmac at the foot of the small jet’s door ladder. The engines were spinning in earnest, whining. The air stank of spent jet fuel and hot metal. The wind was whipping her hair into her face. Her face was lit on and off and on again by the strobing wingtip lights. Three black Suburbans were parked between the two of them and the hangar. There were six blank-faced special-ops types spread out around the jet. All of them seemed so uncomfortable in their civilian clothes. They looked much more at ease with the M4s held at their chests.

  Jesse was surprised to get the call and had been reluctant to go to the little private airport in Marshfield. Still, one thing therapy and rehab had taught him was to not swallow as much pain as he always had. He’d always been so damn stoic about everything. What he had come to realize was that his Marlboro Man act was not only a defense but a means of intimidation. You can’t hurt me. You can’t touch me. But of course he could be hurt. He hurt a lot, and the tough-guy act only drove the hurt deeper and made it more persistent. Besides, he wanted answers. Jesse always wanted answers.

  “Thank you for coming, Jesse. This is very Casablanca.” She laughed. “The airport farewell, I mean. All we need is Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart, and the usual suspects.”

  Westerns were usually the movies Jesse loved, but he got the reference. He had seen Casablanca. Can’t be a cop in Hollywood and not pick up on movie history, no matter how hard you might try to avoid it.

  “The end of a beautiful friendship,” he said.

  She bowed her head. “Maybe not the end, but at least a temporary halt to things.”

  “Why am I here, Marygl—wait, that’s not your name, is it?”

  She smiled. It was a sad smile. “No fooling you, Chief Jesse Stone.” She held her right hand out to him. “Esther. I can’t tell you my last name. Sorry. I’m sorry for the lies.”

  He took her hand and could not deny feeling the jolt of attraction. That hadn’t simply evaporated. “Nice to meet you, Esther. Very Old Testament.”

  “It was meant to be. Obviously, almost nothing you know about me is true. Well, I have always loved art. Art is the only way I manage to hold on to who I was.”

  “Anything else?”

  She leaned forward, kissing him hard on the mouth. “That is true. I am more than a little in love with you, I think. I don’t even understand it.” She pulled back and studied his face in the strobe light. “I think you may feel the same.”

  Jesse said nothing, but smiled.

  “I do very dangerous work, Jesse,” she said. “I did dangerous work. Important work, and there are some people looking for me.”

  “Bad people.”

  “The worst kind of people and the most dangerous kind. People with revenge on their minds and people with nothing to lose. People who would kill themselves and everyone in Paradise if it meant getting to me.”

  “A new name a new place for you?”

  “There’s a file on the plane and someone to teach me about who I am and will be.”

  Jesse looked past Esther at the jet. There was a man’s head in one of the port
holes. The man was staring back at Jesse. “I’m sorry,” he said. “They probably aren’t pleased about you talking to me this way.”

  “I don’t care. They owe me and I owed it to you. I’m sorry, too, but I can’t risk other people’s lives, especially not yours.” She reached out and stroked Jesse’s face. “If I can ever get word to you, I will. But get on with your life, Jesse. You deserve happiness. I’ll miss you.”

  “I already miss you,” Jesse heard himself say without quite believing it. He really was making progress. “Be safe and take care of yourself.”

  “I promise I will. Enjoy Cole’s party. I wish I could be there.”

  Before Jesse could say anything, one of the special-ops types came and stood between them. He turned to Esther and said she had to go.

  She said, “Give me a second.”

  When Special Ops hesitated, she stepped around him and threw her arms around Jesse. Jesse hugged her tight. When they let go of each other, the special-ops guy told Jesse he had to leave before the jet took off. He did as he was told and didn’t look back.

  Eighty-three

  Jesse had the party for Cole at Daisy’s two nights before he was to enter the academy. It had taken a lot of schedule rigging to allow Suit, Molly, Gabe, Peter Perkins, and their spouses to attend. Still, they managed to do it without the collapse of the Paradise PD. Healy and his wife were there, as well as Lundquist and his girlfriend. Jesse’s AA sponsor, Bill, came. Tamara Elkin, the former ME and Jesse’s friend, came up from Austin to meet Cole and to visit. Jesse had invited Jenn and Hale Hunsicker out of some strange sense of pride and loyalty. He was relieved when they sent their regrets. Hunsicker, being Hunsicker, sent a thousand-dollar gift card along with their regrets. Even Dix had broken protocol to come. But what made his son happiest was that Jesse had flown in Cole’s two best friends from L.A.

  Daisy, who had given Cole a job and welcomed him even before his father had, waved Jesse over. “Nice party. You shocked we pulled it off, Stone?”

  “I guess.”

  “You didn’t invite your girlfriend.”

  Jesse laughed. “She was never my girlfriend, and she’s gone now anyway.”

  “I knew that woman was an idiot. Didn’t she realize what she had in you?”

  “She had her reasons, Daisy. Reasons I agreed with.”

  “She ever tell you why I wasn’t a fan of hers?”

  Jesse shook his head. “No.”

  Daisy didn’t quite believe him. She left it at that.

  It had been a quiet month since Arakel Sarkassian’s capture, but the town was changed by the violence in the streets as it had been changed by the violence and destruction of the old meetinghouse. Though Jesse was at a loss to explain why, he felt these recent events were worse somehow. Maybe, he thought, the trouble with the white supremacists was like a virus that had run its course and gone. Sure, there was damage in its wake, but a form of immunity as well. If that disease came around again, they would recognize it. This was different. There would be no immunity from drugs, only temporary respites. Even now, he knew, there were greedy people in a room somewhere, planning on how to get a supply chain back up and running in towns like his. And though he had a lot to thank Vinnie Morris for, Jesse damned him for being right about the crime that had come to Paradise.

  It was good that all the kids they knew about were in treatment. Petra North as well. The DA had declined to prosecute her. Jesse had no issue with the girl but found it difficult to forgive her father. He couldn’t help but think that if Ambrose North had spoken up five minutes earlier, he could have spared a woman’s life and saved Suit the trauma of killing a man. No one was shedding any tears for the man Suit had killed. He was a murderer, after all. Nor was anyone wringing their hands over Brandy Lawton’s demise, especially not the North family. Yet Jesse understood she was a victim as well as a victimizer. Only an alcoholic or another addict could understand the hunger, the thirst, the ache.

  Jesse knew despair. This wasn’t despair, but it was in the ballpark. Because, in the end, Heather Mackey’s passing would have little meaning in the scheme of things. There would be no one to pay the price. Chris Grimm, Brandy Lawton, and Georgi Lubinov were dead. The one name Arakel Sarkassian had given to the police that might have gotten them to the upper levels of the drug trade led nowhere. A week after the events in Paradise, Mehdi Khora’s bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of a stolen car in Maine, five miles south of the Canadian border.

  If he lived long enough to get there, Sarkassian himself would spend the rest of his life in prison without chance of parole. He had foolishly neglected to mention killing Chris Grimm. When the ballistics reports matched the slugs from the shooting at the hospital to those removed from the Grimm boy’s body, Sarkassian’s fate was sealed. His repeated explanations about having killed Chris Grimm to save the boy from further pain fell on deaf ears. Only Stojan had gotten clear. By the time Lundquist and the Staties got to the warehouse in Helton, the van was a burnt-out hulk and Stojan was nowhere to be found.

  “Hey, Dad,” Cole said, noticing Jesse had isolated himself at a corner of the restaurant. “Why the face?”

  “Nothing. I’m good.”

  “Thanks for this. Thanks for everything. Whose idea was it to fly Paul and Alan in from Woodland Hills?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re happy.”

  “Here, this is for you,” Cole said, handing Jesse a gift-wrapped package. “Before this, I haven’t given you much except a hard time. It’s my way of saying thanks for not giving up on me, on us, even though I was a real prick to you when I got to town. Open it up.”

  Jesse tore off the wrapping and opened the box. Inside was a brand-new glove, the exact model he wore when he played ball. Inside the glove was a baseball signed by Ozzie Smith to Jesse. He hugged his son harder than he’d ever dared.

  “They don’t make these gloves anymore. How did you get Ozzie—”

  “Just say ‘thank you’ and put them on your desk.”

  “Thank you. Now go enjoy the rest of the party. You have some long days ahead of you.”

  As Cole walked away, Suit came toward Jesse. As Molly could read Jesse’s expressions, Jesse could read Suit’s. And what he saw in Suit’s face wasn’t good.

  “I just got a call, Jesse. There’s been a shooting.”

  * * *

  —

  JESSE HAD TRIED to get Suit to stay at the party, but it was no good. Truth was that Jesse was glad to have Suit with him. The address was in the Swap, a small basement apartment in a rickety old house three doors to the left of the Rusty Scupper bar. As they pulled up, they saw the one thing they dreaded seeing: the meat wagon from the ME’s office. This was no longer just a shooting, but murder.

  John was at the tape doing crowd control. As he lifted the tape for Jesse and Suit, he said, “The husband’s in custody. Robbie took him back to the station to book him. We’ve bagged the weapon.” He tilted his head at the short flight of stairs at the side of the house. “She’s down there with the ME.”

  Jesse and Suit gloved up and carefully made their way down the steps. The door was open, and there in the middle of the small living room was Kathy Walters’s body. She was on her back, eyes open, pale, expressionless. Even from where they stood in the doorway, Suit and Jesse could see that she had been shot several times at close range. There were defensive wounds on her hands.

  “The husband had to be in a rage,” Suit said, “to keep shooting her like that.”

  Jesse had nothing to add. Suit was right. But Jesse took no comfort in the fact that this wasn’t the type of crime that had migrated up from Boston. That this was a crime as old as humanity, or at least as old as when humans began confusing love and ownership.

  The ME looked over at Jesse. “I’m almost done here, Chief Stone. Better get your forensics man here.”

  U
pstairs, Jesse called Peter Perkins, explained what had happened, and told him he was back on duty.

  “What do you want me to do, Jesse?” Suit asked.

  “When you get back to the party, get my friend Bill, and have him meet me in there,” Jesse said, pointing at the front door of the Rusty Scupper.

  Suit clamped one of his big hands on Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse brushed Suit’s hand away, walked the few paces to the Scupper’s door, and disappeared.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN BILL GOT there fifteen minutes later, he found Jesse, hand around a tall glass of Johnnie Walker Black, staring into the beautiful amber liquid as if staring into a bottomless pit. Both of them understood that a bottomless pit is exactly what it was.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank the estate of Robert B. Parker, Esther Newberg, Sara Minnich, Katie McKee, and all the folks at Putnam for their support and for giving me this opportunity.

  But none of this would mean anything without the love and support of my family. Without Rosanne, Kaitlin, and Dylan, without their willingness to sacrifice on my behalf, none of this would have been possible. Thank you. I love you all more than I can say.

  About the Author

  Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. Reed Farrel Coleman, author of the New York Times-bestselling Robert B. Parker's Colorblind, has been called a "hard-boiled poet" by NPR's Maureen Corrigan. He has published twenty-eight previous novels. A four-time winner of the Shamus Award, he has also won the Anthony, Macavity, Barry, and Audie awards. Coleman lives with his family on Long Island.