Killing the Blues

by Michael Brandman

  Relieved, Rollo said, “That’s good.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re very welcome, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Call me Donnie,” Rollo said.

  15

  Molly left the Civic in roughly the same spot. Peter Perkins sat in his Chevy. Jesse was in his Explorer.

  The time passed slowly. Jesse was forced to consider the possibility that the parking-lot murder had caused the crime ring to go to ground.

  Then he became aware of the presence of a black BMW sedan. It had already circled the parking lot once and was in the process of doing so again.

  Jesse noticed Perkins slide lower in his seat.

  In the Explorer, Jesse picked up a newspaper and held it as though he was reading.

  The BMW circled the lot for a third time, then slowly descended on the Civic. It pulled to a stop. After several moments, the passenger door opened and a smallish, wiry-looking man got out. The BMW drove away.

  The wiry man produced a thin plastic sleeve, which he inserted between the window and the door frame on the driver’s side of the Civic. Within seconds the door was unlocked and the wiry man was inside the car.

  He took a pair of screwdrivers from his tool kit. He used them to remove the center console. He leaned over and reached inside with both hands. He fidgeted for several seconds. The Civic roared to life.

  The man readjusted himself in the driver’s seat. He looked around to make certain no one was watching. Then he pulled out and drove away.

  Peter Perkins took up his position as the lead pursuit vehicle. After allowing the Civic a brief head start, he followed.

  After several moments, Jesse pulled the Explorer into the traffic flow. He was a dozen car lengths behind Perkins, who was perhaps six or seven lengths behind the Civic.

  The Civic drove east on Paradise Boulevard. At Beach Road, it turned left, heading away from town. Merging with other traffic, Perkins lagged far enough behind so as not to alert the driver to the fact he was being followed.

  Jesse lagged even farther behind. He called Perkins.

  “That you, Jesse?”

  “Yes. Make the turnoff as we planned. Did you call in the BMW?”

  “I did.”

  “That’s good police work, Pete.”

  “Thanks, Jesse. Go get ’em.”

  About a mile up the road, Perkins turned left and abandoned the pursuit. Jesse continued to follow the BMW.

  When it reached Paradise Highway, the Civic transitioned onto it, heading north. Jesse slowed and made the same transition.

  Fewer cars were now on the road. Instinctively, Jesse dropped farther back so as to barely appear in the Civic’s rearview mirror.

  They drove like this for twenty or so miles. Then the Civic turned onto Orchard Road with Jesse a safe distance behind.

  Orchard was a rural two-lane highway. It ran through a heavily wooded area that was home to a number of farms that were set far back from the road.

  Jesse lost sight of the Civic. He slowed and paid particular attention to each driveway he passed. He spotted the tail end of the Civic only moments before it disappeared around the bend of a rutted pathway. He kept going.

  He pulled the Explorer to the side of the road about threetenths of a mile farther on. There was no other traffic. He turned off the engine and called Perkins.

  “Track me, Pete,” Jesse said. “The device is activated. When you find the Explorer, park behind it. Alert the troops, as we discussed. If I don’t turn up before winter, come find me.”

  Jesse got out of the Explorer. He strapped on his service belt and proceeded on foot toward the pathway.

  16

  Jesse stayed close to the shrubbery growing on both sides of the rutted driveway. He moved cautiously, stopping frequently to listen. From a distance he could discern the high-pitched whine of heavy equipment.

  He had traveled about a hundred yards when the driveway widened into an open field. Jesse inched closer to the brush and edged his way along the perimeter of the field.

  Ten yards ahead, he spotted an unpainted barnlike structure with a corrugated metal roof and heavy-duty double doors at each end. The BMW was parked in front.

  Inside the structure stood a hydraulic lift, the kind usually found in a mechanic’s garage. The Civic sat atop the lift. Fluid was being funneled from the car into a giant drum. The seats lay on the ground, having been separated from the body of the car.

  From his concealed vantage point Jesse could see that there was no one in the barn. The only sound was that of the fluids as they flowed from the Civic. He worked his way closer.

  From a door located on the far wall of the barn, the wiry man suddenly emerged and headed for the lift. He checked the progress of the fluid drip, then turned his attention to the seats. He covered his eyes with goggles and switched on an electric saw. He began to remove the seats from their frame.

  Jesse watched for several minutes. The noise of the saw was deafening. He decided to use it as cover.

  He removed the truncheon from his service belt. When he was certain that he wasn’t in the wiry man’s line of sight, he crawled from the bushes and sprinted toward him.

  In a sudden explosion of force, Jesse hammered the truncheon into the back of the wiry man’s head. He dropped the saw and pitched forward.

  Jesse carefully kicked the saw away. He returned the truncheon to his belt. He grabbed the fallen man and dragged him outside.

  He gathered the man’s arms behind him and wrapped them together with a length of plastic wire. He did the same with the man’s legs. He pulled a red-and-white kerchief from his pocket, crushed it into a ball, and stuffed it into the man’s mouth. After making certain the man could breathe, Jesse pulled him into the bushes.

  Jesse returned to the door and stood behind it, hidden, truncheon in hand. He waited. The deafening noise from the saw continued unabated. It finally caught the attention of the man inside.

  The door opened, and the BMW driver stepped through. He noticed the saw on the ground. As he started toward it, Jesse stepped from behind the door and smashed the truncheon into the driver’s neck. He fell, facedown.

  Jesse walked to the electric saw and yanked its plug from the wall socket. He was hoping that at some point his hearing would return.

  He took his cell phone from his pocket, opened it, and hit the speed dial. Peter Perkins answered on the first ring.

  “We’re a go,” Jesse said.

  He knelt down beside the driver and checked his condition. Satisfied, he removed the handcuffs from his service belt and used them to clamp the man’s wrists together behind him.

  He took a blindfold from his pocket and tied it over the man’s eyes.

  He searched the driver’s pockets and found his wallet.

  It identified him as Robert Lopresti, with an address in Fall River, Massachusetts.

  A car approached, wheels crunching the driveway. Perkins and Suitcase pulled up in front of the barn. They got out of the Chevy and looked around.

  “Chop shop, huh, Jesse,” Suitcase said.

  “Looks like it,” Jesse said.

  “Well hidden,” Perkins said.

  “This one’s name is Robert Lopresti,” Jesse said. “He’s ready to go. You take the BMW, Suit. Keys are in it. I’ll look after the other one. Pete, you notify the crew that it’s okay to break this place down. See if they can restore the Honda. Let’s move.”

  Perkins and Suitcase picked up Lopresti and placed him in the backseat of the Chevy. Perkins used his handcuffs to bind Lopresti’s feet together.

  Suitcase got into the BMW. He lowered the passenger-side window and called to Jesse.

  “There’s a child safety seat in the back,” he said.

  “All the better,” Jesse said.

  The BMW fell in line behind the Chevy as they both drove off.

  Jesse pulled the wiry man from the bushes. The man was still groggy but beginning to awaken. Jesse removed the
binding from the man’s wrists and ankles. He also removed the gag.

  He looked in the man’s wallet, and from his driver’s license, made note of the name, Santino Valazza. Also from Fall River.

  Jesse left the barely conscious Valazza to fend for himself, then headed back down the driveway toward his Explorer.

  Jesse returned to the station and slipped into his office. He looked up as Molly entered carrying a cup of hot coffee, which she placed on his desk.

  “Non-precedential,” she said, as she sat down. “You look like shit, Jesse.”

  “It’s amazing how much police work agrees with me.”

  “You’re not too old to consider a career change.”

  “Was there something you wanted, Molly, or did you plant yourself here solely for the entertainment value?”

  “I wanted to see how it went.”

  “So far, so good,” Jesse said.

  “So we stick with plan A?”

  “We do.”

  “You sure about this, Jesse?”

  “Not entirely,” he said. “But it’s better than the alternative.”

  “Which is?”

  “Play by the rules and do nothing.”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” she said.

  The phone rang, and Molly answered it. She handed it to Jesse.

  “Captain Healy,” she said, and left the office.

  Jesse picked up the call.

  “It’s on,” he said.

  17

  The safe house was located in a failing neighborhood on the outskirts of town. A bank foreclosure, it had been unoccupied for months. In anticipation of his need, Jesse had earlier arranged to borrow it with the help of his friend Marcy Campbell, a local real-estate broker, who had an in at the bank.

  A fair amount of preplanning had gone into the alteration of the house. Jesse had worked with Suitcase and Perkins on it, keeping knowledge of its existence to a small need-to-know list. The three police officers had discussed the questionable legality of what it was they were about to undertake. He had offered both Perkins and Suitcase the chance to back out, which they both declined.

  The changes that they made to the house were minimal. They had focused their attention on one small bedroom, the one with an adjoining bath.

  They cleaned the room thoroughly. They placed bars on the outside of the room’s single window. They removed the door and replaced it with one of their own, which had been fitted with a pair of heavy-duty dead bolts. In the bottom half they fashioned a slot large enough so that food trays could be passed through it. In the top half they installed a one-way mirror.

  They removed the shower rod and curtain from the tub. They also removed the towel racks. They stripped the room of anything that might be used as a weapon.

  The furniture in the room consisted of a futon, which doubled as both sofa and mattress. A blanket, a towel, and a bathrobe had been placed atop it. There was also a single straight-back chair.

  They used a generator to power both the bedroom and the room adjacent to it. This they would use as their base.

  Perkins and Suitcase arrived at the house within moments of each other. They parked their vehicles in the multicar garage, from which they could achieve direct access inside.

  Together they lifted the now semiconscious Robert Lopresti from the Chevy. They got him on his feet and walked him to the bedroom. They took him inside.

  They placed him on the futon. First they removed the binding from both his hands and his feet. Then they removed the blindfold as well as the rest of his clothing.

  Satisfied, they took the blindfold and the clothing and left the room. They locked both of the dead bolts behind them.

  18

  The tinkling of the piano keys in the Gray Gull was nearly as soft as the lighting.

  Jesse stared admiringly at Alexis Richardson. She was wearing a close-fitting black dress that emphasized everything. She was drinking an apple martini. He was having a scotch.

  “So then what happened,” Jesse said.

  “I told him that I wouldn’t sleep with him. I said I had earned the grade and that if he refused to give it to me, I would make sure that the dean of students was made aware of certain, shall we say, indiscretions.”

  “And?”

  “I received the grade, and the shithead never bothered me again.”

  Jesse laughed.

  “So you’ve left a trail of broken hearts.”

  “Broken desires, perhaps. Not broken hearts.”

  “Never get too close.”

  “Something like that,” she said.

  “Not breaking the hearts of others might ensure that others won’t break yours.”

  “That’s too deep for me, Jesse.”

  “I rest my case,” he said.

  The waitress brought their dinners. She had the pistachio-crusted salmon; he had steak. They ate slowly.

  “What was it you said? You don’t speak to your ex-wife,” Alexis said.

  “Not for a while.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I found myself enabling her to say things which were hurtful.”

  “Part of her pattern?”

  “Exactly. For the longest time I didn’t recognize it. I thought we were talking about reconciliation. It was what I was hoping for. Somehow I thought it was what she was hoping for, too. I was wrong.”

  “And your shrink helped you to see you were wrong?”

  “When I took the time to actually listen to him.”

  Alexis didn’t say anything.

  “I can at least recognize when I’m not acting in my own best interests,” Jesse said. “Dix once told me I was involved in a conspiracy against myself. It made sense.”

  “Feels good to stop hitting yourself in the head.”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “Are you ever uncertain, Jesse?”

  Jesse thought about that.

  “Professionally, no. Personally, nearly always,” he said.

  “Because?”

  “Things don’t have a tendency to work out well. What about you?”

  “The opposite. I don’t feel uncertain personally, because I know that a real life would conflict with my career.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t have a real life.”

  “And professionally?”

  “Professionally, I’m a mess.”

  “Because?”

  “The world has changed. Your options in this economy are limited. The stakes are incredibly high. Insecurity dogs you. Fear of failure haunts you. Welcome to the me generation.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “Kickboxing helps reduce the tension. Also fills my violence quota.”

  “Your violence quota?”

  “I imagine each lethal blow as an act of violence against authority.”

  “What about a tenderness quota?”

  “I don’t suppose I have one.”

  “Violence without tenderness doesn’t make for a good life balance.”

  “What about you? Are you tender, Jesse?”

  “I was, once.”

  “And now?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  19

  Rollo walked at night. Late. He left the house by way of the back door, never before midnight.

  He walked everywhere and looked at everything. He learned the town. He came to know Paradise as if he had been born there. No one ever saw him. He was invisible.

  He made it a point to study every neighborhood. Every commercial center, park, and harbor.

  He was as familiar with the yacht club as he was with the Midnight Mission. He took note of every school. He especially studied the police station.

  The dark voices were always with Rollo. They controlled him.

  When an unattended dog left outside challenged him, it was the voices that commanded him. Speak kindly to it, they said. Make friends with it. Kill it.

  The voices instructed him to initiate a series
of events that, by design, would serve to unsettle Paradise.

  They informed him that deadly night crimes would frighten people, and by so doing, capture the attention of the Paradise Police Department. And its chief.

  On Rollo’s behalf, the darkness was conjuring a fury that would soon be unleashed upon Jesse Stone.

  20

  In the morning, Jesse went directly to the safe house. He parked his Explorer in the garage and headed inside.

  Perkins and Suitcase were in the second bedroom. It had been outfitted with a pair of army cots, two chairs, and a table. They would be there for as long as it took.

  “Post time,” Jesse said.

  Through the one-way mirror, he could see Lopresti seated on the futon, wearing the bathrobe.

  Perkins called for Lopresti to stand against the far wall with his hands in the air. He unlocked the dead bolts and opened the door. Jesse entered. Perkins closed and relocked the door behind him.

  “Good morning,” Jesse said. “You’re welcome to stand down from the wall and sit if you like.”

  Lopresti lowered his hands. He continued to stand. He looked at Jesse.

  “I know who you are,” he said.

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “Why am I here?”

  “You’re being held,” Jesse said.

  “I realize that. Why?”

  “You have something I want.”

  “Which is?”

  “Information.”

  “What information?”

  “The identity and whereabouts of your employer.”

  “And if I don’t provide that information?”

  “Then you’ll continue to be held,” Jesse said.

  “And if I do provide the information?”

  “Once it’s verified, you’ll be released.”

  “So I’m a hostage.”

  “I’d rather think of you as a prisoner of war.”

  “A prisoner of war?”

  “Mob war. You know, the good guys versus the bad guys. In case you didn’t realize it, you’re one of the bad guys. Captured while engaging in an act of war.”

  “And you’re prepared to hold me indefinitely?”