Robert B Parker - Stone 4 - Stone Cold

by Stone Cold(lit)

  "Knowledge is power," Dix said.

  Jesse stared at him. Dix's face never showed anything. Jesse folded his hands and sat back in his chair with his elbows resting on the chair arms. The room was quiet. He heard his chair squeak as he shifted in it.

  "But I don't know what she's doing," Jesse said.

  "So you invent it," Dix said.

  "Yes," Jesse said. "I guess I do."

  "How long have you been inventing her life?" Dix said.

  "Always," Jesse said.

  31

  Suitcase Simpson sat very straight in the chair across from Jesse's desk. He was always serious when he reported. Like a kid, Jesse thought, giving a school report on Denmark.

  "Bo Marino," he said, "is around school bragging about how he spent a night in jail. Troy Drake is staying clear of Bo, and Kevin Feeney hasn't been in school for the past three days."

  "You try his house?" Jesse said.

  "Not yet, I wanted to check with you first."

  "Okay," Jesse said. "Go get him."

  "What about Drake?"

  "We don't know that Drake was involved," Jesse said.

  "Candy said..."

  "Candace," Jesse said. "And we didn't get any of this from her, remember?"

  Simpson nodded.

  "And take Molly with you," Jesse said.

  "You think I can't handle this alone?"

  "I've seen you handle worse than this alone, Suit. Molly has a calming effect on parents."

  Simpson looked pleased for a moment, and left. Jesse picked up the phone and called Abby Taylor.

  "You still representing Bo Marino?" he said when she answered.

  "No."

  "Old man fire you?"

  "He didn't get the chance," Abby said.

  "Good for you."

  "File him under life's too short," Abby said. "Are you going to pursue this?"

  "I am."

  "I wish you well."

  "You know who your replacement is?"

  "No, but I'll bet he's a loudmouth," Abby said.

  "No bet," Jesse said. "Want to have dinner some night?"

  There was a pause. Jesse waited.

  Then Abby said, "Of course I would. I have always felt bad about the way we, ah, ended."

  "Gray Gull?" Jesse said. "Tonight?"

  Again the pause. Again Jesse waited.

  "Absolutely," Abby said. "I'll meet you there." "Good," Jesse said and hung up.

  He leaned back against his chair and looked up at the ceiling for a time. See if I can stay sober.

  32

  Simpson brought Kevin Feeney in with his mother and father. When they were seated in Jesse's office, Simpson left and closed the door behind him. Kevin's face was pale and he swallowed often. His freckles stood out starkly.

  "Kevin says he doesn't know why you arrested him," Kevin's father said.

  He was a smallish man with thinning red hair and a somewhat unsuccessful mustache. Mrs. Feeney had long gray hair. Her flowered dress was large and shapeless.

  "Actually," Jesse said, "we haven't arrested him. We have asked him to come in and answer some questions."

  "About what," Mr. Feeney said.

  His voice cracked a little. Jesse took a copy of one of the photographs from a folder and slid it across the desk. Candace's face had been blacked out.

  Mr. and Mrs. Feeney looked at the picture. Kevin did not.

  Mrs. Feeney said, "Oh my God, Kevin, is that you?"

  Mr. Feeney continued to stare at the picture. Jesse waited quietly.

  After a time Mr. Feeney said, "Who's the girl?"

  Jesse didn't say anything.

  Mrs. Feeney said, "Kevin?"

  Kevin looked at the floor.

  "Kevin," Mrs. Feeney said. "Who is that girl?"

  Kevin kept looking at the floor. He shook his head.

  Mrs. Feeney looked at Jesse. "Who is she? Why is her face blacked out?"

  "No reason to humiliate her more than necessary," Jesse said.

  "But how can we help if we don't know who she is?"

  "Kevin probably knows," Jesse said.

  "Goddamnit, Kevin," Mr. Feeney said. "Who is she? What's going on?"

  Kevin huddled up tighter into himself and stared harder at the floor. Both parents looked at Jesse.

  "What's going to happen?" Mrs. Feeney said to Jesse. "He's not a criminal, you know."

  "We have a picture of him forcibly restraining a naked young woman who is crying," Jesse said. "There's probably a crime in there someplace."

  "How can you tell she's crying," Mrs. Feeney said.

  "I've seen the full picture," Jesse said. "Face and all."

  "I don't know what to do," Mr. Feeney said. "Should I get a lawyer."

  "You won't need one until we arrest him," Jesse said.

  "Arrest?" Mrs. Feeney said. "How can you arrest him? He's a child, for God's sake."

  Jesse got up and walked around his desk and sat on the corner of it in front of Kevin.

  "Who took the picture?" Jesse said.

  Kevin stared at the floor.

  "Did you rape this girl?" Jesse said.

  Without raising his eyes, Kevin said, "I didn't do nothing."

  Jesse let out an audible breath.

  "This isn't skipping school, Kevin, or smoking a joint," he said. "This is jail time."

  "Oh my God," Mrs. Feeney said. "Oh my God."

  "I say there are three of you," Jesse said. "You holding her hands, somebody else taking the picture, and a third party, off camera, holding her feet."

  "I didn't do nothing."

  "Do you know Bo Marino?" Jesse said.

  Kevin nodded. He looked as if he might collapse in his chair.

  "Did he take these pictures?"

  "I don't know."

  "We found them in his possession."

  "I don't know."

  "Was someone holding her feet?"

  "I don't know."

  "Who was holding her feet."

  Kevin began to cry.

  "I don't know," he said. "I don't know anything."

  "Don't yell at him," Mrs. Feeney said. "Leave him alone."

  Jesse nodded slowly.

  "Okay," he said. "Kevin Feeney, you are under arrest for sexual assault."

  "No," Mr. Feeney said.

  "You have the right to remain silent," Jesse said. "Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law."

  "Wait a minute," Mr. Feeney said. "Wait."

  "You have the right to an attorney to assist you prior to questioning and to be with you during questioning if you so desire."

  "Don't arrest him," Mrs. Feeney said.

  "There must be something we can work out," Mr. Feeney said.

  "If you cannot afford an attorney you have the right to have one appointed for you prior to questioning."

  "I don't know a lawyer," Mr. Feeney said.

  "One will be appointed," Jesse said. "Do you understand these rights, Kevin?"

  Kevin was crying noisily.

  "Am I going to jail," he said.

  "At least until a judge sets bail," Jesse said.

  "Mom," Kevin said.

  "Oh God, Kevin," she said.

  "If he tells you?" Mr. Feeney said.

  "I might not arrest him."

  "Tell him, Kevin."

  "I can't rat out my friends."

  "Do you want to go to jail?" Mr. Feeney said. "Tell him, for crissake."

  "They'll be pissed at me," Kevin said.

  He was able to speak briefly, between sobs. Jesse picked up the phone.

  "Molly, you or Suit come back here."

  Almost at once, Simpson opened the door.

  "Take Kevin down to a cell and lock him up," Jesse said. "Then call the public defender's office, tell him the kid needs a lawyer."

  Simpson put a hand under Kevin's arm.

  He said, "Come on, kid."

  Kevin was crying loudly. Mrs. Feeney was crying just as loudly. Kevin's father stood and leaned over
his son.

  "Was it Bo Marino?" he shouted at him.

  "Yes," Kevin said.

  Simpson paused and looked at Jesse. Jesse made a wait-a-minute gesture.

  "Who else," his father shouted at him.

  "Troy."

  "Troy Drake?"

  "Yes."

  "Maybe you'll sleep at home tonight," Jesse said.

  33

  Kevin had stopped crying. He was drinking a Coke.

  Jesse said, "Who's the girl, Kevin?"

  "Candy Pennington," Kevin said. "You'd have found out anyway."

  "What happened?" Jesse said.

  Kevin looked at his mother. No one said anything.

  "It was Bo, really," Kevin said. "Me and Troy just went along."

  Jesse nodded and waited. Kevin looked around. No one said anything.

  "She was such a freakin' brownnose," Kevin said.

  "Kevin!" his mother said.

  He didn't look at her.

  "Well, she was," he said. "She was always sucking up to the teachers. Always acting like she was better than anyone else."

  Jesse waited. Kevin drank his Coke and didn't say anything more. The room was still.

  "So you thought you'd take her down a peg," Jesse said.

  "Yeah. Exactly. Bo said we should take her out in the woods and pull her pants down."

  "Oh, Kevin," his mother said.

  "Embarrass her, you know. Maybe take a picture of her."

  Mr. Feeney had his head tilted back against his chair. His eyes were closed.

  "My God, Kevin," Mrs. Feeney said.

  "You're not helping, Mrs. Feeney," Jesse said. "Let him tell his story."

  Mrs. Feeney clenched her hands together and pressed them against her mouth. Kevin wouldn't look at her.

  "Bo told her a bunch of us were hanging out there, partying, you know. So she goes out there with us and we, you know, did it."

  "What was 'it'?" Jesse said.

  Mrs. Feeney made a little moaning sound into her clenched hands.

  "You know, had sex. I mean we wasn't going to, we was going to just, like, look at her. But then Bo said we'd gone this far and what the hell. And then he got on top of her."

  "And had sex with her?"

  "Yeah."

  "And you?"

  "Yeah, I went second."

  Mrs. Feeney moaned again. She was rocking slowly in her chair. Mr. Feeney neither moved nor opened his eyes.

  "And Troy Drake?" Jesse said.

  "He went after me."

  "He had sex with her?" Yes.

  "And how did she feel about this?" Jesse said.

  Kevin shrugged.

  "I don't know," he said.

  "How did she act," Jesse said.

  "She was crying," Kevin said. "When Bo did it she tried to push him off, but she couldn't."

  "Did she say no?"

  "I guess so, she was yelling help and stuff."

  "And with you?" Jesse said.

  "She just laid there," Kevin said.

  "Was she still crying?"

  "Yes, but that's all. It was like she decided to go along with it."

  "She have any other options?" Jesse said.

  "I don't know."

  "So then what happened?"

  "Troy did her. Then we held her down while Bo took her picture. Bo told her if she said anything we'd show everybody in school the pictures."

  Mrs. Feeney continued to moan and rock. Mr. Feeney continued to sit immobile with his head back and his eyes closed.

  "I'm really sorry," Kevin said. "Mom, I am. I'm sorry."

  "I tried," Mrs. Feeney said into her clenched hands. "I tried and tried to teach you to respect women. Didn't I? Didn't I drum that into you since you were little. To disrespect one woman is to disrespect us all. In shaming that poor girl, you shamed me."

  Mr. Feeney opened his eyes, and without lifting it, he turned his head toward his wife.

  "You know, Mira," he said. "This really is much more about Kevin and that poor girl than it is about you."

  "Oh, God," Mrs. Feeney said and pressed her hands to her face again and began to cry.

  Jesse reached over and shut off the tape recorder.

  "I'm going to have that transcribed," Jesse said. "Then I will ask you to sign it."

  "Okay."

  "Mr. Feeney, you'll need to sign it too, I think, since Kevin is not of age."

  Feeney nodded.

  "If he testifies against the other boys," Mr. Feeney said, "can he get a break?"

  "When you have a lawyer," Jesse said, "your lawyer and the DA can negotiate that."

  "Will you put in a word for him?"

  "Yes."

  "He's never been in trouble before," Mrs. Feeney said.

  "And now he is," Jesse said.

  "But he won't have to go to jail?"

  "Mrs. Feeney," Jesse said. "He participated in the gang rape of a sixteen-year-old girl. He'll have to answer for that."

  "Oh, my God," she said and cried harder.

  34

  Jesse's condo was only a block away from the Gray Gull, and they walked to it after dinner. There was a hard wind off the harbor and Abby put her arm through Jesse's and pressed against him. Inside the condo Jesse poured them each a Poire Williams and they stood at the glass slider and looked out past his deck at the dark harbor. There was a storm coming up from the southwest and the water was restless.

  Abby turned so that she could look up into Jesse's face. She had drunk two Rob Roys before dinner, and they had shared a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

  "You look tired, Jesse."

  "Busy time at the office," Jesse said.

  "I know," Abby said. "How many television interviews have you done?"

  "Many."

  "And you always say it's an ongoing investigation and you can't discuss it."

  "I know."

  "I suppose they have to keep asking."

  "It's sort of news manufacturing," Jesse said. "They do a stand-up in front of the police station and interview me, and ask me things like, have you caught the killer. And I say no. And they say, this is Tony Baloney live in Paradise, now back to you, Harry."

  Abby smiled.

  "It's not quite that bad," she said.

  "I suppose not," Jesse said. "Sometimes they just ask if there are any developments."

  "Are there?"

  "Sure. We know that there were two twenty-two-caliber guns involved."

  "Two?"

  "Un-huh. And we think he, she, or they drives a Saab sedan. And we speculate that he, she, or they lives in Paradise."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  "Any connection among the victims?"

  "Not that we can find."

  "You think the killings are random?"

  "Don't know. For all we know, he, she, or they had a reason to kill one of the victims, and killed the others just to make us think it was random."

  "If that were the case," Abby said, "maybe the killings have stopped."

  Jesse shrugged.

  "Do you have a guess?"

  "I try not to," Jesse said.

  "Sure, but you're not just a cop," Abby said. "You are, after all, also a person."

  "I'm better at being a cop. And it's best if cops don't hope."

  Abby was quiet for a moment. There was a break in the cloud cover and the moonlight shone briefly on the harbor, where the whitecaps were breaking, and the boats tossed at mooring. She sipped a little of the pear brandy. It was so intense that it seemed to evaporate on her tongue.