Robert B Parker - Stone 4 - Stone Cold

by Stone Cold(lit)

  "Excuse me, ma'am," Anthony said.

  She turned and took the gun from the shopping bag and shot him in the forehead. As Anthony went down, one of the men from the elevator stepped up and took the woman's arm. He was wearing a leather jacket and a long-billed low-crowned baseball hat.

  By the time Anthony hit the floor the man and woman were walking firmly past him and out the front door of the mall. As they reached the parking lot several people pushed past them, running toward a Paradise Police car. The people crowded around the car, all talking at once to Eddie Cox and gesturing toward the mall. The man and woman passed the crowd and got into a rented Volvo, and drove quietly away.

  64

  Jesse sat with Healy in the front seat of Healy's unmarked car.

  "We found their other clothes in the washrooms," Healy said.

  "Had the change of clothes in the shopping bags," Jesse said.

  "Maybe you should have asked for help," Healy said.

  "We had all the exits covered," Jesse said.

  "Which means they walked right past one of your guys."

  "Simpson and I were the only ones really knew what they looked like," Jesse said.

  "If you'd brought us in..." Healy said.

  "You wouldn't have known what they looked like either."

  "True, but we might have had more people at the elevator."

  "And your people couldn't have started shooting," Jesse said, "any more than Anthony could. There were eight or ten people coming off that elevator."

  "And he was probably a little less cautious because it was a good-looking broad," Healy said.

  Jesse shrugged.

  "Whether it would have gone better if you'd invited us in," Healy said. "It couldn't have gone worse."

  "No. One of my guys is dead, and the Lincolns are gone."

  "You're sure it was them," Healy said.

  "It was them."

  "You recognized them."

  "It was them."

  Healy nodded and didn't speak for a moment.

  Then he said, "We're covering their condo. Their Saab is still in their parking lot."

  Jesse nodded. "Maybe a rental," he said.

  "We'll be checking the rental agencies, but it's," he glanced at the digital clock on his dashboard, "two twenty-six in the morning."

  "If they used their own names," Jesse said.

  "Have to show a credit card."

  "These are people who could have had a whole other identity waiting around in case they needed it," Jesse said.

  "Want to go take a look at their home?" Healy said.

  "Warrant?" Jesse said.

  "Already got that covered," Healy said.

  "Why you get the big bucks," Jesse said. "First I have to go see Betty deAngelo."

  "The widow?" Healy said.

  Jesse nodded.

  "Lucky you," Healy said.

  "She has five kids," Jesse said.

  "Hard," Healy said.

  Jesse nodded.

  "I'll meet you at the Lincolns' condo," he said.

  Jesse got out of the car and walked across the empty parking lot to where his car sat alone near the east entrance of the mall. Behind him Healy's car drove away. Healy was right, Anthony would have hesitated before shooting at a good-looking woman. And Healy was probably right about including the state cops. Jesse should have brought them in. He didn't have enough people. He had more people, maybe it wouldn't have been Anthony. Maybe it wouldn't have been anybody. Maybe they'd have caught the Lincolns. His footsteps were loud in the empty darkness. Maybe he overestimated himself and his men. Maybe thinking about it wasn't useful. He unlocked his car and got in and started it up. The headlights underscored how still and abandoned the parking lot was. He put the car in gear and drove.

  He didn't know the names of any of Anthony's children. There was probably an Anthony Junior. He hoped the children wouldn't be there when he had to talk with Betty.

  65

  When Jesse got to the Lincolns' condominium at 4:15 in the morning, the state crime-scene people were beginning to wind down. A couple of state homicide detectives were poking about.

  "Talk to the widow?" Healy said.

  Jesse nodded. Healy nodded with him.

  "You ever see the den, here?"

  "Lot of equipment," Jesse said.

  "Take a look," Healy said and walked with Jesse into the den.

  On the computer screen was a candid head shot of Jesse that looked as if it had been taken when he was leaving the Paradise Police Station. The picture had apparently been cropped and blown up so that the background was hard to be sure of.

  "We found it on the screen just like this when we came in."

  "They thought I'd be dead," Jesse said.

  "Yep."

  Healy turned and called into the living room.

  "Rosario."

  One of the crime-scene technicians came into the room.

  "Run these pictures through," Healy said.

  Rosario looked at the picture on the computer screen, and then at Jesse.

  "Captain's afraid of computers," Rosario said.

  "I can't even download porn," Healy said. "Run them."

  "Yessir, Captain," Rosario said and clicked the mouse.

  A picture of Abby Taylor came up. Rosario clicked again. A picture of Garfield Kennedy. Click. Barbara Carey. Click. Kenneth Eisley. Click. Back to Jesse.

  "They're all blowups of candid shots," Rosario said. "One of those digital cameras. You plug it into the computer and process it however you want."

  "And my picture was on the screen just like that when you came in?"

  "Yep."

  "Anything else interesting?"

  "On the computer?" Rosario said. "Nothing I can find. But maybe the guys in the lab..."

  "Make sure you don't lose anything," Healy said, "when you shut it down."

  Jesse went back to the living room with Healy.

  "Anything else interesting?" Jesse said.

  "Place is immaculate. No sign of flight. Clothes, toothbrushes, hair spray, all in place. Checkbooks show money in the bank. Couple credit cards in the drawer. Food in the refrigerator. Expiration dates suggest it was bought recently. Concierge doesn't remember them leaving yesterday. But you can take the elevator from their place direct to the lower level, and go out the side door to the parking lot."

  "Why are the pictures on the computer screen?" Jesse said.

  "I know," Healy said. "It bothers me too."

  "It incriminates them," Jesse said.

  "Decisively," Healy said.

  "So why display them?"

  "They didn't expect us to be here?" Healy said.

  "Or they did."

  Healy walked to the window and looked out. There was nothing to see but himself and the room reflected in the night-darkened glass.

  "They wanted us to know?" Healy said.

  "Maybe."

  Jesse walked over and stood beside Healy, staring at the darkness.

  "So how did they know we'd be here?" he said.

  "They had no reason to think they wouldn't kill me," Jesse said.

  "And if they had killed you," Healy said, "they had no reason to think we'd suspect them."

  "But they left what amounts to a confession in plain view," Jesse said.

  "To five murders," Healy said. "Or so they expected."

  Behind them the specialists were packing up.

  "We're about done here, Captain," Rosario said.

  Healy nodded. He spoke to one of the detectives.

  "Leave a couple of uniforms here," he said. "Case they come back."

  "I'll stay a while," Jesse said.

  "Sure," Healy said. "You want to be alone?"

  "Yeah."

  "I like to do that too," Healy said. "Sort of listen to a crime scene. By myself."

  "Something like that," Jesse said.

  "Okay. Paulie," Healy said to the detective. "Tell the troopers to stay in the vestibule until Stone leaves."


  When everyone was gone Jesse stood in the thick silence and looked slowly around the room. The place had been measured, searched, photographed, inventoried, dusted. The computer had been removed. He walked to the bathroom. Two toothbrushes stood in holders. A barely squeezed tube of toothpaste for sensitive teeth lay on the counter. The soap in the soap dish was new. A full bottle of shampoo stood on a shelf in the shower stall beside a fresh bar of soap. On a shelf above the bathroom sink were matched jars and tubes of makeup, all barely used, all in order by size and shape. The bed seemed freshly made. He turned back the spread. The sheets seemed newly washed and ironed. He opened bureau drawers. Tony's shirts were carefully laid out by color, still in their transparent envelopes from the cleaner. His socks were rolled. Brianna's bureau was equally immaculate. The kitchen was spotless. The counters were washed. The refrigerator was clean and organized. A place for everything and everything in its place. The dining room table was set with good china. The whole place looked as if they were expecting company... They were. That's why they had left the evidence displayed. A farewell. See how much smarter we are than you are. They would simply disappear and, in time, someone would notice they were gone, or maybe there would be an anonymous tip. And the cops would come and there would be the confession on the computer screen. They had never planned to come back. And they were too compulsive to leave the place un-immaculate for the company to see. Even had they successfully killed him they were moving on. He was to be the final triumph.

  Here.

  66

  Jesse talked to the press the next morning on the front steps of the Paradise Police Station. Yes, a Paradise police officer, Anthony deAngelo, had been killed last night. Yes, they had identified two suspects: Tony and Brianna Lincoln. No, they did not know the whereabouts of the suspects. Yes, the search was continuing. When they had asked all the questions Jesse could stand to hear, the news conference ended and Jesse went inside.

  Molly nodded toward his office.

  "Jenn," Molly said. "She came in the side."

  Jesse nodded and walked into his office. Jenn was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking through Jesse's side window at the turmoil of media that surged around the front lawn of the police station. Jesse closed the office door behind him.

  "Hi," he said.

  "Hi."

  Jesse went around the desk and sat in his chair. Jenn shifted on the edge of his desk so she was looking at him, her right leg resting on the ground, her left draped over his desk,

  "Are you okay?" she said.

  "Physically? Sure," Jesse said. "Small caliber, good vest."

  "Still, someone tried to kill you."

  "I know."

  "And they did kill one of your men."

  "Yes."

  "And they got away," Jenn said.

  "So far," Jesse said.

  Jenn was quiet for a moment.

  "You must feel awful," she said.

  "I try not to feel too much," Jesse said.

  "How's the drinking?" Jenn said.

  "I don't drink anymore," Jesse said.

  Jenn nodded.

  "Did you have to tell Anthony's family?"

  Jesse nodded.

  "His wife," Jesse said.

  "Was it bad?"

  "Yes."

  "And you're sure you don't feel awful?" Jenn said.

  Jesse shrugged and looked out the window at the press scrum.

  Then he took in some air, and looked back at Jenn and said, "Yes. I guess, in fact, I do."

  "Of course you do," she said. "May I say something?"

  "If I said no, you'd say it anyway."

  Jenn smiled.

  "Yes," she said. "I suppose I would."

  She paused and pressed her face for a moment into her semi-cupped hands and rubbed her eyes, as if she were very tired. Then she raised her head and took a breath.

  "I am very sorry I tried to impose upon our relationship to get a break on this serial killer story," she said. "You didn't need that. You shouldn't have had to address that. I was wrong and stupid to ask."

  Jesse smiled faintly.

  "Wrong and stupid?" he said.

  "Yes. I was thinking only about myself. I should have been thinking about you. I'm very sorry."

  Jesse said nothing for a time.

  Then he said, "Thank you, Jenn."

  "You're welcome."

  She was wearing perfume. Her hair was well cut and perfectly arranged. Her makeup was bright and expert. Her clothes were very immediate. There was a kind of physical brightness about her that was just short of flamboyant.

  "Would you like to talk about it?" she said.

  "Off the record?"

  Jenn hung her head a little.

  "I'll never tell anyone," she said, "what you say to me unless you ask me to."

  Jesse smiled at her.

  "Besides," he said. "You don't even have B-roll for this."

  Jenn smiled back at him.

  "Hell," she said. "All there is in this case, is B-roll."

  "There's two of them, husband and wife. Their goal was to kill me, but I was wearing a vest. We tried to trap them at the shopping center but they killed Anthony and got away in the crowd. Probably should have brought the state cops into it, but coulda, shoulda. We searched their condo, found a computer with my picture on it and, in the sequence of their deaths, the other victims."

  "Like a confession," Jenn said.

  "Seemed so. The apartment was empty. No sign of flight, but no sign of them returning either. Their car is still in the garage. They probably had a rental. Staties are checking that now. My guess is that these people have already prepared another identity and the Staties won't find anybody named Lincoln renting a car."

  "So you think you were going to be the pièce de résistance?" Jenn said.

  "Yes."

  "And they planned to disappear after they shot you?"

  "Yes. The house is anally cleaned for us. The pictures on the computer are waiting for us to find them. See how much smarter we are than you shitkickers."

  "And you don't know where they went," Jenn said.

  "No idea."

  "How did they get to the car?"

  Jesse stared at her.

  "They had to pick up the rental car," Jenn said. "How did they get there?"

  "How did they get the car," Jesse said.

  67

  "Maybe one of them drove the other one over," Simpson said. "To get the rental car."

  "Did they stash the rental at their condo?" Jesse said. "After they picked it up?"

  "Where?" Simpson said. "All the parking spaces are assigned. If they put it in somebody else's spot it would draw attention."

  "Which they don't want to do," Jesse said. "Maybe on the street?"

  "It's a tow zone on both sides of the road," Simpson said.

  "Side road."

  "In theory," Simpson said, "that's resident parking only."

  "How often do we enforce that?"

  "Not often," Simpson said.

  "But they don't know that," Jesse said.

  "So anything they did with the rental car would risk drawing attention, which, obviously, they needed to avoid."

  "Or they parked it at the mall, earlier in the day," Jesse said. "And took cabs."

  Simpson said, "You think they're dumb enough to take a cab?"

  "They think they are brilliant," Jesse said. "And they think we're stupid."

  "So they could have."