After the waitress left, Salter made a face. “I wouldn’t use the commode in this establishment, let alone drink coffee from one of its cups.”
“Toilet’s probably cleaner,” Monty said, “but we had to order something.”
—
Around the corner from Burt’s, Joe Breen pulled Mike Frazetta’s Caddy to the curb to drop off Vic Prado.
“How will you get back?” Joe asked.
“I’ll get a cab or something.”
“Seems wasteful to me.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“I don’t trust these fellas. I should be there in case—”
“Enough, Joe,” Vic said. “We’ve been over this like three times already. You have Salter’s son and they know you’re just as likely to kill him as let him go. You proved that by murdering the girl. They’re going to do as they are told. Papers will be signed. After it’s done, I will call you. Then you can let the kid go.”
“I’ll not let the lad go until Mike gives me the say-so.”
“Fine. Fine. Whatever,” Vic said. He slammed the Caddy’s door shut and walked quickly around the corner.
Through Burt’s glass front, Monty Bernstein spotted Vic Prado. He had never met Prado before. Harlan’s previous dealings with Prado either had been just between the two of them or had been done in the presence of one of Salter’s corporate attorneys. Now that things had moved from the business suite to the sewer, Monty was on hand. Monty, a pretty fair high school pitcher himself, was a little embarrassed by the fanboy jolt he got at seeing Prado. He hoped it didn’t show.
But Salter had noticed something as he tapped his unlit pipe against the table. “What’s the matter with you?”
“This coffee,” Monty said. “You were right. It’s terrible.”
Harlan opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by Vic Prado.
“Gentlemen,” Prado said. He held his right hand out.
Monty took it. “Monty Bernstein.”
“Vic Prado,” he said, his handshake firm. “You’re the lawyer, right?”
“I am.”
Prado wasn’t foolish enough to offer his hand to Harlan Salter.
“Sit down,” Salter said to Prado, pointing at the empty spot next to Monty. “Let’s get this distasteful business over with so I can get my son back and we can move on. As little time as I have to spend in your odious presence, the better.”
“Look, Harlan, I understand your being upset, but I want you to know I had nothing to do with that ugliness. If it had been up to me—”
“Ugliness!” Salter slammed his pipe down on the table. “Your associates murdered a young girl in cold blood and have done God knows what to my son.”
Vic smiled across at Harlan. “Trust me, your boy is fine.”
“Of what value are your assurances?” Salter said.
Vic shrugged. “Look, Harlan—”
“I would caution you to never refer to me that way again, you murderous coward.”
Prado turned red with anger. He pulled a thick white envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it into Monty Bernstein’s lap. “That’s fine with me, you self-righteous prick,” he said to Salter. “From now on I’ll just refer to you as partner. Everything you need to sign is in that envelope. Our stuff is already executed and notarized. When we get what we need back from you, you’ll get your kid. But only then.” He stood and leaned his face close to Harlan Salter’s. “And if you want to lay the blame for the girl, partner, look in the mirror. You could have prevented that just as easily as anyone else.” He turned back to Monty. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bernstein. The quicker we get those papers back, the quicker he gets his kid back.”
Harlan Salter’s face was still a twisted red mask thirty seconds after Prado had left Burt’s. It was another thirty seconds until he could speak. And when he spoke, he said, “Him, too, Bernstein. I want him to watch and then I want him to suffer.”
“I figured you might feel that way. It’s already been seen to.”
“Well done, but not until—”
“I understand,” Monty said. “Not until your son is safe.” He held the envelope up. “And speaking of that, we better get these documents fixed up and delivered. Then you can have your son back and get some satisfaction.”
Monty threw a ten-dollar bill on the table and followed Harlan Salter out of Burt’s All-Star Grill.
31
Gabriel Weathers sat in his wife’s beat-up Honda Civic, wishing he’d stopped for coffee before heading back over to the Osprey Inn to keep an eye on Harlan Salter IV. He hadn’t got much sleep to begin with because he’d waited until midnight before going home and because he was so pumped about getting this assignment from the chief. The adrenaline kept his eyelids rolled up and he’d mostly just laid in bed, listening to Laura snore. Although Gabriel had put in five years on the Boston PD, he was still the new guy on the Paradise PD, and no one likes being the new guy. Everyone’s watching your every move, waiting for you to screw up. Funny thing was, he had more street experience than anyone in the department except for the chief.
Turned out that his sleeplessness had worked to his advantage. At about four he just gave up, rolled out of bed, showered, shaved, then set off for the Osprey. Good thing, too, because about fifteen minutes after he got there, Salter’s black Navigator showed up at the little inn’s door and out came Salter with his lawyer in tow. Now he was parked across the street from some joint called Burt’s that gave greasy spoons a bad name, in a decrepit little town he’d never even heard of. The chief hadn’t told him to take photos, but Gabriel figured it couldn’t hurt to have a camera on hand. That also turned out to be a good decision because a few minutes after Salter and his lawyer sat down, another guy strolled into Burt’s and slid into the same booth. Gabriel thought the guy looked familiar—an actor, maybe—but he couldn’t place him. Whoever he was, Salter didn’t seem pleased.
Then there was the pearl-white Caddy that circled past Burt’s three times before parking down the block on the opposite side of the street. He’d made sure to get plenty of pics of both the Caddy and the actor. The Caddy stuck out in a town like Helton. Not a whole lot of Caddys, Jags, and Beemers that Gabriel could see. He’d jotted down the Caddy’s tag number and decided to call the desk at the Paradise PD to have the tag run through the system. But before he could dial, the actor guy stood up from the booth, leaned over, and wagged his finger in Salter’s face. When the actor came out the front door, he turned to his right, walked about twenty paces toward where the Caddy was parked, and then came to an abrupt stop. He shook his head, about-faced, crossed the street, walked right past Gabriel, and disappeared around the corner. Just as the actor turned the corner, a plain white Sentra, parked about five cars ahead of his Civic, pulled away from the curb. Gabriel almost ignored it. Almost. He took a shot of it anyway. When he saw the mousy guy at the wheel of the Sentra, Gabriel laughed at himself for taking the bother. A real killer, that guy. Probably an accountant.
He was loving this. Gabriel had liked his time on the job in Boston, but the thing about big-city police work was that you were just a cog in the machine. You were another badge number and nothing you were likely to do would matter. In a small department, you could make a difference. He ached to make a difference. He also wanted a quieter life for himself and his family. So when he got wind of the job opening in Paradise, he’d jumped at the chance. He didn’t mind sacrificing some pay and status. So far it was working out pretty well. He liked the chief a lot, though he couldn’t get used to calling him Jesse. In Boston, you didn’t address your COs by their first names. Molly Crane was cool. He thought Suit was a big doofus, but he would want him on his side in a fight. Everyone else had been okay.
At that moment, he wasn’t thinking about any of that. He was focused on Salter and the lawyer getting back into the black Navigator and pulling
away from Burt’s All-Star Grill. He counted to ten—one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi—then yanked his wheel right and gave the Civic some gas. Gabriel’s full attention was on keeping the black Navigator in his sights and not getting spotted while doing so. His focus on Salter was so intense that Gabriel was completely oblivious to everything in his rearview mirror. Everything, including the white Nissan Sentra that had circled the block and the mousy guy in the driver’s seat.
32
Jesse was almost drunk at the smell of sex in his bedroom. As much as he liked Johnnie Walker Black, he thought this was a better high. Way better. And getting to this point hadn’t been too shabby, either. He had always enjoyed sex, but sometimes, with some women, it was nearly an out-of-body experience. It was that way with Dee. There was a kind of desperation and ferocity in her that made her seem more naked than any woman he’d ever been with. Strange, he thought, that she should seem so naked although he was sure she was hiding something, something big.
The sun was just up, and when he rolled over to her side of the bed, she was gone. But the sheet was still warm. He rolled back over and closed his eyes, remembering how they’d exhausted themselves, almost challenging each other to go again. When he opened his eyes, Dee was coming out of the bathroom. She wore one of his old uniform shirts as a robe, her water-darkened blond hair falling over the collar. She came over to the bed and kissed him lightly on the lips.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I was trying to be quiet.”
“You didn’t wake me.” He reached out and pulled her onto him. He didn’t kiss her quite so lightly as he ran his fingers through her wet hair. “You look sexy in that cop shirt,” he said.
“Can’t resist a girl in uniform, huh?”
He winked at her. “Don’t be silly. I bet there are at least a hundred women in the world I wouldn’t find sexy in a cop shirt.”
“Good to know I made the final cut. Me and about three billion other women.” She pushed him away, smiling. “Jerk.”
“That’s Chief of Police Jerk to you.”
He pulled her close and didn’t let go until they were both perspired and dazed yet again.
“We keep this up,” he said, “and they’re going to find us both dead in here.”
“Mmm. I can think of worse ways to go.”
“Much worse,” he said, kicking his legs over the side of the bed. “Got to start getting ready for work.”
“I’m going to make us some breakfast. That okay with you, Jesse?”
“The kitchen’s yours. Impress me.”
“If I haven’t already done that, darlin’, there’s nothing I’m going to do in your kitchen that will help my cause.”
They both laughed at that.
Dee was wrong, because the cheddar-cheese-and-spinach omelets she whipped up impressed the hell out of Jesse. They were creamy and fluffy, but still firm and cooked through.
Jesse looked up from his plate. “Now that we have graduate degrees from the school of carnal knowledge, how about telling me who you really are?”
Dee nearly choked on her omelet before she realized the question was probably a more innocent one than she might have assumed. She knew enough not to give too many details. Too many details and it sounds like you’re reciting a cover story. If Jesse wanted details, she had those, too, but she would wait for him to ask.
“Not much to tell,” she said. “Grew up rich in northern Georgia. Went to school in Maryland. Kicked around the world for a time. Inherited some money and settled in Scottsdale. That’s where I met the Prados.”
Jesse sipped his coffee and thought about asking a follow-up question when the doorbell rang. He didn’t like it. Someone at the door at this hour of the morning without a call first usually meant bad news. At the moment, he had all the bad news he cared to handle at any one time. He was no closer to finding out who had killed Martina Penworth than he was two days ago and he still had no clue where Ben Salter was or if he was still alive. He got up from the table and went to the door. When he pulled it back, the bad news waiting there wasn’t the kind he expected.
Kayla Prado stood just outside the door, dressed not unlike Dee had been dressed the previous evening when she, too, showed up unexpectedly. Kayla might have even been wearing the same brand of jeans as Dee. Her shoes were black pumps, but she wasn’t wearing a sweater underneath her black leather jacket. She was wearing a gauzy white blouse that didn’t leave much to Jesse’s imagination.
“I had to see you,” she said.
“How did you find this address?”
“It’s not exactly a state secret. Kid at the rental counter told me. I guess I sort of tricked him into it.”
Jesse shook his head. “Tricked or flirted?”
“I prefer charmed to flirted.” She smiled at him in a way that reminded Jesse of why he had been so disappointed to lose her all those years ago. “Please don’t be mad at me, Jess. I just had to see you alone. Vic’s been gone since before I got up and I wanted to get over here before Dee could get her hooks into you again.”
“But—”
Kayla laid her finger across Jesse’s lips. “Shhhhh. Don’t talk.” She pressed herself against him and kissed him on the mouth. Then she stepped back. “Remember how it used to be between us?”
“Be hard to forget,” he said, his head filling up with her grassy, musky perfume.
Kayla noticed the odd expression on Jesse’s face.
“What’s wrong, Jess? Is it Vic? Don’t worry about Vic. I lost track of how many other women he’s been—”
“It’s not Vic, Kayla,” Jesse said. “You better come in.”
He walked into the dining room, Kayla at his heels. Dee was at the table, still dressed only in Jesse’s old uniform shirt. Her hair drying but still damp.
“Morning, Kay,” Dee said with no gloat in her voice. “Want an omelet?”
Kayla got a sick look on her face but quickly pulled herself together. “No, thanks, Dee. The coffee smells good, though.”
Dee stood up and walked into the kitchen, her lean, muscular legs pulsing with each step. Kayla took off her jacket, threw it over the back of a chair, and sat down as if this was the sort of thing that happened to her every day. Jesse realized that this was your basic lose-lose situation and that getting into work early had never seemed like such a good idea. He was about to say something about going to work when his cell phone rang.
He looked at the unfamiliar number and said, “Chief Stone.”
“Chief, this is Rob Mackey of the Helton Fire Department.”
“Helton?”
Mackey heard the question in Jesse’s voice. “Helton, Mass,” he said. “We’re about forty miles west of you there in Paradise. We’ve had an accident here just outside of town involving one of your officers. I think you might want to get over here ASAP.”
“Bad?”
“Possibly very bad.”
With that, Jesse headed out the door. Dee and Kayla’s competition for his affections had just plummeted to the bottom of Jesse’s list of priorities.
33
By the time Jesse got close to the scene of the accident, Weathers had been taken to the regional medical center. But Gabe’s wife’s Honda was still upside down, the roof smashed where it had slammed into the concrete median. Although a fair amount of time had passed since the accident itself, traffic was still moving slowly on both sides of the road and a big crowd of gawkers had gathered along the shoulder. Jesse parked on the shoulder and had to work his way through the gawkers.
He flashed his badge at the cop in charge of the scene and explained who he was. “What happened here?”
“From what witnesses have said, it seems that your man’s right rear tire blew out. He lost control of the car, slid to the right, hit the rear of another car, flipped twice, and landed on the median ther
e.”
“How is he?”
“Lucky and alive,” said the cop.
“Lucky how?”
“There was a trauma-room doctor about fifty yards behind your guy’s car when it flipped and two state troopers were headed to work going in the other direction. They were the first at the scene. Probably saved your guy’s life.”
“You’re right,” Jesse said. “He was lucky. Injuries?”
“He was unconscious when they pried him out of there. There were definitely some broken bones.”
“By the look of his car, there would be broken bones. Where are the guys who helped? I’d like to thank them and then get over to the hospital.”
“Sure. The doc went with him in the ambulance, but the troopers are over there by the fire truck with Mackey.”
“Good. Mackey’s the guy who called me to come down.”
Jesse walked over to the group of men seated on the rear step of a fire truck and introduced himself. He shook all of their hands and thanked them for saving Weathers. They looked spent, their eyes unfocused. Jesse had been in their shoes. Saving lives, dealing with emergencies was part of the job. It gave you a big rush, but there was no such thing as a rush without a crash. They all said they were just doing their jobs and were happy to help save one of their own. That’s what you said. Jesse had said it himself, many times.
Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot Page 10
