She turned to him just as she finished putting on her lipstick. “Okay, Vic, I gotta go.”
But as she was walking past him, he jumped off the mattress and blocked her path. “You’re not going anywhere.”
37
It had taken a few hours, but Jesse had finally made his way to Burt’s All-Star Grill. After some nosing around on his own, he’d gone to talk to Mackey at the firehouse. Mackey explained that unless one of the parties owned a home in Helton, there weren’t many places where people could meet early in the morning.
“Not likely this bunch owned property around here,” Jesse said.
“Collars not blue enough, huh? Too good for drug dens and overcrowded union halls?”
“Too rich, not too good.”
“I ain’t come across many rich types in Helton,” said Mackey. “But from where I sit, the rich seem to think rich equals good.”
“Uh-huh.”
“They got some funny ideas about the world, rich people.”
Jesse shook his head. “Funny isn’t the word I’d use.”
“Still, I’d like to try rich on for size someday.”
“Let me know how it fits.”
Mackey had given Jesse a list of five places: three illegal after-hours joints, a donut shop, and the grill. One of the after-hours joints was in what looked to be someone’s house. No one came to the door when Jesse rang. The other two after-hours clubs ran out of legit day businesses, and everyone who would speak to Jesse seemed to have two things in common: ignorance and amnesia. As Tony Dolce, an infield instructor Jesse had in class-A ball, used to say, “Nobody knows nothin’ about nothin’.”
He parked out in front of Burt’s All-Star Grill in almost the exact spot Harlan Salter IV’s driver had parked the black Navigator. And Jesse, too, shook his head at the name of the place. He couldn’t help but wonder what Burt was thinking when he gave the joint its name.
“Seat yourself,” the waitress said, looking up from a glossy magazine. “Anywhere is good.”
Jesse doubted that. Since he wanted to talk to the waitress, he took a seat close to her. He thought she must have been pretty once, but had succumbed to cigarettes, alcohol, and gravity. She had that odd kind of look in that she couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds in a suit of armor, yet was puffy and bloated. She had hurt blue eyes, eyes that had seen way too much and not much of it good. Her amber hair was especially sad, as it was still quite lush and beautiful, though it could have done with a better cut.
“What can I get ya?” she said, a practiced smile on her face.
“Will the eggs kill me in this place?”
“No, but the coffee might put you on the disabled list.”
That caught Jesse off guard. “Why did you say that?”
“Say what?”
“That thing about the disabled list?” he said.
“I always say that. You know, the All-Star Grill and all. It’s a joke. A little joke, I know, but—”
“Never mind. I’ll have some scrambled eggs, whole-wheat toast, fries.”
“I was only joking about the coffee,” she said. “It’s pretty good.”
“Coffee, too.”
She disappeared into the kitchen. Jesse could hear her shouting the order to the cook in Spanish. She reappeared with a glass of water in one hand and a coffeepot in the other. She put the water glass down, flipped up the coffee cup in front of Jesse, and poured from the pot.
“Cream’s on the table. You need anything, just let me know.”
“Maybe you can help me with something,” he said. “Have you worked the early-morning shifts here all week?”
She didn’t answer directly. “Cop?”
He showed her his Paradise chief’s shield.
“Chief? I must be moving up in the world. I met a lot a cops in my time, fucked more than a few of ’em, too, but never a chief.”
He thought of Dee and smiled to himself. “I’m honored to be your first . . .”
“Sharon,” she said.
“I’m honored, Sharon.”
This time her smile was genuine. “Yeah, I been here all week. Not much action. Me, Hector in the kitchen, roaches . . .”
“Where’s Burt?”
“Dead for like twenty years,” she said, but didn’t feel obliged to give more details.
Jesse pulled out a photograph of Harlan Salter IV he’d downloaded off Coastline Consultants’ website. “Was this guy in here?”
“He was. He had a slick operator with him, handsome.”
“Lawyer,” Jesse said.
“I fucked a few of them, too.”
Before Sharon could say another word, a Harley roared up out front of Burt’s. The waitress’s face took a sour turn. Jesse noticed her hands shaking. A bell rang and a disembodied voice with a Hispanic accent called out, “Order up!”
The waitress raced over to the pickup window and delivered Jesse’s eggs.
“You okay?” he said.
But before she could answer, the front door swung open and in stepped a big biker dude who looked like a summa cum laude graduate of Scumbag U. He was big as in mountain big and bald, with the kind of neck that bunched up in back. He wore a sleeveless black leather vest. The words Satan’s Whores, Helton were written out on the back of the vest, the words framing a devil’s head atop the pinup body of a nude woman. There was a bulge under the vest above the guy’s right hip, a big bulge. Probably something showy, Jesse thought, maybe a Desert Eagle or a Colt Python. Whatever it was, Jesse was pretty sure the biker didn’t have a carry permit for it. A dirty red bandanna was sticking out the back pocket of his shiny worn jeans. And the boots he was wearing would have given Frankenstein’s monster a run for his money. The guy’s arms and neck were covered in tats. Some of the tats were colorful and skillfully done, especially the skulls and swastikas. Some not so much. Prison tats weren’t usually prized for their beauty or intricate design. Jesse knew all about the Whores. Every cop in New England did. They were responsible for most of the meth trafficking in this part of the country. Jesse ate his eggs and watched.
“Hey, Spider,” said Sharon as she leaned over and kissed him.
Spider grabbed her by the hair hard enough to make her gasp.
“Where the fuck were you last night, bitch?” he said, still pulling her hair.
“I told you I couldn’t get nobody to watch my kids. I can’t just—”
“I don’t give a fuck about your little retarded bastards, bitch. They ain’t mine. In the wild, you know what the new male in the pride does to the cubs? He murders the little bastards. Just be happy I don’t do the same to your little mixed-breed mongrels.”
Spider felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around, Sharon’s hair still tight in his hand. He smiled a big gap-toothed smile at the sight of Jesse Stone standing next to him.
“What, you gonna be a hero?” he said to Jesse. “Go sit down before somebody gets hurt.”
“Somebody’s going to get hurt, all right.”
Spider was no longer smiling. He let go of Sharon’s hair and the waitress collapsed to the gritty tile floor of the restaurant.
“When they’re picking pieces of you outta the ceiling fan, don’t say I didn’t warn you, mister.”
Sharon spoke up. “Spider, don’t, he’s a—”
“Shut up, bitch! I’ll deal with you after I’m done with—”
Spider didn’t get to finish his sentence because Jesse Stone was busy burying his right foot into Spider’s groin. Spider didn’t go down immediately, but he did go down. When he went down, Jesse got Spider in an armbar and applied enough pressure to where bones would soon start to break.
“You hurt this woman again, you so much as breathe on her too hard, I’ll do this to you again, but I’ll do it in front of your gang brothers. In fact, I
’ll beat you down so bad in front of them that they’ll take that pretty vest away from you and you’ll be a novice all over again. Now, when you can get up, get up, apologize to Sharon, and get the hell out of my sight.”
Jesse let go. He reached under Spider’s vest and pulled out the hunk of shiny metal that was lodged between the biker’s body and waist of his jeans.
“My guess is you don’t have a permit for this ridiculous thing,” Jesse said, ejecting a thumb-sized fifty-caliber bullet from the chamber of the Desert Eagle. He ejected the clip, caught it, and flicked the seven rounds out of the clip, one by one. When he was done, he put the empty clip on the floor and stomped it. He broke down the handgun, putting the barrel and slide in his pocket. He tossed the rest of it on the floor.
It took Spider a few minutes to get his wind back and to get up. When he did, he did exactly as he was told. Both Jesse and Sharon watched as Spider drove away, but Sharon looked more scared than pleased. Jesse gave her his card and wrote his cell number on the back.
“What I told him, I was serious,” he said.
Sharon took the card, and she did seem to relax slightly. “About the other morning, there—”
Jesse held up his hand and grabbed his cell. He recognized the number. “What’s up, Molly?”
“Get back here, Jesse. We found the Salter kid alive.”
Jesse hung up, threw a twenty on the table, and said, “I mean it. He hurts you again, call.”
With that, he was out the door.
38
When Jesse stepped through the emergency room doors at Paradise General, he spotted Harlan Salter IV pacing a bare spot in the green carpeting of the waiting area. To Salter’s left sat Monty Bernstein on an orange fabric sofa that looked like it was from The Jetsons. Smartphone in hand, he seemed oblivious of his employer as he scrolled through his messages. Suitcase Simpson was leaning against a nearby wall, inhaling a donut and sipping coffee out of a foam cup. It was an odd picture of three men all there for the same reason, but with different levels of investment in that reason. Jesse ducked behind a corner, waiting for Suit to look up from his coffee. When he did, Jesse waved to get his attention, gesturing for Suit to come over to where he was standing.
“Hey, Jesse,” said Suit, a relieved smile on his face. “Molly told me you were heading this way.”
“What happened?”
“An anonymous tip came in to the desk about ninety minutes ago that we should send a car over to Kennedy Memorial Park. Male voice, Molly says, with an odd kind of accent.”
“Odd how?” Jesse said.
“‘Odd’ is what she said.” Suit shrugged his broad shoulders. “Guess you’d need to ask her.”
“Anything else?”
“Molly was going to ignore it, but about five minutes later she got a nine-one-one from a jogger in Kennedy Memorial, screaming about coming across some drunk college kid, nude and passed out on the side of the Whale Bone Trail. You know that trail, Jesse?”
“The one that winds through the woods up to Humpback Hill.”
“That’s the one. Molly sent me over to have a look and I found the Salter kid semiconscious, just off the trail.”
“What’s his medical condition?”
“Badly broken nose. Broken ankle. Possible broken jaw. Cuts, bruises, a broken toe. Looks like he’s been zapped with a Taser-like weapon more than a few times.”
“He say anything to you?”
“He was pretty out of it, Jesse. He was mumbling about the Penworth girl, asking if she was alive.”
“What did you say?”
“Told him to keep calm and that there was an ambulance coming for him. That we would have a chance to talk after the doctors looked him over.”
“Anything else?” Jesse said.
“I asked him who did this to him.”
“And?”
Suit screwed up his round face. “All he kept saying was that it was a different trunk.”
“A different trunk?”
“That’s what it sounded like to me, Jesse. A different trunk.”
“You did good, Suit. Go get another cup of coffee. I want to talk to the father and the lawyer. When you get back, I want you to stay here with them. Don’t crowd them, but keep your eyes open. You understand?”
“I understand. You want something, Jesse? Coffee?”
“No, thanks. Go ahead. Don’t take too long. I have a feeling the father won’t be very talkative.”
Suit nodded and headed for the cafeteria. Jesse walked over to the waiting area.
“Mr. Salter, Mr. Bernstein,” Jesse said, “I hear Ben is here.”
Salter was terse. “No thanks to your department.”
Monty Bernstein rolled his eyes for Jesse to see. “Obviously, Chief Stone, my client is in an agitated state because of the condition Ben was found in. I’m sure you understand.”
“I do. Sounds like he had it pretty rough. Other than his nose, jaw, and ankle, have the doctors updated you?”
Salter was certainly agitated. “They beat and tortured my son! They shocked him, for goodness sakes.”
That got Jesse’s attention. “They?”
Salter was confused. “What?”
“You said they beat and tortured your son. Who is they, Mr. Salter?”
Bernstein answered for his client. “It’s a figure of speech, Chief Stone.”
“Jesse.”
“Jesse,” the lawyer said. “Paradise is a first-name department. I forgot. In any case, I don’t think my client was referring to anyone or any group specifically, but rather to the man or men who might have held Ben captive these last few days.”
“Did the doctors give you any indication of when he might be able to speak?”
Salter glared at his lawyer.
“I am not sure my client is willing to risk traumatizing his son any further at this point, Jesse. Ben’s obviously been through a lot and I’m not even sure he’s aware of Miss Penworth’s death.”
“I can understand your client’s position, but a murder was committed here. An eighteen-year-old college freshman lost her life here, probably because she was with your client’s son,” Jesse said, for Harlan Salter’s benefit. “And I’m sorry about Ben’s condition, but as soon as he can talk, I’m going to talk to him.”
Salter exploded, bumping his chest into Jesse. “No, you most certainly are not. You’re not going to say a word to my son and my son will not speak to you. Is that clear?” Salter poked Jesse with the stem of his ever-present pipe. “The minute he is well enough to travel, I am having him transferred to Tufts Medical—”
“Mr. Bernstein, did your client just assault an officer of the law?”
That stopped Salter mid-sentence.
“I don’t believe that would constitute assault,” Bernstein said, stepping between Stone and Salter. “As I stated, Jesse, my client is understandably upset over the condition of his son.”
“Fair enough, Counselor. But I am putting you both on notice that if you attempt to move Ben Salter out of my jurisdiction before I have a chance to interview him, I will arrest everyone involved, including your client’s son. Remember, injuries or no injuries, Ben Salter is still the prime suspect in a homicide investigation. He is, at minimum, a material witness.”
Monty Bernstein felt Harlan Salter surging forward to get at Jesse. The lawyer turned and shepherded his client a few paces toward the rear of the waiting area. As he did, he leaned in close to Salter’s ear. “Relax, Harlan. Relax. He’s goading you and you’re taking the bait. He senses that you know more than you’re saying. Stop acting as if he’s right, that you have something to hide. We’ll deal with his talking to Ben when the time comes. I will demand to be present and will make sure Ben can’t say anything that will complicate things. Now, please, walk away or at least sit down and let me handle this.”
Salter smirked at his lawyer. “We’ll just see about that,” he said, sitting down on the chair closest to him. “We’ll see.”
Bernstein walked back to where Jesse Stone was standing.
“Okay, Jesse, my client has agreed to let you talk to his son when the doctors say that he is well enough to do so and that it will not cause him any further damage. Mr. Salter also wants me to be present during the interview to act on his son’s behalf.”
“Fine.”
They shook hands. Jesse nodded at Harlan Salter and took a few steps to leave. He stopped. About-faced.
“One more thing, gentlemen,” Jesse said. “When you’re sure Ben is okay and he is moved up to a room, I’d like it if you could stop by my office. Tomorrow would be fine.”
Monty Bernstein tilted his head at Jesse and squinted his eyes. “For what possible purpose could you want us to come in to your office?”
“For a chat.”
Bernstein said, “An official chat?”
“That depends, Counselor.”
“On what?”
“On your opinion of the food and service at Burt’s All-Star Grill in Helton.”
With that, Jesse Stone turned and left.
39
Suitcase Simpson came around the corner carrying a cardboard cup holder with three coffees in it and a few donuts stacked up in the empty corner of the cup holder. He didn’t figure he would be able to establish any kind of rapport with Harlan Salter. That man, it seemed to Suit, was as empty of human warmth as a shark’s eye, but Monty Bernstein was friendly enough . . . for a lawyer. Suit thought that maybe he could get Bernstein to drop his guard a little. Suit knew that because he was a big guy, an ex-jock, with a kindly face that people often underestimated him. They assumed he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe he wasn’t, but he had learned a lot from Jesse in the years they’d worked together. Just as he came around the corner, Suit heard Salter’s voice. He wasn’t exactly screaming at his lawyer. It was more of an angry growl. So Suit stopped in his tracks and retreated back around the corner.
Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot Page 12
