Death In Paradise

by Robert B. Parker

  His drink was gone. One more. He got up and went to the kitchen and made another one and brought it back to the deck. The scotch made him feel integrated, complete. Not a wild drunk, Jesse thought. Mostly quiet. Mostly the booze enriched him. Jenn wasn't nasty about his drinking. She had too much psychotherapy not to understand the struggle. But she didn't know the feeling that when you were feeling it made it one you wouldn't want to miss. Why would somebody shoot a kid like Billie? She could have been simply wrong place/wrong time. But that theory led him nowhere. Better to think about promiscuity. He took a swallow of scotch and soda. Sex was the only thing he knew about her that could have gotten her killed.

  From the parking lot, out of sight of his balcony, Jesse heard a car door slam and the sound of brisk high heels. The front hall door of Jesse's building opened and closed. Jesse took another swallow. Sometimes on Wednesdays when Jenn came, they would have sex. Often they would not. It depended mostly, he guessed, on what was going on in her therapy. He also was pretty sure that if she were having sex with someone else, she wouldn't have sex with him, and vice versa. It was an odd standard, Jesse thought. But it was a standard. He had no such standard. He would sleep with Lilly Summers on a Tuesday and Jenn on a Wednesday and be pleased about both. Though he knew that if his relationship with Jenn hinged on it, he would develop such a standard on the spot. He smiled a little that he was having sex with a school principal. He drank some scotch. He wondered about Marcy Campbell. Maybe it was time to have sex with her again, also. Jesse Stone at stud. And he was going to find the sonovabitch who killed that kid, too. His drink was gone. He looked at the glass for a long moment. He didn't want to give up the sense of wholeness. He took in some air and let it out slowly.

  Out loud he said, "Fuck it," his voice intrusive in the pale darkness. Then he stood and went to the kitchen and made another drink.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It took Molly a day on the phone to find the shelters in Boston run by nuns. There were three. Jesse found the right nun on his first try. Her name was Sister Mary John and she ran a shelter in the basement of a church in Jamaica Plain. When Jesse came in, Sister was sitting on the corner of a plywood banquet table with folding metal legs that obviously served as her desk. She was red-haired, wearing a black sweat suit with a white stripe on the sleeves. The only sign of her calling was a small gold cross on a thin gold chain that hung around her neck.

  "Are you sure you're a nun?" Jesse said.

  "Pretty sure," Sister said.

  Jesse smiled.

  "You talked with Molly Crane on the phone about a missing girl."

  "Yes."

  Jesse took out a blowup of Billie, processed from the family picture, and held it out for Sister Mary John to look at. Sister nodded her head slowly.

  "When was she here?" Jesse said.

  "Beginning of the summer," Sister said.

  "She's not here now?"

  "No."

  "Would you tell me if she were?" Jesse said.

  "It would depend on who you were and why you wanted to know."

  "You know who I am," Jesse said. "We think Billie was murdered."

  Sister's face softened for a moment.

  "Think?"

  "Know, but can't prove. Condition of the body makes it hard."

  Sister nodded.

  A young black woman with a ring through one nostril came into the room and saw Jesse and, without changing her pace, turned and left.

  "Am I that obvious?" Jesse said.

  "A cop is a cop is a cop," Sister said. "My girls have learned to be alert."

  "Do you know where Billie went when she left here?"

  "I have a phone number. We'd agreed I would only give it to her older sister or somebody named Hooker."

  "Did you give it to either?"

  "Neither of them asked."

  "May I have the phone number?" Jesse said.

  Sister looked at him for a time.

  "She's dead," Jesse said. "I'm trying to find who killed her."

  Sister nodded. She reached under the desk and pulled a yellow plastic milk crate toward her. It was full of file folders. She riffled through them, pulled one out, and took from it a single sheet of paper. She looked at the sheet and copied the number onto a little pad of stickum notes.

  "Ever call the number?" Jesse said.

  "No."

  "When the girls are at the shelter they don't stay here, do they?"

  "No. We are what the name implies, a shelter. They come, they go. They know they have a place to sleep if they need it. They know we will feed them."

  "How long was Billie here?"

  Sister looked at her sheet of paper.

  "Two weeks," she said.

  "Did she tell you why she was leaving?"

  "She said she had a job."

  "She say where?"

  "No."

  "How about the rest of the staff?" Jesse said.

  Sister smiled. Jesse liked her smile.

  "It's pretty much a one-nun show," she said.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Jenn was doing a stand-up outside a junior high school. It was part of a station promotion campaign designed to prove once again that Channel 3 was an integral part of the community. Jesse parked on the street and walked to the shoot. He stood outside the shot while Jenn did a cute weather quiz and wrapped the segment. She saw him while she was wrapping, and as soon as it was over, she came to Jesse and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  "Did you know the answers to my weather quiz?" she said.

  "Do you?"

  "I will when the time comes," she said.

  "Does anyone care what the answers are?" Jesse said.

  "Not that I know of," Jenn answered.

  She turned to the crew.

  "This is my starter husband," she said.

  The crew smiled. Jesse smiled, too.

  "Kerry Roberts with the camera; Dolly Edwards, makeup; and Tracy Mayo, my producer."

  They all said hello.

  "You guys pack up and take off," Jenn told the crew. "I'll go with Jesse."

  "How about you pack up," Dolly said. "And I go with Jesse."

  Everybody laughed, and Jenn put her arm through Jesse's and they walked to his car.

  "What about that girl?"

  "Billie?"

  "You sound like she's someone you know."

  "Yeah, sometimes you get that way. You spend so much time thinking about a victim that you're surprised when you remember you've never met them."

  "So you know who she is now," Jenn said.

  "I know. I'm not sure I can prove it yet. But I know it's Billie."

  As he drove, Jesse took a manila envelope down from the car visor and took out a picture of Billie.

  "It's blown up from a small picture of the family."

  "She's cute," Jenn said.

  "I guess so."

  "Smile looks awfully forced though."

  "Everybody's smile looks forced in a posed picture," Jesse said, "except you professionals."

  "That would be me," Jenn said. "A big-time professional doing weather quizzes in front of a junior high school."

  "Show biz isn't for sissies," Jesse said.

  They had dinner in Cambridge, at a new restaurant called Oleanna, which Jenn was frantic to try. The restaurant was good, but Jesse knew it meant they probably weren't going to sleep together. When Jenn was prepared to have sex she always came to Paradise and spent the night with Jesse. He rarely spent the night at her place. Someday, when the balance between them wasn't so delicate, maybe he'd ask her why. For now he knew it was an evening that would end when he drove her home.

  "Have you been drinking lately?" Jenn said in the car.

  "Now and then," Jesse said.

  "You didn't drink anything tonight."

  "No."

  "Why not?" Jenn said.

  "Scared to, I guess," Jesse said.

  "Scared of what?"

  "Scared it will get out."

  "
It?"

  "How I feel. I love you. I'm mad at you. I'm jealous. I'm full of, hell, I don't know, yearning, I guess. I have to keep it in its cage."

  "And you're afraid if you drink it will jump out."

  "Yeah."

  "So you drink alone?"

  "Yeah."

  "So if it gets out there's no one around."

  Jesse nodded. He could feel Jenn looking at him.

  "What I don't understand," Jenn said, "is, if you can choose not to drink sometimes, why can't you choose not to drink all the time?"

  "I don't know."

  They drove over the Longfellow Bridge in silence.

  When they reached the Charles Street circle, Jenn said, "You need help with this, Jesse."

  Jesse shrugged.

  "You don't have to start big," Jenn said. "Maybe just talk to a guy, about drinking."

  "You know a guy?" Jesse said.

  "Yes."

  "How do you know a guy?"

  "My shrink told me."

  "You been talking about me in therapy?" Jesse said.

  Jenn laughed gently. "Of course," she said. "Would you go talk to this guy? I can make you an appointment."

  "He a psychiatrist?"

  "No. He's not a doctor. He's just somebody that has had some success helping people with drinking."

  "You ever meet him?"

  "Yes. I went to see him."

  "About me?"

  "Yes."

  It went through him viscerally, shimmering along the nerve traces. Jolting his stomach. He was part of her therapy. She was trying to help him. He was still in her life. He mattered.

  "If I go," Jesse said, "I can make the appointment."

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Molly was at the front desk when Jesse came into the station carrying coffee in a paper cup.

  "We found Dr. Levine," Molly said.

  "Billie's dentist."

  "Yes. Suit brought the dental chart over that we got off the body."

  "And?"

  "It's her."

  Jesse nodded. There was no satisfaction in it. He sort of wished it wasn't Billie.

  "You call that phone number from Sister Mary John?"

  "Yes," Molly said, and looked down at her notepad. "Development Associates of Boston. Nobody there ever heard of Billie."

  "Or so they say."

  Molly smiled. "Or so they say."

  "What's the address there?" Jesse said.

  Molly gave it to him. "You going to talk with them?"

  "Yes."

  "Before you go we need to talk about Mr. and Mrs. Snyder," Molly said.

  "The Bickersons?"

  "She's in the hospital."

  "How bad?" Jesse said.

  "Nothing fatal—concussion, couple of fractures. The ER called us."

  "Her husband put her there?"

  "That's what she told the ER doctor."

  "Didn't we send her down there the last time we had them in?"

  "Yes. They found a lot of old injuries."

  "And?"

  "She swore they were skiing injuries. Said her husband didn't hit her," Molly said. "DeAngelo talked with an assistant DA who said if she stuck to her story, there wasn't enough of a case."

  "I figured that," Jesse said. "I was hoping he might get scared."

  "Booze," Molly said.

  Jesse nodded.

  "So how come she's blowing the whistle this time?"

  "Maybe enough is enough," Molly said. "Suit's on his way there to get a statement."

  "If she sticks with it," Jesse said, "arrest the husband, read him his rights. Call the DA's office."

  "You going to go see the people at—" She looked down at her notebook again. "—Development Associates of Boston?"

  "Yeah."

  "If this Snyder thing gets complicated, I'll call you."

  "Molly, you run this station better than I do," Jesse said.

  "I know," Molly said. "But the sexist bastards made you chief."

  "Oh," Jesse said. "Yeah."

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Development Associates of Boston was in the South End, not far from the Cyclorama, one flight down, with a plate-glass window looking out onto the cement stairway. The room had been recycled from whatever it used to be. The walls were old brick and the beams had been exposed and sandblasted. The young man at the reception desk had curly black hair and big blue eyes. He was very good-looking.

  "Hi," Jesse said, "the boss in?"

  "Do you have an appointment?" the young man said.

  Jesse showed him his badge. The young man looked at it closely.

  "What police department is that?" he said.

  "Paradise," Jesse said. "North Shore."

  "And what was it about?"

  "I'll talk to the boss."

  "Mr. Fish never sees anyone without an appointment," the young man said.

  "And your name is?" Jesse said.

  "Alan Garner." The young man widened his eyes and smiled again. "Is your interest personal or professional?"

  Jesse put his badge away.

  "Alan," Jesse said, "we can do this easy, or we can do it hard. Easy is I go in and sit with your boss and discuss my case. Hard is I go get a Boston cop and we bring your boss in for questioning."

  The young man smiled at Jesse again. No hard feelings.

  "I'll talk to Mr. Fish," he said, and went through a curtained archway.

  Jesse looked around. There were framed prints of sailboats, and a hanging lamp with a dark green shade. The furniture was the kind of bleached oak that was bought secondhand in Europe and refinished and sold at a large profit in the USA. Mr. Fish. The name was familiar. It had come up in a case Jesse had when he first came to Paradise. Not a common name.

  The good-looking young man came back into the room and smiled again at Jesse.

  "Surprise, surprise," he said.

  "Mr. Fish will see me," Jesse said.

  "You bet," the young man said, and gestured Jesse in.

  A tall, lean man with a shaved head and long, graceful fingers sat behind a big oak table in a room that was just like the anteroom but bigger.

  "I'm Gino Fish," he said.

  It had to be him, Jesse thought, how many Gino Fishes are there?

  "Jesse Stone."

  Against the wall to Gino's left and Jesse's right sat a compact man with an expressionless face. Jesse could almost feel the force of his meaningless stare.

  "And you are?" Jesse said.

  "My associate," Fish said, "Vinnie Morris."

  "I'm looking for a girl," Jesse said, "named Billie Bishop."

  "And why are you looking here?" Fish said.

  "She told someone she could be reached at this phone number."

  Fish stared at Jesse for a long moment before he spoke.

  "Vinnie, do we know anyone named Billie Bishop?"

  Vinnie shook his head.

  "I guess we don't," Fish said.

  "You have any explanation for the phone number?"

  "None."

  "What does Development Associates do?" Jesse asked.

  "Development and marketing," Gino said.

  "Development and marketing of what?" Jesse said.

  "Our best interests," Gino said.

  "Do you remember developing and marketing a little something with a guy named JoJo Genest?"

  "No."

  "Hasty Hathaway?"

  "No."

  "Gino," Jesse said. "I'm not sure you're leveling with me."

  "Why wouldn't I level with you, Jesse?" Gino said. "We've been close personal friends for what, five or six minutes?"

  "Of course," Jesse said.

  He put a business card on Gino's desk.

  "You think of anything, give me a ringy dingy," Jesse said.

  "You bet," Gino said. "Nice of you to stop by."

  Vinnie had been looking at Jesse with nothing in his eyes since Jesse had entered.

  Jesse turned and shot Vinnie with his forefinger. Vinnie had no react
ion as Jesse walked back out through the draped arch.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Jesse sat in a cubicle in the Organized Crime Unit in the new Boston Police headquarters and talked with a detective sergeant named Brian Kelly.

  "Bobby Doyle over in District Thirteen told me you were the man to talk to," Jesse said.

  "He still in youth service?" Kelly said.

  "Yes."

  "I used to work over there in Area C," Kelly said. "Whaddya need?"

  He was about Jesse's size with thick black hair cut short. He looked in shape.

  "Gino Fish," Jesse said.

  Kelly rocked back in his swivel chair and paused for a moment.

  "Ahh," Kelly said. "Gino."

  Jesse nodded.

  "OCU spends a lot of time thinking about Gino Fish," Kelly said.

  "What can you tell me?" Jesse said.

  "How long you been chief out there?" Kelly said.

  "Four years."

  "Work your way up?"

  Jesse smiled.

  "Down, I think," Jesse said. "I was in L.A. working homicide. I got fired for drinking on the job, which sobered me up some, and I sort of resurfaced in Paradise."

  "What's the deal with Gino?" Kelly said.

  Jesse knew he had passed.

  "There was a floater in the lake," Jesse said. "Shot once behind the right ear and weighted. Body pulled loose from the weight and surfaced."

  "Execution?"

  "I would guess," Jesse said. "She was a kid named Billie Bishop. Runaway, and the last place she ran away from, she gave Gino's phone number as a forwarding address."

  "She was with Sister Mary John," Kelly said.

  "Yes."

  "Which is how you ran into Bobby Doyle."

  "Yes."

  "I didn't know Bobby knew about Gino," Kelly said.

  "He didn't. I did. His name came up a few years ago in a case I was on."

  "In Paradise?"

  "Yep."

  "Mean streets," Kelly said.

  Jesse smiled.

  "So," he said, "you know any reason a fifteen-year-old girl would be giving people Gino's number?"

  "Gino's into a lot of things," Kelly said. "None of them pleasant." He grinned. "But girls are not usually one of them."