The Hangman's Sonnet

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Rumors?”

  “Everybody in the state knows about you and the motorcycle gang in Helton. How you shot up one of the gang members’ Harleys and then walked away while another member of the gang beat him bloody. One version of it says the guy was beaten to death.”

  “Nice story. Any proof? Witnesses?”

  Thompson gave him a dismissive wave. “You think you can do as you please without consequences. You’re a throwback. Your presence is a weight around the mayor’s neck, a political liability.”

  Jesse smiled at her with his mouth. His eyes remained cool. “A political liability?” He turned back to the mayor. “Congresswoman Walker, Senator Walker, or Governor Walker, which one is it to be, Your Honor?”

  But it was Nita Thompson who answered. “Whichever one she chooses, but first there needs to be a little housecleaning around here. Someone needs to clean out the attic and take the garbage to the curb.”

  “Too bad your parents didn’t teach you how to talk plainly,” he said, tweaking her. He about-faced. “Is that how you feel about it, Madame Mayor?”

  Walker cleared her throat. “I might not have used such a regrettable metaphor, but essentially, yes.”

  “Nice to know where we all stand. I’m leaving now. I have a case to handle before someone tries to take me to the curb for morning pickup.”

  “One last thing, Chief,” Walker said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I want you to fully cooperate with Bascom, Mr. White, and Miss Lawton. That party could mean a lot of press for Paradise and I want it to all be positive. Is that understood?”

  Jesse laughed. “That’s amazing.”

  “What is?” The mayor was confused.

  “I didn’t know Miss Thompson was a ventriloquist, too. Good day, ladies.”

  Jesse walked out of the mayor’s office without turning back.

  28

  Back at the station, Molly sensed something was up with Jesse. She stood, walked over to him, and inspected his face.

  “No blood or bruises,” she said. “But I know you, Jesse Stone. You’ve got that look on your face.”

  “What look?”

  “The one where you look as if you’ve just had a fight.”

  “You do know me, don’t you, Crane?”

  “To the extent that you’re willing to let me know. It hasn’t been easy.”

  “What fun is easy?”

  “First man I’ve ever heard ask that question.”

  “I’m special.”

  She laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. So stop stalling.”

  “I was over talking to Dick Bradshaw.”

  “About what?”

  “About what you’re going to assign someone to do or do yourself.”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “I can’t wait.”

  “Did you know Maude Cain let out rooms?”

  “A lot of people in town did before we got touristy and the B-and-Bs started springing up. The hotel was too expensive for some folks because it was the only game in town.”

  “Did your family do it?”

  “C’mon, Jesse, you’ve seen the house I grew up in. There wasn’t even enough room for us. Where were we going to put them, in the crawl space? But some of the kids I went to school with, their parents did it.”

  “Can you remember any of the kids who did it?”

  “Where are you going with this, Jesse?”

  “First, send someone over to the Cain house and see if they can locate a log book, ledger, or guestbook where Maude might have kept an accounting of who she rented rooms to. If we get hold of that, we’re going to see if we can’t track down some of the people who stayed with her. But if we don’t come up with the guestbook, maybe we can find some folks who stayed at Maude’s one week and then someplace else the next.”

  “Long shot.”

  “Very long shot, but till we get a hit on the fingerprints or something else, it’s a place to start.”

  “Any luck in Boston?”

  He shrugged. “We’ll see. If Vinnie Morris calls, put him through no matter what.”

  Molly’s expression was a cross between fear and fury. Although Suit, Healy, and Jesse were the only people who knew for a fact what Jesse had allowed to happen in the immediate wake of Diana’s murder, Molly had always suspected things hadn’t quite happened the way the official story went. She had trouble believing that a convenient coconspirator had somehow swooped into the room, grabbed Diana’s killer, and vanished before Jesse, Suit, or Healy could stop him. She didn’t know that Vinnie Morris had anything to do with what had gone down, but she had never quite approved of Jesse’s closeness to him or Gino Fish. No matter how many times Jesse explained how big-city policing meant sometimes making allies of the bad guys, she didn’t like it.

  “I thought after Gino Fish died, you would—”

  “Let’s not do this again, Molly. Call Alisha in, and you and Peter go over to the Cain house.”

  “Perkins, too?”

  “You know Peter. Sometimes his obsessiveness has a benefit.”

  She laughed, recognizing the truth in Jesse’s words.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “I think he put the O in OCD.”

  “I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “You do and you’ll pay.”

  “Threatening your superior officer?”

  “Promising, not threatening.”

  “Get out of here, Crane.”

  “I’ll wait until Alisha gets here.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I suppose I should go over and talk to Bascom to see what’s up with the security arrangements for Terry Jester’s big party. The mayor sees this as a big photo op for her. Fine. It means I can get everybody overtime. She’s also going to push the DA to charge the perps in the Cain case with murder two.”

  “What’s with her lately, anyway? She can be mayor here forever. Why is she—”

  “That’s the problem, Molly. She doesn’t want to be mayor of Paradise forever.”

  “Ambition.” She shook her head. “It’s worse than jealousy.”

  “I’ve seen it eat people alive. Like desperation, it causes people to make dumb choices.”

  He patted Molly on the shoulder, signaling that their talk was over. He watched as she walked away from him and wondered if she really understood how valuable she was to him and to Paradise.

  29

  It was a very short trip over the bridge to Stiles Island. Stiles was quite a beautiful place in the way that things in the Northeast could be. In the desert, where he’d grown up, things changed, but subtly. The changes were small ones, so that only someone with local eyes would notice them. Sure, the desert might bloom after a rain, but mostly it would seem always the same to the uninitiated. It could be like that in L.A., too. In the Northeast even a blind man could track the change in seasons. Here the seasons were scented distinctly. They had distinct sounds, distinct weather. Stiles Islanders also had the benefit of the ocean and the coves. It’s why the rich built summer homes here. Jesse had always thought Stiles was at its best and most alluring in summer. Now he was less sure. The brown grass and the silence, the desolation of winters on the island, suddenly held more appeal for him.

  Jesse pulled his Explorer up to the doorstep of the security building. He remembered how, when he first came to Paradise, there wasn’t even a security building on the island, just a flimsy military-surplus Quonset hut tucked out of sight behind some hedges. Now the security offices were nearly as elaborate as the Paradise police station. It was certainly more modern and better equipped in terms of electronic surveillance. There weren’t many places you could travel on Stiles that weren’t visible to the people inside the security building. The building itself was a long way away from that flimsy old h
ut. With its robin’s-egg-blue clapboards, white fish-scale shingles, and bluestone driveway, it might easily have been mistaken for a gate house at one of the larger estates on Stiles. The Island, upscale to begin with, had really gone big. The homes went for millions, and that was due, in part, to the owners’ reluctance to part with them. When a Stiles house or a piece of property went on the market, there tended to be a feeding frenzy. Even during the crash, the houses on Stiles held their value.

  Jesse walked through the front door and strolled right by two uniformed security men who were too busy with the array of video screens in front of their faces to pay any mind to him. All the house alarms were wired into the buildings. After the siege, resident participation in the network was no longer optional. If you bought on the island, you had to agree to be part of the network. Jesse understood that private security had its purpose, that cops couldn’t be everywhere, couldn’t guard everything for everyone, but they still made him uncomfortable. Their loyalties were bought and paid for, not a matter of duty, not a matter of right and wrong. And right and wrong were as essential to Jesse Stone as his spine.

  When he made it down the hallway to the threshold of Bascom’s office, he was stopped by a tall guy in a light blue blazer with eyes to match, a white shirt, and a red tie. His light brown hair was short, gelled flat, and perfectly parted on the left side, as if he had escaped from an episode of Leave It to Beaver. His vibe couldn’t have been more ex-military if he were wearing camouflage. Jesse knew all of Bascom’s personnel. They were required to register with the PPD and produce their carry permits and prove they had met the same shooting certification Jesse’s people did. He didn’t know this guy and that didn’t sit well with him. It wasn’t because he felt Bascom had tried to put something over on him. It was more a reminder of how sloppy Jesse had been in his administrative duties since Diana’s death. He was a drunk and he hated things that made it impossible for him to deny it. On the other hand, Blue Blazer knew who Jesse was.

  “Chief Stone,” he said, putting out his right hand, smiling a cautious smile. “I’m Dylan Taylor, Bascom’s new second. Happy to meet you.”

  “Nice meeting you. Call me Jesse, please.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Jesse smiled at him for that. “How long have you been out?”

  “A year now, sir.”

  “Jesse.”

  “A year now, Jesse.”

  “Bascom around?”

  “No, sir—no, sorry, Jesse. I believe he went over to the Wickham property. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No, I think I’ll head over there. You want to give him a heads-up, go ahead. Nice meeting you.” Jesse started to turn, then turned back around. “Dylan, who did you deal with at the PPD when you registered?”

  A careless smile washed over Taylor’s handsome, clean-shaven face. Jesse recognized the look.

  “Alisha.”

  “How’d you know?”

  Jesse shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  Once outside, he just stood in the sun for a minute, eyes shut, letting it warm him.

  30

  The Wickham estate was on the ocean side of the island and it was nothing so much as large. The main house was one of those faux old New England houses with Cape Cod–gray shingles surrounded by a six-foot-high, new-to-look-old stone wall. The house was meant to give someone coming upon it a warm, rustic feel, but was, in fact, the size of an aircraft hangar and about as cozy as a solid-state drive. Jesse had been inside a few times and knew its interior was all granite, tile, marble, and exotic woods. Grant Wickham, who owned a specialized software company in Boston, had built the house about eight years earlier and had since moved on to bigger, better houses spread across the country. He let friends or business associates use the place for a few weeks at a time or rented it out while he was in Aspen or East Hampton or Jackson Hole.

  Whether it was the warmth of the sun or because he just felt like it, Jesse decided to have a little fun. He liked the notion of sticking it to Roger Bascom. Bascom was quick to tell anyone who would listen that island security was beyond reproach and that Jesse’s cops were no more than glorified ticket-givers. Jesse knew better. If there was one thing he’d learned over the course of his career, it was that nothing and no one was ever completely secure. As Jesse approached the Wickham place, he pulled in between some trees, got out of the Explorer, and lifted its hood as if something was wrong with the engine, and then walked around to the front of the Ford. The trees and the raised hood blocked him from view of the security cameras. He was over the stone wall without much effort, though his wrecked right shoulder barked at him.

  Jesse had come over the wall behind the pool house and cabanas. Some pool house. The thing was the size of a three-bedroom ranch. Jesse figured he’d come along the pool, scout out Bascom’s location, and walk right up behind him. But when he came around the side of the pool house, it wasn’t Bascom he saw.

  Bella Lawton was faceup, sunning herself on a chaise longue at the side of the infinity pool. Other than her sunglasses, the PR flack was wearing only what she had been born into the world with. This might’ve been a thirteen-year-old boy’s dream, but it was more than a little awkward for Jesse. Awkward because he’d just climbed over the wall and because it was difficult not to stare. He wasn’t going to run or to climb back over the wall. He wasn’t a man to run or hide.

  Instead, he cleared his throat loudly enough so that Bella would know he was standing there. But if Jesse expected her to grab a towel and cover up in embarrassment, he’d been wrong. She smiled, raising up the back of the chaise.

  “Chief Stone—Jesse.”

  “Bella.”

  She reached over to the Adirondack chair next to her and patted the seat. “Sit.”

  He sat.

  “It’s okay to stare, Jesse. Men have been staring at me since I can remember. Women, too. I like it. I like the attention. Do you think that’s weird?”

  “Sometimes I played ball in front of thousands of people. Sometimes in front of hundreds. I liked the thousands better. But I’m a cop, Bella, not a shrink. If you’re happy, I guess that’s what’s important.”

  The smile that had been on her face disappeared. “I didn’t say I was happy.” She took off her glasses, turned, and stared Jesse in the eye. “Do you think I’m beautiful?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She beamed at that. “Good.”

  He let that go. “Look, Bella, it’s lovely to see you—”

  She smiled again.

  “What I mean to say is that you’re not why I’m here.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To see Bascom.”

  She made a sour face, made a show of looking for him under her chaise. As she did, she made sure Jesse got a good look at her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “As you can tell, he’s not out here. No offense, but don’t you think you might have had better luck coming in through the front door? It’s more traditional.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have seen you.”

  She liked that a lot. “I think he’s in the house. He and Stan have been bitching at each other all morning like an old married couple.”

  “About what?”

  She shrugged, her round, firm breasts rising and falling as she did. “Who knows?”

  “How’s the promo going for the event?”

  Her smile did its vanishing act again. “Not great. Something better happen soon or I’ll be begging C-listers to come.”

  “Good luck with that,” he said, standing up. “I better go find Roger.”

  “Jesse, if you ever want to go to dinner . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence.

  He stared down at her. She was beautiful and under most circumstances would have been almost impossible to resist, but these weren’t most circumstances. Bella’s beauty only served to remind him of Di
ana’s and how much he missed her.

  31

  Jesse could hear their voices as he walked through the restaurant-sized kitchen and toward the cavernous great room. Bella’s assessment was spot on. Though Jesse couldn’t hear what was being said, Bascom and White were definitely not pleased with each other. He hadn’t thought much of White when they’d met, but given how he was getting under the usually unflappable Roger Bascom’s skin, Jesse thought he might have to reconsider. Anybody who could get Bascom to react this way deserved a second chance. Bascom’s back was to Jesse, White looking over the security man’s shoulder. Unlike with the sunbathing Bella, Jesse didn’t need to clear his throat to be noticed. White’s eyes got big with something that looked like a cross between panic and anger.

  “Chief Stone!” White said too loudly, as if to cue Bascom to shut up. “Come in. Come in.”

  Jesse wondered what it was White didn’t want him to hear. Maybe it was what Bella Lawton had already confessed to him, that this gala for Terry Jester wasn’t coming together as expected and that the big party was going to be a big bust instead. Maybe it was something else. When Bascom turned to face Jesse, there was no confusing the meaning of his expression. He was pissed.

  “Stone! How the hell did you get in here?”

  “Through the kitchen.”

  Stan White grinned at Bascom’s annoyance, but Bascom was unamused.

  “That’s not what I’m asking and you know it.”

  “Maybe you better check with the guys manning the video monitors. I guess they think I’m still looking under the hood of my Explorer.”

  The grin was gone from Stan White’s face, as he realized he wasn’t sure how much of the argument Jesse had heard.

  “Never mind how you got in here, Chief,” White said.

  “Jesse. Call me Jesse, Stan.”

  He liked to discombobulate people with that line. There were times, in their confusion, that they’d say things they hadn’t meant to. This wasn’t one of those times. White composed himself before he spoke again.