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.”
“Yes.”
“Paradise Taxi is the only one in town,”
Simpson
said.
“Go see them,” Jesse said.
“Now?”
“Now.”
When Suit was gone, Jesse swung his chair around and put his feet up on the sill of his back window and looked out at the fire trucks parked in front of the fire station. The phone rang. Jesse answered.
“Captain Healy,” Molly said, “on
line two.”
“Bullets match,” Healy said.
“The one they took out of Anthony?”
“Yep. And the ones that were trapped in your vest.”
“We knew they would,” Jesse said.
“How about the car rental
companies.”
“The rental companies are an air ball,”
Healy said. “We checked
in a fifty-mile radius, including Logan Airport. Nobody named Lincoln rented a car.”
“How about the ones that deliver?”
“You thought of that, too,” Healy said.
“We’re a small department,”
Jesse said. “But we try
hard.”
“There’s only two companies in the
fifty-mile radius that
deliver,” Healy said. “Neither one of them has delivered to
Paradise.”
“You get any print matches from their condo?” Jesse
said.
“Nope. They’re not in the system that we can find. You know it’s
not really their condo?”
“They rent it?”
“Yep, from a guy working a two-year consulting project in Saudi
Arabia.”
“He’ll be pleased to hear they took
off,” Jesse
said.
“Unless they paid up front.”
“Would you?” Jesse said.
“When I knew I was going to disappear? No, I don’t think I
would.”
When he was off the phone Jesse swiveled his chair, put his feet
back on the windowsill, and looked at the fire trucks again.
They had a false identity. They must have had it in place,
standing by. That’s why they had been so easy and open about their
history in Cleveland. Maybe the Cleveland identity was assumed too.
If you had time and some smarts you could prepare a full new one, driver’s license, credit cards. Or five full new ones.
Standing on the running board of one of the fire trucks, a news
photographer was taking pictures through the window. Jesse could imagine the caption. Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone ponders
his next move. Jesse kept sitting.
If they had a long-established alternate identification,
then they must have had a long-established plan to kill people.
Maybe Paradise wasn’t the first. People like that didn’t stop very
often. If Paradise wasn’t the first place they‘ d pursued their
passion, it probably wouldn’t be the last. They were unconnected.
They didn’t need to work.
Suitcase Simpson came into the office.
“There were eleven cab fares in the last week,” Suit said, “out
of Paradise. Seven of them went to the airport. Two went to the Northeast Mall. One went to New England Baptist Hospital. One went to Wonderland Dog Track.”
“In the winter?” Jesse said.
“They run all year,” Suit said.
“In this weather it would be easier just to mail them a check,”
Jesse said.
“You California guys are wimps,” Suit said. “Hardy New
Englanders like to be there when they lose it.”
Jesse nodded.
“So they could have cabbed to the airport, picked up the rental,
drove it to the mall.”
“Or one of them could have, and the other one could have picked
him up and driven him home in the Saab.”
“They like to do things together,” Jesse said.
“So you figure they both went for the rental car, and drove it
to the mall in time for the shootout?”
“Yes.”
“What if they rented it the day before,”
Suit said, “and parked
it at the mall?”
“The car would have been parked there overnight. It might have
attracted attention. And they’d have had to take a cab to the mall
on the day of the shooting.”
“Why wouldn’t they
have just driven the Saab over and left it
when they swapped cars?”
“Don’t know. Maybe they’re so
yuppied out that they couldn’t
bear to abandon the Saab.”
“Hell, Jesse, they abandoned it anyway, along with their
condo.”
“Yeah, but it was safely parked in the garage. We are not
dealing with entirely rational people here.”
“You think they’re crazy?”
“They’ve killed a bunch of people for no apparent
reason.”
“Good point,” Suit said. “Either
way we’re looking for cab rides
on the day of the shooting.”
Jesse said, “Isn’t there a subway station near the dog
track?”
“Yeah. On the Blue Line. We used to take it into Boston when I
was a kid. Buncha stops: Revere Beach, Orient Heights, the airport, Maverick Square in East Boston.”
Jesse nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Check the cabs
to the airport and to
Wonderland on that day. Talk to the drivers. See if they can describe who they took, and where they picked them up. Get a list of names from all the rental companies at the airport, who they rented a car to that day.”
“That’s going to take some
time,” Suit said.
“It might,” Jesse said. “Or you
might score the first guy you
ask.”
“Not likely,” Suit said.
“Just as likely as last,” Jesse said.
“No,” Suit said. “It never
happens like that.”
Jesse shrugged.
When Suit was gone, Jesse looked at the fire engines some more.
So, where would they go? They were free to go anywhere. They
dearly had plenty of money. Tony’s ocular scanner made that possible. If it were true … Maybe it was … If it were
true, he’d hold a patent on it … If he held a patent on it,
they’d have it at the U.S. Patent Office … which would have a
website.
Jesse stood and opened his office door and yelled,
“Molly.”
When she came in, he said, “Are you as expert on the Internet as
you are at everything else?”
“You sound like my husband,” Molly said,
“when he wants
something.”
“I need crime fighting help,” Jesse said.
“You really don’t want to do this
yourself,” Molly said. “Do
you.”
“I need you to find the U.S. Patent Office on the Web and see
who has patented an optical scanning device.”
“Everybody?”
The Lincolns appeared to be in their late forties.
“Everybody in, oh, say, the last twenty-five years.”
“And while I’m doing that,”
Molly said, “you’ll be in here
oiling your baseball glove? Thinking of spring?”
“Hey,” Jesse said,
“I’m the chief of police.”
Molly smiled and saluted.
“Of course you are,” she said.
“I’ll see what I can
find.”
68
Jesse sat with Marcy Campbell in the Indigo Apple drinking coffee.
“Rita Fiore never called me back,” he said.
“Maybe she’s decided she won’t
waste any more time with
you.”
“Even though I’m a sexual
athlete?”
“It sounds like Rita wants, excuse the phrase, a relationship” Marcy said.
“And she’s thinks I’m not a good
candidate?”
“You’re not,” Marcy said.
“I know.”
“And she knows.”
Jesse nodded.
“She wants a husband,” Jesse said.
“Or the equivalent,” Marcy said.
“I think she’s had several of those
already.”
“Give her credit,” Marcy said,
“for fierce
optimism.”
“There are women who need a mate, I guess.”
“People,” Marcy said.
“People?”
“Men and women,”
Marcy said, “who feel incomplete
unless they are mated.”
“You’re not one of them,” Jesse
said.
“No. I like sex and I like companionship, but not at the expense
of my freedom or my self.”
Jesse broke off a small piece of orange cranberry muffin and ate
it. When he had swallowed, he said, “Maybe I’m one of
them.”
“Well,” Marcy said.
“You’re an odd case. You’re like me, except
for Jenn. You like sex and companionship, too. But you won’t commit
to a new relationship just to have it. It’s why we get along so
well, neither of us requires commitment from the other.”
Jesse laughed. “Which produces,” he said,
“a kind of commitment
to each other.”
“I suppose so,” Marcy said. “But
not for the same reasons. I am
true to myself. You are true to Jenn.”
“Which may be a way of being true to myself.”
Marcy nodded.
“Or maybe obsessive.”
“There’s that,” Jesse said.
Marcy sipped her coffee, holding the mug in both hands.
“But goddamnit,” she said,
“I’ll give you credit, you are true
to it, whatever the hell it is.”
“Well, the thing is,” Jesse said.
“I love her.”
“That simple,” Marcy said.
Jesse nodded.
“Is there anything Jenn could do that would make you give her
up?” Marcy said.
“She could tell me that she had no further interest in me,”
Jesse said. “If she told me that I’d move on.”
“Which gives her control,” Marcy said.
“I suppose.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“I don’t care about stuff like
that,” Jesse said. “I love her.
We’re still connected. I’ll play it out.”
Marcy drank some coffee, and looked at Jesse for a while, and shook her head slowly. Jesse watched her.
“You have given over the crucial decision of your life to
someone else,” Marcy said. “And what’s so odd is that it seems to
be evidence of your autonomy.”
“Autonomy,” Jesse said.
“Don’t be cute. You know what it
means.”
“Sort of.”
“You feel strongly. You trust what you feel. And you proceed
with it.”
“True,” Jesse said.
“It’s the same in your work. You know what you know, and you do
what you do and you plow along doing it.”
“Like a mule,” Jesse said.
“Or a jackass.”
Jesse smiled.
“Same thing,” he said. “More or
less.”
“If you ever work it out with Jenn, will we still be pals?”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“And fuck buddies?”
Jesse breathed slowly in and slowly out. He looked at Marcy for
a moment. Then he smiled slightly and shook his head.
“Probably not,” he said.
69
Suit and Molly sat at the long table in the conference room.
They were drinking coffee from paper cups. A third
cup, with the plastic lid still on it, sat at the head of the table. A box of Dunkin‘ Donuts was open on the table. Suit had his notebook open in
front of him. Molly had a computer printout. Jesse came in, examined the box of donuts for a moment, took one, and sat at the head of the table and took the lid off the coffee. He took a bite of the donut.
“Cinnamon,” he said.
“I know you like them,” Molly said.
“What’re the ones with no hole and
chocolate
frosting?”
“Boston cream,” Molly said.
“Good God,” Jesse said. “What
have you got,
Suit?”
“Okay,” Suit said. He looked at his open notebook.
“First thing. Nobody took a cab to the mall on the day of the
shooting. The two cab rides to the mall were two days earlier and are regulars. Two sisters who live together and go shopping every week.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Anyone
picked up at the Lincolns’ condo on
the day of the shooting?”
“No. But the cab company has a log, you know for taxes and shit.
There was a fare went from Paradise to Wonderland on the day of the shooting. I know the cabdriver. Mackie Ward, we played football in high school. Mackie says he picked up a couple who fit our description, down in front of the Chinese restaurant on Atlantic Ave., in the morning on the day of the shooting, and took them to Wonderland.”
“They hail him?”
“No. They called for a cab and asked to be picked up there.”
“Probably a cell phone,” Jesse said.
“Okay. So they take the cab
to Wonderland. They take the train to Logan. Take the bus to one of the terminals. Catch the rental car bus in front of the terminal and go and pick up the rental car.”
“Pretty elaborate,” Molly said.
“They knew if they killed a cop
we’d look for them hard.”
“Too elaborate. It’s what amateurs do.
They would have been much
better off to drive the Saab to the airport, park it at the airport parking garage, pick up the rental car, and drive to the mall. You got anything else?”
“There were two other cab fares to the airport the day of the
shooting,” Suit said. “Both guys, alone.”
“We’ll check everything,” Jesse
said. “But it’ll turn out to be
Wonderland. How’d you make out, Moll?”
Molly finished chewing some donut, and sipped a little coffee.
“Piece of cake,” she said.
“There are thirteen hundred and
twenty-three listings for ocular scanning devices on the Patent Office website.”
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