Robert B. Parker's the Hangman's Sonnet

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  He pulled out the drawer, grabbed his bundled-up white socks, and carefully pulled them apart. He slid his hand down into one of the socks, the one with the tear above the ankle, and felt for the ring. Inside, you learn about how and where to hide things. You also learn to hide how you feel. It was always safer to never give away your feelings. You never wanted the other guys to know what you were thinking, but Hump couldn’t hide the smile when he felt the ring there where he had left it. He held it up to the light as he did each time he looked at it. It was a beautiful thing to behold. He imagined it on a woman’s red-tipped finger, the long tail of the dragonfly curling around her pale skin. The four jewel-encrusted wings spreading slightly across her pinkie and middle fingers. He hadn’t ever had much beauty in his life and had certainly never had beautiful things.

  Watching it sparkle in the light, he thought he might not fence it. He wanted to have one precious thing to hold on to, even if it was a fancy lady’s ring that he couldn’t wear or show to anyone. He knew that even the best deal he would get would only make him pennies on the dollar. Maybe less, because besides the big diamonds that were the dragonfly’s eyes, he had no idea about what kind of stones were in the setting. Rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, he figured. But even if they were, so what? He didn’t know what they were worth, didn’t know what the diamonds were worth. The gold setting had some value, though that was the least of it. He placed the ring back into the sock, bundled the socks back together. And placed the bundle back in the drawer.

  He rubbed the thick stubble that he’d let grow on his face since the day the old lady died. By tomorrow, he thought, it would almost be a beard. Between a beard, sunglasses, and a hat he’d be okay. He sprayed some Right Guard under his arms, threw on some clothes, and reached for the clicker. He plopped himself down on the bed, thinking King would know what the ring was worth. King was smart like that. But King would lose his mind if he found out Hump had taken the ring. Even though no one was there to see it, Hump shrugged his shoulders. Maybe they’d hook up again someday. They were good together, on the inside and out.

  He slid his index finger over the clicker buttons, searching for the ones that would get him to the paid movie channels, but when he looked up at the screen he stopped moving his finger. Stopped moving at all. Stopped breathing for a second, because there on the screen was Hump’s booking photo, next to King’s booking photo. Then King’s photo was enlarged, completely displacing Hump’s photo. Then King’s photo disappeared and was replaced by the image of a tall, good-looking cop standing before a row of microphones. Hump turned up the sound so he could hear what the cop was saying. When he heard, he turned off the TV.

  He and King hadn’t been partners, not like some guys they’d known inside who worked together for years. They weren’t part of a crew. They were just two guys who had shared a cell for a few years and got along, each watching the other’s back. King was older and smarter, but he was as big a screwup as Hump, maybe even a bigger one. Still, King had been his friend, and now his friend had been murdered. Hump knew he should walk out of that room and never look back. He should fence the ring and just get on that bus to the place where it didn’t rain. Instead he clicked off the TV and searched the drawers King had used for his stuff while he’d been there.

  45

  Jesse waited for Henry Wilmott in the lobby outside the curator’s office. The Cain Library was at the center of what used to be all of Paradise. What the townspeople now called Old Town. It was where most of the quaint shops were, the ones that catered to the folks who came in spring for the garden tours and tours of the Victorian houses, the ones who came in summer for the regatta, and the ones who came in the fall for the changing of the leaves. These shops that had once been home to the butcher, baker, dry-goods store, greengrocer, and cobbler were now leased by cafés, antiques stores, art galleries, and tourist shops that sold souvenirs, sunblock, old-timey whaling paraphernalia, and plastic scrimshaw. Old Town wasn’t far from Pilgrim Cove and the old Cain house.

  Jesse got tired of sitting. Between his visit to Dix and the press conference, he was full of the kind of energy he got charged with when he did unsettling or unpleasant things. Though his visit with Dix went as he had expected and the press conference had gone off without a hitch, he was wound up. He thought it might be a rebound effect from the day before and that in a few more hours he would begin to feel the drag on his body from the drinking, the nausea, the coffee, and the lack of sleep. It was an edgy, brittle kind of energy he was feeling as he strolled through the museum displays. Although it was called the Cain Library, the building also housed the Cain Museum. The museum told the story of the founders of Paradise and housed collections of art, finery—clothing, jewelry, silverware—family histories, and things like small stained-glass windows removed from their grand houses on the Bluffs before demolition.

  “Jesse, Jesse, forgive me,” said Henry Wilmott, scurrying toward him, his right hand extended. “I’m so sorry, but I was on the phone with the broker for one of the Salters. They want to make a contribution.”

  Wilmott was shorter than Jesse but not by much, though his hunched posture made him appear smaller than he actually was. His wispy gray hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and papery white skin gave him the look of a Dickens clerk. Jesse wasn’t fooled. Henry Wilmott had a handshake like a vise.

  “No problem, Henry.”

  “I saw the press conference on the local news at noon. This is a bad business. I mean, between poor Maude and this fellow. Awful stuff. Just awful.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, Jesse, how can a lowly curator and librarian assist the chief of our local constabulary?”

  “Molly tells me you’re the man to talk to about the Cains.”

  “I believe I am. Yes, indeed I am. What about the Cains?” Then he talked over himself before Jesse could answer. “Poor Maude. I’m afraid she was the last in the line of a wonderful and generous family. Did you know her?”

  “I did not.”

  “A shame. She was a lovely woman, really.”

  “So, Henry, I was wondering if you knew whether Maude kept any valuables in her house. Something either she or her family hadn’t donated to a good cause or to the museum?”

  Henry thought about it for a few seconds, then a light seemed to go on in his gray eyes behind his glasses. He made a hook of his index finger and waved it at Jesse.

  “Come with me.”

  Jesse followed him back past the waiting area, past Wilmott’s office, down two half-flights of stairs, and into an area that, unlike the wood-paneled walls and creaky-planked floor of the museum and library, was all concrete and steel. Wilmott reached into his pocket for a key and opened the large steel door before them. Inside, a ceiling light popped on. Wilmott tapped a code on a keypad affixed to the wall just below the light and motion sensor.

  “Precaution, you know,” he said, turning to Jesse. “We store our most valuable small pieces in here that are not currently on display. We store our artwork at a different facility. Please, have a seat.”

  Running down the center of the windowless room was a long, black marble-topped island. Six high stools on poles bolted to the floor were on either side of the island. At the center of the island were six magnifying lamps mounted on spring-loaded articulated arms. The walls of the room were actually drawers of varying sizes. Each drawer had a keypad on its face. Wilmott walked over to a large drawer opposite Jesse and punched in a code. A buzzer sounded, a lock unlatched, and Wilmott pulled out the drawer. He reached in and pulled out a foot-square blue velvet–lined tray and placed it before Jesse.

  Featured on the tray were a pair of earrings, a necklace, a brooch, a bracelet, a decorative hair comb, and three bangles. All of the pieces were of a dragonfly motif, but the brooch was especially beautiful. All of the jewelry was exquisitely crafted in gold and featured diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.

  “Breathtaking, aren�
��t they? René Lalique himself designed these pieces for Zachariah Cain Junior, who presented them to his wife, Emma, as a birthday gift. Emma left them to Maude, who donated them to the museum in 1973.”

  Jesse had no idea who René Lalique was, but the beauty and craftsmanship of the pieces were undeniable. He noticed something else: an empty spot on the tray. He pointed that spot out to Henry Wilmott.

  “Yes, the ring. It was the one piece in the set Maude could not part with. We are to receive it upon the execution of her will.” Then Wilmott made a face, not a happy one. “Oh, no, Jesse. Are you telling me you haven’t found the ring among her possessions? What a tragedy. You see, the endowment the Cains left to us has been drained away over the years as a result of foolish spending and poor investments. The auctioning off of this set was to infuse the endowment with new cash. With the ring, the complete set would be worth millions.”

  “But even without the ring—”

  “Yes, it is still a valuable collection, no doubt. But the ring and the brooch are the stars of the set. It would be like Casablanca with Bogie and no Bergman. No, no, the ring is of premium importance to the set and the future of the museum. We must get it back. We simply must.”

  “Have you got an image of it?”

  “I do. Come up to my office.”

  Following behind Wilmott, Jesse asked, “Do you know why Maude was selling her house?”

  “She was too old to manage any longer and it was falling into terrible disrepair. She knew it was time for her to take whatever funds she could get out of the place and find an assisted-living facility.”

  “Did she have any takers?” Jesse supposed he was thinking as much about his inability to sell his place as he was about the late Maude Cain’s prospects.

  “You’d have to ask her agent. The fate of the house wasn’t part of our concern.”

  Back on the street, Jesse stared at the image of the ring. He hadn’t had the heart to tell Wilmott that the chances of recovering the ring intact weren’t very good, though that wasn’t what was troubling him at the moment. None of what Jesse had learned from Henry Wilmott, nor the questions that information raised, had done a thing to dissipate the buzz of negative energy he’d felt while waiting outside the curator’s office. If anything, it made it worse.

  46

  Back at the office, Jesse was working off some of his energy by pounding a hardball into the pocket of his old glove. Then, as suddenly as he had started, he stopped and called Alisha into his office.

  “What is it, Jesse?” she asked, closing the door behind her.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday. You shouldn’t have been put in that situation.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me, Jesse. Where would I be if you didn’t hire me? I know I wasn’t who they wanted you to hire. I was happy to help. Proud that Molly trusted me enough to ask.”

  “I’m grateful, but that’s not the point, Alisha. It’s not your job to babysit me. It’s not Molly’s, either. I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  There was a knock at the office door and it opened before Jesse could answer.

  “This a private party or can anyone join?” Molly asked, stepping in and closing the door behind her.

  Alisha said, “Is that all, Jesse?”

  “Sure.”

  Molly was curious, but waited until Alisha had gone back to the desk. “What was that about?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Oh.”

  “‘Oh’ is right.”

  “If you’re going to bite my head off for—”

  “Relax,” Jesse said, interrupting her. “I was apologizing to her.”

  “Why? I was the one who got her in the middle of the situation.”

  “But there shouldn’t have been a situation. I was responsible for that.”

  Molly wasn’t going to argue with him, so that’s where they left it.

  Jesse asked, “Are you in for the day?”

  “For as long as you need me or until the overtime budget runs out. I’ve cooked enough food for my family for the next two days and everyone knows where they can find me.”

  Jesse waved Molly over to his desk and handed her the photo of the missing dragonfly ring.

  “My goodness, it’s gorgeous.” Molly held out her left hand next to the photo as if imagining the ring on her finger.

  “It’s also missing from Maude Cain’s house.”

  Jesse told Molly about his visit with Henry Wilmott. As he explained it to her, he could see Molly’s wheels turning.

  She asked, “You think Curnutt and Bolton ripped Maude’s house apart to find this ring? It would explain why one might kill the other if they found it.”

  “In L.A. I handled more than one case where friends killed each other over pocket change, so something worth as much as that ring would be reason enough.”

  Molly saw the look on Jesse’s face. “But this isn’t L.A. and that ring isn’t pocket change. I can tell you don’t like it.”

  “You do know me.”

  “Too well,” Molly said with a laugh. “So what’s bothering you about it?”

  “Everything.”

  “That narrows it down.”

  “Okay, how do two low-rent guys like Curnutt and Bolton know about this ring? You read their sheets. Either one of them strike you as a master jewel thief?”

  “You know what it’s like inside. All those guys do is talk about big scores.”

  “But only a very few people even knew she had the ring or about her deal with the museum.”

  “Maybe someone hired Bolton and Curnutt.”

  Jesse smiled. “I like that better, but unless you suspect Henry Wilmott, Maude’s lawyer, or Maude herself, who hired them? And it doesn’t explain why Bolton would make Curnutt come back to Paradise to kill him.”

  “Maybe they never left town and maybe Bolton just picked the wrong place to get rid of his partner.”

  “And maybe he just happened to decide to call it in to the police to make sure the body was found. I’m also pretty sure the person who called it in to the station was the killer. Why would Bolton do that?”

  “Okay, so then what?”

  “I don’t know. I read the ballistics report,” Jesse said. “The bullets that killed Curnutt were .22s, most likely fired from a Walther.”

  “Yeah, Jesse, I read it, too. The slug recovered from the head was badly distorted, but the one recovered from the chest was in pretty good shape.”

  “We recovered a nine-millimeter at the scene with Curnutt’s prints all over the gun and ammo. Either Bolton or Curnutt strike you as types to carry .22s or to bother with homemade sound suppressors?”

  Now Molly was wearing the same skeptical face as her chief. “Okay, Jesse, so if the ring is missing but no one hired these guys to find it and the job wasn’t their idea—”

  “It means they were looking for something else.”

  “But what?”

  “You tell me.”

  47

  Mayor Walker’s invitation to dinner at the Gull was a polite one, but Jesse Stone understood it was a command performance. It was just the three of them at the table by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the marina and Stiles Island. Although Jesse had gotten to the restaurant ten minutes early, he was the last to arrive. Just like with the polite invitation, he knew what that meant. The mayor and Nita were back at it, looking for every possible edge. They wanted to pick the table, to pick the chair he’d sit in. They wanted to see if he staggered a little when he approached. Jesse didn’t think Nita’s recent thawing toward him was all an act, but he understood her priorities.

  He removed his PPD baseball cap as he approached their table, bowed his head slightly. “Your Honor. Miss Thompson.”

  “No need for the formality tonight, Jesse,” the mayor said, smi
ling up at him. “We all seem to be on the same page these days, if not quite the same team.”

  Jesse nodded, put his hat down on the seat next to him, the one without the place setting before it. “Okay, Connie.”

  The mayor waved for the waitress.

  “I’ll have a very dry martini with three olives.” She turned her head to her aide. “Nita?”

  “Jim Beam Single Barrel. One ice cube.”

  Jesse didn’t need prompting. “Club soda, lime, in a tall glass.”

  The mayor and her adviser gave each other a look. They both seemed to want to say something, but neither did.

  “So, Jesse,” Walker said when the waitress was out of earshot. “Nita tells me I owe you a debt of gratitude. That it was your idea to keep most of the information out of the media’s hands as to where this Curnutt fellow’s body was discovered and who may have called it in.”

  “I didn’t want to deal with a media feeding frenzy any more than you did, Connie. How’s it working? I’ve been busy today and haven’t had time to catch the news.”

  It was Nita who answered. “So far so good. No one on our end of things has said anything and none of the reporters have worked it out yet. They’ve all been focused on Curnutt’s connection to the Cain incident and speculating about whether his partner killed him and why.”

  The drinks arrived. The waitress asked if they wanted to hear the specials before they ordered, but the mayor shooed her away.

  “Give us some time. I’ll call you over when we’re ready.”

  The waitress didn’t need to be told twice. The three of them raised their glasses to the others, but without uttering a word. None of them, least of all Jesse, believed this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.