by Mike Lupica
“Couldn’t keep it in his robe,” Jesse said.
“Flesh is weak,” Mays said.
“The kid had gone missing around the time somebody shot our mayor,” Jesse said.
“Missing on his own?”
“Or on the run,” Jesse said. “Until he got caught.”
“You want to talk about it?” Mays said.
“Long story,” Jesse said.
“I rarely run into any short ones,” Booker Mays said.
Jesse kept staring down at the shallow grave. He had never met Ben Gage. Now he was dead, most likely over dirt he and Blair Richmond and their friends thought was worth fighting for, even though they weren’t in it for the money.
Jesse decided he might pop the next person he heard call them tree huggers.
At least he knew where Ben Gage was now.
Where was Blair Richmond?
“This all over that land deal?” Mays said.
“There are people in my town who thought this kid was standing in the way of a big score for some powerful people, and all the people in town who could make smaller scores.”
“Land worth killing over?” Mays said.
“Gonna find out,” Jesse said. “Or die trying.”
Mays grinned. “How come with you,” he said, “that doesn’t sound like a figure of speech?”
Jesse walked out of the woods then. Maybe there could possibly have been a lousier way to start his day. He couldn’t think of one, offhand.
TWENTY-SIX
Ed Barrone didn’t like being summoned to Jesse’s office, and had delivered a rather lengthy soliloquy on that subject as soon as he’d shown up, even after being told what had happened to Ben Gage.
When he finally finished, Jesse calmly told him he wasn’t as interested as Barrone might think about what he did and didn’t like now that he had another dead body on his hands.
Then he walked around to Barrone’s side of his desk, swiveled his laptop so it was facing Barrone, and hit PLAY, and then they both listened to Barrone tell the town’s ace reporter, Nellie Shofner, on her podcast that in his day, these damn tree huggers would have been taken for a ride.
There was more. But that was the money quote. Jesse sat back down in his chair and crossed his arms.
“I was just kidding around,” Barrone said.
Jesse nodded. “What they all say.”
“They’ve been busting our balls,” he said. “I decided to bust theirs a little.”
“Our balls?” Jesse said. “I had no idea you were that much of a team player.”
“Mine, Lawton’s, even that hump Singer’s,” Barrone said. “Like it or not, we’re all in this together.”
Ed Barrone, Jesse knew, had been a boxer as a kid. Heavyweight. He could see it in the scar tissue around his eyes, and a nose that seemed flatter than it once had been. But he looked as if he still kept himself in shape. There was a lot of steel-gray hair, brushed straight back from his forehead. Big hands. A loud voice. He seemed to take up more space than just his own, and most of the oxygen in the room.
“What, you think I had something to do with that kid getting shot?” Barrone said. “This close to getting what I want? In what world?”
“Lawton said the same thing,” Jesse said. “Doesn’t mean things can’t change on the ground, especially if the whole deal somehow starts to look like less of a sure thing.”
“Nobody could stop it even if they wanted to,” Barrone said.
“Ben Gage still seemed to think he could.”
“How?”
“For me to find out,” Jesse said.
Then he told him about Ben Gage’s message to Blair Richmond before she’d disappeared.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Barrone said. “Maybe he had something on Singer. Found out where his bodies were buried. Maybe he caught Singer in some kind of bribe. Who the fuck knows.”
“But nothing on you,” Jesse said.
“Not a chance in hell,” Barrone said.
“Because of a life of good works,” Jesse said.
“I didn’t say that,” Barrone said.
“You’ve made a lot of enemies,” Jesse said.
“Because I don’t lose,” he said. “Okay? I do not lose. The guy who should be sitting across from you is Singer. I just want this deal to go through. But I hear he needs it to go through. You spin plates as long as he has, eventually they all come crashing down.”
“Funny,” Jesse said. “Singer says you’re the one who needs this deal.”
“He said that about me?” Barrone said. “What a piece of shit.”
“Nevertheless.”
Barrone leaned forward so his elbows were on Jesse’s desk, chin on his big hands.
“Where do you weigh in on this deal, Chief?” he said.
“I just want what’s best for the town,” Jesse said.
“Then you should be backing me,” Barrone said. “Me getting the land is best for the town, not some spray-tan phony from Vegas.”
“You ever meet the kid Gage?”
“No,” Barrone said.
“What about Blair Richmond?”
“Who’s she?”
“I didn’t say it was a woman,” Jesse said. “Blair could be a guy’s name.”
“Don’t start that shit,” Barrone said.
“She was Ben Gage’s girlfriend,” Jesse said. “Now she’s disappeared.”
“I know nothing about anything like that.”
“A guy I trust told me that when you were on your way up in the construction business,” Jesse said, “guys who crossed you used to disappear from time to time.”
“I’m telling you,” Barrone said, “you’re confusing me with the other guy.”
He smiled. His teeth weren’t nearly as white as Billy Singer’s.
“Are you done busting balls now?” he said to Jesse. “Because if you are, I’m a busy guy.”
“Not too busy to visit Kate O’Hara,” Jesse said.
Barrone colored slightly. And something changed in his eyes. Like the old fighter had been hit.
But he rallied.
“You got a tail on me?” he said.
“Heard it from a friend of a friend,” Jesse said.
Barrone stood up now. But the smile was back in place.
“People told me not to underestimate you,” Ed Barrone said.
“Aw, shucks,” Jesse said.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Spike was at the Gray Gull tonight. Jesse was meeting Kate O’Hara and arrived early.
“Should I even ask about how things are going with our friend in L.A.?” Spike said.
“No,” Jesse said.
Spike said, “Hard no?”
“Really hard,” Jesse said.
Spike pointed to the corner table in the front room and said, “Do you mind if I give you the table in which you and the person we’re not talking about who’s in L.A. right now used to sit?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Dinner for two often means a date,” Spike said.
“This is work,” Jesse said.
He saw Spike’s eyebrows raise suddenly, and saw that Kate was coming through the door.
“All work and no play,” Spike said.
“I could knock you out,” Jesse said.
“Right this way, Chief Stone,” Spike said brightly.
Kate wasn’t as beautiful as Sunny was. No woman Jesse had ever been with was as beautiful as Sunny, not even Jenn. Kate had still looked beautiful to Jesse even when he had gone to the house before dawn that morning. But tonight was different. She was still the widow O’Hara, and had even worn a simple black dress. No jewelry except, Jesse noticed, her wedding ring. Very little makeup, but then she’d rarely worn a lot of makeup. He liked her hair s
hort. But he had always liked everything about her. As they took their seats Jesse remembered other nights at the Gull for the two of them, before Spike owned it. Before Sunny. He wasn’t sure if it was always this table. Sometimes it was. Maybe Kate didn’t feel the old connections he was feeling.
She was married to your friend.
“I assume this is business and not pleasure,” she said.
“It’s still a pleasure to be across the table from you,” Jesse said. “Even if things have changed between us.”
“A lot of things,” she said.
It was not a night for small talk, and they both knew it, even though each made a half-hearted attempt. She said that she was planning a memorial service for Neil once they got past the vote. She asked if Jesse had made progress on his investigation of Neil’s death. He said some. She asked about Ben Gage’s death. He told her that he’d been beaten and then shot, nobody trying to make it look like a suicide with him.
“The way you think they did with Neil?” she said.
He said, “Whoever tried with Neil was just sloppy enough.”
“You think that boy’s death is related to Neil’s,” she said.
“I do,” he said. “I think both of them were standing in the way of progress. And now they aren’t.”
He drank some of his iced tea. She had barely touched her white wine.
“They knew something that they weren’t supposed to know,” he said. “Or had something they weren’t supposed to have.”
“But what?”
“Don’t know,” he said, and then added, “yet.”
She smiled. He had always thought her smile made her even lovelier. Younger, even. It was a good damned smile regardless.
“A lot of things have changed,” she said. “But you haven’t.”
“Well,” he said, “I haven’t had a drink today.”
“You weren’t so bad when you were drinking,” she said.
“Actually,” he said, “I was worse.”
She took a sip of her wine now. He knew he was as attracted to her, right here and right now, as he had ever been. Drunk or sober. But he had been drunk a lot of the time when they were together. He wished he remembered more about the time when he thought the two of them had it right, and might even have had a chance. One more thing lost in the fog of boozing, and regrets.
They were waiting for their entrées. Kate had ordered the catch of the day. He’d already forgotten what it was. He’d ordered a burger.
“Got a couple of things I hoped you might clear up for me,” Jesse said.
“Okay.”
“How come you didn’t tell me that Wilson Cromartie stopped by your house the night I found Neil?”
“The Native American man?” she said.
“Him.”
“He’d called and said he was representing Billy Singer, and asked if he could come by and ask a few questions,” Kate said. “He said he was having some difficulty locating Neil, and asked if I might know where he was. I told him that Neil had asked me to have dinner, and that was the last I’d heard from him, and reminded him that Neil and I had been estranged for some time. Then Mr. Cromartie got a phone call and left.”
“That was it?”
“What more could there possibly be?” she said. “People still must have assumed I had more influence with Neil than I did.”
“Like Ed Barrone?” Jesse said.
“What about Ed Barrone?”
“He paid you a visit as well.”
She had just put down her wineglass but picked it back up, as if it were a prop and she needed to do something with her hand.
“Where did that come from?” she said.
“A restless mind?”
The waiter brought them their food. When he left she said, “He came to pay his respects.”
“Took him long enough.”
“Even though Neil is gone,” she said, “he still has a lot going on.”
“Don’t we all,” Jesse said.
“Might I ask you how you know he was at the house?”
“Small town,” he said.
Never failed. Sometimes Jesse thought playing the small-town card could stop beach erosion.
“Were you having me watched, Jesse?” she said.
“Ed asked me the same question,” he said.
“Is that an answer?”
He smiled, trying to defuse the sudden tension between them.
“I’m the chief of police,” he said. “I get to ask the questions. But the answer is no, Kate. I am not having you watched.”
She stared down at her food, as if she’d forgotten that it was still here.
“He’s an old friend,” she said. “We met in Boston a hundred or so years ago. I hadn’t seen him since then until he came to Paradise. He seemed hopeful I might be able to help him with the Board, because we’d known each other. I disavowed him of the notion.”
“Were the two of you ever involved?”
“God, no.”
“Had to ask.”
“Did you really?”
She stared at him until she took her napkin off her lap and placed it next to her plate.
“I seemed to have lost my appetite,” she said. “But being interrogated by an old friend will do that to a girl.”
“Not my intent, Kate,” he said.
She started to push back her chair.
“I think I’d like to leave now,” she said.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Jesse said.
“Not necessary.”
“I insist.”
“Who am I to argue with the chief?” she said.
Kate went to the ladies’ room, came back out, said good night to Spike as they passed him. Jesse handed Spike his credit card and said he’d be right back. Spike looked past him at their table and said, “You don’t eat, you don’t pay.”
“What about the drinks?”
“On me,” Spike said.
There was one last awkward moment when Jesse and Kate stood next to her two-seater BMW, one she’d had since they’d been dating. Even the way he’d blown up the evening, he was suddenly aware of the closeness of her, the scent of her. Her whole impressive self.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“So am I,” Kate said.
Then she reached over and put a cool hand to the side of his face and kissed him softly before getting into her car and driving away.
He was a block away from the Gull when he heard a ping from his phone and saw that it was from the motion detector he’d left just inside the front door of Neil O’Hara’s house.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jesse knew he should call for backup, knew that if a situation developed at the house he would hear it from Molly tomorrow. But it might be a false alarm. The gadget had cost him only twenty dollars and he’d used it only one other time. If it wasn’t a false alarm, he wanted to control the situation himself, and not spook whoever was inside.
And he was only a couple blocks away.
If it was a simple B&E, he would arrest them and take them in. If it was someone who had come to search Neil’s house—or had come back to search it again—Jesse wanted to know who it was.
Right fucking now.
He parked at the head of the street and jogged the rest of the way to the house. No lights inside, but that meant nothing; Jesse remembered the shades and draperies being drawn when he was the one who had broken into the place.
He hadn’t locked the front door behind him after he’d picked the lock. He was hoping that if someone was still inside, they hadn’t, either.
Unless they’d come through the back door and not activated the sensor until they got near the front entrance.
Back or front?
Jesse decided on front.
He had his G
lock out, hanging at his side, not pressed to his chest the way he’d been taught for situations involving pursuit. Only this wasn’t pursuit, at least not yet. He heard his own breathing as he crouched down and crabbed his way across the front of the house, getting even lower as he passed underneath the picture window in the living room. Down the street and down the hill, he could hear the ocean. It seemed to him that no matter where he was in Paradise, he could hear the ocean. Sometimes he imagined hearing it when he was behind his desk. He gave a last check of his phone, having already muted it, knowing that an incoming call right now would sound like a grenade going off.
The sensor was still activated. Someone was still inside. No light from in there, no sound. Why had he left the sensor?
He knew. Molly wasn’t the only one who had hunches.
He put his gun in his left hand and reached up with his right and gently put it on the knob and moved it maybe a quarter of a turn to the right. It moved noiselessly.
He had the element of surprise on his side.
But not much use if he was outnumbered, and outgunned.
There was no one on the street at this time of night. No cars had driven by since Jesse had gotten out of the Explorer. Just the faint light of the moon working its way through the cloud cover. He reached down again, made sure the radio on his belt was disabled.
He turned the knob all the way and pushed the door open and stepped into the front hall. As he did he saw a figure step out into the other end of the hall, just outside the doorway leading to Neil O’Hara’s study.
“Police!” Jesse yelled.
He couldn’t see whether the man had a gun in his hand or not. But it didn’t matter because the guy turned and bolted for the back of the house, where Jesse knew the kitchen door opened onto the backyard.
Then someone was throwing a shoulder into Jesse from his left, out of the living room, knocking him down, heading for the back door himself, the guy turning and firing a wild shot over Jesse’s head that splintered the front door.
Jesse scrambled back to his feet and chased them through the open door, pulling the radio off his belt as he did, yelling that shots had been fired on Beach Avenue and that he was in pursuit of multiple suspects.
