“I do.”
“Independently of one another, Rich Amitrano and Sara York have given my department credible information that a female teacher on staff here had an intimate relationship with Chris Grimm and that relationship extended beyond romance to include the distribution of drugs on school grounds.”
She said, “Some of them will refuse and want a union rep or lawyer.”
“We’ll invite them to bring their reps and lawyers to the station.”
“Then I had better call the president of the school board.”
“I doubt this will make you feel any better, but I think this is almost over.”
“You’re right, Jesse. It doesn’t.”
* * *
—
AS WAS HIS PATTERN OF LATE, Jesse stopped by the art rooms on his way out of the building. This time, however, there was no joy in him at the prospect of seeing Maryglenn. He did his usual peeking through the door glass and waiting for a pause in her lesson. When she spotted him lurking, she stepped out to join him in the hall.
“You look terrible,” she said. “Is it Cole? Petra North? Has she—”
“Cole will be fine. I’m going to pick him up now. Petra’s condition is unchanged.”
“Then what?”
“We have to talk . . . tonight.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He didn’t deny it but said, “After my meeting, but if that doesn’t work for you—”
“That’s fine.”
“Tonight.”
He turned and walked down the hallway without looking back.
Seventy-two
He listened to Lundquist’s voicemail as he strode to the car. He didn’t say much, but there was something foreboding in Lundquist’s voice.
Jesse sat in the front seat of the cruiser and returned the call.
“You ever think about taking your act on the road or handicapping at the track?” Lundquist asked.
“No riddles, Brian. I’m not in the mood.”
“Boston Homicide is having a busy day. You called it. Millie Lutz and Rajiv Laghari, both murdered. Lutz was shot to death early this morning driving away from Wexler’s house. Pro hitter, all the way. Motorcycle drive-by. Laghari’s death is more interesting. A junkie allegedly stabbed the good doctor to death in the vestibule of his condo. Want to guess what Boston PD Joint Task Force detective was there to arrest the doctor, showed up just two seconds too late to save Laghari, but was Johnny-on-the-spot to shoot the perpetrator to death?”
“Detective Hector.”
“Bingo.”
“Loose ends no more.”
“Looks that way.”
“Any other predictions, Nostradamus?”
“If I worked at Precious Pawn and Loan on Washington Street in the South End, I might watch out. And a guy named Arakel Sarkassian might want to start wearing a Kevlar vest.”
“You’re a little late on the pawn shop.”
“Two victims?” Jesse asked. “Man and a woman?”
“Nice recovery, Kreskin. Yes. A robbery gone wrong.”
“You still believe in the tooth fairy and Santa?”
“Santa. I never believed in the tooth fairy. But I hear what you’re saying. More loose ends taken care of. Who is this Sarkassian guy?”
“Maybe no one, but he had a connection to Chris Grimm. I’ll text you what I have on him.”
Lundquist cleared his throat. “Far as I can tell, Sarkassian is still drawing breath. How’s your boy?”
“I’m headed over to the hospital to pick him up.”
“Good—oh, Jesse, one more thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The white van, we got it on video in Helton and coming out of Helton.”
“You think the Grimm kid was killed in Helton and dumped on the way out of town?”
“Maybe so. That’s how I’m looking at the case, working back from where the body was discovered into Helton.”
Jesse wanted to know. “Any hits on the McDonald’s angle?”
“None in or near Helton.”
“Okay, Brian. Thanks. Can you send me the surveillance camera footage?”
“Will do.”
* * *
—
BEFORE HEADING TO THE HOSPITAL, Jesse drove into the Swap. Jesse’s Explorer had been flatbed-towed over to Galliano’s Auto Body Shop on Trench Alley. Over the last several years, Jesse and Tony Galliano had become well acquainted. Jesse’s old Explorer, the one he’d had since L.A., had been shot to hell and wrecked during a wild car chase that had ended in a fiery explosion not far from the body shop, and a few months ago his new Explorer was deliberately rammed off the Bluffs and destroyed.
“Hey, Chief, you ever think maybe you might try a surplus tank or something?” Tony said, as he walked to greet Jesse. “You’re freakin’ murder on Explorers.”
“Totaled?”
Tony shrugged. “That’s up to your insurance adjuster. All I know is the replacement airbags alone will cost a fortune, never mind the body work. Jeez, Jesse, you think you can manage not to roll the next one over? That’s two outta three.”
“My son was driving.”
Tony’s cheery face became confused. “Son? You got a son? Runs in the family, then.”
“Long story for another time.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You think I can have a look at it?”
“You own it . . . at least until the adjuster gets here. C’mon with me.”
Tony walked Jesse around behind the shop to the small lot where he kept the cars waiting to be worked on. When Jesse saw his SUV, he knew that totaling the thing would be a formality. It was damaged in a way only a rollover accident can damage a vehicle. But remembering what Cole had said about the van, he stepped to look at the driver’s side of the Explorer.
Tony spoke before Jesse had the chance. “Kid’s lucky. Looks like a vehicle wedged into the driver’s-side rear wheel well. Look how the quarter panel is pushed in. And you see how it’s sitting leaning over like that? That whole side of the suspension is bent up. So you want to take your stuff out of it?”
“I’ll send someone over for that. Thanks. I’ve got to go.”
Tony slapped Jesse on the shoulder. “Okay. In the meantime, I’ll get you some prices on a used Abrams tank.”
But Jesse wasn’t listening. He realized that he’d been meant to be the first loose end to be tied up.
Seventy-three
When she answered the door, it was obvious on her face. She feared Jesse had found her out, he knew her secret. Or, if not the secret itself, that she had one. And it was a secret she thought was safe in a place like Paradise. She had thought, she hoped, foolishly, that living in a small town above a warehouse on a dead-end street and doing her art was cover enough. But experience should have taught her that circumstance could lay you bare, no matter how carefully you planned your moves or how small you made your life. When she saw the file in Jesse’s hand, it confirmed her fears.
“Come on up,” she said.
In her apartment, there was a half-empty open bottle of Malbec and a lipstick-smeared glass next to it on the kitchen table. There were only a few purple drops at the bottom of the stemmed, bell-shaped wineglass. Before she sat down or offered Jesse a seat, she poured more wine into her glass and took a swig. Jesse had never seen this version of Maryglenn before. As he now understood, there were several versions of Maryglenn, seen and unseen.
As he walked past her, Jesse placed the file on the table next to the bottle. He sat on a beat-into-submission leather chair that looked like it had begun life a decade or two before in a doctor’s waiting room. Still, it was a comfortable chair that suited Jesse, given how uncomfortable their conversation was bound to be. Like almost everything else in the apartment, the chair was flecked with pai
nt.
Maryglenn flipped open the file, thumbed through the pages, and finished her wine.
“Do you so thoroughly investigate all the women you sleep with?” She laughed in a joyless way. “Must be quite a collection of files you have.”
“I hope you know better than that.”
She poured herself another glass. “Then why?”
“I can’t tell you that, but you’ll know why tomorrow.”
“The drugs.” She fixed her lips into a pained smile. “The reason you’ve been around school so frequently. You think I’m involved somehow.”
“Are you?” Jesse stood. Walked to the large window that looked out at the yacht club, Stiles Island, and the Atlantic. “All that file tells me is you’ve got something to hide, but it doesn’t tell me what it is or why.”
“Don’t you have things to hide, Jesse?”
“Of course, but none of them worthy of name changes and false histories. I always wondered why we never talked about your past. I know you are from around Nashville. At least that’s what your accent tells me. You say you went to art school, but I don’t know which one. You call yourself Maryglenn, but—”
“We don’t talk much about my past because we’re often preoccupied.”
Now it was his turn for a joyless laugh. “True.”
“There were no lies in there, Jesse.” She pointed to her bed and then to her heart. “Or in here. No, my name isn’t Maryglenn, but it’s the name I gave myself. I like it. Better to have a name that draws attention than one that is plain as a sheet of white paper. People who try too hard to hide make it obvious they’re hiding. Besides, Maryglenn is a good name for a painter.”
“Witness protection?”
“I can’t say.”
He asked, “That story about your leg.”
“A lie. The injuries and the pain were real enough, though.”
Jesse pointed at the bed. “A lie told in bed. Just contradicted yourself.”
“You know what I meant.”
“I would know what most women meant, but you aren’t most women.”
“How I sometimes wish I were. Who else knows?”
Jesse shook his head. “Knows what? All I know is what I don’t know.”
“That’s beneath you, Jesse.”
Jesse changed subjects. “You know about my fiancée, don’t you?”
“Diana. I know what I’ve heard. That she was murdered and the killer escaped.”
“She had a secret, too. When we met, she was an FBI special agent using an alias and working undercover.”
“What does that say about you, do you think?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m not here about me.”
She laughed. “You think not? Jesse Stone, police chief, homicide detective, blind man.”
“Maybe.” Jesse picked up the file and went to the door. “I gave you a chance to explain and you didn’t. Don’t run and don’t be absent from school tomorrow.”
He let himself out without saying goodbye.
Seventy-four
He had resisted making the call, but now felt he had no choice. He had hoped that by confronting her she would explain herself. But Jesse was a realist, if nothing else. Anyone who had worked so hard to cover her tracks was unlikely to just cop to the facts because someone, even her lover, asked her to remove the veil from her past.
Molly had picked up on it almost immediately; something wasn’t right with Maryglenn’s background. When she had asked for yearbook photos from the schools Maryglenn was alleged to have attended, there were none. None of the administrators at those schools remembered her. She had gotten contact info for some of the faculty alleged to have taught her. None remembered her. Molly was a bulldog that way. That’s why Jesse had always been convinced she would have been a great detective. She had the instinct, the skepticism, and the drive. Once she had found those inconsistencies in Maryglenn’s past, she found others.
Jesse might have been inclined to let things be, were he not aware of some of the abuses by people covered by programs like witness protection. For one thing, most of the people involved in such programs were usually criminals themselves, protected only because they could give up other criminals, ones even worse than themselves. And he knew that the branches of law enforcement administering these types of programs often went out of their way to shield their witnesses from prosecution for other local or unrelated crimes. There had been cases of protected witnesses dealing drugs, robbing banks, raping, committing murder. For all Jesse knew, Maryglenn could have been guilty of anything. He had hoped, if not to get the whole story, at least enough of it to eliminate Maryglenn as a suspect in the drug ring. What he got instead were his own suspicions reinforced.
He scrolled to the name Abe Rosen and pressed the number.
Abraham Rosen had been a colleague of Diana’s at the FBI. Like most straight men who knew her, Abe had been a little bit in love with Diana. More than a little bit, but Abe was different from those others. He had understood Diana, understood why she had undertaken the mission that led to her being forced out of the Bureau. He understood her frustration at never being taken seriously because of her looks. Even understood why she had fallen for a man like Jesse Stone.
Although Jesse had tried to throw himself between the gunman and the bullet that had taken her life, Diana’s parents and just about everyone else from Diana’s old life blamed Jesse for her murder. The perception that Jesse had allowed her killer to escape made their pain that much worse. The facts of what had actually happened in the wake of Diana’s murder was his and Vinnie Morris’s secret to bear. So furious and grief-stricken were her parents, they had refused to let him attend her funeral. If there was anyone Jesse was tempted to share the truth with, it was Abe, but that could never happen. Jesse had already traded once or twice on Abe’s enduring affection for Diana. He was going to that well again.
“Jesse Stone,” Rosen said. There was little enthusiasm in his voice. “Another favor?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What is it this time?”
“I will email a file to you. You’ll understand when you get it. I need an answer asap.”
“Always. Am I risking my career this time?”
“Doubt it.”
“You know, Stone, my having been in love with Diana doesn’t give you carte blanche with me.”
“Never thought it did. But Diana always said you believed in right and wrong.”
Rosen cleared his throat, said, “Things were rough there a few months back. Big news. We had people inside that racist bastard’s organization, and you did more to damage it than we ever could.”
“They were never going to win, but they came pretty close to killing a lot of people.”
“Diana would have been proud of you.” Abe’s voice was brittle.
“I’d like to think so.”
“I miss her.”
“Hard woman not to miss.”
“Send me the file and I’ll see what I can do.”
Rosen was off the phone.
Jesse sat there for a few minutes, thinking about Diana. He had forgiven her for lying to him because he understood why she had lied. He hoped he could do the same for Maryglenn or whatever her name was, but it was going to be impossible if she stood by her lies. Sometimes he still missed drinking. Although he had walked out of an AA meeting less than an hour ago, tonight was one of those times.
Seventy-five
When Jesse got in the night before, Cole had been sleeping. He was still asleep when Jesse left for work. But the sun and most of Paradise were still sleeping, too. As he drove to the station from his condo, he stared at the brightening skies over the Atlantic.
There was a certain quality of light to the sunsets in L.A. that was like no other. He was not a man capable of the poetry it would have required to do justice to the dusk i
n L.A. Not even sundown in Tucson could compare. Here in the East, it was sunrise for Jesse. In L.A., sunrise often meant the ground-hugging clouds of the marine layer and a leap of faith that the sun was out there somewhere. Not here. Here the mornings were so beautifully blue that they almost hurt. Jesse, though, enjoyed the dangerous pink dawns—Pink sky at dawn, sailors be warned—even more than the severe blue ones. Today, there was no joy in the pink morning skies for Jesse Stone.
He had emailed the file to Rosen as promised, but there had been no response. Of course there hadn’t been. Jesse had sent it after hours, and it was before hours now. When he got in to work, Suit was at the desk, reading a Boston paper. Jesse noted the headline:
Bloody, Bloody Boston
He saw the photos beneath: Millie Lutz’s Corolla, a string of crime scene tape stretched across the front of Precious Pawn and Loan, and the ME’s men with a body bag slung between them at Rajiv Laghari’s condo.
“Reading about the murders?” Jesse said.
“Bad day for BPD.”
“Say anything about the homicides being connected?”
“Wait a second. Where was it? Here.” Suit folded the paper and pointed with his finger. “‘Millie Lutz was ambushed as she was returning home from work. She was a caretaker for once prominent orthopedist Dr. Myron Wexler. When reached for comment, two of Dr. Wexler’s colleagues noted that the doctor had been suffering with severe Alzheimer’s disease for the past several years. Dr. Rajiv Laghari, also an orthopedist, was slain by an as-yet-unidentified man who police speculate had been a patient of the doctor’s. The assailant was in turn slain by an unidentified member of the Boston Police Department. Unnamed sources confirm that both men were under investigation by state regulatory agencies and law enforcement. Spokespersons for both the regulatory agencies and law enforcement refused comment . . . ’ You know something about this, Jesse?”
“Remember I went down to Boston?”
“Yeah.”
“I spoke with Millie Lutz inside Dr. Wexler’s house. That pawn receipt we found in Chris Grimm’s room was from Precious Pawn and Loan, and I sat outside a clinic run by Dr. Laghari. I think we can draw a straight line from Heather Mackey’s OD to Chris Grimm’s murder to Petra North’s OD to these killings and to Cole’s accident.”
The Bitterest Pill Page 24
