High Profile E-Book

Robert B Parker

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: A Jesse Stone Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 228

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

When the body of controversial talk-show host Walton Weeks is discovered hanging from a tree on the outskirts of Paradise, police chief Jesse Stone finds himself at the center of a highly public case, forcing him to deal with small-minded local officials and national media scrutiny. When another dead body - that of a young woman - is discovered just a few days later, the pressure becomes almost unbearable. Two victims in less than a week should provide a host of clues, but all Jesse runs into are dead ends. But what may be the most disturbing aspect of these murders is the fact that no one seems to care. When the medical examiner reveals a heartbreaking link between the two departed souls, the mystery only deepens. Despite Weeks's reputation and the girl's tender age, Jesse is hard-pressed to find legitimate suspects. Though the crimes are perhaps the most gruesome Jesse has ever witnessed, it is the malevolence behind them that makes them all the more frightening. Forced to delve into a world of stormy relationships, Jesse soon comes to realize that knowing who he can trust is indeed a matter of life and death. 'As always with Parker, the plot, tight though it is, almost fades into insignificance in the face of brilliant dialogue and characterisation' Carla Mckay, Daily Mail 'Remarkably prolific crime writer Robert B Parker has effected something of a time-saving coup in High Profile'The Observer 'Spenser has been reincarnated, and his name is Jesse Stone'Associated Press

Leseprobe

When the body of controversial talk-show host Walton Weeks is discovered hanging from a tree on the outskirts of Paradise, police chief Jesse Stone finds himself at the center of a highly public case, forcing him to deal with small-minded local officials and national media scrutiny. When another dead body - that of a young woman - is discovered just a few days later, the pressure becomes almost unbearable.

Two victims in less than a week should provide a host of clues, but all Jesse runs into are dead ends. But what may be the most disturbing aspect of these murders is the fact that no one seems to care-not a single one of Weeks’s ex-wives, not the family of the girl. And when the medical examiner reveals a heartbreaking link between the two departed souls, the mystery only deepens.

Despite Weeks’s reputation and the girl’s tender age, Jesse is hard-pressed to find legitimate suspects. Though the crimes are perhaps the most gruesome Jesse has ever witnessed, it is the malevolence behind them that makes them all the more frightening. Forced to delve into a world of stormy relationships, Jesse soon comes to realize that knowing who he can trust is indeed a matter of life and death.

Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) has long been acknowledged as the dean of American crime fiction. His novels featuring the wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis’ comment, ‘We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story’(The New York Times Book Review).

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded Pearl Productions, a Boston-based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in many of Parker’s novels.

Robert B. Parker died in 2010 at the age of 77.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR ROBERT B. PARKER

‘Parker writes old-time, stripped-to-the-bone, hard-boiled school of Chandler… His novels are funny, smart and highly entertaining… There’s no writer I’d rather take on an aeroplane’–Sunday Telegraph

‘Parker packs more meaning into a whispered ‘yeah’ than most writers can pack into a page’–Sunday Times

‘Why Robert Parker’s not better known in Britain is a mystery. His best series featuring Boston-based PI Spenser is a triumph of style and substance’–Daily Mirror

‘Robert B. Parker is one of the greats of the American hard-boiled genre’–Guardian

‘Nobody does it better than Parker…’–Sunday Times

‘Parker’s sentences flow with as much wit, grace and assurance as ever, and Stone is a complex and consistently interesting new protagonist’–Newsday

‘If Robert B. Parker doesn’t blow it, in the new series he set up in Night Passage and continues with Trouble in Paradise, he could go places and take the kind of risks that wouldn’t be seemly in his popular Spenser stories’– Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

THE SPENSER NOVELS

The Godwulf Manuscript

Chance

God Save the Child

Small Vices*

Mortal Stakes

Sudden Mischief*

Promised Land

Hush Money*

The Judas Goat

Hugger Mugger*

Looking for Rachel Wallace

Potshot*

Early Autumn

Widow’s Walk*

A Savage Place

Back Story*

Ceremony

Bad Business*

The Widening Gyre

Cold Service*

Valediction

School Days*

A Catskill Eagle

Dream Girl (aka Hundred-Dollar Baby)*

Taming a Sea-Horse

Pale Kings and Princes

Now & Then*

Crimson Joy

Rough Weather

Playmates

The Professional

Stardust

Painted Ladies

Pastime

Sixkill

Double Deuce

Lullaby (by Ace Atkins)

Paper Doll

Wonderland (by Ace Atkins)*

Walking Shadow

Silent Night (by Helen Brann)*

Thin Air

THE JESSE STONE MYSTERIES

Night Passage*

Night and Day

Trouble in Paradise*

Split Image

Death in Paradise*

Fool Me Twice (by Michael Brandman)

Stone Cold*

Killing the Blues (by Michael Brandman)

Sea Change*

High Profile*

Damned If You Do (by Michael Brandman)*

Stranger in Paradise

THE SUNNY RANDALL MYSTERIES

Family Honor*

Melancholy Baby*

Perish Twice*

Blue Screen*

Shrink Rap*

Spare Change*

ALSO BY ROBERT B PARKER

Training with Weights

A Year at the Races (with Joan Parker)

(with John R. Marsh)

All Our Yesterdays

Three Weeks in Spring

Gunman’s Rhapsody

(with Joan Parker)

Double Play*

Wilderness

Appaloosa

Love and Glory

Resolution

Poodle Springs

Brimstone

(and Raymond Chandler)

Blue Eyed Devil

Perchance to Dream

Ironhorse (by Robert Knott)

*Available from No Exit Press

For Joan, whom the eyes of mortals have no right to see

HIGH PROFILE

1

Each spring surprised Jesse. In the years since he’d come to Paradise he never remembered, from year to year, how pretty spring was in the Northeast. He stood now among the opening flowers and the new leaves, looking at a dead man, hanging by his neck from the limb of a tree in the park, on Indian Hill, overlooking the harbor.

Peter Perkins was taking pictures. Suitcase Simpson was running crime-scene tape and shooing away onlookers. Molly Crane sat in a squad car, talking with a woman in jogging clothes. Molly was writing in her notebook.

‘Doesn’t look like his neck is broken,’ Jesse said.

Perkins nodded.

‘Hands are free,’ Jesse said.

Perkins nodded. ‘Nothing to jump off of,’ Jesse said. ‘Unless he went up in the tree and jumped from the limb.’

Perkins nodded.

‘Open his coat,’ Peter Perkins said.

Jesse opened the raincoat. An argyle sweater beneath the coat was dark and stiff with dried blood.

‘There goes the suicide theory,’ Jesse said.

‘ME will tell us,’ Perkins said, ‘but my guess is he was dead before he got hung.’ Jesse walked around the area, looking at the ground. At one point he squatted on his heels and looked at the grass.

‘They had already shot him,’ Jesse said. ‘And dragged him over…’

‘Sometimes I forget you grew up out west,’ Perkins said.

Jesse grinned and walked toward the tree, still looking down.

‘And looped the rope around his neck…’

Jesse looked up at the corpse.

‘Tossed the rope over the tree limb, hauled him up, and tied the rope around the trunk.’

‘Good-sized guy,’ Perkins said.

‘About two hundred?’ Jesse said.

Perkins looked appraisingly at the corpse and nodded.

‘Dead weight,’ Perkins said.

‘So to speak,’ Jesse said.

‘Maybe more than one person involved,’ Perkins said.

Jesse nodded.

‘ID?’ Jesse said.

‘None,’ Perkins said. ‘No wallet, nothing.’

Another Paradise police car pulled up with its blue light revolving, and Arthur Angstrom got out.

‘Anyone minding the store?’ Jesse said.

Angstrom was looking at the hanging corpse.

‘Maguire,’ Angstrom said. ‘Suicide?’

‘I wish,’ Jesse said. The blue light on Angstrom’s cruiser stayed on.

‘Murder?’ Angstrom said.

‘Peter Perkins will fill you in,’ Jesse said. ‘After you shut off your light.’

Angstrom glanced back at the cruiser, and looked at Jesse for a moment as if he were going to argue. Jesse looked back at him, and Angstrom turned and shut off his light.

‘Car keys?’ Jesse said.

‘Nope.’

‘So how’d he get here?’

‘Walked?’ Perkins said.

Angstrom joined them.

‘Or came with the killers,’ Jesse said.

‘Or met them here,’ Perkins said, ‘and one of them drove his car away after he was hanging.’

‘Or took a cab,’ Jesse said.

‘I can check that out,’ Angstrom said. Jesse looked at his watch.

‘Eight thirty,’ he said. ‘Town cab should be open now.’

‘I’ll call them,’ Arthur said. ‘I know the dispatcher.’

‘Arthur, you’re the cops, you don’t have to know the dispatcher.’

‘Sure,’ Angstrom said, ‘of course.’

He walked to his car. Jesse watched him go.

‘Arthur ain’t never quite got used to being a cop,’ Peter Perkins said.

‘Arthur hasn’t gotten fully used to being Arthur,’ Jesse said.

2

Jesse slid into the backseat of the cruiser, where Molly was talking to the young woman. ‘This is Kate Mahoney,’ Molly said. ‘She found the body.’

‘I’m Jesse Stone,’ he said.

‘The police chief?’ the woman said.

‘Yes,’ Jesse said. ‘How are you?’

The woman nodded. She was holding a middle-aged beagle in her lap.

‘I’m okay,’ she said.

Jesse looked at Molly. Molly nodded. Yes, she was okay.

Jesse scratched the beagle behind an ear.

‘Tell me what you saw,’ Jesse said.

‘I just told her,’ the woman said.

She was probably thirty, brown hair tucked up under a baseball cap. Blue sweatpants, white T-shirt, elaborate running shoes. Jesse nodded.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Police bureaucracy. You were out running?’

‘Yes, I run every morning before I have breakfast.’

‘Good for you,’ Jesse said. ‘You usually run up here?’

‘Yes. I like the hill.’

‘So you came up here this morning as usual…’ Jesse said.

‘And I saw him…’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Hanging there.’

Jesse was quiet. The woman shook her head briefly, and opened her eyes.

‘See anybody else?’

‘No, just…’

She made a sort of rolling gesture with her right hand. The beagle watched the movement with his ears pricked slightly.

‘Just the man on the tree?’ Jesse said.

‘Yes.’

‘You know who he is?’ Jesse said.

‘No. I didn’t really look. When I saw him, I ran off and called nine-one-one on my cell phone.’

‘And here we are,’ Jesse said.

‘I don’t want to look at him,’ the woman said.

‘You don’t have to,’ Jesse said. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us that will help us figure out who did this?’

‘“Did this”? It’s not suicide?’

‘No,’ Jesse said.

‘You mean somebody murdered him?’

‘Yes,’ Jesse said.

‘Omigod,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any trouble.’

‘You just discovered the body. You won’t have any trouble.’

‘Will I have to testify?’

‘Not up to me,’ Jesse said. ‘But you don’t have much to testify about that Molly or I couldn’t testify about.’

‘I don’t want any trouble.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Jesse said. ‘I promise.’

The woman hugged her dog and pressed her face against the top of his head. ‘You’ll both be fine,’ Jesse said. ‘Officer Crane will drive you home.’

The woman nodded with her cheek pressed against the dog’s head. The dog looked uneasy. Jesse gave her one of his cards.

‘You think of anything,’ Jesse said, ‘or anything bothers you, call me. Or Officer Crane.’

The woman nodded. Jesse scratched the beagle under the chin and got out of the car.

3

Jesse was in the squad room with Molly Crane, Suitcase Simpson and Peter Perkins. They were drinking coffee.

‘State lab has him,’ Peter Perkins said. ‘They’ll fingerprint the body and run the prints. They haven’t autopsied him yet, but I’ll bet they find he died of gunshot. I didn’t see any exit wounds, so I’m betting they find the slugs in there when they open him up.’

‘Had to have happened last night,’ Suitcase said. ‘I mean, people are in that park all the time. He couldn’t have hung there long without being spotted.’

Jesse nodded and glanced at Peter Perkins.

‘I haven’t seen all that many dead bodies,’ Perkins said. ‘And very few who were hanged from a tree. But this guy looks like he’s been dead longer than that.’

Jesse nodded.

‘And…’ Peter Perkins glanced at Molly.

‘And he smells,’ Molly said. ‘I noticed it, too.’

Jesse nodded.

‘And there was no blood except on him. He got shot and hanged, he’d have bled out and there’d be blood on the ground,’ Suitcase said.

‘So,’ Jesse said. ‘He was shot somewhere else and kept awhile before they brought him up to the hill and hanged him.’

‘You think it’s more than one?’ Molly said.

‘A two-hundred-pound corpse is hard for one person to manhandle around and hoist over a limb,’ Jesse said.

‘But not impossible,’ Molly said.

‘No,’ Jesse said.

They all sat quietly.

‘Anyone reported missing?’ Jesse said.

‘No,’ Molly said.

‘Anyone else know anything?’

‘Nobody I talked with,’ Suitcase said.

Molly Crane and Peter Perkins both shook their heads.

‘Even if you knew the guy,’ Simpson said, ‘be kind of hard to recognize him now.’

‘Anyone want to speculate why you’d shoot some guy,’ Jesse said, ‘hold his body until it started to ripen, and then hang it on a tree?’

‘Symbolic,’ Molly said. ‘It must have some sort of symbolic meaning to the perps.’

Jesse waited.

‘Obviously they wanted him found,’ Suitcase said.

‘But why hanging?’ Peter Perkins said.

Suitcase shook his head. Jesse looked at Molly. She shook her head.

‘Perk,’ Jesse said. ‘Any theories?’

Perkins shook his head.

‘Okay,’ Jesse said. ‘It looks like, for now, we wait for the forensics report.’

‘Unless something turns up,’ Suitcase said.

‘Unless that,’ Jesse said.

4

Dix was as shiny as he always was. His white shirt was crisp with starch. His slacks were sharply creased. His shoes were polished. His thick hands were clean. His nails were manicured. He was bald and clean shaven, and his head gleamed. The white walls of his office were bare except for a framed copy of his medical degree and one of his board certification in psychiatry. Jesse sat at one side of the desk, and Dix swiveled his chair to face him. After he swiveled, he was motionless, his hands resting interlaced on his flat stomach.

‘I’m making progress on the booze,’ Jesse said.

Dix waited.

‘I quit for a while and it seemed to give me more control of it when I went back.’

‘Enough control?’ Dix said.

Jesse thought about it.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’

‘But some?’ Dix said.

‘Yes.’

Dix was still.

‘If I can control it,’ Jesse said, ‘life is better with alcohol. Couple of drinks before dinner. Glass of wine with dinner. Civilized.’

‘And without it?’ Dix said.

‘A lot of days with nothing to look forward to,’ Jesse said.

‘Behavior can be modified,’ Dix said.

‘In terms of drunks,’ Jesse said, ‘I’m not sure that’s politically correct.’

‘It’s not,’ Dix said. ‘But it’s been my experience.’

‘So I’m not fooling myself.’

‘You may or may not be,’ Dix said. ‘It’s possible that you’re not.’

‘Day at a time,’ Jesse said.

Dix smiled.

‘Now,’ Jesse said, ‘to my other problem.’

Dix waited.

‘I’ve met a woman,’ Jesse said.

Dix was still.

‘Like the perfect woman,’ Jesse said.

Dix nodded slightly.

‘She’s good-looking, smart, very sexual. Even professionally – she’s a private detective. Used to be a cop.’

Dix nodded. It seemed to Jesse almost as if he were approving.

‘She’s tough. She can shoot. She’s not afraid. And she’s a painter, too. Oils and watercolors, not houses.’

‘Anyone else in her life?’ Dix said.

‘She’s divorced, like me, and she might still be a little hung up on her ex.’

‘Gee,’ Dix said.

Jesse grinned at him.

‘Like me,’ Jesse said.

Dix was quiet. The only window in the small room opened onto a budding tree against a blue sky. They looked almost like a trompe l’oeil painting. When he was in this room with Dix, everything seemed remote to Jesse.

‘Which is, of course, the problem.’

‘She can’t let go of her ex-husband?’ Dix said.

‘I can’t let go of Jenn,’ Jesse said.

‘Because?’

‘Two possibilities,’ Jesse said. ‘I still love her, or I’m pathological.’

Dix smiled again without speaking.

‘Or both,’ Jesse said.

‘The two are not mutually exclusive,’ Dix said.

‘But I feel like I love Sunny, too. That’s her name, Sunny Randall.’

‘One can have feelings for more than one person,’ Dix said.

‘And how does one resolve those feelings,’ Jesse said.

‘If they need to be resolved,’ Dix said, ‘one would talk to one’s shrink about them.’

‘Well, something needs to be resolved,’ Jesse said. ‘I can’t just live with both of them.’

‘There may be other options,’ Dix said.

‘Like what?’

‘We’ll have to explore that,’ Dix said. ‘Is Jenn with anyone else at the moment?’

‘Jenn is usually with someone else at the moment.’

‘Are you attempting to be monogamous with Sunny?’

‘We haven’t talked about that yet.’

‘Is she with anyone else at the moment?’ Dix said.

‘I don’t think so.’

Dix was silent. Jesse was silent. The faux-looking trees stirred in the light breeze outside the window.

Then Jesse said, ‘Are you trying to inject a note of sweet reason into this discussion?’

‘And me a licensed shrink,’ Dix said. ‘How embarrassing.’

5

Molly Crane came into Jesse’s office as he was making coffee. She carried a yellow cardboard folder. ‘Forensics report is in,’ she said. ‘I organized it for you and put it in a folder.’

‘You wouldn’t consider living with me, would you?’ Jesse said.

‘Maybe,’ Molly said. ‘I’ll discuss it with my husband.’

She put the folder on the desk. Jesse poured water into the coffeemaker and turned it on.

‘Any surprises?’ he said.

‘A little one,’ Molly said. ‘They ID’d the body.’

Jesse sat at his desk.

‘Anybody we know?’ he said.

Molly smiled.

‘Walton Weeks,’ Molly said.

‘The talk-show guy?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Jesse said.

‘Can you say national media?’

Jesse nodded.

‘Walton Weeks,’ he said.

Molly nodded. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if somebody had to go.’

‘I never listened to him,’ Jesse said.

Molly said, ‘I never agreed with him about anything.’

‘Doesn’t make him a bad person,’ Jesse said.

Molly smiled.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Come to think of it, I agree with my husband about very little, either.’

‘Let’s not share any personal views with the national media.’

Molly drew herself to attention.

‘Protect and serve,’ she said.

‘That would be us,’ Jesse said.

He picked up the yellow folder and looked at the cover.

Molly had labeled it WALTON WEEKS. Jesse sighed.

‘It’ll be worse than the serial killings,’ Molly said.

‘The media? Yes, it will. This guy’s a national figure.’

‘What was he doing here?’ Molly said.

‘Molly,’ Jesse said. ‘I just found out who he is.’

‘The question was rhetorical,’ Molly said.

‘For now,’ Jesse said.

He opened the folder and began to read. Molly watched him for a moment. Then she went to the coffeepot, got two mugs, poured the now-brewed coffee into each. She put one mug on Jesse’s desk and took the other one with her to the front desk.

An orgy would sound boring, Jesse thought, if it was described in a forensics report.

White male, five feet eleven inches, two hundred three pounds. Appeared to be about fifty. Victim was overweight, and appeared out of shape. No evidence of a struggle. Abrasions on body appeared postmortem.

Probably when they moved him and strung him up.

Cause of death, three .32-caliber bullets. Any one of which would have done it. The victim had bled to death. Had been dead probably two days before the body was hung from the tree.

Nice call, Perk.

Fingerprint ID established that the victim was Walton Wilson Weeks, age fifty-one. Jesse wondered if they had estimated his age before they ID’d him. There was evidence of liposuction on his belly and buttocks.

Vanity, Walton – vanity, vanity.

The phone rang. It was Healy.

‘Walton Weeks?’ Healy said.

‘So quick,’ Jesse said. ‘I’m just reading the forensics myself.’

‘I’m the homicide commander of the state police,’ Healy said. ‘Commonwealth of Massachusetts.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Jesse said. ‘You know everything.’

‘Walton Fucking Weeks?’

‘Middle name is Wilson,’ Jesse said.

‘Walton Fucking Wilson Fucking Weeks?’ Healy said.

‘Yes.’

‘Hanging from a tree limb in Paradise, Massachusetts?’

‘Talk about a public figure,’ Jesse said.

‘He’s got a national television show,’ Healy said. ‘A national radio show. A national newspaper column.’

‘Is that as important as being a state police captain?’ Jesse said.

‘No. But it’s close. They’re going to swamp you.’

‘Maybe not,’ Jesse said.

‘Weeks was a big supporter of the governor,’ Healy said.

‘The one who wants to be president?’

‘Yeah. That one.’

‘So he’s going to be all over this,’ Jesse said.

‘And me,’ Healy said. ‘And you.’

‘That’ll be an asset.’

‘I’ll help you all I can, and I’ll keep him out of your way as much as I can,’ Healy said.

‘Explain to him about you being a state police captain,’ Jesse said.

‘I don’t know,’ Healy said. ‘He might faint dead away.’

‘Yeah,’ Jesse said. ‘I feel a little woozy myself.’

‘Everyone does,’ Healy said.

‘Got any idea what Walton Weeks was doing around here?’ Jesse said.

‘Not yet.’

‘Any other helpful things to tell me?’

‘Hey,’ Healy said. ‘This is your case. I don’t want to overstep.’

‘Which means you don’t know shit,’ Jesse said.

‘Much less than that,’ Healy said.

6

The smell of the harbor drifted into Jesse’s condo through the open French doors that led to the small balcony. Jesse carried a tall scotch and soda to the balcony. He stood and looked at the harbor. Darkness had begun to settle but had not yet enveloped. He could still see Paradise Neck across the harbor, and Stiles Island off the tip of the neck. He sipped the scotch. Faintly, to his left, he could hear the music and chatter from the Gray Gull restaurant on the town wharf. In the harbor a couple of the boats at mooring were lighted and people were having cocktails. He sipped his scotch. Cocktail hour. He was starting to feel centered. He thought about Sunny Randall. He’d see her this weekend. Walton Weeks permitting. There were worse things than being in love with two women. Better than being in love with none. Sunny was perfect for him. Jenn was not. Jenn was still the promiscuous, self-absorbed adolescent she was too old to be. She’d cheated on him in Los Angeles. She’d cheated on him here. Maybe it was time to stop believing the promises. He finished his scotch and made another. In the darkening harbor, a flat-bottomed, square-backed skiff was being rowed toward a big, brightly lit Chris Craft cabin cruiser. A man was rowing. A woman sat in the stern. He thought about Sunny naked. It pleased him, but it led him to think of Jenn naked, which led him to think of her naked with other men. He heard a guttural sound. Like an animal growling. It came, he realized, from him. With the drink in his left hand, he made a gun out of his right forefinger and thumb, and dropped the thumb and said, ‘Bang.’ Below him, in the harbor, the tide was coming in. The rowboat was making slow progress against it. He drank some scotch. If Sunny committed to him, he knew she’d be faithful. They’d both be faithful. If he committed to Sunny. Which he wished he could do. But he couldn’t. What the hell is wrong with Jenn? Why is she like that? He shook his head and drank some scotch. Wrong question. Why can’t I let her go? Jesse’s glass was empty. He went for a refill. As he poured he looked at his picture of Ozzie Smith. Best glove I ever saw. He remembered, as he did every day, the way his shoulder had hit the ground one night in Pueblo, trying to turn a double play, getting taken out by a hard slide. I’d never have been Ozzie, but I’d have made the Show. He walked back to the balcony. The rowboat had reached the Chris Craft. It was empty now, riding gently at the end of a tether line. I’m a pretty good cop… except for getting fired in L. A… I been a pretty good cop here… if I don’t booze it away… I do booze it away, I’ll have to become a full-time drunk… I got nothing else I know how to do. Walton Weeks was going to be a hairball. He could feel it. Cameras, tape recorders, notepads, microphones, CNN, Fox, the networks, local news, Court TV, the Globe, the Herald, The New York Times, People, US, The National Enquirer … Reporting live from Paradise, Massachusetts, this is Every Prettyface. Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey. Jenn was an investigative reporter now. Not many weather girls made that jump. Jesse was pretty sure she had made it on her back. Walton Weeks would bring her out. He knew her. She’d be looking for an exclusive, an inside look, her special perspective. She’d use him if she could. He knew her. All he had left was being a cop. ‘I won’t let her,’ Jesse said aloud. He drank, staring out at the harbor. There was no moon. It was too dark now to see the skiff. He held his glass up and looked through it at the still-bright light of the party boat. Pale amber. Clear ice. Thick glass. He took in some sea-scented spring night air. Last drink. Then I’ll make a sandwich. Maybe have a beer with it. Go to bed. He finished the drink slowly, standing in the dark on the balcony. He listened to the harbor water moving gently below his balcony.

‘I won’t give her up,’ he said.

Then he turned and went in and closed the doors behind him.

7

The reporters were gathered in a press tent in the parking lot in back of the Town Hall, to the side of the DPW garage. Several portable toilets had been set up. The equipment trucks had filled most of the parking lot behind the supermarket. More portable toilets. There was a press briefing scheduled each morning at nine am in the Town Hall auditorium. Molly was to do the briefing.

‘This is blatant sexism,’ she said.

‘You’re the only one I trust in front of the press.’

‘How about you?’

‘I’m the chief,’ Jesse said.

‘For crissake,’ Molly said, ‘we have nothing to tell them.’

‘True,’ Jesse said.

‘So what am I supposed to say?’

‘Tell them we have nothing to tell them,’ Jesse said.

‘It may be weeks before we have anything to tell them,’ Molly said. ‘What do I do up there every day?’

‘Charm them,’ Jesse said. ‘Wear the full gun belt, makes you look really cute.’

‘You are a sexist pig,’ Molly said.

‘Maybe you could have your hat on at a rakish angle,’ Jesse said.

‘Fuck!’ Molly said and left the office.

Suitcase Simpson came in with a notebook.

‘What’s up with Molly?’ Suit said. ‘I think she tried to bite me when I passed her in the hall.’

‘Gee,’ Jesse said. ‘I can’t imagine.’

Simpson shrugged.

‘I got some preliminary stuff on Weeks,’ he said.

Jesse said, ‘Okay,’ and nodded toward one of the chairs.

‘I’ll type this all up nice on the computer,’ Simpson said. ‘But for now I’ll give you the, ah, salient facts.’

‘You’re taking courses again,’ Jesse said.

‘Just one night a week,’ Simpson said.

‘In a few years I’ll get my associate’s degree.’

‘Onward and upward,’ Jesse said. ‘Whaddya got that’s salient?’