Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Twenty

The next morning, Jesse sat with Molly and Suit in the conference room. He wanted to think out loud on the case, and Molly and Suit almost always saw something he didn’t. If Jesse was a TV detective, he’d have a big bulletin board with pictures and red string connecting a bunch of different pieces of evidence.

But he didn’t have that. He had Molly and he had Suit and he had donuts. He stuck with what had always worked before.

The hot cup of coffee still hurt Jesse’s burned hands, even through the bandages. But then again, no pain, no gain.

He’d gone for Dunkin’ after Molly and Suit both complained about being hungry. Jesse felt he owed them something.

He lifted one of the donuts from the box and took a bite. Not as good as Daisy’s fresh-baked turnovers, sadly. He knew he’d have to talk to her again, but in the meantime, he could live with donuts. He didn’t like the thought of losing Daisy as a friend. Or, for that matter, never having one of Daisy’s pastries again.

Right now, however, he couldn’t think about it. He needed to focus on the case. He needed ideas.

“Okay,” he said. “What the hell is going on here?”

Suit yawned, exhausted.

“Why didn’t you get turnovers?” Molly asked.

Jesse sighed. “You know damn well why. Can we focus on the case, please?”

“Don’t snap at me.”

“I didn’t snap.”

Molly gave him a look. Jesse thought he might have snapped. He put a donut on a napkin and put it in front of her as a peace offering. Or at least a distraction.

It worked. Molly glared at the donut instead of glaring at Jesse.

“So we’ve lost most of our evidence,” Jesse said. “The crime scene techs still had the file boxes with the papers and photos in a stack inside the house. They all went up in the fire.”

“How much was there?” Suit asked, fighting a yawn. He hadn’t had any trouble sleeping. Jesse had to call Elena to wake him up and get him to the station.

“The count was at sixty-four different bodies and crime scenes,” Jesse said.

“Jesus,” Suit said.

“And there were still dozens of boxes to go. All gone now.”

“Didn’t they take pictures?” Molly asked. “I thought that’s what they were supposed to do.”

“They did,” Jesse said. “But they didn’t have time to get everything. They thought they’d be able to go through the files later.”

“And then Peebles came and threw his Molotov cocktail.”

“Right,” Jesse said. “I tried to grab one of the boxes, but we see how that turned out.”

He held up his bandaged hands.

“Does it hurt?” Molly asked.

“Yes.”

“Serves you right for running into a burning building,” she said. “You dumbass.”

“Now you sound like Robbie.”

“We don’t agree often, but on this one, he’s right.”

Suit, bless him, tried to get them back on track. “Do we have anything left?”

“Just the papers and pictures I grabbed on my first trip into the house. I didn’t get around to handing them off to the state’s people, so they’re still on my desk.”

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Suit said.

“Just the one?” Jesse said.

Suit looked hurt but covered it quickly. Jesse was not winning any friends this morning. “I don’t understand why Peebles came to us about Burton if he wanted to hide what was inside the house,” Suit said. “Why call the police if you’re trying to cover up a crime?”

“He didn’t know what was inside,” Jesse said. “He told me he was checking on Burton because he was an old family friend. Thanks to Molly, we know that’s mostly crap. There are no apparent connections between him and Burton. So why keep tabs on him?”

“Well, Burton was sleeping on a couple million bucks,” Suit said. “So someone was paying him to do something.”

“Right,” Jesse said, and Suit looked happy again, like he’d pleased the teacher.

“Any chance he was framed?” Molly said.

“I don’t see how,” Jesse said. “You’d have to go back years to accumulate all that evidence, and then cram it in among his junk without Burton saying or doing anything. Also, he died of natural causes. Dev is sure of it. Weird way to frame a guy.”

“I know. I just find it hard to believe he killed all those people himself,” Molly said. “None of these murders were local, or we would have noticed. The photos go back years.”

“Maybe he traveled,” Suit said.

“That would make him a serial killer or a hit man,” Jesse said. “And nobody pays a serial killer. Nobody has to. They do it for themselves.”

“So a hit man,” Suit said.

“He wasn’t a hit man,” Molly said. “He barely left his home in the last ten years, his neighbors said. And look at him.” She rummaged for the coroner’s report. “Five-eight, one-fifty. He wasn’t a big guy. Not strong, not imposing.”

“Killers don’t always look like killers,” Jesse said.

“But they do need some way to kill people,” Molly shot back. “And what’s the one thing they didn’t find in all that junk piled up in his house?”

“No gun,” Jesse said.

“Right. Not even one.”

“Huh,” Suit said. “I mean, there could have been one buried deeper.”

“People who use guns like to keep them close,” Molly said. “Where’s yours? Your backup, I mean?”

“Taped to the headboard,” Suit said with a sheepish grin. “Don’t tell Elena. She hates it. She wants me to keep it in a lockbox.”

“Nightstand drawer,” Jesse said.

“But we’ve all had people try to kill us,” Molly said. “So of course we keep a gun close. If Burton was a hit man, you think he’d bury his gun under a pile of crap where he couldn’t get to it?”

“No,” Jesse said. “You’ve convinced me.”

“Because I’m right.”

“And because you know hit men so well.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Good you’re letting that go.”

Suit ignored the hints about Molly and the gun-for-hire, Crow, who sometimes still came around Paradise. He wasn’t so dumb that he’d missed all the subtext over the years. He just pretended not to notice, as if his mom and dad were fighting.

“Well, if he wasn’t a hit man and he’s not a serial killer, then what was he?” Suit asked. “Who was this guy? Why was he connected to these murders? What was he being paid for?”

Suit had, in his usual blunt-instrument way, pointed out all the holes in their case. They didn’t know anything.

They all went quiet again. Suit looked glum. Molly lost her staring match with the donut and began to eat.

Jesse flexed his fingers to keep them from stiffening. He could feel the skin breaking under the bandages. It wasn’t quite like the pain from throwing the ball into his glove, but it wasn’t completely unlike it, either.

Maybe it was close enough to get his brain working again, because he thought of something. The money.

“Someone had to pay Burton all these years, right?”

“Sure,” Molly said, around a mouthful of donut and powdered sugar.

“What if that’s why Peebles was here? He said he came by about once a month. Just to keep tabs. He was checking on Burton for whoever paid him.”

“Sure. Makes sense.”

“And they didn’t trust Peebles to know what he was doing. They just used him for the check-ins.”

Suit and Molly nodded.

“But when we went inside...” Suit began.

“We found the tip of the iceberg,” Molly said. “Whoever was behind Peebles and Burton got nervous.”

“Not just nervous,” Jesse said. “Furious. Assuming they were paying Burton. They’d be pretty unhappy to learn Burton kept all those records.”

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Suit said, not getting it yet.

But Molly did. “And they’d be even unhappier to know that the police had those records.”

“Exactly,” Jesse said. “They’d probably even send someone out to destroy the evidence.”

“Peebles,” Suit said, getting the idea now. “That’s why he threw the firebomb. He was told to clean up his mess.”

“Now. Just imagine how angry those people will be when they find out he didn’t get all of it,” Jesse said.

He cracked a smile. He had an idea now.

“Let’s tell everyone we’ve still got it here,” Jesse said. “Let’s see who comes looking for it.”

Molly and Suit looked at each other. “And then what happens?” Molly asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The media has already reported we’ve found a couple million bucks. Now you want to tell the world that we’re sitting on evidence connected to multiple murders,” she said. “And someone has already burned down a house to get rid of it. What do you think is going to happen when those killers hear about this?”

“That’s the idea,” Jesse said. “We’re going to draw them out.”

“Maybe it’s not the best idea to have a bunch of murderers coming to town,” Molly said. “I know you, Jesse. You’re painting a target on your own back.”

“No,” Jesse said. “I’m putting it on my front. So I can see them coming.”

Molly and Suit just looked at him. “Not funny,” Molly said.

“Either of you got any better ideas?”

Neither of them said anything.

“Then we’re doing it,” Jesse said flatly. “I’ve got just the reporter we can use.”

“Anything for an excuse to call your ex-girlfriend,” Molly muttered.

Jesse frowned at her. “Now who’s not letting things go?”

Jesse did not, in fact, call his ex where she worked at The New York Times. This story was local, and he didn’t really want to try to get through a conversation with Nellie anyway. Ty Bentley was happy to rush back over to Paradise for a stand-up interview in front of the station. Nobody else had anything on the fire, and Jesse promised him an exclusive on the pictures of the dead bodies.

His cameraman shot Jesse with the mic in his face as Bentley asked the questions.

“Chief Stone, are you saying these murders could be Mob-related?”

“It’s too soon to speculate,” Jesse said. “But we are investigating every connection. Someone out there knows who these people are. Someone did this. And we want to find them.”

Bentley nodded, then turned to the camera, looking solemn. “Chilling photos, unsolved mysteries, and an unknown killer. From Paradise, this is Ty Bentley, WBZ.”

His grim expression vanished as soon as the cameraman turned away, replaced with a huge grin. “This is so great, Chief,” he said. “We are going to go national on this one, I can feel it. CNN, the networks, everybody’s going to want a piece.”

“You sure about that?”

“Are you kidding?” Ty laughed. “It’s got everything. Dead bodies, money, a weird old guy in a haunted house, and a killer on the loose. People eat that shit up with a spoon.”

“Terrific,” Jesse said. “Maybe you can use this instead of the piece on the sign in Daisy’s café.”

Bentley looked confused. “Oh, I already did that piece. Ran at noon and again at five. I put you down as ‘no comment.’ ”

“Thanks for that.”

Bentley didn’t catch Jesse’s tone at all.

“Yeah, that one’s going to go national, too. Every other station in Boston has already jumped on it. ‘Culture war comes to small seaside town. Are the police out of control?’ You know the drill.”

Jesse didn’t say anything. Ty shifted uncomfortably.

“You should really think about saying something next time,” Ty said. “It makes you look terrible when you just let that stuff go out there without any pushback.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jesse said, and walked back into the station.