Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Twenty-Three

As soon as Jesse hung up, he heard arguing in the main bullpen outside his door.

Tate and Molly and Suit were all standing there. It didn’t quite look like it was about to become a fight.

But it didn’t look friendly.

“So let him go hungry. Jesus, you guys want to coddle the guy after he tried to kill the chief?”

“That’s not exactly what happened—” Molly said.

“We still have to feed him—” Suit said.

Tate began to argue back with both of them. Then they all shut up when they saw Jesse looming nearby.

“What’s going on?”

“Uh, Jesse, we’ve got a problem here,” Suit said.

“What?” Jesse did not want to hear about problems.

“Well, usually we feed whoever’s in the holding cells with takeout from Daisy’s...”

“And Daisy won’t let cops into her diner anymore.”

“Just Paradise cops,” Molly reminded Jesse. “I assume police officers from departments where you aren’t the chief are welcome.”

“Thank you, Molly.”

“It’s why I’m here.”

“So what?” Tate said. “Screw her. I’ll buy some dog food. Better than the asshole in the cell deserves anyway.”

Jesse, Molly, and Suit all looked at Tate.

“Thanks for your input, Derek,” Jesse said. “But we can’t just feed him dog food.”

“How about McDonald’s?” Suit said.

“Cruel and unusual punishment,” Molly said.

“Hey, I like McDonald’s,” Suit said.

“You like anything that gives you a toy with your Happy Meal,” Molly shot back.

“Tell me you’ve ever eaten anything better than a McDonald’s french fry. I dare you.”

“Enough,” Jesse said. He got a pen and a piece of paper and scribbled a quick note. “Suit, please take this to Daisy. Don’t go inside. Have someone pass it to her. Peebles isn’t a cop. I’m sure she doesn’t want him to go hungry. See if that loophole works for both of us.”

Suit left with the note.

Tate shook his head, watching Suit go. “I don’t know why you’re bending over backward for either of them,” he said.

“Derek, you’re on patrol, right?” Jesse said.

“Yeah.”

“Then why are you still here?”

Tate muttered something and left. Jesse didn’t feel like pursuing it.

Molly gave him a long look.

“What?”

“You’re going to have to deal with Daisy and Tate sooner or later.”

“I’m working on it,” Jesse said.

In the meantime, he’d had an idea.

“I’m going to go speak to our guest about the problems we’re having with room service.”

“I’m starving,” Peebles said as soon as Jesse appeared in the cell corridor.

“We’re working on it,” Jesse said. “You got anyone you want us to call? Anyone worrying about you?”

“I told you. I don’t want to talk.”

“I don’t want you to talk to me,” Jesse said. “I want you to tell your people where you are. So they don’t worry. If you won’t call a lawyer, at least call your mother.”

That got him. Peebles suddenly looked nervous. Even hardened criminals choked up when Jesse mentioned their mothers, and Peebles was not a hardened criminal.

“You’d do that? You’d give me my phone?”

“Give me a minute,” Jesse said. “The reception in here is terrible, but I can give you our cordless phone. We’d just need your mom’s number.”

“It’s on my cell.”

Of course it was, because nobody remembered numbers anymore.

“I can’t give you your cell,” Jesse said. “Not allowed.”

“I’ll just use it to look up the number,” Peebles said.

Jesse pretended to think about it for a second, then nodded. He went out and came back with both Peebles’s cell and the station’s cordless phone. Peebles looked up the number, and Jesse dialed it into the cordless. Then he took back Peebles’s cell phone.

He walked to the entry door and gave the phone to Suit, who’d returned from Daisy’s.

By the time Jesse got back to the cell, Peebles was on the line with his mom. Jesse couldn’t make out the words on the other end, but she didn’t sound happy. She promised to call his uncle. Jesse could hear that much. In fact, Jesse could hear everything loud enough to hurt his ears, and he was six feet away.

“Mom, please, don’t—” Peebles said.

But she’d already hung up.

“Why don’t you want her to call your uncle?”

Peebles handed him back the station phone. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “He was going to hear about it anyway.”

Jesse walked away slowly. It wasn’t a long hall, but he wanted to give Peebles every chance to change his mind.

If Peebles had second thoughts, he didn’t voice them. He didn’t say a word as Jesse left the cells, the door shutting behind him with a final, quiet click of the lock.

“Well?” Suit and Molly were waiting for Jesse in the conference room.

“It worked,” Suit said. “He opened the phone when he called his mom.”

“And then we got into the settings and kept it open so we could look at everything he has inside it,” Molly said.

“Smart,” Jesse said.

“It was my idea,” Suit said.

“It was not,” Molly said. “I said we should unlock his phone.”

“And I was the one who knew how to do it.”

“We’ll call it a team victory,” Jesse said.

“My idea,” Suit said.

“Mine,” Molly shot back.

Jesse ignored them. “So what’s on the phone?”

Suit took it out of his pocket and began scrolling through it. “Nothing incriminating so far,” he said, “unless you count some dick pics he’s been sending to a bunch of different women he seems to have met at the club where he works.”

“Ugh,” Molly said. “Who the hell thinks that works?”

“Well, he does, apparently,” Suit said.

“Do any of the girls?”

“None yet, but he keeps on sending them.”

“Hope springs eternal.”

“And he sends the same pic every time. Doesn’t even take a new one. I mean, come on, dude. Get creative. Be a little original.”

“Suit,” Jesse said.

“Pure laziness,” Molly said. “I tell you, I weep for this generation.”

“Right?” Suit said. “Whatever happened to the days when you would put a little thought and effort into your nudes?”

Jesse rubbed his eyes. “Amateur porn aside, is there anything we can use? Any phone calls before he decided to torch the house?”

“Yes,” Suit said. “One incoming call from a number in Boston. It says Uncle Charlie.”

“Well,” Molly said, “that does not exactly break the case wide open.”

“His mom mentioned an uncle, too. Peebles seemed pretty upset by the idea. Maybe we should look a little deeper,” Jesse said.

He took the number and went to his office, where he made a call to Lundquist.

“Got a lead on our arsonist,” he said when Lundquist finally came on the line.

“Terrific. Why are you calling?”

“You said you wanted to stay in the loop. Here’s the loop. You’re in it.”

“You said you’d handle it. I assume that means you’ll call when your bad guy is dead on the street somewhere.”

“You know me so well.”

“I speak from experience. So what’s the lead?”

Jesse told him about the phone number and Uncle Charlie. He did not tell him he had Matthew Peebles in the cell just a few yards away. He trusted Lundquist, but he didn’t want anyone else knowing Peebles was in custody yet. Something about how he’d seemed both scared and resigned set off alarm bells for Jesse. He needed more answers before he declared the arson solved.

“Don’t you have anyone who can look up a number?” Lundquist asked.

“We’re a twelve-person department. I have people who’d call your people. This saves time.”

Lundquist grumbled and yelled at someone else to look up the number. Jesse waited. Within a few seconds, he had an address and a name.

“Charlie Mulvaney. No way. This can’t be the actual Charlie Mulvaney.”

“Who’s that?”

“You don’t know?”

“No,” Jesse said. “You know who he is?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. He was before your time. A real greatest-hits, back-in-the-day, original gangster. Damn.”

“What did he do?”

“What hasn’t he done is the real question.”

“If you’re having trouble with the details,” Jesse said, “I can just look up his record. It might save time.”

“You won’t find anything. Not the real story, anyway. Mulvaney was always too slick. Nothing ever stuck to him is the way I heard it.”

“So why don’t you tell me?”

“Well, like I said, I have other things to do, and this is your case. But you should get in touch with Healy and ask him. He’ll love it.”

“Healy’s retired. He tells me so every time I talk to him.”

“Yeah, but for this, he’ll cancel his golf game. Trust me.”