Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Forty-One

Jesse waited for a moment, then called Gabe Weathers into his office.

Gabe came in and sat down.

As soon as Jesse realized they’d have to cut Peebles loose, he’d left the office and told Gabe to follow Rita back to Boston. He’d wanted to find out who picked Peebles up at Cone, Oakes. That was why Gabe was first on the scene.

Great plan. Simple, Jesse thought. Until Tate rolled up.

Now Peebles was dead, and Rita was traumatized and his case was in pieces.

Great plan, Jesse thought again. Real genius.

“You hear all that?” he asked.

“Caught the highlights,” Gabe said. “You think Tate was going to take a swing at you?”

“He might have been a little caught up in his righteous indignation,” Jesse said. “I impugned his honor.”

“You pulled his badge.”

“He didn’t give me much choice.”

“You should have just hit him,” Gabe said. “Everyone here likes Rita.”

“If I wanted to punish him for Rita, I’d give his name and address to a couple of friends in Boston,” Jesse said. “But that’s not the job. We’re cops. We don’t always get to do what we want. Before I do anything else, I need to know what happened out there.”

“Do you think he killed Peebles deliberately?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have let him walk out of here. But we don’t have any witnesses aside from Rita, who was mostly looking at the ground, and we don’t have any dashcam video. What I need to know now is what you saw.”

Gabe shrugged. “Not enough.”

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. He looked exhausted. Jesse realized he was already punishing himself. Gabe was conscientious. A good cop. If there was trouble, he wanted to be there to stop it. And in his mind, he’d failed.

Jesse knew because he felt the same way. Especially today.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

“I did what you told me, Jesse,” Gabe said.

“I know you did. Tell me what you saw.”

Gabe straightened up in the chair and pulled himself together. “Right. You told me to follow Rita and Peebles when they left. I took a GPS tracker and tacked it on Rita’s BMW. Like you told me.”

Paradise was a small town. It was hard to avoid being seen. So they had a box filled with GPS trackers in one of the desks at the station. Anytime a Paradise officer needed to follow someone, they could just stick one under the wheel well of a car and hang back and follow the vehicle with a phone.

Jesse didn’t like technology, but he had to admit it made surveillance a lot easier. True, they were supposed to have a warrant before they did anything like that. But he hadn’t expected anything they found out by following Rita to wind up in court. He just wanted Gabe to keep an eye on Peebles, keep him safe.

Obviously, that hadn’t worked out.

“She went out by the high school. Probably wanted to get straight to the 1A.”

“So you hung back.”

“I didn’t want them to see me. I let them get about a mile ahead.”

“Did you see Tate at all?”

Gabe shook his head. “No. He must have come up one of the other streets before they got to Paradise Road.”

“Okay. Then what happened?”

“I saw the car come to a halt. I figured they’d stopped for something. I didn’t want them to see me. I stopped, too.”

“How far?”

“It took me a minute to realize they weren’t moving. So I’d almost caught up. I was maybe a tenth of a mile back by then. Not even that. You know, near the country club.” Gabe took a deep breath. “It’s a nice day. I had my windows down. I heard the gunshots.”

“Then you went to them.”

“I figured you wouldn’t care about maintaining a tail at that point.”

“You’re right. You did the right thing.”

“When I came up, he had his gun on Rita. Peebles was already dead. He told me he was just covering her. Basic shooting procedure, in case she had a gun.”

“Not sure where she would hide one in that skirt.”

Gabe didn’t laugh. Which was fair, Jesse thought, because it wasn’t that funny.

“Do you think it was a good shooting?”

“I wasn’t there. I can’t tell you if the shooting was good or not. I didn’t see it.”

“You’re the closest I’ve got to a neutral eyewitness. I’ve got Suit out there looking for security cameras or any video that shows the road. Maybe at the gas station. But they were behind the trees and the sign. You saw that.”

“Yeah.”

“So give me your impressions. Tell me what you saw.”

“I don’t know, Jesse.”

“Your gut instinct, Gabe.”

“I don’t know, okay?” Gabe looked up at Jesse. “We’ve both been there, you know? When you have to make the call? You have to decide fast. You don’t know what someone has in their hand or their pocket.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Jesse said. “What did you see when he had Rita on the ground?”

Gabe thought for a moment. He stared at the wall. “He had his gun pointed at her head.”

“Why do you think he did that? Did she seem like a threat to you?”

“He’s new. He doesn’t know Rita the way we do.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Gabe shrugged. “I can’t read minds, Jesse. I don’t know what he would have done if I hadn’t been there.”

“Me, either,” Jesse said. “That’s what worries me. What I want is your opinion, Gabe. You know I trust you. So tell me: What do you think would have happened?”

Gabe looked away.

Jesse sat quietly, waiting.

“Jesse, I really think if I hadn’t shown up when I did, he would have shot her.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“Thank you, Gabe.”

Gabe shook his head, as if trying to shrug away what he’d just said.

“I could be wrong,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know. Why the hell would he do that?”

“I have no idea,” Jesse said. “But I’m glad you were there.”

Gabe snorted. “For all the good it did.”

“He didn’t call it in,” Jesse said.

“What?”

“Tate. He didn’t call in the traffic stop. He turned off the dashcam. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going. But he had to have followed Rita and Peebles as soon as they left the station to catch up with them like that.”

Gabe thought about that. “Holy shit, Jesse. What does that mean?”

“I don’t know yet,” Jesse admitted. “But I think you might have saved Rita’s life.”