Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Forty-Seven

Elliott, Raney, and now Tate all found another hotel, halfway to the New Hampshire state line, far enough away from Paradise that they didn’t think anyone would spot Tate there.

Then they started planning. Tate’s last look at the duty roster said Jesse Stone would be alone in the station on Saturday night, covering the eight p.m. to eight a.m. shift, fielding any calls from the county 911 dispatcher and keeping an eye on all that money. The department was even more understaffed since Tate left and took out Perkins on his way, so he knew Stone would be stuck covering that shift.

They had to hit the Paradise station that night. The problem was, none of them trusted the others enough for any plans to stick.

The simplest thing would have been to get a rifle and put one of them on a roof somewhere in Paradise and then wait for Jesse Stone to emerge from the station and put a bullet through his head. Death from above. Hard to avoid a shot you can’t see coming.

But none of them wanted to do that, each for their own reasons.

Tate wanted to see Stone’s face when he died, which struck Elliott as a little dramatic.

Raney said he wasn’t much of a shot from a distance, even with a scope.

And Elliott didn’t trust either of the other two to split the loot with him if he was the one stuck up on the roof. In fact, he thought they’d leave him there and deal him to the cops, who’d inevitably descend, like flies on shit, when one of their own got killed. And he told them so.

“This town is going to be locked down the minute we get Stone. They’re going to have State Police, Boston PD, probably the FBI, all showing up, going door-to-door looking for us,” he said. “We’ve got two roads out and the ocean on the other side, in case you hadn’t noticed. I am not going to be trapped here while you two figure out how to divide two million dollars in half.”

Raney smiled like this was funny. “You have trust issues, you know that?”

Tate scowled. “Are you saying you think I’d stab you in the back like that?”

Elliott and Raney looked at each other. “Yes,” Elliott said.

“It’s nothing personal,” Raney said. “It’s just you’re already betraying your boss. Not hard to see you deciding to screw both of us, too.”

Tate thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, all right, fair enough,” he said. “But that would mean cutting Mulvaney out, too. And I personally am not dumb enough to piss him off, even hooked up to as many tubes as he is. No, thank you.”

Tate was right to be scared of Mulvaney. That was the only reason Elliott was here. He did not want any ghosts of his past coming back to haunt him, and he certainly did not want Mulvaney or any of the people in the organization viewing him as a loose end to be snipped. People who said organized crime was nothing in America anymore hadn’t been on the wrong side of it. The organization might not be what it once was, but it still took revenge seriously.

So Tate was thinking clearly, at least about this. Elliott had noticed that Tate could fly off the handle over the smallest slights and perceived insults, but then he’d turn around and be rational in other moments.

It made Elliott wonder how much of Tate’s personality was an act and how much was genuine stupidity.

It didn’t make him any more trustworthy, but he was the only one who could get them into the station, so they were stuck with him.

“Well, that leaves us where we started,” Elliott said. “How do we get Stone away from the station? And who handles him?”

“I’ve got nothing personally against the guy,” Raney said. “That seems like a job for McGruff the Crime Dog here.”

“Yeah, but he knows me,” Tate said.

“All the more reason,” Raney said. “He’ll try to talk to you. He’ll want to give you a chance.”

“Not anymore,” Tate said. “Not after Peebles. Believe me. He sees me again, he’s going on full alert.”

Raney wiped his hands over his face. “I thought this was what you wanted. You and him. Showdown in the middle of the street. Like an old Western.”

“I want him dead,” Tate said. “I’m okay if someone else does it, as long as it happens.”

“Sounds like you’re scared.”

“Please. I could take him, but then who’s going to get you into the cells?”

“And you want the money,” Elliott said.

“We all want the money,” Tate said. “Don’t you? I mean, we’re all in this to get paid, right?”

Elliott wondered if Tate was baiting him. There was no way the three of them were riding off together like the Three Musketeers when this was all over. He had to know Elliott or Raney was planning on putting a bullet in his brain as soon as they had the cash out of the station.

He wondered if Tate thought Mulvaney would protect him from that because he’d made his deal with the old man personally.

If he did, then maybe he really was stupid. Mulvaney and the organization protected only themselves. It was how a guy like Mulvaney managed to live as long as he did.

Elliott shook it off and got back to the problem at hand.

“We need Stone out. We need in. And we need the evidence he still has.”

“Yeah, you’ve been saying that for an hour,” Tate said to Elliott.

“Haven’t heard you come up with any brilliant plans,” Raney said.

“You haven’t, either,” Tate shot back.

Toddlers, Elliott thought. Maybe he could just shoot them now and figure out something else entirely.

“Look,” he said, struggling for patience. “This isn’t that hard. It’s a small-town cop with a Podunk police station. We get the money and the file. And we make sure he’s dead so everyone is busy dealing with that instead of following us. We don’t need some elaborate Mission Impossible-style bullshit here.”

“Okay. Tate and I go in,” Raney said. “He’s got the code to the keypad for the cells. I can watch him and help get the money out.”

“You think I trust you more than him?” Elliott asked. “What am I supposed to do while you’re getting the money?”

“You’re the best shooter here. We know that,” Raney said. “You’ve got the experience. You’re the only one with a chance of taking Stone down.”

“You trying to flatter me?” Elliot said. “You think my ego is so big I’m willing to go up against Stone just to prove something?”

“I’m saying it because it’s true, isn’t it?” Raney said. “Between the three of us, honestly, who would you bet on?”

Elliott had to admit Raney was right. He was better, even at his age. It was just a fact in his mind, as fixed and immobile as granite.

“At some point, we’ve got to trust one another enough to get this done,” Raney said. “You know I’m right.”

Raney and Elliott stared at each other for a long moment. Elliott was trying to read the younger man like they were across the table at a poker game. He got nothing from Raney’s face. No tells.

“We need a place to hit him,” Elliott said. “I can’t just do it on Main Street. We’ve already seen what happens when he faces someone head-on. We need a quiet spot. Out of the way.”

“Ambush,” Raney said.

“Yeah,” Elliott said.

“Like in Iraq,” Raney said. “We’d walk into a home or apartment, looking to get people out. We couldn’t go in shooting. The insurgents knew our rules of engagement. So they’d wait for us in the places where we’d have to go. Like when we were clearing a building of civilians.”

“Not a bad idea,” Elliott admitted. “Where can we hide out in Paradise? Someplace he won’t see it coming?”

“Wait,” Tate said. “I got it. I got an idea.”

This ought to be good, Elliott thought.

“I know exactly how we get Stone out of the station,” Tate said, beaming like he’d just invented the lightbulb. “We make him come out for the one person he can’t turn down.”

He explained his idea.

Elliott considered it. He looked to Raney. “What do you think?”

“I’m getting bored sitting around here, going over and over the same problem. This is worth a shot.”

Elliott was surprised, but it seemed like it could work. It would work.

“You know what,” Elliott said. “You’re right. It’s a good idea. We can do this.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Tate said. “We’re going to take Stone down. And we’re going to get the money. This is the start of a whole new adventure.”

Once again, Elliott looked closely at Tate. No way he was that stupid. He had to be planning to kill Elliott and Raney, just like Raney was planning to kill Tate and Elliott, and Elliott was planning to kill them.

Pretty soon, they’d all have their guns pointed at one another’s heads.

But that was the future. They’d get there soon enough.

“Okay,” Elliott said. “Let’s map it out. This is how it’s going to go down.”