Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Seventeen

Molly said she was about to head over to the hospital in Marshport, telling Jesse she knew he wanted to be focusing on Charlie Farrell. Jesse told her to stay at the office and reinterview as many baseball players as she could about possible bad blood, before today, between Scott Ford and Matt Loes, the catcher.

And how it might possibly be tied in to the death of Jack Carlisle.

“I’m a master of multitasking,” he said. “Want to know why?”

“I know why,” Molly said. “You’re the chief.”

Scott Ford’s injuries were serious enough that the paramedics had decided to bypass the urgent care in Paradise and take him directly to the hospital in Marshport, the facility there getting bigger and better and more modern all the time.

Scott Ford’s parents were in a waiting room on the eighth floor. Jesse had never met Shelley Ford. But her husband, Ted, ran the biggest insurance firm in Paradise and thought he was every bit the hot shit that his best friend Gary Armistead, mayor of Paradise, was. Jesse thought there should be a club for hot shits, like the Elks.

Ted Ford saw Jesse at the same time Jesse saw him.

“I assume you came over here to tell me that you’ve arrested the punk who did this to my son,” Ted Ford said. “That is what you’re doing here, right?”

Jesse knew Scott Ford’s room number, and kept walking, having no time for Ted Ford, and even less tolerance. But Ford stepped into the hallway, cutting him off.

Grabbing Jesse’s arm.

Jesse stopped, looked down at Ford’s hand, then back into his eyes.

“I asked you a question,” Ford said.

“Take your hand off my arm,” Jesse said quietly.

“As soon as you answer my question,” Ford said.

Jesse smiled, then reached down with his free hand, like he simply wanted to shake Ford’s. But Jesse’s right hand was a lot bigger, and stronger, and now squeezing Ted Ford’s hard enough that Jesse was waiting to hear some of the small bones in it breaking.

He heard a sharp intake of breath, and maybe the tiniest of squeaks.

“Let... go,” Ford said, his voice strained, “or I am calling your boss.”

“Yikes,” Jesse said.

But let go.

“So I’m assuming you haven’t arrested the Loes kid?” Ford said.

“I have not,” Jesse said. “I came straight here as soon as I found out that your son was in the hospital. Now I want to hear his version of what happened.”

“His version,” Ford said, “is that Matt Loes beat him to within an inch of his goddamn life.”

“I want to hear about it from him,” Jesse said.

“And the mayor is going to hear about all this from me,” Ford said.

Jesse smiled again.

“You need to stop talking now, Ted, and let me do my job,” Jesse said.

“You think I’m joking about the mayor?” Ford said.

“Still talking,” Jesse said.

He took a deep breath and let it out and walked into room 821. He needed to get away from Ted Ford, and knew exactly why. Jesse wanted to hit somebody today. It had nearly been Scott Ford’s asshole father.

Dix probably wouldn’t see that as being very productive, either.