Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Twenty

They sat at the kitchen table. As soon as they’d walked into the room Nellie had sniffed a couple times and said, “Chili night?”

“Even better the second,” he said.

“Taking your word on that,” she said.

“Tell me what you got,” Jesse said.

“I’ll tell some, but not all,” she said. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

He grinned, and waited.

“Learned that from the master,” she said.

“Learned everything you know about the sharing of information with law enforcement,” he said. “Just not everything I know.”

He had made them a pot of decaf coffee. More for her than for him. If Nellie were any more wound up than she was right now, you could attach jumper cables to her heart and start a dead car.

“There’s something going on with our newly crowned championship baseball team,” she said.

“More than just grieving, you mean.”

“Way more,” she said.

She always looked like morning to Jesse, did even now. They had never spent the night together here, only at her place. Not because he was territorial.

At her place he could leave.

It was something understood by both of them, without ever having been discussed.

She wore her hair in a ponytail tonight, making her look even younger. A Brooklyn Dodgers T-shirt Jesse had given her. Apple Watch. White jeans.

“I’m here as a good citizen,” she said.

“I can thank you later on behalf of the town.”

“I am also here despite the fact that our relationship continues to be give and take,” Nellie said. “I give, you take.”

Jesse grinned. “And you don’t just give when you’re being a good citizen.”

He drank some of the coffee. It was like his chili. Bad was better than none.

Nellie told him that the feel-good story about Jack Carlisle on which she had been reporting had turned into something quite different now.

“I’ll bet,” Jesse said.

“But here’s the thing,” she said, “and it was a thing even before he died. Even though he was the golden boy of the team, just about all of his teammates had been reluctant to open up about him.”

“Suit used to say the kid didn’t like to open up about anything,” Jesse said.

“Gee,” Nellie said. “I never run into anybody like that in my own life.”

She smiled. He smiled back at her.

“We there yet?” Jesse said.

She drank some coffee.

“There was some kind of secret team meeting tonight,” she said.

“Secret even from you?”

“Sad but true,” she said. “I found out about it after the fact. At first I thought it might be about what happened between Scott Ford and Matt Loes, but turns out it wasn’t.”

“You know this how?”

“A source.”

“On the team?”

“You know better than to even ask,” she said.

“So what was the meeting about?”

“My source wouldn’t say, said that he’d gone as far as he could.”

“So it’s somebody on the team.”

“Stop,” she said.

Jesse said, “What does a secret team meeting have to do with you thinking somebody killed Jack Carlisle?”

“They’re closing ranks, Jesse,” she said. “Like some sort of secret society. There was some event leading up to the big game, something serious, but I can’t find out what it was.”

“And you really think it might have gotten Jack killed.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Have you talked to Ainsley Walsh?” Jesse asked.

“A couple times before Jack died,” Nellie said. “Just one time since.”

“Molly and Suit went to her house,” Jesse said.

“What did they get out of her?”

Jesse slowly shook his head.

“Give,” she said, “take.”

He shrugged.

Nellie said, “That girl knows a lot more than she’s telling.”

He asked if she wanted more coffee. Now she shook her head.

“Maybe you and Molly can help each other out on this,” Jesse said, “while I’m devoting most of my attention to Charlie Farrell.”

“Molly and me?” she said. “Seriously?”

“I think Molly might be more forthcoming than I am,” Jesse said.

“And why is that?”

“Maybe it will be a girl thing?” Jesse said.

He stood now, took both their cups, walked them to the sink. She came up behind him and put her arms around him and kissed him below his ear.

“You ever hear about the fallacy of the predetermined outcome,” Nellie whispered.

“We used to talk about it in baseball all the time,” Jesse said.

“Sometimes it’s not a fallacy,” Nellie said.

As they walked toward the bedroom, Nellie said she was going to share one last piece of information with him, and she promised that was it.

“Our friend Ainsley,” she said, “was cheating her young ass off with Scott Ford, for what it’s worth. Whether either one of them will admit that or not.”

“Really,” Jesse said.

“Really.”

“You want to stop talking about this now?”

“Very much so,” Nellie said.

So they stopped talking business.