Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Twenty-Eight

Jesse and Molly and Suit were waiting for Hal Fortin when he arrived at Jesse’s office. Suit had brought in an extra chair from the squad room, and placed it between his and Molly’s.

Fortin was a big man, six-four at least, had been a star first baseman at Paradise High when he was a kid, the kind of prospect Jack Carlisle was. But halfway through his senior year he took a fastball to the face, and even with the flap on his batting helmet, the pitch did so much damage to his right eye that his career was over in that moment, just like that.

Jesse knew the feeling. He noticed now, this close to Fortin, that the eye still drooped slightly.

“You better have a good reason for wasting my time like this,” Fortin said as he took his seat. “We’ve still got a state tournament that we’re going to try to win without our best player.”

“Show must go on,” Jesse said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Another way of saying that we’re all moving forward from Jack’s death.”

“Like I don’t know that?” Fortin said.

Jesse wondered how long it would take for Fortin to annoy him even more than he did when he was coaching a game. Now he had his answer. He wasn’t just too goddamn loud on a ballfield.

“So what’s this all about?” Fortin asked.

Jesse said, “I wanted to ask you what you were doing at Silver Lake last night with two of your players and Ainsley Walsh.”

“The boss means he wants to know what you were doing with Matt Loes and Scott Ford and Ainsley after you slapped Loes, who, as I’m sure you know, just beat up Ford bad enough to put him in the hospital,” Suit said. “Sounds like their friendship survived, huh?”

Fortin turned toward Suit, looking surprised, as if he’d just remembered he was still in the room.

“I don’t have to answer any of this,” Fortin said.

“Pretty sure slapping around one of your student athletes, as coaches like to call them, could get you fired,” Molly said.

“This is bullshit,” Fortin said.

“Which part?” Jesse said.

“First of all,” Fortin said, “what gives you the right to follow me.”

“Well, Hal, as chief of police, I can follow anybody I goddamn well please.”

“And Jesse technically wasn’t following anybody,” Molly said. “I was the one following Matt Loes to the lake, and then you showed up.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Fortin said.

“But we’re all talking to you, aren’t we, Coach?”

Jesse idly noted that for Fortin’s hair to be as dark as it was, his age, he had to be coloring it. Maybe to make himself more relatable to the kids.

Or maybe there wasn’t enough dye in the world for Hal Fortin to do that.

“I didn’t slap anybody,” he said.

Jesse reached forward and opened the manila folder on his desk and slid out the pictures Molly had taken at the lake. He had already told her she might be a better photographer than Nellie. Molly had said, “I’m better at a lot of things than she is.”

He pushed the pictures closer to Fortin. He picked up one, looked at it, tossed it back down on Jesse’s desk.

“Okay, you got me,” Fortin said. “I slapped him because of what he did to Scott. You’re telling me you never had a coach who gave you a little tough love from time to time?”

“If they did,” Jesse said, “it was always just the one time.”

“What were you really doing with those kids at the lake?” Molly asked.

“I don’t need to tell you anything,” Fortin said.

“You’re right, you don’t,” Suit said. “And we don’t need to take these photographs to your boss, even though we could.”

“Or to Nellie Shofner at the Crier,” Jesse said.

“That snoopy little bitch,” Hal Fortin said. “She’s the one who needs a good...”

He managed to stop himself.

Molly smiled.

“Down, boy,” she said.

“For the last time,” Jesse said, “tell us what you were doing with two of your players and the girlfriend of your dead star at Silver Lake last night.”

Fortin started to speak. Jesse held up a hand. “And if you did need to talk to them, why do it one town over? Why the secrecy, Coach?”

The chair underneath him looked as small as the one underneath Matt Loes had. It was fascinating to Jesse watching a guy, Fortin, to whom being in charge was probably like some powerful narcotic, deal with being on the wrong side of power. Jesse’s, in this case. But trying to figure out a way to somehow take back the room.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Okay. I just needed to get with the three kids I thought had been closest to Jack as anybody at that school and remind them that the whole town is watching them. Watching us. While everybody is talking about Jack and speculating about Jack, and what might have happened to him. I wanted to tell them not to become part of the noise themselves.”

“What noise?” Suit said.

“The noise about whether or not it might have been suicide, for chrissakes,” Fortin said. “Or drugs. Or booze.” Fortin reached over now and slapped Jesse’s desk hard and said, “Or if somebody might have thrown the kid into the water.”

His face was a clenched fist now. Jesse had seen it before when somebody on his team made a big out, or a big mistake.

Fortin lowered his voice.

“I told the guys who are supposed to be my team leaders that they can’t do stupid shit like getting into a fight,” he said. “More than anything, I told them that we need to take care of Jack dead as much as we did when he was alive.”

“Not your job,” Suit said.

“Says who?” Fortin said.

“Says his uncle,” Jesse said.

“So we’re clear,” Suit said to Fortin, his voice quiet, “he thought you were a raging asshole.”

“I don’t have to take this,” Fortin said, “whether you’re his uncle or not.”

Fortin stood.

“Sit the fuck down,” Jesse said, in the same tone he’d used on Matt Loes.

Fortin hesitated briefly, but then sat.

“What are you all hiding about Jack Carlisle?” Jesse asked.

“Nobody’s hiding anything.”

“I think you are,” Jesse said. “And when I find out what, because I will find out what, it will likely be just the two of us having a chat.”

“Are you threatening me?” Fortin said.

“Not even close,” Jesse said.

Fortin opened his mouth and closed it and finally said, “I got nothing to say to any of you.”

This time he got up and out of the chair too quickly and the chair tipped over behind him. He left it there and walked out, leaving the door open behind him, and then was gone.

“Good talk,” Jesse said.

Jesse was alone in his office about twenty minutes later when Jimmy came in without knocking, out of breath, to tell him about the 911 call that came in from Nicholas Farrell’s house.

“Shots fired,” Jimmy said.

Jesse closed his eyes, but could only see Charlie dead on the floor.

“By whom?” he said.

“Nicholas.”

“Is he okay?” Jesse said.

“He’s the one made the call.”

“Tell me exactly what he said.”

“He just said that we needed to get over there, because he shot the son of a bitch,” Jimmy said.