Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Thirty-Seven

I sent everybody home,” Hillary More said to Jesse. “Everybody who works for me, that is.”

He had offered to come to her office. She said she’d prefer to come to his, she didn’t want to be in either of her buildings today. Or anywhere near her own company.

Where Sam Waterfield had worked.

She sat across from Jesse’s desk now. Jesse had called her from the scene to tell her about Sam Waterfield. He had already called Nicholas Farrell, and asked how well he knew Sam Waterfield. He said hardly at all, actually, that Sam was one of the sales and marketing whiz kids. One of the upstairs cool kids, he said.

After Hillary More’s shock had worn off, she asked how she could help. Now here they were, coffee mugs in front of them. Jesse hadn’t told her about the wheel tracks. They’d get to that.

“Tell me about him,” he said.

“Terrific kid,” she said. “Good with people. It didn’t take long for me to move him up to sales and marketing, one of our second-floor hotshots. And strategies, figuring out what worked for other chocolate companies, what didn’t, stuff like that. Some of them sell love. Some sell to young women. He told me our goal had to be checking the most boxes.”

“Background?” Jesse said. “Waterfield’s, I mean.”

She took a deep breath.

“This won’t be the short version,” she said. “There was just this spark to Sam. A foster kid who ended up with a full ride to Northeastern. Then ended up in the chair because of a summer party at the Cape before his senior year, too much beer, jumping off a balcony into a swimming pool. Wrong end. Still graduated with high honors. He was working at the Apple Store on Boylston Street when we started up. He heard we were hiring people with disabilities and applied. He told me when I interviewed him that he only had a question for me: Did I hate to lose as much as he did. I told him he was hired. Then I asked him where he saw himself in five years. He told me he wanted to be running his own company. I asked, ‘How about this one?’ and he said, ‘If you say so.’ ”

Without asking, Hillary got up and walked over and poured herself more coffee. She said that it was too early for her to be drinking what she really wanted to be drinking.

“Never was too early for me,” Jesse said.

“I’ve heard stories,” she said.

“All true,” Jesse said.

“Why would Sam do something like this?” she said.

“Like what?”

“Drive himself off a cliff, basically,” she said.

Jesse drank some of his own coffee. Ballpark coffee today, strong as he could make it. If it bothered Hillary, she hadn’t let on. Or just liked it the way Jesse did. Until she could have something stronger.

“I don’t believe he did it to himself,” Jesse said.

“You’re saying you don’t think he killed himself? I’ve been wondering since you called if I’d missed the signs that he may have had a dark or sad or depressed side to him that nobody knew about.”

He told her about the tracks then, no reason not to, how there were pronounced tracks in the grass and dirt until there weren’t, no overnight rain to wash them away.

Told her what he’d told Molly, that this might be a message killing of some kind.

“A message about what?” she asked. “And to whom?”

“I was hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction.”

She slammed her mug down on his desk, somehow managing not to spill coffee on it.

“He was helping me sell candy!” she said, in a voice loud enough to be heard in the squad room. “I mean, for God’s sake, Jesse.”

He made a calming gesture with the palms of his hands. She nodded and took in more air.

“Were there any problems with anybody at work?”

“From everything I know, he was one of the most popular people in the place,” she said, “whether they were selling the chocolate or making it or getting it distributed. I know this sounds like a cliché. But he was a total team player.”

“Was he involved with anybody I could speak to?” Jesse said. “Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

“He had a roommate,” she said. “Steve Marin. He worked with Sam. The only reason I know is that I happened to see them one night having dinner at the Gull. Sam told me he’d found a wheelchair-accessible apartment over in Marshport, and they’d moved in a few months before.”

“Have you spoken to Marin?”

“Tried,” she said. “First thing. No answer. Landline or cell. Left messages on both.”

“Was he at work yesterday?”

“No,” she said. “Turns out he took a couple of vacation days this week. Didn’t tell anybody where he was going.”

“I appreciate that,” Jesse said. “And you calling when you do hear from him. And he hears about his roommate.”

“I’ll do anything to help you get to the bottom of this.”

When Hillary More realized what she’d just said, she smiled, as if embarrassed.

“Bottom. Poor choice of words.”

“Go easy on yourself. It’s like you had a death in the family.”

“Like Nicholas,” she said.

“And Suit. And me.”

“Because of Charlie.”

Jesse said, “I’ve had bad weeks around here. This has been turning into one of the worst.”

“Could this possibly be connected to Jack Carlisle? Or Charlie?”

Jesse spared her his theories about coincidence.

“Two deaths at the Bluff. One of them involving one of your employees.”

“When you put it like that.”

“I’m going to find out what happened to all of them,” Jesse said.

“Because it all happened in your town.”

“Not mine. I just work here.”

“Even you don’t believe that, Jesse,” she said.

He asked her for Sam Waterfield’s address, and Marin’s phone numbers. She wrote them down on the pad in front of her, ripped off the page, handed it to him. He placed it next to the phone on his desk.

“I don’t believe I’d ever want to get on your bad side, Chief,” Hillary More said.

“Few ever have,” Jesse said.