Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Forty-One

They sat in the living room. Kevin More stretched out long legs from an antique chair, and from his teenage slouch. Jesse took the sofa. Somehow the kid managed to look even taller sitting down. He reminded Jesse a little bit of a young Brad Pitt, but then most really good-looking young blond guys did, even though Pitt wasn’t a young guy anymore.

“You on the tennis team at the high school?” Jesse said.

He wasn’t sure the kid was going to relax with the chief of police in his living room, but he had to try to break the ice, now that he’d essentially ambushed him by showing up here.

“I finally realized I wasn’t ever going to be more than Jack’s backup in baseball, and gave it up,” he said. “I really only went out for the team because so many of my friends were on it.”

“Like Jack.”

“Not just Jack,” Kevin More said. “It was my last year of high school, and I just wanted another excuse to hang with them. But Coach finally told me I was wasting my time, and his.”

“A sweetheart, your coach.”

“You’ve met him, then.”

Jesse nodded.

“It pissed me off, but he was right,” Kevin said.

He took out his phone as if it were some kind of lifeline.

“My mom is gonna be mad,” he said. “Us talking, I mean.”

“She likes me,” Jesse said.

The kid almost smiled. “She’s actually mentioned that a few times.”

“Were you close with Jack?” Jesse said.

Kevin More ran his hand through his hair, more of it on top than on the sides, which were nearly shaved down to the skin. Jesse saw a lot of that these days. Molly would know what the style was called.

“Jack was a great teammate, but only close with a few of the guys on the team,” Kevin said. “Matt and Scott, mostly. But the thing about him was that he treated everybody the same. That probably brought us closer, because he was a star and I wasn’t. Made me think he was even cooler than he already was.”

He took in some air. “Makes everybody miss him even more.”

“Your mom said you weren’t at the party that night.”

“It was for the team,” he said, “even if some girls went. I just would have felt weird.”

“Gotta ask this,” Jesse said. “Did you reach out to Jack that night, maybe after the party?”

“No. Like I said. He was at his team party.”

“You’re sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

Jesse waited, one small beat.

“So why were you at Jack’s house the other day?” Jesse said. “I asked his mom, and she said you were the only one of his friends who stopped by.”

Now he looked past Jesse, as if hoping his mother would come through the door.

“Shouldn’t I have an adult present to be talking to you like this?”

Jesse smiled. Kindly old Uncle Jesse.

“How old are you, son?”

“Eighteen.”

“You’re old enough to vote in this state,” Jesse said. “And if you’re old enough to do that, you’re old enough to answer a few questions that might help us find out how Jack died. And why.”

He cleared his throat, and swallowed. Hard.

“Okay.”

“Did you and Jack hang out a lot at his house?”

“I don’t know if it was a lot,” Kevin More said. “We both liked writing. I was better at that than baseball. He was good at both.”

“Were you in Paul Connolly’s English class?”

He shook his head. “Mrs. Burton’s.”

“Did you know anything about the play he was writing for Mr. Connolly?”

“He told me about it. But why does that matter?”

“In my business,” Jesse said, “you don’t know what’s important until it is. It’s not a glamorous job, mine. You just keep pulling on strings.”

Then Jesse paused and said, “So he didn’t show it to you?”

“He hadn’t shown it to anybody yet, as far as I know. All he told me was that he thought it was really good. But he never showed it to anybody... until.”

“You sure about that, Kevin?”

“I’m just telling you what Jack told me. He said it wasn’t ready to be seen yet.” Kevin More shook his head. “And why does it even matter? Why does any of this even matter? It’s not going to bring him back.”

“It matters to me, why what happened to him did. If you’re his friend, seems as if it should matter to you.”

Kevin closed his eyes and shook his head again. “It still won’t bring Jack back.”

“Why were you in his room?”

“Maybe because I wanted to pretend that he was on his way home from practice and things were going to be the way they used to be, that’s why.” He swallowed hard, and squeezed his eyes shut. Jesse thought he might be about to cry. “Maybe it was my way of saying goodbye to him. Who the fuck knows?” He shook his head again. “This sucks so much!”

Like the words had exploded out of his heart.

Finally Jesse said, “Why’d you go through his desk?”

The kid had been looking down. That snapped his head back up. “Wait... what?”

“The things in his drawer were too neat. His mother said they were never that neat. But she didn’t touch anything in there. My people know how to search a desk like that, but leave things as close to the way they found them as possible. They even took photographs of the contents of his desk. Now Jack’s mom says the only other person who was in there before I showed up today was you.”

Before he could answer, Jesse said, “Were you looking for something?”

Kevin More shook his head.

“The play maybe?” Jesse said.

“No!” Kevin said. “I told you he was keeping that private until it was time to hand it in. And the way I see it, if it was private when he was alive, it should stay that way now that he’s gone.”

He did start to cry now. Old enough to vote. But still a kid.

“So you weren’t looking for anything in his desk?”

Kevin More wiped the back of his hand across his face. Jesse thought he might be buying himself some time, assessing what would happen if he lied to a policeman and got found out later.

“There was maybe just this note I wrote him a couple weeks ago. We were getting near graduation, and it wasn’t something I wanted to put in an email. I wrote a few others lately, just telling people that just because we were all going off to college, I hoped we could stay friends. It was just between Jack and me and I didn’t want anybody else to see it. Not even his mom.” He let out air. “Just the kind of stuff that friends should tell each other more often. Now I’m glad I wrote it, if you want to know the truth.”

“Did you find it?”

“No,” the kid said.

He stood.

“Now you know everything I know,” Kevin said. “Can you leave me alone now? And maybe leave Jack alone at the same time?”

There was no need for Jesse to tell the kid that wasn’t happening.

Kevin More rose up out of his chair now. “I need to study.”

“I just want to find out how your friend died,” Jesse said.

“Maybe even that shouldn’t be anybody’s business,” Kevin said.

“It’s my business,” Jesse said.

He walked out of the house and got into his car and drove back to the station. Molly and Suit called from Molly’s car when he was back in his office.

Molly had them on speaker.

“Steve Marin’s gone,” Molly said.

“I assume you don’t mean dead and gone.”

“Like packed up and cleared out and gone,” Suit said.

“See you when you get back.”

“There’s one more thing,” Molly said. “Just for fun, and because I try to spend my time productively, I ran his name through the system.”

“And he’s got a record,” Jesse said.

“Does he ever,” Molly said.

Two hours later Jesse was back in his car, having canceled his dinner plans with Nellie Shofner, and made another, this one in Boston.

“What can I tell you?” he said to Molly before he left. “Strange bedfellows.”

“Sweet Jesus,” she said. “I hope not.”

“Figure of speech,” Jesse said.