Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Forty-Seven

Jesse told Hillary More what Healy had learned from his friends at Organized Crime Control in Boston. And about his own visit to see Liam Roarke the previous evening, and the pleasantries they’d exchanged at the Capital Grille.

“You have to believe me when I tell you I had no idea,” Hillary More said.

“When he filled out his job application and interviewed with HR, or however you do it, it never came up?”

“He was forthcoming about having been in juvenile detention,” Hillary said. “But he was a kid. You’re making it sound as if he’s Al Capone. Now I have to apologize for not knowing all the players in the Boston Mob.”

“I tend to look at aggravated assault as a grown-up-type thing,” Jesse said.

“I talked to him about that part of his past myself,” she said. “I just looked at him as having been disabled in a different way. Sam Waterfield actually recommended him. It turns out they’d met each other when they were both in foster care.”

“Now one of them is dead and the other one has disappeared.”

Jesse told her about what Molly and Suit had found at the apartment in Marshport.

“I’m told that no one has yet been able to reach him by phone,” she said.

“Have you tried to locate the phone?”

She sighed forcefully enough to rattle Jesse’s window shades.

“Jesse,” she said, stepping on his name pretty hard. “I’m genuinely concerned about where Steve might be, or what might have happened to him. But as I’ve pointed out before, and despite everything that is happening in our town, I am in the business of selling chocolate. I market our brand. As we speak, I have smart young people figuring out the best way, and best timing, to perhaps take More Chocolate public. Early stages, but we’re having those conversations. That’s what my meeting is about this morning, one for which I am now late. This is my area of expertise, or so I’ve been told, not finding missing persons.”

She checked her watch again, either looking at the time or for messages.

“Any thoughts about where he might run to, if he still has the ability to do that?”

“Are you saying you think something might have happened to him, too? If he’s dead, why would he have cleared out his part of the apartment?”

“He could have tried to run,” Jesse said, “and then been caught by whomever killed Sam Waterfield.”

She slumped back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.

“This is a nightmare. All I’ve been trying to do is give people a chance who might not otherwise get one.”

“Has there been any kind of trouble with Marin since you hired him?”

She shook her head. “Model employee, same as Sam.”

“So no indication that the trouble in his life might have followed him to Paradise.”

“None. Far as I can tell, he kept to himself, the same as Sam did. I told you already that the only reason I found out that they even shared that apartment was by accident.”

Jesse sipped his coffee. Almost cold by now. Still better than none.

“And Marin never mentioned that he’d been in Liam Roarke’s crew?”

“Again: The name would have meant nothing to me even if he’d mentioned it. I was just going off my first impression, and him telling me that I’d never be sorry that I gave him a chance.”

She crossed her legs, clasped her hands around the top knee, stared at him. “Don’t you think people can change, Jesse? You did.”

“I didn’t change,” he said. “I just stopped drinking, at least so far today.”

“And you would like to drop that particular subject.”

“If I wanted to talk more about it,” he said, “I’d find an AA meeting. Or go see my shrink.”

She smiled.

“I hear you,” she said. “And now am I dismissed?”

“Go to your own meeting.”

“I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot this morning.”

“Friends are allowed to have disagreements.”

“I really do want us to be friends.”

“I feel the same way.”

He wasn’t sure about that. But there was no point in saying otherwise.

She started to get up.

“One more thing,” Jesse said.

She smiled again. “You sound like an old Columbo.”

“Now there was a damned cop,” Jesse said, “even if he was a made-up one.”

“One more question for me?”

“More like an observation,” he said. “I was surprised to hear that you were seeing Hal Fortin.”

She put out her hands. She had beautiful hands. Went with the rest of her. “Whoa there, Chief,” she said. “Not seeing. Was about to have dinner with. Big difference.”

“But Molly said you just up and left when you saw her and Nellie sitting with him.”

She shrugged. “I realized I didn’t want to have the conversation he wanted to have, about Kevin maybe coming back to the baseball team. He was Jack’s backup, you know that, right? Anyway, I told him that he needed to talk to Kevin about it, not me. And by then it had been a very long day.” She sighed again. “Like this one is already shaping up to be.”

Jesse came around the desk then and told her he’d walk her out. Before he could open the door, she turned suddenly and was quite close to him.

“I’m scared, Jesse,” she said. “What the hell is going on around here?”

“Planning to find that out.”

“You have a lot of belief in yourself, Chief.”

“I’ve always found out what needed finding out in the past.”

“You think we’ve already been through the worst of this?” she said.

“Sure,” he said.

“You sure about that?”

“Could be wishful thinking,” Jesse said.