Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Fifty-Two

I need to know a little more about the hunky Native American man,” Nellie said to Molly in the morning.

“You think he’s hunky?”

“Don’t you?” Nellie said.

Nellie told Molly she wasn’t going to look in a mirror the rest of the way unless she absolutely had to, saying it totally looked as if she’d lost the fight. When she pointed that out Molly said, “My dad was a boxing fan, and he’d probably point out that if you win the decision, it’s worth it in the end.”

“I had help,” Nellie said.

“I know,” Molly said. “The hunky Native American man.”

Nellie had slept later than Molly expected her to. Before she’d awakened, Jesse had already called to give Molly a heads-up that Crow would be staying in town for the short term, and maybe longer than that. Both Molly and her boss knew by now, having occasionally learned the hard way in their working relationship, that “need to know” with Molly Crane meant she needed to know everything, at least when possible.

At the kitchen table now, Molly and Nellie were talking about Crow.

“Full name Wilson Cromartie,” Molly said. “He has a bit of a checkered past.”

“I got that vibe.”

“Almost everybody does. Usually in the first minute or so after meeting him.”

Molly’s maternal instincts had now kicked in with a vengeance, nothing to do to stop them, as upsetting as it was to think of her mothering Jesse’s current girlfriend. She’d ordered Nellie to eat the eggs and toast and bacon she cooked up for her before Nellie headed off to the Crier office on Broad Street, fully back to being an in-person operation, though still not a very big operation, after COVID. Molly would then head over to her own office, Jesse already there; he’d already checked in.

“How checkered, just out of curiosity?” Nellie asked.

Molly explained she would need a PowerPoint presentation to do justice — “the term justice used loosely,” she said — to what she knew of Crow’s résumé, and what Jesse knew.

“Holy crap,” Nellie said. “I remember the Stiles Island thing, just none of the names. I was just a kid.”

Still are, as far as I’m concerned.

“Holy crap indeed.”

“He got away with all that money?” Nellie said.

“Apparently so.”

“And now he and Jesse the Boy Scout are friends?”

“They are,” Molly said, “sometimes behind each other’s backs. I am of the opinion that one would take a bullet for the other without hesitation.”

“Or fire one, clearly.”

“At least last night he didn’t have to actually shoot anybody,” Molly said.

“He really is kind of sexy in a bad-boy way.”

Molly didn’t reply, just got up to pour herself more coffee. She knew that she and Nellie were early in the process of becoming friends themselves, almost as if they were giving each other a battlefield commission.

Just not good enough girlfriends, at least not yet, to share secrets about boys.

Especially not a bad boy like Crow.

“C’mon, you have to see it,” Nellie said.

“Of course I do,” Molly said. “I’m married, not dead.”

Nellie tilted her head to the side. She started to smile, but had already pointed out to Molly that even smiling made her face hurt.

“Is there more to this story?” she said.

“Is this an interview?”

“Such a strange couple,” Nellie said.

Before Molly had to decide how she wanted to respond to that, Nellie added, “Jesse and Crow, I mean. I’m going to need to question the chief about his friend.”

“Of course,” Molly said. “You know how Jesse loves to share.”

Then she told Nellie that she might notice Crow lurking in the background for the next few days. But only if Crow wanted her to notice him.

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” Nellie said. “I can take care of myself.”

“How’d that work out last night?”

“Well,” Nellie said, “you’ve got me there.”

She stood up.

“Thanks for taking me in,” she said to Molly.

“We think of ourselves as a full-service cop store,” Molly said.

Nellie’s car was still at Jesse’s place. Molly drove her to it. If Crow was in the vicinity, even in a small town like Paradise, Molly didn’t spot him. But then she really didn’t expect to. He told her once that Apaches tracked, they didn’t get tracked.

When Molly arrived at the PPD, she saw through Jesse’s front window that he had two visitors.

She could see only the back of one man’s head.

The other visitor was Mayor Gary Armistead.

From experience, Molly knew that hardly any good ever came of that.