Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Sixty-Four

That’s impossible,” Hillary More said.

“I read somewhere once,” Jesse said, “I forget where, I wish I had Miss Emma’s memory, that the impossible becomes possible with the discovery of a new truth.”

He stood then.

“Walk with me,” he said.

“So we can be in motion when you suggest that someone who works for me might have tried to con an old woman?” she said. “What if I don’t want to?”

“No reason for you not to want to,” Jesse said.

He was standing over her. She’d made no move to get up off the bench. More Chocolate workers kept walking past them, some calling out greetings. Hillary would put on a smile for them, or nod or wave.

“I’m sure there’s an explanation for this,” she said. “No one who works for me would do anything like that.”

She was up then and they were walking up to the corner of Main and Elm and up Elm until they got to Marian Park, with its swings and slides and monkey bars and what looked to be a world-class sandbox. Empty now on a Friday night. The place was filled with mothers and small children in the mornings.

They sat on another bench now, across from the swings. Jesse handed Hillary More the phone bill.

“I recognized the number because it’s popped up as Nicholas Farrell’s work number on my phone,” he said.

She handed the bill back to him.

“Obviously somebody spoofed our number,” she said. “Isn’t that what these people do? Or do they call it ghosting? My son explained it to me one time when we got one of those calls on our landline at home and it looked like a real number. That must be it.”

“No,” Jesse said.

“No, I didn’t get a call like that?”

“This number wasn’t ghosted,” Jesse said. “I checked with your carrier, and finally got the answer I needed after threatening to subpoena everybody at the company in alphabetical order.”

He asked her then if she understood how VoIP worked.

“Voice over Internet Protocol,” she said. “I’m aware what it is, from when we put our phone system into place.”

“So you know that your calls are placed over the Internet,” he said. “Same as ours are at the PPD.”

He folded the phone bill and put it back into the inside pocket of the blazer he kept in the office and had worn here. Sometimes he didn’t want to look the part. Even if they both knew he was all cop today.

“Charlie, I’m guessing, recognized the number when he saw it on the bill for the same reason I did,” Jesse said. “Because of Nicholas. And maybe, just maybe, the old chief was smart enough to track down the IP address, same as I did. Even at his advanced age.”

She sat with her hands in her lap. Not looking at him as she spoke. “Please tell me you don’t think I had something to do with this.”

“I don’t.”

“I still think that this is the modern-day version of wires getting crossed,” she said.

“It’s not. Sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am if this is actually true.”

Jesse put some snap in his voice now.

“No more qualifiers,” he said. “It’s true. Somebody made that call. Using your Wi-Fi. Now I’m going to find out who.”

She was still staring straight ahead.

“I sell chocolate,” she said in a small, tired voice.

“Hillary,” Jesse said quietly. “Look at me.”

She did. Beige jacket today, black T-shirt underneath, black jeans, black ankle boots. Jesse had stopped commenting on women’s appearances in front of Molly, and in general. When he would slip occasionally, she would remind him that verbalizing about a woman’s looks was as old as he was. Maybe older.

“Sam Waterfield ended up in the water, a homicide to which I am about to pay much closer attention. His roommate, a former juvie guest of the state, is missing. I’m starting to wonder if they were the ones shaking people down over the telephone. And if the missing guy might be the same one who killed Charlie and went after his grandson until his grandson shot him.”

She started to speak. Jesse held up a hand to stop her. “You always look for a nexus. The nexus in this case might be two of your former employees, thinking they could work their scam from your office without ever being caught, probably using burner phones. But they got sloppy, or lazy, or both. And made a call using your Wi-Fi.”

“May I speak now?” Hillary asked.

He nodded.

“Just what do you expect me to do about it?”

“For starters, I’m going to want my best tech guy, Gabe, to take another look at Sam Waterfield’s computer at work,” Jesse said. “And then go through the other computers upstairs, one by one. The sooner the better.”

“That whole section gets one Friday a month off,” she said. “This happens to be it.”

“Gabe will be there in the morning then,” Jesse said. “You just have to help him with the log-ons and whatever else he needs rather than make everybody come in on a Saturday.”

“We still don’t know if any of this is tied to Sam, or to Steve, who didn’t even work in Sam’s section,” she said. “That’s just a theory of yours.”

“You’re right,” Jesse said. “For now, that’s exactly what it is. And if there’s no proof that they were involved, we cross their names off my list and move on.”

“Am I on your list?”

“Just the one of people helping me get to the truth.”

“Okay,” she said. “What else do you need?”

“I want to know who might have been in the office the other night just before ten,” he said, and explained why.

“You really are making a series of assumptions here, Jesse,” she said.

“Well, to be honest, I’ve done more with a lot less, Ms. More,” he said.

“Clever. But not funny.”

“Not trying to be,” he said. “None of this shit is funny.”

“If this gets out, just why you’re looking into my company, this would be extremely hurtful,” she said. “You know we’re heroes in this town.”

“And will likely be again once I find out who got sloppy when they called Miss Emma,” Jesse said.

“Could it have been somebody in a neighboring building hijacking our Wi-Fi, or whatever they call it?”

“Not unless you were giving out your password with chocolate samples.”

“You believe Charlie might have figured it out?” she said.

“Molly Crane, good Catholic girl, says faith is believing in what you can’t see,” Jesse told her.

“Are you religious?” Hillary More asked him.

“Not if I can help it.”

When he got home, there was a black Lincoln Navigator, tinted windows, looking fully loaded, parked in front.

The rear window rolled down, and a familiar face smiled at him.

“What’s happening, motherfucker?” Tony Marcus said.