Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Sixty-Seven

People were dying again in Paradise. It had happened that way when Crow had first shown up there, working in Jimmy Macklin’s crew; lucky Jesse hadn’t shot him the way he ended up shooting Jimmy.

That time it had been about money, a lot of it, most of it ending up with Crow.

But was it only about money this time?

Three people dead so far. Maybe four if they ever found Steve Marin, which Crow didn’t think anybody ever would. Two had ended up going over the side at that place the Bluff. The old police chief dead, Jesse thought, because he’d found out something about scam callers. One of the calls coming from the goddamn chocolate company.

Crow thought: What the fuck, Willy Wonka?

Two of the guys had lived together. One of them had worked for Roarke once. Roarke: who sent a couple of his goons after Jesse’s girl. Then came looking for Jesse himself, a way of admitting he’d sent the goons, whether he came right out and said it or not.

That was either reckless shit. Or desperate shit. Or both.

But why?

Jesse always talked about looking for the nexus.

It sure looked to Crow as if Roarke might be it.

No one was sure what Roarke’s primary residence was, or if he even had one. A lot of guys with whom Crow had done business, or been in business with, were the same way. Moving targets. Not Richie Burke’s old man, Desmond. But where Crow knew he lived, in Charlestown, was like living behind the Guns of Navarone.

Crow had made a few calls on Roarke. Now he sat outside Davio’s at the seaport. Crow had eaten at the Davio’s on Arlington Street a couple times. Never here. Crow had given Richie Burke a call, Jesse having told him that Richie’s old man was having Liam Roarke watched. And that when it came to eating out, he was a creature of habit. Tonight was his Davio’s night. Two black Navigators out front, the parking valets simply working around them. Maybe there was some kind of Mob rate on Navigators that guys like Roarke got.

Crow knew himself well enough to know that this was why he had come up from his fishing. This. Getting ready to follow Liam Roarke.

Back in the game.

Just acting like a cop without a badge. Who would’ve ever thought?

But he also knew he wasn’t just doing it for himself. Jesse, too. Probably the best friend he’d ever had.

Shit.

Maybe he was going soft.

Roarke’s body men came out first. Two to a car. One of them was the fat guy from the Capital Grille, and from the Scupper. They all looked around. Roarke got in the second car. It was late. Maybe this was it for the night.

Or not.

Crow had nowhere to be.

He knew how to follow a car, even making the turns on the side streets that finally took them around to 93, and then the Mass Pike, heading west.

The Navigators finally got off at the Watertown exit, circling around, like this part of town was a roundabout, then heading toward Brighton.

They ended up on Market Street, went past a big church, made a couple more quick turns and were on Parsons, before pulling up in front of a big old three-story Victorian. If this was one of Roarke’s residences, it wasn’t Beacon Hill. Maybe to throw everybody off.

Crow wondered if Roarke might own the two smaller houses on either side.

Crow circled around and parked on a side street that gave him a good view of the Victorian. Roarke must have gone inside by now.

Crow sat.

Nowhere he needed to be. Story of his life.

Jesse was where he needed to be. And Molly. He knew how it was between the two of them, too. Something that would always be there. But she was never leaving her husband. She was who she was. And Crow was who he was, because as much as he’d changed, he knew he couldn’t change who he used to be.

A woman getting to him this way.

Who would’ve thought?

He sat in the rental car and found a country station and listened to Jason Isbell. He was starting to think about calling it a night and heading back to Paradise and trying to fall asleep before three or four in the morning for a change, when the silver Mercedes pulled up in front of Roarke’s house.

And a woman Crow recognized got out and nearly ran to the front door, which Roarke opened for her.

The woman Crow had seen sitting with Jesse in front of the chocolate company.