Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Seven

Five minutes later Suit was in the chair Scott Ford had just vacated, trying to get his breathing under control. Clenching and unclenching his own big hands. Molly had closed the door behind her, leaving them alone, letting them be.

“I heard about the fight between him and Jack,” Suit said.

“From whom?” Jesse asked.

“My sister,” Suit said. “She called me when I was on my way back here. One of the other moms called her.”

“And you made a determination that the best way to process that information was to act like every cowboy asshole cop in America?” Jesse said.

Suit’s face was still red. But then it never took much excitement, of any kind, for that to happen.

“I’m sorry, Jesse, I really am,” Suit said. “I just lost it when I came in and saw him in those sunglasses. Like he was Joe Cool or something, after what I saw in the water a few hours ago.”

“ ‘Sorry’ hardly ever fixes the lamp,” Jesse said.

“It won’t happen again,” Suit said.

“Statement of the obvious,” Jesse said.

“Please don’t take me off the case,” Suit said.

Jesse could see the plea in his eyes.

“He wasn’t just a nephew to me, you know that,” Suit said. “He was more like a son.”

Jesse’s son, Cole, had been accepted into the London Law Program, one approved by the American Bar Association, for second- and third-year students. It was an exclusive program, according to Cole. Its appeal might have had something to do with the English actress he had started dating before he’d applied. He and Jesse were staying in touch, but sometimes only once a month. The kid sounded happy. Leave him alone.

“You could come over,” Cole had said a few days ago.

“I could become an astronaut, too,” Jesse had told him.

Jesse walked over to the coffeepot and poured himself a cup. He was just buying himself time. Trying to get his own temper under control. He couldn’t let Suit get away with what he’d done, not in front of the whole squad room; it was unprofessional, bullshit behavior from one of his cops. One who felt like a son to Jesse. But he had no desire to make things worse for Suit than they already were, if such a thing was even possible today. Because Jesse was certain that things had never been worse for Suitcase Simpson, his whole life, than they were right now. From the time he’d gone to work for Jesse, Suit had consistently been one of the happiest people Jesse had ever known.

It was the old Mike Tyson line. Amazing how much of life always came back to that. Everybody had a plan until they got hit.

Jesse sat back down with his coffee and drank some. Most of the time he was the only one drinking from his pot. It was like the ballpark coffee he used to drink when he was playing ball, strong enough to fuel a small jet.

“This might be nothing more than a terrible accident,” Jesse said. “He’s standing there and he’s hot-wired after slugging it out with the Ford kid and at least half drunk. Or more than that. We won’t know that until we get the tox screen back. He’s all spun around on what was supposed to be a fun night for everybody. And maybe the world started to spin around.”

“I never saw him even take a single beer,” Suit said.

“You’re his uncle, Suit,” Jesse said. “You treated him like a golden boy. Matter of fact so did I, every chance I got.”

Jesse shrugged and drank some coffee.

“We’ll find out how much booze he had in him,” Jesse said. “Dev will do everything he can to speed this one along.”

They sat there in silence. How many times had the two of them sat together in this office, working on a case, or just shooting the shit?

Just never like this.

Charlie talked about scar tissue. Jesse knew how much he’d developed on this job.

But what about Suit?

Molly came in then, quietly closed the door behind her, sat down next to Suit, took one of his hands in hers.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Suit said.

He turned to face her.

“I have to ask this,” Molly said.

Suit waited.

“Is there any chance he could have jumped?” she said.