Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Seventy

Crow was waiting in Jesse’s office. Jesse got there late today — he had stopped at the gym, to punish himself a little with weights. The urge to do that came and went. The guy who trained him sometimes, Gary, said you had to worry about muscle tone as you got older. Every time he said that Jesse suddenly would feel himself calcifying.

“I let myself in,” Crow said.

Jesse wondered, not for the first time, just how many of the black Western shirts Crow owned, how many pairs of black jeans. He couldn’t possibly have another pair of boots that worn in. As always, he looked like an Old West hero and Old West outlaw, all at the same time. Cowboy and Indian, from when you were still allowed to say that.

“I can see that,” Jesse said.

“Made coffee.”

“You think we’re getting too domestic and people are starting to talk?”

“Fuck ’em,” Crow said. “Molly and Suit not here yet?”

“I texted Molly and she said she was with Suit, as a matter of fact. Said she had something.”

“So do I,” Crow said.

Jesse walked over and fixed himself a cup of coffee, tasted it. Strong as his own. He brought his mug back to his desk. “Isn’t this pretty early for you to be awake?”

“We never close,” Crow said and then got to it, telling Jesse what he’d seen at Roarke’s place.

He told it at his own pace, beginning with when he’d decided to drive into Boston, why he’d decided to go to Boston, following Roarke and the boys all the way to Brighton. He told how he finally decided to come back, because by two in the morning it was clear that Hillary More was staying. And that he’d learned enough for one night.

He left nothing out. Didn’t add anything that didn’t belong.

Telling it the way a cop would.

Just without notes.

“I gotta ask this,” Jesse said.

“Am I sure it was her?”

Jesse grinned. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

“I saw you talking to her outside More Chocolate yesterday afternoon.”

“You’re even following me now?”

“I’d showed up here looking for Molly,” Crow said. “She wasn’t around. Neither were you. I knew Nellie was at her office. Nice day, so I decided to go for a walk.”

“I didn’t see you.”

Now Crow grinned.

“Weren’t supposed to see me. Would’ve hurt my feelings if you did.”

Jesse grinned. “You have feelings?”

“They come and go.”

Jesse told Crow about Hillary More’s response to seeing Emma Cleary’s phone bill when they were sitting in the park.

“What else was she going to say?” Crow asked him. “ ‘You got me’?”

“Hillary More and Liam Roarke,” Jesse said. “Odd couple.”

“Even odder than us,” Crow said.

“There are those who would disagree,” Jesse said. “Starting with an old captain down the hall who still can’t believe I’m working with you. And you with me.”

“Maybe Roarke didn’t come up here just to see you,” Crow said. “Maybe combined it with a booty call. One way of looking at it.”

“I get made fun for being old when I talk about booty calls.”

“With age comes wisdom,” Crow said.

“You don’t know Hillary More, but I do,” Jesse said. “I just can’t see them together.”

“You couldn’t see Molly and me together.”

“Still can’t.”

Crow let that one go.

“Maybe it’s not about sex,” Jesse said. “Maybe it’s about money.”

“Maybe you heard,” Crow said. “They go hand in hand sometimes.”

“Could be he’s a silent partner in the company and she wisely elected not to share that with anybody,” Jesse said. “For all the obvious reasons.”

“Or he’s more than a partner,” Crow said, “and it’s his money behind the whole thing, and he’s the puppet master. Been thinking on that all night, that he might be the guy pulling the strings from behind a legit front. Didn’t Tony Marcus tell you he was diversifying?”

“What the bad man said.”

“Maybe chocolate is just part of his diversification,” Crow said.

Jesse took out his phone and tried to call Hillary More. Went straight to voicemail. Then he called the main number at More Chocolate and got a recording, before he realized it was Saturday morning. Gabe was supposed to meet Hillary More there today and look at the computers on the second floor.

Jesse left a message, even though he knew he was probably wasting his time. If he didn’t hear from her by this afternoon, maybe he’d take a run at her son. But he could wait, for the time being.

“You could call somebody with the cops in Boston and ask them to send a car, see if hers is still parked out front,” Crow said.

“It still being there doesn’t get us to where we need to get,” Jesse said, “which is us knowing exactly why it’s there. I could use a little time to consider the possibilities.”

“Bullshit.”

Crow said this with just the barest upturn of the corners of his mouth. Mr. Fun.

“I know you,” he continued. “You’ve already considered all the possibilities while we’ve been sitting here drinking my excellent coffee.” He nodded at Jesse’s mug. “You want more?”

“You even had to ask? Maybe we’re not as domestic as I thought.”

Crow took Jesse’s mug along with his own over to the pot, filled both mugs up, came back. Jesse was still fond of this pot because of how hot it kept the coffee. He drank some. When he was still playing ball, they used to say that the first cup of clubhouse coffee for a day game was when you started to feel good and caffeine-cocky.

Jesse was looking for some of that cocky now. He tried to picture the Hillary More he knew, the one who kept trying different ways to come on to him, with Roarke. Could not, no matter how hard he tried. But then he couldn’t imagine any smart woman getting into bed with Liam Roarke.

Literally or figuratively.

It didn’t change that they had been together last night, in some form or fashion.

“Roarke and Hillary More,” Jesse said.

“You said that before. Just in a different order.”

“You think my conversation with her sent her running to Roarke?” Jesse said.

“Every action, a reaction,” Crow said.

“Okay, if you can only pick one,” Jesse said, “is it money or sex?”

“With Roarke?” Crow said. “Money is sex.”

Jesse saw Healy in his window. When Healy saw it was Crow in one of the visitor chairs, he pointed at Crow and shook his head, obviously disappointed. He and Crow hadn’t been formally introduced. But he knew Crow by reputation the same way Crow knew Healy by reputation.

Jesse held up a finger, telling him to wait.

Crow turned around.

“Healy?”

“Himself,” Jesse said.

Healy was still in the window. Crow stood and saluted, back straight, form perfect, elbow forward, arm horizontal.

Healy gave him the finger in response.

“How much do you really know about Hillary More?” Crow asked now.

“What everybody knew when she got here. What she said, what we all read. I don’t do a background check on everybody who opens a new business in Paradise.”

“Maybe you could have the old Statie run one now.”

“I was about to raise that possibility myself.”

“Stop trying to take credit for my ideas,” Crow said.

Molly came into Jesse’s office then, shutting the door behind her, getting into the chair next to Crow, not greeting either one of them.

“Where’s Suit?” Jesse said. “You said you were with him.”

“I was,” she said. “But he doesn’t want to be with anybody except his sister at the moment.”

She told them why.

“Gonna need a new pot,” Jesse said to Crow.