Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Seventy-Eight

Jesse called Molly from the car and filled her in on what Hillary had told him about Roarke and his conversation with Spike.

And he let her know that he’d seen Sunny.

“How did that go?” she said.

“Nothing to see here,” he said. “Move along.”

“Don’t make me beat the details out of you when you get back.”

“Deal.”

“How did she look?”

“Like the Sunny you remember. Just older.”

“May I quote you?”

“May I bust you back to overnights?”

“No, you may not.”

“Hey, Mols? I haven’t spoken to Nellie since the fire. But if you talk to her before I do, don’t tell her about Roarke. Let’s keep the circle on that tight for the time being.”

Molly didn’t tell Jesse that she had asked Nellie to stop by the station. She felt Nellie had a right to know what Molly had learned about Kevin More and Jack. Molly trusted her. On top of that, Nellie had gone out of her way to help them. Had even taken a punch along the way, and nearly been abducted. Molly was going to make clear that what she was telling Nellie Shofner was off the record. Molly was convinced that telling Nellie about Kevin and Jack was the decent thing to do.

If Jesse got angry with her later about telling Nellie, Molly would deal with it. She didn’t always need the chief to tell her the right thing to do.

“Where are you headed right now?” Molly asked Jesse.

“I need to talk to somebody smarter than me.”

“You are.”

“I meant Dix.”

Nellie arrived at the station predictably out of breath, informing Molly that her story about the fire was up on the Crier website, when they went into Jesse’s office.

“The principal’s not going to like this,” Nellie said.

And you’re not going to like that Jesse saw Sunny today, provided he even tells you.

Molly knew she wasn’t going to fill Nellie in. Or she’d be looking at the overnight shift.

“What I’m about to tell you is off the record,” Molly said.

“We’re past that.”

“Jesse says cops and reporters never are,” Molly said. “Past that, I mean.”

“Jesse’s not here.”

“The rules don’t change whether he is or not. Off the record?”

“Of course,” Nellie said.

Molly told her about her visit to Kevin More, about his relationship with Jack. Nellie listened without interrupting. It was another of Jesse’s theories. Sometimes interviewers did their best work when they were listening and not talking.

“Why are you telling me this if I can’t write it?” Nellie said when Molly finished.

“Because as transactional as things can be between cops and reporters, I just thought you had a right to know,” Molly said. “And because I consider you a friend now.”

“Wow,” Nellie said.

“Imagine my surprise after the way things started out between us,” Molly said.

“You’re still acting like I’m one of you,” Nellie said. “But I’m really not.”

Molly grinned.

“Sometimes you are.”

“Yeah,” Nellie said, “when it suits the chief of police.”

“It’s one of the many perks of being chief,” Molly said. She grinned. “Notice I didn’t say ‘benefits.’ ”

Suit knocked on the door, and came in.

He had a printout in his hand.

“What you got?” Molly said.

“We finally got Jack’s phone records, praise Jesus,” Suit said. “I was actually starting to think Jesus would come back before we did.”

They had gotten Charlie’s phone records right away, because Charlie’s death was labeled a homicide from the start, with very little resistance from the DA at the time. Emma Cleary’s phone bill for her landline had simply come in the mail, like always; that streamlined finding out about the More Chocolate Wi-Fi. It had been different with Jack Carlisle’s cell phone. No sign of foul play with him. No suicide note. So the whole process of a subpoena, once put in motion, had plodded through the system, to the point where they had all forgotten about it.

Nellie tried to grab the paper out of Suit’s hand as he went past her. He snatched it back and handed it to Molly.

“She’s deputy chief, remember,” Suit said to Nellie.

“Should count for something,” Molly said.

She looked at the numbers on the page, the times next to them. In the margin, Suit had written down names next to the numbers in Magic Marker.

“These are just from the night Jack died,” Suit said, “the missed calls from ten o’clock on, which is about the time we figure he had his fight with Scott Ford. You can see there’s a bunch from Scott, from Ainsley, from Matt Loes.”

Molly reached into Jesse’s desk and came out with reading glasses. Usually she was too vain to wear her own when anybody was around.

“There are some texts, too,” she said.

“Yup,” Suit said. “One each from the Ford kid, the Loes kid, and the girl.”

Molly ran her finger down the page and stopped at a text that came in at eleven-thirty-two.

“Wait a second,” she said.

“What?” Nellie said.

“This one came from Kevin More’s number,” she said. “I asked him for it yesterday and he gave it to me and I put it in my phone.”

“So?” Suit said.

Molly took off the glasses and set them down on the printout.

“Kevin More told Jesse, and he told me, that he didn’t try to contact Jack that night,” she said. “He was pretty emphatic about it with me. Said he wished he had reached out, maybe he could have changed things somehow, he’d obviously been beating himself up on that. Jesse told me he asked him twice. There was no reason for him to lie. None. Somebody else sent that text. Faked his number the way they fake spam calls.”

She handed the paper to Nellie, who looked at it, nodded, and handed it back. Then Molly asked Suit to do her a favor.

“Is this a request?” he said. “Or is it an order?”

“Request,” Molly said. “I’m only deputy chief.”