Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Nine

Molly had pushed back her interview with Ainsley Walsh until later, as Ainsley was one of the girls organizing the candlelight memorial service scheduled for O’Hara Field at nine o’clock that night.

Jesse spent the rest of his afternoon interviewing members of the Paradise High baseball team, in his office, in fifteen-minute blocks. He’d gotten all of the phone numbers from the coach, Hal Fortin.

The stories from the kids were largely the same, making Jesse wonder if they’d gotten together and rehearsed them. They were aware that something had happened between Jack Carlisle and Scott Ford. They could see from Scott’s face that at least one punch had landed when he came back. Jack never did. Everybody was lit. Nobody thought anything more of it. They were high school kids, after all, partying after the big game. All of them sure they were going to live forever.

Ainsley Walsh had left early. Len Samuels, the second baseman, said they’d just assumed that Jack and Ainsley might have gone off to talk through some stuff once Jack didn’t come back, because he’d seen the two of them arguing about something earlier.

“Lot of arguments for a victory celebration,” Jesse said.

“Not when there’s enough beer,” Samuels said.

Samuels was the last of them. When he left, Jesse sat behind his desk and opened the bottom drawer, where he used to keep his emergency scotch. His baseball glove was there now. He took it out, and his ball along with it, flicking the ball into the pocket, loving the sound of that, loving the smell of the glove, old as it was. Drinking and baseball. Baseball and drinking. He thought back to all the drinking he did, they all did, by the time they were in Triple-A. Did ballplayers still drink that much? Probably not. They went to the gym now when the game was over, not the bar. World had changed. It used to be thirty was old in baseball. Not anymore. They stayed in much better shape now. What had Mickey Mantle said that time? If I’d known I was gonna live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself. Mickey stopped drinking finally, after being a legendary drunk. Went to Betty Ford. Got sober. Came out and died of cancer. Something else Jesse could ask God, he ever got alone with Him.

The ball went harder into the glove.

Baseball and drinking.

When he was young, he’d thought you couldn’t have one without the other. Now he’d been sober for the longest stretch of his adult life. He’d stopped counting the days, and months, and years. He went to meetings less and less frequently. But the urge to drink was always in the room. Not an elephant in the room, he thought.

Just a fifth of Dewar’s.

He knew the best thing was to find a meeting right now, keep the wolf away from the door. Elephants and wolves. Mixing my metaphors now. Such a long day. It seemed like three days since he’d left Nellie’s house and gotten the call about Jack Carlisle.

How much did drinking have to do with the death of this kid?

I’ll find out, Jesse told him.

I always have before.

He thought about Nellie Shofner now. He liked her. Liked her a lot. But he knew he didn’t love her. He’d loved Jenn. He’d loved Sunny. Maybe still loved Sunny.

What he loved more than anything was being a cop.

He loved the work. Kept him sane, at least to a point. Kept the wolf away from the door.

Idle hands, Dewar’s workshop, he told himself, putting the glove back in what had been the scotch drawer.