Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

19

Stu Cromwell kept a bottle in his drawer as well. Officially, cops and reporters were wary of the other, but they often shared common vices.

“Hope you like rye,” Cromwell said, sliding the glass across his desk to Jesse. “It was my dad’s drink. For years I wouldn’t go near the stuff for just that reason. Now I can’t stay away from it.”

“When it’s the only thing on the drink menu, it’s my favorite.”

They clinked glasses.

After a sip or two, Cromwell said, “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“And I didn’t expect to be here.”

“You here to talk or to drink?”

“A little bit of both, Stu.”

“Well, we drank some. Now you want to talk some?”

Jesse said, “What did you make of all those reporters at the press conference today?”

Cromwell screwed up his face. “Reporters! Those weren’t reporters. They were leeches. Most of them will disappear in two or three days. Once the next starlet has an affair or shows up at a club holding hands with another woman, they’ll clear out and move on.”

“You sound bitter, Stu. That the rye talking or you?”

“Guess I’m a little jealous. Guarantee you any one of those jackals makes more money than I ever did or will. None of them have any real journalism training. Most are failed actors, but it’s tough to knock them taking the money. And there’s no real future for newspapers. Let’s face it, Jesse, this paper might not be long for this world. I spend more time on the phone with my creditors than with Martha’s oncologists.”

“You seem to know a lot about the enemy,” Jesse said.

“Journalism is a small fraternity that’s shrinking by the day. When I was in college, I didn’t like all my fraternity brothers, either, but I knew a lot about them.”

Cromwell poured them both a little more rye.

“Anything else, Jesse?”

“Maxie Connolly.”

Cromwell gave a tight-lipped smile. “What about her?”

“Was she always such a — such a brassy—”

“I believe the word you’re struggling for is broad.”

Jesse laughed. “I was thinking character, but broad works.”

“She got around.”

“Stu, you just called her a broad. This is no time to go polite on me.”

“She screwed around and she wasn’t choosy about her bedmate’s marital status, but the cops looked into that back then. You must have it in your files. They interviewed all of her beaus. Most of them didn’t even know Maxie had a daughter. At least she had the good taste to keep the men out of her own house.”

“Any men the cops didn’t know about?” Jesse asked.

Cromwell hesitated for a beat, then turned his palms up. “None that we could find, and we looked hard,” he said, his voice strained.

“Did you know her?”

“Maxie Connolly?” He cleared his throat. “By reputation only until the girls disappeared. You’d see her around town. She was hard to miss, if you know what I mean. Back in the day, she was quite a looker, in a cheap and loud sort of way. How’s she looking these days?”

“Still loud, but she’s forsaken cheap. She was wearing a mink coat and jewelry worth more than a few years’ worth of my salary. But after I told her she could pick up Ginny’s remains, she wasn’t looking so well.”

The newspaperman nodded. “I think everyone assumed Maxie didn’t really give a tinker’s damn about her daughter, but you can never know how someone feels just by looking from the outside in.”

Jesse stood. Shook Cromwell’s hand. “Thanks for the drink. Next time, the drinks are on me.”

“Now I’ve got a question for you, Jesse. If you don’t mind?”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you withhold Ginny Connolly’s cause of death? It was easy enough for me to find out the likely COD was a severely fractured skull. Besides, you know that stuff will become public knowledge soon enough. Were you going to use it to sort out the crazies?”

“Bingo! The crazies come in waves. We’ve already had a few come in and call in. Just makes it easier to eliminate the first set. Do me a favor, Stu, don’t publish that for at least another day.”

“As long as you keep me in the loop, okay?”

When Jesse stepped outside, the weather had turned from crisp to damp and raw. The cold wind that had earlier felt bracing now cut through his exposed skin to the bone. He turned up his collar and walked back to his Explorer. He didn’t get far before he was surrounded by some of those reporters Cromwell had just warned him about. They shouted questions out to him as they stuck digital recording devices in his face. The questions were run-of-the-mill and so, too, was Jesse’s answer.

“No comment.”

When Jesse made it to his Explorer and drove away, he shook his head as he looked at the reporters in the rearview mirror. He hoped Cromwell was right, that they would disappear with the next whiff of celebrity scandal or mayhem. He was a patient man, but he didn’t suffer fools gladly. He didn’t suffer them at all.