Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

45

He met Tamara at one of those big chain restaurants in a shopping center in the next town over. A cheery hostess greeted them and led them to a booth. They sat silent as they half listened to an even cheerier server ramble on about two-for-one drinks and the sizzling shrimp fajita special. Jesse ordered coffee. Tamara ordered a Diet Coke.

“What’s going on, Jesse?”

“I’m not sure, but I figured you’d be the person to talk to.”

She said, “I didn’t figure you for a fan of these types of restaurants.”

“When I was in the minors, a place like this would have been beyond my means. Ate a lot of eggs, canned soup, and hot dogs and beans.”

“Sounds dreamy.”

“I would trade everything I’ve ever had to have those days back.”

Tamara was skeptical. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

His tone left little room for her skepticism.

“Okay, Jesse, come on, why the cloak-and-dagger? Why meet here?” she asked, noticing he wasn’t wearing his PPD hat or his ever-present Paradise police jacket.

“I have to talk to you about something and there’s still too much press in town. I didn’t want to give them anything to speculate about.”

She said, “We could have met at your house again.”

He shook his head. “We can’t do that every night. Not even my liver can take that. And this is kind of official in nature.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of this, Jesse. What is it?”

“Is there any possible way Maxie Connolly’s death wasn’t a suicide?”

Tamara Elkin looked gut-punched. She wrapped her arms around her midsection. Jesse didn’t think she was even aware of it. She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could say a word, the waiter arrived with their drinks.

“Have you had a chance to look at the menu?” the waiter said, cheery as ever. “I’d recommend the corn chowder. It’s—”

Tamara cut him off. “Scotch,” she said. “A double, neat.”

The waiter looked perplexed even as he kept that practiced smile on his face. He then explained that scotch wasn’t part of the two-fers. Jesse shooed him away with a promise of a big tip and kept quiet until the waiter was out of earshot.

“What’s wrong, Doc?”

“How did you know, Jesse?”

He was confused. “Know what?”

She got that gut-punched look again. “About what happened to me in New York.”

“I don’t know anything about what happened to you in New York.”

She smiled, but it quickly vanished. “Remember when I told you that it would take some twisted logic for me to explain how taking the medical examiner’s job here was career advancement?”

“A long story for another time,” he said.

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“Let me guess,” he said. “Now’s the time.”

She smiled without joy. “It would seem to be.”

The server returned with the scotch and started to ask about a food order. When he saw the scowl on Jesse’s face, the server disappeared.

“Perfect timing,” she said. She gulped her scotch and took a second to compose herself. “Two years ago, I was working a night rotation and I signed off on an autopsy done by a more junior colleague on a nineteen-year-old female suicide. The deceased had been found unresponsive in the bathroom at a friend’s party in Greenwich Village. It all seemed like a pretty straightforward opioid overdose. There were no signs of violence, no physical trauma. The victim had ready access to the drugs. Grandma had terminal cancer. The girl also apparently had a history of chronic depression. But the family refused to accept our findings.”

“Parents never want to hear that their kid’s killed herself. Means they failed.”

“Especially politically connected parents with money.”

“Lots of those in New York City,” he said.

“They brought in their own expert and had a second autopsy done.”

“And?”

“And their expert found something we missed, some very slight swelling around a tiny puncture wound that he claimed was an injection site. With this one fact, he fabricated a ludicrous scenario involving forced ingestion of pills and a lethal injection. It was absurd.”

“But.”

“But the doctor who performed the original autopsy had missed the swelling and I missed that he missed it.”

“That couldn’t be enough to get you fired,” Jesse said.

“It could be if you were having an affair with the person who screwed up the autopsy and if a jealous, backstabbing son-of-a-bitch coworker whispered in your boss’s ear.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I didn’t get fired, exactly,” she said. “None of this was leaked to the media, but it was made pretty clear to me that if I pushed back, there would be consequences. So I got pointed to the exit door and got a kick in the ass for a good-bye present. I took a year off and traveled to let things settle out before I began applying for jobs. Not too many takers, though. I guess not many folks believed I just wanted a more quiet life than New York City offered.”

“Or just maybe there were carefully directed whispers.”

“Maybe. So you can see why I thought that your questioning my findings about Maxie Connolly’s COD would make me think you knew,” she said, her voice brittle.

He nodded. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“I suppose what happened to Maxie Connolly might’ve been the result of foul play, but I didn’t find any evidence indicating that it was.”

No one needed to teach Jesse Stone a lesson on following the evidence.

“Do you really think it was a homicide?” she asked.

He explained about the missing cell phone and about what they had so conveniently discovered under Wiethop’s bed.

“It was like it was left there for us to find. It should have been gift wrapped with a bow on it.”

“Or maybe the guy wasn’t exactly a criminal genius.”

“He was a con, Doc. I could tell. He reeked of jail time. He might not have been a genius, but he was a criminal and he wasn’t a kid. He’d know not to leave evidence around like that even if he was taking off for good. Without that stuff there, no one would have even cared that he left. Leaving that stuff under his bed was like leaving a sign that said Come and get me.”

“What’s that expression cops always use? If criminals had half a brain—”

“We’d be in trouble.” Jesse nodded. “If we had only found the phone or a suicide note by where Maxie went over the Bluffs, I would feel better about it being a suicide.”

“It was pretty windy the night she died, Jesse. The note might’ve blown out to sea from up there for all you know and the cabbie might’ve taken the cell phone with him when he split.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Look, Jesse...” Tamara stared into her empty glass.

He understood. “Don’t worry about it. No one will hear about what happened in New York from me, not even if my hunch turns out to be right. I don’t throw my friends under the bus.”

“Good to know.”

“Can’t afford to,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“Don’t have many friends.”

Tamara Elkin smiled again and let out a big sigh of relief.

Jesse said, “Can we order now? I’m pretty hungry.”

She nodded and Jesse waved to the waiter.