Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

6

There had been very few times after his rookie year on the LAPD that Jesse Stone was at a loss. This was one of those times. Jesse wasn’t drinking, but Healy was. He was working on his second Jameson, pacing in front of Jesse’s desk.

“How’s Crane holding up?” Healy asked.

“She’ll be fine. I sent her home to get cleaned up. She’ll be back here in a little while. You want to fill me in?”

“I was still in uniform back then, just starting out,” the captain said. “You were probably taking infield practice in your first season in A ball.”

“Long time ago.”

“Feels like yesterday, Jesse. Two sixteen-year-old girls, Mary Kate O’Hara and Virginia Connolly, went missing on the Fourth of July. They were supposed to meet a bunch of friends at Kennedy Park to see the fireworks and hang around for a concert by a local band afterward. Their parents said they left their houses around eight. The friends said that Mary Kate and Ginny were there for the fireworks, but that both of the girls skipped out during the concert. They never made it home. Nobody realized they were missing until about three a.m. If I remember right, the parents didn’t notify the Paradise PD until they had called all of the girls’ friends. So it was maybe five or six before the cops had any idea what was going on. Your department was smaller then. I think it was eight men and the chief. His name was—”

“Frederick W. Tillis,” Jesse said, pointing at the wall to his right. “Someday my picture will be up there staring down at the poor fool who inherits this job.”

“I knew Freddy Tillis a little bit after I got the bump to detective. Nice enough fella, I guess. Not the most competent policeman I ever came across. I think his major qualification for the job was that he came cheap.”

“They hired me because they thought I was a bumbling drunk.”

Healy laughed. “They were half right.”

“The wrong half. But what about the girls?”

“Tillis waited two days before he called us staties in. By then the trail was icy cold, not that there was much of a trail to begin with. The girls seemed to have vanished. There weren’t even many tips. You know, the usual crazies. One said he’d seen them abducted by a spacecraft. There was one credible lead, I think, a drunk guy eating at the Gray Gull. He said he saw a few kids in an overcrowded boat rowing out to Stiles at a time that would fit. His name will be in your files somewhere. It’s something like Sabo or Laszlov, like that. Nothing came of it. The guy was plastered.”

“The ring,” Jesse said. “Molly kept talking about the ring.”

“Mary Kate O’Hara’s ring. Her class ring from Sacred Heart Girls Catholic. The ring company made a mistake in sizing it. It was too large for her ring finger, so she always wore it on the middle finger of her right hand. Both of the skeletons had Sacred Heart rings on, the smaller one on its right middle finger. Be a hell of a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence, but let’s wait for the autopsies before we get ahead of ourselves.”

“It’s them, Jesse.” Healy gulped the rest of his drink. Held the empty cup out for another. “Don’t make the same mistake Freddy Tillis did. Go dig the file out and start working it.”

Jesse poured.

“Why is this the first I’m hearing about these girls, Healy? I’ve been chief here for over a decade now. I’ve heard about almost everything else that’s come down the sewer pipe in this town. Why not this?”

“You’re from where? Tucson, right? You played ball in Albuquerque. Worked LAPD for ten years. Paradise is a small town. I been in all sorts of small towns since I came on the job. And if there’s one thing small towns protect, it’s their darkest secrets. It’s shame. They’re ashamed, Jesse. You may be chief, you may live here, but you didn’t grow up here. It’s one thing to be from a place. Something else to be of a place. Talk to Crane about it. She’ll tell you.”

Jesse nodded.

“What do you make of the guy in the blue tarp?” he asked.

Healy laughed. It was a laugh that had no relationship to joy. “You just said you don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Would be a hell of a coincidence for three bodies to end up in the same abandoned building, buried in utility holes ten feet apart.”

Healy shook his head. “So you think there’s a connection?”

“One way or the other.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Healy asked.

“That the bodies being ten feet apart means more to me than the passage of time.”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

“Uh-huh,” Jesse said, finally pouring himself a drink.