Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

73

Molly got clear, but Jesse didn’t make it to the back door. Healy was calling him on his cell phone. Daisy’s wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t empty, either, and he didn’t want to have a conversation with Healy in public, even if listeners could overhear only one side of it.

“Hold on a minute,” he said, then locked himself in the men’s room. “You found the boat?”

“Nope. Sorry, Jesse. No word on the boat yet. I made the call and our people are out there looking for it.”

“Then what?”

“The panties.”

For the last few days, Jesse had been so focused on other things — the funerals, the arson, Millner, Jameson, Dragoa — that he had to remind himself about Maxie Connolly and the missing cabbie.

“What about the panties?” Jesse asked.

“Lab found soil traces consistent with the soil from the Bluffs. Also found two DNA hits on them.”

“Let me guess: Maxie Connolly and Wiethop.”

Healy laughed. “One out of two. You got Maxie Connolly.”

“And the other one?”

“Unknown contributor.”

“Not Wiethop?”

“Definitely not Wiethop,” Healy said.

“Doesn’t make sense. Did the unknown contributor leave semen?”

“No semen. Skin cells. Lots of ’em. Some gray facial hairs, too.”

“Gray facial hairs and skin cells,” Jesse said to himself out loud.

“Wait, it gets even stranger. Wiethop did leave prints and DNA on the other things you guys found in his apartment, but the unknown contributor left nothing on those items. Only on the panties. What do you think?”

Jesse said, “I think someone’s jerking us around.”

“Wiethop?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. He’s an ex-con cabdriver living over a deli, not a rocket scientist. For now, I’m more focused on Dragoa.”

“Like I said, Jesse, the marine unit’s out there searching. Between them and the Coast Guard, they’ll find the boat.”

“Do me a favor, Healy. Fax me the report.”

“Already done. Jameson still unconscious?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You have that talk with Molly Crane yet?”

“Just got done.”

“How’d she take it?”

“About as well as you’d expect,” Jesse said, “but she alibied Zebriski for the entire night of that July fourth. She wouldn’t lie to me about that.”

“You sure about that, Jesse? You remember being young and in love. Women are kinda peculiar about their first loves.”

“I’m sure.”

“But why kill this Zebriski guy if he had no part in it? And what was he doing back in Paradise?”

“Those are two of the million-dollar questions.”

There was a knock at the bathroom door. “C’mon, man, sometime this week, huh?”

“Okay, Healy. Talk to you tomorrow.”

When Jesse stepped out of the men’s room, one of the news crews’ cameramen was on the other side of the door.

“Sorry about that, Chief. I didn’t know it was you in there.”

“If you knew it was me, would you have had to go any less?”

“I guess not. And speaking of that...”

Jesse stepped out of his way.