Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

79

Jesse was about to do something he’d never done before, something that went against his nature to do, but he felt like he had nowhere else to go. There was no one else he could talk to about this situation who would understand. It’d eaten at him the whole ride back down to Paradise from North Swan Harbor. And when he approached the station and saw the mob of press outside, he turned his Explorer around and pulled into the Lobster Claw parking lot. He reached for his phone, pressed CONTACTS, and tapped his index finger to the letter B. He scrolled to the name he wanted and stared at the screen.

He had tried talking to Healy about it, but Healy didn’t seem to want to understand what he was getting at. The object was to clear cases, so why look for trouble? He couldn’t talk to Ed Barstow, the Swan Harbor police chief, about it. Ed was a good guy, but not much of a cop. He was the chief of a small police force in a town of rich folks. He had no ambition and no desire to make waves in a high-profile case. And this wasn’t the kind of thing he could discuss with Molly or Suit or Peter Perkins. Finally, Jesse tapped the name on the screen and put the phone to his ear.

“Yeah, hello. What’s up?” said the man who answered the phone on the first ring.

While not exactly a strange voice, it was no longer a familiar voice to Jesse, because he hadn’t heard it for more than ten years. He recognized it as belonging to the man he’d called, but the voice was older — of course it was — and it was thinner than Jesse remembered it.

“Javy B.,” Jesse said, finding it difficult to speak.

“No one calls me that no more. Who is this?”

“Jesse.”

“Jesse?”

“Jesse Stone.”

There were a few seconds of very uneasy silence.

“Stone,” said Javier Baez, Jesse’s first partner after he made detective.

“Javier.”

“Why you calling?”

It had been many years since the LAPD had shown Jesse the exit door and many, many more since they had worked together, but the disappointment was thick in Baez’s voice.

“I needed to talk to someone about a case,” Jesse said.

“The dead girls and the John Doe?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ve been reading about it. Watching the news reports. Sounds like a mess. But what you want from me? I’m just a retired detective with bad kidneys and alimony payments. You’re a big-shot police chief, no?”

“You were the best detective I ever met, Javy. You taught me the ropes.”

“You had a chance to be better than me, but you pissed it away. You still a drunk?”

That hurt Jesse more than he believed it could, but he wasn’t sure which part of what his old partner said hurt worse. The part about Jesse’s potential as a detective or about his alcoholism.

“I still drink, yeah. Not like I used to, not usually on the job. If that makes me a drunk, then I’m a drunk.”

“One thing I’ll give you, you’re not a liar. Could never abide my partners lying to me. You called to talk about a case, okay, talk.”

Jesse ran down the essentials of the case. Described Dragoa’s attempt on Jameson’s life, told him the details about the scene on the boat, the confession letter, about how and where the bodies had washed up.

“Sounds like you’re about to close some cases,” Baez said, an edge to his voice that Jesse had hoped to hear. An edge that said he was thinking what Jesse was thinking. “It’s all the evidence a detective could ever want and it’s all wrapped up in a nice little package with a pretty red bow. So what’s your problem?”

Jesse said, “You know what the problem is. There’s too much evidence. You would have been suspicious as all hell, we ever turned up this much evidence. And I didn’t even turn it up. It all landed in my lap. Pretty convenient the two killers turning up dead like that.”

“What is it you gringos say? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Whatever the hell that means.”

“Don’t give me that poor dumb Mexican bullshit, Javy.”

“And don’t be calling me Javy. You lost that right when you disgraced the shield. You put your partners at risk. You didn’t learn that from me. You called me for a favor. I owe you that much, but nothing more. We clear on that?”

“Clear.”

“Why not wait for the forensics?” Baez asked.

“Because I bet they’re going to come back consistent with what I told you.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe because they’re right.”

“Here’s something I did learn from you. Forensics and statistics don’t lie, but they can be massaged and manipulated.”

“Work the case. Go find the masseuse.”

“Be nice if I had an idea where to look.”

“Right now you’re three thousand miles off the mark. Whatever you’re looking for isn’t in L.A.”

“You always were a comedian, Javy — Javier.”

“You know where to look, Stone. I taught you that on day one. Look right in front of you.”

“Thanks, Javier.”

“Stone.”

“What?”

“Watch yourself out there.”

Javier Baez clicked off. And once again Jesse found himself staring at his cell phone. He hadn’t even noticed that it was snowing. He drove out of the parking lot and headed for the hospital.