Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

85

Molly and Healy were pacing around Jesse’s office. Suit was firmly planted in Jesse’s chair.

“Get up and do some pacing,” Molly said.

“I’m pacing in spirit.”

“Lazy.”

“I just got hit by a truck.”

“Whiner. Next thing you know, you’ll be bringing up the gunshot wounds.”

They all three laughed at that.

Then Molly turned to Healy. “What’s taking so long?”

Healy said, “The man in there has twenty-five years’ worth of confessing to do.”

“But he’s got a lawyer in there with him. Maybe he’s changed his mind and—”

Jesse walked in before she could finish. Suit made to stand up, but Jesse waved him back down.

“So?” Healy said.

“Relax. He copped to everything. It’s all on videotape. Bill Marchand is never going to see another day on the outside.”

Molly asked, “Did he kill Warren?”

“Millner,” Jesse said.

“So who was driving the truck that hit me?” Suit asked.

“Marchand. Both Millner and Dragoa were already dead by then.”

Healy shook his head. “How did he think he was going to get away with that?”

“He almost did. Everyone in town knows Dragoa’s truck and that’s what he was counting on, that people would focus on the truck and not the guy driving it. But he took precautions. Remember, he had access to Dragoa’s spare clothes on the boat and he was about the same size as Alexio. With a watch cap pulled down low and the truck streaking by, he figured to get away with it.”

“But what about the timing, Jesse?” Suit asked. “If Dragoa and Millner were already dead—”

“That’s why he placed their bodies on the beach and didn’t just dump them in the ocean,” Jesse said. “It was cold but not freezing the last few days. He figured to confuse us with the time of death.”

“Like that Lutz guy did with the bodies of Walton Weeks and his girlfriend a few years back.”

“That’s right, Suit, but Marchand only needed to buy himself about a twenty-four-hour window where Dragoa and Millner could have still been alive.”

Molly said, “Why’d he try to run Jameson over.”

“Two reasons: to fool us that Dragoa was still alive, and he couldn’t risk Jameson talking to us if he really did know something. It’s why my trap worked. After all the killing he’d done to cover his tracks, the only possible loose end was Jameson. He had to risk killing him, too.”

“Speaking of Jameson, where is he?” Suit wanted to know.

“He’s safe and with a friend.”

Healy asked, “Who set the fires?”

“Marchand. He was at the wake for Maxie and Ginny, but made it a point to tell me he couldn’t be at the church service because of business. Millner left the truck for him in Commonwealth Woods, and after he was done torching the houses, he drove back there and burned the van. Both Dragoa and Millner trusted Marchand implicitly. They always had, from the days they played ball together. Marchand was the point guard, the leader. He was the smart one, the successful one, and he was the one who had saved their asses the night they killed the girls. Up until the bodies were found, they had a common agenda. Once the bodies were discovered and Dragoa started acting guilty and unstable, Marchand decided it was too dangerous to let Dragoa and Millner keep breathing. After he made up his mind, everything he did was to make Dragoa and Millner look guilty and to draw our attention to them. Oh, yeah, the gun he used to kill Dragoa will match the gun used to kill Zebriski, and the knife your guys found on the boat will match the knife that killed Mary Kate O’Hara. He was thorough. I’ll give him that.”

Molly looked shaken. “If Jameson hadn’t turned up, he would have gotten away with it.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said. “But like I told him, he could erase his present, but not his past. I would have looked at him eventually. Now, if you guys don’t mind, I’d like a word with Suit.”

Molly gave Jesse a wary look as she held the door open for Healy, but she didn’t say anything. Suit was visibly worried and got up from Jesse’s chair in pieces. It was painful to watch. Jesse sat in his chair and gestured for Suit to sit across from him. The pain forced him to sit, though it seemed to Jesse that Suit would rather have run.

“What’d I do now, Jesse?”

“Take it easy, Suit. I just want to say some stuff to you I should have said before this.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Like thank you for having my back last spring. I should have thanked you then.”

“Didn’t turn out so good.”

“I guess it didn’t, but you didn’t know you were going to get shot. It was a brave thing to do, Suit, following me like that even though you knew it might be dangerous and that I’d get mad at you. Easy to do things when you know you’ll get rewarded for it. Hard to do them when you know you’re going to catch hell.”

Suit reddened. “That all, Jesse?”

“Almost. You know you saved Jameson’s life, putting yourself between that truck and him?”

“I was only doing my job.”

“Maybe. But you acted fast, without thinking of yourself. You saved a person’s life. A lot of cops, good cops, go through a whole career without being able to make that claim. I thought about giving you a medal for what you did.”

“No disrespect, Jesse, but I don’t want a medal. I got lots of trophies and awards at my folks’ house and they just collect dust.”

“I know you don’t, so I decided to give you something that has meant a lot to me.” Jesse stood, unholstered his .38, emptied the cylinder, and placed it in Suit’s hand. “Luther, I would be honored if you would accept this from me as a measure of my respect for you.”

Suit stared at the .38 as if he’d just been given a Super Bowl ring. “I don’t know what to say.”

“‘Thanks’ will do.”

“Thank you, Jesse. This means everything to me.” Suit saluted his boss.

“You ever salute me again and I’ll fire your ass.”

“Stop calling me Luther and I’ll stop saluting you.”

“Deal.”

They shook on it, their hands staying together a little longer than usual.

“One more thing, Suit,” Jesse said when Suit had gotten to the office door. “When you come back on duty, you’re on patrol. Now, get out of here and heal up.”