Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

40

The sun had finally taken a seat low in the sky about the time Jesse got to where Lundquist and Molly were waiting, Lundquist holding the evidence bag with the index card.

“Is this all he had on him?” Lundquist asked, waving the clear plastic bag in the air.

“One second, Brian.” Jesse walked past him and went over to where Peter Perkins was packing away his equipment.

“What’s up, Jesse?”

“Did you see the blood off to the side of the body?”

“I did. I got a sample of it, marked it in my notes, and got photos of it.” Perkins tilted his head in confusion. “Why you asking?”

“You didn’t move the body, did you?”

“You know I know better than that. All I did was check for a pulse to make a hundred percent sure he was dead. Then I backed away and followed procedure.”

Jesse smiled as best he could, given how lousy he was feeling, and patted Perkins’s left biceps. “Good work. I had to ask.”

When Jesse got back to where Molly and Lundquist were standing, Lundquist repeated his question. “Is this all he had on him?”

“All I could find.”

“An old index card. Not much to go on.”

“I’m not so sure,” Jesse said.

That got Molly’s attention. “Not sure about what?”

“Something doesn’t feel right about this.”

“What feels right about murder?” she asked.

“It’s not only that,” Jesse said. “That car was stolen from up north. Why come back to Paradise? Why would he expose himself like that?”

Molly spoke first. “Maybe he had no choice, Jesse. Maybe he had left something behind in that shed on his way out of town, money or something he took from Maude’s house we didn’t know about.”

Jesse remained silent.

“More likely he was meeting someone and whoever it was didn’t feel like sharing, possibly his partner,” Lundquist said.

Jesse shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t like it.”

Molly pointed over Jesse’s shoulder. “Well, you’re going to like this even less.”

When he turned, Jesse saw the mayor’s black Suburban pulling to a stop. He had hoped he might be able to get away from the scene before the mayor showed, if only to shower again, shave, and shut his eyes for an hour.

“Brian,” he said, turning back to Lundquist. “See what your lab can do with that. I’ll have Peter send the rest of the stuff over as soon as possible.”

“Okay, Jesse, but we’re not done talking about this crime scene and what you don’t like about it.”

“Fine. Go ahead. We’ll talk later,” Jesse said. “Molly, you too. I’ll deal with the mayor.”

“You sure, Jesse?”

“Always. Now get out of here.”

But as he watched Lundquist and Molly retreat to their vehicles, he noticed only Nita Thompson getting out of the Suburban, two large cups of coffee in her hands. There was no sign of Mayor Walker. As she got to Jesse, Nita handed him one of the cups.

“I think this is how you like it,” she said. “But you look like you could use it whether it’s how you like it or not.”

He took a big sip of the steaming coffee, the smell of it filling his head. He was almost as thankful for the aroma as he was for the taste of the coffee. “Thanks. Where’s Mayor Walker?”

Nita ignored the question. “Rough night?”

“I’ve had rougher ones. The mayor?”

“Right. Sorry. I advised her not to show her face here until we knew what we were dealing with.”

“That’s why the media hasn’t shown up. You don’t know how to spin this yet.”

“I don’t know why I ever underestimated you,” she said. “Is it him, Kirk Curnutt?”

“Looks like him, but he had no ID on him and the car was stolen. We’ll be certain as soon as we run the prints.”

“So what else do we have, Jesse? I mean, who would kill someone out here, of all places?”

“I’ll tell you that when we have some idea about the evidence.”

“C’mon, Jesse, give me something.”

He thought about that for a second before answering. His instinct was to say nothing. He still didn’t trust Nita as far as he could throw her, but he also knew that having her in his debt for once might not be a bad thing.

“There’s something not right about this.”

She laughed a laugh disconnected from amusement. “Not right! Nothing’s right about this.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve done a fair amount of homicide investigations. I’ve been to a lot of murder scenes and this one just feels wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

Again, he hesitated. He didn’t want to say anything that she might be able to turn against him later if his sense was wrong.

“Just this,” he said. “If you were Curnutt, would you come back to Paradise? And it was called in by an anonymous caller, not to nine-one-one, but to the station landline. Someone wanted us to know the body was here and wasn’t waiting for a jogger to find him.”

“You think it was the killer?”

“Maybe.”

“Jeez, Jesse, do you think you have some kind of psycho on your hands?”

Nita’s use of the word you didn’t escape Jesse’s notice. Jesse had given her all he was going to. “I think a lot of things right now. That’s why I have to see what comes of the evidence.”

Nita Thompson shook her head. “Two murders in town in less than a week. It’s a nightmare for all of us.”

Jesse understood that the biggest nightmare was his. Nita and the mayor’s nightmare was about how to spin the news and control the fallout. His was solving the murders and saving his job.