When he left the station for the night, someone was waiting for him by his Explorer. Jesse thought the guy looked vaguely familiar, a face he’d seen in a sea of other faces. But he’d be damned if he could remember which sea and the name that belonged to this guy’s face.
“Can I help you?”
“Maybe. Maybe we can help each other, Chief.”
Then it clicked. Reporter.
“Boston Globe, right?”
“Very good. Ed Selko.”
Selko was a short, desiccated man whose breath smelled of cigarettes. His breath also smelled of something else, something that Jesse’s breath often smelled of: scotch whiskey. The reporter was fifty going on sixty and had that ruffled, careless look that newspaper people could afford to have. Selko was never going have to stand in front of a camera doing a remote.
Jesse gave Selko his blank stare and silence to fill up with chatter. When all Selko gave in response was silence of his own, it was clear to Jesse that the newspaperman understood silence in the way a detective understands it. TV and radio reporters didn’t have the luxury of silence. Dead air was their enemy. Not so for newspaper people.
“Can I buy you a drink, Chief?”
Jesse snorted. “I’m not that easy, Selko.”
“Come on, Stone, gimme a break. A drink will grease the skids... for me, anyway.”
“You talk, but you don’t say anything. What do we have to discuss?”
“A frayed old index card.”
“I’m listening.”
“Drink first.”
They sat alone in the banquet room at the Lobster Claw, a second glass of Lagavulin in front of Selko and a beer in Jesse’s hand. Jesse was happy to let Selko get a few single malts in him while he nursed his beer. As much as Jesse loved scotch, single malts didn’t hold much appeal for him, especially the godawful smoky ones like Lagavulin. The nose of the scotch stank like a campfire after a rainstorm.
“You’ve got expensive taste in scotch,” Jesse said.
“The other half of my diet is cigarettes, so I can afford it. How’s your pal Johnnie Walker these days?”
“We’re not talking about me, Selko.”
The reporter first took a sip, then slugged the rest down. “You know, Chief, when I said we should have a drink, an empty banquet room wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“Privacy is what I had in mind. You mentioned an index card.”
“You know, the one you found on Curnutt’s body. The one you didn’t tell the press about,” Selko said, staring at Jesse’s face, looking for any reaction. “You’re good, Stone. You get about as worked up as an Easter Island totem. I’ve always admired that about you. How you don’t give anything away.”
“You’ll make me blush.” Jesse was getting impatient. “The index card.”
Selko fished out his cell phone, tapped, scrolled, and turned the screen to Jesse. It was a photo of what looked to be the index card Jesse had pulled out of Curnutt’s pocket.
“It’s definitely an index card,” Jesse said.
“Someone faxed that to me this afternoon.”
Jesse continued to play it close to the vest. “Which proves what, exactly?”
“I’m not sure. The note that came with it suggested I ask you about it.”
“Okay, you’ve asked.”
“It’s curious, Chief, no?”
“What is?”
“Your department just found the body of a murdered man in a Paradise nature preserve and the murdered man was a suspect in the murder of Maude Cain.”
Jesse pointed at the image on the cell. “You can buy an index card like that in any office-supply store in the country.”
“Let’s stop playing games here, okay, Stone? I’m a drunk, but a good reporter. You know how that is. Remember I mentioned that the person who sent me the note suggested I ask you about the index card?”
“How could I forget? Let’s see this note.”
Selko shook his head. “Nope. I’m not showing you mine until you show me yours. But I can tell you this: You found the index card in Curnutt’s left rear pocket.”
Jesse said, “What do you want?”
“To do my job. I want a story.”
“What if I’ve got no story to give you? All you’ve got is an image of an index card and some tale about a note. It would take some mighty impressive hoop jumping to make a story out of that.”
Selko screwed up his mouth. “The police chief doth protest too much. I was hoping you’d be straight with me, Stone.”
“You think calling me a liar is going to improve your chances for a story?”
“I’m not calling you a liar,” Selko said, sliding a folded sheet of white paper across the table. “He is.”
Jesse unfolded the paper and read it. When he was done, he stood up and tugged Selko by the arm. “C’mon, we’re going.”
“Where to?”
“The station.”