61

Jesse wasn’t sure the PI would be in but thought stopping by his office was worth a shot. He might be able to get the same information from the man over the phone. The thing was, he always thought it was better to see a person’s face and body language. The phone robbed you of that. After he rapped on Spenser’s office door, Jesse heard a vaguely familiar voice telling him to come in.

Spenser was at his desk, leaning back in his chair, his head turned to look out through the bowed window at nighttime Boston below. The office smelled of fresh-brewed coffee and of something else: dog. The source of the coffee aroma was obvious enough. A Mr. Coffee machine atop some metal filing cabinets burbled away, but there was no dog.

“How you doing, Stone?” Spenser asked without turning to face him.

“Vinnie Morris give you a heads-up?”

“Either that or I’m going to take my mind-reading act on the road. Look at it down there. You think you know this city, but it’s never the same place two days in a row. How’s Paradise?”

“Got two open murder cases. Other than that, it’s heaven.”

“Sunny always said you had a strange sense of humor.”

“Most people don’t credit me with having one at all.”

Spenser turned his attention away from the street. He stood up and came around the desk, right hand extended.

“You hear from Sunny lately?” Jesse asked, shaking Spenser’s hand.

“I was going to ask you the same question. She had it bad for you, Stone.”

“I had it bad for her, too. Sometimes that’s not enough.”

“Vinnie told me about what happened to your fiancée. Sorry to hear it.”

“Thanks.”

Jesse studied Spenser’s face to see if he meant it and that it wasn’t just a thing the PI thought he should say. One look into Spenser’s eyes and Jesse knew he’d meant it. Spenser looked a little older than he had the first time they’d met, his hair a touch grayer. Jesse imagined the PI was thinking the same thing of him. Older or not, Spenser was an imposing man. His arms were thick and muscular, his grip like a metal press. And he moved his six-foot-two two hundred and twenty pounds like he was still in the ring. One look at his boxer’s nose and the scar tissue around his eyes would be warning enough for most people.

“Coffee, Bushmills, water, or any combination thereof?” Spenser said, walking over to the coffee machine and pouring himself a cup.

“Coffee with a little Irish.”

“Have a seat.”

A minute later Spenser was back behind his desk, Jesse across from him, both holding coffee mugs.

Jesse raised his mug. “Sláinte.”

Spenser decided it was time to skip the rest of the small talk and move on.

“Vinnie also tells me you’re interested in one of my old cases.”

“The Hangman’s Sonnet,” Jesse said as if that explained it all. Apparently, it did.

Spenser laughed. “It was an insurance job, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“There had been lawsuits and settlements decades before over the missing tape, but it stuck in the craw of the original insurance investigator, a guy I crossed paths with over the years, Joe Didio. He was retiring and that missing tape was the one case that ate at him and kept him up at night.”

“There’s an old homicide from when I was in L.A. that haunts me. So what about the case?”

“We all have them. Look, I’m happy to help, but why’s a man with two open murder cases in a seaside village north of here sitting in front of me discussing my old case, one that wasn’t right to begin with? And what’s with that envelope in the evidence bag. You going to the post office after this?”

Jesse put the evidence bag on the desk and tossed Spenser a pair of latex gloves. “Be gentle.”

“You sound like my first girlfriend,” he said, sliding the plastic sheet containing the poem out of the envelope. He took some time reading it. “I’m surprised it exists. It’s not terrible, but I’ll stick with Shakespeare. So is the tape going to finally surface?”

“That’s my best guess,” Jesse said. “It explains the two open cases in Paradise.”

“Somebody’s going to have a big payday.”

“Seems to be the prevailing opinion. What did you mean when you said the case wasn’t right?”

“You know how when a case ages, people talk because there’s not as much at stake anymore. On this, the statute of limitations had been expired more than fifteen years earlier, but I couldn’t find a thing. Only a few people connected to the case would even talk to me. The ones who did were on the periphery of things. Jester and his manager wouldn’t return my calls, wouldn’t answer the door when I knocked, and even tried to have me roughed up when I persisted.”

“How’d that work out?”

“Not so well for the tough guy. He had no defense for my uppercut. Broke his jaw. The owner of the recording studio gave me five minutes but had nothing to say and was still fuming over the whole incident. The A-and-R man from the record label had long since given up the music business for car sales. All he said was that the label had taken a big hit and had gotten a lot of people fired. The only person who really spoke to me was the recording engineer who did the sessions. A nasty piece of work, that one. Guy gave drug abuse a bad name. Him, I couldn’t get to shut up. All he did was go on and on about what prima donnas all the musicians were at the sessions and how he hated the business. Sour grapes.”

“Did he mention any of the musicians by name?”

Spenser nodded, sipped from his mug. “But when I tried to contact them, they either ignored my inquiries or denied any involvement at all. Joni Mitchell’s rep even went so far as to send me her tour itinerary to prove she couldn’t have been at the sessions.”

Jesse drank some, too. “Do you remember this engineer’s name?”

“Not off the top of my head. I might have it in my notes, but those notes aren’t here. Sorry.”

“What did you make of it in the end?”

“The smoke surrounding the missing tape was made by a smoke machine and not a fire,” Spenser said. “If you get my meaning. There was a lot of hype, but nothing to hold on to. If this album was all it was cracked up to be, why has everyone run away from it? If people were proud of it, you’d think all these Rock and Roll Hall of Famers would be telling stories about how cool the sessions were and how honored they were to be a part of it. Seems to me just the opposite is true.”

After a few minutes of them discussing the open murders in Paradise and Hump Bolton’s whereabouts, Jesse collected the sonnet and shook Spenser’s hand for a second time.

“You hear from Sunny, let me know,” Spenser said. “I’ll do the same.”

“Thanks for the help. You remember that engineer’s name, please give me a call.”

“I’ll find it.”

When Jesse was down on the street, he looked back up to where Spenser’s office was and wondered if he could live that kind of life after he retired. If he didn’t solve the two murders, he thought he might find out sooner than later.

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