Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

7

Jesse kept his promise to Molly, getting through the ceremony with a lot less trouble than Suit had. It was Suit who’d dropped the ring when he tried slipping it onto Elena’s finger and Suit who was so nervous when it came time to say “I do” that Jesse had to give him a little poke in the ribs to prompt him. Other than Suit’s endearing missteps, the ceremony had gone smoothly. And Jesse found he was so caught up in the joy of it that he felt lighter somehow. The burden of the recent past weighed heavily on him until Reverend Ross Weber had pronounced Suit and Elena husband and wife.

“I’m proud of you, Luther,” Jesse said, slapping Suit on the shoulder.

The reception was in the back room at the Gray Gull and it seemed like half the population of Paradise was in attendance and happy to be there. But that was the effect Suit had on people. He was the guy everybody liked, the guy you could have a friendly drink with or tell your woes to. Everyone who knew Suit even a little bit called him a friend. It was one of the things Elena, who was by nature much more reserved, loved about her new husband. That was one of the things Jesse admired about Suit.

Jesse didn’t make friends easily. Other than Suit, Healy, Molly, and Tamara, all of whom were connected to his work, Jesse could use one hand to count the friends he’d made since arriving in Paradise. Some of them had faded away. Others were dead. It had been the same back in L.A. Even when he played pro ball, he didn’t have many buddies on his teams. His lack of friends wasn’t because he was hard — though he could be if circumstance demanded it — or nasty — which he rarely was — or obnoxious. He was never obnoxious. It was that he kept to himself. Molly called him self-contained. And Tamara had pegged him early on, calling him the perfect embodiment of the cowboy myth: “The man who needs nothing more than his horse and what he came into the world with. Maybe he’s nursing a broken heart or he’s out there searching for the right gal.”

Jesse had grown up in Tucson and loved Westerns. They were the only movies he enjoyed. So he’d always gotten a real kick out of Tamara’s comparing him to a cowboy. He liked it right up until the moment Diana was killed. Because unlike the mythical cowboy, he’d found his right gal, but she was gone forever. The cowboy handbook didn’t come with instructions on grieving. Although he’d been in therapy with Dix for years, he still wasn’t a man to cry it out or let go. He knew better than to think grief was a sign of weakness.

The most surprising guest at the reception was Mayor Constance Walker, an old high-school friend of Elena’s. She’d even been a good sport about dancing a slow dance with Daisy, Paradise’s favorite lesbian restaurateur, and went with it when Daisy dipped her at the end of the song. If the reaction of the guests was any indication, the mayor had done herself more good than if she had kissed a thousand babies. Everyone was still applauding when Mayor Walker asked Jesse for the next dance.

He had little choice but to accept. Their dance drew less interest from the crowd than the dance with Daisy had. Molly, Healy, Tamara, and the groom watched nervously from the sidelines.

Waiting until they were a few steps into their dance, she asked, “How are you feeling today, Jesse?”

“Not drinking, Your Honor, if that’s what you’re asking.”

As was often the case between a mayor and a police chief, the relationship between Walker and Jesse was fraught with all sorts of problems, many of them a function of their jobs. But the relationship between Constance Walker and Jesse Stone had always been a particularly chilly one. Some people just don’t take to each other.

“Not drinking! Thank heavens for small miracles. Nice of you to show some respect for the bride and groom.”

“Uh-huh.”

There were actually two dances going on and Jesse knew it. The mayor enjoyed goading him, especially now that she knew he was vulnerable. But Jesse never took the bait.

“I see you’re with Dr. Elkin. Dating again, Jesse? So soon?”

“Jealous?”

“I’m a married woman. Don’t be silly.”

“I’ve been called a lot of things, Your Honor. Silly was never one of them.”

When the song ended, they made nice for everyone watching, applauding and bowing their heads to each other. But before they totally separated, they each got in a parting shot.

“Remember, Chief Stone, one more screwup.”

“Your Honor forgets, I used to play hardball for a living.”

“I hear slow-pitch softball is about your speed these days.” She smiled an icy smile at him before walking away.

Molly waited until the mayor had gone to the bar before approaching Jesse.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing good, Molly.”

Before the conversation could continue, the DJ announced that it was time for the toast and asked Jesse to come up and do the honors. When the maître d’ shoved a glass of champagne in Jesse’s hand, it was the first loose thread of his unraveling. He drank it down without thinking after he’d raised the glass and said, “To Luther and Elena, with our love and hope that all the best things come to you in your years together. Congratulations.” The very slight buzz of the champagne pulled hard on that loose thread, but it wasn’t until much later in the afternoon that it all went to hell.

Jesse was dancing another slow dance with Tamara and the rest of the wedding party just before the happy couple were about to leave for the airport. That was when Suit cut in and danced with Tamara. Elena and Jesse were left to dance with each other and it would have been impossible to tell which one of them was more ill at ease. It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other. They did, very much, but Diana had been killed in Elena’s house while helping to save her. She couldn’t look Jesse in the eye, and the stark reality of his dancing with Elena on her wedding day while his fiancée moldered in her grave did not escape Jesse. But they got through the dance somehow, Jesse hugging Elena, kissing her on the cheek when the music stopped.

“Thank you, Jesse. You being here for us... It means a lot. You know how terrible I feel about—”

He put his right index finger across her lips. “Shhhhh.”

He held it together until the rice was thrown and the cans tied to the back of Suit’s car rattled down the street. He held it together until the mayor was long gone. But after a pretty waitress with the same shade of blond hair as Diana’s approached him to ask if he’d like something to drink, he’d had all he could take. Four Johnnie Walker doubles later, Tamara and Molly, propping him up between them, walked him out of the Gull to Tamara’s car.