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Tamara had tried her best to get Bolton’s heart started again. When the ambulance got there, the EMTs took over, but it was all wasted effort.

“I’ve got no clue how he was even talking to you, Jesse,” Tamara said between giving statements to the Boston cops. “He was suffering from profound blood loss and that was a nasty wound.” She shook her head. “I usually get them when they’re already dead and their stories are already written. Sometimes I forget how powerful and stubborn the mind can be. It can make the human body ignore the fact that it should have stopped functioning.”

“You should have been a philosopher, Doc.”

Before she could answer, a man who introduced himself as Detective Hanrahan interrupted.

“Chief Stone,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Hanrahan was a few inches shorter and about ten years younger than Jesse, but his blue eyes were weary. They sat down across from each other at a front booth.

“Boston’s not your patch, Chief. What were you doing here?”

“Bolton was a suspect in a homicide and an assault in Paradise. His partner was—”

“Yeah, yeah, I read the papers. Still don’t explain what you were doing here.”

“I got a tip from a CI.”

Hanrahan laughed a sneering laugh. “A confidential informant, huh? This is one of Vinnie Morris’s joints. Nothing happens here without him knowing about it.”

“You’d know better than me.”

“Why didn’t you alert the BPD?”

Jesse answered with a cocktail of lies and the truth. “Because I heard Bolton wanted to give himself up, but that he’d only surrender to me. I was afraid that if I did anything else, it might create a hostage situation.”

Hanrahan liked that answer about as much as he would a cancer diagnosis, but he couldn’t argue with it except to say, “You should have let us know before you went in. You always travel with an ME?”

“Friend. We were having dinner together when I got the call.”

They went round and round like that for another fifteen minutes, Jesse going over the details of the statement he’d given to the uniforms.

“Last thing, Chief. You take anything off the body?”

“Just his weapon. I felt something along his left thigh, but it was soft and I didn’t think it was a gun or a knife.”

“Six-grand-plus cash in a plastic bag taped there.”

“Probably his share of the money for the job in Paradise. Also said the missing ring from the Cain house was in a balled-up sock in his sweatshirt pocket.”

“Yeah, it’s there.”

Jesse asked, “Did you find a cell phone on him?”

“No. Why?”

“Might have evidence on it pertaining to my cases.”

“Ain’t that a shame?”

“You want to bust my chops, Hanrahan? Fine. But before he died, Bolton pretty much admitted to killing the guy who gutted him. Said it was the guy he stayed with last night. Find that body and close the case. Might even make you look good with the brass.”

“I’ll take it under advisement. Bolton tell you anything else about him, this guy you say he offed?”

“He was a tweaker and, if I had to guess, he probably did time with Bolton or Curnutt along the way.”

“Jeez, Chief, you almost sound like you know what you’re doing.”

“LAPD Robbery-Homicide for ten years.”

Hanrahan was confused. “And you gave that up for the thrills and challenges of Paradise?”

“It gave up on me, not the other way around.”

The detective seemed to understand. “Okay, Chief. Thanks. You two can go. I know where to find you if I have to.”

As Jesse and Tamara made it back to the Explorer, he realized that although one of the two open homicides in Paradise was now closed and that the dragonfly ring was as good as recovered, the night’s excitement was only the beginning.

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