Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

82

It wasn’t lost on Jesse that the last time he had done something like this, Suit wound up getting shot. Nor had he forgotten that the end result of what he’d done that fateful day eventually resulted in Diana’s murder. But as he drove along a stretch of two-lane highway north and west of Paradise, the sun getting low in the sky, Jesse tried hard to push those thoughts out of his head and to keep all other demons at bay. He couldn’t afford a lack of focus, not if he wanted a chance to recover the tape and to get Curnutt’s killer.

It had all seemed to happen so quickly after Roscoe Niles had authenticated the tape. After that, the other hurdles were more easily cleared. In spite of the DA’s objections, he gave his go-ahead to handle things Jesse’s way. It helped that Lundquist had given his support and that Mayor Walker had kept her word, backing Jesse as well. There was little chance she wouldn’t. There was no downside for her. If he succeeded in capturing Curnutt’s killer and recovering the tape, she would take partial credit for his success. If he failed, she had distanced herself enough that the fallout would all blow in Jesse’s direction. Of course, what he hadn’t shared with the mayor or anybody else involved was that he had hedged his bet. He was sticking his neck out a long way, just not quite as far as everyone assumed he was.

After the meeting at the DA’s office, Nita Thompson pulled Jesse aside. “I hope you know what you’re doing. This could blow up in your face.”

“The day I start worrying more about covering my ass than doing the right thing, I’ll quit.”

“If you fail, Jesse, you won’t have to quit. The mayor will do that for you.”

“Uh-huh.”

An entire day had passed since then. The record label had wired the money to a Boston bank and an armored car had carried it up to Paradise. It had taken a while to assemble six million dollars in varied denominations of used, nonconsecutive bills. Funny thing was that none of them, not Jesse or White or Lundquist, had anticipated just how big a pile six million dollars made.

“Good thing you’ve got an SUV, Jesse,” Lundquist said. “That’s not going to fit in anyone’s carry-on bag.”

Jesse had laughed at that but wondered if the blackmailer had bothered to calculate how he’d manage all that money. If not, Jesse thought, it might give him the opportunity he needed to grab the Hangman.

Lundquist and the DA had argued for Jesse to chemically mark the bills in spite of the Hangman’s warnings and demands, but Jesse had rejected the idea.

“We’re going to play this as much his way as we can. We’re not going to mark the bills. We’re not going to put a tracking device with the money. No one is going to follow me in a car.”

These days, everyone walked around with a tracking device on his or her person. The Hangman would know that, and it was pretty much a given that Jesse would have to toss his cell phone somewhere along the route.

The Hangman’s instructions had been simple. After emphasizing that he would burn the tape if any of his instructions weren’t followed or if he sensed a trap was being set, he told Jesse to leave Paradise and travel back roads in a northwesterly direction toward the confluence of the Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont borders. Just south of Lowell he got the call he’d been expecting.

The Hangman directed him to a roadside gas station.

“Go into the men’s room,” the distorted voice said. “Drop your cell phone in the toilet. You’ll find a new phone in a plastic bag in the toilet tank. And, Chief, if you have any tracking devices on you, planted in the money or your vehicle, this would be your chance to ditch them.”

“There aren’t any.”

“Okay, then head back the way you came and keep the new phone close. I’ll be calling you shortly.”

The bathroom was like almost every other gas-station bathroom he’d been in. It stank of human waste and pine disinfectant. The mirror was cracked and duct-taped to the wall. He was glad he had brought gloves with him when he lifted up the top of the toilet and fished out the bagged phone floating inside. As Jesse left the bathroom, new phone in hand, he noticed the surveillance camera mounted on the edge of the building. It was aimed at the pumps, so he doubted it would have captured images of the person who had planted the phone in the toilet tank. But even as he got in his car and headed back toward Paradise, there was something about the camera that stuck in Jesse’s head. It nagged at him until the ringing phone diverted his attention.

“Sorry to do this to you, Chief, but you’re going to have to about-face and follow my directions. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Good. When you get to where you’re going, call the number taped to the back of the phone.”

Jesse did as he was instructed, making a U-turn as soon as passing traffic allowed. And as he passed the gas station he’d pulled out of only a few minutes before, that nagging feeling about the surveillance camera came back to him.