The Bitterest Pill

Twelve

Jesse and Molly came in separate cars. They made sure not to get there too early, or as early as they might have if Heather’s death were a homicide. Instead, they waited until the parking lot at the funeral home was nearly half full. Just inside the viewing room door, they were greeted by Selectman Tom Pluck, a big, burly guy from the Swap. He clapped Jesse on the back, shook Molly’s hand, and, on behalf of the Mackeys, thanked them for being there. Another selectman, R. Jean Gray, nodded hello, the corner of his lips bending up in what passed for a smile. Unlike Tom Pluck, Gray lived on the Bluffs and was descended from one of the founders of Paradise. In his fifties, tall and lean, Gray was all old-school, with the patrician bearing that came with an Exeter, Dartmouth, and Wharton education. Not much ever seemed to disturb Selectman Gray, but he was clearly knocked off his pins by Heather’s death. With a flick of his long right index finger, he indicated that he wanted a private word with Jesse. They strode into a dimly lit and empty viewing room.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Selectman?”

“This won’t do, Chief Stone. It cannot stand. She was a lovely girl, and, if you were unaware, my goddaughter.”

“I didn’t know.”

“As always, you are ever so effusive.”

“I’m already looking into it.”

“And?”

“And nothing yet. We know what killed her. Now we have to find out where she got it and why she was using it.”

“Keep me apprised.”

Jesse was tempted to say some things he would regret. Regardless of his time on the job here and in L.A., he could never stomach people who thought any one victim was more important than another simply because of their good looks, the color of their skin, or the size of their bank accounts. If Heather Mackey had been the daughter of a family from the Swap, Jesse wouldn’t have cared any less. But Jesse, who had never enjoyed playing politics, had come a long way because of the things he had learned in AA. He couldn’t control what R. Jean Gray thought, said, or believed, but he could control his own actions.

“I will let you know when we make progress, Mr. Selectman,” Jesse said. When Gray walked away, Jesse said a few other choice things only he could hear.

Molly had gone back into the viewing room, and Jesse saw she was visibly shaken. Two of Molly’s girls were in college, but two were still at home and one of them was a junior like Heather. He wanted to throw his arm over her shoulders but was very careful to never show any form of intimacy with Molly in public. Her job was difficult enough without having to deal with whispers about the two of them. If there was one lesson about small-town life that Jesse had learned early on, it was that rumors spread fast and there was no way to fight back.

The casket lid was raised, and all the ugly autopsy stitchery on her body was covered by her dress. Owing to his past, Jesse had always found those brutal stitches reminded him of the seams on a baseball. Not just then. He had been through this ritual hundreds of times in L.A. and here in Paradise, but this was the first time since Cole had come into his life. Jesse both hated and loved the ways in which Cole had changed him. It bothered him that he was having trouble distancing himself the way he had always been able to previously.

It occurred to him that he might already have been changed if he had seen Diana in her coffin, but her family blamed Jesse for her death and had banned him from attending. They weren’t alone in their beliefs. Jesse blamed himself, too, and there was no way they could punish him any more than he punished himself. His guilt over her murder is what had driven him so deeply down into the bottle of Johnny Walker Black. When he finally hit the bottom he made the choice, with help from Tamara and Molly, to swim back up and climb out forever. Forever was a long way away. Jesse was concerned only with each individual day.

Molly wasn’t the only person shaken by Heather’s death. Obviously, her parents were devastated, and both were up front, both were crying. That wasn’t exactly unexpected, but the death of a teenager sends shock waves through a community. It also reminded everyone of just how fragile and vulnerable they all were. There were lots of tears and stunned faces in the room and very little talking.

Jesse checked his watch. He had to get something to eat and get to a meeting. He tried not to skip too many days without a meeting if he could help it, and Heather’s death had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. That used to be a prescription for a half-bottle of Black Label in the company of Ozzie Smith’s poster. These days it meant a meeting and/or a call to Bill.

“Molly,” he said in a whisper. “I’ve got to get to a meeting. Please give our condolences and tell the Mackeys I’ll be by tomorrow to share what progress I’ve made with them.”

“Not tomorrow, Jesse. Funeral is tomorrow. Besides, you haven’t made any progress.”

“The next day, then. I’m going to ask them questions, but I don’t need them to be any more tense and upset than necessary.”

“Got it. And you don’t want them to prepare answers.”

“Yeah, Molly, that, too.”

Outside, Jesse saw the parking lot was filling up, and many people passed by him on the way into the funeral home. Some stopped to shake his hand. Some nodded. Others waved. Most walked by him, zombielike, girding themselves for what they knew awaited them inside. When he got to his Explorer, he noticed a kid, a teenage boy by the parking-lot entrance, smoking the life out of a cigarette and pacing along the sidewalk under a streetlamp. There was something about the kid, dressed in black jeans, hundred-dollar red Nikes, and a black hoodie, that held Jesse’s attention. He wasn’t sure what it was, maybe the way the kid paced or his fidgety hand movements with the cigarette. He clicked the Explorer doors closed and walked toward the kid. He was on the short side, broad-shouldered, his dark blond hair spilling out of the left side of the hood. He was obviously distracted, lost in his own head, maybe, but whatever the reason, he didn’t seem to notice Jesse’s approach.

Jesse was no more than ten feet away when the kid looked up. Jesse could see in the kid’s expression and in the reddened rims of his very deep blue eyes that he recognized him. The kid hesitated a beat, turned, and ran. Jesse wasn’t sure what to make of that. It wasn’t like a kid had never run away from a cop before, even an innocent kid. Still, there was something about the kid, and Jesse meant to find out what it was. He took off after the kid but lost him after he turned the corner.