The Bitterest Pill

Thirty-two

Jesse put the glove back on his desk when he heard Joe Walters being hauled into the station. Molly printed him and photographed him, and Gabe brought him to a cell.

“Did you Breathalyze him?” Jesse asked Gabe, when he returned from the jail section of the station.

“Refused, but the doctors at the hospital drew some blood from him just in case. Molly will send it over to the lab.”

“If the gun charges don’t stick, his refusing to be Breathalyzed should stand up. Get him off the streets and away from his wife for a while. Good work. How’d he check out otherwise?”

Gabe laughed. “He puked a few times in the hospital. Not sure what made him more nauseated, the shot to his nose or the one to his—”

Jesse interrupted. “He ask for a lawyer?”

“Said he didn’t have one.”

“Thanks, Gabe. Get back out there.” Jesse turned to Molly. “Call the public defender’s office and get Mr. Walters some representation. Then call Lundquist and ask him to drop by.”

Brian Lundquist had taken the step up into Captain Healy’s old job as the area’s chief homicide investigator for the state police. Although Jesse and Lundquist had known each other for years, Jesse could never quite reconcile Lundquist’s Minnesota farm-boy looks with his skill as an investigator. Always seemed to Jesse that Lundquist would have been a more natural fit as a guy out on a lake somewhere, ice fishing, drinking beer, and eating lutefisk. Then again, Jesse Stone, born in Tucson, wasn’t much of a Yankee, either. It was odd that the two of them should end up knee-deep in murder in eastern Massachusetts.

Lundquist’s hand didn’t quite swallow Jesse’s, but it was pretty big. The Statie plopped himself down into the chair opposite Jesse, but his attention was elsewhere.

“That a new glove?”

“It is.”

Lundquist shook his head. “What’s the world coming to? Jesse Stone bought a new glove.”

“I also have a son I didn’t know about until a few months ago. If that didn’t make the world spin off its axis, my buying a glove isn’t going to do it.”

“Great news about your son, huh?”

Jesse was puzzled. “What?”

“The kid, Cole, didn’t he tell you yet?”

“Tell me what?”

“Oh, no.” Lundquist held his palms up to Jesse like a traffic cop. “I’m not saying another word. But if you didn’t call me about Cole, what am I doing here?”

Jesse thought about pressing him on the thing with Cole but decided to let it go for now.

“We had a teenage girl OD,” Jesse said. “Fentanyl and heroin.”

“Was she a user?”

“She was opioid-addicted, but this was the first time she did it intravenously. Didn’t stand a chance. Mom found her in her bed, cold and unresponsive.”

Lundquist shook his bowed head. “A shame, but more and more frequent. Still, Jesse, what’s it got to do with me? You want me to act as liaison between you and our narcotics team?”

“Nothing like that. I think we’ve tracked down her supplier. A Paradise kid named Christopher Grimm.”

“Arrest him?”

“No, and I don’t think we ever will.”

“How’s that?” Lundquist asked.

“My guess, the kid’s already dead. So I need you to be alert for any John Does that turn up. Molly has all the particulars for you.”

“How do you know the kid was her connection?”

Jesse explained about the stolen goods, the passbook account, and about how the kid showed up at the funeral home and cemetery.

Lundquist agreed. “Yeah, the people he was involved with have probably cut their losses and moved on. Victimless crimes, my ass. Sometimes I wish I could make people understand how crime shakes things up. If people who were thinking about murder ever had to do a family notification, I wonder if it would make them think twice about it. And their own damn families... Jeez, if they could only see how murder can destroy the killer’s family the same way it destroys the victim’s family... If, sometimes I think I’ll choke on that word. You ever think about that stuff, Jesse?”

“Not as much as I used to.”

“That it?” Lundquist asked, standing up.

“It is. Remember to stop and talk to Molly.”

“Of course. A new glove... Will wonders never cease?”

“Get out of here.”

At the door, Lundquist turned. “Listen, Jesse, don’t spoil it for the kid. Let him tell you.”

Jesse nodded.