Trouble in Paradise

Fifty-Three

“Exploded?” Jesse said on the radio.

“Twenty calls at least,” Molly said. “At least five people said there was a police car on the bridge when it went.”

“You raise Pope and Sears?” Jesse said.

“No.”

Jesse thought a minute. He was half-way to Boston, nearly to the dog track.

“Okay, everybody on the force is now on duty. Assemble them and stand by.”

“Call the Staties?” Molly said.

“Let’s see what we’ve got first,” Jesse said.

He turned on the blue flasher, which he often did if he was in a hurry. He also turned on the siren, which he rarely did. He U-turned, bumping the car over the curbstone and listening to the protesting screech of the tires as he stepped hard on the accelerator pedal. In fifteen minutes, he was sitting in his idling car looking at the empty space above the water, where half of a steel girder dangling from the near abutment was all that remained. Some wreckage had washed against the near shore and bobbed against the rocks. There was no sign of the police car, not of Pope or Sears. Several cars full of sightseers had arrived, and some pedestrians had gathered as well.

Jesse got on the radio.

“Molly, the bridge is gone. Everybody there?”

“Everybody but Eddie Cox,” Molly said. “His wife says he’s out shopping. I left a message.”

“Send a couple of guys down here to secure the place from the tourists. You hear from Pope and Sears?”

“Will do, Jesse. No response from Pope and Sears.”

“Okay,” Jesse said. “Send me two guys to secure this end of the bridge. Everyone else stand by at the station.”

“Will do, Jesse. What do I tell Betty Pope and Kim Sears if they call?”

“Tell them what we know, Molly. Don’t speculate. Tell them I see no sign of them, and you can’t raise them on the radio, and people report a police car was on the bridge when it blew.”

“That’s going to be pretty hard to hear, Jesse.”

“I know. Refer them to me if you’d rather.”

“No, you got enough, Jesse. If they call, I’ll talk with them. What happened?”

“Don’t know. The only odd thing is there’s maybe a dozen people down here already milling around looking at the wreckage.”

“That’s not odd,” Molly said.

“Yeah. But there’s no one at the other side. Not even the guy from the guard shack. Anything yet from the Stiles Island Patrol?”

“No. Want me to call the Staties yet?”

“You better, at least give them a heads up.”

“Okay, Jesse. John and Arthur are on the way in a cruiser.”

“Thanks, Molly. I’ll get back to you.”

Jesse sat back and thought about Wilson Cromartie, who preferred to be called Crow. And James Macklin of Dorchester, who had flirted with him not very long ago. He stared at the debris washed by the rough water against the near shore. And he knew, as if he’d seen them, that Macklin and Cromartie were on Stiles Island. It was what exactly he was supposed to do about it that still needed work.