Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay (14 page)

S
imonetti tried to get Jesse to go to the hospital to have a doctor check him out. Jesse thanked Tommy but refused to go. Being police chief had its privileges. The mayor was the only one who could give him direct orders, but she was out of town and the deputy mayor would have all he could handle for the time being.

“Suit,” Jesse said, pulling him aside, “give me the keys to your cruiser. You're in charge of the scene until the ME and the state forensics team show up. Don't mention Peepers or the shot-out tire. Tell the deputy mayor that you spotted a car driving recklessly. That when you followed, he ran. You called it in. I heard the call and joined the pursuit. When I joined the pursuit, the driver fired on me. The rest is straightforward. No need to fudge or sugarcoat. He just needs a reasonable story to tell the media. I'll handle it from there.”

“But when he asks where you are, what—”

“Tell him I'm dealing with the staties. That a complicated investigation like this one is way above our pay grades.”

Jesse took Suit's keys and turned to go.

“Jesse,” Suit called after him.

He turned back. “Uh-huh.”

“What do you think? Is it him?”

“I don't know, Suit. I just don't know.”

He didn't get ten feet before someone else was calling after him.

“Where the fuck are you going, Chief?” It was Robbie Wilson, displaying his natural lack of charm.

Jesse had learned not to react to the Napoleonic Wilson. Nor did he answer the fire chief's question.

“What's your assessment of the situation, Robbie?” Jesse asked. Wilson hated to be called Robbie.

“We've poured tons of foam on the fire and we think we've got it under control, but that was a hell of an explosion and there's a gas tank buried down there full to the brim. They got a delivery last night. It'll be hours until we know anything for sure. I've been after the town for years to make these company-owned pumps meet gas-station fire standards, but no. Goddamned politicians. We're lucky we only have one fatality, because—”

“Okay, Robbie,” Jesse said. “Next time you bring it up, I'll back you.”

Wilson smiled at that. Like Suit, Wilson yearned for Jesse's approval. “Good. One thing I can tell you about this mess.”

“What's that, Chief?” Jesse asked.

“That there's not much left of that car or the guy driving it. Between the explosion and the intensity of the fire . . . The explosion alone probably blew a ton of debris into Sawtooth Creek.”

Jesse shook Wilson's hand and thanked him. “When you know more, I would appreciate a call.”

Wilson could be unpleasant, but he was good at his job, and Jesse was anxious to hear anything about the explosion and fire Wilson
might discover. As soon as the fire chief was gone, Jesse headed for Suit's cruiser. He popped the trunk, put on a pair of blue latex gloves, and fished out an evidence bag. He walked back to where the first fire truck on the scene had parked near the back bumper of his Explorer. Jesse got down on his hands and knees, knees sore and scraped from being dragged along the pavement. There it was: the gun he had kicked as he ran. He reached as far as his arm would stretch, gently picked the weapon up by the tip of its barrel, and dropped it into the evidence bag.

He placed the bag beside him on the cruiser's front seat and backed the vehicle slowly out of Trench Alley. When he was far enough away from the excitement of the crime scene, he pulled over and reached for the bag. He inspected the weapon through the clear plastic. It was a Smith & Wesson .22 automatic with a long barrel. He didn't recognize this model, per se, but it had the look and feel of a target pistol. Just the type of weapon a professional like Peepers would carry to shoot out tires or to extinguish the lives of people and their dogs who had the misfortune of getting in his way.

Using a pen Suit had left on the seat, Jesse lifted the gun out of the bag and sniffed the end of the barrel. Although Jesse's nostrils were black with smoke from the fire, he thought he could smell the telltale odor of burnt gunpowder. He might not be able to swear to it in court, but he felt pretty confident the .22 had been recently fired. He slid the pen out from between the loop of the trigger guard and the gun fell into the evidence bag. After sealing it, he put the car in drive and headed back to the station.

J
esse sat at his desk, head aching, exhausted, and sore. The things a rush of adrenaline could do to the human body were pretty amazing, not all of them positive. He recalled how the hardest thing he'd had to do as a minor-leaguer was not learning to hit a curveball or to lay off a slider at the knees. It was learning to control his emotions. Jesse understood how people perceived him: cool under pressure, self-contained. That was true enough now, but as a kid in A ball he was just as vulnerable to his hormones as the next guy. He had told Suit that he never heard the fans when he was playing ball. By the time he'd gotten promoted to Double A, he didn't. When he started, though, it was a struggle to focus for the roar of the crowd—even the small crowds—the pounding of his heart, and his nerves.

“Helluva thing, ain't it, son? Feels like your whole damn body's full of bees. Got to figure out how to trick yourself into believing it don't mean a thing when it's the thing you want most of all,” said his first minor-league manager after he'd seen Jesse boot two routine grounders to short. “All the talent in the world won't do you no kinda good you don't learn to relax out there.”

Jesse wondered why those words should come back to him now,
but he didn't waste time delving too deeply into it. He wasn't in the right frame of mind for introspection, never his favorite activity to begin with. That, plus he was waiting for Healy, for Molly to report for her shift, and for Suit to get back from the crime scene. Maybe he'd discuss it with Dix if he ever went back to see his shrink. He hadn't thought much about Dix lately. Dix had done him a lot of good. Jesse knew that. Still, the man could be an enormous pain in the ass.

Healy knocked and came into the office without waiting for Jesse's permission. He was dressed in stiff new jeans, an old Boston Patriots T-shirt, and ratty-looking deck shoes speckled with white house paint. Jesse had never seen the man dressed this way, and to Jesse's eye Healy looked even more uncomfortable in this getup than he had in his Tiger Woods outfit. He had a few days of gray stubble on his increasingly jowly face and a sag in his shoulders.

“Heard you had some excitement around here today,” Healy said, sitting down across from Jesse's desk as he had a hundred times before.

“Some.”

Healy laughed a hollow laugh.

“My old forensics team's going to be in Trench Alley for quite a while, Jesse. I stopped by there on my way over. Looks like the DMZ after a B-52 dropped a load, for crissakes.”

“Felt that way, too.”

“Don't mind me saying, you look like crap there, Chief. Have you looked in a mirror?”

“Thanks, Healy. How's the wife? Retirement?”

“The docs say the medication is improving her condition, but she's still not feeling great. They say it's going to take time and that she'll be doing pretty well soon enough. Me, not so much. Don't
know what to do with myself. I feel about as useful as a lifeguard at a car wash.”

That was the moment Molly and Suit walked into the office. The strain had gotten to Molly and it showed on her face. She was a pretty woman who, in spite of having a house full of kids and a stressful job, had always managed to look ten years younger than her birth certificate said she was. But since this thing with Peepers, she'd aged beyond her years. Even Suit, the perpetual kid, had seemed to age and to have taken on an air of seriousness. It had aged them all.

Healy made a face. “Hell, somebody smells terrible.”

Suit said, “That's me, Captain. I don't know how firemen get that smell off.”

Jesse asked, “Everything under control over there?”

“It's a nightmare, Jesse. The fire spread to the garage and they're trying to contain that, because if the cabs inside start burning and explode, the whole block could go. The gas fire's still burning. There's two engines over there from Salem, too, and they're still foaming it. Robbie's been on the phone with all sorts of people about dealing with the gas in the underground tank. Problem is it's hard to deal with because there's no room to get around back of it. Anyways, it'll be a long time until the ME and the forensics team can get anywhere near the scene. Peter's over there now, but the deputy mayor's pretty POed you're not there.”

“Thanks, Suit. I'll head over there in a little while.”

“So what are we here for, Jesse?” Molly said.

Jesse reached into a side drawer and pulled out the evidence bag. He held it up for all of them to see what was inside.

“Looks like a target pistol,” Healy said.

“Twenty-two Smith & Wesson Model Forty-one. I Googled it the second I got it back here. Very distinctive-looking and very
expensive. About sixteen hundred bucks, give or take.” Jesse handed it to Healy. “My guess is that it's his.”

“Peepers's?” Molly's voice cracked.

Jesse nodded. “It was near the body shop on Trench Alley, right where the Sentra flipped over.”

Healy said, “You removed evidence from a crime scene?”

“Good thing I did or, like Suit said, it would be a long time until we'd get a look at it, and that's if it wasn't ruined in the fire.” He handed the bag to Healy.

“Hey, hold your damned horses now. I'm retired.”

“Funny thing,” Jesse said. “Not five minutes ago you mentioned lifeguard duties. Call in some favors. Do what you have to do and maybe we can breathe a little bit easier.”

“But if that's his gun and his prints are on it and the guy in the Sentra—”

“A lot of ifs, Suit,” Jesse said. “Too many. Until we get a DNA match, none of us can afford to relax.”

As he said it, his old manager's words came back to him again.

T
here was a knock at the office door. Jesse leaned over, grabbed the evidence bag out of Healy's hand, and stashed it back in his drawer.

“Come in.”

Alisha poked her head in. “I'm about to go off shift, Jesse, but I'll stay until Molly's ready, or if you need me to do overtime, I'm good.”

“She'll be out in a minute, Alisha,” Jesse said.

“Thanks.” She began to close the door and then poked her head back in.

Jesse asked, “Is there something else?”

“The envelope in the evidence locker. What do you want me to do about it?”

Healy tilted his head. “Envelope?”

The envelope.
Jesse hadn't forgotten about it, not exactly. It was just that the .22 seemed like a more pertinent piece of evidence. But the envelope was the original spark that eventually led to the fire and explosion in Trench Alley.

“Bring it in here,” Jesse said, “and then you can take off.”

Two minutes later, Alisha handed a larger evidence bag to Jesse. “You sure you don't need me to stay, Jesse? I'm glad to stay.”

“No, that's fine. I need you fresh for your next shift. It's going to be a long day tomorrow.”

After Alisha closed the door behind her, Molly said, “That looks like the twin to the envelope Jenn's photograph was delivered in.”

Jesse retrieved the gun and the original envelope containing Jenn's photo with Peepers's message written on the back. He explained how it was the delivery of the envelope that had initiated the day's chain of events.

Suit said, “So you think he shot out the tire and while that got our attention he came in here and dropped off the envelope?”

“I do. When all is said and done, the bullet in that tire will match the bullets from the earlier incidents and the murders in Salem. The markings on the bullets will match them to this gun.” He pointed at the bagged gun. “Otherwise none of what happened today makes sense.”

Healy spoke up. “Since we seem to be playing fast and loose with the rules, why don't we have a gander at what's in the new envelope?”

“Suit,” Jesse said, “go get us some gloves.”

A few minutes later, Jesse and Healy had gloved up. Jesse removed the envelope from the evidence bag. He didn't believe for a second that there were any prints or trace evidence on the envelope or what it might contain, but he couldn't risk acting on that assumption. Nor could he risk the assumption that the man in the Sentra had been Peepers. He carefully squeezed together the two metal prongs that held the flap of the envelope closed, then, using the tip of his gloved finger, lifted the flap. Healy placed another evidence bag around the open flap.

“We good?” Jesse asked.

Healy nodded.

With that, Jesse turned the envelope upside down and pushed in its sides. Two items fell out of the envelope into the second evidence bag. One was a “Howdy from Dallas, Texas” postcard.
Dallas
was written in big, curvy block letters, the outline of each letter encasing an illustration of a famous Dallas landmark. The letters were superimposed on a solid blue background with a lone red star. The other item was a photo of Jenn trying on her wedding dress.

“My God!” Molly gasped in spite of herself.

Suit pointed at the postcard. “Something's written on the back.”

When Jesse flipped the bag around, he went cold again. He recognized the neat, plain lettering as Peepers's. But it was what those letters spelled out that concerned him.

SEE YOU AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

DO YOU ASK A PRAYING MANTIS WHY?

Jesse knew the handwriting would be a match, but to be absolutely certain, he took out that first photo of Jenn and compared the handwriting to the writing on the back of that photo. They all came around Jesse's desk and looked. As they did, they all shook their heads in agreement: It was a match.

And there was that question again, hanging in the air like a shroud. It was on all their faces, in all their eyes.
Was
it
Peepers
in
that
car?
Suit wanted to give it voice, but he had asked once already. Molly wanted to ask as well, but she knew the answer Jesse would give and she didn't want to hear it. Healy didn't ask, because, as the
most experienced man in the room, he knew the answer for himself. Until forensics could investigate the crime scene and gather whatever evidence there was left to gather, there was no way to know for sure. Still, the unspoken reality of the situation didn't stop some of them from praying.