Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay (6 page)

J
esse made a face, and not a happy one, as he drove past the
For Sale
sign at the edge of his property. For the most part he had enjoyed living on the outskirts of town. The quiet, the water views, the woods were all good for his head, but the isolation was getting to him. Even a man like him, a man apart, can have too much of a good thing. And he supposed that he was partially motivated by his relationship with Diana. There was no way she would ever be happy living out in the woods, listening to the grass grow and having cicadas sing her lullabies, though he doubted there was any place in Paradise that could hold her attention. Good thing he could. The plan was for him to begin shopping for a condo when someone put a serious bid on his house. As yet it had been slow going. There had been a few nibbles, but mostly lowball bids to see if he would bite.

This part of the day had become his toughest hurdle in his effort to give up alcohol for good. The part of the day he used to look forward to more than any other. When he'd get home from work and fix himself a tall Johnnie Walker Black Label with soda, stir it with his index finger, and lick his finger like a kid with Mom's chocolate cake batter. Then he'd sit in his recliner and discuss his day with
Ozzie Smith. It was easier on the weekends with Diana in town to focus on, to come home to. The lack of action on the house sale didn't make this part of the day any easier. Still, he went through the ritual, using club soda and lime. Only today he plopped down in his recliner and opened the file Healy had given him from the Boston PD. He'd already gone over it once at the station. He hoped a second look, away from work, might help him find something new.

But Healy had been right; Jesse wasn't happy with what was in the file, not earlier and not now. So far everything confirmed the original theory in the case. Although the DNA results weren't back yet and wouldn't be for several weeks, the initial blood-type results showed only two contributors, both consistent with each victim's blood type. The only fingerprints on the knife belonged to Gino Fish. The blood on the knife was consistent with the receptionist's blood type. The autopsy showed that the knife wounds matched the knife found on the scene. The fingerprints on the .38 belonged to Gino Fish and no less a source than Vinnie Morris had confirmed that Gino kept the .38 in his top drawer.

He called Tamara Elkin, the local ME. They'd become close friends over the last year or so, though Tamara never made it a secret that she would have preferred the bounds of their friendship extend into the bedroom. But Jesse had held fast to his devotion to Diana even when she was still down in D.C., putting her life back in order and ending her career at the Bureau.

“Hey, cowboy,” she said when she heard Jesse's voice. Tamara had spent years in Texas and liked to tease Jesse that he was the embodiment of the cowboy myth. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

“A favor.”

“Do I get to call in a favor in return?” she asked, her voice suddenly deeper and raspy.

“Depends on the favor.”

“I've seen Diana,” she said, her voice back to normal. “I've got no shot. I wish I didn't like her so much. Makes it hard to be as jealous as I want to be.”

“Don't sell yourself short, Doc.”

She ignored that. “So what's the favor?”

“I need you to go over a file for me, including an autopsy report and crime scene photos.”

“Sure. Just bring it by whenever. What is it I'm looking for, exactly?”

“Inconsistencies.”

“That all?” she asked, skeptical.

“I don't want to prejudice you. See what you see and we'll talk.”

“Okay. So, Jesse . . . how's the not drinking coming along?”

He could hear the ice in her drink rattling around in the background. Their mutual love of Johnnie Walker Black was one of the things that had helped cement their friendship. Sometimes when she asked him questions about his drinking, he could swear she was rooting against his success. He guessed he understood her point of view.

“Some days are rougher than others,” he said.

“Like tonight?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, Jesse, I'll see you when you drop the file by.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Until tomorrow,” she said, and then clicked off.

He closed the file, got up off the recliner, and ambled into the
kitchen to whip up some eggs for dinner. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. When he fished it out and looked at the screen, he saw that the call was from a strange number with a 214 area code. Dallas. He recalled what he had said a few minutes before to Tamara Elkin. Some nights truly were rougher than others.

T
he mystery was short-lived. He didn't have to be a police chief or an ex–homicide detective to work out who was on the other end of the line. It wasn't Jenn. Jenn had retained her old cell number with the Boston area code. He stared at the screen for a long moment, thinking about letting it go to voice mail. He weighed the value in postponing the inevitable. Though he didn't know much about Hale Hunsicker beyond his home state, his college football career, wealth, and taste in women, Jesse got the sense that Hunsicker wasn't the type of man to surrender easily. And phone tag was one of Jesse's least favorite games.

“Hale,” Jesse said, picking up.

“Jesse.”

In just the way he said his name, Jesse could tell this wasn't the same version of Hale Hunsicker he'd gotten the other night. The other night he'd gotten the happy, friendly, good-ole-boy version. He supposed part of that was performance for Jenn's sake.

“What's up, Hale?”

“From everything Jenn tells me about you, I figure you to know exactly what's up.”

This was definitely a different Hale Hunsicker on the phone. No “our girl” references, no offers to go shooting and riding out at the ranch. But Jesse didn't necessarily hold Hunsicker's more businesslike tone against him. Jesse had been in this man's shoes and had many more years' experience of dealing with Jenn's whims and quirks. He could very easily imagine the fallout this man had been forced to endure after Jesse had told Jenn he wasn't coming to the wedding.

“She's upset I'm not coming to the wedding.”

“Jenn always says you are an understated kind of man.
Upset
doesn't begin to do it justice.”

Jesse laughed in spite of himself. And when he heard Jesse laugh, Hale Hunsicker laughed, too. Jesse liked that. He liked it a lot. It told him that Hunsicker knew Jenn for who she was and loved her just the same. For some reason that mattered to Jesse. He wanted Jenn to be happy just so long as the equation didn't include him.

“Look, Jesse, I've got nothing against you, but I thought it was strange that she invited you to the wedding. She said it was important to her, so I went along with it. I'm not threatened by you being there. I know you two have a connection that will always be there, but I also know it's not what it was. So if that's why you're not—”

“It isn't, Hale. You sound like a man who wouldn't be easily threatened by me or much else.”

“Kind of you to say.”

“I'm not blowing smoke. I wish you both the best. I really do. You sound like a good man and I want Jenn to be happy. You
do
make her happy?” Jesse said with a slight edge to his voice.

Hunsicker laughed. “Yeah, Jesse, I believe I do make her very happy. And as neurotic as she can sometimes be, she makes me happier than I've ever been. It's not just her looks, either. Believe me,
down here in Dallas beautiful blondes of all ages are plentiful. There's just something about Jenn. But you know her. She craves approval. Yours most of all.”

“I approve.”

“Are you sure there's nothing I can do or say to get you to change your mind and to come to the wedding?” Hunsicker asked, his tone sincere. “You can skip all the pre-ceremony stuff.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, me too, Jesse, but I had to try.”

“Understood.”

“Well,” Hunsicker said, “you've still got a few days to change your mind. I know the chances are you won't, but please don't send the card back just yet. Will you do that for me?”

“Least I can do.”

“Much appreciated, Jesse. Shame I won't get to meet you. My guess is we'd get along fine.”

“When the time comes, tell her I really do wish her all the happiness. She deserves it.”

“Will do.”

That was that, though Jesse felt much better about Jenn's future without him than he ever had before. And suddenly he wasn't dying to have a drink quite as bad as he was before.

T
ime was up. Those days Hale Hunsicker had talked about had come and gone. There hadn't been any further attempts to induce him into heading down to Dallas for the September nuptials and the five days of parties in advance of the main event. Though the night after he'd spoken to Hale, he'd gotten a hang-up call from Jenn's number. He gave her credit for hanging up. But the response card wasn't the most pressing matter on his desk. His attention was focused on the report Tamara Elkin had handed to him.

The ME sat across from him, her finely tooled kangaroo-leather boots up on the edge of Jesse's desk. She was sipping her coffee, patiently waiting for Jesse to read her notes. The pointy-toed, slope-heeled boots were a Texas habit she'd never wanted to lose when she'd moved back north. After a few minutes, her coffee and her patience came to an end and she strolled around the office, looking at the photos of the past chiefs, of Jesse in a Dodgers uniform at his only major-league spring training.

Jesse looked up to refocus his eyes and found himself watching her move. She was tall and lean and moved with a big cat's grace. Her wild tangle of hair only enhanced that comparison. Tamara
came by her grace naturally. She had once been a world-class long-distance runner, one ruined knee away from the Olympics. She and Jesse had a lot in common. He went back to the notes. She went back to strolling.

Molly Crane came into the office with some paperwork she left on Jesse's desk. Tamara waved Molly over to where she was standing.

“What's with your boss?” she asked Molly, her voice low.

“The Gino Fish thing,” she said in a whisper. “That and the wedding.”

“Wedding. What wedding?”

“His ex.”

“The infamous Jenn?”

Molly nodded.

“How's he taking it?”

“You two do realize I'm sitting right here?” Jesse said, then pointed at the door. “You want to talk about me, take it outside.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “No, thanks.”

“What did you just put on my desk, Crane?”

“Ballistics report on the last shot-out tires. Same as the others, a .22, but I think our shooter's moved on. Been the longest period between incidents since they began.”

“I agree,” he said.

“Good. Now I'll be able to sleep tonight.”

“Very funny, Molly. I think I hear your phone ringing.”

“That's my cue to leave,” Molly said to Tamara and slipped out of the office.

Tamara Elkin turned to Jesse, who had put her notes down. “You didn't tell me about Jenn getting married.”

“I didn't know I was supposed to.”

“Where's the wedding?”

“Dallas.”

She laughed. “Great town if you like blondes, makeup, and barbecue.”

Jesse made a face.

“Oh, shit! Sorry, Jesse. Diana's blond, isn't she?”

“So is my ex and I love good barbecue, but I'm not going, so let's move on.”

“Okay,” she said. “First just let me remove my foot from my mouth.”

“Forget it.” He changed subjects. “Says in your notes that you have some issues with the angle of the stab wound to the victim's chest.”

“Nothing outrageous, but by my calculations, the person who stabbed the receptionist was shorter than Gino Fish by at least a few inches. Here, stand up,” she said, waving Jesse to come over by her. When he got to within a few feet of her, she signaled for him to stop. “The chest wound to the victim was an ascending wound and very deep. The murder weapon was a sharp knife, but the blade was broad and it would require a lot of force to penetrate as deeply into the victim's heart as it did, especially as it clipped the sternum. Unless the person making the wound was very strong, it would be a difficult wound to produce with a bent arm jabbing in an upward motion, like so.” She pantomimed stabbing Jesse in the chest. “And even if Mr. Fish had been strong enough to do that damage and given the length of his arm, I would have expected the angle of the wound to have been steeper. I think the blow was more of a thrust, like this,” she said, straightening her arm as she took a long stride toward Jesse. “If that's the case and the measurements in the file are correct, the wound should not have been ascending at all, possibly even slightly descending.”

Jesse didn't react right away. He knew that real police work wasn't like police work on TV, that different MEs could reach different conclusions based on the same evidence. And there was also the element of human error. But he knew the Boston Homicide detectives were likely to accept their own theory of the case and overlook any minor discrepancies. It was human nature and it was the nature of the Homicide bureau. He'd been there himself. Clearing cases, that's what it was all about.

“Thanks, Doc.”

“Was I any help?”

He shrugged.

“Remember,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek, “you owe me a favor.”

“I'm sure you'll remind me if I do forget.”

She laughed, shook her head at him, and turned to leave. She stopped at the door and called back to him, “Diana's lucky to have you, you know?”

“You got a funny definition of luck, Doc.”