Текст книги "Stone cold"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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pictures.”

Mrs. Feeney continued to moan and rock. Mr. Feeney continued to

sit immobile with his head back and his eyes closed.

“I’m really sorry,” Kevin said.

“Mom, I am. I’m

sorry.”

“I tried,” Mrs. Feeney said into her clenched hands. “I tried

and tried to teach you to respect women. Didn’t I?

Didn’t I drum

that into you since you were little. To disrespect one woman is to disrespect us all. In shaming that poor girl, you shamed me.”

Mr. Feeney opened his eyes, and without lifting it, he turned his head toward his wife.

“You know, Mira,” he said. “This

really is much more about Kevin

and that poor girl than it is about you.”

“Oh, God,” Mrs. Feeney said and pressed her hands to her face

again and began to cry.

Jesse reached over and shut off the tape recorder.

“I’m going to have that

transcribed,” Jesse said. “Then I will ask you to sign it.”

“Okay.”

“Mr. Feeney, you’ll need to sign it too, I think, since Kevin is

not of age.”

Feeney nodded.

“If he testifies against the other boys,”

Mr. Feeney said, “can

he get a break?”

“When you have a lawyer,” Jesse said,

“your lawyer and the DA

can negotiate that.”

“Will you put in a word for him?”

“Yes.”

“He’s never been in trouble

before,” Mrs. Feeney

said.

“And now he is,” Jesse said.

“But he won’t have to go to

jail?”

“Mrs. Feeney,” Jesse said. “He

participated in the gang rape of

a sixteen-year-old girl. He’ll have to answer for that.”

“Oh, my God,” she said and cried harder.

34

Jesse’s condo was only a block away from the Gray Gull, and they

walked to it after dinner. There was a hard wind off the harbor and Abby put her arm through Jesse’s and pressed against him.

Inside

the condo Jesse poured them each a Poire Williams and they stood at the glass slider and looked out past his deck at the dark harbor.

There was a storm coming up from the southwest and the water was restless.

Abby turned so that she could look up into Jesse’s face. She had

drunk two Rob Roys before dinner, and they had shared a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

“You look tired, Jesse.”

“Busy time at the office,” Jesse said.

“I know,” Abby said. “How many

television interviews have you

done?”

“Many.”

“And you always say it’s an ongoing

investigation and you can’t

discuss it.”

“I know.”

“I suppose they have to keep asking.”

“It’s sort of news

manufacturing,” Jesse said. “They do a stand-up in front of the police station and interview me, and ask me things like, have you caught the killer. And I say no. And they say, this is Tony Baloney live in Paradise, now back to you, Harry.”

Abby smiled.

“It’s not quite that bad,” she

said.

“I suppose not,” Jesse said.

“Sometimes they just ask if there

are any developments.”

“Are there?”

“Sure. We know that there were two

twenty-two-caliber guns

involved.”

“Two?”

“Un-huh. And we think he, she, or they drives a Saab sedan. And

we speculate that he, she, or they lives in Paradise.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Any connection among the victims?”

“Not that we can find.”

“You think the killings are random?”

“Don’t know. For all we know, he, she, or they had a reason to

kill one of the victims, and killed the others just to make us think it was random.”

“If that were the case,” Abby said,

“maybe the killings have

stopped.”

Jesse shrugged.

“Do you have a guess?”

“I try not to,” Jesse said.

“Sure, but you’re not just a

cop,” Abby said. “You are, after

all, also a person.”

“I’m better at being a cop. And

it’s best if cops don’t

hope.”

Abby was quiet for a moment. There was a break in the cloud cover and the moonlight shone briefly on the harbor, where the whitecaps were breaking, and the boats tossed at mooring. She sipped a little of the pear brandy. It was so intense that it seemed to evaporate on her tongue.

“I’m not so sure,” Abby said

after a time, “that you’re a better

cop than a person.”

“Lousy cop too?” Jesse said.

“No. You know that’s not what I

meant.”

“I know,” Jesse said. “Thank

you.”

They looked quietly at the foreboding whitecaps.

“I don’t feel good about breaking up with you the way I did,”

Abby said.

“You needed to break up with me,” Jesse said. “I am not really

available to anyone until I resolve all this with Jenn.”

“I know, but my timing wasn’t good. You were in trouble and I

…” Abby made a fluttery motion with her hand.

“It’s okay, Abby.”

She turned toward him and put her face up.

“It wasn’t okay,” she said and

kissed him hard with her mouth

open.

From a great distance, his ironic nonparticipant self smiled and

thought whoops! He kissed her back.

In bed she was urgent, and when the urgency had passed for both

of them, they lay side by side on their backs.

“Now it’s okay,” Abby said

softly.

“A proper good-bye?” Jesse said.

“I suppose so.”

“You’re still living with that

guy?” Jesse said.

“Yes … he’s out of town

tonight. Chicago.”

“You thinking of marrying him?”

“Yes.”

“You love him?”

“Oh God, Jesse, you’re such a fucking romantic.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Jesse

said.

“He’s a nice guy.”

“You’re marrying him because

he’s a nice guy?”

“I’m marrying him because my clock is ticking fast, and he’s the

nicest guy I have found who wants to marry me.”

“You’re a practical person,”

Jesse said.

The overhead light was on in the bedroom, and as Jesse looked at

her naked body, he could see still a faint trace of sweat between her breasts.

“Most women are,” Abby said. “I

always get a laugh out of the

popular mythology about romantic women and practical men.”

Jesse nodded.

“It is sort of laughable,” he said.

“Would it bother him if he

knew?”

“Of course. But he’s no virgin and neither am I and we both know

it.”

“Do you feel like you’re cheating on him?”

“Yes, I guess so, a little.”

“But …”

“But you and I needed to be put to rest.”

“And this was it?”

Abby rolled onto her side and pressed her face against Jesse’s

chest.

“Yes,” she said. “This was

it.”

Jesse smiled and laughed softly.

“What?” Abby said.

“I’m the other guy,” Jesse said.

“The one I want to kill when

Jenn is with him.”

“Irony,” Abby said.

“You’ve always been a real bear for

irony.”

When she was dressed and her makeup was fixed and her hair was in order, Jesse offered to walk her to her car.

“I’m right in front of the Gray

Gull,” Abby said, “and besides,

it seems righter, somehow, if I kiss you good-bye here and go out the door.”

“Sure,” Jesse said.

They kissed, and when they were through, Abby turned and went out the front door without a word.

There were only a few cars in the parking lot. Abby was grateful

to get into her car and out of the wind. She started the engine and put it in gear and drove out of the lot. A red Saab sedan pulled out of the lot behind her. Both cars turned down Front Street.

35

She had been shot twice in the chest, as she got out of her car,

in the driveway of her house on North Side Drive, her body turned toward the back of the car, as if she had turned to see what was behind her. Anthony deAngelo had found her on routine patrol. She had fallen with the car door open, and one foot still caught on the edge of the car. Anthony had seen the car with its interior lights on and stopped to take a look.

“It’s Abby Taylor,” deAngelo

said to Jesse when he

arrived.

Jesse nodded. Dead people don’t look much different at

first, he thought. Just like live people except that they

don’t move. He stared down at her face. No, he

thought, it’s more than that. You look at them, there’s

something missing. Her position would have embarrassed her.

He

reached down and moved her leg and smoothed her skirt down. She was still flexible. Peter Perkins arrived with his crime-scene kit.

Suitcase Simpson was setting up lights. The ambulance pulled in.

Anthony was stringing the crime-scene tape.

“She live alone?” Suitcase asked.

“She lived with a guy,” Jesse said.

He was still looking absently down at the body.

“Nobody answering the door,” Simpson said.

“Or the

phone.”

“He’s in Chicago,” Jesse said.

Simpson stared at Jesse and started to speak. Then he didn’t.

One of the techs from the ambulance came over and knelt down beside Abby. He took her pulse automatically, though he knew she was dead.

“Just like the other ones, Jesse,” the tech said. “Two in the

chest.”

“Her purse is still in the car,” Perkins said.

“Cold night,” the tech said.

“Make time of death a little

harder.”

“She died within the last hour,” Jesse said.

The tech looked up as if he were going to ask a question.

Suitcase Simpson put a hand on his shoulder. The tech glanced at him. Simpson shook his head. Perkins began to photograph the crime scene. A few neighbors had straggled out into the cold, coats on over sleep wear, hunched against the cold, staring aimlessly. Jesse was motionless, looking down at the body.

“You know where this guy might be in Chicago,” Simpson

asked.

Jesse shook his head.

“Anthony and I’ll ask a few

neighbors,” Simpson said. “Maybe

they’ll know. Or know where he works and the people at work will

know.”

Jesse nodded.

“Hate to just leave a note for him to call.”

“We won’t leave a note,” Jesse

said. “If you can’t reach him,

leave somebody here until you do.”

“What if it’s a couple days?”

Simpson said.

“Leave somebody here if you can’t reach him,” Jesse

said.

“Okay, Jesse.”

The other cops went about their crime-scene business very quietly. Like people in a sickroom. Jesse continued to look at Abby. After a while the EMTs loaded her onto a gurney and slid her into the back of the ambulance. Jesse watched them silently. The ambulance pulled away. Peter Perkins packed up his crime-scene gear and went to his car. Simpson and deAngelo finished talking to the neighbors.

“They told me he works at the GE in Lynn,”

Simpson said. “I’ll

call them in the morning. Anthony says he’ll stay here.

I’ll get

Eddie to come over in the morning and give him a break.”

“Do that,” Jesse said.

Perkins got into his truck and drove away. DeAngelo settled in behind the wheel in his cruiser in front of the house.

“I gotta get going, Jesse,” Simpson said.

Jesse nodded. Simpson shifted his weight a little.

“You, ah, gonna be all right?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Simpson said.

He walked back toward his cruiser. And stopped and turned back toward Jesse.

“I’m sorry about Abby,” he said.

“Thanks, Suit.”

Simpson got into his cruiser, started it, and drove down North Side Drive. In the rearview mirror he could see that Jesse was still standing where he’d left him.

36

The Paradise selectmen called a special town meeting, which authorized a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers. A telephone hot line was established and the number publicized statewide. The Paradise police were working twelve-hour shifts, and the hot line was manned in the town clerk’s

office by off-duty firemen. A meeting room in the Paradise Town Hall had been converted to a press headquarters. Vans from the Boston television stations were parked in the public works lot behind the town hall, and almost every day a television reporter was doing a live report standing in front of the Paradise Police Station.

Police in Paradise are pressing their search today for the

killer or killers in a series of seemingly random murders that have terrorized this affluent North Shore community. In a news conference earlier today, Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone said the full resources of his department, augmented by the Massachusetts State Police are being brought to bear on this investigation. But to this point the reign of terror continues.

Reporting live in Paradise, this is Katy Morton. Back to you, Larry.

That’s a tense situation up there, Katy.

Now to other news,

an heroic Siamese cat today …

Jesse shut off the television. With him in his office was a state police sergeant named Vargas.

“Jeez,” he said.

“Didn’t you want to know about that

cat?”

“I’ve got enough excitement in my

life,” Jesse said. “How many

people can you give me?”

“Captain says we’ll continue to help with the investigation, and

he wants to know what else you need. How many patrols you got out now?”

“Five cars, two shifts.”

“Ten people,” Vargas said. “How

many people you got on the

force?”

“Twelve,” Jesse said. “Including

me. Molly Crane covers the desk

days, and I stay here at night.”

“You’re swamped,” Vargas said.

“I’ll get some of our guys to

cover the night patrols. Captain says to tell you that we aren’t

taking this thing over. You’re still in charge of it.

I’m just

liaison.”

“You’ll need an office, and a

phone,” Jesse said. “You can set

up in the squad room.”

Molly came into the office without knocking. She was holding a business card. Her eyes looked heavy. She put the card on Jesse’s

desk.

“There’s a reporter from one of those national talk shows,”

Molly said. “Wants to interview you.”

“No,” Jesse said.

He didn’t look at the card. Molly smiled.

“He won’t like this,” Molly

said. “He’s kind of pleased that

he’s famous.”

“There’s a press briefing every

morning,” Jesse said. “Tell him

where and when.”

Molly nodded and went out.

“Press don’t like being

stonewalled,” Vargas

said.

“Who does.”

“They can say bad things about you,”

Vargas said.

“Who can’t,” Jesse said.

Vargas grinned.

“Don’t seem too media savvy,” he

said.

“My people are beginning to sag,” Jesse said. “How soon can we

get some patrol help?”

“Tonight,” Vargas said.

“Good,” Jesse said. “How close

is Healy to getting me a list of

people who’ve bought twenty-two firearms or ammo?”

“I’ll check,” Vargas said.

“Those records aren’t always

immaculate, and even if they were, people get guns from a lot of places.”

“I need whatever he’s got,”

Jesse said.

Molly stuck her head in the door again.

“Jenn,” she said, “on line one.

You want to take

it?”

Jesse nodded.

“Sit tight,” he said to Vargas.

“I’ll only be a

minute.”

He picked up the phone and punched line one and said,

“Hi.”

“Was that woman that got killed the one you used to date?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Jesse, I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” Jesse said.

“What’s up?”

“My news director and I had a fabulous idea,” Jenn

said.

Jesse closed his eyes and put his head back against his chair.

“Every news outlet in the country is dying for some sort of

inside something on this,” Jenn said.

“I know.”

“We thought because of our, ah, connection, you know? We thought

I could come out with a cameraman and track the investigation. An inside look at the workings of a police manhunt. We would stay out of your way. And when you catch the guy we’d have a whole series

about it, and maybe a special, and maybe we could sell it to one of the national outlets …”

“No,” Jesse said.

“Oh, I know, Jesse. Believe me I know what an imposition it is.

But we’d stay out of the way, and, Jesse, it would mean so much to

my career.”

Jesse still had his eyes closed and his head back.

In a soft voice, he said, “No, Jenn,” and put the phone back in

its cradle.

37

Chuck Pennington was an architect. He had been an intercollegiate boxing champion at Harvard and still looked in shape.

He must have been pretty good, Jesse thought.

There’s not a mark on his face.

He had thick black hair brushed straight back. He wore a rust-colored tweed jacket and a blue oxford shirt. He sat with Jesse in the living room of the house he’d designed, with his wife

and daughter and a lawyer named Sheldon Resnick. Molly Crane sat near the door. Through the glass back wall of the living room Jesse could look a long way out over the Atlantic Ocean. Mrs. Pennington was speaking.

“We wanted to spare you this,” she said to her husband. “We know

how important your work is.”

“My daughter is more important than my work,” Pennington said.

“But we can put that aside for the moment and listen to Chief Stone.”

“You promised to keep my daughter’s name out of this,” Mrs.

Pennington said.

“I did what I promised your daughter I would do,” Jesse

said.

“You spoke to her without me?” Mrs.

Pennington

said.

“It seemed the only way I could,” Jesse said.

“Sheldon,” she said. “I want you

to make that clear to this

policeman that we will not tolerate scandal.”

“Mr. Stone has been nice to me,” Candace said.

“Candace, you be quiet,” Mrs. Pennington said.

“No, Margaret,” Pennington said.

“You are the one that has to be

quiet.”

“Chuck …”

“This didn’t happen to you,”

Pennington said. “It happened to

Candace. It matters what Candace wants.”

“My God, Chuck, she’s

…”

Resnick put his hand on Mrs. Pennington’s forearm.

“Chuck’s right, Margaret. Now is not the time.”

Mrs. Pennington opened her mouth, then closed it, and clamped her lips and sat back in her chair and folded her arms.

Pennington turned in his chair and looked at Jesse. He had very

pale blue eyes.

“I know the kind of pressure you must be under now,” he said.

“And I appreciate your taking the time for this.”

“Candace has always known who raped her,”

Jesse said. “But she

and I agreed that if she blew the whistle on them, uncorroborated, we might not get them, and her life in Paradise would be ruined.”

Pennington nodded.

“They were going to show my picture to everyone,” Candace

said.

Pennington nodded again. He showed no emotion, though Jesse noted that the knuckles on his clasped hands looked white.

“Now they probably won’t,” he

said.

He looked at Jesse.

“No,” Jesse said. “They

won’t. They’re scared.”

“Good,” Candace said.

Jesse nodded slowly.

“And they’re scared of you,”

Jesse said.

Candace looked at Jesse, then at her father, and then, more covertly, at her mother.

“Excellent,” she said.

“The law always talks about justice,”

Jesse said. “We’re

officially in favor of it. But if I were you what I would want would be revenge.”

“Chief Stone …” Mrs. Pennington

said.

Her husband shook his head at her.

“That’s what I would like,” he

said.

“Okay,” Jesse said. “Marino,

Feeney and Drake have incriminated

themselves. If we didn’t know anything about you the pictures would

have led us to you.”

Candace nodded. She understood.

“So we need a statement,” Jesse said.

“And if we go to court

we’ll need you to testify.”

“Will anyone else see those pictures?”

Candace

said.

“If we go to trial,” Jesse said,

“the defense will argue that

you were a willing participant and made up the rape story. The pictures would be evidence to the contrary.”

“My God, naked pictures of my daughter,”

Mrs. Pennington said.

“In public. I won’t permit it.”

“We’re a long way past propriety here, Margaret. It’s Candace’s

decision.”

“She’s not old enough to decide something like this,” Mrs.

Pennington said.

“I’ll give a statement,” Candace

said. “And I’ll testify if I

have to.”

“Candace …”

“Good,” Jesse said. “Is there

someplace you can go and give

Molly your statement?”

“They can use the kitchen,” Pennington said.

As she followed Candace from the room, Molly smiled at Jesse, and, shielding the gesture with her body, gave him a thumbs-up.

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Jesse looked through the big window at the brisk gray ocean.

“Kids like Candace,” Jesse said, still looking at the ocean,

“often need some therapy after an experience like this one.”

“You mean from a psychiatrist?” Mrs.

Pennington

said.

“Yes,” Jesse said. “If you need

a referral I can get one for

you.”

Mrs. Pennington looked at her husband.

“We’ll see,” he said.

“Thanks for the offer.”

“As far as the case goes,” Resnick said, after a moment, “a plea

bargain would certainly seem possible.”

“Be up to the defense lawyers and the DA,”

Jesse

said.

“But you agree that it could happen?” Mrs.

Pennington

said.

“It often does,” Jesse said.

38

“We had sex an hour before she

died,” Jesse

said.

Dix nodded.

“I’m sad,” Jesse said.

“And I’m insulted.”

Dix tilted his head slightly.

“I’m the chief of police and I’m

trying to catch these bastards

and they shoot a woman I just made love to.”

“You think it was intentional?” Dix said.

“I don’t know,” Jesse said.

“But it makes me

mad.”

“And you think it was more than one

person?” Dix

said.

“Yes. The two guns don’t make any sense to me

otherwise.”

Dix was wearing a blue blazer today, and a white shirt.

Everything about him gleamed. His shaved head, his starched shirt, his thick-soled mahogany shoes. He sat with his hands laced over his flat stomach, rubbing the tips of his thumbs together.

“Jenn called me after Abby was killed,”

Jesse said. “And said

she hoped I was okay.”

Dix waited, moving the tips of his thumbs softly back and forth.

“Then she said she wanted me to give her special access to the

sniper killing, her and a cameraman, inside coverage, follow the whole investigation.”

Dix nodded encouragingly.

“Four people die, and she sees it as a career opportunity.”

“Why would she think you’d allow

that?” Dix said.

Jesse smiled without humor.

“Because she is the, ah, object of my affections,” he

said.

“Object?”

“Just being amusing,” Jesse said.

Dix didn’t say anything. They were quiet. The room shimmered

with stillness. Jesse took in some air. His movements were stiff.

Dix waited. He seemed perfectly comfortable waiting. Jesse’s stiffness loosened.

“She said once,” Jesse’s voice

was hoarse, “that what I really

love is my fantasy of her, and I keep trying to squeeze her into it.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it was fucking shrink talk.”

Dix grinned.

“The object of your affection,” Dix said.

“More fucking shrink talk,” Jesse said.

Dix smiled.

“Sure,” he said. “I am, after

all, a fucking

shrink.”

39

There were too many of them for Jesse’s office, so they went to

the conference room in the station. Jesse was there, at the head of the conference table. Beside him sat an Essex County assistant district attorney named Martin Reagan. Molly and Suitcase Simpson stood against the wall. Bo Marino and his parents sat on one side of the table. Troy Drake and his mother sat on the other side. Two lawyers from a big Boston firm representing both families sat at the end of the table opposite Jesse. The lead attorney was a sleek red-haired woman named Rita Fiore. The other lawyer was a small man with a narrow face and a graying Vandyke beard. His name was Barry Feldman.

“Here’s what we got,” Jesse

said. “Or at least all of it I can

remember. There’s so much that Marty may have to remind me.”

Rita smiled.

“So we begin,” she said.

“We have a sworn statement from Kevin Feeney that he and Bo

Marino and Troy Drake raped Candace Pennington and photographed her naked.”

“I understand that he is clearly identifiable in the pictures,”

Rita said.

“He is,” Jesse said.

“How stalwart of him to admit it,” Rita said.

“We have Candace Pennington’s sworn

statement that Kevin Feeney,

Bo Marino, and Troy Drake raped her and photographed her naked.”

“Hardly a disinterested observer,” Rita said.

Martin Reagan said, “Rita, let’s wait until we get into court to

try the case. We simply want to question the suspects, and they simply wanted their attorney present.”

“Which would be me,” Rita said. She

glanced at Feldman beside

her, “and of course Barry.”

“Barry Feldman,” the other lawyer said.

Jesse nodded. He looked at Troy Drake.

“You got anything you want to say, Troy?”

Troy Drake was very blond with a full-lipped sulky mouth that made him look vaguely like Carly Simon. His mother was as blond as he was, and had the same sulky mouth.

“I’ve advised my clients not to discuss the case,” Rita

said.

Feldman nodded.

“You all planning to take her advice?”

Jesse

said.

No one at the table spoke.

“Okay,” Jesse said. “These

officers will read you your rights

and escort you to your cell.”

“You already arrested me and I got released to my old man,” Bo

said.

“That was for a different crime,” Jesse said. “This is a new

arrest.”

“Can they do this?” Mrs. Drake said.

“I’ll have them out in a few

hours,” Rita said.

“I’m going to ask for remand,”

Reagan said.

“Marty, don’t be ridiculous,”

Rita said. “These are

children.”

“So is Candace Pennington,” Reagan said.

“They can’t put my son in jail,”

Mrs. Drake said. “I know he

didn’t do anything.”

Mrs. Marino was crying. Mr. Marino was red-faced.

“You better keep my kid out of jail,” he said to

Rita.

“Mr. Marino,” Rita said. “I am

the chief criminal litigator at

Cone Oakes and Belding. I’m about as good as it gets. You don’t

frighten me. Nothing does, and it is not in your best interest to annoy me.”

Marino looked startled.

“The boys may have to spend the night in jail, but we can get