Night Passage (13 page)

Carole came back into the kitchen. She got a Fudgsicle from the refrigerator freezer and removed the wrapper and gave the Fudgsicle to the boy.

“More coffee?” she said.

“Sure.”

Jesse held the cup out and Carole poured from the round glass pot.

“When does he start school?” Jesse said, nodding at the boy.

“Kindergarten next year,” Carole said.

The boy showed no sign that he knew they were talking about him. He sat on his mother’s lap, working on the Fudgsicle.

“Can you get a job then?” Jesse said.

Shrug.

“What did you do before you got married?”

“High school,” Carole said. “Jo Jo knocked me up senior year. I never graduated.”

“Maybe you could get some training,” Jesse said.

“Sure.”

“What does Jo Jo do for a living?” Jesse asked.

Carole shrugged. “He does some bodybuilder contests, I know.”

“Can you make a living doing that?”

Shrug.

“What was he doing for a living when he bought this house for cash?”

“I don’t know,” Carole said.

Jesse allowed himself to look puzzled.

“I’m not very smart,” Carole said. “I never learned anything in school. I didn’t even graduate. Taking care of me was his job.”

Jesse drank some of the coffee. It had gotten stronger sitting in the pot.

“I think it would be good if you didn’t have to depend on Jo Jo.”

“Sure,” Carole said. “It’s what my old man is always telling me. From Florida. So who’s going to marry a woman with three small kids and an ex-husband like I got?”

“Maybe you don’t need a husband to take care of you,” Jesse said.

“Yeah,” Carole said. “Right.”

“So as long as you knew him, Jo Jo never had a regular job?”

“He tended bar once in a while. Worked as a bouncer.”

“Where?”

“Club in Peabody. The Eighty-six Club.”

“He work there much?”

“No.”

Jesse stood and brought his coffee cup to the sink.

“Well, you need me, you know how to get me,” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“Thanks for the coffee.”

“Sure.”

Jesse looked for a moment at the little boy, his face dirty with melted Fudgsicle. You don’t have a prayer, Jesse thought. Not a goddamned prayer.

Hasty Hathaway picked up a triangle of cinnamon toast and bit off a corner, and chewed and swallowed.

“I asked you to have coffee with me, Jesse, because I’m concerned about some of the things that have happened in town recently.”

Hathaway held the now truncated triangle of toast delicately in his right hand and moved it slightly in rhythm to his speech. Jesse waited.

“I mean, I know they are not serious crimes. But the spray-painting of a police cruiser, and the killing of that police station cat … well, it’s all around town.”

Jesse had nothing to say to that, so he waited.

“Obviously someone wishes to embarrass the police department.”

Jesse continued to wait.

“Do you agree?” Hathaway said.

“Yes.”

“And,” Hathaway said, “I’m afraid they’re succeeding.”

“ ’Fraid so,” Jesse said.

“Who might that be?” Hathaway said.

Jesse leaned back in his seat and turned his coffee cup slowly with both hands.

“We roust some of the burnout kids in town every day,” Jesse said. “We arrest several drunks a weekend. We referee a domestic dispute about once a week. We stop people for speeding. We tow cars for being illegally parked. We’re in the business of telling people no.”

“So it could be anyone,” Hathaway said.

“Could be,” Jesse said.

“But isn’t it more likely to be one person than another?” Hathaway said. “Don’t you have any suspicions?”

“Sure,” Jesse said.

“Perhaps you’d care to share them with me,” Hathaway said. “I am after all the town’s chief executive.”

Jesse thought it an odd phrase to describe the selectman’s job, but he didn’t comment.

“I had to guess, I’d guess it might be Jo Jo Genest,” Jesse said.

“Jo Jo?”

“I came down pretty hard on him for harassing his ex-wife a while ago.”

“But you yourself say you deal regularly with domestic disputes.”

“Yes.”

“So it could be any of those people’s man or wife.”

“Feels like Jo Jo to me.”

“That’s pretty weak,” Hathaway said.

“Yes it is,” Jesse said. “If it were strong I’d arrest him.”

“But you’re still suspicious.”

“Jo Jo’s the right kind of guy. He’d need to get even for being embarrassed in front of his ex-wife, and he wouldn’t have the
cojones
to do it straight on.”

“Cohonees?”

“Balls,” Jesse said.

“You think Jo Jo Genest is afraid?”

Hathaway seemed genuinely amazed.

“Can’t always judge a book …” Jesse said.

“No,” Hathaway said. “No. I can’t buy that at all. Jo Jo grew up in this town. If you did something to Jo Jo he might be angry. But if he were angry, God help you. He wouldn’t sneak around killing cats.”

Jesse turned his coffee cup a little more.

“Sure,” he said. “Probably right.”

“And you have no other theories?”

“No.”

“Well, you better get some,” Hathaway said. “There was a story about it in the
Standard Times
last night.”

Jesse nodded without comment.

“It made the papers, in my view, because you sent the cat remains to the state laboratory, and they talked about it to someone.”

“Could be,” Jesse said.

“Isn’t it a bit preposterous to send the remains of a dead cat to the state whatever-it-is lab?”

“Forensic,” Jesse said.

“I’d prefer that next time you are tempted to seek outside assistance, you consult me first. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Jesse said without meaning it.

“This town does not wish outsiders sharing our problems,” Hathaway said.

“Of course,” Jesse said.

“We handle our own business here. Part of liberty is self-reliance.”

“You bet,” Jesse said.

Hathaway stood and put one of his long-fingered bony hands on Jesse’s shoulder.

“Don’t mean to come down too hard on you, Jesse. But I have a responsibility to this town. Call on me for anything you need … and let’s keep our troubles in-house.”

“Gotcha,” Jesse said.

Hathaway patted Jesse’s shoulder briefly and turned and left the restaurant. Jesse sat looking after him, turning his coffee cup slowly on the tabletop. I wonder what Hasty is actually worried about, Jesse thought. He looked at Hathaway’s plate. He had eaten the center of his cinnamon toast and left the crusts. Cinnamon toast, Jesse thought. Jesus Christ!

The call from Wyoming came at nine o’clock in the morning eastern time. Jesse took it in his office.

“I got Paradise, Massachusetts?” Charlie Buck said.

“Yes,” Jesse said.

“You the Chief of Police?”

“Yes. Jesse Stone.”

“My name’s Charlie Buck. I’m an investigator for the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department in Gillette, Wyoming.”

“Well, you’re an early riser,” Jesse said. “What is it there, about seven?”

“Seven oh three,” Buck said. “I’m interested in a man might have lived in Paradise at one time, man named Thomas Carson.”

“He was the chief before me,” Jesse said.

Buck grunted.

“Well, he was driving a Dodge truck up along Route 59 north of Bill a while back, when it blew up and him with it. Took us this long to trace what was left.”

“In Wyoming?”

“Yeah, north of Bill, heading toward Gillette.”

“You establish why it blew up?” Jesse said.

“Bomb.”

“So it’s a homicide.”

“You might say so.”

“You have any leads?”

“We was hoping you’d be the lead. If the bomb hadn’t tossed the truck’s serial number couple hundred feet away we wouldn’t even know who he was.”

“Considerable bomb,” Jesse said.

“Considerable,” Buck said. “Figure it was supposed to pulverize everything so we couldn’t I.D. the victim. How long you had the job?”

“Got hired in May,” Jesse said. “Didn’t actually start until June.”

“You know when Carson left?”

“Before May,” Jesse said. “Sometime in the spring, I think. Until I took over, guy named Lou Burke was acting chief.”

“Where were you before you took this job?” Buck said.

“L.A. Homicide.”

Buck grunted again.

“Might be useful,” he said.

“I’ll try,” Jesse said.

“Carson got any next of kin out there?”

“Not that I know of, but I’ll find out, let you know.”

“Wish you would,” Buck said. “Friends, close associates?”

“Let me look into it,” Jesse said. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Sure,” Buck said.

“You know what detonated the bomb?” Jesse said.

“No. Best guess, someone trailed him and beeped it from a distance. Pretty empty stretch of road along where it went off.”

“Makes sense,” Jesse said. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like it if you talked only to me about this.”

Buck grunted.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Jesse said.

“Hell no,” Buck said. “Your town, your department. Who’d you say you worked for in L.A.?”

“Homicide, Captain Cronjager.”

“Un huh. Well, I’ll go ahead and see what I can do at this end. Maybe you can give me a ring in a couple days, tell me what you know.”

“Glad to,” Jesse said.

“If I don’t hear,” Buck said, “I’ll give you a ring.”

“You’ll hear,” Jesse said.

Jo Jo Genest sat in Gino Fish’s storefront office waiting for Gino, trying to impress Vinnie Morris.

“So I got this suitcase,” Jo Jo said, “with seven hundred large, you know, small bills. Thing weighs a freaking ton, and I’m supposed to take it to a bank in New York City, down around Wall Street someplace. You know New York?”

Morris nodded. He was sitting with his chair tilted back. He had a Walkman clipped to his belt and he was listening to music through the earphones.

“Guy I know arranged I could make the deposit in an account under a fake name, no questions asked,” Jo Jo said. “So I got this rental car and I’m trying to get there, and the traffic is out of control, you know. And when I finally get there I can’t find a place to park, and I’m riding around the block down by the World Trade thing, and the freaking bank closes. You believe it. I got a dirty seven hundred thousand in a suitcase and the bank closes while I’m riding around like a dildo looking for a parking space.”

Morris was looking at Jo Jo with no expression, his heels hooked in the bottom rung of his chair, his arms folded over his chest.

“You hear me okay?” Jo Jo said.

Morris nodded.

“Well, I figure the money’s okay, I mean, who’s going to mug somebody like me, you know? But I still gotta get it deposited, so I haul it back to the hotel. I’m staying at the Marriott in Times Square, and I ditch the car and next morning I get a cab and haul the money back downtown and it’s dandy. Cabbie drops me off right in front of the bank. I take the stuff in, go to the desk, and ask for the name they gave me, who’s going to count the cash and take care of the deposit and he ain’t there. He’s at another branch in freaking Queens, they gave me the wrong branch. So I go out with the suitcase, which is lucky I’m big and strong, because it’s getting heavier every minute and I try to find a cab and I can’t, so I get on the subway. I got a suitcase full of cash and I’m riding the freaking subway, and I’m boiling. And I go back to the hotel and get a cab there. You can always get a cab at a hotel, and I go over to Queens hauling the dough, and the guy is there, but he’s in a meeting. So I tell the slut at the desk that they better get his ass out of the meeting or else and she says, real preppy, ‘Excuse me?’ And I said get this guy’s ass out here, now. And I give her a real hard look and she gets up and goes in back and in a little while my guy comes out, and he’s nice as freaking pie. ‘Oh, sir, so sorry to keep you waiting, come right in to one of our conference rooms, blah, blah.’ And I got the money deposited. But is that a kick or what, I’m chugging around freaking New York with three-quarters of a million in cash for two days trying to get somebody to take it.”

“Scared hell out of that bank lady, huh?” Morris said.

Jo Jo didn’t much like the way Vinnie said it. He could never tell whether Vinnie was putting him on or not. Hard to figure Vinnie. He didn’t seem interested in anything. He never seemed in a hurry. He never had any reaction to anything, except to say things like “scared hell out of that bank lady,” which Jo Jo could never quite figure out.

Jo Jo thought maybe he ought to grab Vinnie someday and slap him up against the wall. Get his freaking attention. But there was something about Vinnie … Jo Jo stopped thinking about it. He sat straight upright on the other straight chair. He would have liked to cross his legs, but they were too thick. He probably ought to do more stretching, loosen everything up a little. Gino Fish came into the room, nodded at Vinnie, walked past Jo Jo, and got behind his desk.

“Sorry I’m late,” Fish said.

But he said it in a way that sounded to Jo Jo like he didn’t care if he was late or not. He could use a little shaking up too, Jo Jo thought. Involuntarily he glanced at Vinnie, as if Vinnie could know what he was thinking. Vinnie looked blankly at him or past him or through him. Jo Jo could never be sure.

“No problem, Gino. Been talking with Vinnie.”

Fish smiled without amusement.

“So what have you got for me, Jo Jo?” Fish said.

“Guy I know is looking for guns.”

Fish was quiet for a moment, his gaze heavy on Jo Jo.

“Who is this guy?” Fish said finally.

“He’d like to remain anonymous,” Jo Jo said.

“Wouldn’t everyone,” Fish said. “Is he IRA?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Zealots are not good people to do business with,” Fish said.

Jo Jo wasn’t exactly sure what a zealot was. But he knew Hathaway wasn’t IRA.

“Can you do something for us?” Jo Jo said.

“What are you after?” Fish said.

“Automatic weapons, machine guns, mortars, handheld rocket launchers, grenades.”