HIGH
PROFILE
t h e s p e n s e r n o v e l s
God Save the Child
Hundred-Dollar Baby
The Godwulf Manuscript
School Days
Cold Service
t h e j e s s e s t o n e n o v e l s
Bad Business
Sea Change
Back Story
Stone Cold
Widow’s Walk
Death in Paradise
Potshot
Trouble in Paradise
Hugger Mugger
Night Passage
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
t h e s u n n y r a n da l l n o v e l s
Small Vices
Blue Screen
Chance
Melancholy Baby
Thin Air
Shrink Rap
Walking Shadow
Perish Twice
Paper Doll
Family Honor
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
a l s o b y r o b e r t b . pa r k e r
Playmates
Appaloosa
Crimson Joy
Double Play
Pale Kings and Princes
Gunman’s Rhapsody
Taming a Sea-Horse
All Our Yesterdays
A Catskill Eagle
A Year at the Races
(with Joan H. Parker)
Valediction
Perchance to Dream
The Widening Gyre
Poodle Springs
Ceremony
(and Raymond Chandler)
A Savage Place
Love and Glory
Early Autumn
Wilderness
Looking for Rachel Wallace
Three Weeks in Spring
The Judas Goat
(with Joan H. Parker)
Promised Land
Training with Weights
Mortal Stakes
(with John R. Marsh)
HIGH
PROFILE
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
G . P. P U T N A M ’ S S O N S
N e w Yo r k
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA •
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2007 by Robert B. Parker
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Parker, Robert B.
High profile / Robert B. Parker.
p.
cm.
ISBN: 1-4295-2302-6
Stone, Jesse (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—Massachusetts—Fiction. 3. Police chiefs—Fiction. 4. Massachusetts—Fiction. I. Title. PS3566.A686H54
2007
2006037328
813'.54—dc22
b o o k d e s i g n b y a m a n da d e w e y This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
For Joan, whom the eyes of mortals
have no right to see
HIGH
PROFILE
1
Each spring surprised Jesse. In the years since he’d come to Paradise he never remembered, from year to year, how pretty spring was in the Northeast. He stood now among the opening flowers and the new leaves, looking at a dead man, hanging by his neck from the limb of a tree in the park, on Indian Hill, overlooking the harbor.
Peter Perkins was taking pictures. Suitcase Simpson was running crime-scene tape and shooing away onlookers. Molly Crane sat in a squad car, talking with a woman in jogging clothes. Molly was writing in her notebook.
“Doesn’t look like his neck is broken,” Jesse said. R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
Perkins nodded.
“Hands are free,” Jesse said.
Perkins nodded.
“Nothing to jump off of,” Jesse said. “Unless he went up in the tree and jumped from the limb.”
Perkins nodded.
“Open his coat,” Peter Perkins said.
Jesse opened the raincoat. An argyle sweater beneath the coat was dark and stiff with dried blood.
“There goes the suicide theory,” Jesse said.
“ME will tell us,” Perkins said, “but my guess is he was dead before he got hung.”
Jesse walked around the area, looking at the ground. At one point he squatted on his heels and looked at the grass.
“They had already shot him,” Jesse said. “And dragged him over . . .”
“Sometimes I forget you grew up out west,” Perkins said. Jesse grinned and walked toward the tree, still looking down.
“And looped the rope around his neck . . .”
Jesse looked up at the corpse.
“Tossed the rope over the tree limb, hauled him up, and tied the rope around the trunk.”
“Good-sized guy,” Perkins said.
“About two hundred?” Jesse said.
Perkins looked appraisingly at the corpse and nodded.
“Dead weight,” Perkins said.
“So to speak,” Jesse said.
2
H I G H P R O F I L E
“Maybe more than one person involved,” Perkins said. Jesse nodded.
“ID?” Jesse said.
“None,” Perkins said. “No wallet, nothing.”
Another Paradise police car pulled up with its blue light revolving, and Arthur Angstrom got out.