Jesse said, “I frankly always thought natural causes was an oxymoron.”
“Now he’s gone and you felt the urge to drink.”
“Occasionally northern exposure gives me the urge to drink.”
“You know what I’m going to tell you now, right?” Dix said.
“That the only way to work through this is to work, period,” Jesse said.
“There you go.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m even paying you.”
“Don’t look at me,” Dix said. “It’s a rule they passed.”
By now they were getting to the end of the session.
“It’s not just wanting a drink,” Jesse said. “It’s wanting to find who did it to Charlie and putting a bullet behind his ear once I do.”
“Understandable sentiment,” Dix said. “But hardly productive.”
“Who said anything about productive?” Jesse said.
Then he said to Dix, “You know I’m only kidding, right?”
But Jesse wasn’t kidding.
Not even a little bit.
And was on his way back to the office when Molly Crane called to tell him that somebody had beaten up Scott Ford badly enough to put him in the hospital.
“Ford’s the first baseman, right?” Molly said.
“What does that have to do with anything, Mols?” Jesse said.
“Because the one who did it to him is the catcher,” she said.
Seventeen
Molly said she was about to head over to the hospital in Marshport, telling Jesse she knew he wanted to be focusing on Charlie Farrell. Jesse told her to stay at the office and reinterview as many baseball players as she could about possible bad blood, before today, between Scott Ford and Matt Loes, the catcher.
And how it might possibly be tied in to the death of Jack Carlisle.
“I’m a master of multitasking,” he said. “Want to know why?”
“I know why,” Molly said. “You’re the chief.”
Scott Ford’s injuries were serious enough that the paramedics had decided to bypass the urgent care in Paradise and take him directly to the hospital in Marshport, the facility there getting bigger and better and more modern all the time.
Scott Ford’s parents were in a waiting room on the eighth floor. Jesse had never met Shelley Ford. But her husband, Ted, ran the biggest insurance firm in Paradise and thought he was every bit the hot shit that his best friend Gary Armistead, mayor of Paradise, was. Jesse thought there should be a club for hot shits, like the Elks.
Ted Ford saw Jesse at the same time Jesse saw him.
“I assume you came over here to tell me that you’ve arrested the punk who did this to my son,” Ted Ford said. “That is what you’re doing here, right?”
Jesse knew Scott Ford’s room number, and kept walking, having no time for Ted Ford, and even less tolerance. But Ford stepped into the hallway, cutting him off.
Grabbing Jesse’s arm.
Jesse stopped, looked down at Ford’s hand, then back into his eyes.
“I asked you a question,” Ford said.
“Take your hand off my arm,” Jesse said quietly.
“As soon as you answer my question,” Ford said.
Jesse smiled, then reached down with his free hand, like he simply wanted to shake Ford’s. But Jesse’s right hand was a lot bigger, and stronger, and now squeezing Ted Ford’s hard enough that Jesse was waiting to hear some of the small bones in it breaking.
He heard a sharp intake of breath, and maybe the tiniest of squeaks.
“Let... go,” Ford said, his voice strained, “or I am calling your boss.”
“Yikes,” Jesse said.
But let go.
“So I’m assuming you haven’t arrested the Loes kid?” Ford said.
“I have not,” Jesse said. “I came straight here as soon as I found out that your son was in the hospital. Now I want to hear his version of what happened.”
“His version,” Ford said, “is that Matt Loes beat him to within an inch of his goddamn life.”
“I want to hear about it from him,” Jesse said.
“And the mayor is going to hear about all this from me,” Ford said.
Jesse smiled again.
“You need to stop talking now, Ted, and let me do my job,” Jesse said.
“You think I’m joking about the mayor?” Ford said.
“Still talking,” Jesse said.
He took a deep breath and let it out and walked into room 821. He needed to get away from Ted Ford, and knew exactly why. Jesse wanted to hit somebody today. It had nearly been Scott Ford’s asshole father.
Dix probably wouldn’t see that as being very productive, either.
Eighteen
Scott Ford looked the way those Ultimate Fighters looked after they lost one of those big pay-per-view fights. And sometimes after they won.
His left eye more bruised than it had been in Jesse’s office. Right eye shut. Stitches above his lips. More stitches on his right cheekbone.
For a moment after Jesse walked in, he thought Ford might be sleeping. But the kid opened the only eye he could when he heard the sound of the door closing.
“Hey,” Jesse said.
“I don’t want to talk about it, if that’s why you’re here,” Scott Ford said.
There was a chair against the wall. Jesse pulled it close to the bed and sat down.
“Don’t have to talk about it,” Jesse said. “But you need to. Your father’s outside this door and fixing to organize a lynch mob for the kid did this to you.”
The kid in the bed closed his left eye, and groaned, as if even that small movement had sent a spasm of pain across his face.
“Dad’s probably just embarrassed I got the crap kicked out of me,” Ford said.
His voice sounded raspy enough that Jesse wondered if he’d taken a shot or two to his throat. Molly had already told Jesse on the phone that there were two broken ribs.
When Jesse saw him try to lick his lips, he grabbed the water cup with the straw stuck in it from the table next to the bed, handed it to him. Ford drank and handed it back, as if even reaching over to the table might exhaust him.
“Why would you catch a beating like this from Matt Loes?” Jesse said. “I got into some beefs of my own when I was your age. Including a beauty with one of my own teammates one time. Nobody ever ended up in the hospital.”
“You’ve probably figured out by now I’ve got a bad temper,” Ford said, the words coming out of him slowly, as if on some kind of delay. “Matt’s is worse. He and Jack were best friends. Like brothers. He’s blaming me for what happened. Or for not stopping it from happening. Whatever. I think he just wanted to hit somebody. It turned out to be me.”
“Know the feeling,” Jesse said.
He waited a beat and said, “Who started it?”
Ford turned his head on the pillow, away from Jesse. Winced again.
“Nurse says I need to rest.”
“I won’t be here much longer.”
The kid turned back to him. Somehow he formed a grin with his swollen lips.
“Bullshit,” he said.
Jesse said, “Where did it happen?”
“Over where we had the party,” Ford said.
“Anybody else there?”
Ford shook his head.
“Matt said we needed to talk about Jack, just the two of us, nobody else around,” Ford said. “Get some things straight. Make sure we were on the same page.”
“On the same page about what?”
The kid either didn’t hear the question. Or just ignored it. Jesse thought: He’s wounded in more ways than one.
A nurse poked her head in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Chief Stone, but the boy’s parents say you’ve been in here long enough.”