“Who’s the dead cop you mentioned upon your arrival?” Roarke said.
“His name was Charlie Farrell,” Jesse said, “and he was once the chief of police in Paradise.”
“Now I do recall reading something about that,” Roarke said.
Jesse quickly told him the rest of it, how Charlie died, Roarke saying he’d read about that, too, the death of Sam Waterfield, and the disappearance of Steve Marin.
“Marin used to work for you,” Jesse said. “I believe in your headbanging division.”
“You say.”
“His arrest record says.”
“A lot of people work for me,” Roarke said.
He looked down, as if just remembering he had a martini in front of him, and drank some of it.
“My friend Charlie gets his head caved in,” Jesse said. “Marin’s roommate gets thrown off a cliff. It turns out Marin used to bounce people around for you. Or worse. I’m just trying to understand if there might be a connection.”
“Go try to understand someplace else,” Roarke said, “and not come down here from your precious little town and insult me in front of business associates.”
“From what I hear,” he said, “insulting you might not be even possible.”
“That supposed to be an insult?”
“Kind of.”
“Beat it before you make more trouble for yourself than you already have with this bullshit fishing expedition of yours.”
“Not quite yet,” Jesse said.
The muscle guy took a couple steps in their direction. Roarke held up a hand.
“Before my friend died,” Jesse said, “he had taken a sudden interest in cryptocurrency. And I have recently heard you described as the crypto king of Boston. So stay with me here: I’ve got a guy who’s called the crypto king and a guy who used to work for him disappearing from my precious little town. That’s why I don’t see this as making trouble for myself. Or you. Just solid police work.”
“Your problems, not mine,” Roarke said.
Roarke shifted slightly in his chair and looked back at Richie now.
“Make sure to tell your father there could be consequences for a breach of respect like this,” Roarke said.
“Respect for whom?” Richie said. “Or from whom, that might be a better way of looking at it?”
No one said anything then. The muscle guy didn’t move. Roarke stood up again. Definitely a big boy. He came around the table. He and Jesse were close enough Jesse could smell the gin. Even Jesse had never liked the taste of gin.
“You made a mistake coming here with nothing tonight,” Roarke said. “So now I’m telling you not to make a bigger one and bother me ever again.”
“Yikes,” Jesse said.
“I’m old school, Stone,” Roarke said in a quiet voice.
“I always wonder what that actually means,” Jesse said.
Roarke smiled. “Maybe it means that it would be a terrible tragedy if one dead cop turned out to be just a start.”
Jesse let Roarke have the last word and walked out first. Richie followed. He drove Richie back to where he’d parked at Tony and Elaine’s, and thanked him for the ride-along.
“I really didn’t do anything,” Richie said.
“You did a lot you didn’t have to do with no skin in the game,” Jesse said. “I owe you one.”
“You poked a bear tonight,” Richie said. “I think even my father is afraid of this guy, even though he’d die before admitting that to me. And I’ve never known Desmond to be afraid of anyone.”
“Did it occur to you that Roarke’s response wasn’t proportional to me showing up here?”
“Just watch your back,” Richie said. “And maybe not just yours. That’s coming from the son of an old-school guy.”
They shook hands.
“You want me to tell Sunny you said hello,” Richie said.
“Your call,” Jesse said.
He was already thinking about making a call of his own, and did, as soon as he was on 93 heading north. He had a bad feeling about Liam Roarke.
Molly occasionally accused him of not being in touch with his feelings.
Not tonight.
Forty-Five
Nellie slid in next to Hal Fortin. Molly sat across from him. “Mind if we join you, Coach?” she said.
“Yes, I do mind,” Fortin said, “not that it seems to matter.”
“Bitches,” Nellie said, sadly shaking her head. “What can you do about them?”
“You’re both out of line,” Fortin said.
“Are you going to make us run some laps?” Nellie said.
“I’m expecting someone,” Fortin said.
“No worries, this won’t take long,” Molly said.
Fortin was stuck and knew it, unless he decided to shove Nellie out of the booth, or climb over the table to escape.
Nellie had her chin in her left hand, and was smiling at the coach of the Paradise High baseball team.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Fortin said to Molly. When he turned just enough to look directly at Nellie he said, “And I never had anything to say to you.”
“But you hid it so, so well,” Nellie said.
A waitress came over, ready to take a drink order.
“I’ll have a Sam Adams in a bottle,” Fortin said. “The ladies are just leaving.”
The waitress looked at Nellie and then Molly, somewhat uncertainly, then turned and walked away.
“We are leaving,” Molly said. “Just not this second.”
“You can’t just accost somebody like this in a public place,” Fortin said.
Molly grinned. “Want to call a cop?”
Fortin’s face was starting to redden. “What the hell do you want?”
“Well, for starters,” Molly said, “Chief Stone and I continue to be of the belief that we are not getting your full cooperation regarding the death of Jack Carlisle. So I have embraced this opportunity to ask you myself why that might be.”
The waitress came back with Fortin’s beer, and placed it in front of him. He ignored it, and her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fortin said.
“From the start you have gone out of your way to tell your players not to cooperate with our investigation,” Molly said. “I find that odd.”
“I would, too, if I’d done it. But I haven’t.”
“Coach,” Nellie said, admonishing him. “We all know better than that.”
“It is also our belief,” Molly said, “that you are either hiding something about Jack or hiding something about your team. Frankly, nothing else makes sense.”
“In your opinion,” Fortin said.
“What promise to Jack or about Jack are your players keeping?” Nellie asked.
“News to me if they are.”
“Is it?” Molly said.
“You calling me a liar?” Hal Fortin said.
“You tell me,” Molly said.
Before Fortin could answer her, Nellie said, “I know you’ve heard this before, Hal, but we are eventually going to find out if you are hiding something. And when we do, it is probably going to burn your ass when I put it in the newspaper.”
“All I am trying to do at the moment is try to win a state tournament for these kids, without the kid who might have been the best ballplayer his age in the whole goddamn Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
“I saw you slap one of those kids,” Molly said. She grinned again. “I thought there weren’t supposed to be any black eyes in team.”
“Clever,” Fortin said.
“Still thinking there might have been more to that slap than you’ve indicated,” Molly said.
“I told you already,” he said. “I lost my head for a second. Everybody’s been under a lot of pressure lately, including me.”