A guy jogging with his dog had found the kid’s body. Had his phone with him, called 911. Suit had gotten there first, then Molly. When Jesse arrived, Molly told him that Suit was operating in a functioning state of shock, adding that she had told him it would be better for everybody for him to go home now, before he fell apart in front of everybody.
“How’d that go?” Jesse said.
“He didn’t,” Molly said. “Go, I mean.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s not,” Molly said.
Jesse looked over. “He seems to be holding it together.”
“For now,” Molly said.
Jesse had a total of twelve people in his department. He counted ten down on the narrow beach now, and in the water. One kid, one with potential named Jimmy Alonso, was back at the office. Another new guy, Barry Stanton, was out on patrol. Jesse knew why the rest of them were here. This was a death in the family, not just Luther (Suitcase) Simpson’s.
“The kids had a party last night up on the campground,” Molly said.
She pointed up at the Bluff. Highest point in Paradise. Jesse’s eyes took him from up there to down here.
Dev Chadha, the medical examiner, was up the beach as the bag with Jack Carlisle’s body inside it was being lifted into the off-road ambulance they sometimes used, one able to make it down the dirt path from the Bluff to the narrow beach. Jesse walked up there now. Suit tried to reach down and help the EMTs. Jesse gently put a hand on Suit’s arm.
“Let them,” he said to Suit.
“I need to help,” Suit said.
“Let him go,” Jesse said, and got between him and the ambulance as the doors closed. Suitcase Simpson. A nickname from an old-time ballplayer. Watching them load the body bag with his ballplaying nephew in it.
“He looked like he was asleep,” Suit said, his voice hoarse.
Jesse nodded.
“Dev said there was bruising, other than what the fall did, that made it look like he’d been punched in the face,” Suit said. “Maybe more than once.”
“If he was,” Jesse said, “we’ll find out who did it.”
They both watched the ambulance slowly grind its way up the dirt road.
“Somebody had to have done this to him,” Suit said.
“Maybe it was an accident,” Jesse said. “Maybe he stumbled and fell somehow.”
“He said he didn’t drink,” Suit said.
“I used to say the same thing when I was his age,” Jesse said. “And so did you.”
Now Suit was the one staring up at the Bluff.
“Does your sister know?” Jesse asked.
Suit said, “I called her. Soon as I got here and saw it was him.”
“Where’s her husband these days?” Jesse said.
“Who gives a shit?” Suit said.
“You need to go be with her,” Jesse said.
“I wanted to help,” Suit said.
“I know,” Jesse said.
“I’m on my way to her now,” Suit said.
“You want Molly to go with you?” Jesse said.
“I’m a grown-ass man, Jesse,” Suit said.
Jesse put a hand on his shoulder.
“No one in this world knows that better than me,” he said.
Suit took in some ocean air, let it out slowly. Jesse watched as he gathered himself now, imagining him like a boxer getting to one knee after having just gotten tagged and knocked down. Then Suit began walking toward the dirt road. Doing the only thing you could. One foot in front of another.
Jesse and Molly began to follow him as Jesse felt his phone buzzing in the back pocket of his jeans.
Nellie
“I’m sorry about Suit’s nephew,” she said.
She already knew. Of course she did. She was Nellie.
Before Jesse could respond she added, “There was a fight at the party.”
Jesse stopped to let Molly go ahead.
“Why are you giving that up?” he said.
“Because it’s Suit’s nephew,” she said.
Five
The day Jesse’s father died in the line of duty for the LAPD, died in the crossfire of a gang shoot-out in South Central, Jesse had done the only thing he knew how to do, when he was the young cop dealing with a death in the family.
He went back to work.
One way or another, there or here, drunk or sober or somewhere in between, it always came back to that for him. Only mechanism that worked for him. Like he had his own ideas about grief counseling.
Nellie still didn’t have all the details on the party. Still didn’t have the name of the other kid in the fight with Jack Carlisle; none of the other players would give it up, at least not yet.
“It’s almost like there’s some kind of code,” she’d said to Jesse on the phone.
“Not almost,” he said. “There is a code.”
A fight didn’t necessarily explain why Jack Carlisle had ended up in the water. But it was something. A start. One foot in front of the other.
Jesse was at Paradise High School a few minutes after the bell at nine o’clock. Jesse knew real grief counselors would be on-site before the morning was out, breaking off kids into small groups, or even working one-on-one with the ones most upset. Jesse knew the drill. There had been a suicide at the start of the school year, the girl who was vice president of the student council.
By now, Jesse was certain, the whole school knew what had happened to the star shortstop of the high school baseball team. The world of social media. Such a joy.
The principal, David Altman, told Jesse he’d need a few minutes to get the baseball team to the gym, as Jesse had requested.
Jesse was in Altman’s office with him. Being there made Jesse remember all the times in high school he’d been in the principal’s office. Never voluntarily.
Always with cause.
“I’ll meet you there,” Jesse told him. “The gym.”
“I’m frankly not sure how the parents are going to feel about their children being questioned by the chief of police,” Altman said. “As if the boys are suspects or something.”
“If they object,” Jesse said, “have them call me and I’ll explain this one crucial thing to them.”
“What thing?”
“That I don’t give a flying fuck about their feelings,” Jesse said.
Altman was short, bald, slightly overweight, favored the kind of bow tie he was wearing this morning. His face now turned the color of a cherry blossom at Jesse’s word choice, which didn’t surprise him, since he’d always considered the principal of the high school an officious little prig.
“I certainly hope you won’t use language like that in front of the student athletes,” Altman said.
“Only if one of them fucking annoys me,” Jesse said.
Fifteen minutes later the members of the Paradise High baseball team were facing Jesse from where they all sat in the bleachers.
Jesse told Altman he could leave.
“This is my school, Chief Stone,” Altman said.
“It’s your school about as much as this is my town,” Jesse said. “I need the boys to be able to speak freely.”
“They can do that in front of me,” Altman said.
“No, they can’t,” Jesse said. “We can do this here, or I can load up the team bus and take them all to the station and you can speak freely to their parents about that.”
Altman stood his ground, but not for long, then turned and walked out of the gym as if he had important school business waiting for him somewhere else in the building.
Jesse stared up into the faces of kids he had watched win the big game the day before.
“Listen, I knew Jack Carlisle,” Jesse said. “And some of you might know that. I worked with him some on playing shortstop. Won’t wear you out with a trip down memory lane, but I made it as high as Triple-A when I was young. Dodgers chain. I just wasn’t as good as Jack was going to be.”