“For chrissakes almighty! Who the hell is getting me out of bed at this hour?” An angry woman’s voice cut through the wood-and-glass door as if it were made of tissue paper. “Who is it?”
“Chief Stone, ma’am, of the Paradise PD.”
Two locks clicked open and the door pulled back. Standing there in the vestibule was a slender woman in her early sixties with short, slightly disheveled gray/brown hair. She had a thin, handsome face that was probably much more welcoming with a smile on it. She was dressed in a beat-up white robe and had bare feet.
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“I’m here about Maude Cain.”
Her face went from anger to sadness. “Terrible thing. Terrible.”
“You’re Mrs. Lynch, is that right?”
“Sharon Lynch, yes. Come on in, Chief. I’ll make us some coffee.”
Jesse followed her into the kitchen and sat quietly, listening to Sharon Lynch make small talk as she put on the coffee. He was careful not to speak unless she asked a specific question. He was anxious to hear how she filled the void.
“I don’t know what I can tell you that I didn’t tell that pretty officer of yours who was here on Sunday. Beautiful black woman. What was her name?”
“Alisha.”
“Alisha, right. Like I said, I’m not sure what I can add, Chief. How would you like your coffee?”
“I’ll have it the way you’re having it.”
That made her smile, as he knew it would. She placed the coffee down on the place mat. “Here ya go.” She sat directly across from him.
“What was it you said to Alisha? I haven’t had a chance to study the reports.”
She didn’t like that and made a face. “Ralph, that’s Mr. Lynch, and I were going to go down to Boston to visit our kids, Jeremy and Jill. And—”
Jesse cut her off. “Where is Ralph now?”
She liked that even less. “Work. He owns a construction business. He’s an early riser and is out of the house most days before I get up. Like I was saying, we were going down to Boston and were going to get an early start, but one of his men called and he had to go into the office to put out a fire.”
“Did you or Ralph notice anything out of the ordinary Saturday?”
“Like we told your officer, we didn’t notice a thing. Maude has kept to herself lately and didn’t come out of the house much these days.”
“What was Maude like?”
“Nice woman. A very proud woman and one ahead of her time. She kept her own name. Pity, though.”
That got Jesse’s attention. “What’s a pity? Her dying?”
“Of course, but that’s not what I mean, Chief. Their family had more money than the Lord himself, but poor Maude needed to take in boarders for years in order to pay her bills. You’d think the people in the family would have planned better for their own. Charity is a good thing, but at the expense of your own... I just don’t see it.”
“Boarders?”
“Boarders, yes. Lodgers, you know. But not for the last few years,” Sharon said. “She couldn’t handle it any longer. Still, until about five years ago she was still taking them in... mostly in the summer.”
Jesse thought about questioning her further but decided he could always come back another time. First he wanted to knock on some other doors. Then he wanted to have a talk with someone at town hall.
26
Jesse had hoped to avoid the mayor completely, but her black Suburban was parked in its official spot. He knew that once he set foot inside the building, word would leak back to her. So now the best he could hope for was to put off seeing her until after he had spoken to Dick Bradshaw, the town code enforcement officer. Bradshaw’s car, with the Paradise town seal painted on its doors, was in its spot, too. He laughed to himself. One for two wasn’t bad. You bat.500 in baseball and they’d build you a separate wing in Cooperstown.
Jesse rapped his knuckles on the wavy glass panel of the code enforcement office.
“Come in.”
Dick Bradshaw was sitting behind an ancient metal desk cluttered with files and papers, a computer monitor off to one side. Bradshaw’s white uniform shirt fit him about as well as Roscoe Niles’s T-shirt had fit him. Dick had put on some poundage since Jesse had moved to Paradise, and his hair, what was left of it, anyway, had turned a wiry steel gray.
“Jesse!” Bradshaw said, a big smile on his face as he looked up from his coffee and egg sandwich. “Been a long time since we’ve seen you in here.”
Jesse nodded to his left, toward the mayor’s offices.
“Yeah, the mayor certainly has no love for you. What did you ever do to her to make her dislike you so much?”
“I didn’t have to do anything, Dick. I just had to be who I am.”
“True. You never were much for playing ball by the politicians’ rules, were you?”
Jesse shook his head.
“Sit down,” Bradshaw said. “Sit, sit.”
Jesse sat across from Bradshaw, shaking his hand as he did.
“Want some coffee, Jesse? I can brew us up another pot.”
“I’m fine.”
“So what is it I can do for you, or is it the chief of police I’m speaking to?”
“Don’t sweat it, Dick. This is off the record.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Maude Cain.”
Bradshaw’s smile vanished. “Awful news. She was a fine lady and this town wouldn’t be what it is without her family.”
“Sorry I never met her.”
“But you’re not here for a testimonial, are you? Makes me wonder what you want with the code enforcement officer.”
“Relax, Dick. It’s that I hear Maude took in boarders. Don’t you need a license from your department to do that, a food-and-health license from the commonwealth, and a safety inspection certificate from the PFD?”
Bradshaw shrugged his big round shoulders. “What can I tell you, Jesse? She was already doing it when I took over from Hurley and he told me to just let her be, that she and her family had helped make this town and that I was to lay off or it would be trouble for me. And what was the harm, really? We didn’t have much of a tourist industry back in the day. So when people passed through town there was only the hotel or the few unofficial places where people rented out rooms. If there were going to be tax issues, they would be hers and hers alone, not that anyone in Paradise was going to drop a dime on her. There weren’t even any B-and-Bs in town. You wanted to stay in one of those, you had to go to Marblehead.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anything else I can do for you?”
“You said it was unofficial, Dick, but did you make her keep any sort of records at all? Did she have to report to you in any way?”
“How do you mean?”
“Did she at least have to keep a guestbook or a roster of guests, anything like that?”
“Sorry, Jesse. No records, no complicity. We couldn’t risk being held accountable. You know how it works.”
“I do.”
“So what is it, Jesse? You think the people who did this to Maude had once stayed with her?”
“Maybe. At this point, I don’t know anything for sure, but it makes sense to look into all possibilities. You never know if some guy who stayed at the house ended up in jail or prison. Guys on the inside talk a lot of garbage, spin all sorts of bull. One says something about the old lady who had a safe in her house or gold bars. Believe me, it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Man, I would hate to think that, but it makes sense. Makes you think twice about letting strangers into your house.”
“So,” Jesse said, “you can understand why a guestbook would be helpful.”
“What can I say, Jesse? I don’t know of one. Maybe you should have someone go through the house.”
“Thanks, Dick. I’ll do that, but thought I’d come here first.”