“I’m special.”
She laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. So stop stalling.”
“I was over talking to Dick Bradshaw.”
“About what?”
“About what you’re going to assign someone to do or do yourself.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “I can’t wait.”
“Did you know Maude Cain let out rooms?”
“A lot of people in town did before we got touristy and the B-and-Bs started springing up. The hotel was too expensive for some folks because it was the only game in town.”
“Did your family do it?”
“C’mon, Jesse, you’ve seen the house I grew up in. There wasn’t even enough room for us. Where were we going to put them, in the crawl space? But some of the kids I went to school with, their parents did it.”
“Can you remember any of the kids who did it?”
“Where are you going with this, Jesse?”
“First, send someone over to the Cain house and see if they can locate a log book, ledger, or guestbook where Maude might have kept an accounting of who she rented rooms to. If we get hold of that, we’re going to see if we can’t track down some of the people who stayed with her. But if we don’t come up with the guestbook, maybe we can find some folks who stayed at Maude’s one week and then someplace else the next.”
“Long shot.”
“Very long shot, but till we get a hit on the fingerprints or something else, it’s a place to start.”
“Any luck in Boston?”
He shrugged. “We’ll see. If Vinnie Morris calls, put him through no matter what.”
Molly’s expression was a cross between fear and fury. Although Suit, Healy, and Jesse were the only people who knew for a fact what Jesse had allowed to happen in the immediate wake of Diana’s murder, Molly had always suspected things hadn’t quite happened the way the official story went. She had trouble believing that a convenient coconspirator had somehow swooped into the room, grabbed Diana’s killer, and vanished before Jesse, Suit, or Healy could stop him. She didn’t know that Vinnie Morris had anything to do with what had gone down, but she had never quite approved of Jesse’s closeness to him or Gino Fish. No matter how many times Jesse explained how big-city policing meant sometimes making allies of the bad guys, she didn’t like it.
“I thought after Gino Fish died, you would—”
“Let’s not do this again, Molly. Call Alisha in, and you and Peter go over to the Cain house.”
“Perkins, too?”
“You know Peter. Sometimes his obsessiveness has a benefit.”
She laughed, recognizing the truth in Jesse’s words.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I think he put the O in OCD.”
“I’ll tell him you said that.”
“You do and you’ll pay.”
“Threatening your superior officer?”
“Promising, not threatening.”
“Get out of here, Crane.”
“I’ll wait until Alisha gets here.”
“Fair enough.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I suppose I should go over and talk to Bascom to see what’s up with the security arrangements for Terry Jester’s big party. The mayor sees this as a big photo op for her. Fine. It means I can get everybody overtime. She’s also going to push the DA to charge the perps in the Cain case with murder two.”
“What’s with her lately, anyway? She can be mayor here forever. Why is she—”
“That’s the problem, Molly. She doesn’t want to be mayor of Paradise forever.”
“Ambition.” She shook her head. “It’s worse than jealousy.”
“I’ve seen it eat people alive. Like desperation, it causes people to make dumb choices.”
He patted Molly on the shoulder, signaling that their talk was over. He watched as she walked away from him and wondered if she really understood how valuable she was to him and to Paradise.
29
It was a very short trip over the bridge to Stiles Island. Stiles was quite a beautiful place in the way that things in the Northeast could be. In the desert, where he’d grown up, things changed, but subtly. The changes were small ones, so that only someone with local eyes would notice them. Sure, the desert might bloom after a rain, but mostly it would seem always the same to the uninitiated. It could be like that in L.A., too. In the Northeast even a blind man could track the change in seasons. Here the seasons were scented distinctly. They had distinct sounds, distinct weather. Stiles Islanders also had the benefit of the ocean and the coves. It’s why the rich built summer homes here. Jesse had always thought Stiles was at its best and most alluring in summer. Now he was less sure. The brown grass and the silence, the desolation of winters on the island, suddenly held more appeal for him.
Jesse pulled his Explorer up to the doorstep of the security building. He remembered how, when he first came to Paradise, there wasn’t even a security building on the island, just a flimsy military-surplus Quonset hut tucked out of sight behind some hedges. Now the security offices were nearly as elaborate as the Paradise police station. It was certainly more modern and better equipped in terms of electronic surveillance. There weren’t many places you could travel on Stiles that weren’t visible to the people inside the security building. The building itself was a long way away from that flimsy old hut. With its robin’s-egg-blue clapboards, white fish-scale shingles, and bluestone driveway, it might easily have been mistaken for a gate house at one of the larger estates on Stiles. The Island, upscale to begin with, had really gone big. The homes went for millions, and that was due, in part, to the owners’ reluctance to part with them. When a Stiles house or a piece of property went on the market, there tended to be a feeding frenzy. Even during the crash, the houses on Stiles held their value.
Jesse walked through the front door and strolled right by two uniformed security men who were too busy with the array of video screens in front of their faces to pay any mind to him. All the house alarms were wired into the buildings. After the siege, resident participation in the network was no longer optional. If you bought on the island, you had to agree to be part of the network. Jesse understood that private security had its purpose, that cops couldn’t be everywhere, couldn’t guard everything for everyone, but they still made him uncomfortable. Their loyalties were bought and paid for, not a matter of duty, not a matter of right and wrong. And right and wrong were as essential to Jesse Stone as his spine.
When he made it down the hallway to the threshold of Bascom’s office, he was stopped by a tall guy in a light blue blazer with eyes to match, a white shirt, and a red tie. His light brown hair was short, gelled flat, and perfectly parted on the left side, as if he had escaped from an episode of Leave It to Beaver. His vibe couldn’t have been more ex-military if he were wearing camouflage. Jesse knew all of Bascom’s personnel. They were required to register with the PPD and produce their carry permits and prove they had met the same shooting certification Jesse’s people did. He didn’t know this guy and that didn’t sit well with him. It wasn’t because he felt Bascom had tried to put something over on him. It was more a reminder of how sloppy Jesse had been in his administrative duties since Diana’s death. He was a drunk and he hated things that made it impossible for him to deny it. On the other hand, Blue Blazer knew who Jesse was.
“Chief Stone,” he said, putting out his right hand, smiling a cautious smile. “I’m Dylan Taylor, Bascom’s new second. Happy to meet you.”
“Nice meeting you. Call me Jesse, please.”
“Will do, sir.”
Jesse smiled at him for that. “How long have you been out?”
“A year now, sir.”
“Jesse.”