“Holy crap, King. What are we gonna do?”
“You’re gonna stay here and keep the old girl company and I’m gonna see if I can tell who’s at the door. That’s what,” he said, reaching around under his jacket and grabbing the nine-millimeter he had wedged in his waistband.
At the top of the basement stairs, King hesitated, hoping whoever was at the door would just split when no one answered. He might as well have hoped to sprout wings and fly away. The bell rang again and the knocking continued. King slipped out of his shoes, put his back to the wall, and moved silently toward the vestibule.
“Mrs. Cain. Mrs. Cain, I’ve got a package for you. Mrs. Cain.”
The bell rang a third time, followed by rapping on the front window. King didn’t quite panic, but he realized that if the guy got a good look inside, they were screwed. The furniture in the parlor, like in all the rest of the rooms, had been moved, the rugs rolled back. And now with the old lady dead and without having found what they’d come for, there was no turning back if things went wrong. It wasn’t until King got to the edge of the stairs to the second floor that things really went ass end up.
“Fuck!” he screamed as he stepped on one of the porcelain shards in his stocking feet. He could feel his sock soaking through with blood.
“Mrs. Cain, are you all right? Are you all right? Should I call the police?” The delivery man’s voice was frenzied.
King, dragging his sliced foot behind him, limped quickly to the inside door, opened it, hobbled through the vestibule, undid the lock to the front door, and pulled it open just enough to get the delivery man’s attention. Then King limped quickly back and waited behind the lace-curtained vestibule door. He pulled his T-shirt up to cover his nose and mouth in case he had to confront the guy. He heard the front door open, the thud of the delivery man’s boots on the vestibule floor.
“Mrs. Cain. Mrs. — oh my God!” He’d seen the blood on the floor. “You hold on, ma’am, I’m calling—”
“Put the phone down, hero,” King said, stepping out from behind the door.
But the man in the red, white, and blue coveralls, stunned at the sight of blood on the floor and the situation, didn’t react fast enough to suit King. For the sin of slow reflexes he got the handle of the nine-millimeter to his nose, the cartilage cracking with a sickening snap. The delivery man dropped the package and his cell phone to the floor. He crashed down himself shortly thereafter. King whacked the guy in the back of the head a few times until he was sure the man was unconscious. Then King grabbed him by the back of his collar and dragged him into the house, he relocked the front door, and called to his partner.
“Hump. Leave the old lady and get up here. We got more trouble.”
“Oh, shit, King!” he said when he saw the mess in the vestibule and front hall.
“You don’t usually have a way with words, Hump, but this time you said it all.”
7
Jesse kept his promise to Molly, getting through the ceremony with a lot less trouble than Suit had. It was Suit who’d dropped the ring when he tried slipping it onto Elena’s finger and Suit who was so nervous when it came time to say “I do” that Jesse had to give him a little poke in the ribs to prompt him. Other than Suit’s endearing missteps, the ceremony had gone smoothly. And Jesse found he was so caught up in the joy of it that he felt lighter somehow. The burden of the recent past weighed heavily on him until Reverend Ross Weber had pronounced Suit and Elena husband and wife.
“I’m proud of you, Luther,” Jesse said, slapping Suit on the shoulder.
The reception was in the back room at the Gray Gull and it seemed like half the population of Paradise was in attendance and happy to be there. But that was the effect Suit had on people. He was the guy everybody liked, the guy you could have a friendly drink with or tell your woes to. Everyone who knew Suit even a little bit called him a friend. It was one of the things Elena, who was by nature much more reserved, loved about her new husband. That was one of the things Jesse admired about Suit.
Jesse didn’t make friends easily. Other than Suit, Healy, Molly, and Tamara, all of whom were connected to his work, Jesse could use one hand to count the friends he’d made since arriving in Paradise. Some of them had faded away. Others were dead. It had been the same back in L.A. Even when he played pro ball, he didn’t have many buddies on his teams. His lack of friends wasn’t because he was hard — though he could be if circumstance demanded it — or nasty — which he rarely was — or obnoxious. He was never obnoxious. It was that he kept to himself. Molly called him self-contained. And Tamara had pegged him early on, calling him the perfect embodiment of the cowboy myth: “The man who needs nothing more than his horse and what he came into the world with. Maybe he’s nursing a broken heart or he’s out there searching for the right gal.”
Jesse had grown up in Tucson and loved Westerns. They were the only movies he enjoyed. So he’d always gotten a real kick out of Tamara’s comparing him to a cowboy. He liked it right up until the moment Diana was killed. Because unlike the mythical cowboy, he’d found his right gal, but she was gone forever. The cowboy handbook didn’t come with instructions on grieving. Although he’d been in therapy with Dix for years, he still wasn’t a man to cry it out or let go. He knew better than to think grief was a sign of weakness.
The most surprising guest at the reception was Mayor Constance Walker, an old high-school friend of Elena’s. She’d even been a good sport about dancing a slow dance with Daisy, Paradise’s favorite lesbian restaurateur, and went with it when Daisy dipped her at the end of the song. If the reaction of the guests was any indication, the mayor had done herself more good than if she had kissed a thousand babies. Everyone was still applauding when Mayor Walker asked Jesse for the next dance.
He had little choice but to accept. Their dance drew less interest from the crowd than the dance with Daisy had. Molly, Healy, Tamara, and the groom watched nervously from the sidelines.
Waiting until they were a few steps into their dance, she asked, “How are you feeling today, Jesse?”
“Not drinking, Your Honor, if that’s what you’re asking.”
As was often the case between a mayor and a police chief, the relationship between Walker and Jesse was fraught with all sorts of problems, many of them a function of their jobs. But the relationship between Constance Walker and Jesse Stone had always been a particularly chilly one. Some people just don’t take to each other.
“Not drinking! Thank heavens for small miracles. Nice of you to show some respect for the bride and groom.”
“Uh-huh.”
There were actually two dances going on and Jesse knew it. The mayor enjoyed goading him, especially now that she knew he was vulnerable. But Jesse never took the bait.
“I see you’re with Dr. Elkin. Dating again, Jesse? So soon?”
“Jealous?”
“I’m a married woman. Don’t be silly.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things, Your Honor. Silly was never one of them.”
When the song ended, they made nice for everyone watching, applauding and bowing their heads to each other. But before they totally separated, they each got in a parting shot.
“Remember, Chief Stone, one more screwup.”
“Your Honor forgets, I used to play hardball for a living.”
“I hear slow-pitch softball is about your speed these days.” She smiled an icy smile at him before walking away.
Molly waited until the mayor had gone to the bar before approaching Jesse.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing good, Molly.”
Before the conversation could continue, the DJ announced that it was time for the toast and asked Jesse to come up and do the honors. When the maître d’ shoved a glass of champagne in Jesse’s hand, it was the first loose thread of his unraveling. He drank it down without thinking after he’d raised the glass and said, “To Luther and Elena, with our love and hope that all the best things come to you in your years together. Congratulations.” The very slight buzz of the champagne pulled hard on that loose thread, but it wasn’t until much later in the afternoon that it all went to hell.