Jesse pressed the ignition button and turned the Explorer around. As he did, he caught sight of a van about fifty yards ahead of him and of a masked, shadowy figure of a man next to the van. There was something familiar about the man — his posture, his height, his build — that set alarm bells off in Jesse’s head, but he remembered the burst of automatic weapon fire and didn’t want to risk getting shot out here in the middle of nowhere.
Windows down, listening, Jesse proceeded slowly along the road back to the fork. He heard the sound of the van’s engine coming to life. He stopped the Explorer at the fork in the trees, the sound of the van’s engine now fading away. And then all he heard was the incessant chorus of crickets filling the void in the night. But when he turned back to head down to the paved road below, the night exploded.
The Explorer’s two front tires blew, one after the other, then the back tires at once. Jesse was thrown into the door and the SUV almost slammed into a tree. With some slick handling, Jesse managed to avoid the tree. When he got out of the vehicle, he saw that someone had laid spike strips across the road. He’d used spike strips during his time in uniform in L.A. It was a non-lethal way of stopping a suspect’s car during a chase. He was kneeling down to check out the damage to his tires when he realized he was screwed. As part of the ransom deal, he’d agreed to be unarmed. And even if he had been carrying, his nine-millimeter would have stood little chance against an M-4 or MP-5.
That was when the quiet of the night was shattered once again. Only this time it wasn’t the sound of exploding tires or a burst of automatic weapon fire. It was one thunderous rifle shot. Then, a few seconds later, a second shot. This time the bullet slammed into a tree above Jesse’s head. He had to get away from his Explorer in case the Hangman was doubling back his way. So he grabbed the old-style Maglite he kept in his Explorer. He ran as hard as he could away from the direction of the shot, darting in and out of the trees to make himself a difficult target.
Twenty minutes later, not having heard a shot, footsteps, or anything else but the crickets, Jesse wandered out from behind the fallen logs he’d hidden behind. He turned on the big flashlight and noticed what looked like a campfire burning near where he had left his Explorer. As he approached, Jesse realized the fuel for the campfire was the master tape of The Hangman’s Sonnet. He used a stick to yank the metal reel out of the flames, but it was no good. What was left was charred metal and goo. It didn’t make any sense, he thought, having the tape and the money only to destroy the tape. And then, suddenly, it made perfect sense.
Jesse left his SUV and headed up the hill to where he had unloaded the money. He found some spent shell casings and spotted the van’s tire tracks in the dirt and grass. He followed them. They led west, in the opposite direction Jesse had used to get to the clearing. It was a long walk to the other side of the clearing. When he got there, Jesse found another unpaved trail. He pointed his flashlight down the trail. The body of the masked man was no more than a hundred feet down the hill.
Even as he slid down the slope, bracing himself with his left hand, Jesse got that same vibe he’d gotten earlier when his headlights caught the silhouette of the man in black. There was something familiar about him. When he reached the body — facedown in the dirt, arms and legs thrown out at unnatural angles — there was little doubt the man was dead. His body was still in that way only the dead can be: vacant and unbreathing. There was a large bloody hole through the man’s right scapula. Jesse felt for the pulse he knew he wouldn’t find and got the results he expected.
Now he had decisions to make. Procedure would have had him leave the body as he found it and go for the police. On his way here, Jesse had passed a small town several miles down the road and, if he was lucky, he might be able to flag a ride back there or get someone to call the police on their cell phone. Short of that, he could go back to where he had tossed the burner phone and try to find it in the woods. But if things worked as he hoped, as he had tried to ensure they would, cops would be showing up soon enough. As he heard the sound of distant sirens, Jesse broke the rules and lifted the mask off the dead man’s face.
Roger Bascom didn’t seem any more pleasant in death than he had in life.
84
“You Stone?” the first cop asked him.
Jesse held up his shield and said, “Jesse Stone, Paradise, Mass, chief of police.”
“Yeah, we got a call from a retired captain from the Massachusetts State Police.”
“Captain Healy.”
“That’s him.”
“Healy said there was some shooting going on out here and that you might need some help.”
Jesse pointed at Bascom’s body.
“You do it?”
Jesse understood what the cop was asking. He shook his head. “No. I’m unarmed except for this.” Jesse waved his Maglite. “Did you find a van on your way up here?”
The cop nodded, pointing over his back with his thumb. “Black cargo van on the road. Driver’s-side window shattered.”
“Find anything in it?”
“First I thought I better get up here to see about you. Don’t worry. There are units down there now checking it out.” The cop was curious. “You know the vic?”
“Name is Roger Bascom. Listen, Officer... Miles,” Jesse said, reading the cop’s name off his chest tag. “Can I use your cell phone? I know it’s not SOP, but it’s urgent. I’ll put it on speaker, so you can hear both sides of the conversation.”
Miles hesitated but eventually handed his iPhone to Jesse.
“Who is this?” Healy, not recognizing the number, asked, his voice crackling over the speaker.
“It’s me, Jesse. An Officer Miles let me use his phone. Thanks for having my back.”
“What are friends for? Besides, I almost feel like a cop again. Who’s the vic?”
“Bascom.”
“Get out! Bascom, the head of security on Stiles Island?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He never struck me as some criminal genius.”
“He wasn’t,” Jesse said. “He was a pawn. Do you have the shooter in sight?”
“A few hundred yards ahead of me, yeah. He’s tooling down the highway like he hasn’t got a care in the world.”
“He’s got six million reasons to feel relaxed.”
“Not for long, but listen, Jesse...”
“What?”
“When I tell you who it is, you’re not going to like it.”
“I know who it is,” Jesse said.
“But how could you—”
“It clicked a few minutes ago. It has to do with surveillance cameras. I’ll explain it to you later. For now, keep him in sight. You better call Lundquist and clue him in, but keep everyone else in the dark. Call Molly and tell her to have Peter Perkins search Bascom’s apartment. Tell her to assign two units to the Wickham estate. Anyone coming or going from the estate except the mayor or Nita Thompson gets a tail.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“Nothing else for now.”
Healy asked, “Did you get the tape?”
“It’s destroyed.”
“Damn!”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll explain it to you later.”
“Okay, Jesse.”
“You know how I said Bascom was a pawn?”
“Yeah.”
“He had company.”
“Like who?”
“Me.”
85
Jesse spent several hours recounting his story to the local and Vermont State Police. Only after Jesse assured them that he would arrest the killer within twenty-four hours did they arrange for him to get a ride back to Paradise. Once he was back at the station, he made calls to Nita Thompson and Stan White, who made a verbal show of feeling betrayed and distraught about the destruction of the tape. After that, Jesse made some other calls, all the pieces falling into place. He wished he could be happy about being right, but there were times, he thought, that wrong was better.