When Jesse got there he already knew what he’d find.
Squatting
on his heels in the rain beside Peter Perkins, he saw the two small bullet holes in the chest, one on each side. The blood had seeped through Kennedy’s raincoat and been nearly washed away by the rain,
leaving only a light pink stain.
“Same thing,” Jesse said.
“Name’s Kennedy,” Peter Perkins
said. “He’s a lawyer, works in
Boston. He lives over there, on Maple. Figure he got off the train, cut through the church parking lot toward his house … and never made it.”
“Family?” Jesse said.
“Wife, three daughters.”
“They know?”
“They came over to see what was going on,”
Perkins
said.
“Christ,” Jesse said.
“It wasn’t good,” Perkins said.
“I’ll talk with them,” Jesse
said.
The rain was washing over Kennedy’s face and soaking his
hair.
“And they won’t have any idea why someone killed him,” Jesse
said. “And I’ll ask if they know Kenneth Eisley or Barbara Carey,
and they won’t. And we’ll find no connection among the three of
them and the bullets will be from the same guns that killed the other two.”
“You think it’s a serial killer,
Jesse?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Any fix on
when it
happened?”
“I talked with the pastor of the church and he says that the
church music director came in to practice on the organ at about four,” Perkins said. “And didn’t see anything. So, sometime between
four and when the call came in at seven-fifteen. Between four and seven-fifteen there were three commuter trains, the last one at six twenty-three.”
“Who found the body,” Jesse said.
“Couple kids skateboarding.”
“In the dark?”
“The pastor says the parking lot lights are on a timer and they
turned on at seven. They never changed the timer for daylight savings.”
“The kids still here?”
“Yeah. They’re in the cruiser with
Eddie.”
“Hang on to them.”
Jesse stood up. “Don’t move a
thing,” he said. “Everything just
the way it is.”
“Sure thing,” Perkins said. “I
still got to take my
pictures.”
Jesse walked away from the scene, a hundred yards up the railroad tracks to the Paradise Center Station. It was empty and dark. The last train would have been at 6:23. He turned and looked down the tracks. This time of year it would have been dark by six.
But if you were used to it, you probably wouldn’t have a problem.
He started down the tracks. He wasn’t used to it, but the light
from the church parking lot was helpful. Besides, I’m a natural
athlete. There was a pathway through the screen of trees into
the back of the church parking lot. He walked through this way,
carrying his briefcase. Lot was still dark. He’s walking down here,
toward Maple Street, and he sees a couple people walking toward him, and he doesn’t pay any attention and then they get close and
bang. He falls pretty much straight backward and, unless they weren’t shooting as good as usual, was dead before he was through
falling. He stood over the dead man and looked around the parking lot. There was a maroon Chevrolet Cavalier parked close to the church, and a brown Toyota Camry beside it. All the other vehicles were police and fire vehicles, lights on, flashers flashing. I wonder why cops always do that. I wonder why we don’t shut the damn things off when we get there.
He turned
slowly and looked around the parking lot. Across from him was the exit onto Sea Street. To the right a path led through another small screen of trees to Maple Street. Jesse walked to the exit and looked at Sea Street. To the left took you out of town, heading for Route 1. To the right was downtown and the waterfront. He walked back and through the path to Maple Street. Front lawns, driveways, garrison colonials. To the right, near the end of the street, one of the houses was more brightly lit than the others, with several cars parked out front. Kennedy’s house?
“You know which house is
Kennedy’s?” Jesse said.
“No, I can ask Anthony.”
Jesse shook his head.
“Okay,” he said to Perkins. “You
can close it
up.”
Perkins nodded.
“I’ll talk with those kids,”
Jesse said.
“First cruiser,” Perkins said.
“Where the skateboards
are.”
21
Jesse got into the front seat of the cruiser beside Ed Cox and turned to talk with the boys in back. The boys were about fourteen.
They reeked of self-importance. Too bad about the dead guy, but this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to them.
“My name’s Jesse Stone,” he said.
“We know who you are.”
“Did you tell your story to the officer?”
Jesse
said.
“Yes.”
“And give him your names and addresses?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, now I want you to tell me.”
“My name’s Richard Owens,” one
of the boys said.
He was short and slim and blond with a slacker haircut and a gold stud in his left earlobe.
“What do they call you?” Jesse said.
“You mean like my nickname?”
Jesse nodded.
“Rick,” the boy said. “Or Ricky
sometimes.”
“You?” Jesse said to the other boy.
He was an olive-skinned kid, with long black hair that had not fared well in the rain.
“Sidney Lessard,” the boy said.
“They call me
Sid.”
“Okay, Sid,” Jesse said.
“Officer Cox will take you someplace else out of the rain - you can use my car, Eddie.”
“How come we can’t stay
together?” Rick said.
“Police procedure,” Jesse said.
“What procedure?” Rick said.
“See if you both tell the same story.”
“You think we’re lying?” Rick
said.
“No way to know,” Jesse said.
“Yet.”
“For crissake …” Rick said.
“I’ll go,” Sid said.
“We ain’t lying. I’ll just go with
him.”
Cox got out of the driver’s side and opened the back door. Sid
got out and they walked toward Jesse’s car. Jesse reached over and
shut off the blue light.
“What’d you see, Rick?” Jesse
said.
“Me and Sid come over here to skateboard, you know, it’s nice
pavement, and they got that handicap ramp, and they turn the lights on every night.”
“Even in the rain?” Jesse said.
“Yeah, sure, we don’t care about
rain.”
“You got here after the lights were on.”
“‘Course, you can’t board in the
dark.”
“‘Course,” Jesse said.
“Anyway, so we’re boarding, maybe five minutes, and I come down
the ramp and hit a pebble and fall on my ass and the board goes off into the dark. And I go to get it and I see this guy and I yell for Sid and we can tell he’s dead, and -”
“How?”
“How what?” Ricky was slightly annoyed at the
interruption.
“How’d you know he was dead?”
“I … I don’t know, you can just
tell, you know. Ain’t you
ever seen dead people?”
“I have,” Jesse said.
“And he’s got this pink stain like blood on his front,” Rick
said. “So we run like hell for the church and tell the minister,
and he calls the cops, and you guys show up.”
“You see anything that might be a clue?”
Jesse
said.
“I told you all we seen,” Rick said.