Night passage

“I was a pitcher,” Healy said. “Phillies signed me.”

“And?”

“And the war came and I went. When I came home there was the wife, the kids. I went on the cops.”

“Miss it?” Jesse said.

“Every day,” Healy said.

Jesse nodded. They were both silent for a moment. Healy took another small sip of scotch.

“So what have we got,” he said.

“Got her I.D.’d,” Jesse said. “Name’s Tammy Portugal. Twenty-eight years old, divorced, two kids. Lived on the pond, other end of town. Left the kids with her mother yesterday afternoon, her alimony check always arrived on this date and the mother always took the kids, give her daughter a break, let her spend some of the alimony. Tammy was supposed to pick the kids up at noon today.” Jesse glanced at his watch without really seeing it. “Yesterday. When she didn’t show, the mother called us.”

“Where’s the husband?” Healy said.

“Don’t know. Mother says he took off two years ago, right after the divorce. Says he always sends his alimony on time. But she doesn’t know where he is.”

“And the alimony check came today?”

“Yesterday.” Again Jesse did the automatic glance at his watch. “Day before, actually.”

“So she must have cashed it before she went out,” Healy said.

“Yeah, and we could trace it. We’ll check on that in the morning. We didn’t get all of this until the bank closed. Even if she cashed it someplace else,” Jesse said, “it will probably clear through the Paradise Bank, and the president is one of our selectmen.”

“So he’ll be cooperative.”

“Probably,” Jesse said.

Healy looked at him and waited. Jesse didn’t add to the “probably.” Healy let it slide. Jesse saw him let it slide, and also saw him file it away. Stone has some reservations about the bank president.

“You got her movements established, prior to death?” Healy said.

“Not yet. Thought the M.E. might help us on that.”

“He might,” Healy said. “She had drunk a fair amount of alcohol.”

“I figured. And, single kid, twenty-eight, night out, she probably went to a place where she could meet guys.”

“Narrows it down,” Healy said.

“Well, maybe it does,” Jesse said. “I’m guessing she didn’t go clubbing in Boston. Not many people from this town go into Boston.”

“Christ no,” Healy said. “Must be fifteen miles away.”

“This is an insular town,” Jesse said. “She went clubbing, I figure she went around here.”

“Including Route One?”

“Yeah.”

“So you only got about five hundred clubs to check.”

“We’re talking to people who knew her. She may have had some favorite places. Most women don’t like to go to a strange place alone. She probably went to the same places or a few of the same places every time.”

“I can give you some help along Route One,” Healy said.

“I’ll take it. What else the M.E. say.”

“Not too much that you couldn’t see looking at her. She’d been raped. She’d been beaten with a blunt instrument, possibly a human fist. Her neck was broken, which is almost certainly the cause of death. She wasn’t killed here. There’s no blood at all at the scene and there would have been. The word ‘slut’ was written on her with lipstick, probably hers, it matches traces found on her lips. You got any thoughts about ‘slut’?”

“You know it was spray-painted on one of our squad cars, and later the station-house cat was killed and a sign was attached to it that said ‘slut.’ ”

“Sometimes words have private meanings to the people who use them,” Healy said, “especially if they’re nuts.”

Jesse nodded.

“You figure it’s the same person?” Healy said.

“Be a logical guess, and if it is it may not be about the victims, it may be about us,” Jesse said.

“Or it’s a copycat who wants you to think that?”

“You believe that?” Jesse said.

“I don’t believe anything, but it’s possible.”

“Yeah, but is it likely. This has got every mark of an unpremeditated act of rage or sadism or insanity or all of the above. It doesn’t have any hint of some kind of calculating smart guy who pretends to be part of the other deal to confuse us.”

“Unless the guy is even smarter than that and knows you’ll think that way.”

“How long you been a cop?” Jesse said.

“Forty-one years,” Healy said.

“Got me by some, but in forty-one years how many criminal masterminds you run into on a murder case?”

Healy smiled.

“About the same number you have,” he said.

“Which is the same number of big-league at-bats we got between us,” Jesse said.

“Which is zip,” Healy said.

They both sipped whiskey in the dim office.

“You got a suspect?” Healy said.

“Not based on evidence.”

“But you got somebody in mind.”

Jesse shrugged.

“Got a guy in town with maybe a grudge against the department, or probably, more accurate, a grudge against me.”

“Not many towns don’t have somebody like that,” Healy said. “Sort of goes with police work.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

“And you don’t care to tell me his name, anyway,” Healy said.

Jesse shrugged.

“Doesn’t seem right,” he said. “Even to you. I got absolutely nothing to back it up.”

Healy nodded. “You know the former chief here?”

“No.”

“You know he was murdered out in Wyoming?”

“Boy, you don’t miss much,” Jesse said.

“I like to read the stuff that comes through,” Healy said.

“Got blown up,” Jesse said. “On the road to Gillette.”

“Town like this doesn’t have a murder a decade,” Healy said. “You get two in a month.”

“Hate coincidence,” Jesse said. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah. You see any co

“Not yet,” Jesse said.

“But you’re looking.”

“I’m going to.”

Healy nodded again.

“’Course sometimes there are coincidences,” he said.

“We’re keeping it in mind,” Jesse said.

Healy nodded, finished his drink, refilled Jesse’s glass, and put the bottle in his briefcase.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said.

Chapter 44

Hasty Hathaway wandered into Jesse’s office and closed the door behind him and came and sat with one leg on the corner of Jesse’s desk.

“What did that state police captain want?” he said.

“And good morning to you too, Hasty.”

Hathaway shook his head as if he had water in his ear.

“What did he want?”

“His name’s Healy,” Jesse said. “He’s the state homicide commander. He wanted to talk about Tammy Portugal’s murder.”

Hathaway shook his head again, slowly this time.

“We don’t want that, Jesse,” he said. “We solve our own problems here.”

“I haven’t got the forensic resources for a full-fledged homicide investigation, Hasty. He does.”

Hathaway reached over and gave Jesse a clap on the shoulder.

“We have every confidence in you and your men, Jesse, we don’t need the state government sticking its nose under the edge of our tent, so to speak.”

Jesse hated to be touched and he especially hated to be clapped on the shoulder.

“I’m a good cop,” Jesse said. “But a good cop is mostly the product of a good support system. We’re not geared for a homicide investigation.”

“We don’t want that policeman nosing into our business,” Hathaway said. His geniality was dissipating.

“Well, I’m not sure there’s much to be done about that,” Jesse said. “Even if I didn’t want him, which I do, I got no way to keep him out.”

Hathaway was silent. One leg slung over the corner of Jesse’s desk, he drummed quietly with the fingers of his right hand on the desktop. His face seemed to have tightened in on itself. The lines had deepened and the pale blue eyes seemed smaller. He looked feral.

“Jesse, you need to be clear about things,” Hathaway said finally. “You are either with us, or you are not. We value loyalty above all things. It was ultimately Tom Carson’s failure.”