Stone cold

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

Jesse went around the desk and sat in his chair. Je

the edge of his desk so she was looking at him, her right leg resting on the ground, her left draped over his desk,

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Physically? Sure,” Jesse said.

“Small caliber, good

vest.”

“Still, someone tried to kill you.”

“I know.”

“And they did kill one of your men.”

“Yes.”

“And they got away,” Je

“So far,” Jesse said.

Je

“You must feel awful,” she said.

“I try not to feel too much,” Jesse said.

“How’s the drinking?” Je

“I don’t drink anymore,” Jesse

said.

Je

“Did you have to tell Anthony’s

family?”

Jesse nodded.

“His wife,” Jesse said.

“Was it bad?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure you don’t feel

awful?” Je

said.

Jesse shrugged and looked out the window at the press scrum.

Then he took in some air, and looked back at Je

“Yes. I guess, in fact, I do.”

“Of course you do,” she said.

“May I say

something?”

“If I said no, you’d say it

anyway.”

Je

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose I

would.”

She paused and pressed her face for a moment into her semi-cupped hands and rubbed her eyes, as if she were very tired.

Then she raised her head and took a breath.

“I am very sorry I tried to impose upon our relationship to get

a break on this serial killer story,” she said.

“You didn’t need

that. You shouldn’t have had to address that. I was wrong and stupid to ask.”

Jesse smiled faintly.

“Wrong and stupid?”

he said.

“Yes. I was thinking only about myself. I should have been

thinking about you. I’m very sorry.”

Jesse said nothing for a time.

Then he said, “Thank you, Je

“You’re welcome.”

She was wearing perfume. Her hair was well cut and perfectly arranged. Her makeup was bright and expert. Her clothes were very immediate. There was a kind of physical brightness about her that was just short of flamboyant.

“Would you like to talk about it?” she said.

“Off the record?”

Je

“I’ll never tell anyone,” she

said, “what you say to me unless

you ask me to.”

Jesse smiled at her.

“Besides,” he said. “You

don’t even have B-roll for

this.”

Je

“Hell,” she said. “All there is

in this case, is

B-roll.”

“There’s two of them, husband and wife.

Their goal was to kill

me, but I was wearing a vest. We tried to trap them at the shopping center but they killed Anthony and got away in the crowd. Probably should have brought the state cops into it, but coulda, shoulda. We searched their condo, found a computer with my picture on it and, in the sequence of their deaths, the other victims.”

“Like a confession,” Je

“Seemed so. The apartment was empty. No sign of flight, but no

sign of them returning either. Their car is still in the garage.

They probably had a rental. Staties are checking that now. My guess is that these people have already prepared another identity and the Staties won’t find anybody named Lincoln renting a car.”

“So you think you were going to be the pièce de

résistance?” Je

“Yes.”

“And they pla

“Yes. The house is anally cleaned for us. The pictures on the

computer are waiting for us to find them. See how much smarter we are than you shitkickers.”

“And you don’t know where they

went,” Je

“No idea.”

“How did they get to the car?”

Jesse stared at her.

“They had to pick up the rental car,” Je

get there?”

“How did they get the car,” Jesse said.

67

“Maybe one of them drove the

other one over,” Simpson

said. “To get the rental car.”

“Did they stash the rental at their

condo?” Jesse said. “After

they picked it up?”

“Where?” Simpson said. “All the

parking spaces are assigned. If

they put it in somebody else’s spot it would draw attention.”

“Which they don’t want to do,”

Jesse said. “Maybe on the

street?”

“It’s a tow zone on both sides of the road,” Simpson

said.

“Side road.”

“In theory,” Simpson said,

“that’s resident parking

only.”

“How often do we enforce that?”

“Not often,” Simpson said.

“But they don’t know that,”

Jesse said.

“So anything they did with the rental car would risk drawing

attention, which, obviously, they needed to avoid.”

“Or they parked it at the mall, earlier in the day,” Jesse said.

“And took cabs.”

Simpson said, “You think they’re dumb enough to take a

cab?”

“They think they are brilliant,” Jesse said. “And they think

we’re stupid.”

“So they could have.”

“Yes.”

“Paradise Taxi is the only one in town,”

Simpson

said.

“Go see them,” Jesse said.

“Now?”

“Now.”

When Suit was gone, Jesse swung his chair around and put his feet up on the sill of his back window and looked out at the fire trucks parked in front of the fire station. The phone rang. Jesse answered.

“Captain Healy,” Molly said, “on

line two.”

“Bullets match,” Healy said.

“The one they took out of Anthony?”

“Yep. And the ones that were trapped in your vest.”

“We knew they would,” Jesse said.

“How about the car rental

companies.”

“The rental companies are an air ball,”

Healy said. “We checked

in a fifty-mile radius, including Logan Airport. Nobody named Lincoln rented a car.”

“How about the ones that deliver?”

“You thought of that, too,” Healy said.

“We’re a small department,”

Jesse said. “But we try

hard.”

“There’s only two companies in the

fifty-mile radius that

deliver,” Healy said. “Neither one of them has delivered to

Paradise.”

“You get any print matches from their condo?” Jesse

said.

“Nope. They’re not in the system that we can find. You know it’s

not really their condo?”

“They rent it?”

“Yep, from a guy working a two-year consulting project in Saudi

Arabia.”

“He’ll be pleased to hear they took

off,” Jesse

said.

“Unless they paid up front.”

“Would you?” Jesse said.

“When I knew I was going to disappear? No, I don’t think I

would.”

When he was off the phone Jesse swiveled his chair, put his feet

back on the windowsill, and looked at the fire trucks again.

They had a false identity. They must have had it in place,

standing by. That’s why they had been so easy and open about their

history in Cleveland. Maybe the Cleveland identity was assumed too.

If you had time and some smarts you could prepare a full new one, driver’s license, credit cards. Or five full new ones.

Standing on the ru

photographer was taking pictures through the window. Jesse could imagine the caption. Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone ponders

his next move. Jesse kept sitting.

If they had a long-established alternate identification,

then they must have had a long-established plan to kill people.

Maybe Paradise wasn’t the first. People like that didn’t stop very

often. If Paradise wasn’t the first place they‘ d pursued their

passion, it probably wouldn’t be the last. They were unco