Роберт Паркер - The Bitterest Pill

When Jerry opened Precious Pawn and Loan, he held the door for Jolene and hurried to shut the alarm. The second the alarm was disarmed, a man in a Patriots ski mask grabbed Jolene around her throat and pressed a Glock to her temple.

“Do what I tell you and she doesn’t die.”

Jerry held his hands up and promised to do as he was told.

“The cash. Now!”

Jerry hurried to the back room.

“Faster! Faster!”

But he wasn’t fast enough. As Jerry ran toward the back room door, the masked man shot him twice, once through his left shoulder blade and then the back of his head. Jolene screamed as Jerry went down face-first. The gunman released Jolene, who knelt by Jerry. When she turned to look back, a bullet ripped through the top of her left breast. She was already dead when the second bullet made certain she wouldn’t be nearly as pretty in death as she had been in life.

On the way out, the gunman smashed one of the display cases with the butt of his gun and grabbed a fistful of jewelry with a gloved hand. It would all look good for the cameras, like a robbery gone wrong at the hands of a nervous junkie. A nervous junkie who was an expert shot and who would eventually throw the stolen jewelry into the Charles River.

After Lundquist left, Jesse headed to the high school in a cruiser. What he had to tell Virginia Wester was not the type of thing you did over the phone if it could be avoided. Although telling Wester he had to investigate every female teacher in her school was tough, it was nowhere near as difficult to do as a next-of-kin notification. That was the worst thing to do over the phone, and he had been forced to do it more than once, both in L.A. and in Paradise. The hardest call he had ever had to make was several years back, when a college freshman from California had been murdered in the Salter mansion up on the Bluffs. That call to the girl’s parents would haunt Jesse.

When Jesse entered the high school, he drew stares and sideways glances. Heather Mackey’s death was one thing, but the drug locker display, and now Petra North’s OD... There was a cloud that had settled over the school, a veil of guilt and suspicion. It hung in the air in the hallways and classrooms so that even the innocent and naïve were touched by it.

As he climbed the stairs, Brandy Lawton came down.

“Hi, Jesse.”

“Brandy.”

“On the way to see Virginia?”

He nodded.

“How is Petra North?”

“You’ve heard?”

“Everybody’s heard. How is she?”

“Alive,” Jesse said, being purposely vague. If he was going to interview these people, he wanted them as uninformed and on edge as possible.

“That’s something, at least. Was it like Heather? I mean... you know.”

“I’ve got to go, Brandy. Excuse me.”

But as he tried to move past her, she asked if he would be willing to do his talk to the softball team again this spring. He agreed more out of expediency than a desire to give a motivational talk. He had never found those talks very helpful during his baseball career. Then again, Jesse was old-school and thought a kick in the ass often worked better than talk.

Just as Brandy Lawton had asked about Petra, so, too, did Freda and Principal Wester. He was a little less vague with these two women than he had been with Lawton.

“She’s in a coma,” he said. “There is brain activity and there’s a chance she will recover, but I’d prefer it if you would not share that information with the faculty.”

Principal Wester didn’t like that. “And why wouldn’t I share that with my people? They are all concerned about Petra’s recovery.”

“Most, not all.”

“What?”

“Virginia, it’s my belief that one of your teachers tried to kill Petra. That’s why I’m here.”

“To make an arrest?”

“No, to tell you that I need to set up interviews with all your female faculty members and employees. We’ll talk to everyone, from the teachers to the lunch ladies and the bus drivers.”

“Jesse, I’ve bent over backward for you, but you’re going to have to give me something more than your word on this, and I will have to alert the school board.”

Before Jesse could answer, his cell vibrated. The screen said the call was from Lundquist, but he declined the call and let it go to voicemail.

“What I tell you, I say in the strictest confidence. Do you agree not to share this and to keep the students’ names out of your discussion with the faculty and the school board?”

“I do.”

“Independently of one another, Rich Amitrano and Sara York have given my department credible information that a female teacher on staff here had an intimate relationship with Chris Grimm and that relationship extended beyond romance to include the distribution of drugs on school grounds.”

She said, “Some of them will refuse and want a union rep or lawyer.”

“We’ll invite them to bring their reps and lawyers to the station.”

“Then I had better call the president of the school board.”

“I doubt this will make you feel any better, but I think this is almost over.”

“You’re right, Jesse. It doesn’t.”

As was his pattern of late, Jesse stopped by the art rooms on his way out of the building. This time, however, there was no joy in him at the prospect of seeing Maryglenn. He did his usual peeking through the door glass and waiting for a pause in her lesson. When she spotted him lurking, she stepped out to join him in the hall.

“You look terrible,” she said. “Is it Cole? Petra North? Has she—”

“Cole will be fine. I’m going to pick him up now. Petra’s condition is unchanged.”

“Then what?”

“We have to talk... tonight.”

“That sounds ominous.”

He didn’t deny it but said, “After my meeting, but if that doesn’t work for you—”

“That’s fine.”

“Tonight.”

He turned and walked down the hallway without looking back.

He listened to Lundquist’s voicemail as he strode to the car. He didn’t say much, but there was something foreboding in Lundquist’s voice.

Jesse sat in the front seat of the cruiser and returned the call.

“You ever think about taking your act on the road or handicapping at the track?” Lundquist asked.

“No riddles, Brian. I’m not in the mood.”

“Boston Homicide is having a busy day. You called it. Millie Lutz and Rajiv Laghari, both murdered. Lutz was shot to death early this morning driving away from Wexler’s house. Pro hitter, all the way. Motorcycle drive-by. Laghari’s death is more interesting. A junkie allegedly stabbed the good doctor to death in the vestibule of his condo. Want to guess what Boston PD Joint Task Force detective was there to arrest the doctor, showed up just two seconds too late to save Laghari, but was Johnny-on-the-spot to shoot the perpetrator to death?”

“Detective Hector.”

“Bingo.”

“Loose ends no more.”

“Looks that way.”

“Any other predictions, Nostradamus?”

“If I worked at Precious Pawn and Loan on Washington Street in the South End, I might watch out. And a guy named Arakel Sarkassian might want to start wearing a Kevlar vest.”

“You’re a little late on the pawn shop.”

“Two victims?” Jesse asked. “Man and a woman?”

“Nice recovery, Kreskin. Yes. A robbery gone wrong.”

“You still believe in the tooth fairy and Santa?”

“Santa. I never believed in the tooth fairy. But I hear what you’re saying. More loose ends taken care of. Who is this Sarkassian guy?”

“Maybe no one, but he had a connection to Chris Grimm. I’ll text you what I have on him.”