Роберт Паркер - The Bitterest Pill

Lundquist cleared his throat. “Far as I can tell, Sarkassian is still drawing breath. How’s your boy?”

“I’m headed over to the hospital to pick him up.”

“Good — oh, Jesse, one more thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The white van, we got it on video in Helton and coming out of Helton.”

“You think the Grimm kid was killed in Helton and dumped on the way out of town?”

“Maybe so. That’s how I’m looking at the case, working back from where the body was discovered into Helton.”

Jesse wanted to know. “Any hits on the McDonald’s angle?”

“None in or near Helton.”

“Okay, Brian. Thanks. Can you send me the surveillance camera footage?”

“Will do.”

Before heading to the hospital, Jesse drove into the Swap. Jesse’s Explorer had been flatbed-towed over to Galliano’s Auto Body Shop on Trench Alley. Over the last several years, Jesse and Tony Galliano had become well acquainted. Jesse’s old Explorer, the one he’d had since L.A., had been shot to hell and wrecked during a wild car chase that had ended in a fiery explosion not far from the body shop, and a few months ago his new Explorer was deliberately rammed off the Bluffs and destroyed.

“Hey, Chief, you ever think maybe you might try a surplus tank or something?” Tony said, as he walked to greet Jesse. “You’re freakin’ murder on Explorers.”

“Totaled?”

Tony shrugged. “That’s up to your insurance adjuster. All I know is the replacement airbags alone will cost a fortune, never mind the body work. Jeez, Jesse, you think you can manage not to roll the next one over? That’s two outta three.”

“My son was driving.”

Tony’s cheery face became confused. “Son? You got a son? Runs in the family, then.”

“Long story for another time.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You think I can have a look at it?”

“You own it... at least until the adjuster gets here. C’mon with me.”

Tony walked Jesse around behind the shop to the small lot where he kept the cars waiting to be worked on. When Jesse saw his SUV, he knew that totaling the thing would be a formality. It was damaged in a way only a rollover accident can damage a vehicle. But remembering what Cole had said about the van, he stepped to look at the driver’s side of the Explorer.

Tony spoke before Jesse had the chance. “Kid’s lucky. Looks like a vehicle wedged into the driver’s-side rear wheel well. Look how the quarter panel is pushed in. And you see how it’s sitting leaning over like that? That whole side of the suspension is bent up. So you want to take your stuff out of it?”

“I’ll send someone over for that. Thanks. I’ve got to go.”

Tony slapped Jesse on the shoulder. “Okay. In the meantime, I’ll get you some prices on a used Abrams tank.”

But Jesse wasn’t listening. He realized that he’d been meant to be the first loose end to be tied up.

When she answered the door, it was obvious on her face. She feared Jesse had found her out, he knew her secret. Or, if not the secret itself, that she had one. And it was a secret she thought was safe in a place like Paradise. She had thought, she hoped, foolishly, that living in a small town above a warehouse on a dead-end street and doing her art was cover enough. But experience should have taught her that circumstance could lay you bare, no matter how carefully you planned your moves or how small you made your life. When she saw the file in Jesse’s hand, it confirmed her fears.

“Come on up,” she said.

In her apartment, there was a half-empty open bottle of Malbec and a lipstick-smeared glass next to it on the kitchen table. There were only a few purple drops at the bottom of the stemmed, bell-shaped wineglass. Before she sat down or offered Jesse a seat, she poured more wine into her glass and took a swig. Jesse had never seen this version of Maryglenn before. As he now understood, there were several versions of Maryglenn, seen and unseen.

As he walked past her, Jesse placed the file on the table next to the bottle. He sat on a beat-into-submission leather chair that looked like it had begun life a decade or two before in a doctor’s waiting room. Still, it was a comfortable chair that suited Jesse, given how uncomfortable their conversation was bound to be. Like almost everything else in the apartment, the chair was flecked with paint.

Maryglenn flipped open the file, thumbed through the pages, and finished her wine.

“Do you so thoroughly investigate all the women you sleep with?” She laughed in a joyless way. “Must be quite a collection of files you have.”

“I hope you know better than that.”

She poured herself another glass. “Then why?”

“I can’t tell you that, but you’ll know why tomorrow.”

“The drugs.” She fixed her lips into a pained smile. “The reason you’ve been around school so frequently. You think I’m involved somehow.”

“Are you?” Jesse stood. Walked to the large window that looked out at the yacht club, Stiles Island, and the Atlantic. “All that file tells me is you’ve got something to hide, but it doesn’t tell me what it is or why.”

“Don’t you have things to hide, Jesse?”

“Of course, but none of them worthy of name changes and false histories. I always wondered why we never talked about your past. I know you are from around Nashville. At least that’s what your accent tells me. You say you went to art school, but I don’t know which one. You call yourself Maryglenn, but—”

“We don’t talk much about my past because we’re often preoccupied.”

Now it was his turn for a joyless laugh. “True.”

“There were no lies in there, Jesse.” She pointed to her bed and then to her heart. “Or in here. No, my name isn’t Maryglenn, but it’s the name I gave myself. I like it. Better to have a name that draws attention than one that is plain as a sheet of white paper. People who try too hard to hide make it obvious they’re hiding. Besides, Maryglenn is a good name for a painter.”

“Witness protection?”

“I can’t say.”

He asked, “That story about your leg.”

“A lie. The injuries and the pain were real enough, though.”

Jesse pointed at the bed. “A lie told in bed. Just contradicted yourself.”

“You know what I meant.”

“I would know what most women meant, but you aren’t most women.”

“How I sometimes wish I were. Who else knows?”

Jesse shook his head. “Knows what? All I know is what I don’t know.”

“That’s beneath you, Jesse.”

Jesse changed subjects. “You know about my fiancée, don’t you?”

“Diana. I know what I’ve heard. That she was murdered and the killer escaped.”

“She had a secret, too. When we met, she was an FBI special agent using an alias and working undercover.”

“What does that say about you, do you think?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m not here about me.”

She laughed. “You think not? Jesse Stone, police chief, homicide detective, blind man.”

“Maybe.” Jesse picked up the file and went to the door. “I gave you a chance to explain and you didn’t. Don’t run and don’t be absent from school tomorrow.”

He let himself out without saying goodbye.

He had resisted making the call, but now felt he had no choice. He had hoped that by confronting her she would explain herself. But Jesse was a realist, if nothing else. Anyone who had worked so hard to cover her tracks was unlikely to just cop to the facts because someone, even her lover, asked her to remove the veil from her past.

Molly had picked up on it almost immediately; something wasn’t right with Maryglenn’s background. When she had asked for yearbook photos from the schools Maryglenn was alleged to have attended, there were none. None of the administrators at those schools remembered her. She had gotten contact info for some of the faculty alleged to have taught her. None remembered her. Molly was a bulldog that way. That’s why Jesse had always been convinced she would have been a great detective. She had the instinct, the skepticism, and the drive. Once she had found those inconsistencies in Maryglenn’s past, she found others.