Роберт Паркер - The Bitterest Pill

Jesse might have been inclined to let things be, were he not aware of some of the abuses by people covered by programs like witness protection. For one thing, most of the people involved in such programs were usually criminals themselves, protected only because they could give up other criminals, ones even worse than themselves. And he knew that the branches of law enforcement administering these types of programs often went out of their way to shield their witnesses from prosecution for other local or unrelated crimes. There had been cases of protected witnesses dealing drugs, robbing banks, raping, committing murder. For all Jesse knew, Maryglenn could have been guilty of anything. He had hoped, if not to get the whole story, at least enough of it to eliminate Maryglenn as a suspect in the drug ring. What he got instead were his own suspicions reinforced.

He scrolled to the name Abe Rosen and pressed the number.

Abraham Rosen had been a colleague of Diana’s at the FBI. Like most straight men who knew her, Abe had been a little bit in love with Diana. More than a little bit, but Abe was different from those others. He had understood Diana, understood why she had undertaken the mission that led to her being forced out of the Bureau. He understood her frustration at never being taken seriously because of her looks. Even understood why she had fallen for a man like Jesse Stone.

Although Jesse had tried to throw himself between the gunman and the bullet that had taken her life, Diana’s parents and just about everyone else from Diana’s old life blamed Jesse for her murder. The perception that Jesse had allowed her killer to escape made their pain that much worse. The facts of what had actually happened in the wake of Diana’s murder was his and Vinnie Morris’s secret to bear. So furious and grief-stricken were her parents, they had refused to let him attend her funeral. If there was anyone Jesse was tempted to share the truth with, it was Abe, but that could never happen. Jesse had already traded once or twice on Abe’s enduring affection for Diana. He was going to that well again.

“Jesse Stone,” Rosen said. There was little enthusiasm in his voice. “Another favor?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What is it this time?”

“I will email a file to you. You’ll understand when you get it. I need an answer asap.”

“Always. Am I risking my career this time?”

“Doubt it.”

“You know, Stone, my having been in love with Diana doesn’t give you carte blanche with me.”

“Never thought it did. But Diana always said you believed in right and wrong.”

Rosen cleared his throat, said, “Things were rough there a few months back. Big news. We had people inside that racist bastard’s organization, and you did more to damage it than we ever could.”

“They were never going to win, but they came pretty close to killing a lot of people.”

“Diana would have been proud of you.” Abe’s voice was brittle.

“I’d like to think so.”

“I miss her.”

“Hard woman not to miss.”

“Send me the file and I’ll see what I can do.”

Rosen was off the phone.

Jesse sat there for a few minutes, thinking about Diana. He had forgiven her for lying to him because he understood why she had lied. He hoped he could do the same for Maryglenn or whatever her name was, but it was going to be impossible if she stood by her lies. Sometimes he still missed drinking. Although he had walked out of an AA meeting less than an hour ago, tonight was one of those times.

When Jesse got in the night before, Cole had been sleeping. He was still asleep when Jesse left for work. But the sun and most of Paradise were still sleeping, too. As he drove to the station from his condo, he stared at the brightening skies over the Atlantic.

There was a certain quality of light to the sunsets in L.A. that was like no other. He was not a man capable of the poetry it would have required to do justice to the dusk in L.A. Not even sundown in Tucson could compare. Here in the East, it was sunrise for Jesse. In L.A., sunrise often meant the ground-hugging clouds of the marine layer and a leap of faith that the sun was out there somewhere. Not here. Here the mornings were so beautifully blue that they almost hurt. Jesse, though, enjoyed the dangerous pink dawns — Pink sky at dawn, sailors be warned — even more than the severe blue ones. Today, there was no joy in the pink morning skies for Jesse Stone.

He had emailed the file to Rosen as promised, but there had been no response. Of course there hadn’t been. Jesse had sent it after hours, and it was before hours now. When he got in to work, Suit was at the desk, reading a Boston paper. Jesse noted the headline:

He saw the photos beneath: Millie Lutz’s Corolla, a string of crime scene tape stretched across the front of Precious Pawn and Loan, and the ME’s men with a body bag slung between them at Rajiv Laghari’s condo.

“Reading about the murders?” Jesse said.

“Bad day for BPD.”

“Say anything about the homicides being connected?”

“Wait a second. Where was it? Here.” Suit folded the paper and pointed with his finger. “‘Millie Lutz was ambushed as she was returning home from work. She was a caretaker for once prominent orthopedist Dr. Myron Wexler. When reached for comment, two of Dr. Wexler’s colleagues noted that the doctor had been suffering with severe Alzheimer’s disease for the past several years. Dr. Rajiv Laghari, also an orthopedist, was slain by an as-yet-unidentified man who police speculate had been a patient of the doctor’s. The assailant was in turn slain by an unidentified member of the Boston Police Department. Unnamed sources confirm that both men were under investigation by state regulatory agencies and law enforcement. Spokespersons for both the regulatory agencies and law enforcement refused comment...’ You know something about this, Jesse?”

“Remember I went down to Boston?”

“Yeah.”

“I spoke with Millie Lutz inside Dr. Wexler’s house. That pawn receipt we found in Chris Grimm’s room was from Precious Pawn and Loan, and I sat outside a clinic run by Dr. Laghari. I think we can draw a straight line from Heather Mackey’s OD to Chris Grimm’s murder to Petra North’s OD to these killings and to Cole’s accident.”

Suit sat sharply back in his chair, as if avoiding something thrown at his head. “What?”

“That was no accident. They thought I was driving the Explorer. Everybody is playing for keeps now. Us, too.”

Jesse walked into his office, picked up his new glove, and pounded the ball.

She had come to school early, but not to work on schedules or lesson plans. It was to work on her own survival. She had been planning to do this anyway, but after she crushed up and snorted her wake-up hit, and listened to the news as she dressed, the level of urgency was in the red. She would cry no tears for Rajiv Laghari, the doctor she had been “referred” to. He had been pleasant and accommodating on her first script visit. That had changed on her subsequent trips to his storefront clinic. The extorted sex was sickening and reason enough to detest the man, but it was Laghari who had introduced her to Arakel Sarkassian and turned her into the desperate, manipulative whore looking back at her from her bedroom mirror.

There was a time a million years ago that the high from her morning hit coursing through her veins would have made it all feel all right. That was the amazing power of the drug, the euphoria and untouchability it gave her. She had been a bulletproof goddess in her own heaven. Now there were bullets everywhere, nothing to keep them out, and heaven was barren of goddesses.