Robert Parker - Death in Paradise

"I said I was just there to help. Was there something he wanted," Cox said.

"And?"

"He said I should get out or he'd start shooting. Then he says to the broad, 'Tell him,' but she don't talk. I can hear her crying."

"What about the other people in the store?"

"I don't know. I didn't see anybody."

"Okay," Jesse said, "where's the cashier?"

"In Eddie's cruiser," DeAngelo said.

In the distance there was the sound of another siren.

"That'll be Arthur," DeAngelo said.

"Call Molly," Jesse said. "She covers the station. I want everyone else down here."

DeAngelo nodded and began to speak into the microphone clipped to his epaulet. Jesse walked to the other cruiser and got in. An adolescent girl with a lot of brown hair worn up, and braces on her teeth, was sitting in the passenger seat hugging herself.

"I want to go home," she said.

"Anybody coming to get you?" Jesse said.

"No."

"What's your name?"

"Kate."

"Kate what?"

"Ryan."

"What's your phone number, Kate?"

She gave it to him.

"But no one's home," she said.

Jesse nodded.

"Okay," he said. "You got a work phone for one of your parents?"

"My father works in Boston," she said. "My mother sells real estate."

She gave him both numbers.

Jesse picked up the radio and called Molly and gave her the phone numbers.

"Get a parent down here for Kate Ryan," he said.

"I'm on it," Molly said. "What's happening?"

Jesse put the mike away without answering.

"They'll be here soon," he said to Kate. "So what happened?"

"He came in the front door and right past me."

"Snyder?"

"I don't know his name. I never seen him before."

"You were at the checkout?"

"Yeah and he went right past me and he took out his gun and he said he was going to kill her."

"Mrs. Snyder?"

"Yeah. She just started working, customer service, and he said he was going to kill everybody and I run out and seen that cop, and started screaming and…" She shrugged and spread her hands. "What if they can't find my mother or father?"

"She's a cop," Jesse said. "She'll find them. What kind of gun did he have?"

"Just a gun. I don't know nothing about guns."

"Was it a handgun or something longer like a rifle or a shotgun?"

"Hand."

Jesse took his.38 off his belt.

"Did it look like this?" Jesse said. "Kind of round, or was it more square?"

"It might have been more square," she said. "I don't know. It was a gun."

Jesse put the gun back in its holster.

"Okay," he said. "Did you hear him say anything else?"

"No. I run out as soon as I saw the gun and he went past me."

"Who was in the store besides you?"

"Mario, from the meat counter… Ray the vegetable guy… some customers… Bethany, the other cashier, was on break."

"How many customers?"

"I don't know."

"Ten?"

"No. Not that many."

"Five?"

"Maybe. Can you call her and see if she got my mother and father?"

"They'll be here," Jesse said.

Peter Perkins and John Maguire had arrived.

"Murphy and Friedman are around back with Suit and Buddy," Perkins said. "Molly says she can't raise Martin yet."

"Okay. Put on the vests and start clearing people out of the adjacent stores. John, take Kate across the street and stay with her."

Jesse got out of the car. As she walked across the street with Maguire, Kate looked back once at Jesse. He smiled at her.

"They'll be here," he said.

DeAngelo came over with a balding red-faced man who seemed out of breath.

"This is Mr. Stevens," DeAngelo said. "Store manager."

"Jesse Stone. How many ways out of the store?"

"Three."

"Where?"

"Back door. Front door. And loading door in the cellar."

"Where's the cellar door open?" Jesse said.

"In the back, right near the back entrance but lower."

"Any private rooms in there?"

"My office, which is up some stairs beside the service counter."

"Bathroom?"

"Yes, behind the stairs to my office."

"Everything else is market space?"

"Yes."

"Any connecting ways between your store and the ones on either side?"

"No."

"Is there a phone near the service booth?"

"Yes, sir. Inside the counter."

Jesse handed him a cell phone.

"Dial the number," Jesse said.

Stevens did, and handed the phone to Jesse. Jesse waited. It rang without result. Jesse counted ten rings, then broke the connection. No need to irritate Snyder.

"There a window in the bathroom?" Jesse said.

"Yes," Stevens said. "Frosted glass."

"How about in your office?"

"Yes. But it's on the second floor, remember."

A crowd had gathered across the street.

"Peter," Jesse said. "Get those people out of the line of fire."

Perkins nodded and started across the street. The air was still. The high summer sound of an insect lingered above him. It was a sound he'd heard all his life. He never knew what made it, exactly. Crickets? Grasshoppers? He dialed the store again. Again he let it ring ten times and broke the connection. He had on a light-blue linen blazer and a gray tee shirt, jeans and sneakers. His gun was on his right hip, under the blazer. He stood silently for a minute, staring at the store and the police cars and the crowd and the cops in their bulletproof vests. For a moment it all looked motionless, like a frozen frame in a movie. He took in some air.

A woman in a flowered yellow dress opened the front door of the market and stepped out and ran. She ducked behind DeAngelo's cruiser and fell to her knees.

"He wants to talk to Stone," she said. "He says he wants Stone to come in."

She was having trouble getting enough air in.

"He said he was going to kill us all," she said. "He's drunk. He has a bottle and he keeps drinking."

Jesse crouched beside her.

"Where is he?" Jesse said.

"He put the gun right in my face," the woman said.

She was blond, with a lot of dark eye makeup.

"Where is he standing?" Jesse said.

"In the back. He said he was going to kill everybody, himself too."

"Where are the other hostages?"

"With him. Sitting on the floor except for one woman he hangs on to. I think it's his wife."

"Where on the floor?"

"I don't know, just on the floor."

"No. You do know. If I'm facing him, where are the hostages? To my right or my left?"

The woman thought for a moment.

"Right," she said.

"How far?"

"They're all sitting against the wall under the service counter, except the wife."

Stevens was crouched behind the squad car beside them.

"Service counter is in the right rear corner of the store," Stevens said.

Jesse nodded.

"Tell me about the hostages," Jesse said to the woman in the yellow dress. "How many men? How many women?"

"Two men," she said and paused, her breath still rasping, counting in her head. "Four women, five if you count the wife."

Jesse stood.

"Okay," he said to no one in particular.

He walked to his car, and standing behind it, out of sight of the store, he rearranged his revolver on his belt. Then he got a long-barreled.22 target pistol out of the car, made sure there were bullets in the cylinder, and stuck it in his belt at the small of his back, under his jacket. Then he walked back to DeAngelo.

"I'm going in. Call Suit and tell him I'm going in. I want you all to hold still. If you hear a shot then I want all of you to come, front and back… double time."

DeAngelo nodded and undipped the microphone from his epaulet. Jesse turned and walked toward the market.

It was a small market, the kind that delivers phone orders. There were four aisles. Jesse could see the edge of the back door at the left corner. A sign that said CUSTOMER SERVICE hung from the ceiling in the right back corner. An arrow pointed straight down. The two-counter checkout was to the right of the door. The store was dead quiet.