Robert Parker: Death in Paradise

The third book in the Jesse Stone series, 2001

One out. A left-handed hitter with an inside-out swing. The ball would slice away from him toward third. Jesse took a step to his right. The next pitch was inside and chest high and the batter yanked it down the first baseline, over the bag and into the right-field corner, had there been a corner, and lumbered into second base without a throw.

"I saw you move into the hole," the batter said to Jesse.

"Foiled again, Paulie."

They played three nights a week under the lights on the west side of town beside a lake, wearing team tee shirts and hats. One umpire. No stealing. No spikes allowed. Officially it was the Paradise Men's Softball League, but Jesse often thought of it as the Boys of Evening. The next batter was right-handed and Jesse knew he pulled everything. He stayed in the hole. On a two-one count the right-handed hitter rammed the ball a step to Jesse's left. One step. Left foot first, right foot turned, glove on the ground. Soft hands. Don't grab at it. Let it come to you. It was all muscle memory. Exact movements, rehearsed since childhood, and deeply visceral, somatically choreographed by the movement of the ball. With the ball hit in front of him, Paulie tried to go to third. In a continuous sequence of motion, Jesse swiped him with his glove as he went by, then threw the runner out at first.

"Never try to advance on a ball hit in front of you," Paulie said as they walked off the field.

"I've heard that," Jesse said.

His shoulder hurt, as it always did when he threw. And he knew, as he always knew, that the throw was not a big-league throw. Before he got hurt, the ball used to hum when he threw it, used to make a little snarly hiss as it went across the infield.

After the game they drank beer in the parking lot. Jesse was careful with the beer. Hanging around in the late twilight after a ball game drinking club soda just didn't work. But booze was too easy for Jesse. It went down too gently, made him feel too integrated. Jesse felt that it wasn't seemly for the police chief to get publicly hammered. So he had learned in the last few years to approach it very carefully.

The talk was of double plays, and games played long ago, and plays at the plate, and sex. Talk of sex and baseball was the best of all possible talk. Jesse sipped a little of the beer. Beer from an ice-filled cooler was the best way for beer to be. From the edge of the lake a voice said, "Jesse, get over here."

The voice was scared. Carrying a can of Lite beer, Jesse walked to the lakeside. Two men were squatting on their heels at the edge of the water. In front of them, floating facedown, was something that used to be a girl.

The rest of the Paradise cops didn't like looking at the body. Jesse had pulled it out, and it lay now on the ground illuminated by the headlights of the Paradise Police cruisers.

"She been in the water a long time?" Suitcase Simpson asked Jesse.

"Yeah," Jesse said. "She's only wearing one shoe."

Simpson didn't look. He didn't care about how many shoes she had.

"You seen a lot of floaters?"

"When I worked in L.A., there was a lot of ocean-front," Jesse said. He was squatting on his heels beside the corpse, studying it. He reached over and turned the head a little and studied it some more.

Simpson was trying to look at the body obliquely, so it would only be an impression. He was a big kid, with red cheeks and some baby fat still left. But he wanted to be a cop. He wanted to be like Jesse. And he was trying to force himself to look, the way Jesse did, at the water-ridden thing on the ground.

Behind them, Peter Perkins had strung crime-scene tape, and behind it the Boys of Evening stood silently, looking at the scene, but not the body. There was no talk. As they stood, the town ambulance pulled into the parking lot with its lights flashing, but no siren.

Through his open window the driver shouted to Jesse.

"Whaddya need?"

"Body bag."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

The two EMTs got out of the ambulance without shutting off the flashing lights. They got the litter from the back and lay a body bag on it and wheeled it over. Neither of them liked looking at the corpse.

"Drowned?"

"I don't think so," Jesse said.

He moved her sodden hair and pointed with a pencil. "Bullet went in here, I think," Jesse said.

"A bullet?"

"Yep, went out the other side. No need to look. Let's roll her in the bag."

Still trying to look without seeing, Simpson said, "You thinking she was murdered, Jesse?"

"I'm thinking she was shot in the head behind her right ear and the bullet exited high on the left side of her head and blew a pretty sizable piece of her skull off when it did."

"Maybe she shot herself," Simpson said.

"And jumped into the lake after," Jesse said.

"So you're saying she was murdered and her body dumped?"

"It's a working theory," Jesse said.

Jesse sat in his office with his feet on the desk and talked with the State Police Homicide boss, a captain named Healy.

"The homicide commander personally?" Jesse said.

Healy smiled.

"I told you," he said, "I live in the neighborhood."

"You got the pathology report?"

Healy tossed a big manila envelope on Jesse's desk.

"One shot, behind the right ear, close range. Entrance wound suggests a.38. Slug exited high on the other side, tore out some of her skull. They think they got powder traces. They can't find any on her hands. But the body's deteriorated to the point where they aren't certain. The millimeters and tissue analysis and all, it's in there."

"Water in her lungs?"

"No," Healy said. "She was dead when she went in the water."

"Could she have shot herself?" Jesse said. "I mean, was it physically possible given the path of the slug?"

"Yeah, she could have. And the amount of time she was in there could have destroyed the traces on her hands."

"Drag marks on her?"

Healy shook his head.

"Body's too far gone."

"So she could have waded out into the lake someplace and shot herself and floated around until we found her. It's a big lake."

"Gun?" Healy said.

"We got a couple guys from the fire department down there in wet suits," Jesse said. "Water's dirty. Hard to see."

"Even if you find the gun in there," Healy said, "why did she want to do it that way?"

"Didn't want anyone to know?"

"Suicides always want people to know," Healy said. "That's part of what it's about."

"True."

"You find the gun it'll be because the perp threw it in there after her. You know who she is?"

"No. Could they get any prints?"

Healy shook his head.

"Dental?"

"ME charted her teeth," Healy said.

"So all we have to do is locate a dental chart that matches."

"In which case you'll know who she is anyway."

"Missing persons?"

"You know how many kids run away every week?" Healy said.

"Any from Paradise?"

"None reported," Healy said.

"She could have run away from anywhere and ended up here," Jesse said.

"She could."

"You matching the dental charts against the runaways?"

"Sure," Healy said. "I got a guy on it."

"One?"

"You know how things work," Healy said.

"Slowly," Jesse said.

"See," Healy said. "I knew you'd know."

"How old was she?"

"Maybe fourteen."

They were both quiet. The victim's age hung in the room like smoke.