Fool Me Twice
Jesse Stone [11]
Michael Brandman
NOVELS BY ROBERT B. PARKER
THE SPENSER NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby
(by Ace Atkins)
Sixkill
Painted Ladies
The Professional
Rough Weather
Now & Then
Hundred-Dollar Baby
School Days
Cold Service
Bad Business
Back Story
Widow’s Walk
Potshot
Hugger Mugger
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
Small Vices
Chance
Thin Air
Walking Shadow
Paper Doll
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
Playmates
Crimson Joy
Pale Kings and Princes
Taming a Sea-Horse
A Catskill Eagle
Valediction
The Widening Gyre
Ceremony
A Savage Place
Early Autumn
Looking for Rachel Wallace
The Judas Goat
Promised Land
Mortal Stakes
God Save the Child
The Godwulf Manuscript
THE JESSE STONE NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues
(by Michael Brandman)
Split Image
Night and Day
Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage
THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS
Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor
ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER
Brimstone
Resolution
Appaloosa
Double Play
Gunman’s Rhapsody
All Our Yesterdays
A Year at the Races
(with Joan H. Parker)
Perchance to Dream
Poodle Springs
(with Raymond Chandler)
Love and Glory
Wilderness
Three Weeks in Spring
(with Joan H. Parker)
Training with Weights
(with John R. Marsh)
ROBERT B. PARKER’S
FOOL ME TWICE
A Jesse Stone Novel
MICHAEL BRANDMAN
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
New York
Copyright © 2012 by the Estate of Robert B. Parker
All rights reserved.
For Joanna,
who makes the world go round . . .
and for Joan and Bob
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
1
Jesse Stone’s cruiser pulled up to the stop sign on Paradise Road, preparing to make a right turn onto Country Club Way.
A warm fall breeze blew gently through the cruiser’s open windows. The red and yellow leaves of the elms and maples fluttered haphazardly in the wind. Jesse raised his face to the early-morning sun.
He noticed the car on his left, a late-model Audi A5 coupe, come to a complete stop beside him.
When the driver looked in his direction, Jesse nodded to him.
The Audi pulled away and proceeded through the intersection.
A Mercedes sedan barreled through the stop sign and broadsided the Audi. The Mercedes was doing at least fifty in a twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone.
The Audi collapsed into itself. The impact punched it off the road and into a ditch, where it bounced precariously a couple of times before sliding to an upright stop.
The alarm systems on both cars began to shriek. Front and side air bags deployed in a vicious rush of compressed air, pinning both drivers to their seats.
The Mercedes was driven by a young female. Jesse had seen her looking down as she ran the stop sign. She must have been texting.
He grabbed his cell phone and called the station.
Molly Crane answered.
“I’ve got a bad one at the corner of Paradise and Country Club. Send the entire sideshow. Ambulance. CSI unit. Hazmat team. Also Suitcase.”
“I’m on it, Jesse.”
“Oh, and call Carter Hansen, will you? Tell him I’ll be late.”
Jesse switched on the flashing light bar on top of his cruiser and inched closer to the accident. He stopped in front of the Audi, got out, and walked over to it.
The driver had been immobilized by the deployed air bags. He was sandwiched tightly between his seat and the bag.
He was middle-aged and overweight, wearing a navy blue sport jacket, a button-down white dress shirt, and a gray-and-pink polka-dot bow tie. A chevron-style mustache concealed his upper lip. He was unconscious.
Jesse called out to him.
“Can you hear me, sir?”
There was no response.
Jesse pulled open the door. He reached inside, disabled the alarm system, and used his Leatherman to deflate the air bags.
The man slumped back in his seat. Blood seeped from his nose.
Jesse checked for a pulse.
At least the guy was alive.
Jesse turned and stepped over to the Mercedes.
The teenage driver had also been pinned by the air bags. She wore a uniform bearing the insignia of one of Paradise’s best private schools. Unlike the other driver, she was awake and alert.
“Are you hurt,” Jesse said.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“Just get me out of this fucking car,” she said.
Jesse looked at her. Satisfied that she wasn’t injured, he circled the Mercedes, checking for damage. Despite the intensity of the crash, the car was relatively intact. He opened the passenger-side door and spotted the item he was looking for.
He walked back to the cruiser, retrieved an evidence bag, then returned to the Mercedes. Slipping a rubber glove on his right hand, he reached beneath the still-inflated air bag and grabbed the iPhone from the car floor.
“What are you doing,” the girl said. “Why aren’t you getting me out of here?”
Jesse ignored her.
He bagged the phone and put it inside his cruiser.
When he returned to the Mercedes, the girl was attempting to wriggle her way out of it.
“Be easier if I deflate the air bags,” Jesse said.