“Helluva a view from up here with the sun low in the sky,” Healy said. “The ocean, Stiles Island, the harbor, and the town. You can understand why all the rich families built their places on the Bluffs. Probably seemed like heaven.”
“Just another name for Paradise. Come on.”
They walked around to the spot on the bluff above where Maxie Connolly’s body had landed. They were careful as they approached, checking the ground for footprints, drag marks, signs of a struggle, but there wasn’t much to see except for some snapped branches on the winter-bare hedge that outlined the ledge of the bluff. This spot, the highest point of the Bluffs, had become a popular spot for visitors, as it offered the best view of Paradise and the rest of the area. On a very clear day, you could look south and see all the way to Boston. The town fathers hadn’t seen fit to put up a protective fence or guardrail, but had gotten a local nursery to plant some waist-high hedges along the perimeter of the bluff.
“Looks like that spot there’s where she went over,” Healy said, pointing at the snapped branches. “No handbag or anything left behind.”
Jesse nodded. “None by the body, either. Can we get a forensics team up here? Peter did the basics by the body, but I want a more thorough job done where she went over.”
“They’re already on the way.”
“That’s why they pay you the big money,” Jesse said.
“Looking more and more like a suicide.”
“Maybe.”
“I know, Jesse. You don’t like it.”
“I don’t, but I have to admit that it looks like suicide.”
“Let’s see what the ME has to say.”
Jesse shook his head. “I already spoke to her. She doesn’t think she’s going to find anything definitive to say it’s not suicide. A suicide note would be nice. Would make our jobs a lot easier.”
“Got a pen and a piece of paper?” Healy asked.
“Why, you thinking of jumping, too?”
Healy just laughed.
They moved about twenty yards to the right of where they assumed Maxie Connolly had gone over and stepped close to the edge of the adjoining bluff. When they looked down they could see the activity below. Maxie’s body was being bagged and the ME’s wagon had arrived to take her back to the morgue.
“Mother and child reunion,” Healy said to himself.
“What?” Jesse asked.
“Nothing. It’s just that Maxie and her daughter will be in the same place together after all these years.”
Jesse turned to look at his friend.
“You feeling okay, Healy?”
“Why?”
“You’re being pretty philosophical this morning.”
Healy grunted, then changed the subject.
“I don’t think I could do it this way. You know, jump,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“You eat your gun, it’s over. There’s no time to want to take it back. Regret isn’t an option. You jump and there’s that fear and panic, even if it doesn’t last long. I wouldn’t want to die like that.”
Jesse kept silent. After he’d discovered Jenn cheating on him and his drinking had gotten out of control, he’d had a few bad moments, moments when he’d considered eating his gun. But that was a long time ago and he had no time for bad memories at the moment. He had four bodies on his hands, three separate cases, and almost nothing to go on.
“I’m heading back to Paradise,” Jesse said. “I’ve got to tell the husband. Call me if you find anything.”
Healy gave Jesse a careless salute. “Aye, aye.”
Now nearly back on the beach, Jesse looked behind him at the zigzagging stone steps he’d just come down. Maxie’s trip down had taken much less time.
27
Al Franzen didn’t look so much confused as defeated. Franzen sat on the other side of Jesse’s desk dressed in an expensive pair of gray wool slacks, a darker gray sweater, a black blazer, and black loafers. But the clothes hung off him, the way clothes often hung off gaunt old men. He had a hangdog expression on his tanned face. Yet as thin as he was, Franzen’s jowls and the skin of his neck had long ago succumbed to gravity. He wore his wispy gray hair in a bad comb-over and sat stoop-shouldered, with his bony hands in his lap. His hands were covered in brown splotches. But Jesse could see in Franzen’s age-faded brown eyes that he already knew Maxie was dead. It had been his experience that the next of kin often knew before they were told.
“Mr. Franzen,” Jesse said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
Al Franzen nodded as Jesse spoke the words he had repeated many times before. He had once tried to think of a different way to start these conversations. He had since given up trying. There was no good way to say it.
“Maxie is dead,” Franzen said.
Jesse nodded.
“I knew it.”
“How did you know it?” Jesse asked.
“I’m old, Chief Stone, not stupid. Even at my age I can put two and two together to make four.”
“I meant no disrespect.”
But Franzen seemed not to hear. “I was a millionaire five times over by the time your mother changed your first diaper. I’m not the old fool Maxie thought I was. I knew she thought she was taking me for a ride, but, God help me, I loved her. She was the most exciting woman I had ever met, and just being around her...” Then he gathered himself. “I’m sorry, Chief Stone, forgive me.”
“No need to apologize. But I have to ask you, how did you know Maxie was dead?”
“She wasn’t in the room when I got up. Her pillows were cold and untouched. Her side of the sheets was smooth and cold. And then Officer Crane comes to my door and asks me to get dressed and come with her, but won’t tell me why. Like I said, it’s simple math.”
Jesse asked, “Did she receive any calls or visitors last night? Did she make any calls?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid I am not a well man and I take medication that makes me a very sound sleeper. A bomb could have gone off in the next room and I wouldn’t have heard it.”
“But why did you assume she was dead, Mr. Franzen? She might just have gotten arrested or simply gone missing or run off.”
Franzen shook his head. “No, I knew. I knew from the minute we got the call for her to come back to this town that Maxie wasn’t going to ever leave it again.”
Jesse didn’t ask how or why he knew. He asked, “Do you think your wife was capable of suicide?”
The old man looked at Jesse as if he had spoken to him in Japanese.
“Suicide! Maxie? That’s crazy. You’re telling me she killed herself?”
“A jogger found her on the beach at the bottom of an area of Paradise known as the Bluffs. It’s way too early on in the process to draw a conclusion, but there are no signs of a struggle. Preliminary indications point to suicide.”
Maybe Al Franzen wasn’t defeated after all. He stood up and slammed a hand on Jesse’s desk. “Nonsense! Maxie was the most alive person I ever met. She wouldn’t.”
But instead of feeling boosted by Franzen’s reaction, Jesse sagged. He remembered how Maxie had reacted the day before. The truth was, you couldn’t ever really know what was in someone else’s heart. It was difficult enough to know what was in your own.
“She took the news about Ginny pretty hard,” Jesse said. “Yesterday, she fell apart sitting in that same chair when I told her she could collect Ginny’s remains.”
Al Franzen slumped back in the chair. He had put up a fight, a good fight, but Jesse could see that the truth was dawning on Al as it was dawning on him. Maxie probably had killed herself.