This was different. He kept staring at the scotch in his glass. It was just as pretty to him as it had always been. He knew that even nondrinkers, or beer and wine drinkers, often wished they liked scotch because it was so damned beautiful. Yet he just didn’t feel like drinking. He kept seeing the look on Tamara’s face and how she gulped down the scotch when the waiter brought it to the table. She hadn’t said it outright, but she and Jesse were a lot alike. He had been where she was now. He imagined he hadn’t looked too dissimilar from her in the wake of his dismissal from the LAPD. It haunted him still. Maybe, he thought, this was the moment he and Dix had talked about. The moment when he decided for himself that he wanted to stop and would stop drinking. He knew better than to delve too deeply into it, that if it was the moment, he would know it only in retrospect.
Jesse turned on his TV and tuned it to the news. He realized it was a mistake almost as soon as he had done it, but it was already too late. There on the screen before him was a reporter he recognized from one of the big Boston stations. She was an older, handsome woman with perfectly cut, shoulder-length graying hair and striking blue eyes. She and Jesse had crossed paths a few times in the past and they had a kind of grudging respect for each other. She believed in what presenting the news used to mean and Jesse believed in being a good cop, no matter what. But Jesse realized that as fair as the reporter was and as disinterested in salacious speculation as she might be, there was no good way to spin what was going on in his town. He had three homicides — four, if his hunch was right — on his hands and he wasn’t any closer to solving them than he was the morning they removed the debris of the collapsed building. If anything, he had more questions and was further away.
The reporter might have had a Cronkite-era ethic, but she also had an eye for the dramatic. She did her report from Trench Alley, the wind whipping the remnants of the crime scene tape so fiercely that it made snapping noises. The overcast skies and Sawtooth Creek as a backdrop only enhanced the drama. As she spoke, old photographs of Ginny and Mary Kate flashed over her shoulder. Basically, she rehashed what was already on the public record. She discussed Maxie Connolly’s “suicide” and the discovery of the body in the tarp. Images of Maxie and of the dead man’s tattoo replaced those of the girls. Although she took no visible delight in it, the reporter reminded her audience that neither the state police nor the Paradise PD had made any progress in solving the crimes nor in identifying the mysterious victim in the blue tarp.
Then, as a closing shot, the reporter had her cameraman move the focus away from her face. He zoomed in on the floor of the old factory building, specifically at the police barricades surrounding the two holes in the concrete slab where the bodies had been found. Piles of flowers, wreathes, dolls, notes, and crucifixes had been laid around the barriers to create a makeshift memorial to the dead girls. Wisely, the reporter remained silent for several seconds before signing off.
When Jesse looked back down at the glass in his hand, he noticed it was empty.
47
Suit, Molly, Peter Perkins, and Captain Healy were seated around the table in the conference room. Jesse stood by the whiteboard. With the exception of Healy, Jesse had called them all into his office that morning. He’d invited the captain to the meeting the previous evening between drinks in the wake of the news report from Trench Alley. Jesse had a good laugh at himself for thinking that he was on the verge of leaving alcohol behind him. Then he passed out on his couch, woke up at three in the morning, and couldn’t get back to sleep.
Everyone was finished with their coffee and donuts when Molly asked the question they were all thinking about.
“What are we doing here, Jesse?”
“We’re going to shake things up.”
Molly kept after him. “Shake things up how?”
“I’ll get to that,” he said. “First I want to talk about what we’re dealing with, one case at a time. Any progress on John Doe? Anybody?”
Suit raised his hand. “Nothing on this end, Jesse. We haven’t even gotten any calls since that weirdo from Arizona called.”
“Nothing on our end, either, afraid to say,” Healy said. “John Doe’s prints don’t seem to be on file anywhere and no one’s come forward about that tattoo. If we’re going to get an ID on the vic, we may have to try and wrangle up some funds to do a forensic facial reconstruction.”
“We might just have to, but today’s not going to be the day to ask.” Jesse looked at his watch. “My guess is that Bill Marchand or one of the other selectmen will be in here sometime this morning to deliver a warning to me. Not exactly the time to ask for favors.”
“A warning about what?” Suit asked.
Molly gave Suit a cold stare. “About his job.”
“They wouldn’t fire you, Jesse,” Suit said. “Where would this town be without you?”
“Thanks, Suit, but I wouldn’t blame them. We’ve got three unsolved homicides and a questionable suicide on our hands. You played ball. You know how it works. When a team is losing, you can’t fire the whole team, so you fire the coach. It makes you look like you’re doing something. If they fire me, it will take the pressure off them for a little while. But we’ll worry about that later. Where are we on the cabdriver?”
Suit spoke again. “Just like you thought, Jesse, Wiethop’s got a record. Kiting checks, shoplifting, stuff like that. Nothing violent.”
“No sex offenses?” Perkins asked.
Suit shook his head. “Nothing like that.”
Jesse said. “You put it all out on the wire?”
“I did, but he’s not exactly public enemy number one. All we got him for is suspicion of possessing stolen property. If he ditches his car and keeps his head down, it’s not going to be easy to find him.”
Molly said, “Wait a second. Am I the only one in the room who heard you call Maxie Connolly’s suicide questionable? You think Wiethop killed her?”
“I’m not sure what I think about what happened to Maxie, but there’s a lot not to like about it.”
“I agree,” Healy said. “First we can’t find any of her possessions, then most of her stuff turns up under the cabbie’s bed like that.” He snapped his fingers. “No, sir, it feels like amateur hour to me. A guy like this Wiethop fella, he’s done time. He wouldn’t keep her stuff. He’d take her cash and cards and dump the rest in a garbage can or toss it in the ocean. Never mind the panties. Suit says he’s not a perv, so that really doesn’t make sense. It’s like maybe someone wanted your department to find it all there.”
Jesse took some quiet pride in Healy’s confirmation of everything he’d said to Tamara Elkin the night before.
Perkins said, “The funerals for the Connolly woman and her daughter are tomorrow, Jesse. Are you going to get a court order to stop the mother’s burial?”
“No. The forensics report from the state came up with nothing and I spoke to the ME about it this morning. She went over her autopsy results again last night. The cause of death hasn’t changed, and without evidence to the contrary, it still looks like a probable suicide. I can’t go to a judge and ask him to stop the interment because I have a gut feeling. For now, we’re going to keep any doubts about the suicide to ourselves,” Jesse said. “But when it comes to the girls, I’m going to start being very cooperative with the press.”
Suit made a face. “But we don’t have anything.”
Jesse smiled. “They don’t know that. As a matter of fact, we now have a prime suspect and a report from the lab that says they might be able to salvage some DNA from the blanket found near the girls’ remains. We also might have some hairs and fibers that aren’t a match to either of the girls. First thing you’re going to do, Suit, is release the girls’ autopsy results, but without the photographs.”