Suit opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it.
48
Only Jesse and Healy were left in the conference room, both of them looking at the whiteboard. Jesse hadn’t written on it. Healy wondered if Jesse ever meant to write anything on it and asked about it.
“So was all of that smoke or just mostly?”
“Mostly,” Jesse said.
“I know I’m only the head of the state homicide bureau, but do you think you might manage to sort out the smoke from the facts for me? I get cranky when smoke gets blown into the wrong places. Gives me a rash. Is there a suspect or isn’t there?”
“Sort of.”
“We going to play twenty questions?”
“Alexio Dragoa. You know the name?” Jesse asked.
“Sounds Portuguese to these old ears.”
“Uh-huh. Fishing family. Father died a few years ago and the son’s taken over the trade. Both of them ornery SOBs. The son’s not quite as bad as the father, but bad enough. Good-looking bastard. Likes to drink and gets into the occasional bar fight.”
“Yeah, well, fishermen are a tough breed. Not the kind of guys you want dating your only daughter. What about this Alexio?”
“A little while before Maxie Connolly went over the Bluffs, I got him on hotel security video having a confrontation with her in the bar.”
Healy raised his eyebrows. “Confrontation?”
“He says he was drunk and horny and he used to have a thing for her when he was a kid. When she tried to blow him off, he says he had a sudden attack of conscience and apologized to her and gave his sympathies about Ginny.”
“Wait a second here, Jesse. Maxie Connolly left this town, what, twenty-four, twenty-five years ago? She had to be sixty if not older when she went off the bluff. How old is the fisherman?”
“Few years older than Molly.”
“The fisherman must’ve been carrying that old crush around a long time.”
Jesse shrugged.
Healy asked, “So you’ve spoken to him?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You think he killed Maxie?”
“No, he has an alibi that totally checks out. Airtight.”
“You think the cabbie did it?”
Jesse shook his head. “Maybe, but I doubt it.”
Healy was confused. “You don’t think the cabbie killed her. You know Dragoa didn’t kill her, but you don’t think she killed herself.”
Jesse nodded. “That’s about it.”
“Then who, Colonel Mustard?”
“When I catch the killer, I’ll let you know.”
“Okay, wait... you know Dragoa didn’t kill Maxie Connolly. But is he the suspect in the girls’ murders or am I missing something here?”
“What I can tell you is that something’s up with Dragoa.”
“But I thought you just said—”
Jesse held up is palm. “First he hit on a woman who winds up dead a few hours later. Then he shows up at Mary Kate O’Hara’s funeral. Unexpectedly, too.”
“He does seem to be showing up in interesting places,” Healy said, scratching his chin.
“Can you spare a man? With Gabe still in rehab and Suit on light duty, I can’t afford to dedicate anyone to Dragoa. When I start putting all this stuff on the street over the next day or two, I’m thinking maybe he’ll get spooked and show his hand.”
“If he has a hand to show.”
Jesse made a face. “I know it’s flimsy, but when flimsy’s what you’ve got, you go with it.”
“Your instincts are good enough for me. For a few days, sure, I can give you somebody to tail the fisherman.”
“Not just somebody.”
“Don’t sweat the details, Jesse. Dragoa eats half his pickle at lunch, you’ll know it and you’ll know whether it was a kosher dill or a sweet gherkin. But once he takes his boat out...” Healy shrugged. “Well, I can’t help you there. Black helicopters and drones aren’t in this year’s budget.”
“Understood.”
“When should I have my man start?” Healy asked.
“Tomorrow, early, before sunup. Alexio’s been known to head straight from the bar or the drunk tank to his boat. Here’s Dragoa’s address and where he docks his boat,” Jesse said, pulling a slip of paper out of his back pocket. “Let’s give my lies a couple of hours to percolate.”
Healy took the paper, waved it in the air. “Pretty confident I was going to agree to lend you a man.”
“Let’s just say I was hopeful and leave it at that.”
“You owe me a drink.”
“Several.”
Healy extended his right hand. “You got it.”
There was an insistent knocking on the conference room door and an impatient person on the other side.
49
Jesse had never seen Bill Marchand look beat-up and disheveled. That was no longer the case. Men like Marchand had an image to maintain and usually went to great lengths to protect it. It wasn’t so much out of vanity or ego, as people often assumed. Defending their images was something Jesse understood about politicos that most people got wrong. The person beneath the image, rotten or pure, beau or bully, was almost beside the point. The electorate voted for the image, not the person behind it. Jesse thanked his lucky stars that his job was by appointment because he didn’t think he could win an election, nor would he ever want to.
Although Marchand had been impatient to get into the room, he seemed to be fumbling for his words. This, too, was a phenomenon Jesse had never before witnessed. Marchand, even when bearing bad news, usually delivered it calmly and without hesitation. Just when Jesse was about to come to the selectman’s rescue, Marchand found his footing and his words.
“Can a friend get a drink around here?”
This is going to be bad, Jesse thought. Maybe worse than he’d anticipated.
Jesse threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Sure, Bill. Let’s go into my office.”
Jesse got a funny feeling in his stomach, a feeling he had had only twice in his life. The first time had been when he was in A ball and got called into his manager’s office after going hitless in three consecutive games. He knew then as he knew now that it was trouble. The other time was when he found out Jenn was cheating on him. Both times it signaled the end of things. One ending was temporary. He earned his starting job back the next week. One ending wasn’t, though it took a decade for him and Jenn to realize it.
It was strange how things worked. Jesse’s job had been threatened before, more than once, and he’d taken it in stride. Jesse always took life in its stride, sometimes with an assist from Johnnie Walker. It was his way. He was tough, a man unto himself. Molly had summed him up best when she compared him to Crow. She said they were both self-contained men, immune from the petty vanities and forces that swayed weaker men. He wasn’t feeling immune presently. Just at the moment he had finally accepted that Paradise would be his life’s work, he was going down.
When they were settled in at his desk, Jesse poured some of the same Irish he had poured for Maxie Connolly only a few days earlier.
“You sure you won’t drink with me?” Marchand asked, his hand a bit unsteady.
“Too early even for me.” Jesse managed a laugh.
“You sure?”
“Bill, say what you’ve got to say. We keep on like this, you’re going to offer me a cigarette, a blindfold, and ask if I have any last words.”
Marchand didn’t guzzle his drink, but he didn’t sip it, either. He stretched his neck. Spoke.
“Jesse, you’ve got a week.”