“It is. Paradise, Mass.”
“Warren was real torn up about this place. Said he left his heart and soul here. Said he wanted to come back to get a piece of both of them back if he could.”
“Do you know what he meant by that, Drew?”
“Been a long time since someone called me by my first name, sir.” Jameson turned back to watch the snowflakes. “Warren said he wanted to come home to see Molly again, not to talk to her or nothing like that. He just wanted to see her again. He left her picture with me for safekeeping. I could understand why he would want to come back to see her. Warren used to talk about her all the time. Said she was pretty, but that wasn’t it. She was special. She was his heart.”
“Yes, she is special,” Jesse said involuntarily. “What about his soul?”
“Said that he lost it at nineteen and didn’t find it again till God found him in the desert.”
Jesse didn’t want to push Jameson, so he just let him talk.
“We met back in Arizona, Warren and me. We was both working for an adobe brick and clay tile company outside of Tucson. You know what adobe is, sir?”
“I grew up in Tucson.”
Jameson smiled at hearing that.
“It’s hard work out in the sun for not much money. Warren and me, though, we liked it. We weren’t neither of us much for other people’s company, but we had things that held us together.”
“Like heroin?”
“Yes, sir,” Jameson said in a whisper. “That and pain. That’s what the two-headed rattler is for on our tats, sir, our two demons: drugs and pain. But when God found Warren and when Warren helped me find God, we fought those demons off together. That’s what the cross is for, for Our Savior’s grace. Warren drew the design out on a piece of paper and we went down to this Mexican gal in Nogales and she did them up perfectly on Warren and me. Cost us each three days’ pay, but we didn’t care.”
“You said Warren came back to reclaim a part of his soul. How was he going to do that?”
“By introducing his friend to Our Savior and by confession of their sins.”
“Did Warren say who that friend was or why his friend needed saving?”
“Wouldn’t never tell me who, sir. Not that I didn’t ask. I did, but Warren said that would be another betrayal and that too many folks had already been betrayed and too much blood spilled.”
“But he did tell you why?”
Jameson nodded. “He did. Said this friend had done a terrible thing and confessed it to him one summer when they was drunk. Keeping that confidence had ruined Warren’s life. It was a cross too heavy for him to bear, tore him all up inside. I know how that is, sir, getting all torn up inside and out.”
“Did he ever get more specific than that?”
“Said this friend told him that he and two other friends had done murder and—”
Jesse kept his voice and demeanor calm, but his mind was racing. “Drew, are you sure that this guy told Warren that there were three of them?”
“I may be half the man I once was, sir, but I recollect that perfectly. This friend had told Warren that it was him and two friends.”
“There were three of them, but he never used names.”
“No, sir. No names. Warren always said his sin of omission, that’s what he called it, was his alone to suffer. Warren didn’t talk much, but when he did his words said a lot. He said that sharing details would infect me with the sin and he wouldn’t do that.”
“Did he ever give you any details of the murders? Maybe who the victims were?”
“No, sir. Warren said it was for my own protection, but after we talked about it we would always pray on it.”
“And when you saw the pictures of the tattoo on TV, you came east?”
“It was the least I could do, sir.”
Jesse was about to reach out his hand to say good-bye to Jameson, when it struck him that Javier Baez had never been more right. The answer was right in front of him. “You up for getting out of here, Drew?”
Jameson’s face lit up. “You bet.”
“Your head ache?”
“I’ve handled worse, sir. Much worse.”
“I don’t doubt it, Corporal,” Jesse said, handing Jameson his ratty clothes. “I’ve got some calls to make.”
81
An hour later, Jesse was in the library of Sacred Heart Boys Catholic with Tommy Deutsch. Deutsch was the skipper of the varsity baseball team at Sacred Heart Boys and the second baseman on the Paradise PD’s slo-pitch softball team. Tommy was a spry sixty and still had that competitive fire in his belly that was the difference between mediocre players and coaches and great players and coaches. Jesse and Tommy recognized the fire in each other the first time they met at a charity pancake breakfast the year Jesse moved to Paradise.
“What’s this about, Jesse?” Deutsch asked, turning his key in the library door. “Usually when you want a favor, it’s to take grounders and to test out that bum arm of yours. Never thought we’d meet here.”
“Got something against books, Skip?”
“Nothing at all. I’m just curious why you called me out in the snow to open up the library for you.”
“I’m curious, too.”
“About?” Deutsch asked, clicking on the lights.
“Were you around during Coach Feller’s time as the basketball coach?”
Deutsch frowned. “Our paths crossed during my first few years here. Can’t say as I cared much for the man.”
“Why’s that?”
“Feller was a Neanderthal. Cruel to his boys, you know. The type of coach who thought Leo Durocher was too soft on his players. But he got results. Won a lot of games without much talent. His teams were always tough and smart. Pressed from the opening tip. Slowed it down when they had the advantage. Pushed the ball up court when they were behind.” Deutsch tilted his head. “What’s this about, Jesse? Deke Feller’s been dead for fourteen or fifteen years.”
“They keep copies of the yearbooks in here?”
“Of course they do,” Deutsch said.
“Where?”
“Okay, Jesse, I’ve played along up to this point, but if you want me to keep playing, you’ve got to give me a little bit more than this.”
“That’s fair, Skip.”
Deutsch walked Jesse to a dark, windowless corner of the library. There was a faint musty odor in this part of the library. “Far as I know, they’re all on these shelves right here. If any are missing, I can’t help you.”
“Thanks.”
“So what is it you think you’re going to find in these yearbooks, Jesse?”
“Three murderers.”
Tommy Deutsch blanched. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Just click off the lights and close the door behind you when you leave. It’ll lock itself.”
“Skip,” Jesse said. “This is between us. Just us.”
The baseball coach nodded, then left.
When Deutsch was gone, Jesse counted back twenty-five years, pulled a yearbook off the shelf, and carried it over to the librarian’s desk. The spine was clean, but the top of it was covered in a downy layer of dust. He brushed off the dust and ran his hand across the textured crimson-and-white cover. The spine crackled with age and resisted as he pulled open the cover, and the pages, unwilling to surrender their secrets, stuck stubbornly together. One page at a time, Jesse went through the yearbook, looking at the photos, reading some of the captions. He recognized some of the names, some of the faces. Even had a laugh or two. So that’s what he looked like when he had hair! Then he came to the page he was looking for, the sports team photos.
The basketball team photo wasn’t perfectly in focus, but it didn’t need to be. Coach Feller looked exactly like Jesse expected him to look. He was a hulking, sourpussed man with his gray hair in a military brush cut. He was dressed in an unfashionable brown suit, a white shirt, a tie that didn’t match, and mean shoes. There were many more familiar faces in the shot. In the back row were two faces he immediately recognized. There were three familiar faces in the front row as well. Two he expected to see and one he had hoped not to. In his years as a street cop, homicide detective, and police chief, Jesse thought he had learned his lesson about hope. He knew better than most just how little purchase hope ever really has.