“That’s right, Suit, but Marchand only needed to buy himself about a twenty-four-hour window where Dragoa and Millner could have still been alive.”
Molly said, “Why’d he try to run Jameson over.”
“Two reasons: to fool us that Dragoa was still alive, and he couldn’t risk Jameson talking to us if he really did know something. It’s why my trap worked. After all the killing he’d done to cover his tracks, the only possible loose end was Jameson. He had to risk killing him, too.”
“Speaking of Jameson, where is he?” Suit wanted to know.
“He’s safe and with a friend.”
Healy asked, “Who set the fires?”
“Marchand. He was at the wake for Maxie and Ginny, but made it a point to tell me he couldn’t be at the church service because of business. Millner left the truck for him in Commonwealth Woods, and after he was done torching the houses, he drove back there and burned the van. Both Dragoa and Millner trusted Marchand implicitly. They always had, from the days they played ball together. Marchand was the point guard, the leader. He was the smart one, the successful one, and he was the one who had saved their asses the night they killed the girls. Up until the bodies were found, they had a common agenda. Once the bodies were discovered and Dragoa started acting guilty and unstable, Marchand decided it was too dangerous to let Dragoa and Millner keep breathing. After he made up his mind, everything he did was to make Dragoa and Millner look guilty and to draw our attention to them. Oh, yeah, the gun he used to kill Dragoa will match the gun used to kill Zebriski, and the knife your guys found on the boat will match the knife that killed Mary Kate O’Hara. He was thorough. I’ll give him that.”
Molly looked shaken. “If Jameson hadn’t turned up, he would have gotten away with it.”
“Maybe,” Jesse said. “But like I told him, he could erase his present, but not his past. I would have looked at him eventually. Now, if you guys don’t mind, I’d like a word with Suit.”
Molly gave Jesse a wary look as she held the door open for Healy, but she didn’t say anything. Suit was visibly worried and got up from Jesse’s chair in pieces. It was painful to watch. Jesse sat in his chair and gestured for Suit to sit across from him. The pain forced him to sit, though it seemed to Jesse that Suit would rather have run.
“What’d I do now, Jesse?”
“Take it easy, Suit. I just want to say some stuff to you I should have said before this.”
“Stuff like what?”
“Like thank you for having my back last spring. I should have thanked you then.”
“Didn’t turn out so good.”
“I guess it didn’t, but you didn’t know you were going to get shot. It was a brave thing to do, Suit, following me like that even though you knew it might be dangerous and that I’d get mad at you. Easy to do things when you know you’ll get rewarded for it. Hard to do them when you know you’re going to catch hell.”
Suit reddened. “That all, Jesse?”
“Almost. You know you saved Jameson’s life, putting yourself between that truck and him?”
“I was only doing my job.”
“Maybe. But you acted fast, without thinking of yourself. You saved a person’s life. A lot of cops, good cops, go through a whole career without being able to make that claim. I thought about giving you a medal for what you did.”
“No disrespect, Jesse, but I don’t want a medal. I got lots of trophies and awards at my folks’ house and they just collect dust.”
“I know you don’t, so I decided to give you something that has meant a lot to me.” Jesse stood, unholstered his .38, emptied the cylinder, and placed it in Suit’s hand. “Luther, I would be honored if you would accept this from me as a measure of my respect for you.”
Suit stared at the .38 as if he’d just been given a Super Bowl ring. “I don’t know what to say.”
“‘Thanks’ will do.”
“Thank you, Jesse. This means everything to me.” Suit saluted his boss.
“You ever salute me again and I’ll fire your ass.”
“Stop calling me Luther and I’ll stop saluting you.”
“Deal.”
They shook on it, their hands staying together a little longer than usual.
“One more thing, Suit,” Jesse said when Suit had gotten to the office door. “When you come back on duty, you’re on patrol. Now, get out of here and heal up.”
86
When Tamara Elkin pulled back her front door, she looked exhausted and worried. He was exhausted himself, but the worries, at least for now, were gone. Jesse hugged her long and tightly.
When they broke their embrace, she asked, “Is everything all right? I was watching the news and fell asleep on the couch. Is it done?”
“It was him.”
“Marchand?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You arrested him?”
“After he broke into my house and killed the hell out of the dummy we use to teach CPR.”
“But you’re—”
“Fine. Marchand confessed to everything. There won’t be a trial.”
She smiled at him.
“He almost got away with it,” Jesse said.
She shook her head. “You would have gotten him eventually.”
“Maybe.”
She smiled again, but this was a different smile.
“What’s that smile about?”
“Water in the lungs,” she said.
“What about it?”
“There wasn’t any in either Dragoa or Millner. So unless they just happened to fall overboard the second after they both stopped breathing, someone would have had to push them overboard. You would have followed it back to Marchand.”
“We’ll never know. Tomorrow, compare the knife wounds in Millner to the wounds you found on Mary Kate’s ribs. Marchand says it was the same knife.”
“Will do.”
He kissed her softly on the forehead. “Thank you for doing this for me. How’s Jameson?”
“He’s asleep in the spare bedroom. God, I was so nervous. Jesse Stone, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a living patient? Don’t you ever do this to me again.”
Now it was his turn to smile. “Should I take him back to the hospital now?”
“He’ll be fine until tomorrow. I gave him something for the headache, but he’s not showing any other symptoms. That man’s had a rough life. The story his body tells is very sad.”
“That’s a pretty unclinical analysis, Doc.”
“There’s a reason I’m more comfortable working with the dead, Jesse.”
He didn’t say anything to that. “Can I get a drink?”
“For a price,” she said.
“Like?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“In the meantime, how about that drink?”
She hugged him. When she let go, she said, “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“If I ever get that drink.”
“You are a persistent SOB, Jesse Stone.”
“My most charming feature.”
Without another word, she walked to her cabinet and twisted off the cap of a new bottle of Black Label.
87
There was a false spring that late February. Temperatures hovered in the fifties and southern New England hadn’t seen snow since mid-January. Jesse had the softball team out for an early practice at the park. Mostly he wanted to see what he had with this year’s team. Things had changed since last season. They had new uniforms, just not the ones Bill Marchand had ordered. Their new sponsor, the Paradise Credit Union, had supplied them. Suit, who, owing to the gunshot wounds, had missed the bulk of last season, was back at first base. Jesse liked having him there even though Suit’s footwork around the bag wasn’t quite what it used to be. Jesse had been forced to shift Tommy Deutsch to shortstop to take Marchand’s place. Connor Cavanaugh had taken Deutsch’s spot at second. Cavanaugh was all hit and no field, but on a softball team full of aging jocks, wannabes, and never-will-bes, there were only so many places to hide weak links.