Death In Paradise (7 page)

"What happened to her?" Carla said.

"Someone shot her," Jesse said, "and put her body in a lake."

"Jesus," Carla said.

"Yes."

All three of them were quiet, listening to the air-conditioning in the unmarked police car.

"Do my parents know?" Carla said.

"Only what you heard me tell them," Jesse said.

Again the soft sound of the air-conditioning. Across the street the kids were back to hanging out, but most of them looked regularly over at the car.

"Who did it?" Carla said.

"Don't know," Jesse said. "We're still trying to identify the body."

"You're just a bunch of hick cops anyway," Carla said. "You'll never find out."

"Do you have a family dentist?" Jesse said.

"Of course."

"What's his name?"

"Dr. Levine. Why?"

"It might help us identify the victim," Jesse said.

"Can't you just use fingerprints?" Carla said.

"Do you know where Billie is?" Jesse said.

"No."

"When's the last time you saw her?"

Carla shrugged.

"When's the last time she was home?"

"They kicked her out right after school ended."

"Your mother and father kicked her out?"

"Yes."

"Because?"

"They said she was a druggie and a whore."

"Was she?"

Carla shrugged again.

"Did they tell you not to talk about it?"

Carla didn't answer. She was motionless, looking at her knees.

"What did they say, Carla?" Molly asked.

Carla answered without raising her eyes.

"They said there was only two of us now. Me and Emily."

Her voice was very small.

"Have you heard from her since she left?" Jesse said.

"No."

"How do you feel about all this?" Molly said.

Carla shrugged again, concentrating on her knees. "Billie messed up," she said.

"Are you scared you might mess up?" Molly said.

Carla didn't say anything. Molly took a card case from her shirt pocket, selected a card, and handed it to Carla.

"If you do mess up," Molly said, "you can call me. I'll help you."

Carla still didn't speak. But she took the card.

 

 

Lilly lived in a condominium apartment on the fifth floor in a vast sprawl of condominium apartments just off Route 1A behind a shopping mall near the Salem line. It was five minutes past seven when Jesse arrived at her door carrying a bottle of Iron Horse champagne. She was wearing faded blue jeans, carefully pressed, a white silk blouse with a stand-up collar, and short black boots with thick heels. The jeans were snug. The blouse was open at the neck and a gold chain showed against her light tan.

"Do you have a warrant?" Lilly said.

"No," Jesse said. "But I've got a bottle of champagne."

Lilly smiled.

"That will do," she said. "Come on in."

The apartment had white walls and blond furniture and sand-colored carpeting. There were sliders at the end of the living room that opened onto a small balcony that allowed you to look down at the back side of the shopping mall. The furniture was appropriate without being interesting.

"Don't judge me by my home," Lilly said. "I bought it after my second divorce, furniture and all, and moved in until I found something a little better."

"And?"

"And I haven't gotten around to looking."

"Too busy?" Jesse said.

"Do I have the right to an attorney?" Lilly said.

"Sorry. Sometimes I think I've asked too many questions for too long a time."

Lilly held out the champagne bottle.

"Shall we begin by drinking this?" she said.

Jesse hesitated. Club soda would be the right thing to drink. He took the bottle.

"We'd be fools not to," he said.

She got an ice bucket and glasses and set them on the glass-top coffee table. Jesse uncorked the wine and poured some in each glass. They clinked glasses and held each other's look for a moment and drank.

"I love champagne," Lilly said.

Jesse nodded.

"Actually," Lilly said, "I love having someone to drink it with."

"Lucky I stopped by," Jesse said.

"It wasn't luck. I invited you for dinner."

"That's right."

They drank.
Sip
, Jesse told himself.
Sip
.

"I guess, if I had to be completely honest…" Lilly said.

"No need for that," Jesse said.

"I guess I'm still here for sort of the same reason. I guess I was hoping for someone to come along who would look for a new place with me."

"Would that include either ex-husband?"

"No," Lilly said. "It would not."

They were quiet, both thinking of other lives they had lived, other nights in twosomes with champagne. He could feel the charge between them. Simultaneous release and tension. Since he'd first been in her office he'd known it would come to this, and now it had. He felt the relaxation of arrival. Soon he'd see her naked. Soon there would be no tension.

"Animosity?" Jesse said.

"With my exes? Not the first one. He's nice. He lives in Chicago now, works as a construction supervisor for a big company. I see him occasionally when he comes to Boston."

"So what happened?"

"I don't know, exactly. You go along thinking it's forever, then one day it isn't. One day he didn't want to be married to me, and I didn't want to be married to him."

"Somebody else?"

"No. It was more that we hoped for someone else. Or something else. Our marriage just wasn't enough."

"How about number two?" Jesse said.

"The sonovabitch," Lilly said, and pretended to spit.

"Another woman?"

"Another dozen," Lilly said.

"Animosity," Jesse said.

"A lot," Lilly said.

"How long have you been single?" Jesse said.

"Five years."

"You mind living alone?"

"Yes."

They were quiet again.

"You?" Lilly said.

"No," Jesse said. "I don't mind living alone… I mind being alone. And I mind Jenn not being alone."

"You're pretty hooked into Jenn," Lilly said.

"I am."

"How long have you been divorced?"

"Four years."

"I'm not sure that's very good for you," Lilly said.

"Probably not," Jesse said.

"Have you ever seen a shrink?"

"No."

"Maybe you should. It helps."

"Maybe I should," Jesse said.

"But?"

"My father was a cop," Jesse said. "My whole life I been playing ball, or I been a cop."

"So?"

"Seeing a psychiatrist is not something cops and ballplayers are supposed to do."

"What are they supposed to do?"

Jesse paused, thinking about it.

"They're supposed to hang in."

"Forever?"

"As needed," Jesse said.

Lilly looked at him thoughtfully. "Wow," she said. "You need a shrink worse than I thought."

"Jenn says so, too."

"She seeing one?"

"Yes."

"Well," Lilly said. "You'll go when you're ready."

Jesse didn't say anything. Maybe he would. But if he did, it would start with the provision that he wasn't going to stop loving Jenn. The champagne was gone so quickly.
You have to concentrate every minute
, Jesse thought.

"I have made us a lovely supper," Lilly said.

"I could use one," Jesse said.

"But if we eat it first," Lilly said, "we'll both be thinking about afterwards and how that's going to go, and won't be able to enjoy the dinner as we should."

"That is a problem," Jesse said.

"So I think we should have the afterwards first. Then we'd be free to concentrate on the lovely supper."

"Sure," Jesse said.

Lilly put down her champagne glass and stood.

"Follow me," she said, and walked past the kitchen counter toward her bedroom.

He felt the familiar smooth curve as he ran his hand up her thigh. The familiar soft slope of her belly. He had done this often. This time, like each time, it was brand-new. He could hear her breathing, felt the pressure of her hips, she was skillful and fully engaged. The part of him that was not making love smiled. Didn't matter if she was skillful. His father used to say, The worst piece of ass I ever had was excellent. There was always that part. The one that wasn't engaged, whether it was lovemaking or fighting. There was always the amused, nonjudgmental
other
observing it. He wondered if she had an
other
.

Finally, dressed and relaxed, they sat at her glass-top dining table and ate in silence in the gently moving light of the candles Lilly had lighted. There was a bottle of white wine at hand in an ice bucket.

"That's your real hair color," he said.

"My hair turned silver when I was twenty-six," Lilly said.

She poured some white wine into Jesse's glass.
It's all right. I'm nowhere near drunk
. He drank some.
Nice wine
. He ate some of the supper she had served them.

"What am I eating?" Jesse said.

"Lobster meat in a light cream sauce," Lilly said. "With sherry, pearl onions and mushrooms and different-colored sweet peppers, over basmati rice."

"You can cook."

Lilly smiled at him.

"Second best thing I do," she said.

Jesse nodded several times and drank some wine.

 

 

Jesse was pretty sure that things would go better with Hooker Royce if his parents weren't around when they talked. He found Hooker at the high school, on the football field, running sprints. He had on expensive athletic shoes, a stopwatch on his wrist and a pair of gray cotton sweatpants that had been cut off to mid thigh. Jesse stood quietly watching Hooker as he did forty-yard sprints, timing each one. He was a muscular, in-shape, middle-sized kid, a little bigger than Jesse, with an even tan and a blond crew cut. When Hooker paused to rest, Jesse spoke to him.

"My name's Jesse Stone. I'm with the police in Paradise."

"Is it about Billie?"

"It is."

"I don't know where she is. I already told the lady from your department that called me."

Jesse nodded. They began to walk around the quarter-mile track that circled the field.

"When's football start at Yale?" Jesse said.

"I'm supposed to show up day after Labor Day."

"You a running back?" Jesse said.

"Yes."

"What'd you run out of in high school?" Jesse said.

"Deep back in the I. You play?"

"High school," Jesse said. "You plan to show up in shape."

"Be dumb not to," Hooker said.

"You were a
Globe
all-scholastic in three sports," Jesse said.

Hooker nodded.

"And an honor student."

Hooker nodded again.

"Full boat to Yale?"

"Yes."

"You're a nice-looking kid," Jesse said.

"Thank you."

"Probably don't have much trouble getting a date," Jesse said.

Hooker grinned. "When I have time," he said.

"So how come Billie?" Jesse said.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Billie doesn't seem like she'd be your girlfriend."

"Girlfriend? She wasn't my girlfriend."

"You gave her your class ring," Jesse said.

"Yeah, but that was…"

They stopped walking. Hooker turned toward Jesse.

"It's like, I broke up with my regular girlfriend."

"And Billie was available?"

"Christ," Hooker said, and smiled. "Billie was always available."

"And?"

"And, yeah, I needed a date for senior prom, and Paula was going with somebody else."

"And the pickings were thin."

"Most of the girls already had dates. And it seemed like a way to stick it to Paula."

"And get laid in the process," Jesse said.

Hooker grinned and shrugged.

"So how come the ring?" Jesse said.

"I kind of liked her," Hooker said. "After I actually took her to the dance. And I felt bad for her. I mean everybody was banging her, but nobody cared anything much about her, you know?"

"Un-huh."

"And, you know, she wasn't that bad a kid. Like everybody thought she was stupid, and she wasn't. She was pretty smart about a lot of stuff."

"And you fell head over heels in love," Jesse said.

"What planet you come from?" Hooker said. "Like I said, I felt bad for her. I'm not going out with anybody. So I figure, hell, I'm going to college in a couple of months. I'll give her the ring, make her feel good, and then I'll go to college in September and it's over. I don't give a shit about the ring."

"She know that?" Jesse said.

"No, of course not. But it didn't work out like I thought. Paula and I patched it up, and she said if we were going to be together I couldn't be going out with Billie."

"Seems fair," Jesse said. "To Paula."

"Yeah, and, like, I love Paula. You know? Billie wasn't so bad. But…"

"When'd you break the news?" Jesse said.

"About a week after graduation," Hooker said.

"How'd she take it?"

"Funny," Hooker said. "She was funny about it like she expected it to happen. I told her to keep the ring. Like a memento. I figured I'd give Paula something from Yale."

They were quiet, sitting together on the bottom row of the empty stands with the summer sun staring down at them.

"What was her life like at home?" Jesse said.

"I don't know," Hooker said. "She never said anything about home."

"And you never went there?"

"Couple times to pick her up. Mrs. Bishop's real young-looking."

"Anything else?"

Hooker shrugged.

"Nothing I can think of. I'd just go in, pick up Billie, and we'd leave. Mrs. Bishop seemed nice. I was surprised when they kicked her out."

"Did you see her after they kicked her out?"

"No."

"You know where she went?"

"No."

They were silent again. Jesse liked to leave openings for people to fill.

"I gotta do my sprints," Hooker said.