Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

Mayor Walker was smiling a predatory smile at Jesse when he walked into her office, and Nita Thompson trailed over his left shoulder. He knew the mayor’s game, what the smile was meant to do, how it was intended to unsettle him. It didn’t. Even if it had, he would never have shown it.

“Sit, Jesse,” she said, gesturing at the black leather chair in front of her desk. “I have some things to catch up on.”

He sat. “Thank you. Nice to hear you calling me by my first name again. Does this mean we’re back together?”

She didn’t respond, turning her head down and making a show of signing some papers while he waited. Some people, he thought, enjoy their power way too much. Jesse had had a commander in L.A. who used to pull the same crap. A real self-important prick. He’d call you into his office and make you sit there while he pretended to be busy. While you waited, he wanted you to look at the walls, at his medals and commendations, at the photos of him with Kareem and Magic, with Jack and Warren Beatty. He wanted you to be impressed by his power. More than that, he wanted you cowed by it. Jesse being Jesse, he never looked. Just kept his eyes straight ahead, staring at Pinkston, turning the tables on his commander, making him uncomfortable.

“You’re an icy bastard, Stone, you know that?” the commander had once said. “Get the hell out of my office.”

Jesse took it as high praise.

So now he sat there in Walker’s office, looking straight ahead at the mayor as she pretended to be busy. If it wasn’t for Diana’s murder, he wouldn’t have even given the mayor’s recent machinations a second thought. He didn’t resent her ambition. He resented her trying to scapegoat him. From day one on the job in Paradise, there had been friction with one politician or another. Usually he bit his tongue and moved on, working with the selectmen or mayors because it was better for the citizens of Paradise if they all worked together. But Jesse would have a hard time forgiving the mayor because of how she had come at him when he was most vulnerable.

Finally, Mayor Walker looked up from her make-believe work.

“So, Jesse, you weren’t going to leave the building without stopping by to give me an update on your progress on the Cain murder, were you?”

“Murder? I wasn’t aware the DA had decided on what charges he would bring.”

“He hasn’t, but he will. About you leaving the building...”

“No, it was never my intention to leave without stopping in, Madame Mayor. In fact, I was in Dick Bradshaw’s office looking into a potential line of investigation.”

“Really?” The mayor made a show of tilting her head in curiosity. “I’m listening.”

“With all due respect, Mayor Walker, I’m uncomfortable sharing details of any investigation at this stage. I am particularly reluctant to do so in front of persons without official standing.”

Jesse could see the mayor’s displeasure as plain as day. He felt Nita Thompson’s eyes burning a hole right through him.

“I take full responsibility for Miss Thompson.”

“Can I have that in writing? Because we both know that if there’s a leak and the case falls apart, it’s not your door the press will be knocking at.”

The mayor said, “Chief Stone, you’re being insubordinate.”

“No, Your Honor, I’m doing my job. We have the names of two potential suspects. Probably aliases or nicknames.”

“And the reason you were in seeing Bradshaw?”

“Sorry, Your Honor, I’m not ready to discuss that. I can’t afford for any possible suspects to discover how I might locate them.”

“You don’t fool me, Stone,” Nita said. “You’re covering your ass.”

Mayor Walker didn’t like Thompson coming directly at Jesse that way, because it gave him an opening. He stood up and faced the mayor’s political adviser.

“You ask your boss if that’s what I’m doing, Miss Thompson. From the day I was hired by Hasty Hathaway and his minions who hoped I would screw up and be easy to manipulate, I have never tried to spurn responsibility or hide behind anyone else.” He stepped close to Thompson. “I understand why the mayor doesn’t like me. We’ve had our skirmishes over the years from when she was a selectwoman and during her tenure as mayor. But I don’t get your beef with me.”

Thompson tried hard to keep her mouth shut, but Jesse had just gotten even deeper under her skin and she couldn’t contain herself.

“Personally, Chief Stone, I don’t give a damn about you, but you’re a drunk and a cowboy. And I’ve heard the rumors.”

Jesse’s guts tightened. Sure, he had crossed the line in the name of right more than a few times, but there was one transgression that could get him sent to prison for life: handing Diana’s killer over to Vinnie Morris. He played it cool.

“Rumors?”

“Everybody in the state knows about you and the motorcycle gang in Helton. How you shot up one of the gang members’ Harleys and then walked away while another member of the gang beat him bloody. One version of it says the guy was beaten to death.”

“Nice story. Any proof? Witnesses?”