Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

“Could be. But I’m also wondering why of all the possible reporters in the world, this guy sent the stuff to Selko. The extra time will give me a chance to go down to Boston and do some digging.”

“About Selko?”

“About him and some other stuff. We can also alert Stan White about the possibility that the Hangman’s Sonnet tape might have been found. He could be useful. Can I get a glass of water?”

Nita smiled a nasty smile at him.

“What’s that smile about?” Jesse wanted to know.

“I offered you another drink, Jesse,” she said, grabbing the Dewar’s bottle. “You don’t have to pretend with me. I know all about your drinking. It’s not exactly a secret.”

His face went cold. “No, thank you, and forget the water. I’m going. Let’s meet in the mayor’s office tomorrow at eight.”

Nita looked almost hurt but recovered quickly. “Seven,” she said. “Mayor Walker will want to get as far out in front of this as she can. I’ll make some calls right now.”

Jesse stood, putting his glass down on the coffee table.

She walked Jesse to the door, but when they got there, Nita stood in his way. “Do you really think all of this, the break-in and the murders, is about a stupid recording tape?”

“No.”

Her face reddened. “But you just—”

“The tape is only a thing. You said it yourself just before. It’s about money.”

She liked that answer better.

“You don’t have to go, Jesse. Like I was saying the other night, it would be nice to have a conversation with someone about something other than poll numbers and politics.”

“Some other time,” he said.

She thought about protesting, but she knew that once Jesse Stone had made up his mind, there was no profit in arguing with him. She opened the door, stepped out of his way, and watched him disappear around the corner of the hall.

56

By midafternoon, Jesse had been through two meetings and was on the outskirts of Boston. The first hadn’t been exactly what he anticipated it would be. He’d strode into the mayor’s office at seven sharp, expecting that the only people in attendance would be the mayor, Nita Thompson, and himself. He’d already called Lundquist and filled him in. Jesse was surprised and more than a little pissed off to see that Stan White, Bella Lawton, and Roger Bascom were there as well.

Someone had once told Jesse that there was no such thing as a secret if more than one person knew it. People always had someone in their lives they felt they could trust with anything. Problem was, that person also had one person in his or her life he or she trusted with anything. By the time people got done trusting all those other people, whatever had begun as one person’s secret was being broadcast over the Internet in thirty-five languages. The same was true of police operations: The fewer people involved, the better the chances of success. The way Jesse saw it, they already had a steep hill to climb and the slope had just gotten more severe.

Jesse didn’t show his anger to anyone but Nita Thompson, who shrugged and shook her head as if to say, It wasn’t my idea. He waved her over to a corner of the office while the rest of them looked at the morning papers.

“Are you kidding me? Why in the hell are they here?”

Nita raised her palms in surrender. “Don’t look at me, but didn’t you say Stan White might be helpful if your theory about the tape is right?”

“I said he might be useful. Useful and helpful, two different things. I was going to approach him with a hypothetical about the value of the tape. But forget him for now. There’s a publicist with him. She’s the last thing we need. And Bascom? He’s a square badge who’s got nothing to do with a police matter.”

“They’re uninvited guests courtesy of Stan White.”

“Of course they are. This big birthday he’s throwing Jester is going over like a lead balloon. Bella confessed to me they’re having trouble getting C-list celebrities to come. Once this gets out, they’ll be turning people away.”

Nita tilted her head, confused. “Bella, is it? You two on a first-name basis? When did you glean this bit of intelligence?”

The other day when she was sunbathing nude and I got to see that she was even more of a knockout with her clothes off.

He ignored the question. “What about the governor and the senator? Do we have more time?”

“We’ve bought ourselves an extra day, maybe two, but that’s it,” she said. “Remember, politicians are beholden to the media these days as much as if not more than the media is beholden to politicians. No one is going to the mat for a small-town mayor, especially with elections coming up next year. At least Selko kept his word. Today’s story focuses only on the details of Curnutt’s murder: the homemade silencer, the caliber of the weapon, like that.”

Jesse was still pissed about Bella Lawton and Bascom’s presence, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

“Chief, Nita, please join us,” Mayor Walker said, calling them over to her desk.