Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

“Friend. We were having dinner together when I got the call.”

They went round and round like that for another fifteen minutes, Jesse going over the details of the statement he’d given to the uniforms.

“Last thing, Chief. You take anything off the body?”

“Just his weapon. I felt something along his left thigh, but it was soft and I didn’t think it was a gun or a knife.”

“Six-grand-plus cash in a plastic bag taped there.”

“Probably his share of the money for the job in Paradise. Also said the missing ring from the Cain house was in a balled-up sock in his sweatshirt pocket.”

“Yeah, it’s there.”

Jesse asked, “Did you find a cell phone on him?”

“No. Why?”

“Might have evidence on it pertaining to my cases.”

“Ain’t that a shame?”

“You want to bust my chops, Hanrahan? Fine. But before he died, Bolton pretty much admitted to killing the guy who gutted him. Said it was the guy he stayed with last night. Find that body and close the case. Might even make you look good with the brass.”

“I’ll take it under advisement. Bolton tell you anything else about him, this guy you say he offed?”

“He was a tweaker and, if I had to guess, he probably did time with Bolton or Curnutt along the way.”

“Jeez, Chief, you almost sound like you know what you’re doing.”

“LAPD Robbery-Homicide for ten years.”

Hanrahan was confused. “And you gave that up for the thrills and challenges of Paradise?”

“It gave up on me, not the other way around.”

The detective seemed to understand. “Okay, Chief. Thanks. You two can go. I know where to find you if I have to.”

As Jesse and Tamara made it back to the Explorer, he realized that although one of the two open homicides in Paradise was now closed and that the dragonfly ring was as good as recovered, the night’s excitement was only the beginning.

78

It wasn’t the media circus they had anticipated it would be. It was much worse. The streets around the police station and town hall were choked with satellite trucks. News organizations from CNN to the BBC to TMZ to PBS had set up temporary outposts in Paradise. Although Jesse had played a big part in unleashing the beast, even he was surprised by its appetite. He’d worked in L.A. and understood that people had a fascination with lost treasures, rumors, and celebrity, but Terry Jester wasn’t King Tut, nor was The Hangman’s Sonnet master tape the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet just the possibility that the tape might resurface after forty years had created a feeding frenzy.

What surprised Jesse even more was the media’s apathy toward human life. No one at the press conference seemed to care about the fact that Hump Bolton had bled to death in a Southie bar or where King Curnutt’s body had been discovered. No one was interested in the fact that Maude Cain’s murder and Rudy Walsh’s assault were now closed cases. Maude Cain, Curnutt, Bolton, and Rudy Walsh had been reduced to sideshow status at the circus. They mattered only as adjuncts, as bit players in the drama of the tape. The press were far more interested in Jesse’s mention of the dragonfly ring and its pending return to the Cain Museum than they were in the lives and deaths Jesse described to the assembled crowd.

“No one ever lost a bet underestimating human decency,” Nita Thompson had said to Jesse at one point in the proceedings. “Believe me, I know. I work with politicians.”

Mayor Walker was nowhere in sight, of course. That was part of the deal Jesse had made with her. For her backing, allowing him to handle things his way, Jesse had agreed to be out front and to take the flak. But the mayor had sent Nita Thompson along to keep an eye on him and to protect her interests.

There were several questions about Evan Updike. Oh, the press was very interested in him, and that was great with Jesse.

“I don’t mind telling you that Mr. Updike seems to have vanished. The last best photo we have of him is from the mid-eighties. Here are some images we do have of him.” Photos, both black-and-white and color, appeared on a screen off to Jesse’s left. “These photos are downloadable off our website. Any help we receive from the public about his whereabouts is appreciated.”

After Updike’s images went up, there was finally some interest in Maude Cain, Curnutt, and Bolton. But most of the questions were hypotheticals. Why did Updike choose to do this now? When do you think the tape will finally resurface? Who actually owns the tape? Will Terry Jester come out of seclusion if the tape reappears?