Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

He held it together until the rice was thrown and the cans tied to the back of Suit’s car rattled down the street. He held it together until the mayor was long gone. But after a pretty waitress with the same shade of blond hair as Diana’s approached him to ask if he’d like something to drink, he’d had all he could take. Four Johnnie Walker doubles later, Tamara and Molly, propping him up between them, walked him out of the Gull to Tamara’s car.

8

Tamara Elkin opened her eyes, her phone chirping madly. And when she did, she realized several things all at once: She was in Jesse Stone’s bed, she was hungover, it wasn’t only her cell phone chirping, and the sun through the bedroom window was making it nearly impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She’d made it no secret that she had longed to wake up in Jesse’s bed, but not like this. Not when he had been plastered and desperate and sad. She didn’t want him that much. No woman with any pride wants to be a man’s fallback position.

She reached for the other side of the bed, touched the cool, smooth sheets, and breathed a heavy sigh of relief and disappointment when she understood that Jesse wasn’t there and that he hadn’t been there all night. With that, the memory of the evening flooded back in. She had driven Jesse home after he’d started falling apart at the Gull. She’d gotten him to slow up on his drinking by drinking with him, making him drink at her pace. It wasn’t like Tamara Elkin couldn’t drink. It was one of the things they had bonded over, and she could normally keep pace with him. These days, though, she didn’t think there was anything except a sink drain that could keep pace with how much Jesse poured down his throat.

The other thing she realized was that when her cell phone rang and Jesse’s phone rang simultaneously, it was never a good thing. It usually meant there was somebody dead within the confines of Paradise, and that death, to whomever it had come, hadn’t come easy. It usually came with bullets or blood or broken bones. The morning after the very first time she had spent a night like this, a night of drinking with Jesse in his house, their phones had both started singing in discordant unison. On that occasion, death had come to Maxie Connolly, a woman who’d returned to Paradise to bury her murdered daughter. She’d been found dead on the rocks at the base of the Bluffs, her neck broken, her body battered.

“Tamara Elkin,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper.

“Hey, Doc. It’s Molly Crane.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten twenty-three.”

“That late!”

Her throat was cotton and she was thirsty for a few gallons of water. The second gallon to wash down the bottle of pills she wanted to swallow to ease the pain from the sword that was stuck between her eyeballs.

“You okay, Doc?”

“Not nearly. What’s going on?”

“We got a body we need you to come take a look at.”

She was impatient. “Homicide, suicide, what?”

“Looks like a definite homicide.”

“Text me the particulars and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The sound of Jesse’s landline ringing in the background hadn’t escaped Molly’s notice.

“Doc, I can trust you, right?”

“Sure, Molly.”

“And we both really care about Jesse.”

“Look, Molly, I assume Jesse’s still out cold downstairs. I slept in his bed last night, but he wasn’t in it. So just say what you’ve got to say.”

“Okay, then. Do you think you can get Jesse to the crime scene with you? Alisha can’t get in touch with him and you know the mayor is looking for any excuse to—”

“I’ll handle it.”

“I can send someone over to help if you need it, Doc.”

“I’ll handle it!”

Jesse’s landline immediately stopped ringing.

When she stood up, she thought her head might split in two. Although Jesse’s house was pretty isolated, she threw on her dress from last night and went out to her car to retrieve the extra set of clothes she carried with her just in case. On her way out she checked to see where Jesse was and to make a preliminary attempt at rousing him. But when she saw him, spread out on his leather sofa, she skipped the wake-up attempt. Only after she came back in did she shake Jesse. It took a minute or two to get him to open his eyes. She handed him a full glass of water and two tablets.

“Take these,” she said.

“Aspirin? I’ll need more than two—”

“Fiorinal with codeine. They’ll help with your hangover. I’m going to put up some coffee and then I’m going to shower in the guest bathroom. You better get your ass in gear, right now.”

“Hold on a second,” he said, his voice thick. “It’s Sunday. I’m off work today.”

“Didn’t you hear the phones?”

“What phones? I didn’t hear anything.”

“I’m not surprised, given how much you had to drink,” she said, picking up the near-empty bottle and shaking it at him. “This has got to stop, Jesse, or you’ve got to cut back.”

He tried unsuccessfully to smile. “As I recall, you were doing pretty well yourself.”

“Stupid me, I was trying to slow you down and now I’m suffering for it. Now please get showered and dressed.”

“Why?”