Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

She eyed him suspiciously but sat. “What’s wrong, Jesse?”

“Listen, you know how I joke with you about you becoming chief, but—”

She cut him off. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not quitting on me, Jesse Stone. I don’t want the job.”

“Depending on how this shakes out, you may not have a choice, but relax, I’m not quitting. I don’t quit. When this is over, I’m taking some time off. I’ve got more than a decade’s worth of vacation time and I’m going to use part of it.”

“Going to travel?”

He thought about being coy but realized that if he owed anybody the truth, he owed it to Molly. “Rehab. I’ve given it a lot of thought over the last few days. If I hadn’t been drinking so much since Diana’s murder, I might’ve been able to see what’s been going on here. I’ve fooled myself long enough that my drinking doesn’t matter. It matters. You and Doc are right, it’s selfish of me and my liver’s not getting any younger.”

“If you’re waiting for me to talk you out of it, forget it. Under those circumstances, I can handle the job of chief until you get back.”

“As far as anyone else knows, I’m going to Tucson to visit family.”

She asked, “You going via Austin?”

“Doc told you she’s leaving?”

“She’s kind of great. I’ll miss her.”

“Me too, Crane. Okay, get out of here.”

Jesse stood, stretching. He picked up his glove, turned to the window, and pounded the ball into the pocket. He had thinking to do.

89

“When you want the guy at the top, you start at the bottom of the totem pole and work your way up” is what Jesse’s first detective partner had said to him. It was advice he heeded every time he’d built a case against someone up the food chain. And that was just what he meant to do now.

“You got it, Molly,” he asked. “When you see me come to the glass and finger-comb my hair, you turn the speaker on in the breakroom. Make sure Roscoe Niles hears it loud and clear. And make sure he’s shackled to the table. If she catches wind of this, she’ll clam up.”

“I heard you the first time, Jesse. We’ll have Gabe and Peter in there with him. He’s going to hear it.”

“Her file?”

“On the table.”

“I’ll be in there,” Jesse said, pointing at the interview room.

Jesse was seated, facing the mirrored glass, when Bella Lawton came into the room. She was dressed in tight white jeans, sandals, and a low-cut black top that accentuated her shape. She was perfectly made up, but there were cracks in her armor. Nobody, not even the most experienced criminals, enjoy a visit to the interview room. Jesse smiled, stood, and pulled out a chair for her. She sat as Jesse went back around the table and also sat.

“Frankly, Jesse, I would have preferred being summoned to a motel or your bedroom, but if this is your style... Isn’t this where you interrogate people?”

“We prefer interview to interrogate.” Jesse opened the file in front of him on the table. “Bella Anne Ligari. You even photograph well in mugshots.” He turned her Boston PD mugshot to face her.

She was unintimidated. “I was young and stupid and I needed money,” she said. “None of my patrons left dissatisfied.”

“Except for one,” Jesse said. “The complaint says you stole his wallet, his Rolex, and his ring.”

She laughed. “It was his wedding band. Can you believe it? The guy paid to have sex with an eighteen-year-old girl — he thought I was sixteen — and had the nerve to bitch about his wedding ring being lifted. Look, Jesse, people change. I changed. I’ve made a new life for myself, a better life.”

“That’s true. You’ve moved up a few rungs. Your website is beautifully done. I imagine your high-end clientele pay you well enough so that you don’t need to pocket their jewelry anymore. But not quite enough to get you out of the trade completely.”

She turned hard. “Okay, Jesse, what’s this about?” She looked at her watch, made an impatient face. “Tick tock. Things to do.”

“Like spend six million dollars?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jesse left the room. When he came back in, he thumped a green duffel bag down on the table in front of her and laid a plastic-covered rifle and scope beside it. He opened the duffel and exposed the banded packs of bills.

“We’ve got two more duffels just like it in the evidence locker. Game over, Bella. You lose.”

She tried denial. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jesse. I really don’t. Stan told me the exchange was made and the tape was destroyed. What has any of this to do with me?”

He put his face very close to hers. “Don’t screw around with me, Bella. Just don’t. Like I told that idiot ex-friend of mine, Roscoe Niles, there’s hard time and there’s really hard time. As hot as you are now, what do you think a ten- or twenty-year stretch in prison will do to your looks? At least you’ll be popular inside, really popular. That much I can guarantee you.”

“I want a—”

Jesse cut her off, walking up to the mirrored glass. “Don’t say those words. You say the word lawyer and this stops being a negotiation.” He finger-combed his hair.