Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

must have had a way to know he’d be in the car,” Vollmer said.
    “Yeah. You can rig it to start when the ignition goes on. But what if his wife drove it. Could be a matter of weight.”
    “So what if the wife and some kids got in?”
    “Could be rigged for weight in the driver’s seat.”
    “And what if it went off in the middle of Cheyenne, or in Gillette, next to a school bus?” Vollmer said.
    “Maybe they didn’t care,” Buck said.
    “Nice people.”
    “Or maybe somebody trailed him at a distance,” Buck said. “And when he got out in the middle of an empty stretch they beeped the bomb like you’d open a garage door.”
    “The technology’s there for that,” Vollmer said.
    “Yeah. What’s up there.”
    “Piece of the truck,” Vollmer said, “and maybe some bits of the driver.” He made a face. “M.E. scraped most of that up and took it with him.”
    Buck nodded.
    “I’ll take a look,” he said.
    He and Vollmer walked up the hill where the mule deer had grazed and looked at the twisted hood and part of the foam-plastic dashboard. He squatted on his heels and looked more closely at the dashboard. Riveted into it was a metal band bearing the serial number of the truck.
    “A little luck,” he said to Vollmer, and nodded at the band.
    “Take a while to trace it,” Vollmer said.
    “We got a while,” Buck said.

19
     
    Lou Burke came into Jesse’s office with two cups of coffee. Captain Cat was asleep on top of the file cabinet. He didn’t stir when Burke came in. Burke put one cup down on the desk for Jesse, and took his to the window and looked out.
    “Anthony’s cruiser,” Burke said. “He took it home last night after work and parked it in front of his house. Somebody spray-painted the windshield.”
    Jesse got up with his coffee and came to the window and stood beside Burke. In the parking lot below was one of the Paradise cruisers. Clumsily sprayed in blue onto the windshield was the word SLUT .
    “I had it towed in,” Burke said. “It wouldn’t look good to have Anthony drive it in peeking around the graffiti.”
    Jesse sipped some of the coffee and stared down at the cruiser.
    “ ‘Slut,’ ” Jesse said. “Maybe it’s personal.”
    Burke shrugged and didn’t say anything.
    “Have Perkins go over it,” Jesse said. “Probably won’t find much, but it’ll be good practice for him.”
    Burke nodded.
    “And ask Anthony to come talk to me,” Jesse said.
    Burke nodded again and left the office. Jesse stood for a while at the window drinking his coffee. He watched as Peter Perkins, the crime scene specialist, came out with his kit. While Jesse watched, Perkins took pictures of the car and dusted it for prints. He scraped a small sample of the paint off the windshield and dropped it into a small envelope. Probably a hundred people had had access to the cruiser in the last month, Jesse knew. The prints, to the extent there were any usable ones, would mean almost nothing. Still, the department had an evidence specialist; if he didn’t go over the car, what was he getting paid for?
    Anthony DeAngelo came into the office and Jesse turned from the window.
    “You wanted to see me, Jesse?”
    “Yeah. What can you tell me about the paint job?”
    “Nothing much. I parked it outside my house, you know where I live, up on Archer Ave, after I got off at eleven last night. We always take the cruiser home on that shift unless we’re turning it over.”
    “I know,” Jesse said. “That’s no problem.”
    “Anyway I went in, my wife made me a sandwich, and I had a beer and watched the end of the Sox game from Seattle and hit the rack. In the morning I went out and there it was.”
    “Talk to any of the neighbors?” Jesse said.
    “No, I, to tell you the truth I was a little embarrassed.”
    “Yeah, I can see why you would be. On the other hand, be less embarrassing if we catch the perp,” Jesse said. “Could it be personal? I mean, ‘slut’ is sort of a funny thing to spray on a police cruiser.”
    “You saying it could be about my wife or something?”
    “No. I’m asking. Your wife got any enemies?”
    “No. And she’s no slut either.”
    “Had to ask, Anthony.”
    “Sure. Probably some kid mad at me for rousting him off the wall, or something. You know what assholes kids are.”
    Jesse nodded.
    “Ask around,” he said. “See what you learn.”
    “Sure, Jesse, I’m sorry it happened.”
    “Not your fault,” Jesse said, and DeAngelo left the