Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

talking to people who knew her. She may have had some favorite places. Most women don’t like to go to a strange place alone. She probably went to the same places or a few of the same places every time.”
    “I can give you some help along Route One,” Healy said.
    “I’ll take it. What else did the M.E. say?”
    “Not too much that you couldn’t see looking at her. She’d been raped. She’d been beaten with a blunt instrument, possibly a human fist. Her neck was broken, which is almost certainly the cause of death. She wasn’t killed here. There’s no blood at all at the scene and there would have been. The word ‘slut’ was written on her with lipstick, probably hers, it matches traces found on her lips. You got any thoughts about ‘slut’?”
    “You know it was spray-painted on one of our squad cars, and later the station-house cat was killed and a sign was attached to it that said ‘slut.’ ”
    “Sometimes words have private meanings to the people who use them,” Healy said, “especially if they’re nuts.”
    Jesse nodded.
    “You figure it’s the same person?” Healy said.
    “Be a logical guess, and if it is it may not be about the victims, it may be about us,” Jesse said.
    “Or it’s a copycat who wants you to think that?”
    “You believe that?” Jesse said.
    “I don’t believe anything, but it’s possible.”
    “Yeah, but is it likely? This has got every mark of an unpremeditated act of rage or sadism or insanity or all of the above. It doesn’t have any hint of some kind of calculating smart guy who pretends to be part of the other deal to confuse us.”
    “Unless the guy is even smarter than that and knows you’ll think that way.”
    “How long you been a cop?” Jesse said.
    “Forty-one years,” Healy said.
    “Got me by some, but in forty-one years how many criminal masterminds you run into on a murder case?”
    Healy smiled.
    “About the same number you have,” he said.
    “Which is the same number of big-league at-bats we got between us,” Jesse said.
    “Which is zip,” Healy said.
    They both sipped whiskey in the dim office.
    “You got a suspect?” Healy said.
    “Not based on evidence.”
    “But you got somebody in mind.”
    Jesse shrugged.
    “Got a guy in town with maybe a grudge against the department, or probably, more accurate, a grudge against me.”
    “Not many towns don’t have somebody like that,” Healy said. “Sort of goes with police work.”
    “I know,” Jesse said.
    “And you don’t care to tell me his name, anyway,” Healy said.
    Jesse shrugged.
    “Doesn’t seem right,” he said. “Even to you. I got absolutely nothing to back it up.”
    Healy nodded. “You know the former chief here?”
    “No.”
    “You know he was murdered out in Wyoming?”
    “Boy, you don’t miss much,” Jesse said.
    “I like to read the stuff that comes through,” Healy said.
    “Got blown up,” Jesse said. “On the road to Gillette.”
    “Town like this doesn’t have a murder a decade,” Healy said. “You get two in a month.”
    “Hate coincidence,” Jesse said. “Don’t you?”
    “Yeah. You see any connection?”
    “Not yet,” Jesse said.
    “But you’re looking.”
    “I’m going to.”
    Healy nodded again.
    “Course sometimes there are coincidences,” he said.
    “We’re keeping it in mind,” Jesse said.
    Healy nodded, finished his drink, refilled Jesse’s glass, and put the bottle in his briefcase.
    “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

44
     
    Hasty Hathaway wandered into Jesse’s office and closed the door behind him and came and sat with one leg on the corner of Jesse’s desk.
    “What did that state police captain want?” he said.
    “And good morning to you too, Hasty.”
    Hathaway shook his head as if he had water in his ear.
    “What did he want?”
    “His name’s Healy,” Jesse said. “He’s the state homicide commander. He wanted to talk about Tammy Portugal’s murder.”
    Hathaway shook his head again, slowly this time.
    “We don’t want that, Jesse,” he said. “We solve our own problems here.”
    “I haven’t got the forensic resources for a full-fledged homicide investigation, Hasty. He does.”
    Hathaway reached over and gave Jesse a clap on the shoulder.
    “We have every confidence in you and your men, Jesse, we don’t need the state government sticking its nose under the edge of our tent, so to speak.”
    Jesse hated to be touched and he especially hated to be clapped on the