Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

shoulder.
    “I’m a good cop,” Jesse said. “But a good cop is mostly the product of a good support system. We’re not geared for a homicide investigation.”
    “We don’t want that policeman nosing into our business,” Hathaway said. His geniality was dissipating.
    “Well, I’m not sure there’s much to be done about that,” Jesse said. “Even if I didn’t want him, which I do, I got no way to keep him out.”
    Hathaway was silent. One leg slung over the corner of Jesse’s desk, he drummed quietly with the fingers of his right hand on the desktop. His face seemed to have tightened in on itself. The lines had deepened and the pale blue eyes seemed smaller. He looked feral.
    “Jesse, you need to be clear about things,” Hathaway said finally. “You are either with us, or you are not. We value loyalty above all things. It was ultimately Tom Carson’s failure.”
    “Whatever happened to him?” Jesse said.
    Hathaway glanced away from Jesse and stared out the window.
    “We had to ask for Tom’s resignation,” Hathaway said.
    “Because?”
    “Because his loyalty was in question.”
    “Loyalty to who?” Jesse said. His voice was gentle and there was nothing in it other than interest.
    “To us,” Hathaway said. “To the people of this town who matter.”
    “Like you,” Jesse said.
    “Yes. And Lou Burke, and everyone in this town who cares about preserving democracy at the grass roots.” Hathaway’s voice seemed to scrape out of his throat.
    “So where is Carson now?”
    “I have no idea,” Hathaway said.
    “Me either.”
    Hathaway looked hard at Jesse, but there was nothing on his face, nothing in his voice, except the hint of something seething behind the bow tie and glasses.
    “I don’t want to hear that you are opening up to this state policeman in any way,” Hathaway said finally.
    “The surest way to bring them down here in droves,” Jesse said, “is to try and keep them out.”
    “You don’t have to keep them out. But you can stonewall them.”
    “You haven’t had much dealing with people like Healy,” Jesse said. “I have. He’s been in this business forty years. He’s taken guns away from hopheads and children away from molesters. He’s seen every mess, heard every lie. He’s been there and seen it done. You can’t stonewall him any more than you can scare him.”
    “So we throw the town secrets open to him?”
    “No, but we let him help us catch the guy who killed that girl,” Jesse said.
    Hathaway sat silent as a stone on the corner of the desk, shaking his head slowly.
    “A damned divorcee,” he said finally, “out to get laid.”
    “Or the mother of two kids,” Jesse said, “out for the evening. All depends on which truths you tell, I guess.”
    Hathaway continued to sit and shake his head. Then he rose abruptly and walked stiffly out of Jesse’s office. Jesse watched the empty doorway that Hathaway had gone through for a while, his lips pursed slightly. He realized his jaw was clamped very tight and he opened it and worked it back and forth a little to relax it. He breathed in deeply and let it out slowly, listening to his own exhale, easing the tightness along his shoulders, relaxing his back.
    “And Lou Burke,” Jesse said aloud.
    He got up and went to the file cabinet and got out Burke’s personnel file and took it back to his desk and began to thumb through it.

45
     
    Finding Tammy Portugal’s husband was easy. The alimony check had been cashed at the Paradise Bank and the address was printed on it. Jesse drove out to Springfield and talked with him at 10:30 a.m. in a coffee shop on Sumner Avenue at an intersection called the X. The restaurant was out of the 1930s. Glass brick, and a jukebox near the kitchen.
    “I’m a loser,” Bobby Portugal said to Jesse. “Tammy thought she was marrying a winner, but that was just my bullshit. I been a loser since I graduated high school.”
    Portugal was medium height and husky. His dark hair was longish and he had a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a Patriots warm-up jacket over a gray tee shirt and jeans.
    “We went together in high school. I was a big jock in high school. Running back, point guard. She thought I was a big deal.”
    The waitress brought an order of English muffins for Jesse and a fried-egg sandwich for Portugal.
    “Made All–North Shore League, junior and senior year, football and basketball. Got a partial scholarship to B.C.”
    Portugal paused while he peeled off the top