Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

agitated about me and Joe Hudson, and me wanting him to get divorced. I didn’t really mean I’d tell him about me and Joe. That would be tooo weird!!!!!! But if it gets him, it’s just a little white lie. I don’t really get it anyway. I do the same thing with Joe as Hasty. What’s so different about it???
    September 11—I told Hasty I was going to go public about me and him. I got all his letters. I said it was time for him to either go or get off the pot.
    September 15—Hasty says give him a week. He said he would make it right. I said okay, but I wouldn’t see him until he decided.
    September 17—Got some new jeans at Marshall’s and one of those great midriff sweaters. Going to take myself out for a few drinks tonight at the 86.
    September 17 was the last entry. Jesse read his cut-and-paste narrative sitting alone on the little balcony overlooking the harbor. It was too cold to sit out there, even with his jacket on. But somehow it made the reading less painful to be out there, as if the openness of the setting compensated for the hermetic quality of the small life lived so briefly in the excerpted pages. When he was finished he sat for a long time looking across the harbor at the lights from the Yacht Club.

62
     
    “I want you to know,” Hasty said, “that I fully support you in whatever decision you make about Lou Burke.”
    Jesse nodded without comment. They were sitting at the counter in the Village Room. Jesse had coffee. Hasty had coffee and a large cinnamon roll with white icing on it.
    “We both know it’s not a popular decision,” Hasty said. “But you’re the professional. You run the department your way.”
    Jesse nodded again. He poured some half-and-half into his coffee.
    “When I hire a man I back him until he proves I shouldn’t,” Hasty said.
    He took a bite out of his cinnamon bun. Jesse stirred two sugars into his coffee.
    “I just hope to God you know what you’re doing.”
    “Me too,” Jesse said.
    “You do, don’t you?” Hasty said.
    He was talking around his mouthful of cinnamon bun. There were crumbs on his tie.
    “Yes,” Jesse said.
    “I mean you better have some solid evidence, everybody likes Lou in town.”
    Jesse nodded and drank some of his coffee.
    “You do, don’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “It would help me support you if I knew what you know,” Hasty said.
    Jesse shook his head.
    “Why not?” Hasty said. “For God’s sake, Jesse, I’m the chairman of the Board of Selectmen.”
    “I’ve never gotten in trouble,” Jesse said, “being quiet.”
    “Jesse, damn it, I’m your boss.”
    Jesse smiled at him and said nothing. Hasty started to speak again, and caught himself. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
    “You are going to need me on your side,” Hasty said finally. “And don’t forget it.”
    “I’m counting on you, Hasty.”
    “You could count on me more,” Hasty said, “if I had a better idea of what you’re doing.”
    Jesse finished his coffee and put the cup down carefully in the saucer.
    “You’ll be among the first to know,” Jesse said and got off the stool. “Coffee on you?” he said.
    Hasty nodded. Jesse stopped at the end of the counter to say hello to a couple of postal clerks having pie and coffee on break. Then he left the Village Room and walked back across the common toward the police station.

63
     
    “Stone has to go,” Hasty said to Jo Jo.
    They were in Hasty’s car cruising Route 128, north toward Gloucester.
    “Mistake,” Jo Jo said.
    “No, he has to go. He’ll ruin everything if he doesn’t.”
    “You can’t kill the Chief of Police,” Jo Jo said, “and think it’ll keep things quiet. You seen that state cop, what-sisname.”
    “Healy.”
    “Yeah. You think that he’s going to kiss it off when the second police chief in less than a year dies in this fucking town?”
    “It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Hasty said. “We’re too close to the arms deal. The arms deal is crucial.”
    “What’s this ‘we’ shit, paleface? I’m the guy has to do the clip.”
    “We’re in this together, Jo Jo.”
    Jo Jo looked almost amused.
    “Sure,” he said. “Why don’t we ace Lou Burke?”
    “Lou?”
    “Yeah. He’s the only thing connects you to Tom Carson. Deep-six Burke and the connection’s gonzolla.”
    “Lou Burke?” Hasty said. “I’ve known Lou Burke for thirty years.”
    “I dump him,” Jo Jo said, “hide the body, make it look like he took off after Stone