Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

Burke’s car, a six-year-old Buick sedan, was parked, doors open, against the safety barrier at the verge of the rust-colored granite cliffs which dropped two hundred feet straight down to the surf. The car’s ignition was on, the gas tank was empty, and the battery was dead. Jesse popped the hood and put his hand on the engine block. It was cold. He walked to the barrier and looked down to where the dark shape tossed and wallowed in surf, caught among the rocks.
    “Do we know if it’s Lou?” Jesse said.
    “Not yet,” Peter Perkins said. “No way down the cliffs from here. Suitcase is coming around with the police boat and a couple of divers, but it’ll take him a while.”
    Jesse nodded and walked back to the Buick. On the steering wheel, attached with a piece of gray duct tape, was a typewritten note:

    Jesse ,

     
    I can’t stand it any more, suspected of murder, suspended.
    It’s on you, Jesse.

     
    Lou Burke

     
    “Bag the note,” Jesse said.
    Peter Perkins picked up the note by one corner and put it carefully into a transparent plastic envelope.
    “You think Lou killed himself, Jesse?” Perkins said.
    “Don’t know,” Jesse said.
    “There’s Suitcase,” Perkins said.
    The police boat from the town wharf nosed around the ragged jut which marked the end of the harbor, and pushed through the hard morning chop toward the base of the cliff. Jesse could see Suitcase Simpson and two men in wet suits. The light was pale in the early morning and the late-fall sun gave a weak yellow light, and no warmth. The wind off the ocean was strong and cold.
    The boat steered in as close as it could to the surf line below the cliffs, and the two men in wet suits went over and into the black water. It took them almost ten minutes to work their way to the dead man, bumping against the boulders, facedown in the seafoam. One of the divers attached a line, and with the two divers steering the body, Suitcase reeled it in toward the boat. The body bumped against the side of the police boat and flopped inhumanly as Suitcase and the two divers got it in over the gunwales and laid it faceup on board.
    “Is it Lou?” Jesse yelled, but his voice was lost in the wind and surf sound. He could see Simpson looking up at him. Simpson yelled, but Jesse could not hear him. Jesse cupped his hands as if making a megaphone, and Simpson went into the cabin and came out with the bullhorn.
    “I think it’s Lou,” Simpson yelled, his voice amplified and dehumanized by the bullhorn. “He’s been banging around down here for a while and it’s hard to tell.”
    Jesse nodded and gave Simpson a thumbs-up and the police boat swung in an arc away from the foot of the cliffs, opened the engines, and roared, with the east wind behind it now back around the point toward the town wharf.
    “See what you can do here,” Jesse said to Peter Perkins.
    He got into his cruiser, set the blue light flashing, and headed for the town wharf. There was barely anyone on the road at 6:10 in the morning and he had no need of the siren. I really can pick ’em, he thought as he drove through the old town with its narrow streets and narrower sidewalks and narrow old houses built right up against them. Three homicides in a year. Towns like this you’re supposed to get about one a career. He thought about Jenn for a moment, and then he was there. He could see the police boat slow now as it passed through the boats winter-moored in the harbor. He got out of the car with the wind pushing at him. Seagulls were roosting on the tops of pilings and along the edge of the big town float. He went into the wharf office and poured himself some coffee and drank it with Cremora and sugar while he waited for Simpson and the body. He still had some left when the boat docked against the float, and he was still sipping it when he stepped over the gunwales of the police boat and squatted on his heels next to the sodden corpse.
    “You’re right,” Jesse said to Simpson. “It’s kind of hard to say who it is. You find any I.D. on him?”
    Simpson looked like he might be a little seasick. “Once we got him in the boat,” he said, “I didn’t touch him.”
    Jesse nodded. He rolled the body over and found the pants pockets and with some trouble got a soaked wallet out. He opened it.
    “It’s Lou’s wallet,” Jesse said.
    “Jesus,” Simpson said.
    The two divers and the boat captain looked elaborately elsewhere.
    “Yeah,” Jesse said. “We’ll get a positive