Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

him as if she might blow away if she let go.
    “He used to tell me how he did it.”
    “How he killed Tammy?”
    “Yes.”
    She began to sob against him. Big paroxysmal sobs, her body heaving. She said something he couldn’t understand.
    “What did you say?”
    She shook her head.
    “No, you’ve come this far,” Jesse said, “and we’re still okay. You can say it. I can hear it.”
    “I liked hearing about it,” she said, gasping the words out between sobs. “And he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone because then I’d have to tell how I knew.”
    Jesse was silent for a moment, patting her shoulder gently. He had hold, finally, of the grotesque animal he’d been hunting. And he would have to pull it, snarling and vicious, slowly out of its hole. He didn’t know yet how big an animal it was going to be.
    “I’m going to have to ask you to testify,” Jesse said.
    She nodded her head against him, her body shaking. He held her. The sobbing went on for a long time. He patted her gently. He could hear the occasional car go ordinarily by on Main Street. Somewhere he could hear a dog bark.
    “You were brave to tell me,” Jesse said.
    She nodded against him.
    “I had to tell you,” she said. “I couldn’t have those pictures all over town.”
    “The next brave thing you are going to have to do is get psychiatric help. Good help. An honest-to-God shrink.”
    “I’m sick,” she said into his chest, “I know I am.”
    “You can get well,” Jesse said. “You know a shrink?”
    She shook her head.
    “Your family doctor can refer you,” Jesse said. “This is too hard to do alone. You need to save yourself.”
    “My God,” she said. “Jo Jo will kill me.”
    “Jo Jo will be in jail,” Jesse said.

72
     
    Jesse took Peter Perkins and Anthony DeAngelo with him to arrest Jo Jo. Both men carried shotguns. He didn’t know if he could trust them either, but it was time to find out. He didn’t want to have to kill Jo Jo; a show of force usually made an arrest go smoother. They waited in the parking lot in the back of the gym where Jo Jo trained and took him, shotguns leveled, without incident when he came out to his car. They brought him handcuffed to the station. Molly at the front desk watched in silence as they led him past her and locked him up in one of the holding cells in the back. DeAngelo and Perkins left. Jesse went back out front.
    “I’ll cover the desk,” Jesse said to Molly. “You can go home.”
    “You sure you don’t mind being alone with him?” Molly said.
    “Be fine,” Jesse said and smiled at Molly. “Give us a chance to really get to know each other.”
    “Won’t that be swell,” Molly said and got her things together and left. Jesse watched her go down the front steps of the station, then he went to his office, got a tape recorder, and walked slowly back to the cell area. He pulled up a folding chair, plugged in the tape recorder, and talked with Jo Jo through the bars.
    “That thing on?” Jo Jo said.
    “Not yet,” Jesse said.
    He held the recorder so that Jo Jo could see that it wasn’t.
    “Get used to the cell, Jo Jo,” Jesse said. “You’re going to be in one the rest of your life.”
    “You can’t prove shit,” Jo Jo said.
    “Jo Jo, you know you did her, and I know it, and we got a witness who’ll swear you bragged about it. We’re going over you and everything you own—your car, your house. We’re going to find forensic evidence, Jo Jo.”
    “You been out to get me since you come to town,” Jo Jo said.
    “When’s the last time you had sex with a woman?” Jesse said.
    Jo Jo stared at him. “Why you want to know?”
    “Because it’s the last time,” Jesse said.
    Jo Jo continued to stare at him.
    “Give you a chance to find out how tough you really are, though. Cons always like to test the bodybuilders, you know? See if they can back it up. Some guys at Cedar Junction be real proud to have Mr. Universe punking for them.”
    Jo Jo had been sitting on his cot. He stood now and walked to the bars.
    “What do you want, Stone?”
    “I want to help you, Jo Jo. I want to find some sort of deal for you.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like maybe you shouldn’t have to go down alone for this. Maybe if we talked about what kind of business you are doing with Hasty Hathaway. Maybe you might be able to tell me something about Tom Carson’s death, or Lou Burke’s.”
    “I don’t know nothing about that.”
    “Too bad,” Jesse said.
    Jo Jo walked to