Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay (20 page)

T
he two-building complex was done in that same smooth, tan stucco finish as the Vineland Park town hall had been done in. The accents were all Spanish, including the rounded red tile roof over the front portico, under which Pruitt had parked. The buildings were located in a lovely area of low hills, running trails, wooden footbridges, and a network of streams. There was some cloud cover that morning, so the searing power of the Texas sun wasn't at its fullest. Still, the heat was pretty intense as they stepped out of the SUV.

“These buildings here are called the Park Mansion. That tower over there,” said Pruitt, pointing to his right, “is the hotel. Whenever big musical acts or celebrities come to town, that's usually where you'll find 'em. And the Park Place Bar in the hotel is the finest cocktail bar in all of North Texas. Pretty fair collection of fine scotches and women, too. I'm sure you, Hale, and the boys will be stopping by there tonight.”

“You're not coming?”

“I'm too old for this party-every-night shit, and tonight's going to
be all about drinking, let me tell you. Between the cigar bar at Javier's and Park Place . . . no, sir. My liver won't take it. C'mon with me.”

The doorman stood from behind a security desk as the front doors parted and the two police chiefs entered. They were hit with a blast of arctic air. The doorman was a short, smiling fellow with dark brown eyes, brown skin, slicked-back black hair going gray, and a once handsome face with a lot of rough mileage on it.

“Mornin', Champ.”

“Good morning, Chief Pruitt,” the man said, a heavy dose of Mexico in his English. “This must be Chief Stone. Good morning to you, Chief. Please sign in, gentlemen.” He handed them a tablet and stylus. “Just follow the prompts.”

As he waited to sign in, Jesse noticed the not-too-subtle bulge beneath the doorman's gray tunic. As Jesse signed, Pruitt explained that he and Jesse would first go down to the garage and then head up to Miss Yankton's condo. The doorman didn't object. Instead, he issued an electronic passkey to Pruitt.

“That will get you where you have to go, gentlemen.”

As they rode the elevator down to the garage, Pruitt said, “Recognize the doorman?”

“Should I have? He had a flattened nose, a lot of scar tissue around the eyes, and you called him Champ, so he was a boxer.”

“Rodrigo ‘Rodeo' Robles. Was the flyweight title holder for about five minutes in the late nineties. Good man. Tough as nails.”

“Carries, too.”

“Didn't use to until this abduction happened. Already too many damn guns carried by too many damn fools, but Rodrigo took our course. He won't be stupid with it.”

The elevator stopped and the doors spread open. The exhaust
fans whirred as they had whirred the evening Belinda June Yankton had been snatched by Peepers. Pruitt walked Jesse over to where Yankton's red Audi convertible was parked. As they walked, the faint background odors of car exhaust, gasoline, and motor oil brought back the car chase and explosion in Paradise. He wondered how the evidence collection was going and how soon it would be before he could relax. Jesse had tried not to dwell on it, but he knew that if Peepers wasn't dead and he slipped through his grasp this time, he might never be able to relax again.

“Clever bastard, Peepers. Stole a parking pass and waited down here in the spot next to the woman's. She was headed out for a night with some girlfriends over at the Jungle Bar at Vineland Park Village. Never made it.”

“Drugged her. She was unconscious before she knew it.”

“How'd you—”

“It's what he did to a woman in Boston.”

“Next thing she knew, she was naked and strapped to a workbench with leather cuffs and restraints.”

Jesse nodded.

“Same as he did to the woman back in Massachusetts?” Pruitt asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“C'mon. Nothing much else to see down here.”

As they rode up in the elevator, Pruitt explained more about Belinda Yankton's delicate mental state.

“I don't want to hit this too hard, Jesse, but you've got to be careful with her. I figure, based on what Kahan told me about your experience with the LAPD, that you'll be just fine with her. Still, I had to warn you.”

“I understand,” Jesse said. “I get the sense you don't much like Kahan.”

“He's all right as far as it goes. Good at his job. Thorough.”

“But you don't trust him?”

“Not as far as I could toss a fat steer. Man has his own agenda. He operated on his own way too much for my taste, if you know what I mean. Covert-ops types have a different kinda mind-set in the way they go about their business.”

“We're on the same page, then, where he's concerned.”

The smooth-as-silk elevator came to an almost undetectable stop and a woman's voice announced that they had reached the twelfth floor. No annoying bells or blips at the Park Mansion. Only the best.

T
he uniqueness of the building didn't stop with the elevator's female voice. A voice that would have set the adolescent Jesse Stone's mind areel. The hallway floors were done in a mosaic of vibrant azure, white, and corn-yellow Mexican tiles. The entrance to each condo was framed with an ornate terra-cotta surround the color of sunbaked red clay with granite accents and topped by a fanciful arched cornice. The doors themselves were massive: double-sided, paneled, and sun-bleached as if reclaimed from an old desert mission. The hardware was heavy hand-hammered iron. Jesse had seen many such entrances to houses back in Tucson, but never inside an apartment building.

Pruitt rapped his knuckles on the wood. When the doors pulled back, they were surprised to see a black face staring back at them, a man's black face. And the man attached to that face did a pretty good job of filling up the doorway. He had a tree-trunk neck with thighs to match, and his arm muscles rippled with even the slightest movement. He wore a pink golf shirt, khakis, and deck shoes, which did little to soften his intimidating look.

“IDs, gentlemen,” the big man asked politely enough.

Both men did as they were asked. This was no time for a testosterone fest, not with Belinda Yankton likely within earshot. When he returned their badges and credentials, Pruitt inquired as to his identity.

He didn't give a name, just “Private security provided by Miss Yankton's ex. She's expecting you. Kitchen.”

They stepped inside, past security. The spacious living room was beautifully appointed with an eclectic mix of Asian, Mexican, and African objets d'art. The furniture was oversized, featuring lots of wood, leather, and woven fabrics. Pruitt described it as Texas-ranch rustic. The tiled floors were covered in colorful American Indian rugs. There were two sets of windows twice the size of the front doors, yet the room was dark. The windows were shuttered, slats facing so that almost no outside light could leak in. The place smelled of cigarette smoke, must, and fear.

Belinda Yankton sat at the kitchen island, smoking a cigarette burned down to the filter, an overfull ashtray and a big mug of coffee in front of her. She was still thin and had put some effort into prettying herself up for her guests, but Jesse guessed her heart wasn't in it. You could see she was a very attractive woman who had aged years in a very short time. Her cigarette hand shook. Jesse had seen this before with people who had survived traumatic events: rape victims, hostages, people who'd been in a bomb's blast zone. He had seen it in Suit. The physical wounds heal, but the trauma is never far away. Pruitt and Jesse waited for Belinda to make the first move, because the woman's state of mind couldn't have been more evident if the word
fragile
had been tattooed across her forehead.

“Hey, guys, please sit,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm and steadier than her hand.

Jesse and Pruitt sat across from her.

“Can I get you some coffee?”

“That'd be great,” Jesse said.

Pruitt shook his head. “No, thank you, ma'am. I'm just fine.”

She tamped out her cigarette and poured a mug for Jesse. Watching Jesse fix the coffee to his liking, Belinda Yankton lit another cigarette.

“So,” she asked, “how are we going to do this?”

Jesse turned to Pruitt. “Chief, you think you can give Miss Yankton—”

“Belinda, please. I'd like it if you called me Belinda. For weeks he called me the rude blonde. Even after he knew my name, he'd call me that. The rude blonde. The rude blonde,” she said, repeating it over and over.

“Sure, Belinda. Call me Jesse. Chief, could you give Belinda and me a few minutes?”

“That okay with you, Belinda?” Pruitt asked.

“Yes, Chief Pruitt. I'd like that.”

They waited until Pruitt had left. When he was gone, Belinda offered Jesse a cigarette. He said no, that the coffee would suit him for now. He had thought a lot about how he would approach this conversation if he got the opportunity to have it. And seeing how brittle Belinda was, he decided to go ahead with his first impulse.

“Listen, Belinda, I'm sure you're sick to death of rehashing what happened to you and that you can't be looking forward to telling another cop about how you were afraid for weeks at a time and the rest of the things you went through.”

She nodded, unable to look Jesse in the eye, a stray tear rolling down her cheek.

“So I'm going to tell you about my encounter with the man who held you and if anything comes to mind to say, no matter how silly
or trivial it may seem, please say it. Interrupt me whenever you'd like, okay?”

She nodded again, her hands shaking more violently now than they had only a minute before.

“You know what my therapist always says when he sees something going on with my hands?” Jesse asked, pointing at her cigarette hand.

“You have a therapist?” She sounded surprised, her voice less steady than before.

“I do.”

“What does he say to you, Jesse?”

“He'll nod at my hands and say, ‘Put that into words.' So, Belinda, put your shaking hands into words.”

“I'm ashamed to say it.”

He smiled his most comforting smile at her. “No need for shame around me. I don't think you could embarrass yourself any worse than I have embarrassed myself. So come on and say it. We're going to have to trust each other.”

“Okay, Jesse. Will you hold my hand, please? I really need to hold on to someone. Everyone's so afraid to touch me. They're afraid I'll crack or something. Please, Jesse.”

He didn't answer with words. Instead he reached over the island countertop and tamped out her cigarette. When that was done, he took both of her hands in his and he told her about how he had met Mr. Peepers.

T
hey were back down in the Suburban before they discussed what had gone on upstairs in the condo between Jesse and Belinda Yankton. First, Jesse explained about how he'd done most of the talking. Pruitt smiled at that.

“You would've been a natural in intel, Jesse. That was sharp of you to take on the burden and do the talking, putting her at ease.”

“She asked to hold my hand. Held it the whole time.”

“Yeah, she probably feels so disconnected from her old life. Needed someone to hold on to, if only just for a little bit. We all need an anchor at one time or another.”

“That's right. Also helped me gauge if anything I was saying hit a nerve. I watched her, too.”

“And?”

“I found out some things that didn't come out in the original reports.”

Pruitt was curious, but was more interested in the scowl on Jesse's face. “You don't mind me asking, what's that nasty expression about?”

“Some things Belinda said about Peepers . . . I don't like them.”

“Not much to like about the murderous son of a bitch to begin with.”

“You're right, but it's not that,” Jesse said.

“You mind sharing?”

“Belinda said that she got the impression that Peepers was kind of fond of Jenn.”

“‘Fond'?”

“Her word, not mine. She told me that Peepers would sometimes talk to himself when he thought she was out of it. Usually when he was working on something or cleaning his weapons out of her line of sight. She said, ‘The more drugs he gave me . . . they didn't always work the way he thought they would. There would be times I would be out of it, but I'd snap to and be aware of everything, but I wouldn't be able to move at all. I couldn't even will myself to blink. It was kind of like those stories you hear about folks being on an operating table and being awake. I was conscious, but I must've looked totally out of it to him. If he even noticed me.'”

“And he talked to himself about Jenn?” Pruitt asked.

“Jenn and other subjects, usually less pleasant ones. He also talked to himself about things he would have liked to do with Belinda. No wonder she's freaked out. I'm pretty sure you don't need me to repeat that stuff.”

“No, sir, I do not. Don't take much of an imagination to figure that out. But why not do them to her? Between you and me, Jesse, there wasn't anything she could have done to stop him, and he had all the time in the world to do whatever he desired.”

Jesse nodded. “That's one of the things I don't like about what Belinda said to me. It was as if Peepers grabbed her for one reason and then decided to use her for something else.”

“Like what?”

“Good question, Jed. To deliver a message. To throw us off his scent. To mislead us. I don't know.”

“What about Jenn?”

“One time, when Peepers took Belinda's gag off to get some fluids in her, she got up the courage to ask about Jenn. At first Peepers's face twisted up with anger. Again, Belinda's words, not mine. She begged him not to hurt her and he calmed down. She said it was weird because he became almost kind. Mellow, even. His voice was less angry and threatening. He told her about the month or so he'd spent in L.A. tailing Jenn before she met Hunsicker and moved to Dallas. He said he'd felt kind of sad for her. That she had seemed very lonely.”

Pruitt was incredulous. “Peepers feels things? This guy killed an old lady and a dog because they were inconveniences.”

Jesse shrugged. “I used to hunt killers for a living. You can only know them up to a point, even when you have them in custody. They all have weak spots, but what those weaknesses are is hard to figure.”

“Did the Yankton woman say more about Peepers's feelings toward Jenn?”

Jesse said, “She did, and this is the other thing I don't like. Belinda said she got a strong sense that Peepers would never hurt Jenn, not really. In fact, she said, talking about Jenn seemed to arouse Peepers. Soon after they talked about Jenn, Peepers drugged her, but not enough. She had one of those lucid moments of waking up and not being able to move. When she came to, Peepers was fondling her breasts in a very clumsy manner. ‘I was glad I couldn't move,' she said. ‘I think if he knew I knew he was touching me like that, he would have killed me for sure. From what happened between him and me in the restaurant, I just knew he hated being embarrassed probably more than anything.'”

“What do you make of it?”

“Nothing good, Jed. Nothing good. Especially since he promised he would never sexually assault her and swore he had never touched any of his other victims.”

“Inconsistent behavior is trouble.”

“Uh-huh. Do Peepers's feelings about Jenn make him less of a threat to her or more of a threat? Does he harbor fantasies of snatching her and being with her? Or is he so freaked over his feelings about her that he feels a need to kill her?”

“Well, come on and let's get some lunch,” Pruitt said. “There's never been a puzzle some good Texas barbecue couldn't help solve.”

Jesse didn't know about the truth of that, but it certainly couldn't hurt. And maybe it would help him stop itching for a Black Label.