“I gotta do my sprints,” Hooker said.
“Sure,” Jesse said. “You know anyone with a reason to kill her?”
“No,” Hooker said. “You think it’s her?”
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“Jesus,” Hooker said. “That’s a shame.”
“It is,” Jesse said.
“You think you can catch him?”
“Or her.”
“Him or her,” Hooker said. “You think you’ll catch him?”
“You think you’ll make the Yale football team?” Jesse said.
“Sure. You gotta stay positive. If you think you can’t, you probably won’t.”
Jesse smiled and didn’t say anything.
Hooker saw the smile and paused.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, sure. Well, good luck.”
“You, too,” Jesse said.
Hooker walked back to the field, stood on the forty-yard line, set his stopwatch and sprinted to the end zone.
He probably will make it.
Chapter Twenty
No one groomed the field they played on. The park department mowed it once a week, but that was all. Sometimes somebody on one of the teams would bring down a rake and try to smooth things out a little, but there were too many games, and everyone had jobs, and there was just time to come home and change and get to the park. There wasn’t much time for groundskeeping. The right-hand batter’s box had holes worn in it by an endless series of right-handed hitters digging in. Whatever your natural batting stance, you were forced to set your feet in the holes.
Jesse didn’t like it. When he’d played he’d hit with a slightly open stance. The holes in the batter’s box forced him to close it up. On the other hand the ball was fat, and it came a lot slower than it had in the minor leagues. And why did he care anyway? Jesse smiled to himself. Pride. The fact of having been good carried with it its own responsibility. He was supposed to be the best player in the league. It mattered.
The pitcher wasn’t good. Some of the guys in the league could bring it, and the pitcher’s mound was much closer in softball. But this guy couldn’t throw hard. He was getting by with slow and slower, trying to move the ball around. Each time at bat, the pitcher had worked Jesse high and low. He worked everyone high and low. The first pitch was high. The second pitch was low. With a one-one count, Jesse shifted his hands slightly so he could uppercut the ball. When the pitch arrived, shoulder high, he hit it over the left-fielder’s head. There were no fences. You had to run out the home runs. Jesse could still run. Between short and third he saw the left fielder give up on the ball. Jesse slowed to a jog as he rounded third. He got an assortment of low and high fives when he crossed home plate. Just as if it mattered.
Chapter Twenty-one
He met Emily Bishop in a coffee shop in a small shopping center near the town common. She wore the gray tee shirt she had promised to wear. It was too big for her. PROPERTY OF SWAMPSCOTT ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT was printed across the front. Below the tee shirt were baggy blue jeans held up by wide blue suspenders. Her feet were up on the chair next to her. She was wearing lace-up black boots with thick soles. Her hair was very short. Her face was without makeup. The hint of a good figure showed through the jeans and tee shirt. A pack of Marlboros lay on the table in front of her. She was smoking and drinking coffee. He wondered if Billie looked like her. Jesse stopped at the counter and got a large coffee with cream and sugar and brought it over to the table where Emily was sitting. She’d already decided who he was.
“I’m Jesse Stone,” he said.
“Show me your badge,” Emily said.
She had a flat, unpleasant voice. Jesse showed her his badge.
“Christ,” she said. “The fucking chief.”
“It’s nothing,” Jesse said.
“So what happened to my sister?” Emily said.
There was no way to soften it. Jesse had long since learned to just say it.
“We think she was shot in the head and dumped in a lake in Paradise.”
“You think?”
“Body is hard to identify.”
“So why do you think it’s my sister?”
Jesse told her. Emily smoked her cigarette and drank some coffee and listened with no expression.
“Billie, Billie,” she said when Jesse finished.
