Trouble in Paradise js-2 Page 2

  "Yep."

  "Right over there, sir. Please park in the designated space."

  "Thank you."

  As they drove through the gate, the guard copied down the license plate number. Past the guard shack, to the right, was a small building done in weathered shingles with colonial blue shutters. A discreet sign beside the door said STILES ISLAND REALTY in gold letters on a dark blue background. A Lexus sedan was parked next to the building, and two spaces beside it were marked VISITORS.

  "Stiles Island is too classy to have customers," Macklin said.

  "What are our first names?" Faye said.

  "I'll be Harry," Macklin said.

  "You got a favorite?"

  "How about one of those really jerky names that WASP women have, like Muffy or Choo Choo?"

  "Jesus " Macklin said, "I can't go around calling you fucking Muffy."

  "Rocky?" Faye said.

  "Rocky?" Macklin said.

  Faye nodded. Macklin nodded and put out his clenched fist.

  Faye tapped it lightly with hers.

  "Way to go, Rocky," he said.

  They got out of the car.

  "Where we from?" Faye said.

  "I'll think of someplace," Macklin said.

  "You know how I hate to plan stuff."

  The real estate office was furnished with colonial furniture and nautical prints. Mrs. Campbell was a tall woman with platinum hair, a lot of makeup, and a good figure. She was a little long in the tooth, Macklin thought, but she'd probably be a pretty good lay.

  "I'm Harry Smith," Macklin said.

  "My wife, Rocky."

  "Where you folks from?" Mrs. Campbell said.

  She was wearing a blue pantsuit and a white man-tailored shirt, open at the throat.

  "Concord," Macklin said.

  "And you're interested in property on Stiles Island?"

  "Yes, ma'am," Macklin said.

  "Well, we have a couple of homes for sale, and of course, we can arrange for you to build if you wish."

  "What do you think, hon?" Macklin said.

  "I think the first thing we should do is tour the island," Faye said.

  "We're not just purchasing a piece of property, you know. We are buying into a community."

  "Good point," Mrs. Campbell said.

  "Why don't I drive you around and acquaint you with the place, and we can talk as we go.

  Will you be financing this purchase yourself?"

  "It'll be cash," Macklin said.

  "And are you more interested in building or buying something already built?"

  "We're open on that," Faye said.

  "Aren't we, Harry?"

  "Sure are, Rocky."

  Mrs. Campbell went around her desk to get her purse. Macklin noticed that the pantsuit fit snugly over her butt. And there was something in the way she walked. Fucks like a weasel, Macklin thought. He didn't know exactly how he knew that. Maybe the way she stood or the way she walked or the sense of how conscious she was of her body. Maybe it was magic. But he was rarely wrong about such things. He filed the information.

  FIVE.

  The two men who owned the home on Geary Street sat together in Jesse's office.

  One was a tall slim man with a shaved head and a dark tan. He wore gold rimmed aviator sunglasses. His companion was stockier, with a blond crew cut and a clipped moustache. Both men were older than Jesse. Forty-two, forty-three, Jesse speculated. The taller man's name was Alex Canton.

  "We were in Provincetown for a few days when it happened," Canton said.

  "One of the neighbors called us. We came right back."

  "The fire was set," Jesse said.

  "We assumed it was from the graffiti, and the way the floor burned. But the state Fire Marshal's Office makes it definite. A combustible liquid, probably gasoline, was poured over the rug in the living room and ignited."

  "We know who did it," Canton said.

  "Howard and I are both sure of it."

  Jesse glanced at the notes on his yellow legal pad. Howard's last name was Brown.

  "Who?" Jesse said.

  "Alex, we can't really prove it," Brown said.

  "We know it was them," Canton said.

  "Who?" Jesse said.

  "The fucking Hopkins kids," Canton said.

  "Full names?"

  "Earl," Canton said, "I think is the older one. And Robbie."

  "Ages?"

  "Oh, maybe fifteen and fourteen, in there. Neither one of them drives a car yet."

  "Had trouble with them before?" Jesse said.

  He knew the answer before he asked the question. Of course they'd had trouble. Two openly gay men in an openly heterosexual environment with a lot of affluent teenage kids hanging around with nothing to do. Let's go down and harass the queers.

  "Nothing big, they'd make remarks when they went by the house," Brown said.

  "Such as?"

  "Oh, some kind of rhyme about Mister Brown goes down. Stuff like that. I been gay a long time. I've heard worse."

  "Anything else?"

  Brown and Canton looked at each other as they thought about it.

  "No," Canton said.

  "Mr. Brown?"

  "No, uh-uh."

  "So how do you know they set the fire?"

  Canton looked at Brown.

  "You say, Howard."

  "I was standing in the driveway, looking at what's left, and they came riding by on bicycles. Both the Hopkins boys and their friend.

  I don't know his real name, kids call him Snapper. They all had I these big smirks on, and they sort of slow down and start riding their bicycles in big circles in the street. Then the older one, Earl, starts riding no hands and he says to me, "Hey Mr. Brown," and I looked, and he made a gesture of lighting and throwing a match.

  And all three of them are smirking."

  Brown shook his head.

  "I wanted to kill the little punks."

  He shook his head again. Sadness and anger about equal, Jesse thought.

  "But of course, I didn't say a word. I just got in my car and drove off," Brown said.

  "They ever threaten you?" Jesse said.

  "Not until this," Canton said.

  Brown shook his head.

  "Well, we'll talk with them," Jesse said.

  "Talk. The little bastards burned our house down and you'll talk with them?"

  "It's a cop euphemism," Jesse said.

  "I'll have them in. We'll question them."

  "You can't arrest them?" Brown said.

  "Not on what you've given me."

  "They practically admitted they did it," Brown said.

  "Or maybe they just took pleasure in reminding you someone did it," Jesse said.

  "If you'd been there and seen the look on their faces, all three of them," Brown said.

  "But I wasn't," Jesse said.

  "And the DA wasn't. I can't get them indicted on what you've said."

  "So they'll get away with it," Canton said, like a man confirming a long-held assumption.

  "Maybe not," Jesse said.

  "We're kind of resourceful."

  "Well," Canton said.

  "I tell you one thing right now. I'm getting a gun. I'm not going to let the yahoos win."

  "See Molly at the desk," Jesse said.

  "She processes the gun stuff."

  "You'll approve it?"

  "You have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms," Jesse said.

  "Christ," Canton said, "I never thought I'd need to."

  "Hopkins family got money?" Jesse said.

  "I think so," Brown said.

  "Why?"

  "Turns out the kid did it, you might have a civil suit against the family, or your insurance company might."

  "My God, I never thought of it," Canton said.

  "Should we talk :o our claims adjuster about it?"

  "Might be wise to talk first with a lawyer," Jesse said.

  "You recommend anyone?"

  "There's a wom
an in town," Jesse said.

  "Abby Taylor. Used to be town counsel. She can either help you or send you to somebody."

  "But what if you can't prove they did it?" Canton said.

  "You can still sue," Jesse said.

  "Civil cases have different rules."

  "Could you write that lawyer's name down?" Brown said.

  Jesse wrote Abby's name on a sheet of yellow paper, along with her phone number, which he knew quite well. Brown took the paper and folded it over and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

  "So that's going to be it?" Canton said.

  "Is what going to be it?" Jesse said.

  "That's your little law enforcement gesture? Give us the name of a lawyer, tell us to sue?"

  Jesse leaned back in his chair and looked at Canton for a moment.

  "You're a gay man," Jesse said.

  "And you're mad as hell. And you're not used to straight cops working very hard to solve your problems. But maybe you should wait until I take a run at the thing, before you decide I'm an incompetent bigot."

  "That's fair enough," Brown said.

  "We can't assume he's a homophobe, Alex."

  "Maybe," Canton said.

  "But he's one of the few I've met that aren't."

  He stared hard at Jesse, a red flush of anger still brightening his face.

  "I'm not so sure," Jesse said.

  "There might be a lot of cops who don't really much care what you do with a consenting adult."

  "You've never been gay," Canton said.

  "You have me there," Jesse said.

  "And you didn't come here to argue police tolerance with me. What I can do is tell you that everyone in this town is entitled to the protection of the police. And everyone will get it as long as I'm chief. Including you."

  "Alex, he has the right to prove his homophobia before we condemn him."

  "And he probably will," Canton said.

  "I'm going to apply for that gun permit. Don't think I won't."

  Jesse smiled pleasantly.

  "I don't think you won't," he said.

  SIX.

  Macklin sat with Faye on the deck outs side the Gray Gull Restaurant overlooking the harbor. They were drinking cosmopolitans. Faye had hers straight up in a big martini glass. Macklin was drinking his on the rocks. The late afternoon sun had gotten low enough behind the buildings to throw elongated shadows of the wharf office and the sail loft out onto the water.

  "Faye," Macklin said, "you look more like the wife of a WASP millionaire than any of the real ones I've ever known."

  "So maybe that means I don't," Faye said.

  "And exactly how many WASP millionaires' wives have you known?"

  "If I knew one, she'd look like you," Macklin said.

  He had loosened his tie and taken off his coat. He sat now with his legs out in front of him, leaning back in his chair. There was a breeze off the water.

  "You told that woman we were from Concord," Faye said.

  "Sure," Macklin said.

  "I lived there for a couple years."

  "In Concord?"

  Macklin grinned.

  "MCI Concord," he said.

  "The prison."

  Faye laughed.

  "Jimmy, you're crazy."

  "Can't get too solemn about this shit," Macklin said.

  A waitress went by. Macklin gestured at her for a refill.

  "And maybe, whaddya got. Some fried clams? Give us an order of fried clams," he said.

  "But bring the drinks first. Don't wait for the clams."

  "Yes sir."

  Macklin watched her as she walked away. Nice butt. Young.

  Probably some college kid working for the summer.

  "So what did we learn about Stiles Island today?" Faye said.

  "Three quarters of a mile long," Macklin said, gazing out across the harbor at the near end of it.

  "About a quarter of a mile wide.

  Fifty estates so far. Room to build another fifty. Cheapest one is eight hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. Adults only. No children. No dogs."

  "Most people can afford eight-hundred-seventy-five-thousand dollar houses are too old to have children anyway," Faye said.

  Macklin nodded.

  "Only access is across that bridge," he said.

  "All the power lines under the bridge, all the phone lines, even the water pipes are icorporated into the bridge under structure

  The waitress brought them two more cosmopolitans. The pink drinks looked just right, Macklin thought, out here on the deck of |he weathered shingle restaurant with the harbor below them, lack ling liked things to be right.

  "There's a branch of Paradise Bank," he said.

  "With safe deposit boxes. There's a private boat club on the harbor end of the sland, only place on the island where you can land a boat. There's health club with a drug store and beauty salon and a restaurant rith a big plate glass picture window looking out on the ocean Aide. And there's a private security patrol, a man on the bridge twenty-four hours, and a two-man cruiser patrolling the island twenty-four hours. Everybody got a radio that connects to the security headquarters in the other side of the real estate office and IP the Paradise Police."

  Faye held her glass with the fingertips of both hands. She was matching him over the rim of it as he talked. When he finished she whistled very softly.

  "And I thought all you were doing was watchIng Mrs. Campbell's ass," she said.

  Macklin grinned.

  "Attention to detail," he said.

  A gull coasted down, sat on the fence railing about five feet away, and waited. The waitress brought flatware wrapped in napkins, and an order of fried clams in a small paper napkin-lined wicker basket. She put the clams on the table between them and placed two small paper cups of tartar sauce beside the basket.

  "Catsup?" she said.

  "No, thank you very much," Macklin said.

  The gull fixed its opaque stare on the clams. Macklin un wrapped his flatware and tucked the napkin in under his chin. He picked up the knife and made a fencer's pose at the gull.

  "One move at the clams, bird, and you die," Macklin said.

  Faye picked up a clam with her fingers, dabbed it in the tartar sauce, and popped it in her mouth. She wiped her fingertips carefully with her napkin while she chewed her clam.

  When she swallowed it, she said, "So what is your plan?"

  "Well," Macklin said, "I thought I might give Mrs. Campbell a ringy dingy..."

  "Like hell," Faye said.

  "Looking is one thing. You're a man, and you can't help it. But you start following up, and I will cut off your balls."

  "Faye, would I cheat on you?"

  "Like I say, you're a man."

  "Cynical," Macklin said.

  "Experienced," Faye said.

  "Besides, you know what I meant.

  What is your plan for doing business on the island?"

  "Well I'm going to get a good map," Macklin said.

  "And I'm going to start putting together a crew."

  "What are we going to do for money in the meantime?"

  "I'll get some," Macklin said.

  "I hope so. You got people in mind for this crew?"

  "Yeah. It's one of the best things about going to jail a few times," Macklin said.

  "You get a chance to network."

  "You going to hit the bank?"

  "Sweet cakes," Macklin said, "I'm going to hit the whole island."

  SEVEN.

  As he had taken to doing when his day ended at five, Jesse stopped by the bar at the Gray Gull. He would have two drinks, talk with the bartender or a few of the reglulars, and then go home for supper. It iworked better than having a drink at "home. It was sociable, and it was easier to stop after two in public. Being chief of police carried with it certain obligations, and | Jesse was pretty sure that not getting pink in public was one of them.

  "Black label and soda, Doc," Jesse said to the bartender. He made a measuring gestur
e with his hands.

  "Tall glass."

  The bartender made the drink and set it before Jesse and went down to the service corner of the bar to get a waitress order. He mixed up two pink drinks, one of them up, the other on the rocks, and set them out with the slip tucked between the glasses. Then he came back down the bar to talk with Jesse.

  "You been fighting crime all day?" Doc said.

  "Serve and protect," Jesse said.

  "What are those pink things?"

  "Cosmopolitans," Doc said.

  "Sort of a summer martini."

  "They look tasty," Jesse said.

  "They're pretty good," Doc said.

  "You want to try one? On me?"

  The young waitress came and put the two drinks on a tray and went out onto the deck with them. Jesse noticed that her cutoff jeans were snug. "No thanks, Doc. Scotch is fine."

  Jesse nursed his drink. The bar was only half full. It was mid-week, and the after-work crowd hadn't drifted in yet in force. Jesse liked quiet bars. He liked them best in the middle of the afternoon, air-conditioned and nearly empty, where everything was desultory and you could play old Carl Perkins stuff on the juke box and watch people as they came in out of the outside brightness and paused for their eyes to adjust. He liked the lucent way the bottles looked, arranged along the back of a good bar with the mirror reflecting the light from behind them. It was a little too late to be perfect, but it was still a good place to be. For two drinks.

  In the bar mirror, he saw Abby Taylor come into the bar with a tall man in a seersucker suit. Jesse smiled. Only here, Jesse thought. Until a year ago, he'd never seen a seersucker suit. They got a table behind him and sat. Abby saw him then and said something to the man and got up and walked over. She was wearing an olive suit with a short skirt.

  "Jesse," she said.

  "How are you?"

  They shook hands, and she put her cheek out. Jesse kissed it lightly.

  "Fine," Jesse said.

  "You look great."

  Behind her Jesse could see the guy in the seersucker suit order drinks from a waitress. He was nearly bald, with what remained of his hair cut short.

  "Thanks, you too. How are you and Jenn getting on?"

  Jesse shrugged.

  "She came back because I was in trouble. Now I'm not in trouble. She hasn't been around much. Suit tells me he saw her doing the weather on Channel Three."

  "So you're not together?"

  "God no," Jesse said.

  "But you're not fully apart," Abby said.

  "Are you?"

  "I guess not," Jesse said.