Stranger in Paradise

The cellar door had been unlocked. There was no sign of forced entry. It looked as if she had gone down to the cellar and out the back door and up the outside steps to the side street and was gone. Did she walk? Was there a car? How did she end up out on Paradise Neck? More important, how did she end up dead? It seemed an odd coincidence that she was found on the lawn of the Crowne estate. Clearly, she had snuck out. There was no reason to go the way she went except to avoid Buddy Hall in the cruiser out front. Why would she sneak out? If she thought the bad ex-husband was after her, she’d have run to the cop, not away from him…Her daughter…If her daughter called…“Ma, it’s Amber, can’t talk now, sneak out so the cops don’t see you and I’ll meet you on Sea Street, behind the house.”…Maybe love had failed and she was running from her boyfriend.

Jesse walked to the fireplace and looked at Amber’s picture on the mantel. It was in a cheap cardboard holder. The picture was garishly overcolored, as school pictures often are. The girl in it looked blankly sweet, with soft brown hair and a roundish, unformed face. Jesse looked at it for a while. It told him nothing.

Maybe she wasn’t looking for help. Maybe she lured her mother out to be killed…Maybe I been a cop too long…but maybe she did. If she did, who did the killing? Esteban? Why? And why take her to the Crowne estate. Did they kill her there? Kill her elsewhere and dump her there?

Jesse walked once more through the house, hoping it might tell him something. All it said to him was that it was an unpleasant place to live. He went out the front door and closed it behind him and got in his car. ’Course, Horn Street wasn’t a week in Acapulco, either.

He started the car and put it in gear and drove back toward the crime scene. The sky was starting to lighten. It was 4:58 on the dashboard clock. It would be daylight soon. Jesse knew it was too early to speculate. But he also knew it wasn’t often that somebody got killed for no reason, or got killed by a perfect stranger. Now and then it happened. Like Son of Sam in New York, or the pair that Jesse had put away a few years ago. But they weren’t common.

If a few more dumpy beer-drinking women with adolescent daughters get killed, Jesse thought, I’ll revise my position. But right now it’s got something to do with Louis Francisco, and Amber, and maybe Esteban Carty. And maybe something about the Crowne estate.

Or not.

34.

Amber was sitting cross-legged on the daybed, smoking a joint, while Esteban talked on his cell phone. They were alone in the garage with the huge television screen. The TV was on but silent. They both liked to smoke a joint and watch TV without sound.

“It’ll be in the Boston papers, man, you want to go online and see,” Esteban said.

He stood in the doorway with his back to Amber, looking down his alley.

“Yeah, I know you’ll pay. I still got the other package to deliver.”

Amber watched the shapes move on the silent screen. She knew Esteban was talking to someone, and she could hear the words he said, but the words weren’t real. What was real were the endlessly fascinating shapes.

“When I get the dough, I’ll ship the package,” Esteban said.

Amber took in some smoke and held it for a time before she eased it out. The colors on the huge television were very bright and had a kind of inviting density to them. She’d never realized quite how inviting they were.

“Sure it’s a lot, man, but I can’t just stick it on a plane, you know? I mean, it’s gotta be driven down there. And somebody gotta go along with it, you know? I mean, it ain’t gonna want to go at all, man. I gotta see to it that it does.”

Amber took another toke. The movement and the colors tended to blend into something. She didn’t know what. But it made her feel religious.

“Yeah, man,” Esteban said. “You call me when you see the news about Momma. We’ll arrange the other delivery.”

He shut the cell phone off and came to the couch.

“You believe in God, Esteban?” Amber said.

She offered him her half-smoked joint.

“Sure, baby,” Esteban said, “long as he believes in me.”

“You believe in the devil?”

“Baby,” Esteban said. “I am the devil.”

Amber giggled. Esteban took a toke and passed the nearly burned-out roach to Amber. She finished it.

“I like to drink wine when we smoke a joint.”

Amber was watching the colors. She didn’t move. Esteban gave her a smart slap on the side of her butt.

“You gonna get us some wine?” he said.

Amber stood up.

“You don’t have to hit so hard,” Amber said.

“Told you, baby, I’m the devil.”

She giggled happily and went to the refrigerator, and came back with a jug of white wine. She put out two unmatched water glasses and filled each one with the jug wine. There were four more joints rolled and lying beside a box of kitchen matches on the wooden crate that served as a side table. Esteban drank some wine and lit another joint.

“You talking to my daddy?” Amber said.

“Yeah, we was arranging the payoff for putting Momma down.”