Free Night Passage by Robert B. Parker Page B

testing?”
    “He refused,” she said.
    Jesse nodded as if his point had been made. There was something about his eyes, she thought, as if he saw the world in a funny way and was quietly amused. He had on a blue blazer and a white shirt open at the neck and his skin had a healthy out-of-doors look to it. He was clean-shaven, his dark hair was cut close, and the sideburns were neatly trimmed.
    “How long were you married?” Abby said.
    “Five years.”
    “What happened?”
    “She was, is, an actress. She started sleeping with a guy, maybe guys for all I know, who could help her in her career.”
    “Did you know?”
    “Not at first.”
    “Did you suspect?”
    “Eventually.”
    “And that was the end?”
    “Yes, I think.”
    “You think?”
    “Well, at first I sort of denied it, and then I increased my drinking and finally, in fact, she left me. I got fired in L.A. for drinking. It had to be in my record. Hell, I was sort of drunk when I interviewed for this job.”
    “Did they know?”
    “I don’t know how they could have missed it,” Jesse said. “I must have smelled like a rum cake.”
    “And they hired you anyway?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll be damned. They must have seen something in you.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Well, so far you seem to have justified their faith in you.”
    “Maybe,” Jesse said.
    “Why the maybes?” Abby said.
    “Maybe they wanted a lush for a police chief.”
    She frowned.
    “Why on earth would they?”
    “Don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want a good cop in town.”
    “That’s crazy,” she said. “I think you’re too hard on yourself.”
    “I try not to be,” Jesse said.
    The food came, and another drink apiece.
    “The lobster’s in a damn hot dog roll,” Jesse said.
    “I told you.”
    “I didn’t think you meant an actual hot dog roll.”
    They ate quietly for a few moments. The moon made a long shimmer on the harbor water. There was no wind. The salt smell was strong.
    “You still feel connected to her,” Abby said.
    “Yes. I’m working on it, but I still do.”
    “She with someone else now?”
    “She’s still living by herself, I think. But she’s in another guy’s bed a lot.”
    “And that hurts,” Abby said.
    Jesse nodded.
    Abby smiled at him and drank from her martini. She wondered if he were passionate, if someone, herself for instance, could get past the containment.
    “Maybe it would help if you got even a little,” she said.
    Her eyes were very bright, and her body, so neatly and professionally clad, seemed somehow kinetic as she sat across the table.
    “Couldn’t hurt,” he said.

18
    Charlie Buck got out of his Ford Bronco and walked across Route 59 toward the burned-out truck. A portly man with a pleasant face, receding hair, and rimless glasses, he was a detective from the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department. Yellow crime-scene tape defined the place. Half a dozen county vehicles were parked haphazardly around the perimeter of the tape, and more than half a dozen county employees were in the area.
    “How many dead?” he said to Ray Vollmer.
    “Coroner thinks only one,” Vollmer said. “Remains are a little scrambled.”
    “Infernal device?” Buck said, looking at the twisted metal skeleton.
    “I’d say,” Vollmer answered. “No sign that he ran into anything. Got some bomb-squad people coming in from Casper.”
    Buck nodded, looking at the scene along the empty roadway. Occasionally a car would appear and slow to look at the crime scene only to be waved on by one of the deputies stationed on the road for that purpose. Most of the time, however, they were alone with the silent wreckage under the high sky.
    “No reason for him to have stopped here?” Buck said.
    Vollmer shook his head.
    “ ’Less he stopped to take a leak,” he said.
    “Even so,” Buck said, “be hard for someone to rig a bomb on your car while you were pissing.”
    “Coulda driven by and thrown it,” Vollmer said.
    “Which would mean they were