The Bitterest Pill Read online

  THE SPENSER NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Little White Lies

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Kickback

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Silent Night

  (with Helen Brann)

  Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Sixkill

  Painted Ladies

  The Professional

  Rough Weather

  Now & Then

  Hundred-Dollar Baby

  School Days

  Cold Service

  Bad Business

  Back Story

  Widow’s Walk

  Potshot

  Hugger Mugger

  Hush Money

  Sudden Mischief

  Small Vices

  Chance

  Thin Air

  Walking Shadow

  Paper Doll

  Double Deuce

  Pastime

  Stardust

  Playmates

  Crimson Joy

  Pale Kings and Princes

  Taming a Sea-Horse

  A Catskill Eagle

  Valediction

  The Widening Gyre

  Ceremony

  A Savage Place

  Early Autumn

  Looking for Rachel Wallace

  The Judas Goat

  Promised Land

  Mortal Stakes

  God Save the Child

  The Godwulf Manuscript

  THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Colorblind

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s The Hangman’s Sonnet

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Debt to Pay

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Damned If You Do

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Split Image

  Night and Day

  Stranger in Paradise

  High Profile

  Sea Change

  Stone Cold

  Death in Paradise

  Trouble in Paradise

  Night Passage

  THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

  (by Mike Lupica)

  Spare Change

  Blue Screen

  Melancholy Baby

  Shrink Rap

  Perish Twice

  Family Honor

  THE COLE/HITCH WESTERNS

  Robert B. Parker’s Buckskin

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Revelation

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Blackjack

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s The Bridge

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Bull River

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse

  (by Robert Knott)

  Blue-Eyed Devil

  Brimstone

  Resolution

  Appaloosa

  ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  Double Play

  Gunman’s Rhapsody

  All Our Yesterdays

  A Year at the Races

  (with Joan H. Parker)

  Perchance to Dream

  Poodle Springs

  (with Raymond Chandler)

  Love and Glory

  Wilderness

  Three Weeks in Spring

  (with Joan H. Parker)

  Training with Weights

  (with John R. Marsh)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2019 by The Estate of Robert B. Parker

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Coleman, Reed Farrel, author.

  Title: Robert B. Parker’s The bitterest pill / Reed Farrel Coleman.

  Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019. | Series: A Jesse Stone novel; 18

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019011107 | ISBN 9780399574979 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780399574986 (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Stone, Jesse (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Police chiefs—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General. | FICTION / Suspense. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3553.O47445 R638 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011107

  p. cm.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  IN MEMORY OF PHILIP KERR

  Contents

  Also by Robert B. Parker

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

 
Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-one

  Chapter Seventy-two

  Chapter Seventy-three

  Chapter Seventy-four

  Chapter Seventy-five

  Chapter Seventy-six

  Chapter Seventy-seven

  Chapter Seventy-eight

  Chapter Seventy-nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-one

  Chapter Eighty-two

  Chapter Eighty-three

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Fifty years and a trillion dollars after we declared the war on drugs, drugs are now more prevalent, cheaper, and more potent than ever before. If this is victory, I’d hate to see defeat.

  Don Winslow

  One

  The world had changed. Paradise had changed. Most significantly for Jesse Stone, his life had been turned upside down. He was a man wise enough to know that life comes with only one guarantee—that it would someday end. As a Robbery Homicide detective for the LAPD and as the longtime chief of the Paradise PD he had seen ample proof of that solitary guarantee written in blood, in wrecked bodies, and in grief. It wasn’t that long ago that his fiancée’s murder had given Jesse all the proof he would ever need. He remembered an old Hebrew proverb about how people’s planning for their futures was God’s favorite joke. Still, at an age when most men were steeped in haunting regrets of what could have been and what they might have done, Jesse had been given the most unexpected gift a loner like him could receive. Cole Slayton, Jesse’s son, had arrived in town just as Paradise was shedding its old skin and transforming itself into the place Jesse was currently seeing through the night-darkened windows of his latest Ford Explorer.

  This end-of-shift drive through the streets had long been a ritual of his. A way to make sure things were intact and that the citizenry could rest well. Still, Jesse didn’t fool easily, and he was especially keen not to fool himself. He understood that Paradise was a different place than the village he’d come to all those years ago as a man looking for a fresh start. In those days, Boston, less than twenty miles south, seemed a million miles away, a world apart. Nowadays, Paradise, though not yet quite a suburb of Boston, felt much closer than ever before. As the big city’s influence crept north, it brought a new vibe to town that not all the natives of Paradise appreciated. Jesse had mixed feelings about the shift. Although he had long ago settled into the seaside rhythms of the town, Jesse enjoyed the new urban vitality, the pace and diversity Boston’s encroachment brought with it. But as Vinnie Morris had once warned him, as Boston would come toward Paradise, so, too, would come its sins. Vinnie had phrased it less artfully.

  Jesse had already seen some evidence of that. Nothing dramatic. No crime wave, per se. Yet there was an increase in urban gang activity in Paradise and the surrounding towns. Graffiti and vandalism had been on the rise, as had auto theft. Drug arrests had also ticked up and the local cops now carried naloxone with them. None of the crime particularly scared Jesse. He didn’t overreact, as the mayor and town selectmen had, nor had he turned a blind eye. He had prepared his cops as best he could. He had joined with the chiefs of the nearby towns and the state police to work out strategies to deal with the changes in the criminal landscape.

  At the moment, though, it was Paradise’s recent past and hatred, humanity’s most ancient foible, that occupied Jesse’s thoughts. He was driving by the empty lot where the old meetinghouse once stood. Several months ago, a white supremacist group had come to town with mad dreams of sparking a national race war. They hadn’t achieved their twisted goals but had left a trail of destruction in their wake. One of the casualties was the old meetinghouse, a building that had once been used as a safe haven for runaway slaves along the route of the Underground Railroad. It had been blown to bits by a powerful bomb blast. Jesse shook his head because more than the old building had been lost. Paradise had been shaken to its core. Families had been terrorized, several people were dead, and he’d been forced to fire Alisha, his best young cop. There was a big debate going on about whether to faithfully reconstruct the old place, create some sort of memorial, or let the past go altogether and sell the lot for new construction. Those were decisions above Jesse’s paygrade, and he was glad of it. What concerned Jesse was the notion that the destruction might be an omen of things to come, that the world’s ills, not only Boston’s, were headed for Paradise’s doorstep. He turned the corner, leaving the ghost of the old meetinghouse in his rearview mirror.

  These ritual drives through Paradise had once been a prelude to a different and more personal ritual—drinking. Even now, remembering the steps of the ritual, he got a jolt. Throwing off his blue PPD hat and jacket as he entered his house, tossing the mail down on the counter, approaching the bar, twisting the cap off the smooth, rectangular bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, pouring the beautiful amber fluid over ice, the gentle snap and crackle as the room-temperature scotch hit the ice, the clinking of the ice as he swirled the glass, sniffing the perfectly blended grace notes from the charred oak barrel in which it had aged, lifting the glass to toast Ozzie Smith, and then, finally, the first magic sip. He could almost feel it, the warmth at the back of his throat, spreading down to his belly, through his body, and reaching his fingertips. But Jesse hadn’t had a drink in many months because his new nightly ritual involved sharing a room with fellow alcoholics who gave one another the strength they needed to stay sober.

  At first he had driven to meetings down in Boston at an old Episcopal church. That’s where he’d met Bill, his sponsor. But making that trek several times a week had become unwieldly and impractical. Besides, Jesse’s drinking hadn’t ever been much of a secret to begin with. The only people in Paradise who didn’t know about Jesse’s struggles with the bottle were transplants from Boston and children under ten years of age. So he’d recently begun attending AA meetings in and around Paradise. He was headed to a meeting in Salem when the phone rang. The Explorer’s display showed the call was from the Paradise Police Department. He pressed the button on the steering wheel.

  “What?”

  It was Molly working the desk. “There’s trouble, Jesse.”

 
“There’s always trouble. What kind?”

  “The worst kind.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Patricia Mackey just found her daughter . . . unresponsive. She’s dead, Jesse.”

  “Jeez, no.” Jesse pulled over. “Where? How?”

  “In her bedroom. And, Jesse . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Suit’s there now. He found drug paraphernalia.”

  “On my way.”

  Jesse had been a cop for too long to think anything connected with drugs was an anomaly. And suddenly Vinnie Morris’s warning rang loud as cathedral chimes in Jesse’s ears.

  Two

  A thousand things went through Jesse’s mind as he pulled up to the Mackey place, and not a single damn one of them was any good. He didn’t need to be a parent to know that a mother and father should never have to put a kid in the ground before them. Not ever, not for any reason. Drugs, disease, a careless accident, what did that matter? And now that Jesse was a father, Heather Mackey’s death cut even deeper than it had during all the previous cases he had worked involving the death of a child. He hadn’t been there to watch Cole grow up, hadn’t known the boy existed until a few months ago, but that was beside the point. The bond he felt couldn’t have been stronger had he been in the delivery room to hear Cole cry or to watch him open his eyes for the first time.

  Suit Simpson greeted Jesse at the curb.

  “Hey, Jesse. Molly told me you were on your way.”

  “I see the ME’s men are here.” Jesse pointed at the van. “ME inside?”

  Suit nodded. “Peter, too. He’s working the scene.”

  “Did you use the naloxone?”

  Suit shook his head. “Too late. She was already gone. Such a waste. She was a pretty girl.”

  “Death doesn’t care about pretty or ugly. Only we do.”

  “I guess.”

  “Is Selectman Mackey home yet?” Jesse asked.