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Robert B. Parker's Buried Secrets

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AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER

Police Chief Jesse Stone investigates the mystery behind a dead body found strewn with photos of murder victims and placed on top of $2 million in cash, before a mob of hit men converge on Paradise.


Just another day in Paradise . . . 

Chief of Police Jesse Stone is on his way home from a long shift when a call comes in for a welfare check on an elderly resident of the wealthy seaside town of Paradise, Massachusetts. Inside a house packed with junk and trash is a man’s dead body. It’s a sad, lonely end, but nothing criminal . . . until Jesse finds the photos of murder victims strewn around the corpse, on top of a treasure trove of $2 million in cash.

Jesse takes on the case and finds a trail leading to an aging mobster who will do whatever it takes to keep the past from coming to light. Before long, Jesse has a price on his head as hit men converge on Paradise to take back the cash and destroy any remaining evidence. But the real danger might be coming from inside his own department. Jesse Stone must unearth the truth buried under the wreckage of a dead man’s life . . . before he winds up in the ground himself.
One

Jesse Stone was on his way home when his deputy chief, Molly Crane, interrupted him on the radio for a welfare check.

"A guy is worried about his friend. Says he hasn't seen him in a couple weeks and now he won't answer the door," Molly told him.

"Can't someone else do it?" It had already been a long day. Three of his officers were out sick-COVID again-which was why Molly was covering dispatch. Jesse himself had been on multiple patrol calls and was looking forward to sitting down and watching whatever ESPN had to offer.

"Suit's breaking up a fight at the Scupper. Everyone else is busy," Molly said. "Serve and protect. It's in the job description."

"Yeah, but I'm the chief. I'm supposed to tell you what to do."

"It's adorable that you think that," Molly said. "Anyway, it's not like you had plans. Your girlfriend left you for The New York Times."

"You know, I can fire you anytime I want," Jesse said.

"Good luck. You'd be lost without me."

"Fine. Where is it?"

"See?" Molly read him the address.

The house was in a nice neighborhood on the good side of Paradise, but it had seen better days. The paint was peeling, and the wood was splintered and rotting in places. The lawn was mostly weeds and crabgrass. Deferred maintenance, Jesse had heard it called. When the people inside the house had to choose between upkeep and property taxes. Even in a place with a median income as high as Paradise's, it happened to some of the older residents as their lives extended past their savings accounts.

As Jesse drove up, he saw a younger man in the driveway, his worried face framed by a thin beard. He wore a leather jacket, black jeans, and boots, despite the early-spring warmth. He looked like he was late for a club opening somewhere.

"Are you the police?" he asked, as Jesse got out of his Explorer. Not from around here, Jesse figured.

"I'm Chief Stone," Jesse said, showing the young man his badge.

He looked at the badge and then at Jesse, as if trying to make up his mind.

True, Jesse didn't really dress like a cop. Perks of being the chief of a twelve-person force. He wore jeans and a polo shirt and sneakers and a ball cap with paradise pd printed on it. Usually a jacket to hide the Glock on his hip, too, but again, today was warm.

"This is the part where you tell me your name," Jesse said helpfully.

"Oh, right," the man said. "Sorry. I'm Matthew. Matthew Peebles."

"Can I see some ID?" Jesse said. Peebles? Really?

Matthew Peebles appeared taken aback. "Why do you need to see my ID?"

"It's a cop thing." Jesse shrugged. "We like to make sure people are who they say they are."

"Oh. Of course," Peebles said. He handed over a driver's license from a thick wallet attached to a chain. It was from New York.

Despite the odds against it, Peebles really was his name. Jesse handed the ID back. "You said you were worried about your friend inside the house?"

"Well. My parents' friend more than mine, really," Matthew said. "His name is Phil Burton. He's old. I mean, he's an elderly gentleman. I come out from the city and check on him every now and then for my folks. We talk on the phone, too. But I haven't heard from him for a while, and I got worried."

The propensity of people who lived in New York to refer to it as "the city," as if there were no others, wasn't lost on Jesse. Nobody ever did that in Los Angeles when he lived there. He wondered if it was them overcompensating.

"You drove four hours up here to check on him?"

"He wasn't answering. And like I said, I was worried."

"Would you mind calling him again?"

Peebles called again, with his phone on speaker so Jesse could hear. There was a generic voicemail greeting, and the mailbox was full.

"Are you going to check on him or what?" Peebles asked. He seemed to be growing increasingly agitated.

"Let's go knock on the door," Jesse said.

He knocked on the door, which wasn't in any better shape than the rest of the house. Then he rang the bell. No answer to either.

"You're sure he's home?"

"Well, pretty sure," Matthew said. "He usually spends a couple weeks out of the country every winter. He doesn't like the cold much anymore. But I thought he was back now."

Jesse rang the bell again.

"Can you kick it in?" Matthew asked.

Jesse looked at him. "I'd rather not do that if he's just on vacation. I think your friend probably wants to come home to a door that works."

"Well, are you going to do anything?" Matthew asked, now clearly aggravated.

Jesse nodded. "I think I might try the back way first."

He went around the side of the house and found a gate. It was stuck, as if something was pressing against it. Jesse sighed. "Serve and protect," Molly said. Let's see her come out here and do this, he thought.

He hopped up, caught the top of the gate with both hands, and felt the familiar twinge in his bad shoulder, a relic of the injury that had ended his days playing baseball. He ignored it and scrambled up without looking too ridiculous, he thought. He swung his body over the gate and came down in the yard.

Which looked like it was auditioning for a landfill, Jesse thought. There was a pile of garbage under his feet heaped up against the gate. The random junk was holding it shut. Old tires, layers of cardboard boxes, plastic restaurant-sized jugs of condiments and sauces, both empty and full. A child's wagon. A stack of broken lawn furniture. Heavy black garbage bags.

Jesse shifted his balance, trying to stay upright, and picked his way toward the back.

He found a sliding glass door, half open, and put on the blue nitrile gloves he always kept in his pocket before walking inside.

The door opened into what must have been the kitchen, and the inside of the house was even more crowded with junk than the yard. The counters were hidden under boxes: cases of motor oil, unopened. Stacks of mail that must have gone back decades. Old phone books. Where do you even get phone books anymore? Jesse wondered. Fast-food wrappers and delivery bags in piles, most of them with rotting food and grease stains.

There was also a familiar smell. Jesse knew that odor. It was not a pleasant one.

He tried to breathe through his mouth.

There was a narrow path in among all the debris. It led to the living room, where Jesse found dozens of moldering cardboard file boxes, some stacked as high as his head, arranged in a semicircle around an old couch.

And the couch was where Jesse found the body.

Two

Phil Burton-Jesse assumed that's who this was-had been there awhile.

It was like he'd built a nest in the living room, the one open space in the house that Jesse could observe.

The decomposition wasn't too bad. The house was dry, and it had been cold until recently. The skin had drawn back from the face, but there was still something recognizably human there. He'd been an old man, his hair strawlike and fried from multiple dye jobs. His eyes were sunken behind tinted aviator glasses, and he wore a button-down shirt with epaulets. He looked deflated, half melted.

Around him on the floor were paper plates and more fast-food containers. This was apparently his dining room as well as his bedroom.

In truth, this wasn't the first time he'd found a body like this in Paradise. Older men, living alone, with no close friends or family nearby, occasionally ended up like this. Waiting for someone to discover them.

But Jesse had never seen a house this far gone before. He'd heard of hoarders, obviously, but he'd never seen one here. He wondered how it started-how you went from hanging on to an old phone book to living like this. What was the tipping point? When did you stop seeing the mess, start seeing it as your life?

Burton clearly wasn't going to tell him. Jesse took another look at the body. No obvious sign of foul play.

Apparently, he went to sleep here and never woke up.

There were worse ways to go.

Jesse carefully picked his way out of the house again, easing among the piles and stacks of junk. It had been years since Jesse was a prospect with a Major League career ahead of him, but he still moved with an athlete's grace.

In his mind, he was already making a list of everything that would need to be done. Notifying the coroner, a search for the next of kin, finding someone to come and excavate all the layers of garbage.

As he climbed back over the gate, he wondered how Matthew Peebles was going to take the death of his family friend. He seemed high-strung.

As it turned out, Jesse didn't have to worry about that.

When he got back out of the house, Peebles was gone.


Jesse called Molly to report what he’d found, then Dev Chada, the medical examiner. Then he waited, leaning against a low stone wall that separated the property from the road. The air was better out here, and the day was cooling down nicely as the sun set.

Suit showed up before anyone else.

Luther "Suitcase" Simpson did not appear at all damaged, or even wrinkled, by his recent call to break up an argument between a couple of drunks. He was a big guy, one of the most solid cops-and friends-Jesse had ever known. Still, he'd always be a kid to Jesse. Seeing Suit in his plainclothes blazer, Jesse couldn't help thinking of a boy wearing his dad's clothes.

"You look pretty fresh for someone who just got out of a bar fight," Jesse said.

"Ah, it barely qualified as a fight," Suit said. "Two guys who could hardly stand up, getting angry over a woman. She didn't want either of them. Once they realized that, they began crying on each other's shoulders. I got them each a ride home."

"The path of true love never did run smooth," Jesse said.

"Especially when booze is involved."

"Don't have to tell me," Jesse said. He'd spent a few too many nights looking for answers at the bottom of a glass, and far too many years searching for love with the wrong woman.

Suit, at the heart of him, wanted only to do good. He was driven to help people, which is why he became a cop.

Jesse, on the other hand, was driven to make things right, which was not exactly the same thing.

Suit looked around. "Where's the good citizen who reported this?"

"Not so good would be my guess," Jesse said. "He scampered."

"'Scampered'?"

"That's a technical term. Look it up in your detective handbook."

"You call the crime scene people?" Suit asked.

"We might need an archaeologist," Jesse said. "Maybe a whole team of them. Come on. I'll show you."


Jesse got over the fence first.

"Pretty spry for a guy your age," Suit said.

Jesse waited until Suit came down on the piles of trash and slipped, nearly falling on his ass. "Careful there, Junior," Jesse said. "Wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Suit regained his balance and put on his own pair of nitrile gloves. They went in through the open sliding door.

Suit went red, then pale, as the scent hit him.

"Jesus," he said, taking in the view. "How does somebody live like this?"

"Well, in this case, he doesn't. Not anymore."

They made their way through the narrow path to the living room, Suit turning sideways in places to avoid touching anything. For someone his size, it was like navigating a maze of spring-loaded traps, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

Burton was right where Jesse had left him.

"Ugh," Suit said.

"'Ugh'? Is that your professional opinion, Detective?"

"Well, what would you say? Can you imagine? Just being left like this until someone remembers you exist?"

"Not everyone has someone who cares about them," Jesse said.

Suit took a KN95 out of his pocket and put it on. As his arm came up, he accidentally nudged one of the towers of file boxes stacked around the room. The tower shifted, and the old cardboard suddenly split open, sending a cascade of papers and folders to the floor.

"Ah, shoot," Suit said. "Sorry."

He tried to find a safe place to stand and took a step forward, and again nearly fell on his ass as a stack of magazines slid out from under his foot.

"It's like watching Baryshnikov dance," Jesse said.

"You watch a lot of ballet?"

"Sorry, I meant one of those dancing bears."

Then something caught Jesse's eye in the pile of papers released from the box. He kneeled down to take a closer look.

Suit was still staring at Burton's corpse on the couch.

"Well," Suit said. "At least he didn't suffer."

Jesse carefully picked up a Polaroid photo. He looked at the image, then showed it to Suit.

Suit went pale again.

"Maybe he should have," Jesse said.

Three

The Polaroid was aged and a little faded, but preserved from its time in the box. It showed a man in what appeared to be an alley. It was hard to see the background; it was a tight shot, focusing mainly on the bullet wound in the man's forehead.

"What the hell?" Suit said.

Jesse stood.

"We should let the crime scene techs handle this. I don't want to disturb anything else."

But Jesse kept looking down at the floor, the Polaroid still in his hand.

There were dozens more among the papers and folders scattered on the floor. Suit was staring at them, too, breathing a little heavier in his mask.

From what Jesse could see, the pictures were all of dead men. Gunshot wounds. Blood. Some staring dead-eyed, some with their eyes closed as if they were blinking or sleeping. All starkly lit in the camera's flash.

The house suddenly felt much smaller, as if all the junk was pressing in on the both of them. Before, it was just sad. Now it seemed haunted.

"Let's go," he told Suit.

Jesse got to the fence before he realized he still had the first picture.

He slipped it into his pocket and climbed over, back into the everyday world.


Jesse made some more calls. First to Molly, to let her know that he and Suit would be out here awhile, and then to Dev. Then he called the state’s crime scene technicians. They were going to need a lot of people for this one. The house was packed to the walls with junk, and all of it would have to be hauled out and cataloged.
"Make no mistake, Buried Secrets is a classic Parker novel, filled with sharp dialogue, compelling characters, and a trademark tightly woven plot. Fans of the series won’t be disappointed." —New York Post

"[An] entertaining tale . . . This is Farnsworth’s first entry in the series created by Robert Parker, and fans will be pleased. So, Paradise isn’t paradise, and the Parker legacy lives on." —Kirkus Reviews
© Erin Moss
Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010.

Christopher Farnsworth worked as a reporter in Arizona and California before selling his first screenplay. He now pens successful crime and thriller novels. His books have been published in a dozen countries and translated into ten languages, and optioned for film and television. A loyal reader of Robert B. Parker since his high school days, Farnsworth currently resides in Los Angeles with his family. View titles by Christopher Farnsworth

About

AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER

Police Chief Jesse Stone investigates the mystery behind a dead body found strewn with photos of murder victims and placed on top of $2 million in cash, before a mob of hit men converge on Paradise.


Just another day in Paradise . . . 

Chief of Police Jesse Stone is on his way home from a long shift when a call comes in for a welfare check on an elderly resident of the wealthy seaside town of Paradise, Massachusetts. Inside a house packed with junk and trash is a man’s dead body. It’s a sad, lonely end, but nothing criminal . . . until Jesse finds the photos of murder victims strewn around the corpse, on top of a treasure trove of $2 million in cash.

Jesse takes on the case and finds a trail leading to an aging mobster who will do whatever it takes to keep the past from coming to light. Before long, Jesse has a price on his head as hit men converge on Paradise to take back the cash and destroy any remaining evidence. But the real danger might be coming from inside his own department. Jesse Stone must unearth the truth buried under the wreckage of a dead man’s life . . . before he winds up in the ground himself.

Excerpt

One

Jesse Stone was on his way home when his deputy chief, Molly Crane, interrupted him on the radio for a welfare check.

"A guy is worried about his friend. Says he hasn't seen him in a couple weeks and now he won't answer the door," Molly told him.

"Can't someone else do it?" It had already been a long day. Three of his officers were out sick-COVID again-which was why Molly was covering dispatch. Jesse himself had been on multiple patrol calls and was looking forward to sitting down and watching whatever ESPN had to offer.

"Suit's breaking up a fight at the Scupper. Everyone else is busy," Molly said. "Serve and protect. It's in the job description."

"Yeah, but I'm the chief. I'm supposed to tell you what to do."

"It's adorable that you think that," Molly said. "Anyway, it's not like you had plans. Your girlfriend left you for The New York Times."

"You know, I can fire you anytime I want," Jesse said.

"Good luck. You'd be lost without me."

"Fine. Where is it?"

"See?" Molly read him the address.

The house was in a nice neighborhood on the good side of Paradise, but it had seen better days. The paint was peeling, and the wood was splintered and rotting in places. The lawn was mostly weeds and crabgrass. Deferred maintenance, Jesse had heard it called. When the people inside the house had to choose between upkeep and property taxes. Even in a place with a median income as high as Paradise's, it happened to some of the older residents as their lives extended past their savings accounts.

As Jesse drove up, he saw a younger man in the driveway, his worried face framed by a thin beard. He wore a leather jacket, black jeans, and boots, despite the early-spring warmth. He looked like he was late for a club opening somewhere.

"Are you the police?" he asked, as Jesse got out of his Explorer. Not from around here, Jesse figured.

"I'm Chief Stone," Jesse said, showing the young man his badge.

He looked at the badge and then at Jesse, as if trying to make up his mind.

True, Jesse didn't really dress like a cop. Perks of being the chief of a twelve-person force. He wore jeans and a polo shirt and sneakers and a ball cap with paradise pd printed on it. Usually a jacket to hide the Glock on his hip, too, but again, today was warm.

"This is the part where you tell me your name," Jesse said helpfully.

"Oh, right," the man said. "Sorry. I'm Matthew. Matthew Peebles."

"Can I see some ID?" Jesse said. Peebles? Really?

Matthew Peebles appeared taken aback. "Why do you need to see my ID?"

"It's a cop thing." Jesse shrugged. "We like to make sure people are who they say they are."

"Oh. Of course," Peebles said. He handed over a driver's license from a thick wallet attached to a chain. It was from New York.

Despite the odds against it, Peebles really was his name. Jesse handed the ID back. "You said you were worried about your friend inside the house?"

"Well. My parents' friend more than mine, really," Matthew said. "His name is Phil Burton. He's old. I mean, he's an elderly gentleman. I come out from the city and check on him every now and then for my folks. We talk on the phone, too. But I haven't heard from him for a while, and I got worried."

The propensity of people who lived in New York to refer to it as "the city," as if there were no others, wasn't lost on Jesse. Nobody ever did that in Los Angeles when he lived there. He wondered if it was them overcompensating.

"You drove four hours up here to check on him?"

"He wasn't answering. And like I said, I was worried."

"Would you mind calling him again?"

Peebles called again, with his phone on speaker so Jesse could hear. There was a generic voicemail greeting, and the mailbox was full.

"Are you going to check on him or what?" Peebles asked. He seemed to be growing increasingly agitated.

"Let's go knock on the door," Jesse said.

He knocked on the door, which wasn't in any better shape than the rest of the house. Then he rang the bell. No answer to either.

"You're sure he's home?"

"Well, pretty sure," Matthew said. "He usually spends a couple weeks out of the country every winter. He doesn't like the cold much anymore. But I thought he was back now."

Jesse rang the bell again.

"Can you kick it in?" Matthew asked.

Jesse looked at him. "I'd rather not do that if he's just on vacation. I think your friend probably wants to come home to a door that works."

"Well, are you going to do anything?" Matthew asked, now clearly aggravated.

Jesse nodded. "I think I might try the back way first."

He went around the side of the house and found a gate. It was stuck, as if something was pressing against it. Jesse sighed. "Serve and protect," Molly said. Let's see her come out here and do this, he thought.

He hopped up, caught the top of the gate with both hands, and felt the familiar twinge in his bad shoulder, a relic of the injury that had ended his days playing baseball. He ignored it and scrambled up without looking too ridiculous, he thought. He swung his body over the gate and came down in the yard.

Which looked like it was auditioning for a landfill, Jesse thought. There was a pile of garbage under his feet heaped up against the gate. The random junk was holding it shut. Old tires, layers of cardboard boxes, plastic restaurant-sized jugs of condiments and sauces, both empty and full. A child's wagon. A stack of broken lawn furniture. Heavy black garbage bags.

Jesse shifted his balance, trying to stay upright, and picked his way toward the back.

He found a sliding glass door, half open, and put on the blue nitrile gloves he always kept in his pocket before walking inside.

The door opened into what must have been the kitchen, and the inside of the house was even more crowded with junk than the yard. The counters were hidden under boxes: cases of motor oil, unopened. Stacks of mail that must have gone back decades. Old phone books. Where do you even get phone books anymore? Jesse wondered. Fast-food wrappers and delivery bags in piles, most of them with rotting food and grease stains.

There was also a familiar smell. Jesse knew that odor. It was not a pleasant one.

He tried to breathe through his mouth.

There was a narrow path in among all the debris. It led to the living room, where Jesse found dozens of moldering cardboard file boxes, some stacked as high as his head, arranged in a semicircle around an old couch.

And the couch was where Jesse found the body.

Two

Phil Burton-Jesse assumed that's who this was-had been there awhile.

It was like he'd built a nest in the living room, the one open space in the house that Jesse could observe.

The decomposition wasn't too bad. The house was dry, and it had been cold until recently. The skin had drawn back from the face, but there was still something recognizably human there. He'd been an old man, his hair strawlike and fried from multiple dye jobs. His eyes were sunken behind tinted aviator glasses, and he wore a button-down shirt with epaulets. He looked deflated, half melted.

Around him on the floor were paper plates and more fast-food containers. This was apparently his dining room as well as his bedroom.

In truth, this wasn't the first time he'd found a body like this in Paradise. Older men, living alone, with no close friends or family nearby, occasionally ended up like this. Waiting for someone to discover them.

But Jesse had never seen a house this far gone before. He'd heard of hoarders, obviously, but he'd never seen one here. He wondered how it started-how you went from hanging on to an old phone book to living like this. What was the tipping point? When did you stop seeing the mess, start seeing it as your life?

Burton clearly wasn't going to tell him. Jesse took another look at the body. No obvious sign of foul play.

Apparently, he went to sleep here and never woke up.

There were worse ways to go.

Jesse carefully picked his way out of the house again, easing among the piles and stacks of junk. It had been years since Jesse was a prospect with a Major League career ahead of him, but he still moved with an athlete's grace.

In his mind, he was already making a list of everything that would need to be done. Notifying the coroner, a search for the next of kin, finding someone to come and excavate all the layers of garbage.

As he climbed back over the gate, he wondered how Matthew Peebles was going to take the death of his family friend. He seemed high-strung.

As it turned out, Jesse didn't have to worry about that.

When he got back out of the house, Peebles was gone.


Jesse called Molly to report what he’d found, then Dev Chada, the medical examiner. Then he waited, leaning against a low stone wall that separated the property from the road. The air was better out here, and the day was cooling down nicely as the sun set.

Suit showed up before anyone else.

Luther "Suitcase" Simpson did not appear at all damaged, or even wrinkled, by his recent call to break up an argument between a couple of drunks. He was a big guy, one of the most solid cops-and friends-Jesse had ever known. Still, he'd always be a kid to Jesse. Seeing Suit in his plainclothes blazer, Jesse couldn't help thinking of a boy wearing his dad's clothes.

"You look pretty fresh for someone who just got out of a bar fight," Jesse said.

"Ah, it barely qualified as a fight," Suit said. "Two guys who could hardly stand up, getting angry over a woman. She didn't want either of them. Once they realized that, they began crying on each other's shoulders. I got them each a ride home."

"The path of true love never did run smooth," Jesse said.

"Especially when booze is involved."

"Don't have to tell me," Jesse said. He'd spent a few too many nights looking for answers at the bottom of a glass, and far too many years searching for love with the wrong woman.

Suit, at the heart of him, wanted only to do good. He was driven to help people, which is why he became a cop.

Jesse, on the other hand, was driven to make things right, which was not exactly the same thing.

Suit looked around. "Where's the good citizen who reported this?"

"Not so good would be my guess," Jesse said. "He scampered."

"'Scampered'?"

"That's a technical term. Look it up in your detective handbook."

"You call the crime scene people?" Suit asked.

"We might need an archaeologist," Jesse said. "Maybe a whole team of them. Come on. I'll show you."


Jesse got over the fence first.

"Pretty spry for a guy your age," Suit said.

Jesse waited until Suit came down on the piles of trash and slipped, nearly falling on his ass. "Careful there, Junior," Jesse said. "Wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Suit regained his balance and put on his own pair of nitrile gloves. They went in through the open sliding door.

Suit went red, then pale, as the scent hit him.

"Jesus," he said, taking in the view. "How does somebody live like this?"

"Well, in this case, he doesn't. Not anymore."

They made their way through the narrow path to the living room, Suit turning sideways in places to avoid touching anything. For someone his size, it was like navigating a maze of spring-loaded traps, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

Burton was right where Jesse had left him.

"Ugh," Suit said.

"'Ugh'? Is that your professional opinion, Detective?"

"Well, what would you say? Can you imagine? Just being left like this until someone remembers you exist?"

"Not everyone has someone who cares about them," Jesse said.

Suit took a KN95 out of his pocket and put it on. As his arm came up, he accidentally nudged one of the towers of file boxes stacked around the room. The tower shifted, and the old cardboard suddenly split open, sending a cascade of papers and folders to the floor.

"Ah, shoot," Suit said. "Sorry."

He tried to find a safe place to stand and took a step forward, and again nearly fell on his ass as a stack of magazines slid out from under his foot.

"It's like watching Baryshnikov dance," Jesse said.

"You watch a lot of ballet?"

"Sorry, I meant one of those dancing bears."

Then something caught Jesse's eye in the pile of papers released from the box. He kneeled down to take a closer look.

Suit was still staring at Burton's corpse on the couch.

"Well," Suit said. "At least he didn't suffer."

Jesse carefully picked up a Polaroid photo. He looked at the image, then showed it to Suit.

Suit went pale again.

"Maybe he should have," Jesse said.

Three

The Polaroid was aged and a little faded, but preserved from its time in the box. It showed a man in what appeared to be an alley. It was hard to see the background; it was a tight shot, focusing mainly on the bullet wound in the man's forehead.

"What the hell?" Suit said.

Jesse stood.

"We should let the crime scene techs handle this. I don't want to disturb anything else."

But Jesse kept looking down at the floor, the Polaroid still in his hand.

There were dozens more among the papers and folders scattered on the floor. Suit was staring at them, too, breathing a little heavier in his mask.

From what Jesse could see, the pictures were all of dead men. Gunshot wounds. Blood. Some staring dead-eyed, some with their eyes closed as if they were blinking or sleeping. All starkly lit in the camera's flash.

The house suddenly felt much smaller, as if all the junk was pressing in on the both of them. Before, it was just sad. Now it seemed haunted.

"Let's go," he told Suit.

Jesse got to the fence before he realized he still had the first picture.

He slipped it into his pocket and climbed over, back into the everyday world.


Jesse made some more calls. First to Molly, to let her know that he and Suit would be out here awhile, and then to Dev. Then he called the state’s crime scene technicians. They were going to need a lot of people for this one. The house was packed to the walls with junk, and all of it would have to be hauled out and cataloged.

Reviews

"Make no mistake, Buried Secrets is a classic Parker novel, filled with sharp dialogue, compelling characters, and a trademark tightly woven plot. Fans of the series won’t be disappointed." —New York Post

"[An] entertaining tale . . . This is Farnsworth’s first entry in the series created by Robert Parker, and fans will be pleased. So, Paradise isn’t paradise, and the Parker legacy lives on." —Kirkus Reviews

Author

© Erin Moss
Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010.

Christopher Farnsworth worked as a reporter in Arizona and California before selling his first screenplay. He now pens successful crime and thriller novels. His books have been published in a dozen countries and translated into ten languages, and optioned for film and television. A loyal reader of Robert B. Parker since his high school days, Farnsworth currently resides in Los Angeles with his family. View titles by Christopher Farnsworth