Текст книги "Stone cold"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Stone Cold – Parker

Stone Cold – Parker

Stone Cold

By

Robert

B. Parker

FOR JOAN:

everything started to hum

1

After the murder, they made love in front of a video camera.

When it was over, her mouth was bruised. He had long scratches across his back. They lay side by side on their backs, gasping for breath.

“Jesus!” he said, his voice hoarse.

“Yes,” she whispered.

She moved into the compass of his left arm and rested her head against his chest. They lay silently for a while, not moving, waiting for oxygen.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” she said.

He put his face down against the top of her head where it lay on

his chest. Her hair smelled of verbena. In time their breathing settled.

“Let’s play the video,” she

whispered.

“Let’s,” he said.

The camera stood beside the bed on a tripod. He got up, took the

tape from it, put it in the VCR, got back into bed, and picked up the remote from the night table. She moved back into the circle of his arm, her head back on his chest.

“Show time,” he said, and clicked the remote.

They watched.

“My God,” she said. “Look at

me.”

“I love how you’re looking right into the camera,” he

said.

They watched quietly for a little while.

“Whoa,” she said. “What are you

doing to me

there?”

“Nothing you don’t like,” he

said.

When the tape was over he rewound it.

“You want to watch again?” he said.

She was drawing tiny circles on his chest with her left forefinger.

“Yes.”

He started the tape again.

“You know what I loved,” she said.

“I loved the range of

expression on his face.”

“Yes,” he said, “that was great.

First it’s like, what the

hell is this?”

“And then like, are you serious?”

“And then, omigod!”

“That’s the best,” she said.

“The way he looked when he knew we

were going to kill him. I’ve never seen a look like that.”

“Yes,” he said. “That was pretty

good.”

“I wish we could have made it last

longer,” she

said.

He shrugged.

“My bad,” she said. “I got so

excited. I shot too

soon.”

“I’ve been known to do that,” he

said.

“Well, aren’t you Mr. Dirty

Mouth,” she said.

They both laughed.

“We’ll get better at it,” he

said.

She was now rubbing the slow circles on his chest with her full

palm, looking at the videotape.

“Ohhh,” she said. “Look at me!

Look at me!”

He laughed softly. She moved her hand down his stomach.

“What’s happening here?” she

said.

He laughed again.

“Ohh,” she said. “Good

news.”

She turned her body hard against him and put her face up.

“Be careful,” she murmured. “My

mouth is sore.”

They made love again while the image of their previous lovemaking moved unseen on the television screen, and the sounds of that mingled with the sounds they were making now.

2

It was just after dawn. Low tide. Several herring gulls hopped on the beach, their heads cocking one way then another, their flat black eyes looking at the corpse. Jesse Stone, with the blue light flashing, pulled into the public beach parking lot at the end of the causeway from Paradise Neck, parked behind the Paradise Police cruiser that was already there, and got out of his car. It was mid November and cold. Jesse closed the snaps on his Paradise Men’s

Softball League jacket and walked to the beach, where Suitcase Simpson, holding a big Mag flashlight, stood looking down at the body.

“Guy’s been shot, Jesse,” he

said.

Jesse stood beside Simpson and looked down at the body.

“Who found him?”

“Me. I’m on eleven to seven and I pulled in here to, ah, take a

leak, you know, and the headlights picked him up.”

Simpson was a big shapeless red-cheeked kid who’d played tackle

in high school. His real name was Luther but everyone called him Suitcase after the ballplayer.

“Peter Perkins coming?”

“Anthony’s on the night desk,”

Simpson said. “He told me he’d

call him soon as he called you.”

“Okay, gimme the flashlight. Then go pull your cruiser across

the entrance to the parking lot and call in. When Molly comes on I want Anthony down here and everybody else she can wrangle. I want the area secured.”

Simpson hesitated, still looking down.

“It’s a murder, isn’t it,

Jesse?”

“Probably,” Jesse said. “Gimme

the light.”

Simpson handed the flashlight to Jesse and went to his cruiser.

Jesse squatted on his heels and studied the corpse. It had been a young white man, maybe thirty-five. His mouth was open. There was sand in it. He wore a maroon velour warm-up suit, which was soaking wet. There were two small holes in the wet fabric. One on the left side of the chest. One on the right. Jesse turned the head slightly. There was sand in his ear. Jesse swept the flashlight slowly around the body. He saw nothing but the normal debris of a normal beach: a tangle of seaweed scraps, a piece of salt-bleached driftwood, an empty crab shell.

Simpson walked back across the parking lot. Behind him the blue

light on his patrol car revolved silently.

“Perkins is on the way,” he said.

“And Arthur Angstrom. Anthony

called Molly. She’s coming in early. Anthony’ll be down as soon as

she gets there.”

Jesse nodded, still looking at the crime scene.

He said, “What time is it, Suit?”

“Six-fifteen.”

“And it’s dead low tide,” Jesse

said. “So high was around

midnight.”

A siren sounded in the distance.

“You think he was washed up here?” Simpson said.

“Body that’s been in the ocean and washed up on shore doesn’t

look like this,” Jesse said.

“More beat up,” Simpson said.

Jesse nodded.

“He’s got some marks on his

face,” Simpson said.

“That would probably be the gulls,” Jesse said.

“I coulda lived without knowing that,”

Simpson

said.

Jesse moved the right arm of the corpse. “Still in rigor,” he

said.

“Which means?”

“Rigor usually passes in twenty-four hours,” Jesse

said.

“So he was killed since yesterday morning.”

“More or less. Cold water might change the timing a little.”

A Paradise patrol car pulled in beside Simpson’s, adding its

blue light to his. Peter Perkins got out and walked toward them. He was carrying a black leather satchel.

“Anthony says you got a murder?” Perkins said.

“You’re the crime-scene guy,”

Jesse said. “But there’s two

bullet holes in his chest.”

“That would be a clue,” Perkins said.

He put the satchel on the sand and squatted beside Jesse to look

at the corpse.

“I figure he was probably shot here, sometime before midnight,”

Jesse said, “when the tide was still coming in.

There’s the high

water line. The tide reached high about midnight and soaked him, maybe rolled him around a little, and left him here when it receded.”

“If you’re right,” Perkins said,

“it probably washed away pretty

much any evidence might be lying around.”

“We’ll close the beach,” Jesse

said, “and go over

it.”

“It’s November, Jesse,” Simpson

said. “Nobody uses it

anyway.”

“This guy did,” Jesse said.

3

When he left the beach, Jesse called Marcy Campbell on his cell

phone.

“I’m up early fighting crime,”

Jesse said. “Got time for

breakfast?”

“It’s seven-thirty in the

morning,” Marcy said. “What if I’d

been asleep?”

“You’d be dreaming of me. When’s

your first

appointment.”

“I’m showing a house on Paradise Neck at eleven,” Marcy

said.

“I’ll come by for you.”

“I’m just out of the shower,”

Marcy said. “I’m not even

dressed.”

“Good,” Jesse said.

“I’ll hurry.”

Sitting across from Jesse in the Indigo Apple Cafe at 8:15, Marcy was completely put together. Her platinum hair was perfectly in place. Her makeup was flawless.

“You got ready pretty fast,” Jesse said.

“Crime busters float my boat,” Marcy said.

“What are you doing

so early.”

“Found a body on the beach,” Jesse said.

“Town beach?”

“Yes. He’d been shot twice.”

“My God,” Marcy said. “Who was

it.”

“Don’t know yet,” Jesse said.

“ME is looking at him

now.”

“Do you get help on major crimes like that?”

“If we need it,” Jesse said.

“Oh dear,” Marcy said.

“I’ve stepped on a

prickle.”

“We’re a pretty good little operation here,” Jesse said.

“Admittedly we don’t have all the resources of a big department.

State cops help us out on that.”

“And you don’t like it when that

happens.”

“I like to run my own show,” Jesse said.

“When I

can.”

The Indigo Apple had a lot of etched glass and blue curtains.

For breakfast it specialized in omelets with regional names.

Italian omelets with tomato sauce, Mexican omelets with cheese and peppers, Swedish omelets with sour cream and mushrooms. Jesse chose a Mexican omelet. Marcy ordered wheat toast.

“Speaking of which, how is the drinking?”

“Good,” Jesse said.

He didn’t like to talk about his drinking, even to Marcy.

“And the love life?” Marcy said.

“Besides you?”

“Besides me.”

“Various,” Jesse said.

“Well, doesn’t that make me feel

special,” Marcy

said.

“Oh God, don’t you get the vapors on me,” Jesse

said.

“No.” Marcy smiled. “I

won’t. We’re not lovers. We’re pals who fuck.”

“What are pals for,” Jesse said.

“It’s why we get along.”

“Because we don’t love each

other?”

“It helps,” Marcy said.

“How’s the ex-wife?”

“Jenn,” Jesse said.

“Jenn.”

Jesse leaned back a little and looked past Marcy through the etched glass front window of the cafe at people going by on the street, starting the day.

“Jenn,” he said again. “Well

… she doesn’t seem to be in

love with that anchorman anymore.”

“Was she ever?”

“Probably not.”

Marcy ate some toast and drank some coffee.

“She’s going out with some guy from

Harvard,” Jesse

said.

“A professor?”

The waitress stopped by the table and refilled their coffee cups.

“No, some sort of dean, I think.”

“Climbing the intellectual ladder,” Marcy said.

Jesse shrugged.

“You’ve been divorced like five

years,” Marcy

said.

“Four years and eleven days.”

Marcy stirred her coffee. “I’m older than you are,” Marcy

said.

“Which gives you the right to offer me advice,” Jesse

said.

“Yes. It’s a rule.”

“And you advise me,” Jesse said,

“to forget about

Jenn.”

“I do,” Marcy said.

Jesse cut off a corner of his omelet and ate it and drank some coffee and patted his lips with his napkin.

“Is there anyone advising you otherwise?”

Marcy

said.

“No.”

“If you resolved this thing with Jenn,”

Marcy said, “maybe you

could put the drinking issue away too, and just be a really good police chief.”

“I’ve never been drunk on the

job,” Jesse said.

“You’ve never been drunk on the job

here,” Marcy

said.

“Good point,” Jesse said softly.

“It got you fired in LA,” Marcy said.

“After you broke up with

Jenn in LA. And you came here to start over.”

Jesse nodded.

Marcy said, “So?”

“So?”

“So Jenn followed you here and you still struggle with booze,”

Marcy said. “Maybe there’s a connection.”

Jesse ate some more of his omelet.

“You think anyone in Mexico ever ate an omelet like this?” he

said.

“Are you suggesting I shut up?”

Jesse smiled at her and drank some coffee from the big white porcelain mug like the ones they had used in diners when he was a kid, in Tucson.

Jesse shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Your advice is

good. It’s just not good for

me.”

“Because?”

“I will not give up on Jenn until she gives up on me,” Jesse

said.

“Isn’t that giving her a license to do whatever she wants to and

hang on to you?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “It

is.”

Marcy stared at him.

“How does it make you feel that she’s sleeping with other men?”

Marcy said.

“We’re divorced,” Jesse said.

“She’s got every

right.”

“Un-huh,” Marcy said. “But how

does it make you

feel?”

“It makes me want to puke,” Jesse said.

“It makes me want to

kill any man she’s with.”

“But you don’t.”

“Nope.”

“Because it’s against the law?”

“Because it won’t take me where I want to go,” Jesse

said.

“I don’t mean this in any negative

way,” Marcy said. “You are

maybe the simplest person I ever met.”

“I know what I want,” Jesse said.

“And you keep your eye on the prize,”

Marcy said.

“I do,” Jesse said.

4

BobValenti came into Jesse’s office and sat down. He was

overweight with a thick black beard, wearing a blue windbreaker across the back of which was written Paradise Animal Control.

“How you doing, Skipper?” he said.

Valenti was a part-time dog officer and he thought he was a cop.

Jesse found him annoying, but he was a pretty good dog officer. In the fifteen years he’d been a cop, dating back to Los Angeles,

South Central, Jesse had never heard a commander called Skipper.

“We’re pretty informal here,

Bob,” Jesse said. “You can call me

Jesse.”

“Sure, Jess, just being respectful.”

“And I appreciate it, Bob,” Jesse said.

“What’s

up?”

“Picked up a dog this morning,” Valenti said, “a vizsla -

medium-sized Hungarian pointer, reddish gold in color

…”

“I know what a vizsla is,” Jesse said.

“Anyway, neighbors said he’s been hanging around outside a house

in the neighborhood for a couple days.”

Jesse nodded. Jesse noticed that the sun coming in through the window behind him glinted on some gray hairs in Valenti’s beard.

“Not like it used to be,” Valenti said.

“Dogs running loose they

could be lost for days before anybody notices. Now, with the leash laws, people notice any dog that’s loose.”

Jesse said, “Um-hmm.”

“So I go down,” Valenti said,

“and he’s there, hanging around

this house on Pleasant Street that’s been condo-ed. And he’s got

that wild look they get. Restless, big eyes, you can tell they’re

lost.”

Jesse nodded.

“So I approach him, easy like, but he’s skittish as a bastard,”

Valenti said. “I had a hell of a time corralling him.”

“But you did it,” Jesse said, his face blank.

“Oh sure,” Valenti said. “I been

doing this job a long

time.”

“Dog got any tags?”

“Yeah. That’s the funny thing. He lived there.”

“Where?”

“The house he was hanging around. Belongs to somebody named

Kenneth Eisley at that address. So I ring the bell, and there’s no

answer. And I notice that the Globe from yesterday and

today is there on the porch, like, you know, nobody’s home.”

“How’s the dog?” Jesse said.

“He’s kind of scared, you know, ears down, tail down. But he

seems healthy enough. I fed him, gave him some water.”

“He look well cared for?”

“Oh, yeah. Nice collar, clean. Toenails clipped recently. Teeth

are in good shape.”

“You pay attention,” Jesse said.

“I got an eye for detail,” Valenti said.

“Part of the

job.”

“Where’s the dog now?”

“I got some kennel facilities in my

backyard,” Valenti said.

“I’ll keep him there until we find the owner.”

“You got an address for Kenneth Eisley?”

“Yeah, sure. Forty-one Pleasant Street. Big gray house with

white trim got three different condo entrances.”

“The address will help me find it,” Jesse said.

“You got it, Skip,” Valenti said.

5

They sat in the study looking at digital pictures on the computer screen.

“Look at them,” she said.

“Aren’t they sweet.”

“Your photography is improving,” he said.

“Maybe it would be more fun to do a woman this time,” she

said.

“Variety is the spice of life,” he said.

“Any of these look interesting?” she said.

He smiled at her.

“They all look interesting,” he said.

“But we need to find the right one,” she said.

“Wouldn’t want to rush it.”

“She may not even be in this batch.”

“Then we’ll do some more research and come back with a new

batch.”

“That will be fun,” she said.

“It’s all fun,” he said.

“It is,” she said,

“isn’t it. The research, the selection, the planning, the stalking …”

“Every good thing benefits from foreplay,”

he

said.

“The longer you wait for the orgasm, the better it is.”

They looked at the slide show some more, the new picture clicking onto the screen every five seconds.

“Stop it there,” she said.

“Her?”

“You think?” she said.

“Un-uh.”

“Too old?”

“I think we should get someone

young and pretty this

time.”

“That feels right to me,” she said.

“Feels good, doesn’t it,” he

said.

“Yes.”

He clicked on the slide show again and they sat holding hands watching the images of young men, old men, young women, old women, men and women of indeterminate age. All of them white, except for one Asian man in a blue suit.

“There,” he said and froze the image.

“Her?” she said.

“She’s the one,” he said.

“You think she’s good-looking?”

“I think she’s great-looking.”

“She looks kind of horsy to me.”

“She’s the one,” he said.

He was very firm about it, and she heard the firmness in his voice. He said it again.

“She’s the one.”

“Okay,” his wife said. “You want

her, you got her. She does look

like she’d be kind of fun.”

“That’s her house she’s coming

out of,” he said. “Rose Avenue if

I remember right.”

His wife looked at the list of locations.

“Rose Avenue,” she said.

“Memory like a steel trap,” he said.

“So tomorrow we put her under

surveillance?”

“We watch her every minute of her day,” he said. “See who she

lives with, when she’s alone, where she goes, when. Does she drive?

Ride a bike? Jog? Fool around?”

“The more we know,” she said,

“the more certain it’ll be when we

do it.”

“And the better it will feel.”

He smiled. “During or after?” he said.

“Both.”

6

Carrying a tan briefcase, Jesse stood on the big wraparound porch at 41 Pleasant Street. There were two doors that opened onto the porch in front, and one that provided entry from the driveway side. Jesse rang the bell at 41A, where the name under the bell button said Kenneth Eisley. He waited. Nothing.

The name

at 41B was Angie Aarons. He rang the bell, and heard footsteps almost at once. A woman opened the door. She was wearing a black leotard top and baggy gray sweatpants. Her blond hair was pinned up. Her feet were bare. There was a faint sheen of sweat on her face.

“Hello,” she said.

“Ms. Aarons?”

“Yes.”

Jesse was wearing jeans and his softball jacket. He held up his

badge.

“Jesse Stone,” he said.

“Could I see that badge again?” she said.

“Sure.”

She studied it for a moment.

“You’re the chief,” she said.

“I am.”

“How come you’re not wearing a chief suit,” she

said.

“Casual Tuesday,” Jesse said.

“Aren’t you awful young to be

chief.”

“How old is a chief supposed to be?”

“Older than me,” she said and smiled.

“I’ll do my best,” Jesse said.

“Are you friendly with Kenneth

Eisley, next door?”

“Kenny? Sure, I mean casually. We’d have a drink now and then,

sign for each other’s packages, stuff like that.”

“Have you seen him recently?”

“Not for a couple of days.” She paused.

“Omigod, where are my

manners,” she said. “Come in, want some coffee?

It’s all

made.”

“Coffee would be good,” Jesse said.

“Cream and

sugar.”

She stepped back from the door and he went in. The walls were white. The trim was white. The furniture was bleached oak. The living room was to the right, through an archway. There was a big-screen television to the left of the fireplace, and an exercise mat spread on the rug. She brought him coffee in a large colorful mug.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“The good china is in the

dishwasher.”

“I’m a cop,” Jesse said.

“All I know how to drink from is

Styrofoam.”

On the floor near the exercise mat were several pieces of rubber

tubing, and a round metal band with rubber grips. She sat on a big white hassock.

“Why are you asking about Kenny,” she said.

“He has a dog?”

“Goldie,” she said.

“He’s a vizsla. You know what they

are?”

Jesse nodded.

“Goldie’s been hanging around outside looking lost for a couple

of days,” Jesse said. “The dog officer picked him up, but he can’t

locate Kenny.”

“Last I saw they were going over to the beach together to

run.”

“When was that?” Jesse said.

“Couple nights ago.”

Jesse took an eight-by-ten photograph from the briefcase.

“I’m going to show you a picture.

It’s not gruesome, but it’s a

picture of a dead person.”

“Is it Kenny?”

“That’s what you’re going to

tell me,” Jesse said. “You

ready?”

She nodded. He held the picture out and she looked at it without

taking it, then looked away quickly and sat back.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

Jesse waited.

After a moment, she nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s

Kenny.”

Jesse put the photograph away.

“What happened?” she said.

“Somebody shot him,” Jesse said.

“On Paradise Beach two nights

ago.”

“My God, why?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you know who?” she said.

Jesse shook his head.

“Goldie,” Angie Aarons said. “He

must have been running with

Kenny on the beach and was there …”

“Probably,” Jesse said.

“And then he didn’t know what to do and he came home …

poor thing.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “Do you have

any idea who might want to shoot

Kenny?”

“Jesus, no,” Angie said.

“What does he do?”

“Ah, he’s, ah, he’s a, you know,

stock guy, some big brokerage

in town.”

“Family?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know him

real well. I never saw any

family around.”

“Do you know how long he’s lived

here?” Jesse

said.

“No. He was here when I moved in three years ago.”

“From where?”

“From where did I move?”

“Yes.”

She smiled.

“Am I a suspect?”

“No,” Jesse said. “The question

was unofficial.”

“Really?” she said. “I came from

LA.”

“Me too,” Jesse said.

7

Jesse was eating a pastrami sandwich on light rye at his desk, when Molly brought the girl and her mother into his office just after noontime on Thursday.

“I think you need to talk with these ladies,” Molly

said.

Jesse took a swallow of Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda. He nodded.

“Excuse my lunch,” he said.

“I don’t care about your damned

lunch,” the mother said. “My

daughter’s been raped.”

“Moth-er!”

“You might want to stick

around, Molly,” Jesse

said.

Molly nodded and closed the door and leaned on the wall beside it.

“Tell me about the rape,” Jesse said.

“I didn’t get raped,” the girl

said.

“Shut up,” the mother said.

Jesse took a bite of his sandwich and chewed quietly.

“She came home from school early and tried to slip into the

house. Her dress was torn, her hair was a mess, her lip was swollen. You can still see it. She was crying and she wouldn’t tell

me why.”

Jesse nodded. He drank a little more cream soda.

“I insisted on examining her,” the mother said. “She had no

underwear, her thighs are bruised. I said I would take her to the doctor if she didn’t tell me, so she confessed.”

“That she’d been raped?” Jesse

said.

He was looking at the daughter. The daughter looked frantic to him.

“Yes.”

“Anyone do a rape kit?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you take her to the doctor,” Jesse said.

“And have it all over town, God no. I had her clean herself up

and brought her straight to you.”

“Clean herself up?”

“Of course. Who knows what germs were involved. And I’m not

bringing her in here looking like a refugee.”

“Bath?” Jesse said to the daughter.

“Shower?”

The daughter wouldn’t speak.

“I put her in a hot bath,” her mother said, “scrubbed her myself

like she was two years old.”

Peripherally, Jesse saw Molly raise her eyebrows.

“What are your names,” Jesse said.

The mother looked startled, as if Jesse had been impolite.

“I’m Mrs. Chuck Pennington. This is

Candace.”

Jesse said, “So who raped you, Candy?”

“Candace,” her mother said.

Jesse nodded.

“Candace,” he said.

Candace shook her head.

“You tell him, young lady. I will not permit anyone to rape my

daughter and think they can get away with it.”

“I won’t tell,” Candace said.

“You can’t make

me.”

“No,” Jesse said, “I

can’t. But it’s hard to protect you if I don’t know who they are.”

“You can’t protect me,” Candace

said.

“He threaten you?”

“They all did.”

“All,” her mother said, “dear

God in Heaven. You tell the chief

right now what happened.”

Candace shook her head. Her face was red. She was teary.

“If I don’t know who they are,”

Jesse said, “I can’t stop them.

They might do it again. To another girl. To you.”

Candace shook her head.

“Don’t you even want revenge,”

Molly said. “If it happened to me

I’d want revenge. I’d want them caught.”

Candace didn’t speak. Her mother slapped her on the back of her

head.

“No hitting,” Jesse said.

“Molly, why don’t you take Candace out to the conference room.”

Molly nodded. Left the wall and put her hand gently under Candace’s left arm and helped her out of the chair and through

Jesse’s office door. Jesse got up and went around to the door and

closed it and came back to his desk.

“She’s been traumatized by the

rapists,” Jesse said. “She should

not be traumatized by her mother.”

“Don’t you dare tell me how to raise my daughter.”

“I don’t know a hell of a lot about

daughters,” Jesse said. “But

I know something about rapes. She needs to see a doctor. If nothing else he might be able to give her some sedation. Who’s her gynecologist? I can call him for you.”

“Is there some kind of medical thing they can find out who did

it.”

“The hot bath tends to wash away

evidence,” Jesse

said.

“Well then, I won’t take her. The doctor may not tell, but

someone will. The nurse, the receptionist. The doctor’s husband. I

am not going to have her the subject of a lot of filthy talk all over town.”

Jesse finished his pastrami sandwich and drank the last of his cream soda and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He put the napkin and the empty can and the sandwich wrapper in the wastebasket. He rocked his chair back and rested one foot on the open bottom file drawer in his desk, and tapped his fingers gently on the flat of his stomach, and looked thoughtfully at Mrs.

Pennington.

“Why don’t I talk to her alone,”

he said.

“You think she’ll tell you things she won’t tell her own

mother?”

“Sometimes people do,” Jesse said.

Mrs. Pennington frowned. She put her palms together and tapped her upper lip with the tips of her fingers. She’s pretty good-looking, Jesse thought. A little too blond, a little too tan, a little too carefully done, maybe, teeth a little too white. Face is kind of mean, but a good body.

“This entire incident must remain

confidential,” Mrs. Pennington

said.

Jesse nodded.

“Can you promise me that?”

Jesse shook his head.

“You can’t?”

“Of course not. We don’t plan to blab about it. But, if there

are arrests, indictments, trials, someone will hear about it.”

“Oh God,” she said. “I cannot

bear, cannot bear, the

scandal.”

“Being raped is not scandalous behavior,”

Jesse

said.

“You don’t understand.”

Jesse didn’t say anything.

“I can’t discuss this any further.

I’m taking my daughter

home.”

“Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with this,” Jesse said. “Or

she will.”

“I want my daughter,” she said.

Jesse stood and went to his office door.

He yelled, “Molly,” and when she appeared he said, “Bring the

girl in.”

When she saw her daughter, Mrs. Pennington stood.

“We’ll go home now,” she said.

Candace’s eyes were red and swollen. A bruise had begun to

darken on her cheekbone. She seemed disconnected. Jesse looked at Molly. Molly shook her head.

“Candace,” Jesse said.

The girl looked at him vaguely. Her pupils were large. She had no focus.

“Is there anything you want to say to me?”

Jesse

said.

She looked at her mother.

“We are through here, Candace,” Mrs.

Pennington

said.

The girl looked back at Jesse. Their eyes met and held for a moment. Jesse thought he saw for just a moment a stir of personhood in there. Jesse nodded slightly. The girl didn’t say anything. Then

her mother took her arm and they walked out of the station.

8

“I’m here to cook you

supper,” Jenn said when she

arrived at Jesse’s condo with a large shopping bag.

“Cook?” Jesse said.

“I can cook,” Jenn said.

“I didn’t know that,” Jesse said.

“I’ve been taking a course,”

Jenn said and set the shopping bag

down on the counter in Jesse’s kitchen. “Perhaps you could make us

a cocktail?”

“I could,” Jesse said.

Jenn took a small green apron out of the shopping bag and tied it on.

“Serious,” Jesse said.

“Dress for success,” Jenn said and smiled at him.

Jesse made them martinis. Jenn put some grilled shrimp and mango

chutney on a glass plate. They took the drinks and the hors d’oeuvres to the living room and sat on Jesse’s sofa and looked out

the slider over Jesse’s balcony to the harbor beyond.

“It’s pretty here, Jesse.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s so … stark.”

“Stark?”

“You know, the walls are white. The tabletops are bare. There’s

no pictures.”

“There’s Ozzie,” Jesse said.

Jenn looked at the big framed color photograph of Ozzie Smith, in midair, stretched parallel to the ground, catching a baseball.

“You’ve had that since I’ve

known you.”

“Best shortstop I ever saw,” Jesse said.

“You might have been that good, if you hadn’t gotten

hurt.”

Jesse smiled and shook his head.

“I might have made the show,” Jesse said.

“But I wouldn’t have

been Ozzie.”

“Anyway,” Jenn said. “One

picture of a baseball player is not

interior decor.”

“Picture of you in my bedroom,” Jesse said. “On the

table.”

“What do you do with it if you have a sleepover?”

“It stays,” Jesse said.

“Sleepovers have to know about

you.”

“Is that in your best interest?” Jenn said. “Wouldn’t it

discourage sleeping over.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“But not entirely,” Jenn said.

“No,” Jesse said. “Not

entirely.”

They were silent, thinking about it. Jesse got up and made another shaker of martinis.

“What is it they have to know about me?”

Jenn said when he

brought the shaker back.

“That I love you, and, probably, am not going to love

them.”

“Good,” Jenn said.

“Good for who?” Jesse said.

“For me at least,” Jenn said. “I

want you in my

life.”

“Are you sure divorcing me is the best way to show that?”

“I can’t imagine a life without you in it.”

“Old habits die hard,” Jesse said.

“It’s more than a habit, Jesse.

There’s some sort of connection

between us that won’t break.”

“Maybe its because I don’t let it

break,” Jesse

said.

“You don’t,” Jenn said.

“But then here I am.”

“Here you are.”

“I could have been a weather girl in Los Angeles, or Pittsburgh

or San Antonio.”

“But here you are,” Jesse said.

“You’re not the only one hanging

on,” Jenn said.

“What the hell is wrong with us?” Jesse said.

Jenn put her glass out. Jesse freshened her drink.

“Probably a lot more than we know,” Jenn said. “But one thing I

do know: we take it seriously.”

“What?”

“Love, marriage, relationship, each other.”

“Which is why we got divorced and started fucking other people,”

Jesse said. “Or vice versa.”

“I deserve the vice versa,” Jenn said.

“But I don’t keep

deserving it every time we talk.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

“I’m sorry. But if we take it so

seriously, why the hell are we in this mess.”

“Because we wouldn’t let it

slide,” Jenn said. “Because you

wouldn’t accept adultery. Because I wouldn’t accept suffocation.”

“I loved you very intensely,” Jesse said.

There was half a drink left in the shaker. Jesse added it to his

glass.

“You loved your fantasy of me very

intensely,” Jenn said, “and

kept trying to squeeze the real me into that fantasy.”

Jesse stared at the crystalline liquid in his glass. Jenn was still. Below them the harbor master’s launch pulled away from the

town pier and began to weave through the stand of masts going somewhere, and knowing where.