“Because she violated the civil rights of a number of thirteen-year-old girls, and I want there to be consequences for her.”
“Consequences.”
“Yep.”
“So are you telling me,” Hannigan said, “that you are leaving the case active to punish her?”
“Give her something to worry about,” Jesse said. “Make her wish she hadn’t done it.”
“Jay has talked with you?”
“He has,” Jesse said.
“And you know who he is?” Hannigan said.
“I do.”
“I’m up for reelection this fall,” Hannigan said.
“I know,” Jesse said.
“In Jay Ingersoll’s home county,” Hannigan said.
“Yeah,” Jesse said.
“It won’t help me to have Jay mad at me.”
“I can see how that would be,” Jesse said.
“So you’ll lay off his wife?” Hannigan said.
“Nope.”
“You’re willing to endanger my election? Just to annoy some goddamned school principal?”
“Yes, I am,” Jesse said.
“For crissakes, Jesse. You don’t have a prosecutable case.”
“Yet,” Jesse said.
“You mean you’re still trying to get something more on her?”
“Yes, I am,” Jesse said.
“Goddamn it, there’s nothing to get. She embarrassed a few kids.”
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“Even if you came up with something,” Hannigan said, “I wouldn’t prosecute it.”
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“I’ve talked to the selectmen already,” Hannigan said. “You want to get your ass in a crack, this is a good way to do it.”
Jesse nodded.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Stone?” Hannigan said.
“You don’t know, either?” Jesse said.
14
JESSE WAS sitting with John Maguire and Suit in the conference room at the station.
“What’s up with the Peeping Tommy?” he said to Maguire.
“Nothing much,” Maguire said. “Husband and wife”?he looked at his notes?“name of Richard and Alice North at Forty-one Rose Street, are getting ready for bed, bedroom’s on the ground floor, when she looks out the window and sees some guy hiding in the bushes. Mr.
North opens the window and yells at the guy and the guy scoots.”
“That’s it?”
“All they could tell me.”
“Anything in the way of a description?” Jesse said.
“Nope, just an ordinary-sized guy dressed in dark clothes. They didn’t see his face.”
“He see anything?” Jesse said.
“The peeper?”
“Yes.”
“Not as far as they told me. Why?”
“Just trying to find out whatever I can,” Jesse said. “Sometimes with peepers what they see changes their future behavior.”
“Really?” Maguire said.
Jesse nodded.
“Well,” Maguire said. “They said they were getting ready for bed, but I thought Mrs. North looked a little embarrassed.”
Jesse nodded.
“So maybe there was a little more going on than night-night,” Suit said.
“Maybe,” Maguire said.
“Peepers don’t usually do anything more than peep, do they?” Suit said.
“Not usually,” Jesse said. “But now and then they can escalate. Depends on what they see, sometimes, and how it affects them.”
“I figure it’s just some kid trying to see something he’s never seen,” Maguire said.
“Probably,” Jesse said. “Stay on it, John, and any more calls are yours.”
Jesse looked at Suit.
“How ’bout you?” Jesse said. “You got anything?”
Suit saluted smartly, and grinned.
“Paradise wife-swapping squad,” Suit said. “Reporting.”
“We got a fucking crime wave,” Maguire said.
“It’s called police work,” Jesse said. “People report, we look into it. People complain, we check. You know?”
“Wife-swapping ain’t even illegal,” Maguire said. “Is it?”
“Kid complained,” Jesse said. “Suit?”
“Well, they got a website,” Suit said.
“Course they do,” Jesse said.
Suit grinned.
“Call themselves a club, Paradise Free Swingers,” he said. “They have parties, cookouts, outings. They go on trips. All celebrating the swinging lifestyle.”
“Names?”
“Nope. Pictures of some members and their first names. But I know a couple of them from school.”
“In addition to Kimberly Magruder Clark?” Jesse said.
“Vinnie Basco. He played football with me in high school, wide receiver.”
“Anybody else?”
“His wife,” Suit said. “I think she was Debbie Lupo in high school.”
“I’d love to be in a club like that,” Maguire said.
“Wife-swapping?” Suit said.
“You bet,” Maguire said. “As long as my wife isn’t involved.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Jesse said.
“A shame,” Maguire said.
Jesse grinned.
“Suit, can you talk to any of the people you know?” Jesse said.
“The guys, Clark and Basco,” Suit said. “We were pretty tight, you know, playing football and all.”
“See what you can find out,” Jesse said.
“I don’t even know what we want to find out,” Suit said.
“Gives you plenty of room to maneuver,” Jesse said.
15
THE NIGHT Hawk was tense. Last Wednesday he’d had his first big score. He’d seen her naked, making out with her husband. But they’d seen him and he’d had to run. It was sort of embarrassing to have to run off like that, like some pathetic little Peeping Tom kid. It had violated his autonomy, as the invisible watcher, taken away the power of his anonymity. But it had been sort of exciting as well, a little flirt of jeopardy that had intensified the Night Hawk’s experience. As he dressed, the Night Hawk tasted the experience again, rolling it on the tongue, trying to discern it as if it were an expensive red wine. It is like wine, in some ways, the Night Hawk thought. It’s kind of intoxicating, the search, the possibility, the triumphant moment of total nudity in that woman’s most intimate moment. The Night Hawk wanted more. It’s rather like wine in that, too, the Night Hawk thought as he started down the back stairs. At least for certain kinds of drinkers, drinking makes you want to drink more. . . . I may be that kind of watcher . Maybe there is never enough. As he walked through the darkness in the quiet town he could feel himself swell with importance, and tighten with uncertainty. Would he see her, any her, tonight, as he had last Wednesday? Would she be good-looking? A little plump? A little thin? Would she be younger, or old enough to show some gray? Sometimes women, after they undressed, had a little reddish indentation around their belly, where the elastic top of an undergarment had pressed into their skin.
He never went to the same part of town twice. Tonight he was in the commuter part of town, where they lived in rows of neat, expensive houses on quiet side streets. Halfway down such a street there was a cut-through to the next street, one that kids had probably worn. It was narrow, screened by bushes, and out of reach of the streetlights out front. The Night Hawk glanced around, saw no one, and turned into it. The land rose somewhat halfway along the cut-through, and at the top of the rise, if he stood up among the trees, the Night Hawk could see into the second-floor windows of the houses on Birch Avenue. At that place, the Night Hawk took up his vigil.
16
“I DON’T WANT to talk about myself today,” Jesse said. “I need to talk a little bit about business.”
“Sure,” Dix said.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Why would you lie to m
e?” Dix said.
“You shrinks ever give a direct answer?” Jesse said.
Dix smiled.
“Yes,” he said.
Jesse nodded. Dix waited. His shaved head was shiny. His white shirt was bright. He seemed freshly showered and gleaming. Which was how he always looked.
“You hear about the school principal who made the girls show her their underwear?”
Jesse said.
“I read a squib on it in the paper,” Dix said. “I noticed it because it was in Paradise.”
“I’m flattered,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded his head once.
“Parents raised hell, we got called in . . .” Jesse shrugged. “What do you think of that?”
“Underwear surveillance?” Dix said.
“Yeah.”
“I think it violated the civil rights of the girls,” Dix said.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, “I do, too.”
Dix waited. His elbows were on his desktop. His thick hands were folded in front of his chin. He was perfectly still.
“I’ve had her in a couple of times,” Jesse said. “Even if I’ve got no case against her, I at least want to make her uncomfortable.”
Dix nodded.
“Her husband always comes with her,” Jesse said. “You know who her husband is?”
“No,” Dix said.
“Managing partner at Cone, Oakes, and Baldwin,” Jesse said.
“Ah,” Dix said.
“Ah is right,” Jesse said. “DA won’t prosecute and, in person, has told me to leave her alone. I’ve been admonished by the town selectmen not to bother her, also the chairman of the school committee.”
“Has he supported the candidacy of these people?” Dix said.
Jesse smiled without humor.
“Oddly enough,” Jesse said, “he has.”
Dix nodded.
“But you can’t let it go,” Dix said.
“What will these kids think, if someone can violate their privacy like that and get away with it.”
“Probably what they already think,” Dix said.
“Even more reason,” Jesse said. “And . . . and, goddamn it, I want to know why she did it.”
“You’ve asked her,” Dix said.
“Every time,” Jesse said. “Sometimes she says she doesn’t want them embarrassed if someone saw them.”
“Which is why she made them publicly show what they were wearing?” Dix said.
“Uh-huh. I don’t have kids,” Jesse said. “So maybe I don’t know. But my guess would be that the most embarrassed would be some kid wearing white cotton undies that her mother bought in a six-pack at Kmart.”
Dix nodded.
“Last time we talked she said she was trying to keep them from becoming sluts when they got older,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled.
“Would that it were that easy,” he said. “She offer any other explanations?”
“Not really. As I said, her husband is always with her, and he doesn’t let her talk much.”
“Like any good attorney,” Dix said.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, “I know. He always accuses me of harassment and threatens to bring charges.”
“So why have you told me this,” Dix said.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “You got any thoughts?”
“There may be a civil action available to the parents,” Dix said.
“Yeah.”
“But you want more,” Dix said.
“I want to know what she was really doing,” Jesse said. “What do you think?”
Dix leaned back a little in his chair and put one foot against the edge of his desk. His shoes gleamed with polish.
“I agree with you that her avowed reasons are bullshit,” Dix said.
“So what was she doing?”
“Acting out something we know nothing about,” Dix said. “We don’t know what her interior life is. We don’t know what underwear means to her in that life. One reason she did what she did is that she could.”
“You mean power,” Jesse said.
“Yes. And we don’t know where the connection is made between power and sluthood and underwear. Or why it’s made.”
“How do we find out?”
“We could have her come talk to me for a couple of years.”
Jesse grinned.
“Her and her husband,” Jesse said. “Who’d be telling her not to speak.”
“You think he oppresses her in more than a lawyerly way?” Dix said.
“I don’t know. He’s an oppressive kind of guy.”
“If he is, then you could throw that into the mix,” Dix said.
“And then what have I got?” Jesse said.
“A mystery,” Dix said, “wrapped in an enigma.”
“So far,” Jesse said.
17
“GOT TWO more Peeping Tom reports,” John Maguire told Jesse.
Maguire was a fitness guy. He did martial arts. He lifted weights. And he looked it.
“Any pattern?” Jesse said.
“No,” Maguire said. “Not that I can see. One downtown, near the wharf. One up in the west end of town.”
“Maybe he’s making sure there is no pattern,” Jesse said.
“That’s sort of a pattern,” Maguire said.
“Doesn’t help us much,” Jesse said.
“Seems to be getting more active, though,” Maguire said.
“Or people are being more careful,” Jesse said.
“Pretty much everybody in town knows there’s a peeper on the loose,” Maguire said.
“Everybody’s looking out their window.”
“And reporting anybody they see,” Jesse said.
“So some of these may not really be the peeper,” Maguire said.
Jesse shrugged.
“Could even be a copycat,” he said.
“Or several,” Jesse said.
“Hell, we’ve practically got the cuffs on him,” Maguire said.
“Stay with it, Johnny,” Jesse said. “I got nobody to help you.”
“It’ll be luck,” Maguire said. “We’ll spot him by accident someplace. Or he’ll look in the wrong house and somebody’s husband will make a, ah, citizen’s arrest.”
“Be nice,” Jesse said.
“Anyway,” Maguire said. “All the women got to do is pull their shades.”
“So far,” Jesse said.
“I been reading up a little,” Maguire said. “Peepers don’t normally take it further.”
“Not usually,” Jesse said.
“On the Internet it says ‘rarely.’ ”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“You’re saying ‘rarely’ doesn’t mean ‘never’?”
“I got a twelve-man force here, and I’ve got you on this full-time,” Jesse said.
“Because it’s possible,” Maguire said.
“Otherwise, he’s just a nuisance.”
“Yeah,” Maguire said. “I’ll keep on it.”
“You’ve interviewed all the victims,” Jesse said.
“Sure,” Maguire said, “and wrote it up.”
Jesse nodded.
“Interview them again,” he said.
“They’ll say the same thing,” Maguire said.
“Usually people don’t,” Jesse said. “Maybe there’s something they left out, forgot, dis-missed as irrelevant. Their stories are all we’ve got, Johnny. You may as well keep working them.”
“Okay, Jesse.”
“And be polite and friendly,” Jesse said. “We don’t want them to wish they’d never reported it.”
“I am always polite and friendly,” Maguire said.
“I know that,” Jesse said. “Course, there was that guy fell down the stairs while in your custody.”
“Accidents happen,” Maguire said. “Besides, he was beating on his wife and kids.”
Jesse nodded.
“And you would never throw somebody down a flight of stairs,” Jesse said.
“Absolutely not, Chief.”
Jesse nodded.
“That’s what I told the selectmen,” he said.
“Protect and serve,” Maguire said.
“Absolutely,” Jesse said. “I wonder if there are any people who’ve been peeped at and haven’t reported it.”
“Probably,” Maguire said. “There usually are, I guess.”
“See if you can find any,” Jesse said.
“I’m on it,” Maguire said.
“And if you find any,” Jesse said, “try not to throw them down the stairs.”
“God, Jesse,” Maguire said. “You spoil everything.”
Jesse grinned.
“It’s how I got to be chief,” he said.
18
JESSE MET Rita Fiore after work at the bar in the Langham Hotel in Post Office Square. She was wearing a green-and-blue dress with a skirt that ended well above the knees. Her thick, red hair was down to her shoulders. She had on slingback stiletto heels. Jesse stood when she came to the bar.
“Still got the wheels,” he said.
“Thanks for noticing,” Rita said.
She slid onto a bar stool next to him.
“There a dress code at Cone, Oakes?” Jesse said.
“Yes,” Rita said. “Otherwise, I’d dress sort of flamboyantly.”
“If you were more flamboyant,” Jesse said, “you’d get arrested.”
“By you?”
“I’m out of my jurisdiction,” Jesse said.
“Damn,” Rita said.
She ordered a mojito.
“How’s Jenn?” Rita said.
“Gone to New York,” Jesse said.
“Alone?”
“No.”
Rita sipped her mojito, looking at Jesse over the rim of the glass.
“So is that why we’re having a drink?” Rita said.
“You mean, am I looking for backup?” Jesse said.
“Something like that.”
“I asked you to meet me because I like you, and I like to see you, and I need some information from you.”
“In that order?” Rita said.
Jesse smiled and drank a little of the beer he was nursing.
“No particular order,” he said.
Rita nodded.
“I don’t mind being backup,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“We’ll return to that in a little while,” he said. “First, I need to ask you about your managing partner.”
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