“Damn,” Molly said. “This guy is committing crimes regularly. We know it. We know who he is. We know he’s going to keep doing it.”
“And we can’t do a fucking thing about it, excuse me, Moll,” Suit said.
“Clean up your fucking language,” Molly said.
All three of them laughed, glad to break the tension they’d been building.
“So what do we, for crissakes, do?” Suit said.
“We await developments,” Jesse said.
“ ‘Await developments,’ ” Molly said.
“That, too,” Jesse said, “is police work.”
They were quiet for a moment, sitting around the conference table.
Then Molly said, “He only peeps on Wednesday nights.”
Jesse said, “Yes.”
“How many people you think we’d need to pen him up one night a week,” Molly said.
“Three,” Jesse said. “One out front on foot, one out back on foot, one out front in a car.”
“I bet we can do it with two,” Molly said. “Suit’s in back on foot, with his car handy. I’m out front in a car. He moves on foot out front and I get out of the car. He moves in the car and I follow him in my car and call Suit.”
“Who jumps in his car,” Suit said, “and joins the tail. I like it.”
Jesse nodded.
“Could work,” he said, “if you’re quick.”
“Who’s quicker than me and Moll?” Suit said.
“Could make him move to days,” Jesse said. “And escalate quicker.”
“You got a better idea?” Molly said.
“I don’t have one as good,” Jesse said.
46
STEVE FRIEDMAN called Jesse from the front desk.
“Got a kid here wants to see you,” he said.
“Kid have a name?”
“She won’t tell me,” Steve said.
“Bring her in.”
In a moment Steve appeared in the doorway with Missy Clark.
“I’ll see her alone,” Jesse said.
Steve shrugged and went back to the desk. Missy came in.
“Close the door if you wish,” Jesse said.
She did. Then she came and sat where she’d sat before. Today she was wearing a short denim skirt, a cropped pink tank top, and flip-flops. Her toenails were painted black, and there was a gold ring in her navel.
“Want coffee?” Jesse said.
“Yes, please.”
Jesse poured her some.
“Milk and sugar?” he said.
“Yes, please, two sugars.”
He added the milk and sugar and gave her the cup. She sipped a little.
“Hot,” she said.
“Often is,” Jesse said.
He poured himself some and sat back down behind his desk. She looked at the picture of Jenn for a moment. Then at Jesse.
“My parents are fighting awful,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“You talked to my mom about swinging.”
“I did,” Jesse said.
“Did you tell her about me?”
“No.”
She continued to look at him.
“That’s what they’re fighting about,” Missy said.
Jesse waited.
“Me and Eric can hear them,” Missy said. “He comes in my room sometimes. It scares him. He wets the bed sometimes.”
“Are they fighting about swinging or fighting about her talking to me?” Jesse said.
“She wants to stop. She says that you know, and that scares her. She says if you know, pretty soon everybody will know. He says it’s not illegal and if she’d learn to keep her stupid mouth shut, nobody would know anything. She says she doesn’t like doing it anyway. And he says that if she won’t do it, he’ll find somebody who will.”
Jesse was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “Well, doesn’t that suck.”
She had on too much inexpert makeup, which looked especially garish, Jesse thought, on a thirteen-year-old kid. Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t quite cry.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“Can you talk to either of them?” Jesse said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Everybody’s afraid of my father,” Missy said.
“Your mother, too?” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“Does he ever hit you?”
“Not very often.”
“Now and then?” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“Your mother, too?”
“Yes,” Missy said.
“Well, we got a problem to solve,” Jesse said.
“I didn’t know who else to talk to,” Missy said.
“I’m the right guy,” Jesse said.
“So what are we going to do?”
“First we have to face up to them,” Jesse said.
“Me?”
“You,” Jesse said. “And me. I’ll ask them to come in and when they do, I’ll have to be able to talk about you and your brother.”
“They’ll know I talked to you,” Missy said.
“Very likely,” Jesse said. “I can soften the spin, probably. But they’ll know we’ve talked.”
“No,” Missy said. “You promised.”
“I can’t keep them from being mad,” Jesse said. “But I can pretty well guarantee that no one will harm you.”
“My mom wouldn’t harm me,” she said.
“And I can see to it that your father doesn’t.”
“No,” Missy said. “You can’t. I got no place to go.”
“And how’s it going where you are now?” Jesse said.
“I . . .”
“Nothing’s going to change,” Jesse said, “unless we make it change.”
Missy began to cry. Jesse was quiet until the crying slowed.
“It’s awful,” he said. “I won’t pretend it isn’t. And I won’t pretend it’s easy. But it’s a chance.
Otherwise, it’ll destroy you and your brother. You doing dope yet?”
She shook her head.
“I won’t go ahead without your okay,” Jesse said. “But I think we can fix it.”
“You just want to talk with them?”
“Yes.”
“Do I have to be here?” Missy said.
“No.”
“What if I wanted?”
“Then you’d be welcome,” Jesse said.
“I don’t want to,” Missy said.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
Missy was still sniffling. Jesse handed her a paper towel. She did what she could with it, and got her breathing steadier, and took a deep breath.
“You can go ahead,” she said.
“Be a little while,” Jesse said. “Till I get the ducks in a row.”
“Ducks?” Missy said.
“Just an expression,” Jesse said. “Hang on for a couple more days.”
She nodded. They were quiet. Missy seemed as if she didn’t want to leave.
“I wish you were my father,” she said finally.
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Kinda wish I was, too.”
47
“HE CAME into my house in the early evening,” Betsy Ingersoll said. “I had come home from school. Jay was working late, as he often does, and the man had a gun.”
She sat in front of Jesse’s desk, immaculate in a mauve pantsuit. Her husband sat beside her, immaculate in a gray suit. Molly sat in a chair in the corner nearest to Jesse. Jesse waited.
“He pointed the gun at me. He had on a ski mask, and a hat pulled low, and you can imagine how terrified I was.”
“I can imagine,” Jesse said.
“He came right up to me and put the gun right against my neck”—she pointed at the little hollow at the base of her throat—“right here . . . And he told me to take off my clothes. . . . I thought of Jay, and all the children at school. . . . And I said I wouldn’t, and he hit me across the face with his hand, and tol
d me that if I didn’t he’d kill me.”
Jesse nodded.
“So I did,” Betsy Ingersoll said.
Jesse glanced at Jay Ingersoll. Ingersoll’s face was tight and impassive.
“And, and . . . he touched me.”
“Intimately?” Jesse said.
“Yes. He, ah, fondled me.”
Jesse nodded.
“Then he stopped and backed away and took out a camera and made me stand there while he took my picture.”
She put her face in her hands and her shoulders shook slightly, but she didn’t actually cry.
Then she raised her face.
“Then he tied me up on the couch,” she said. “And he left. When he was gone I was able to wriggle myself loose and call the police.”
“You got dressed first,” Jesse said.
“Yes, of course.”
“And Officer Maguire came,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“Could you recognize anything about this man?”
“Oh, it was the Night Hawk, all right,” she said.
“But you couldn’t recognize him otherwise,” Jesse said.
“She already told you he was masked,” Jay Ingersoll said.
“Of course,” Jesse said. “Could you tell me about the gun, Mrs. Ingersoll?”
“I don’t know anything about guns,” she said.
“Was it sort of blue-black, or was it sort of silver?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know. It happened so quickly. I was terrified. It was just a gun.”
“Of course,” Jesse said.
“I might remark, Stone,” Jay Ingersoll said, “that if you had worked as hard on the Night Hawk business as you did on an innocent mistake my wife may have made while trying to do her job, maybe you’d have this pervert behind bars where he belongs.”
Jesse shrugged.
“You never know,” he said.
“I’m particularly convinced,” Ingersoll said, “that you certainly would never know.”
“Small-town cop, Mr. Ingersoll,” Jesse said. “Small-town cop.”
“That’s apparent,” Ingersoll said.
“You didn’t see his car or anything, did you, Mrs. Ingersoll?”
“How could I see his car?” she said. “I was tied up on the couch.”
Jesse nodded.
“It’s just that Officer Maguire made no mention of seeing any rope or anything.”
“Of course not,” she said. “When I got loose, I threw it away. I’m very neat, Chief Stone.
And I had no sentimental attachment to it.”
Jesse nodded.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” he said.
“About this, ah, groping,” Jesse said. “Could you talk about that a little more?”
Betsy Ingersoll looked at her husband.
“That’s enough, Stone,” Jay Ingersoll said. “I’m not going to let her be further traumatized while you go all over this for your salacious pleasure.”
From her chair in the corner, Molly said, “Hey.”
Jesse made a stop gesture at her.
“Are you speaking as her husband or her attorney,” Jesse said to Ingersoll.
“Attorney,” Ingersoll said.
“Okay, Counselor,” Jesse said. “It’s your call.”
“It is,” Ingersoll said. “And I can do without any kibitzing from your subordinate in the corner.”
“Everyone can,” Jesse said.
Ingersoll stood and took his wife’s arm. She stood with him.
“Keep me informed,” Ingersoll said, and they walked out.
48
“THAT SONOVABITCH,” Molly said.
“Jay Ingersoll?”
“Asshole,” Molly said.
“He does have a nice, easy way about him,” Jesse said.
“I was married to him,” Molly said, “I’d run off with the Night Hawk.”
Jesse smiled and nodded.
“He’s very important,” Jesse said.
“He implied you were after sex details because they turned you on.”
“I believe he did,” Jesse said.
“And that you were incompetent.”
Jesse nodded.
“He was, like, mad at you about this,” Molly said.
“And his wife,” Jesse said.
“Yeah, and me, for crissakes.”
“Insufferable,” Jesse said.
“Doesn’t it make you mad?”
“I was thinking about other stuff,” Jesse said.
“Like what?”
“What do you think of her story?”
Molly paused in mid-anger.
“Her story,” she said.
“Yep.”
Molly sat back a little and thought about it.
“He hit her,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded.
“He fondled her,” Molly said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And”—Molly began to speak fast—“he tied her up.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If I wasn’t so busy being outraged at Jay Ingersoll, I’d have noticed that right away.”
“True,” Jesse said.
Molly was quiet again, rolling it around in her head.
“The Night Hawk never touched them,” Molly said.
“Correct,” Jesse said.
“So either the Night Hawk has changed his approach, or it’s a copycat. . . .” Molly said.
“Or . . .” Jesse said.
Molly frowned.
“Or?” she said.
Jesse waited.
“Or she made it up,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded.
“And she didn’t know the details,” he said.
“Which is why we never released the details,” Molly said. “So if there was a copycat or something, we’d know.”
“Yep,” Jesse said.
Molly grinned at him.
“We’re pretty smart,” she said.
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“You think she made it up?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
“Why?”
“Husband?” Jesse said.
“To get his attention?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said. “Maybe the civil suit about the panty patrol.”
“Sympathy?” Molly said.
“Maybe.”
“Or it could be a copycat,” Molly said.
“It could.”
“Or the Night Hawk could have escalated,” Molly said.
“I hope not.”
“What about the pictures?” Molly said. “Unless it’s the Night Hawk, there shouldn’t be a picture sent.”
“Public knowledge,” Jesse said. “The women talked about it. The press picked it up. Anyone would know to send pictures.”
“And the letters?”
“Less public,” Jesse said.
“So you might get a picture, but unless it’s the Night Hawk, you shouldn’t get a letter.”
Jesse nodded.
“And if she made it up, you shouldn’t get either,” Molly said.
“Unless she took one herself,” Jesse said.
“Who would do that?” Molly said.
“Someone who had made this all up in the first place,” Jesse said.
“And would send it to you?”
“This is the woman who conducted the great thong search,” Jesse said. “We don’t know what’s driving her.”
“I don’t believe it,” Molly said.
“Me either,” Jesse said. “It’s a hypothesis, like the escalated Night Hawk or the copycat.
We’ll test them all.”
“Wow,” Molly said, “like high school physics, the scientific method.”
“And Ingersoll thinks we’re just small-town cops,” Jesse said.
49
SPIKE REOPENED the Gray Gull on a Thursday night, and Sunny Randall drove up and had dinner there with Jesse. They sat at the new and larger bar, and ordered from the new and expanded bar menu.
> “You’re having a martini,” Sunny said.
“I am.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink anything but scotch.”
“Sometimes I just don’t give a damn,” Jesse said.
Sunny smiled. She raised her own glass, and they touched rims.
“Change is good,” she said.
They drank.
“I tell you about this kid I’m trying to help,” Jesse said.
“Missy?” Sunny said. “Her parents are swingers?”
“That’s the one,” Jesse said. “The mother hates swinging but does it because the father insists. The father hits Missy, and also Missy’s mother. The younger brother is terrified and wets the bed.”
“For which the father probably smacks him, too,” Sunny said.
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“Time for an intervention,” Sunny said.
“Yeah, I’m having them in next week.”
“Kids, too?”
“No.”
“Good idea,” Sunny said. “They’ll have less reason to pretend.”
“What are you after?” Sunny said.
“At the meeting?”
“Uh-huh,” Sunny said. “You think you can get the father to straighten up and fly right?”
“No,” Jesse said. “But first I’ll get a sense of how bad he is—all my information on him is secondhand.”
Sunny nodded.
“And if he’s as bad as he sounds,” Jesse said, “maybe I can scare him into behaving better.”
“At least you’ll have firsthand experience with what he is,” Sunny said. “Long as you don’t expect him to turn into a better guy.”
“No, but maybe I can get him to stop with the wife-swapping, and no longer hit his wife and children,” Jesse said.
“That would be a start,” Sunny said.
“And then maybe if he seemed less scary to her,” Jesse said, “she might find her way out of the marriage.”
“Clinging too long to a marriage,” Sunny said, “is maybe not a good idea, huh?”
Jesse smiled at her.
“We need another cocktail,” he said, and gestured to the bartender.
“Two’s my limit on these,” Sunny said.
“I know,” Jesse said. “More than two martinis and my speech starts to slur.”
“In my case I start to undress,” Sunny said.
Jesse turned to the bartender.
“Make that a double for Ms. Randall,” he said.
They both laughed.
“No double,” Sunny said to the bartender. To Jesse she said, “It’s not necessary.”
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