“If I had to play a hundred-and-sixty-two-game season my arm would fall off,” Jesse said.
“Softball season is, what, thirty, forty games? Even then I have to ice my shoulder every night.”
“Well, all I know,” Suit said, “is the goddamned thing hums coming across the diamond.”
Jesse was throwing easily, and the day was warm. But he could already feel the twinges in his right shoulder. They’d be worse tonight.
“Time,” Jesse said.
They sat in the shade on the running board of one of the town trucks and drank some water.
“How’s Kim,” Jesse said.
“Saw her today,” Suit said. “Molly and I swap off, one of us stops by every day, see how she is. After asshole Chase has gone to work and the kids are in school.”
“And?” Jesse said.
“She’s okay. She says he hasn’t laid a hand on her since you talked to him.” Suit smiled.
“And Spike. Kimmy says he won’t even tell her what Spike said to him.”
“Any swinging?” Jesse said.
“Nope, she says he comes home pretty late from work, and she knows he’s been drinking.
But he doesn’t say anything to her or the kids.”
“She mention their sex life?”
“For crissakes, Jesse,” Suit said.
“She have any plan?”
“Mostly she’s numb. I think her plan is to get through the day, as best she can, you know?”
“I know,” Jesse said.
They threw for another ten minutes and went back into the station house.
In his office Jesse sat at his desk and put a little neat’s-foot oil on his glove. Without getting up he put the glove carefully on top of a file cabinet, then picked up the phone and called Sunny Randall.
“How’s your press contacts?” Jesse said.
“I have some,” Sunny said.
“Do you know that Jay Ingersoll’s wife was the apparent victim of a home invasion, by the Night Hawk?”
“The big-deal lawyer?” Sunny said.
“Yep.”
“The one that was involved in some sort of thing with girls’ underwear?” she said.
“Yep?”
“How come I haven’t heard about it? Were there pictures?”
“Yep.”
“What do you want from my press contacts?” she said.
“Publicity for the event,” Jesse said.
“The home invasion?”
“Yep.”
Sunny was silent for a time.
Then she said, “You hate publicity.”
“I do,” Jesse said. “But not this time.”
“Should they contact you?”
“Absolutely,” Jesse said. “I am eager to tell them everything.”
Again, Sunny was silent for a time.
Finally she said, “You’re up to something.”
“I am.”
“And I’m sure you’ll tell me about it,” Sunny said. “Sometime.”
“Of course,” Jesse said.
Sunny said, “I’ll make some calls.”
54
AS JESSE expected, the letter from the Night Hawk came only days after the news stories about Betsy Ingersoll’s ordeal.
Dear Jesse,
Who is kidding whom? I did not invade that woman’s home, or hit her, or make her undress, or tie her up on the couch. I have never had anything to do with her. And you know I have never touched one of my conquests. That’s not what I’m about. I didn’t take a picture of her. If someone sent you a picture of her, it was not I. You know I do not lie to you, Jesse. I have told you what I did after I did it, and I have been open and straightforward with you, even when it was embarrassing (like running away that time). So believe me when I tell you that I had nothing to do with anything that happened to Betsy Ingersoll. Somebody else did it.
Somebody else took the picture. Somebody else sent it to you. I admit I’d really like to see the picture (my obsession kicks in). Seeing a school principal naked, if she’s even halfway presentable, is particularly appealing. Authority exposed. But I didn’t do it, and I don’t like getting blamed for something I didn’t do. And I resent some copycat pretending to be me. I’m sorry for you, in a way. It increases your problems, now that you have two of us to look for.
On the other hand, maybe he’s stupid and you’ll catch him and it’ll make you look good for a little while, until I make my move again. Or maybe you won’t catch either of us. You don’t have much of a track record.
The Original Night Hawk
(accept no substitute)
Jesse showed the letter to Molly, in his office. She read it through slowly, and read it again.
“That’s interesting about ‘authority exposed,’ ” Molly said.
“Yes.”
“You knew he’d do this,” Molly said.
“I was hopeful,” Jesse said.
“Which is why you were so forthcoming to the press,” Molly said.
“Free flow of information is vital to a thriving democracy,” Jesse said.
“Which is why,” Molly said, “ever since I’ve known you the only thing you’ve ever said to the press is ‘No comment.’ ”
“But it is said in a free-flowing kind of way.”
“You believe him?” Molly said.
“He has no reason to lie, and her story has a lot of soft spots in it.”
“So you believe him,” Molly said.
“Yes.”
“I do, too,” Molly said.
“Which leaves us with another question,” Jesse said.
“Did somebody else do it, pretending to be the Night Hawk? Or did she do it herself?”
“Which one do you like?” Jesse said.
Molly sat quietly for longer than Jesse had thought she would.
But finally she said, “I think she did it herself.”
“Me too,” Jesse said.
“So that’s our theory of the case,” Molly said.
“It is,” Jesse said.
“Her story is suspicious.”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
“If she was on the stand, a good lawyer would make her look bad.”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
“But we’ll never get her on the stand,” Molly said.
“Nope.”
“We don’t have enough for an indictment.”
“Unless she fesses up,” Jesse said.
“You still think she did it because of her husband?” Molly said.
“There’s tension between them,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“She mentioned how he always worked late, I recall,” Jesse said.
“And she implied he didn’t have much respect for her,” Molly said. “Maybe she did it to get his attention.”
“As Dix would say, we don’t know enough about what drives either one of them,” Jesse said.
“Are you suggesting he might be in on this?” Molly said.
“He might be,” Jesse said. “This could be some weird sex game they are playing with each other . . . and us.”
“Christ,” Molly said. “I feel like I’m serving and protecting in Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“It’s getting a little gamy around here,” Jesse said. “Maybe it’s affecting us. Maybe she did it to divert attention from the panty-patrol incident.”
“This seems a little extreme for that,” Molly said.
“Unless there’s some sort of exhibitionism that somehow ties to her suspicion of the girls.”
“God, we’re in way, way over our heads,” Molly said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll ask her to come in, show her the letter, see what she says.”
“Her husband will come with her,” Molly said.
Jesse shrugged.
“I’ll show him the letter, too,” Jesse said. “See what he says.”
Molly nodded. She was looking at Jesse, smiling slightly, and nodding to herself. Jesse waited.
>
“I’ve gotten to know you pretty well since you got here,” she said after a while.
“Know and love,” Jesse said. “I am the chief of police.”
“Yeah,” Molly said. “And I am pretty sure I know another reason you released all this sort of embarrassing publicity of Betsy Ingersoll.”
“Which is?”
“It’s her punishment for embarrassing those young girls.”
Jesse smiled.
“You can’t arrest her or anything,” Molly said. “But you sort of balanced it out this way.”
“You do seem to know me,” Jesse said.
“Seem?” Molly said.
“Okay, you know me,” Jesse said. “Does this mean we can have an affair?”
Molly smiled at him warmly.
“No,” she said.
55
THE CONFERENCE room on the thirty-fourth floor at Cone, Oakes provided a long look out over the harbor and a good way out onto the Atlantic Ocean. Across the harbor you could see Logan Airport, and looking almost straight down, the archway that led to Rowe’s Wharf. Jesse turned from the view when Rita Fiore came in.
“The view is to impress clients,” Rita said.
“Impresses the hell out of me,” Jesse said.
“And you’re not even a client.”
“Friend of the firm,” Jesse said.
Rita went to a sideboard and poured them each some coffee, then sat on the conference table with her legs crossed. Jesse nodded at her legs and made a thumbs-up gesture.
“ Thumbs-up was not quite my plan,” Rita said.
Jesse grinned.
“We talked about the managing partner of the firm a while ago,” Jesse said. “Now I need to know more. Tell me what you didn’t tell me before.”
“You’re exploiting our past, if fleeting, relationship?” Rita said. “To get me to gossip about my boss?”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
“What about ethics?”
“You’re a lawyer,” Jesse said.
“Oh, right,” Rita said. “I withdraw the question. What do you need to know, off the record?”
“Does he fool around?” Jesse said.
“He’s a cock hound,” Rita said.
“And you know this how?” Jesse said.
Rita grinned.
“Firsthand,” she said. “So to speak.”
“Ahh,” Jesse said. “So that’s how you got to be a senior partner.”
“Along with brilliant trial work,” Rita said.
“You are brilliant in both arenas,” Jesse said.
“You should know,” Rita said.
“You think Betsy is aware?”
“I have no idea,” Rita said.
“Is he careful?” Jesse said.
“No,” Rita said.
“Is there a particular squeeze?” Jesse said.
“He tends to graze among the new lawyers. At the moment he’s got a blonde kid from Tax and Trust that’s two years out of Stanford.”
“Do we know how he feels about his wife?”
“He thinks she’s excruciatingly conventional,” Rita said.
“That doesn’t sound like love to me,” Jesse said.
“Nor to me,” Rita said.
“Do you know why he has stayed with her?”
“She doesn’t occupy much of his time,” Rita said. “He is here probably twelve hours a day, and spends a lot of his evenings and weekends with the plonk du jour.”
“Plonk?” Jesse said.
“You know, as in he’s plonking her?”
“Plonk,” Jesse said.
“So he’s not home much. There are no kids. Probably finds it convenient to have somebody cleaning the house and sending his shirts to the laundry.”
“Think he plonks her?” Jesse said.
“His wife?” Rita said. “I haven’t thought about it. Why are you interested?”
“I think she staged the home invasion,” Jesse said.
“Staged?” Rita said.
“Yes.”
“And took her own picture?” Rita said.
“Yes.”
“And cherchez l’homme ?” Rita said.
“Well, it’s a theory,” Jesse said.
“She’s trying to get his attention?” Rita said.
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe he pays no sexual attention to her, poor baby,” Rita said. “And she wants to show him that someone might care to see her naked.”
“Even if it’s a wacko?”
Rita smiled.
“There are people who think a wacko is better than no one,” Rita said.
“I’ve heard that,” Jesse said.
56
“DID YOU know that Hannah Wechsler isn’t teaching any night courses this semester?” Molly said.
“I didn’t,” Jesse said.
“It was bothering me that we were sitting on Seth Ralston every Wednesday night and he wasn’t moving.”
“I figured after he spotted me and Suit on his tail last time,” Jesse said, “he was laying low again.”
“I called the university,” Molly said. “Hannah Wechsler is not teaching a night class this semester.”
“So he can’t get out,” Jesse said.
“At least on Wednesday nights,” Molly said.
“Do you know what she’s doing?” Jesse said. “Does she teach days?”
“No,” Molly said. “It took me about eight thousand phone calls, but apparently she’s taking a year off to write her Ph.D. dissertation.”
“So he can’t count on her being out of the house on a regular schedule.”
“My guess,” Molly said.
“And neither can we,” Jesse said.
“I’ll find out if she’s working at home or someplace else,” Molly said. “Or both.”
“Even if she’s working someplace else,” Jesse said, “it’s voluntary. She might stay home any day, or come home early any day. You can’t count on it like a scheduled class.”
“So he has to practice his obsession when he has the opportunity, which may not be pre-dictable.”
“We can’t stay on him twenty-four-seven,” Jesse said.
“We?”
“You and Suit,” Jesse said. “But I’ve been with you in spirit.”
“That’s been great,” Molly said. “But you’re right. There’s no point to the Wednesday-night stakeouts anymore.”
“Best we, or you and Suit, can do is make random checks at unexpected times,” Jesse said.
“Boy, those are great odds,” Molly said.
“You got a better plan,” Jesse said.
“I don’t have one as good,” Molly said.
Jesse smiled.
“You and Suit could watch Hannah for a week or so,” Jesse said. “See if there’s any pattern in what she does and where she goes.”
Molly nodded.
“If he’s as driven as you think he is,” Molly said, “this must be pressuring him something fierce.”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
“What do you think he’ll do?” Molly said.
“What I know is, he can’t do nothing. The pressure will build. He’ll have to find a way.”
“You sound so sure,” Molly said.
“Obsession can be tough,” Jesse said.
57
HANNAH WECHSLER came into Jesse’s office wearing a flowered skirt and a white T-shirt.
She had on big hoop earrings and some sort of low suede boot. Her upscale intellectual uniform, Jesse thought.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
Molly stood in the doorway. Hannah looked at her.
“I would prefer that our conversation be private,” she said.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
Molly went back to the desk.
“What was she going to do?” Hannah said. “Listen in?”
“We usually ask her to be present when there’s a woman alone in the office with me,”
Jesse said.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Hannah said.
“Coffee?” Jesse said.
“No.”
Jesse nodded and leaned back a little in his chair. Hannah looked around the office.
Jesse’s gun lay holstered on top of the file cabinet.
“There it is,” Hannah said, “the inevitable gun.”
“Yep,” Jesse said.
“I don’t like the police,” she said.
“I sensed that,” Jesse said.
“The visible representation of a repressive state,” Hannah said.
“Me?” Jesse said.
“All of you,” Hannah said.
Jesse nodded.
“Well,” he said, “thanks for stopping by.”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I . . . my husband has disappeared.”
“Tell me about that,” Jesse said.
“Two days ago, three if you count today,” she said. “I came home from the library. . . .
God, I don’t need this in the middle of my dissertation.”
“Must be a distraction,” Jesse said.
“You have no idea,” she said.
“No,” Jesse said.
“I came home and there was a note on the kitchen table.”
She opened her handbag and took out a piece of white printer paper and handed it to Jesse.
“I’m going away for a while,” it said. “Don’t look for me.”
Jesse put the paper on his desk. She looked at him. He looked back.
“Well?” she said.
“I guess he’s left,” Jesse said.
“Of course he’s left,” she said. “Can you find him?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
“What do you mean ‘maybe,’ ” she said.
“Police work is uncertain,” Jesse said. “You have any thoughts?”
“Like what?” she said.
“Where he might have gone?” Jesse said. “Why he went? How long is ‘a while’?”
“No.”
“Have any reason to suspect foul play?”
“No,” Hannah said. “But why would he leave like that?”
“Any trouble in the marriage?” Jesse said.
“No, of course not. We were very happy.”
“Anything about the Free Swingers that might be helpful?”
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