Night and Day
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
THE SPENSER NOVELS
Rough Weather
Now & Then
Hundred-Dollar Baby
School Days
Cold Service
Bad Business
Back Story
Widow’s Walk
Potshot
Hugger Mugger
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
Small Vices
Chance
Thin Air
Walking Shadow
Paper Doll
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
Playmates
Crimson Joy
Pale Kings and Princes
Taming a Sea-Horse
A Catskill Eagle
Valediction
The Widening Gyre
Ceremony
A Savage Place
Early Autumn
Looking for Rachel Wallace
The Judas Goat
Promised Land
Mortal Stakes
God Save the Child
The Godwulf Manuscript
THE JESSE STONE NOVELS
Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage
THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS
Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor
ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER
Resolution
Appaloosa
Double Play
Gunman’s Rhapsody
All Our Yesterdays
A Year at the Races
(with Joan H. Parker)
Perchance to Dream
Poodle Springs
(with Raymond Chandler)
Love and Glory
Wilderness
Three Weeks in Spring
(with Joan H. Parker)
Training with Weights
(with John R. Marsh)
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2009 by Robert B. Parker
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parker, Robert B., date.
Night and day / Robert B. Parker.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-01600-8
1. Police chiefs—Massachusetts—Fiction. 2. Sex crimes—
Investigation—Fiction. 3. Voyeurism—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3566.A686N53 2009b 2008054245
813’.54—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses,
companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone
numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the
publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for
changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not
have any control over and does not assume any responsibility
for author or third-party websites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Joan:
Only you beneath the moon
and under the sun.
1
JESSE STONE sat in his office at the Paradise police station, looking at the sign painted on the pebbled-glass window of his office door. From the inside it read FEIHC, or it would have, if the letters hadn’t been backward. He tried pronouncing the word, decided he couldn’t, and stopped thinking about it. On his desk was a glamour head shot of his ex-wife. He looked at it for a time, and decided not to think about that, either.
Molly Crane came from the front desk and opened the door.
“Suit just called in,” she said. “There’s some kind of disturbance at the junior high school and he thinks you and I ought to come down.”
“Girls involved?”
Jesse said.
“That’s why he wants me,” Molly said.
“I understand,” Jesse said. “But why does he want me?”
“You’re the chief of police,” Molly said. “Everybody wants you.”
Jesse glanced at Jenn’s picture again.
“Oh,” Jesse said. “Yeah.”
Jesse stood, and clipped his gun to his belt.
“Though you sure don’t dress like a chief,” Molly said.
Jesse was wearing a uniform shirt, blue jeans, Nikes, a dark blue Paradise police baseball hat, and a badge that said Chief. He tapped the badge.
“I do where it counts,” he said. “Who’s on the desk?”
“Steve,” Molly said.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “You drive. No siren.”
“Oh, damn,” Molly said. “I never get to use the siren.”
“Maybe when you make sergeant,” Jesse said.
There were two Paradise police cruisers parked outside of the junior high school.
“Who’s in the other cruiser,” Jesse said as they got out of the car.
“Eddie Cox,” Molly said. “He and Suit have seven to eleven this week.”
They walked into the school lobby, where a thick mill of parents was being held at bay by two Paradise cops. Most of the parents were mothers, with a scatter of fathers looking oddly out of place. When Jesse came in they all swarmed toward him, many of them speaking to him loudly.
“You’re the chief of police, are you gonna do something?”
“I want that woman arrested!”
“She’s a goddamned child molester!”
“What are you going to do about this?”
“Do you know what she did?”
“Did they tell you what happened here?”
Jesse ignored them.
He said to Molly, “Keep them here.”
Then he pointed at Suit and jerked his head down the hallway.
“What’s up,” Jesse said when they were alone.
Simpson’s real name was Luther. He was a big kid, with blond hair and a round face. He wasn’t as young as he looked, but he was young. He was called Suitcase after the baseball player, Harry “Suitcase” Simpson.
“This is weird,” Suit said.
Jesse waited.
“Mrs. Ingersoll,” Suit said, “the principal. Christ, she was principal when I was here.”
Jesse waited.
“There was some kind of after-school dance yesterday,” Suit said, his voice speeding up a little. “Eighth-grade dance. And before the dance, Mrs. Ingersoll took all the girls into the girls’ locker room and picked up their dresses to see what kind of underwear they had on.”
Jesse stared at Suit for a time without speaking.
Then Jesse said, “Huh?”
“That’s what the girls claim.”
“Why did she do that?” Jesse said.
“Don’t know,” Suit said. “But when the girls got home a lot of them told their mothers, and . . .” He gestured toward the crowd.
Jesse nodded.
“Where’s Mrs. Ingersoll?” Jesse said.
“In her office.”
“You ask her about this?” Jesse said.
“She called in and said there was a disturbance. So we came down here and found what you see. It was like a damned lynch mob. We sort of wrangled them into the lobby, and Mrs. Ingersoll went in her office and won’t come out, which is when we called you . . . and”―Suitcase looked a little uncertain―“because of the, ah, nature of the alleged crime, you know, we thought Molly should come, too.”
Jesse nodded.
“How about the girls?” Jesse said.
“That got, ah, checked?” Suit said.
“Uh-huh.”
“I guess they’re in class,” Suit said. “I haven’t had time to do a lot of investigating. Me and Eddie had our hands full with the parents.”
Jesse nodded.
“Isn’t this swell,” he said.
Suit shrugged.
Jesse walked down the corridor to the lobby. The crowd of parents was silent now, standing in angry vigil.
“Get them down to the auditorium,” Jesse said to Suit. “Get the names of their daughters and ask the girls to go there, too. You need help, call Steve, tell him to send some.”
“You gonna talk to Mrs. Ingersoll?” Suit said.
“Yep.”
“Then you coming to the auditorium?” Suit said.
“Yep.”
“You know what you’re gonna tell the parents?”
“Not a clue,” Jesse said.
2
JESSE BROUGHT Molly with him when he went into Mrs. Ingersoll’s office.
“Chief Stone,” Mrs. Ingersoll said when he came into her office. “How lovely to see you. And this is?”
“Officer Crane,” Jesse said.
“How do you do, Officer Crane,” Mrs. Ingersoll said.
Molly nodded.
Mrs. Ingersoll smiled brightly.
“Have you dispersed those foolish people?” she said.
“We’ve asked them to wait in the auditorium,” Jesse said. “And we’ll ask their daughters to join them there.”
“My goodness,” Mrs. Ingersoll said.
“Tell me about this situation,” Jesse said.
Mrs. Ingersoll was sitting behind her big desk. The desktop was immaculately empty.
“Situation? Chief Stone, I fear that it overstates things to call it a situation.”
“Tell me something,” Jesse said.
“I have very little to tell,” Mrs. Ingersoll said. “I’m not angry at these parents. They are concerned with their children’s well-being, as am I.”
Jesse waited. Mrs. Ingersoll smiled at him. Jesse waited. Mrs. Ingersoll smiled.
“The girls say you picked up their skirts and checked their underwear.”
Mrs. Ingersoll continued to smile.
“Did you?” Jesse said.
Still smiling, Mrs. Ingersoll leaned forward and folded her hands on her desk.
“I have given twenty years of my life to this school,” she said, “the last five as principal. Most people don’t like the principal. Being police chief, you may understand. The students think I’m here to discipline them. The teachers think I am here to order them about. Actually, of course, I am here to see to the well-being of the children.”
Jesse nodded slowly. When he spoke his voice showed no sign of impatience.
“Did you look at their underwear, Mrs. Ingersoll?”
“I have done nothing illegal,” she said brightly.
“Actually,” Jesse said, “that’s not your call, Mrs. Ingersoll.”
Her eyes were big and bright. Her smile lingered.
“It’s not?”
“You’ve been accused of an action,” Jesse said pleasantly, “which, depending on the zeal of the prosecutor, the skill of the defense, and the political inclinations of the judge, might or might not be deemed a crime.”
“Oh, Jesse,” she said. “That’s absurd.”
“Did you check their undies, Betsy?” Jesse said.
She continued to smile. Her eyes continued to sparkle. But she didn’t speak.
“Would you care to come down to the auditorium with me and thrash this out with the kids and their parents?” Jesse said. “Try to keep this from turning into a hairball?”
She remained cheerfully motionless for a moment. Then she shook her head.
“Do you know who my husband is, Jesse?” she said.
“I do,” he said.
“Well, I’m going to call him now,” she said. “And I’d like you to leave my office, please.”
Jesse glanced at Molly. Molly’s lips were whistling silently as she stood studying the view from the window behind Mrs. Ingersoll. He looked back at Mrs. Ingersoll.
Then he said, “Come on, Moll, let’s go talk to the girls.”
As they left the office, Mrs. Ingersoll picked up the phone and began to dial.
; 3
“I’D LIKE to drag her down to the station and strip-search her,” Molly said. “Give her a little taste.”
Jesse smiled.
“That option remains available, Moll,” Jesse said. “But we probably need to talk to the victims first.”
“I know,” Molly said, “I know. But if it were one of my kids . . .”
The auditorium was subdued, as if the parents and the children were a little frightened by the circumstance they’d created. It was a small auditorium. Jesse sat on the lip of the stage.
“I’m Jesse Stone,” he said. “I’m the chief of police. We can do this several ways. I can talk to you all, together, right here. Officer Molly Crane and I can talk to the girls separately, alone, or separately with a parent”―he grinned at the scatter of fathers―“or parents.”
A hard-faced woman with brittle blond hair and a dark tan sat next to her daughter in the front row. She put up her hand. Jesse nodded at her.
“What does Ingersoll have to say?” she asked.
“Mrs. Ingersoll has neither affirmed nor denied anything,” Jesse said. “So I thought I’d ask you.”
The parents and children sat still in the auditorium. Eddie Cox and Suit leaned against the wall. Molly stood beside Jesse, resting her hips against the stage.
“Would one of the girls who were, ah, examined, like to tell us about it?” Jesse said.
The daughter of the brittle blonde looked down and didn’t say anything. Her mother poked her. She continued to look down and shake her head.
“Me.”
Jesse saw her, in the middle of the third row, a dark-haired girl, just developing a cheerleader’s body if all went well.
“What’s your name?” Jesse said.
She stood up.
“Bobbie Sorrentino,” she said.
“Okay, Bobbie,” Jesse said. “Is that your mother with you?”
“Yeah,” Bobbie said, and nodded at her mother. “Her.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Tell me about it.”
“I gotta stand?”
“Nope, stand, sit, up to you.”
“I’m gonna stand,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“They got this stupid Wednesday-afternoon dance,” Bobbie said. “You know, keep the kids off the street. Teach them manners.”
She snorted at the thought. Several of the girls giggled.
“But if you don’t go and everybody else goes, you feel like a dweeb, so we all go.”