“But if I love him …”
“He’ll get over it,” Jesse said.
“I hope my mother isn’t mean to
him.”
“That would be a bad thing,” Jesse said.
“Can you talk to your
father about that?”
Candace nodded.
“Daddy says she won’t be mean.”
“Your mother probably loves you,” Jesse said.
“Of course she does.”
“Then we should be able to bring her around if we have to,”
Jesse said.
“Can I change his name? I hate Goldie for a name.”
“Sure, just go slow. Wait until he’s used to
you.”
“I have to think of a new name anyway.”
“You might ask your mother to help you think of a new name,”
Jesse said.
“So she’d feel like he was hers
too?”
“Something like that,” Jesse said.
They were still for a minute. The heater still on, the motor still running, Candace looking through the car window at the motionless dog.
“It’ll be all right?” she said.
“It will,” Jesse said. “But you
have to give it
time.”
They sat silently for another moment.
Then Candace said, “Can we get him now?”
“Sure.”
They got out of the car and walked through the old unlovely snow
toward Valenti’s front door. The dog watched them for a moment, and
then stood and came down the fence line toward them.
61
Parking on Beacon Hill was impossible in mid summer. In winter,
with plowed snow choking the narrow streets, it had become unthinkable. Jesse finally settled for a hydrant on Beacon Street down from the State House, and walked in along Spruce Street, carrying a flowered bottle of Perrier-Jouet.
Rita lived at the Mt. Vernon Street end of Louisburg Square in a
high narrow brick townhouse with a dark green door and gold-tipped wrought-iron fencing across the tiny front yard. Jesse rang the bell, and in a moment Rita opened the door.
“Criminal law pays good,” Jesse said as he stepped into the dark
red foyer.
“Better than working for the Norfolk County DA, which is what I
used to do,” Rita said.
They went into her living room. There was a fireplace with a fire going. The room was done in a strong yellow with gold drapes striped with dark red. Rita was all in ivory: pants and blouse, and three-inch ivory heels.
“I don’t know which is more
impressive,” Jesse said. “You or the house.”
“Me,” Rita said and took the champagne bottle from
him.
“Will you join me in some of this?” she said.
“No. I’ll have some club soda, with
cranberry juice if you have
it.”
“I noticed,” Rita said. “I also
have orange
juice.”
“I’ll start with the cranberry and
soda,” Jesse said. “If the
evening gets really rousing, I’ll step up to the OJ.”
“I expect it to get rousing,” Rita said.
She made Jesse’s drink and poured herself some champagne.
“How is my disgusting client doing at his community service?”
she said.
“He’s there every afternoon after
school,” Jesse said. “He and
Drake treat Feeney like the fink-out that he is, but they’re too
scared to do anything about it.”
“So what are they doing?”
“Make-work mostly. Wash the floors, clean the toilets, polish
doorknobs. Molly finds stuff for them.”
“They probably ought to get more punishment than that for
gang-raping a young girl.”
“They had good legal counsel,” Jesse said.
Rita smiled.
“You know the argument as well as I do. In order for the justice
system to work, every one has the right to the best legal representation they can get.”
Jesse nodded.
“Doesn’t mean I liked any of
them.”
“I don’t either,” Jesse said.
“How’s the girl doing?”
Jesse shrugged.
“She and I went out and adopted a dog for her.”
“You and she?”
“It belonged to one of the serial victims. I was trying to find
it a home.”
“Did that make her happy.”
“I don’t think it made her happy. It did give her something to
care about.”
“What would make her happy?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said.
“Maybe a couple years with a good
shrink.”
“Is that going to happen?”
“I gave her a name,” Jesse said.
“My goodness,” Rita said. “Cop
for all seasons.”
“I know a shrink,” Jesse said.
“You think she’ll see the
shrink?”
“Most people don’t,” Jesse said.
Rita nodded.
“I did,” she said, “after my
last divorce.”
“You’ve had more than one?”
Rita smiled and poured herself more champagne.
“I’ve had three,” she said.
“And after each one, I was inclined
to fall deeply in love with the next guy I dated.”
“You still do that?”
“No,” Rita said. “But it
doesn’t mean I won’t.”
“After my divorce,” Jesse said,
“I wanted to fall in love with
someone else and couldn’t.”
“You’ve only been divorced once?”
“Yes.”
“The more it happens, I think,” Rita said,
“the more desperate
you get, and the more likely you are to grab at the first loser that strolls by, which makes it more likely that this marriage will fail, too.”
“And you’ve learned not to do
that.”
“Until now,” Rita said.
Jesse drank. The cranberry and soda seemed particularly insufficient for this moment. They were silent.
Finally, Jesse said, “Me?”
“It feels like it,” Rita said.
“Another loser?”
“No,” Rita said. “You are not a
loser.”
“Thank you, but I’m not so sure.”
“Because?”
“Because Jenn,” Jesse said.
Rita put her glass down and stood, and began to unbutton her blouse. When it was unbuttoned she slid out of it. She stepped out of her shoes and unzipped her pants, and slid them down over her legs and stepped out of them. Her lingerie was ivory. So it won’t show through, Jesse thought. She unsnapped her bra, slid
out of her underpants, and stood naked in front of him. Jesse smiled.
“A real redhead,” he said.
“Or a very thorough colorist,” Rita said.
She came to the couch and sat beside Jesse and tucked her feet under her.
“So?” Rita said. “Tell me about
Jenn.”
“It’s a little hard to
concentrate,” Jesse said.
“My point exactly,” Rita said.
She shifted somehow and was in his lap, and then they were both
naked, and then, after a while they lay together on the couch with their arms around each other, waiting for their breathing to slow.
Finally, with her face next to his, Rita said, “So, tell me
about Jenn.”
carefully. “And I’ve never had sex that I liked better.”
“Not even Jenn,” Rita said.
“She’s not better-looking than you
are,” Jesse said, “and she
doesn’t make love any better.”
“So, why her, not me?”
Jesse eased himself up a little so that his head rested on the arm of the couch. Rita adjusted so that she lay inside his right arm.
“Why her?” Rita said again.
Jesse laughed briefly and without amusement.
“God,” he said. “If I knew that,
I’d know
everything.”
“You’re sort of an addictive
personality,” Rita
said.
“Booze?” Jesse said.
“And Jenn.”
Jesse nodded slowly.
“And Jenn,” he said.
“You’ve stopped drinking,” Rita
said.
Jesse was silent, listening to his breathing, and Rita’s.
“I know,” Jesse said.
They lay still, passionless, their naked bodies touching pleasantly. Rita seemed perfectly comfortable without her clothes on.
“Maybe you can break the addiction to Jenn,” Rita
said.
“I love her,” Jesse said.
“Jesus Christ,” Rita said. “You
invoke that phrase as if you’d
discovered the double helix. Love is an emotion, like any other.
You can get over it, like you do anger or fear, or hatred.”
“I love her,” Jesse said. “If I
can be with her, I will
be.”
“So,” Rita said,
“what’s the plan? You fuck me until you can be with her?”
“Hell, Rita, I don’t have a
plan,” Jesse said. “I’m just hanging on.”
“That shrink you know,” Rita said.
“What does he say
aboutJenn?”
“He says that I do my job, that I have women I care about, who
care about me, that my life moves right along, so why do I need Jenn?”
“And your answer?”
“You won’t like it,” Jesse said.
Rita grimaced.
“‘Because I love
her’?” Rita said.
Jesse nodded.
“And you don’t love me,” Rita
said.
“Actually I do,” Jesse said.
“It’s just that I love Jenn
more.”
Rita was quiet for a time.
“If you and Jenn ever get together, why couldn’t we love each
other, too?” Rita said. “Part-time, so to speak.”
“Rita, I don’t know what’s going
to happen after I get off this
couch, let alone who I’ll be in a month or a year.”
“But it might be possible,” Rita said.
Jesse shook his head slowly.
“Maybe not,” he said.
62
The note was hand printed in big block letters with blue ink.
TO FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR SERIAL KILLER, BE AT THE FOOD COURT AT
NORTHEAST MALL AT 7 PM. THURSDAY.
ALONE!!!!!!!
The letters looked a little wavery, as if the writer were old.
“Probably printed it left-handed,” Jesse said.
“To frustrate the handwriting experts,”
Molly
said.
“Yep.”
“Is handwriting analysis really that effective?” Molly
said.
Jesse smiled and looked as if he thought it wasn’t.
“You know that mall?” Jesse said.
“I’m a suburban mother,” Molly
said. “Of course I do. Don’t
you?”
“I’m not a suburban mother,”
Jesse said. “I’ll go up there this
afternoon and scope it out.”
“You haven’t ever been there?”
“Only outside,” Jesse said.
“When I met Candace
there.”
“Hard to imagine,” Molly said.
“Do you think it’s
them?”
“Yep.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Show up,” Jesse said.
“It’s Tuesday,” Molly said.
“We have today and tomorrow to get
ready.”
“How crowded would it be on a Thursday evening,” Jesse
said.
“Quite,” Molly said.
“It’s crowded every night, and it’s time to
be buying the spring wardrobe.”
“Sure it is.”
“There are a bunch of exits from the mall,” Molly said. “Not
counting the ones that the stores use, you know for truck deliveries and stuff.”
“Be hard to cover them all.”
“I’m sure the state police will help, and the local cops will
give us some people.”
Jesse shook his head.
“Too many jurisdictions,” he said.
“I won’t be able to control
it.”
“We can coordinate through Vargas,” Molly said.
“These are smart people,” Jesse said.
“But surely they don’t think we
won’t try to catch them,” Molly
said.
“They probably like that,” Jesse said.
“They like it?”
“Raises the risk, makes it more exciting.”
“So why not be there in force,” Molly said. “Cover every exit,
have plainclothes people all over the food court.”
“They like risk,” Jesse said.
“But they don’t like certainty.
They don’t want to get caught. They only want the danger of getting
caught.”
“They want to be shot at and missed,”
Molly said.
“Exactly,” Jesse said.
“And you’re afraid that if there are too many different people
involved, somebody will give it away.”
“And we’ll lose them.”
“You’re assuming,” Molly said,
“that their purpose is to kill
you.”
“Yep.”
“So why do it this way. They know where you live.
Why not just
lurk around there and shoot you when you come home?”
“Same reason they’ve been flirting with me, buying me lunch,
being my pals,” Jesse said.
“They are, after all, crazy,” Molly said.
“I tend to forget
that.”
“So not everything they do is logical to us,” Jesse said. “On
the other hand crazy doesn’t mean stupid. They’ve chosen a public
place with many exits. The parking lot leads to many roadways that lead in many directions. It is a good place to escape from. It is an easy place not to be noticed. And it is a hard place for us to start shooting.”
“So we put our people there, early, around the food court,”
Molly said. “Suit and I can be there as a married couple shopping
for cruise wear.”
“You’re ten years older than
Suit,” Jesse said.
“Yes. But I do not look it.”
“True,” Jesse said. “But it
can’t be Suit. They know
him.”
“Well, me and Anthony then,” Molly said.
“We keep Suit out of
sight.”
“I don’t want it to be you,
Moll,” Jesse said.
“Why not?”
“You got kids an
d a husband,” Jesse said.
“And Anthony has kids and a wife,” Molly said.
“I was afraid you’d remember
that,” Jesse said.
“It’s because I’m a
woman,” Molly said.
Jesse was silent.
“It is, isn’t it,” Molly said.
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s lovely and chivalrous of you,” Molly said. “And I
know you do it because you care about me. But it still demeans me.”
“I know,” Jesse said.
“God, you’re irritating. I can’t
even fight with
you.”
“You and Anthony can be snacking in the food court,” Jesse said.
“Wear your vest.”
“You too,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded.
“Spring fashions,” he said.
63
They set up early Molly and Anthony deAngelo, in jeans and winter coats, arrived at 4:30 and began to shop the mall. Molly made several purchases, and Anthony carried her bags and looked bored. They saw no sign of Tony or Brianna Lincoln. Only Jesse and Suitcase Simpson had actually seen the Lincolns. The rest had detailed descriptions. But it was not the same. Outside the mall, Simpson dispersed the other cops, trying to keep all the exits in view. Only Steve Friedman and Buddy Hall were on duty in Paradise.
At 6:27, Molly and Anthony came to the food court. They put their bags down and sat at a table. They looked from where they sat at the various food stands, appeared to reach a decision, and Anthony stood up and went to get them some pork fried rice. The food court was nearly filled. Looking at the customers, Molly realized that several of them could be the Lincolns. At 6:48 Molly decided that she couldn’t pretend to eat the rice anymore.
She had
no appetite, and it was clear that neither did Anthony.
“I’ll get us some coffee,” she
said.
“Cream,” Anthony said, “two
sugars.”
At 6:57 Molly took a cell phone out of her purse and called Simpson outside the mall.
“Hello, honey,” she said.
“Molly?”
“Yes. Are you and your brother doing what Nana says?”
“Any sign of action?” Simpson said.
Anthony deAngelo looked like a man whose wife spoke often on the
phone, glancing aimlessly around the food court. Molly smiled.
“No, honey, Daddy and I are having coffee, we’ll be home in a
little while.”
“Do you want me to help you with this?”
Simpson said. “Pretend
I’m your kid?”
“Absolutely not,” Molly said.
“What have you and Nana been
doing?”
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