“Meaning?” Hendricks said.
“Well, you have done a lot of Walton’s research and writing,” Jesse said. “Have you not?”
“Well, of course, I’ve been with him for some years.”
“And you’re prepared to proceed, alone,” Jesse said.
“If Mrs. Weeks wants me to.”
“Does she?”
“She has suggested as much,” Hendricks said.
He looked humble.
“And you get along,” Jesse said.
“She’s a very fine woman,” Alan said. “I hope I don’t disappoint her.”
“Have you ever?”
“I don’t think so.”
Jesse smiled and didn’t say anything.
“What are you implying,” Hendricks said.
Jesse shrugged.
“Maybe you’re inferring?”
Hendricks stared at Jesse.
“I have interviewed half a dozen heads of state,” Hendricks said. “If you think I’m going to be intimidated by some small-town police chief, you are sadly mistaken.”
“Damn,” Jesse said.
“Why are we having this conversation?”
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“The time-of-death issue has opened up,” Jesse said. “I suppose you have an alibi for the last six weeks?”
“Six weeks,” Hendricks said. “That’s a joke. I thought you had time of death established.”
“We thought so, too,” Jesse said. “But we didn’t.”
“So you now come here on some sort of fishing expedition, implying something illicit between me and Lorrie Weeks?”
“I don’t recall suggesting that,” Jesse said.
“I know what you’re doing,” Hendricks said. “I’m not some scared teenager you’ve stopped for speeding.”
“I guess not,” Jesse said. “So were you intimate with Mrs. Weeks?”
Hendricks stood suddenly up behind his desk.
“This interview is over,” Hendricks said.
Jesse stood more slowly. He smiled and nodded.
“You were,” he said. “Weren’t you.”
Hendricks said nothing. Jesse turned and left. Stephanie had that one right, Jesse thought as he waited for the elevator. 2 0 1
45
Suit brought a box of donuts and three coffees with him into the squad room. He put the box in the middle of the conference table and gave a cup each to Molly Crane and Jesse.
“I miss anything?” Suit said.
“I was outlining my theory of the crime,” Jesse said.
“Which is?” Suit said.
“That we’re not solving it,” Molly said.
Suit nodded.
“Cox is on the front desk,” Suit said. “He wanted to know how come he didn’t get donuts. I told him because he hadn’t made detective yet.”
H I G H P R O F I L E
“Good, Suit,” Molly said. “Promote unit cohesion.”
Jesse took the plastic cover off his coffee and tossed it onto the conference table. He stood beside the green chalkboard where he had written a list of names in yellow chalk.
“I talked to the divorce lawyer,” Jesse said. “Esther Bergman. She affirms that Weeks wanted a divorce. That he was prepared to make a generous settlement on Lorrie, but that he didn’t want alimony and he would, of course, change his will.”
“Any of this happen?” Molly said.
“No, the lawyer was in process.”
“Lorrie Weeks know?” Suit said.
“The lawyer said she did.”
“Funny no one mentioned this,” Suit said.
“Good old Stephanie,” Jesse said.
“What else did you find out this trip?” Suit said.
“Lorrie was having sex with Hendricks,” Jesse said, “the faithful researcher.”
“How’d you find that out?” Suit said.
“Good old Stephanie,” Molly said. “Jesse employed the three-martini-lunch interrogation.”
“Often effective,” Jesse said.
“Unless the interrogator joins in,” Molly said.
“Stephanie allowed me to know as well that she was occasionally intimate with Walton, and currently with Tom Nolan.”
“Busy group down there in New York,” Molly said.
“Lot of people been not telling us a lot of stuff,” Suit said.
“Like Lutz didn’t mention that he had busted Weeks in Baltimore County.”
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“A hazard of police work,” Jesse said.
“Makes you get sort of distrustful,” Suit said. Molly broke a small piece off a glazed cruller.
“You think?” she said, and put the piece of cruller in her mouth.
“So what we do have is that Mrs. Weeks knows her husband is planning to divorce her. She is intimate with the man who will continue the franchise after her husband’s death.”
“You’re sure Stephanie’s not just being catty?” Molly said.
“Isn’t catty a sexist concept?” Jesse said.
“It is,” Molly said. “You’re sure she’s not?”
“I talked with Hendricks. They were doing something,”
Jesse said.
“But if he divorces her,” Suit says, “then she loses control of the franchise.”
“Which might mean she loses Hendricks,” Molly said.
“Or Hendricks doesn’t get the job when Weeks dies.”
Jesse nodded.
“Or both,” he said.
“Carey and the unborn child get it all?” Molly said.
“I would assume,” Jesse said.
“So there’s some pretty good motive here,” Suit said. Jesse nodded. No one said anything for a moment. Then Molly said, “But?”
“But can you see them doing it?”
“I don’t even know them,” Molly said.
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She ate another small piece of cruller. Jesse smiled. Jenn used to eat something in small pieces so it wouldn’t be fattening.
“Bergdorf’s sophisticate, adult Ivy Leaguer,” Jesse said.
“Princeton probably. They could shoot a couple of people maybe. But transport them to a house with a walk-in refrigerator and store them there, then haul them out and hang one up and toss the other in a Dumpster?”
“Don’t seem like people who would be that aware of the effects of ambient temperature on a corpse,” Molly said.
“That’s right,” Jesse said.
“But Lutz would,” Suit said.
“That’s right,” Jesse said.
“But he’s got no motive,” Suit said.
“He has no motive that we know about,” Jesse said.
“They could have hired him to do it,” Molly said.
“And he’d own them for the rest of their lives,” Jesse said.
“Even Bergdorf sophisticates and Princeton grads can be stupid,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded.
“So,” Suit said. “Now we have an actual theory of the crime.”
“Lorrie, with or without the complicity of Hendricks, did it, maybe with help from Lutz.”
“Lot of with or withouts and maybes in there,” Molly said.
“How true,” Jesse said.
“And do we have any hard evidence to support our theory?”
Molly said.
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“You mean like clues?” Jesse said.
Molly nodded.
“No,” Jesse said.
“So what do we do now.”
“We go back into everybody’s history,” Jesse said.
“Everybody?” Suit said.
“Everybody on the chalkboard,” Jesse said.
“And of course we may find out that Lutz is telling the truth.”
“However ineptly,” Jesse said.
“And that Lorrie and Alan are simply adulterers. People cheat on the
ir spouses without killing them, you know.”
Jesse smiled at her. “From experience, Moll?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, when you’re ready . . .” Jesse said.
“You’re on the list, Jesse.”
“How about me,” Suit said. “Am I on the list.”
“Not till you’re old enough,” Molly said.
“For crissake, Moll, I’m almost a detective.”
“So we have a theory, let’s see if we can find something that proves it or disproves it,” Jesse said.
“Wow,” Molly said. “Like the scientific method.”
“Sort of,” Jesse said.
“What’s the scientific method?” Suit said.
“And you wonder why you’re not on the list,” Molly said. She finished her cruller.
“I don’t know why I bother to eat these,” she said. “I might as well apply them directly to my hips.”
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46
Sunny sat at the bar with Jesse in the Gray Gull. She put the pictures of Jenn and Timothy Patrick Lloyd on the bar.
“You recognize Jenn,” Sunny said. “The guy she’s with is the stalker.”
Jesse drank some scotch.
“Who she denies knowing,” he said.
“And who denies knowing her,” Sunny said.
Sunny looked at Jesse’s face as he stared down at the pictures. His face showed nothing. The couple in the pictures was embracing.
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“They are not strangers,” Jesse said.
“No.”
“You have a plan?” Jesse said.
“My plan was to see what you thought I should do.”
Jesse nodded. She wondered how it must feel for him, looking at the pictures of Jenn with another man. It wasn’t like a surprise, but it had to be painful, Sunny thought. She sipped her martini and looked at him over the rim. He was still looking at the pictures. His face was empty.
“I guess we need to confront her with these pictures,”
Jesse said.
“I can do that,” Sunny said.
“No,” Jesse said. “I need to do it.”
“Why?”
“It’ll be easier for her,” he said.
“For you to catch her in deceit instead of me?”
Jesse nodded.
“She’ll be less mortified,” he said.
Sunny didn’t say anything.
“Imagine if it were Richie,” Jesse said. “Wouldn’t you want to do it?”
“Proving that I’m crazy,” Sunny said, “doesn’t prove that you’re not.”
“I know.”
“She . . .” Sunny started and stopped.
“I know,” Jesse said.
They both drank.
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H I G H P R O F I L E
“Is there anything she could do that would make you give her up?” Sunny said.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “For a while there, when we were in L.A. together . . .”
“I remember,” Sunny said. “And now?”
Jesse stared into his drink.
“I love you, Sunny,” he said. “Hell, I probably love Molly Crane.”
“Whom you’ve never touched,” Sunny said.
“Of course not.”
“But Jenn is Jenn,” Sunny said.
“Yes.”
“God save me,” Sunny said. “I understand this.”
“I know you do,” Jesse said.
He finished his drink and motioned for a refill.
“So what do you want me to do with her?” Sunny said.
“Stay with her,” Jesse said.
Sunny nodded. She finished her drink and nodded to the bartender.
“When will you have time to talk with her?” Sunny said. Jesse smiled slightly and shook his head.
“I can make time,” he said. “It’s when will I have the strength.”
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47
From his window, looking down over the driveway of the fire station, Jesse watched the arrival. The governor of the Commonwealth, his man Richard Kennfield, and three suits whose function Jesse did not know got out of a trooperdriven limo and moved through the press of reporters toward Jesse’s office. A big black Chevy Suburban parked behind the limo. No one got out.
The governor stopped to talk with a gaggle of television reporters. Jesse couldn’t hear what he said. Probably something forceful and positive. Then he and his cluster moved
H I G H P R O F I L E
into the station and came to Jesse’s office. The governor stuck out his hand.
“Chief Stone?” he said. “I’m Cabot Forbes.”
Jesse shook his hand. The governor looked around. Kennfield said, “The governor would like his staff with him. Is there a bigger room?”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
They went down to the conference room. Jesse moved an empty pizza box off the table and gestured for the group to sit down. He sat at one end of the table. The governor stood at the other. He was tall with close-cut gray hair and a thin face.
“We’re here to help,” the governor said. “Not to criticize.”
Jesse nodded.
“But this case has dragged on long enough to become an embarrassment to the Commonwealth, and the people of the Commonwealth need to know that there’s an end in sight.”
Jesse nodded. The governor paused, and when Jesse didn’t say anything, he looked a little annoyed.
“This is made more embarrassing because I count both Walton and Lorrie as personal friends,” the governor said. Jesse nodded.
“Is there progress?” the governor said.
“Yes.”
“Do you have a suspect?”
“Many,” Jesse said.
“Is an arrest imminent?”
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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“No.”
“What do you need to bring this case to a close?”
“Clues,” Jesse said.
“Are you being deliberately uncooperative, Chief Stone?”
“No, sir. I’m listening attentively.”
“I am especially concerned that Mrs. Weeks be treated with every consideration,” the governor said. “This has been a nightmare for her and she deserves closure.”
Jesse nodded.
“For God’s sake, Stone, I was at their wedding.”
“Really,” Jesse said. “When did they get married?”
The governor looked at Kennfield.
“Nineteen ninety,” Kennfield said.
“Where?”
“Baltimore, wasn’t it,” the governor said to Kennfield. Kennfield nodded.
“At the Harbor Court,” he said.
“How’d they meet?” Jesse said.
Again, the governor looked at Kennfield.
“Oddly enough, through Walton’s bodyguard,” Kennfield said. “He introduced them.”
“Lutz?” Jesse said.
“Yes,” Kennfield said, “Conrad Lutz.”
“How did he know Lorrie,” Jesse said.
Both the governor and Kennfield shook their heads.
“Let me remind you,” the governor said, “that I am the chief executive of this state. I’m not going to be sidetracked. 2 1 2
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I came here in good faith to offer the complete resources of the Commonwealth to expedite this investigation.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jesse said.
“Stone,” Forbes said, “can you cut out the ‘Yes sir no sir thank you sir’ crap for one minute. Are you getting anywhere on this goddamned case or not.”
“I’m doing what I can, Governor,” Jesse said. “And I’m pretty good at it. As soon as there’s an arrest, I’ll be in touch.”
The governor reddened slightly and looked at Kennfield again.
Then he said, “We’ll hold you to that,” and wheeled and walked out of the room. The staff hustled to pick up their notebooks
and briefcases and followed him out.
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48
Lutz checked out,” Suit said when he came into Jesse’s office.
“When?”
“Day after you last talked with him,” Suit said. “I tried his New York address. He doesn’t answer the phone. I talked to the building manager, and he talked to the doorman, and they haven’t seen Lutz.”
“Well, something started moving,” Jesse said.
“Except we don’t know where, or why,” Suit said.
“Yet,” Jesse said. “Any movement is good.”
“I guess,” Suit said. “We gonna find him?”
H I G H P R O F I L E
“Yes.”
“We going down to New York again?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
Jesse looked at the ceiling, as if there were something up there. Suit waited. Jesse didn’t speak.
“You see the guv on TV this morning?” Suit said.
“No.”
“He says he’s taking a more active part in the investigation,” Suit said. “Says he’s bringing the full resources of his office to bear. Probably solve it by this evening.”
“Maybe not,” Jesse said. “See what you can find out about Lorrie Weeks, before she became Lorrie Weeks. What was her name? Where was she from? How did she know Lutz?
Anything you can come up with. Probably be useful if you got a blowup of her driver’s license photo from New York DMV.”
“If I track her down,” Suit said, “will it go in my personnel file?”
“You’ll be a lock for detective,” Jesse said.
“If we ever have detectives,” Suit said.
“Absolutely,” Jesse said. “You’ll be one of them.”
“What I like,” Suit said, “is the guv comes up here to let the press look at him and blows a lot of smoke about how he wants the case solved, and the only thing he did helpful he doesn’t even know it.”
“He was annoyed that I asked about it,” Jesse said.
“Just another empty shirt and tie,” Suit said. “Why the hell are they all like that.”
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Jesse shrugged and shook his head.
“It’s the kind of guy the job attracts.”
“No good guys?”
“Few,” Jesse said. “Would you want to be governor?”
“No.”
“President?”
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