High Profile js-6
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“I don’t get it,” Lloyd said.
“No,” Jesse said. “You probably don’t.”
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They sat on the seawall at the town beach in the early evening, looking out across the deserted beach at the empty ocean. Sunny looked great, he thought. Black sleeveless top, white jeans, big sunglasses. Jesse looked sideways at her. She was staring straight out to sea. He’d never been able to figure out what made a face look intelligent.
“You spoke to Tim Lloyd,” Sunny said.
“Yes.”
Maybe it wasn’t in the face. Maybe it was behind the face.
“And?” Sunny said.
“He felt used,” Jesse said. “He felt she was exploiting him to get ahead.”
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“I’m shocked,” Sunny said, “shocked, I tell you.”
Jesse nodded. He had stopped studying her face and was also looking at the ocean.
“He stalked her so he’d feel powerful,” Sunny said.
“I know,” Jesse said.
“To compensate for feeling so not powerful,” Sunny said,
“after she ditched him, or however he experienced it.”
“I know.”
They stared out at the ocean together. It was calm as evening arrived. The water moved gently and the surface of it was almost slick.
Jesse said, “He and I agreed that he’d stay away from Jenn.”
“Does Jenn know?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure she’s trusting the agreement.”
“I’ll stay on him,” Sunny said, “for a while, see if he keeps his end of the bargain.”
“He will,” Jesse said.
“No harm making sure,” Sunny said.
“Thank you,” Jesse said.
“Did Jenn have anything else to say when you told her about the agreement?” Sunny said.
Jesse smiled at the blank ocean.
“She asked if we’d had a fight,” he said.
Sunny shook her head slowly.
“That’s so Jenn,” Sunny said.
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“What a thrill,” Sunny said, “to have two men fighting over her.”
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Jesse was quiet.
“I know what you’re like,” Sunny said. “He wouldn’t have had a chance for it to be a fight.”
“He’s an amateur,” Jesse said.
“Sure,” Sunny said. “And you’re not. What’s sad is that she doesn’t know that, and she doesn’t know what you’re like.”
“And you do,” Jesse said.
“Yes,” Sunny said. “I do.”
Jesse nodded. He was motionless where he sat. He didn’t look at Sunny. Nor she at him. They remained fixed on the slow ocean in front of them. A herring gull came in and landed in front of them, and snapped up a piece of empty crab shell. There was no sustenance in it, so the gull put it back and hopped down the beach looking for better. Jesse watched it.
“She knows,” Jesse said.
“And doesn’t care?” Sunny said.
“She cares,” Jesse said.
Sunny continued to look out at the horizon.
“And she also doesn’t know and doesn’t care,” Jesse said.
“We who are about to shrink salute you,” Sunny said.
“I know her,” Jesse said. “I don’t understand her, but I know her. A while back, I thought we’d move back in together and it would be over. We’d be together. She wants that. I want that. And it didn’t work.”
“I like her better than I expected to,” Sunny said.
“People do,” Jesse said.
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“She’s everything you could want a person to be,” Sunny said.
“Except when she isn’t,” Jesse said.
“Which is often,” Sunny said.
“But not always,” Jesse said.
A hundred yards down the beach, the herring gull gave up and flew away. The beach was empty now except for the two of them and the gentle, repetitive, heedless roll of the water.
“She have a shrink yet?” Sunny said. “I know she’s had several. But I have a good one. If she’d go.”
“She’ll do what she’ll do,” Jesse said.
“And you’ll do it with her,” Sunny said.
Jesse didn’t answer. The sun was down. It was still light, but the ocean had darkened. The wind had died entirely, as it often did at sunset.
“I think we need to say good-bye,” Sunny said.
Jesse nodded silently.
“It doesn’t mean I’ll never see you,” Sunny said. “It doesn’t mean I won’t help you. I don’t know what it does mean, exactly.”
She slipped off the seawall and stood in front of him.
“Except,” she said, “right now it’s time to say good-bye.”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
His voice was hoarse. He stood. They put their arms around each other. Neither spoke. Neither moved. They stayed where they were, hugging each other beside the nearly inanimate ocean as the twilight continued to fade.
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Jesse stood in the back of the room in the Town Hall auditorium while Molly held her daily press briefing.
“There is a development in the Walton Weeks murder,”
Molly said. “We have identified two suspects, and are pursuing several leads, though at this time we do not have sufficient evidence to arrest anyone.”
A television reporter in front said, “Can you give us names, Moll?”
Molly smiled.
“Sure,” she said, “how about Cain and Abel?”
“I mean names of suspects.”
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“Oh,” Molly said. “No, I can’t give you those names.”
“Why not,” someone yelled.
“Don’t want to,” Molly said.
“When do you expect an arrest?”
“Or arrests,” Molly said. “As soon as we develop our leads more fully.”
“Do you have a timetable?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Molly said. “ASAP. Margie, you have a question?”
“I understand the governor has become actively involved in the case,” a woman said.
“He has?” Molly said. “I’ll be damned.”
“You didn’t know that?” Margie said.
“Nope,” Molly said. “Had no idea.”
“Is there a political overtone to this case,” a man said.
“Here,” Molly said, “in the Bay State? Hard to imagine.”
“Are you saying the governor is involved and you don’t know it?”
“I’m not saying what the governor’s involved in,” Molly answered. “I have no knowledge of any involvement by the governor in this case.”
“Are you implying that his involvement is useless?”
“No.”
“Useful?”
“What part of ‘no knowledge’ don’t you understand, Jim?”
Molly said.
“What’s the governor’s position on this case?”
“I don’t know,” Molly said.
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“He’s not made it clear?”
“I haven’t spoken with the governor,” Molly said.
“About this case?”
“About anything,” Molly said. “I’ve never met him in my life.”
“Has Chief Stone spoken with the governor?”
“Don’t know,” Molly said.
“Why doesn’t Chief Stone ever meet with the press?”
“Doesn’t seem to want to,” Molly said.
“What about the public’s right to know?”
“Chief Stone is mostly about protect and serve,” Molly said.
“He doesn’t care about the public’s right to know?”
“Deeply,” Molly said. “He ca
res about that every bit as deeply as you do, Murray. As we all do.”
“Then why doesn’t he talk with us?”
“He likes to have me do it,” Molly answered. “He says I’m more fun. One more question?”
“What kinds of clues are you pursuing?”
“The ones we’ve got,” Molly said. “Thank you all very much.”
By the time Molly shoved her way through the reporters and got back to the station house, Jesse was there already.
“I saw you up back,” Molly said. “Do I get a raise for not directing them to you?”
“Better than that,” Jesse said. “You keep your job.”
“I hope the two-suspects thing didn’t get buried by the governor bullshit.”
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“There are enough reporters out there. A couple of them will recognize actual information,” Jesse said.
“Think it will get anything moving?”
“I don’t know. The tighter things feel,” Jesse said, “the more likely something is to come squeezing out.”
“As far as I can see, their best bet is to sit tight and do nothing.”
“That’s because you’re not feeling squeezed,” Jesse said.
“Except by the fucking press,” Molly said.
“I thought Irish Catholic mothers of four didn’t say fucking. ”
Molly smiled.
“We generally don’t,” Molly said. “On the other hand, we’re not ignorant of the phrase. There’s the four kids.”
“Worth remembering,” Jesse said. “Lutz at least knows I know he did it. I don’t know yet how much involvement she had.”
“I’m guessing a lot,” Molly said.
“Me too,” Jesse said.
“So when they read about suspects and leads and stuff, they’ll know we’re talking about them.”
“And maybe they won’t be smart enough to sit still and do nothing. The whole crime has already been overthought,”
Jesse said.
“The refrigerator and the corpse display?” Molly said. “That sort of thing?”
“We both know,” Jesse said, “when all is said and done, the ones you can’t solve are the ones where somebody walks in, 2 7 4
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aces somebody, disposes of the murder weapon, and walks away. No motive. No witnesses. Nothing. This thing with Weeks and his girlfriend was badly overproduced.”
“So they’ll be inclined not to sit still,” Molly said.
“It’s why I think Lorrie’s involved,” Jesse said. “Lutz is an ex-cop. He should know better.”
“What if he prevails this time,” Molly said. “What if they do sit tight?”
“I know that one or both of them did it,” Jesse said.
“Sooner or later, I’ll prove it.”
Molly looked at Jesse for a long moment, then she reached up and rested her hand briefly on his cheek.
“Yes,” she said. “You will, won’t you.”
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As Jesse got out of his car in the parking lot, he could see someone sitting in the dark at the foot of his stairs. Jesse took his gun out and held it at his side.
“Stone?” the person said.
“Yes.”
“Lutz,” he said. “I need to talk.”
“Okay.”
They sat in Jesse’s living room with the French doors open to the deck and the night air coming in thick with the smell of the harbor.
“You got a drink?” Lutz said.
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“Scotch okay?”
“Sure, some ice.”
Jesse got the whiskey and the ice and a glass and put them on the table.
“One glass?” Lutz said.
“I’ll pass,” Jesse said.
“I heard you were a boozer,” Lutz said.
He put ice in his glass and poured whiskey over it.
“Sometimes I’m not,” Jesse said.
He sat at the bar across from Lutz and put the gun on the bar top. If Lutz noticed, he didn’t care. He looked past Jesse at the big picture behind the bar.
“Ozzie Smith,” Lutz said.
Jesse nodded.
“The best,” Lutz said.
Jesse nodded again.
“My old man used to say Pee Wee Reese was the best,”
Lutz said.
“Never saw him play.”
Lutz shrugged. Once when Jenn had been staying there, she had put small-wattage bulbs in all the lights. More romantic, she said. Hated bright lights, she said. When she left again, Jesse never changed them. So the room was dim. Only the light over the table where Lutz sat was on. And it wasn’t a bright light.
“Me either,” Lutz said. “I only know what my old man said.”
“He ever see Ozzie?”
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Lutz shook his head.
“Died too soon,” Lutz said. “You ever play?”
“Yes.”
“Shortstop like Ozzie?”
“Shortstop,” Jesse said. “But not like Ozzie.”
“You any good?”
“I was.”
“Good enough?” Lutz said.
“Got hurt,” Jesse said. “Never got a chance to find out.”
Lutz drank some whiskey.
“Tough,” Lutz said.
Jesse waited. Lutz was quiet. He drank some more whiskey.
“Life’s tough,” Lutz said.
Jesse waited. Lutz poured himself some more whiskey.
“You ever been married?” Lutz said.
“Yes.”
“But not now,” Lutz said.
“No.”
“She still around someplace?” Lutz said.
“Yes.”
“Hard to cut it off,” Lutz said.
Jesse nodded.
“You like this job?” Lutz said.
“Yes.”
“I heard you was on the job in L.A. before this.”
“Robbery Homicide,” Jesse said.
“You got fired,” Lutz said.
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“Drunk on duty,” Jesse said.
“Wife troubles?”
“Some.”
Lutz drank some whiskey.
“They’ll drive you right into the bottle, you let them,” he said.
Jesse didn’t answer. Lutz didn’t expect him to. It was as if Jesse were barely there.
“So you ended up here,” Lutz said. “And started over.”
Jesse waited. Lutz drank.
“And starting over worked,” Lutz said.
“So far,” Jesse said. “Sort of.”
Lutz shook his head.
“Too late,” he said.
“For you?”
Lutz nodded. He was looking at his glass of whiskey. It looked good to him. He drank some.
“Bad mistake,” he said. “Bringing it here.”
Jesse was very still.
“Figured I had them up here anyway,” Lutz said, “I dump them here, small town, some fucking hillbilly cop would be stepping on his own dick trying to figure out what to do.”
Lutz added some ice to his glass, and some more whiskey.
“Drink enough, it doesn’t do any good anymore,” he said.
“Doesn’t change the way you feel anymore.”
He drank again.
“Helps you talk, though,” he said. “Instead of a hillbilly, I got you.”
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Jesse nodded.
“You seem to be the kind of cop I thought I was going to be,” Lutz said.
He stopped and studied the surface of his whiskey again, as if there were something to be learned from it. Jesse waited. He was an exterior observer of a private unraveling, and he didn’t want to intrude.
“But then I met her, and then I met Walton Weeks, and then I got
really fucking smart. Or she did. He’s the brass ring, she says. He doesn’t want people to know you arrested him for public fucking. Make him hire you. And I say as what? And she says as a bodyguard. He’s a big deal. He needs a bodyguard.”
Lutz stopped talking and drank.
“So I’m his bodyguard,” Lutz said. “And we’re getting along. He’s a pretty good guy, and I’m not demanding too much, and it sort of works, even though it shouldn’t and I’m fucking blackmailing him, you know?”
The air got heavier as it cooled in the darkness and settled. The smell of the ocean thickened.
“Well, he’s a cockhound, you know that. And after a while I think he’s getting the munchies for Lorrie, and sure enough she tells me one day he made a move on her. And I’m saying I’ll kick his ass, and she’s saying wait a minute, don’t be foolish. We can have the whole thing. And I say what whole thing and she says Walton Weeks, the money, the show, the whole thing. All she got to do is fuck him a little. And I say hey, and she says don’t be a fool. I fuck him 2 8 0
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doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I’ll be doing it for us, and we need to be a little creative here, and I can’t say no to her, never could, and now I’m standing by and she’s fucking Walton and then Walton wants her to leave me and marry him and she reminds me I gotta be creative, and it’ll all be ours and we’ll be together, but let’s play this thing while it’s paying off and . . . six weeks in Vegas and she gets to be Mrs. Walton Weeks, and I’m by myself stroking it, except now and then when he’s not looking we get together. And she keeps reminding me it’s all for us, and we’re all that really matters, and in a while she’ll get it all.”
Lutz drank some whiskey.
“I used to be a tough guy,” Lutz said.
He shook his head and looked slowly around the room, still shaking his head. On the low table where the phone sat was a picture of Jenn.
“That her?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good-looking,” he said. “They’re always good-looking.”
“She’s good-looking,” Jesse said.
“And you’re still hanging on,” Lutz said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I love her,” Jesse said.
Lutz gave a low, humorless whiskey laugh that sounded as much like a cough.
“There they got you,” he said.
He nodded his head slowly.
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