“I baked it,” Molly said.
“Baked it?”
“Yeah, you know, peeled the apples and made the crust and added the cinnamon and put in the sugar and folded it up and put it in the oven.”
“You know, turnovers are like donuts. They just seem to be. You don’t think of anyone making them.”
“I made them,” Molly said.
“Wow,” Jesse said. “Wife, mother, cop, baker.”
“Department sex symbol,” Molly said.
Jesse finished the turnover.
“Molly, I mean in no way to downgrade that, but you are the only woman in the department.”
“So unless some of the guys are gay,” Molly said. Jesse nodded.
“Which I don’t think they are,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded again.
“Well, it may be a meaningless distinction,” Molly said,
“but it is a distinction, and I’m claiming it.”
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“Can I eat the other turnover?” Jesse said.
“Sure.”
“Did you make them specifically for me?” Jesse said.
“No. I made them for my husband and children. But I saved two for you.”
“Well, you’re right, one takes the distinctions one can get,” Jesse said.
“Besides, maybe a couple of the guys are secretly gay, and you actually are a department sex symbol.”
“I’d prefer not to go there,” Jesse said.
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59
Jesse rang the bell at the front door of Timothy Lloyd’s condo in the Prudential Center, and held up his badge in front of the peephole. After a minute the door opened.
“I’m Jesse Stone, the chief of police in Paradise. We need to talk.”
“Paradise, Mass?”
“Yes, may I come in?”
“Yeah, sure, what’s up?” Lloyd said and stepped away from the door. Jesse went in and closed the door behind him. He tucked the badge away in his shirt pocket.
H I G H P R O F I L E
“I am also Jenn Stone’s former husband,” he said. Lloyd’s face sagged a little, and Jesse hit him hard with a straight left. Lloyd took two steps back and then lunged at Jesse. Jesse hit him with a left hook and then a right hook, and Lloyd stumbled backward and sat on the floor.
“You can’t come in here and do this,” Lloyd said. It always amazed Jesse what people said in extremis.
“Of course I can,” Jesse said. “I just did. And I may do it every day unless we have a thoughtful and productive discussion.”
Lloyd scooted on his butt backward away from Jesse and scrambled to his feet. Jesse could see his eyes shifting, looking for a weapon. Lloyd picked up a brass candleholder from the dining-room table, charged at Jesse, and tried to hit him with it. Jesse deflected Lloyd’s swing with his left forearm, grabbed him by the hair, and ran him forward behind his own momentum into the wall headfirst. Lloyd let go of the candlestick holder and went to his knees and stayed there, trying to get his legs under him. He had more stuff in him than Jesse had expected. Jesse’s business was to get rid of whatever stuff Lloyd had. He kicked him in the stomach and Lloyd yelped and fell flat on the floor and doubled up in pain and a kind of fetal concealment. Jesse walked to a red leather armchair near the front door and sat in it and said nothing. Lloyd stayed doubled up on the floor, groaning softly and occasionally. Something annoying impinged faintly on Jesse’s consciousness. He listened. There was a television on somewhere in 2 6 3
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the apartment. He couldn’t hear what was being said. But he knew from the sound of it that it was blather. After a time when the only sound in the place was the distant and indistinct blather, Lloyd stopped groaning on the floor.
“I never did anything to your wife,” he said.
“You’ve been stalking her.”
“I never—”
“I’m not here to debate,” Jesse said.
He stood and walked over to where Lloyd lay on the ground, took his gun from his hip, and bent over and put the muzzle of the gun against the bridge of Lloyd’s nose.
“If you stalk her again, or bother her in any way, or have anything at all to do with her, I’ll kill you,” he said.
“Jesus Christ, Stone.” Lloyd’s voice was up a full octave. Jesse pressed the gun harder against Lloyd’s forehead.
“You understand that?”
“Yes, Jesus Christ, yes. I promise I’ll never go near her again. I promise.”
Jesse stood motionless for a moment, the gun pressed against Lloyd. He could feel the air going in and out of his lungs. He could feel the latissimus dorsi bunch. He could almost feel it. It was as if he were able to project himself ahead into the sudden discharge of energy that came with a gunshot.
“Please,” Lloyd said. “Please. I won’t ever bother her again.”
Jesse took in all the air his lungs would hold and let it out slowly, and straightened and put the gun back in its holster. 2 6 4
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“Get up,” he said. “Sit in a chair. Tell me your side of it.”
Lloyd got painfully to his feet. Jesse made no attempt to help him. Half-bent and slow, Lloyd got himself to a big, barrel-backed chair and sank into it. They looked at each other.
“I don’t want to make you mad,” Lloyd said.
“Let’s keep it simple,” Jesse said. “You leave Jenn alone, you’ll have no problem with me. You bother her again and I’ll kill you.”
Lloyd nodded slowly.
“Can I get a drink?” he said.
“Sure.”
“You want one?” Lloyd said.
“No.”
Lloyd went stiffly to the kitchen, filled a lowball glass with ice, poured a lot of Jack Daniel’s over the ice, and brought it back. He sat and looked at Jesse and took a drink.
“I, you’re sure you don’t want something.”
“I’m sure,” Jesse said.
“I, ah, I liked Jenn a lot,” Lloyd said.
The normalness of having bourbon on the rocks in his living room made Lloyd a little calmer. Pretty soon, Jesse knew, the whiskey would help as well. . . . Coupla good old boys, Jesse thought, having a Jack on the rocks, talking about broads.
“And I thought she liked me,” Lloyd said. “But I think now that she just wanted me to get her into modeling, and television commercials, and, you know, help her career.”
Jesse nodded.
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“She was using me.”
“Probably she wanted both,” Jesse said.
“What do you mean?”
“Probably wanted to be in love with you and wanted you to help her, and she couldn’t separate the two out either.”
“I don’t get it,” Lloyd said.
“No,” Jesse said. “You probably don’t.”
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60
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.”
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“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,