“How close did he get?” Jesse said.
“Close?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Not very,” Mrs. Browne said. “Not as close as you are now.”
“So he didn’t touch you,” Jesse said.
“No.”
Jesse looked around the living room. There were no pictures except the oil painting above the fireplace.
“How did he know you had kids?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Browne said.
“You didn’t mention them?”
“No.”
“You didn’t recognize this man?” Jesse said.
“He was wearing a ski mask,” she said. “I told you that.”
“I know,” Jesse said. “But sometimes people recognize a voice, or mannerisms, if the masked person is well known to them.”
“I have no idea who this man was.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Couple of things. First, I am very sorry that this happened to you. I can’t make it up to you. But I can try very hard to catch this guy.”
Mrs. Browne nodded.
“Second, when your husband gets home, you and he will need to decide what you’re going to tell the kids, keeping in mind that this story may become public knowledge.”
“What do you think he’ll do with the pictures,” Mrs. Browne said.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Often they keep them to themselves.”
“They?”
“People who do this sort of aggressive voyeurism,” Jesse said.
“There are people who do this?” Mrs. Browne said.
“Yes.”
“But they don’t always keep the pictures to themselves?” Mrs. Browne said.
“No,” Jesse said.
“Oh, God!”
“You and your husband should talk when he gets here,” Jesse said.
Mrs. Browne nodded.
“The other thing,” Jesse said. “Do you have a place where you could go for the rest of the day?”
“Kids, too?” she said.
“Yes, everyone, until about suppertime?”
“I guess we could go across the street,” she said. “The Cronins. Why?”
“I want to seal the house off so my crime scene guy can go over it.”
“There won’t be any fingerprints,” she said. “He was wearing those latex gloves, like doctors wear.”
“Still need to go over the house,” Jesse said. “If we may.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Officer Crane will go with you,” Jesse said. “You and she can talk more.”
“What if he comes back?” Mrs. Browne said.
“We’ll see to it,” Jesse said, “that you are not alone.”
Mrs. Browne nodded.
“So,” Jesse said. “Moll, why don’t you take Mrs. Browne over to the Cronins’, where you can talk.”
Molly nodded.
“What about my husband?” Mrs. Browne said.
“We’ll send him over when he gets here.”
“Can you let me tell him,” she said.
“Of course,” Jesse said.
They were quiet.
Then Mrs. Browne said, “All he did was see me naked.”
Molly said, “Yes.”
“I’m forty-one,” Mrs. Browne said. “Other men have seen me naked. Not a bunch, but some.”
“Sure,” Molly said.
“My body is still okay,” Mrs. Browne said. “It’s not like I should be ashamed of my body.”
“Of course not,” Molly said.
“So why is this such a big deal?” Mrs. Browne said.
Molly put her arm around Mrs. Browne’s shoulders.
“It is a big deal,” Molly said. “For you.”
“Why?”
“The others were voluntary,” Molly said.
23
BETSY INGERSOLL came into Jesse’s office and sat down in a chair in front of his desk and crossed her legs.
Not unattractive,Jesse thought. A little sturdy maybe, but not so sturdy that she was unattractive.
“Thanks for coming in,” Jesse said.
“You are the chief of police,” Mrs. Ingersoll said. “I respect authority.”
“Wish there were more like you,” Jesse said. “May I call you Betsy?”
“Which is not to say I necessarily respect you.”
“Just the office,” Jesse said.
“Why do you wish to see me?” she said.
“I wanted to ask you a few more questions about the recent incident, Betsy,” Jesse said.
“Would you like to have your attorney present?”
“You mean my husband,” Mrs. Ingersoll said. “I am capable of speaking without him.”
“So you are willing to speak to me without counsel,” Jesse said.
“I have done nothing wrong,” she said. “I am willing to speak with anyone.”
“Nice,” Jesse said. “How many of the girls you checked on that day were inappropriately clothed?”
“How many?”
“Yeah, how many were too risqué, or whatever?” Jesse said. “Isn’t that why you checked?”
“Chief Stone,” Mrs. Ingersoll said. “That was some time ago now. I have no idea.”
“You checked twenty-two girls,” Jesse said. “Of whom you sent thirteen home to change.”
“If you knew that, why did you bother to ask?”
“I’m a small-town police chief, Betsy. I got nothing else to do.”
“I would prefer to be called Mrs. Ingersoll,” she said.
“Ah, it’s so formal,” Jesse said. “You want to get even, call me Jesse.”
“Do you have anything else?” Mrs. Ingersoll said.
“Of the thirteen you sent home to change, were all of them wearing thongs?”
“That is a preposterous question,” she said.
“The whole business is preposterous, Betsy. How many were wearing thongs?”
“I have no idea.”
“Seven thongs,” Jesse said. “Four bikinis. And a couple that were too lacy, or the wrong color, or something.”
“Undergarments are not ornamental,” Mrs. Ingersoll said. “They are for sanitation and modesty.”
“Does Victoria’s Secret know about this?” Jesse said.
“You are badgering me, Chief Stone, pure and simple,” Mrs. Ingersoll said. “And I don’t know why.”
“I’m trying to understand, Betsy.”
“There is nothing to understand,” she said. “My job is the well-being of those children. Not merely that they can read and write; my concern is the whole child, and I will not allow my girls to be anything less than ladies.”
“Chilling,” Jesse said.
“I beg your pardon?”
The door to Jesse’s office was open, and Jay Ingersoll appeared in it.
“What the hell is going on here?” he said.
Jesse glanced up at him and smiled.
“Ah, Jay,” Jesse said. “If only I knew.”
24
THE NIGHT Hawk was frightened. He had gone way past what he’d ever thought he’d do.
And he’d done it in broad daylight. Would he have forced her if she resisted? Would he have shot her? He looked at her picture on the computer screen. Naked and frightened. He clicked onto the other pictures of her. Why? They were essentially the same picture. Yet he felt compelled to look at each of them. And each time he felt the same fearful surge. The same tangle of desire and fright and unsated appetite. It was an uncompleted experience, he realized. And no matter how much he looked, it remained incomplete, and yet looking somehow compelled him to keep looking. . . . He felt shaky. He’d gotten away with it this time, no one had seen him. He’d been careful and left no trace. He should stop. He’d done it. And now he should give it up. All of it. The whole Night Hawk thing. It wasn’t too late. He could have had this life and left it, and he could be safe . . . destroy these pictures, maybe even destroy the computer. Be perfectly safe. No one would ever know. . . . He stared some more at the naked, frightened woman whose name he didn’t even know. . . . I can’t destroy the pictures. . . . He clicked on the next one. Same woman. Same body. Same fear. Why keep looking . . . And just as he kept looking, he knew he’d do it again. He knew he’d scout carefully, observe another woman’s home, get the lay of the land, and, when he was sure, and things were right, he’d go in and make her undress. Take her picture. Then he’d have her secret, in his computer, available to study, never quite enough. I won’t stop. Maybe I can’t stop. What if I do something worse? I don’t want to do something worse. But what if I do? He shook his head as if to clear it, and began to click through his pictures again.