“I guess we need to talk with her again,” Molly said.
“We do,” Jesse said.
Molly smiled, looking at the letter.
“And the dance continues,” she said.
64
JESSE AND Molly met the Free Swingers in the spacious atrium of a big gray shingled house that faced the ocean on Paradise Neck. Jesse was the only man in the room. No husbands attended. Hannah Wechsler was there. Kimberly Clark was not. Jesse stood in the center of the long room, with a view of the ocean at his back. Molly sat on a slipper rocker near him.
Everyone else gathered in an extended semicircle facing him.
“Thank you for coming,” Jesse said. “Thanks to Mrs. Stevens for allowing us the use of her house.”
No one said anything.
“I am not interested as a police chief or a man in the non-criminal private behavior of con-senting adults,” Jesse said. “But I am looking for a criminal, and you are in a unique position to help me.”
They all sat silently. Neatly dressed. A lot of flowered prints. He could have been address-ing a group of den mothers, Jesse thought.
“I know you’ve heard of the Night Hawk. His behavior is essentially voyeuristic. Look but don’t touch, so to speak.”
“What about that school principal?” a woman asked.
Her voice was hoarse. She cleared it after she spoke.
“We think that may be a different person,” Jesse said.
“A copycat?” the woman said.
“Maybe,” Jesse said. “But it occurred to me that the Night Hawk might be attracted to a group such as yours. So it would help if you could tell me if there’s anyone you’ve encountered in the activities of your group that looks but doesn’t touch.”
Everyone looked at Jesse without speaking. Jesse waited.
“That’s not allowed,” a woman said finally.
“Would you know?” Jesse said. “Would you always know who was doing what with whom?”
Again there was silence. Then several of the women began to shake their heads.
“You wouldn’t,” Jesse said.
The woman who had cleared her throat cleared it again and then said, “No.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Officer Crane is going to hand out some index cards and pencils. I’d like each of you to list the name of any man with whom you’ve had experience who has watched and nothing else.”
“You think this guy is in our group?” one of the women asked.
“Yes,” Jesse said.
“Who do you think he is?”
“Can’t say.”
“Why do you think so,” the woman said. “Because we are a little unconventional, maybe?”
She was a big dark-haired woman with a long braid in her hair.
“We have some evidence,” Jesse said.
“What do you think of what we do,” the woman with the braid said to Jesse.
“I think it’s legal,” Jesse said.
“Would you do it?” the woman said.
Jesse was quiet, thinking about it.
“No,” he said after a moment. “Probably not.”
“What a waste,” the woman with the hoarse voice said.
All the women laughed, including Molly.
“Do we have to sign the card?” a woman asked.
“No,” Jesse said. “And if there is no one in your experience, just don’t write on the card.”
Molly handed out cards and pencils.
A woman wearing large tinted glasses raised her hand.
“I have a question,” she said.
Jesse nodded at her.
“Can we keep the pencil afterward?” she said.
The women giggled. Jesse laughed.
“Sure,” he said. “Swap them around if you’d like.”
The women giggled again, and most of them wrote on their cards.
“If there’s anyone who took pictures,” Jesse said, “without, ah, engaging, I’d like to know that man’s name, too.”
“No picture taking,” the woman with the pigtail said.
“Covert is always possible,” Jesse said.
Several women shrugged. No one looked convinced. When they were through writing, Molly walked along the semicircle, picking up the cards. She gave them to Jesse, who slipped them into the side pocket of his coat.
“Anyone have anything else?” he said.
From her seat at the far end of the semicircle, Hannah Wechsler said, “I think this is a witch hunt.”
Several of the women looked at her, but none of them spoke. Jesse nodded.
“Anybody else?” he said.
“Are you and Officer Crane going to attend our next meeting?” the woman with the big glasses said.
“Only if somebody calls the cops,” Jesse said.
“We’ll keep that in mind,” the woman said.
65
HANNAH WECHSLER walked into Jesse’s office and sat down in a chair. Molly appeared behind her in the doorway and raised her eyebrows. Jesse shook his head faintly.
“You bastard,” she said. “You think my husband is the Night Hawk.”
“I do,” Jesse said.
“I knew you’d find a way to use the Free Swingers against us,” she said. “A cop is a cop is a cop.”
Jesse said, “I need to ask you an impertinent question.”
“You are nothing,” she said, “if not impertinent.”
“It’s a question that needs an answer,” Jesse said. “How long has it been since you had sex with your husband.”
“Jesus, you are out of control,” she said.
“How long?” Jesse said.
“None of your goddamned business,” she said.
“Actually, it is,” Jesse said.
He took the Night Hawk’s last letter from his drawer and gave it to her.
“What’s this?” she said.
“Read,” Jesse said.
Hannah read the letter carefully, as if Jesse might be trying to trick her. As she finished, her face began to redden. But she clamped her jaw and read it again carefully. When she was done she placed the letter on Jesse’s desk, and sat back. The letter lay on the desk at an angle. She leaned forward and carefully squared it to the edge of the desk. She stared at Jesse.
“I got seven names from the swinger women yesterday, of men that watched but didn’t touch,” Jesse said.
Hannah continued to stare at him.
“All seven names were Seth Ralston,” Jesse said.
She continued to stare. Her mouth was a thin, straight line on her red face.
“I had Molly call every woman that was at the meeting, except you,” Jesse said, “and ask each of them if Seth Ralston had ever touched them. All of them said no.”
Her shoulders hunched and her neck seemed to get thinner.
“You have sex with your husband,” Jesse said, “in the last three years?”
Hannah suddenly made a low, harsh screaming sound and doubled over in her chair, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. As she rocked, the scream changed to a steady keening sound. Molly appeared in the doorway. Jesse put up his hand and nodded that she should stay there. The keening and rocking continued. Molly came in and sat down in the chair next to Hannah and put her arm around Hannah’s shoulders. Hannah turned awkwardly toward her and pressed her face against Molly’s shoulder. Molly patted her hair. Hannah moaned. Jesse sat silently behind his desk with his arms folded. It took a while, but eventually she got herself under control and sat up. Jesse pushed a box of Kleenex across the desk.
She took one and blew her nose, and another and wiped her eyes. Jesse held out the wastebasket, and she discarded the used Kleenex. She took a fresh one from the box and held it, apparently in reserve. She breathed as if she’d been running a long way.
Finally, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“I am, too,” Jesse said. “Have you not had sex with your husband for three years?”
“At least,” she said. “And before that, it was no good.”
She looked at Molly.
“I had to work so hard just to . . . get him ready.”
Molly nodded.
“All he wanted to do was look and take pictures,” she said. “I’ll bet there’s five hundred nude pictures of me in his computer.”
Jesse nodded.