Missy was silent again.
Then she said, “I don’t really want to. It seems so icky.”
“Scare you?” Jesse said.
“No . . . yes. I guess so.”
“Why don’t you wait until it doesn’t,” Jesse said.
“But what about my parents? Isn’t there something you can do?”
“I’ll think on it,” Jesse said. “And maybe get some advice, without mentioning any names.”
“Advice from who?”
“Oh, a shrink I know, maybe.”
“I don’t want to see no shrink,” Missy said.
“I’m not asking you to. I see him, and I can ask him for advice.”
“You see a shrink?” Missy said.
“I do,” Jesse said.
“Is it about her?” Missy said, looking at Jenn’s picture. “I bet it’s about her. Is it?”
Again, Jesse smiled at her.
Again, he said, “None of your business.”
7
JAY INGERSOLL came into Daisy Dyke’s at three-ten in the afternoon and spotted Jesse sitting at the counter. He walked over.
“Chief Stone,” he said. “I’m Jay Ingersoll.”
“How do you do,” Jesse said.
Ingersoll was tall and lean, with thick white hair cut short and a dark tan. His dark summer suit fit him well, and he looked to Jesse like a man who probably played a lot of tennis.
“Mind if I join you?” Ingersoll said.
Jesse gestured at the stool next to him. Ingersoll sat. He had small handsome character wrinkles around his eyes, and deep parenthetic grooves at the corners of his mouth.
“Apple pie?” Ingersoll said.
“Um-hm,” Jesse said.
“Looks good,” Ingersoll said.
“Daisy makes a nice pie,” Jesse said.
“Was time, when I was your age,” Ingersoll said, “I could have pie in the middle of the afternoon and still stay in shape.”
“Sometimes I have two pieces,” Jesse said.
The young woman behind the counter came down and Ingersoll ordered black coffee.
When it came, he stirred in two packets of Splenda.
He raised the cup toward Jesse and said, “Cheers.”
Jesse raised his empty fork in response, and Ingersoll sipped some coffee.
“Whoa,” he said. “Hot.”
“Often is,” Jesse said.
Jesse noticed that Ingersoll’s cheeks dimpled when he smiled.
“I’m Betsy Ingersoll’s husband,” he said.
“I know,” Jesse said.
“I just wanted to tell you that I thought you handled that incident at the school like a pro,”
Ingersoll said. “No press. Nothing blown out of proportion.”
Jesse patted his mouth with his napkin.
“I am a pro,” he said.
“I assumed you’ve closed the file on it,” Ingersoll said.
“Um-hm,” Jesse said.
“Um-hm what?” Ingersoll said.
“Um-hm, I hear what you’re saying.”
“And my assumption is correct?”
“No.”
“You haven’t closed the case,” Ingersoll said.
“Not yet,” Jesse said.
“For God’s sake, why not?” Ingersoll said. “There’s no crime here.”
“Haven’t found one yet,” Jesse said. “I figure there’ll be some civil action.”
“And if there is?” Ingersoll said.
“I thought I’d watch,” Jesse said. “See what I could see.”
The lines around Ingersoll’s mouth deepened.
“What the hell are you after, Stone?”
“You representing her?”
“I’m her husband, for crissakes.”
“And her lawyer?” Jesse said.
“Whether or not I personally represent her,” Ingersoll said, “you can be sure my firm will be involved.”
“Rita Fiore?” Jesse said.
“She’s a criminal litigator,” Ingersoll said. “How do you know Rita?”
“I’m the chief of police,” Jesse said. “I get around.”
“You see this as your big chance?” Ingersoll said. “Make a name? Make some money?
What’s this about?”
“I think your wife violated those girls’ rights,” Jesse said.
“Oh, for crissakes, Stone.”
“You asked,” Jesse said.
“Would I have done it?” Ingersoll said. “No, I suppose not. Betsy is probably a little more, ah, authoritarian than I am, I guess. It’s no easy job being a school administrator.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But no harm was done. No one was injured. No crime was committed,” Ingersoll said.
“So you say.”
“I have, of course, talked with Howard Hannigan about this,” Ingersoll said, “and he as-sures me that his office has no interest in pursuing the incident.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Jesse said.
“But you do,” Ingersoll said.
“I’m not ready to clear it,” Jesse said.
Ingersoll was silent for a moment. Then, with his hands folded tightly on the counter, he leaned toward Jesse a little.
“You are a small-town policeman,” Ingersoll said. “You were fired from your last job. I am the managing partner of the biggest law firm in the state. If you continue to be an annoyance, I will bury you.”
“No doubt,” Jesse said.
He laid a five-dollar bill on the counter, and stood and walked out of the restaurant.
8
IT WAS WEDNESDAY night. It was his time. And the Night Hawk was beginning to dress.
Black jeans, black socks, black sneakers. He put on a white T-shirt, and over it a black windbreaker, which he wore unzipped. He put on a navy-blue baseball cap, and pulled it low over his forehead, and looked at himself in the mirror. His beard covered the lower half of his face, and with the bill of the cap down low over his forehead he would be hard to recognize. He nodded to himself and reset the cap on the back of his head. Then he turned out the lights in his bedroom and went down the stairs and out the back door. He walked past Daisy’s Restaurant, on down toward the water, past the Gray Gull and up Water Street. With no one in sight, he turned suddenly into a narrow alley just past the Paradise Inn. In the alley he zipped up his black windbreaker and pulled his baseball cap down over his forehead, then moved down the alley and into a scraggle of trees behind the inn. Past the trees was the harbor. The Night Hawk stood nearly invisible among the trees and looked into a first-floor bedroom at the back of the inn. The shade was up. The lights were on, but there was no one in the room. I can wait, the Night Hawk thought, and stood just outside the window. Stolid, stoic, silent, and unseen. The strong smell of the harbor drifted past him on the quiet evening air. The trees he stood among were white pine, and they added their pleasant scent to the night. Faintly from the inn came kitchen sounds, a hint of television, some barely audible music. The net effect was to emphasize the quiet. He looked at his watch. I’ll give it forty-five minutes, the Night Hawk thought. He stood perfectly still, wrapping himself in the darkness. It was so still in the darkness that he could hear his own breathing. His breathing felt deep and quiet to him. He felt as if his heart was strong and his senses were keen. As if he could almost taste life in its full range and richness. The bedroom door opened and a woman came in. She was maybe fifty, with red hair and angular black glasses. She’ll do, the Night Hawk thought. He felt the pressure, as if his interior were straining against the containment of his exterior. The woman was wearing tan slacks and a dark green top. She walked to the window and looked out. She was maybe two feet from him. He breathed very softly. She touched her hair, and the Night Hawk realized she wasn’t looking out; she was studying her reflected self in the dark glass.
He held his ground. Then she reached up and pulled the shade. He stayed steady, looking closely to see if the shade fully obscured the window. It didn’t quite, but it allowed only a narrow view of a corner of the room, where a table stood. He watched to be sure. But she didn’t go to the table, and after a while the lights went out. The Night Hawk shrugged and moved back down the alley toward Water Street. Before he stepped out of the alley, he tilted his cap to the back of his head and unzipped the black windbreaker so that the white T-shirt gleamed in the dim light from the streetlamps. He looked at his watch. The night is young, he said to himself, and started up Water Street like a watchman making his rounds.