Everything is clean and exact and just right, and it looks like
nobody lives here. Simpson looked around uneasily.
“We’ll need to talk,” Jesse
said. “This all right?”
“Of course,”
Brianna said. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“Cream and sugar. Suit?” Simpson shook his head. He was still
standing. “No coffee for me,” he said. Brianna smiled and went to
the kitchen. “Why don’t you sit there, Suit,” Jesse said, “by the
door.” Tony Lincoln was slim and tall. His hair was combed back in
a neat wave, parted on the left side, and so blond that it was almost white. He had a deep tan which, Jesse thought, meant either winter vacation or tanning lamp. It balanced well with his pale hair. His eyes were very blue and his movements were alert and graceful.
“What did you call him?” Anthony said.
Brianna returned from the kitchen.
“Coffee is brewing,” she said.
Jesse nodded and smiled at her. Then he answered Tony’s
question.
“Suit,” Jesse said. “Short for
Suitcase.”
“Harry ‘Suitcase’
Simpson,” Anthony said. “The baseball player.”
“Exactly,” Jesse said.
Tony not only knew baseball, Jesse thought, he’d remembered
Suit’s last name.
“Tony remembers every baseball player that ever lived,” Brianna
said. “And most other things, too.”
Brianna was as slim as her husband and nearly as tall, with thick black hair worn short. She was as tan as Anthony, and carefully made up. Her mouth was wide and her dark eyes were very big. She was barefooted in faded jeans and a scoop-necked white T-shirt. Her husband was wearing gray suede loafers with no socks, satin sweatpants, and a V-necked black cashmere sweater. The sleeves of the sweater were pushed up over his forearms. He smiled.
“Great game,” he said.
“It is,” Jesse said.
“Ever play?” Tony said.
“I did,” Jesse said.
“I did too,” Lincoln said. “And
I’ve never liked anything so
well again.”
“Well, excuse me,” Brianna said.
Tony smiled.
“Except you,” he said.
“You’re just saying that because you want coffee,” Brianna said,
and got up and went again to the kitchen.
Tony laughed before he turned to Jesse.
“So what can we do for you, Jesse? Okay if I call you
Jesse?”
“You bet,” Jesse said.
“Let’s wait until Mrs. Lincoln comes back.”
“Brianna,” Tony said. “Tony and
Brianna. We don’t stand on a lot
of formality here.”
Jesse nodded. He smiled to himself. Suit looked very large and uncomfortable in the fancy chair by the door. Brianna came back in with coffee on a small tea wagon. Good china. Good silver.
When they had settled back with their coffee, Jesse said,
“First, thanks for being so gracious. This is a routine investigation, we’ve cross-referenced a lot of data and now we just
have to boil it down by eliminating the people we’ve come up with.”
“Is it the killings?” Brianna said.
Even sitting across from her he could smell her perfume.
And heat, Jesse thought. I can
almost feel heat
from her.
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Jesse said.
Jesse could see Suit, by the door out of sight of the Lincolns,
staring at Jesse.
“We’re trying to run down every
twenty-two-caliber firearm owned
by a resident of Paradise.”
“Ah,” Tony said and smiled.
“That’s it.”
Jesse nodded. He took a small notebook out of his jacket pocket
and opened it.
“You appear to own a twenty-two rifle,” he said, reading from
the notebook, “Marlin model nine-nine-five, semiauto with a seven-round magazine.”
“We do,” Tony said, and grinned at Jesse,
“if you know that, you
probably know that we have a permit.”
“I do,” Jesse said. “You also
bought two boxes of twenty-two
long ammunition for it.”
“Yep, got about a box and a half left. We got a country place in
the Berkshires and when we’re out there we like to plink vermin.”
Jesse nodded.
“Do you have the gun here, Tony?” he said.
“Sure, we keep it locked up in the bedroom closet.”
“May we see it?”
“Sure, Brianna? You want to get it for us?”
“Of course,” she said and hurried out of the
room.
Jesse admired her backside, then shifted his glance to the big picture window. The ocean looked silvery blue today with the sun shining on it.
“Great view, isn’t it,” Tony
said.
“I assume you pay for it,” Jesse said.
“Oh, boy,” Tony said, “you got
that right.”
“What do you do for work,” Jesse said.
Tony smiled.
“Mostly, these days, I manage our money,”
he said. “I used to be
an ophthalmologist. Then one day I invented an ocular scanning device that became the standard for the profession.”
He smiled again.
“Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” he
said.
“And you don’t practice medicine
anymore?” Jesse
said.
“Why, do you have something in your eye?”
Jesse smiled.
“Just wondered.”
“No, I don’t practice anymore,”
Tony said.
“You miss it?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
Brianna came back into the room carrying the rifle in both hands. Jesse was aware that Simpson shifted a little in his seat by the door. Brianna gave Jesse the gun. He pointed it at the floor, released the magazine into his hand and put it on the table beside him, worked the action a couple of times, then opened the bolt and looked at the barrel.
“Nice and clean,” he said.
“Good workman takes care of his tools, right, Jesse?”
Jesse nodded.
“We’d like to borrow this for a couple of days. I’ll give you a
receipt, and test-fire it so we can cross you off the list.”
“Be pretty suspicious,” Tony said,
“if we didn’t let
you.”
“It would,” Jesse said.
“Could they make a mistake?” Tony said.
“No,” Jesse said. “This is
pretty straightforward
ballistics.”
“Okay with me,” Tony said. “You
go along with that,
Brianna?”
“Certainly.”
Jesse stood and handed the rifle to Simpson.
“Thanks,” Jesse said.
“We’ll get it back to you
promptly.”
“That’ll be fine, Jesse,” Tony
said.
He and Brianna were both on their feet.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Jesse said.
“We enjoyed the company,” Brianna said.
“Good luck with the
dreadful murders.”
“Yes,” Tony said. “And if you
come up with a case of
conjunctivitis, give me a call. You too, Suitcase.”
They shook hands and Tony walked them to the elevator.
“I hope you get the sonovabitch,” he said.
“Sooner or later,” Jesse said.
The elevator door opened, Jesse and Suit got in. Jesse punched one and the door glided shut.
43
As they drove back along Atlantic Avenue, Suitcase Simpson said
to Jesse, “We are cops, are we not?”
“We are.”
“And there’s a donut shop down here on the right past the
Catholic church, is there not?”
“And you feel that in order to certify our cop-ness we have to