“Right now it seems like the only thing I’m any good at,” Jesse
said.
“Pays to specialize,” Marcy said.
“And if you’re fishing for a
compliment, you are very good.”
“Thank you.”
“State police can’t help with the
surveillance?” Marcy
said.
“They’ve taken over the routine night patrols for us,” Jesse
said.
“How about the gun, they must have a gun, if they buy
bullets.”
“We test-fired it,” Jesse said.
“The gun they own didn’t fire
the bullets that killed the victims.”
“So all you can do is watch and wait?”
“Maybe something will turn up in
Cleveland.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We do have one other small something.”
“Really?”
“They came out one night after supper and took pictures of my
home.”
“You saw them?”
“I tailed them there,” Jesse said.
“Well, what on earth …”
“Don’t know,” Jesse said.
“But they seem to have an interest in me and maybe we can encourage them to develop it.”
“Interest?” Marcy said “What
kind of interest.”
“Don’t know yet, but we know that they have one.”
“Both of them, you think?”
“Two guns,” Jesse said.
“So these people have an interest in killing people, and now
they seem interested in you?”
“Is it a great country,” Jesse said,
“or what.”
Marcy took a sip of wine and stared at him for a time without swallowing. She took a deep breath in through her nose, and, finally, swallowed her wine.
“You are going to be bait,” she said.
“Careful bait,” Jesse said.
“My God, how can you be careful bait?”
“Body armor, stay alert,” Jesse said.
“Maybe we’re not in love,” Marcy
said. “But you are the dearest
friend I’ve ever had. I would be devastated if you got killed too.”
“Good to know someone would,” Jesse said.
“But I’m pretty good
at this.”
“Better than they are?”
“Maybe we’ll find out,” Jesse
said.
“If I could talk you out of it, I would,”
Marcy said. “But I
can’t.”
Jesse nodded. Marcy emptied her wineglass. Jesse took the bottle
from the ice bucket and poured her half a glass more.
“So,” she said, “my fallback
position is let’s
fuck.”
Jesse grinned at her. Her dress had buttons all the way down the
front.
“It’s important to keep my hand
in,” he said.
Marcy began to unbutton the dress.
“Or whatever,” she said.
55
Suitcase Simpson came into Jesse’s office with a thick manila
folder.
“I heard back from Cleveland,” he said.
Jesse gestured to a chair. Simpson sat down and put the folder in his lap and opened it.
Simpson said, “Anthony Lincoln was in fact a resident in
ophthalmology at Case Western Medical Center from 1985 to 1990. He married Brianna Douglass in 1988. Her address at that time was twelve twenty-one Buckeye Road, which is in Shaker Heights. Her occupation was listed as attorney.”
“Either of them have a record?”
“No.”
“Cleveland cops have unsolved serial-type killings?”
“One case, not really a clear-cut serial thing. In 1989, a
cabbie was shot in his car on Euclid Ave., presumably by a passenger, two in the back of the head. In 1990 a seventeen-year-old girl was shot at a bus stop in Parma, which is near Cleveland.”
“I know where Parma is,” Jesse said.
“Two in the chest.”
Jesse nodded.
“Both people were killed with twenty-twos.”
“Same gun?” Jesse said.
“No. Cabbie and the girl were both killed with the same two
guns, one shot each time from each gun.”
“Hello,” Jesse said.
“Then it stopped. Cleveland can’t find any connection between
the cabbie and the girl. Neighborhoods are different. They never found the gun. No clues. Nothing.”
“You got someone you’re talking to at Case Western?”
“Yeah, broad in the administration office.”
“Call her back, find out where Tony
Lincoln’s first
post-residency position was, and when he took it.”
“Roger.”
“And while you’re at it,” Jesse
said, “see if you can find out
where Tony did his undergraduate work.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Jesse said.
“Jeez,” Simpson said. “No wonder
you’re the chief and I’m just a
patrolman.”
“And get hold of the Ohio Bar
Association,” Jesse said. “Find
out whatever you can about Brianna Douglass Lincoln.”
Simpson wrote himself a note in a little yellow spiral-bound notepad that he took from his shirt pocket.
“When I go out,” he said, “and
the press asks me what’s up, does
this permit me to say we’re following up several leads?”
“It does,” Jesse said. “Call
them promising leads if you
want.”
“Yeah,” Simpson said. “Promising
leads. I like
it.”
After Simpson left, Jesse sat and looked out the window. The TV
trucks were still parked across the street. Anthony deAngelo and Eddie Cox were wasting important man-hours keeping the press at bay, and the traffic moving past the trucks. A young man with longish hair, a microphone, and a trench coat was standing in the snow on the lawn, doing a stand-up in front of the station. It seemed to Jesse that all day someone was doing a stand-up. He wondered how many people in the viewing audience were tired of seeing the front door of the Paradise Police Station.
Across the street a red Saab sedan pulled up and stopped in a space between two television trucks, with the passenger side facing the station house. The window slid silently down. Jesse got a pair of binoculars from a file drawer and focused in on the car. Brianna Lincoln was holding a camera, filming the scene. After several minutes, she put the camera down. The window slid silently up. And the Saab pulled away.
Nothing really incriminating. Half a dozen people had come
by since the circus had started, and taken pictures. Jesse rocked slowly against the spring in his swivel chair. Nobody had gone to his house and photographed him, though. Just the Lincolns. Formerly of Cleveland. Why had they taken pictures of where he lived?
The closet in Jesse’s office was located so that one had to
close the office door to open the closet. Jesse did so, and opened the closet door and took out a Kevlar vest. He hefted it, not so heavy. He slipped it on and fastened the Velcro. He put his jacket on over it and zipped up the front. It looked okay. It should work okay, too. Unless they changed their MO.
56
The three boys stood uneasily in front of Jesse’s desk.
“Miss Fiore said we was supposed to come here after school,” Bo
said.
None of the three was defiant. None of them met Jesse’s
gaze.
“You understand why you’re
here,” Jesse said.
“Community service,” Bo said.
“Which the court requires of you.”
They nodded.
“Why?” Jesse said.
“ ‘Cause of Candace,” Kevin
Feeney said.
“What about Candace?” Jesse said.
“Oh come on, man, you know.”
“Don’t call me
‘man,’” Jesse said. “All three
of you copped to
raping her. Is that right?”
Bo said, “Yes, sir.”
The other two nodded.
“So you are not some public-spirited high school kids, doing
some volunteer chores,” Jesse said. “You are three convicted
rapists.”
They all nodded.
“Just so we’re clear,” Jesse