“She and I went out and adopted a dog for her.”
“You and she?”
“It belonged to one of the serial victims. I was trying to find
it a home.”
“Did that make her happy.”
“I don’t think it made her happy. It did give her something to
care about.”
“What would make her happy?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said.
“Maybe a couple years with a good
shrink.”
“Is that going to happen?”
“I gave her a name,” Jesse said.
“My goodness,” Rita said. “Cop
for all seasons.”
“I know a shrink,” Jesse said.
“You think she’ll see the
shrink?”
“Most people don’t,” Jesse said.
Rita nodded.
“I did,” she said, “after my
last divorce.”
“You’ve had more than one?”
Rita smiled and poured herself more champagne.
“I’ve had three,” she said.
“And after each one, I was inclined
to fall deeply in love with the next guy I dated.”
“You still do that?”
“No,” Rita said. “But it
doesn’t mean I won’t.”
“After my divorce,” Jesse said,
“I wanted to fall in love with
someone else and couldn’t.”
“You’ve only been divorced once?”
“Yes.”
“The more it happens, I think,” Rita said,
“the more desperate
you get, and the more likely you are to grab at the first loser that strolls by, which makes it more likely that this marriage will fail, too.”
“And you’ve learned not to do
that.”
“Until now,” Rita said.
Jesse drank. The cranberry and soda seemed particularly insufficient for this moment. They were silent.
Finally, Jesse said, “Me?”
“It feels like it,” Rita said.
“Another loser?”
“No,” Rita said. “You are not a
loser.”
“Thank you, but I’m not so sure.”
“Because?”
“Because Jenn,” Jesse said.
Rita put her glass down and stood, and began to unbutton her blouse. When it was unbuttoned she slid out of it. She stepped out of her shoes and unzipped her pants, and slid them down over her legs and stepped out of them. Her lingerie was ivory. So it won’t show through, Jesse thought. She unsnapped her bra, slid
out of her underpants, and stood naked in front of him. Jesse smiled.
“A real redhead,” he said.
“Or a very thorough colorist,” Rita said.
She came to the couch and sat beside Jesse and tucked her feet under her.
“So?” Rita said. “Tell me about
Jenn.”
“It’s a little hard to
concentrate,” Jesse said.
“My point exactly,” Rita said.
She shifted somehow and was in his lap, and then they were both
naked, and then, after a while they lay together on the couch with their arms around each other, waiting for their breathing to slow.
Finally, with her face next to his, Rita said, “So, tell me
about Jenn.”
“You are as good-looking a woman as I have ever met,” Jesse said
carefully. “And I’ve never had sex that I liked better.”
“Not even Jenn,” Rita said.
“She’s not better-looking than you
are,” Jesse said, “and she
doesn’t make love any better.”
“So, why her, not me?”
Jesse eased himself up a little so that his head rested on the arm of the couch. Rita adjusted so that she lay inside his right arm.
“Why her?” Rita said again.
Jesse laughed briefly and without amusement.
“God,” he said. “If I knew that,
I’d know
everything.”
“You’re sort of an addictive
personality,” Rita
said.
“Booze?” Jesse said.
“And Jenn.”
Jesse nodded slowly.
“And Jenn,” he said.
“You’ve stopped drinking,” Rita
said.
Jesse was silent, listening to his breathing, and Rita’s.
“I know,” Jesse said.
They lay still, passionless, their naked bodies touching pleasantly. Rita seemed perfectly comfortable without her clothes on.
“Maybe you can break the addiction to Jenn,” Rita
said.
“I love her,” Jesse said.
“Jesus Christ,” Rita said. “You
invoke that phrase as if you’d
discovered the double helix. Love is an emotion, like any other.
You can get over it, like you do anger or fear, or hatred.”
“I love her,” Jesse said. “If I
can be with her, I will
be.”
“So,” Rita said,
“what’s the plan? You fuck me until you can be with her?”
“Hell, Rita, I don’t have a
plan,” Jesse said. “I’m just hanging on.”
“That shrink you know,” Rita said.
“What does he say
aboutJenn?”
“He says that I do my job, that I have women I care about, who
care about me, that my life moves right along, so why do I need Jenn?”
“And your answer?”
“You won’t like it,” Jesse said.
Rita grimaced.
“‘Because I love
her’?” Rita said.
Jesse nodded.
“And you don’t love me,” Rita
said.
“Actually I do,” Jesse said.
“It’s just that I love Jenn
more.”
Rita was quiet for a time.
“If you and Jenn ever get together, why couldn’t we love each
other, too?” Rita said. “Part-time, so to speak.”
“Rita, I don’t know what’s going
to happen after I get off this
couch, let alone who I’ll be in a month or a year.”
“But it might be possible,” Rita said.
Jesse shook his head slowly.
“Maybe not,” he said.
62
The note was hand printed in big block letters with blue ink.
TO FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR SERIAL KILLER, BE AT THE FOOD COURT AT
NORTHEAST MALL AT 7 PM. THURSDAY.
ALONE!!!!!!!
The letters looked a little wavery, as if the writer were old.
“Probably printed it left-handed,” Jesse said.
“To frustrate the handwriting experts,”
Molly
said.
“Yep.”
“Is handwriting analysis really that effective?” Molly
said.
Jesse smiled and looked as if he thought it wasn’t.
“You know that mall?” Jesse said.
“I’m a suburban mother,” Molly
said. “Of course I do. Don’t
you?”
“I’m not a suburban mother,”
Jesse said. “I’ll go up there this
afternoon and scope it out.”
“You haven’t ever been there?”
“Only outside,” Jesse said.
“When I met Candace
there.”
“Hard to imagine,” Molly said.
“Do you think it’s
them?”
“Yep.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Show up,” Jesse said.
“It’s Tuesday,” Molly said.
“We have today and tomorrow to get
ready.”
“How crowded would it be on a Thursday evening,” Jesse
said.
“Quite,” Molly said.
“It’s crowded every night, and it’s time to
be buying the spring wardrobe.”
“Sure it is.”
“There are a bunch of exits from the mall,” Molly said. “Not
counting the ones that the stores use, you know for truck deliveries and stuff.”
“Be hard to cover them all.”
“I’m sure the state police will help, and the local cops will
give us some people.”
Jesse shook his head.
“Too many jurisdictions,” he said.
“I won’t be able to control
it.”
“We can coordinate through Vargas,” Molly said.
“These are smart people,” Jesse said.
“But surely they don’t think we
won’t try to catch them,” Molly
said.
“They probably like that,” Jesse said.
“They like it?”