“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”
Jesse waited.
After a moment, she nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s
Kenny.”
Jesse put the photograph away.
“What happened?” she said.
“Somebody shot him,” Jesse said.
“On Paradise Beach two nights
ago.”
“My God, why?”
“Don’t know.”
“Do you know who?” she said.
Jesse shook his head.
“Goldie,” Angie Aarons said. “He
must have been running with
Kenny on the beach and was there …”
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“And then he didn’t know what to do and he came home …
poor thing.”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “Do you have
any idea who might want to shoot
Kenny?”
“Jesus, no,” Angie said.
“What does he do?”
“Ah, he’s, ah, he’s a, you know,
stock guy, some big brokerage
in town.”
“Family?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know him
real well. I never saw any
family around.”
“Do you know how long he’s lived
here?” Jesse
said.
“No. He was here when I moved in three years ago.”
“From where?”
“From where did I move?”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Am I a suspect?”
“No,” Jesse said. “The question
was unofficial.”
“Really?” she said. “I came from
LA.”
“Me too,” Jesse said.
7
Jesse was eating a pastrami sandwich on light rye at his desk, when Molly brought the girl and her mother into his office just after noontime on Thursday.
“I think you need to talk with these ladies,” Molly
said.
Jesse took a swallow of Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda. He nodded.
“Excuse my lunch,” he said.
“I don’t care about your damned
lunch,” the mother said. “My
daughter’s been raped.”
“Moth-er!”
“You might want to stick
around, Molly,” Jesse
said.
Molly nodded and closed the door and leaned on the wall beside it.
“Tell me about the rape,” Jesse said.
“I didn’t get raped,” the girl
said.
“Shut up,” the mother said.
Jesse took a bite of his sandwich and chewed quietly.
“She came home from school early and tried to slip into the
house. Her dress was torn, her hair was a mess, her lip was swollen. You can still see it. She was crying and she wouldn’t tell
me why.”
Jesse nodded. He drank a little more cream soda.
“I insisted on examining her,” the mother said. “She had no
underwear, her thighs are bruised. I said I would take her to the doctor if she didn’t tell me, so she confessed.”
“That she’d been raped?” Jesse
said.
He was looking at the daughter. The daughter looked frantic to him.
“Yes.”
“Anyone do a rape kit?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you take her to the doctor,” Jesse said.
“And have it all over town, God no. I had her clean herself up
and brought her straight to you.”
“Clean herself up?”
“Of course. Who knows what germs were involved. And I’m not
bringing her in here looking like a refugee.”
“Bath?” Jesse said to the daughter.
“Shower?”
The daughter wouldn’t speak.
“I put her in a hot bath,” her mother said, “scrubbed her myself
like she was two years old.”
Peripherally, Jesse saw Molly raise her eyebrows.
“What are your names,” Jesse said.
The mother looked startled, as if Jesse had been impolite.
“I’m Mrs. Chuck Pennington. This is
Candace.”
Jesse said, “So who raped you, Candy?”
“Candace,” her mother said.
Jesse nodded.
“Candace,” he said.
Candace shook her head.
“You tell him, young lady. I will not permit anyone to rape my
daughter and think they can get away with it.”
“I won’t tell,” Candace said.
“You can’t make
me.”
“No,” Jesse said, “I
can’t. But it’s hard to protect you if I don’t know who they are.”
“You can’t protect me,” Candace
said.
“He threaten you?”
“They all did.”
“All,” her mother said, “dear
God in Heaven. You tell the chief
right now what happened.”
Candace shook her head. Her face was red. She was teary.
“If I don’t know who they are,”
Jesse said, “I can’t stop them.
They might do it again. To another girl. To you.”
Candace shook her head.
“Don’t you even want revenge,”
Molly said. “If it happened to me
I’d want revenge. I’d want them caught.”
Candace didn’t speak. Her mother slapped her on the back of her
head.
“No hitting,” Jesse said.
“Molly, why don’t you take Candace out to the conference room.”
Molly nodded. Left the wall and put her hand gently under Candace’s left arm and helped her out of the chair and through
Jesse’s office door. Jesse got up and went around to the door and
closed it and came back to his desk.
“She’s been traumatized by the
rapists,” Jesse said. “She should
not be traumatized by her mother.”
“Don’t you dare tell me how to raise my daughter.”
“I don’t know a hell of a lot about
daughters,” Jesse said. “But
I know something about rapes. She needs to see a doctor. If nothing else he might be able to give her some sedation. Who’s her gynecologist? I can call him for you.”
“Is there some kind of medical thing they can find out who did
it.”
“The hot bath tends to wash away
evidence,” Jesse
said.
“Well then, I won’t take her. The doctor may not tell, but
someone will. The nurse, the receptionist. The doctor’s husband. I
am not going to have her the subject of a lot of filthy talk all over town.”
Jesse finished his pastrami sandwich and drank the last of his cream soda and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He put the napkin and the empty can and the sandwich wrapper in the wastebasket. He rocked his chair back and rested one foot on the open bottom file drawer in his desk, and tapped his fingers gently on the flat of his stomach, and looked thoughtfully at Mrs.
Pennington.
“Why don’t I talk to her alone,”
he said.
“You think she’ll tell you things she won’t tell her own
mother?”
“Sometimes people do,” Jesse said.
Mrs. Pennington frowned. She put her palms together and tapped her upper lip with the tips of her fingers. She’s pretty good-looking, Jesse thought. A little too blond, a little too tan, a little too carefully done, maybe, teeth a little too white. Face is kind of mean, but a good body.
“This entire incident must remain
confidential,” Mrs. Pennington
said.
Jesse nodded.
“Can you promise me that?”
Jesse shook his head.
“You can’t?”
“Of course not. We don’t plan to blab about it. But, if there
are arrests, indictments, trials, someone will hear about it.”
“Oh God,” she said. “I cannot
bear, cannot bear, the
scandal.”
“Being raped is not scandalous behavior,”
Jesse
said.
“You don’t understand.”
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“I can’t discuss this any further.
I’m taking my daughter
home.”
“Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with this,” Jesse said. “Or
she will.”
“I want my daughter,” she said.
Jesse stood and went to his office door.
He yelled, “Molly,” and when she appeared he said, “Bring the
girl in.”
When she saw her daughter, Mrs. Pennington stood.