“I did. Anthony deAngelo didn’t.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I should have had more cops on the
scene,” Jesse
said.
“Tell me about that,” Dix said.
“I could have had state police support. I chose not to. I wanted
to do it ourselves.”
“Because they had done their crimes in your town?”
“Because they had killed Abby Taylor.”
Dix nodded.
“I took it personally,” Jesse said.
“You’re a person,” Dix said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it is impossible not to take things, at some level,
personally.”
“So what about professional?” Jesse said.
“Things exist simultaneously,” Dix said.
“Meaning I can take it personally and be professional?”
“Meaning you need to be two contradictory things at the same
time.”
Jesse sat quietly.
Then he said, “You know about that.”
“Of course.”
“It’s what you have to deal
with.”
“What do you think all the rigmarole of psychotherapy is
about.”
“You have to care about your patient,”
Jesse said. “But you
can’t let the caring interfere with your treatment.”
Dix made a movement with his head that might have been a nod.
Jesse was quiet again.
“You know the kid that got raped?” he said after a
while.
Dix did the head movement again.
“She’s gone. The family put the house up for sale and moved
away.”
“Do you know why they moved?” Dix said.
“I assume it was too tough on her in school. You know what kids
are like.”
Dix smiled faintly and waited.
“I couldn’t save her,” Jesse
said.
“Why would you think you could? You did what you are able to do.
You caught her rapists and brought them to justice.”
“Yeah. A few months swabbing floors after school in the police
station.”
“That’s the justice that was
available,” Dix said. “You couldn’t
prevent her rape. You can’t prevent her peers from alluding to
it.”
Jesse looked past Dix out the window. It was a fresh bright day,
intensified by the new snow.
“It seems to me that nobody can protect anybody.”
“Risk can be reduced,” Dix said.
“But not eliminated.”
Dix was quiet, waiting. Jesse said nothing, still looking out the window.
“There’s a point,” Dix said
after a while, “where security and
freedom begin to clash.”
At midday the sun was strong enough to melt the snow where it lay on dark surfaces. The tree limbs had begun to drip. Jesse turned his gaze back onto Dix.
“You’re not just talking about police work,” Jesse
said.
Dix tilted his head a little and said nothing. The rigmarole
of psychotherapy.
“People need to live the life they want to live,” Jesse said.
“They can’t live it the way somebody else wants them
to.”
Dix smiled and raised his eyebrows.
“Everybody knows that,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded.
“And few people actually believe it,”
Jesse said.
“There’s often a gap between what we know and what we do,” Dix
said.
“Let me write that down,” Jesse said.
“Psychotherapy is not snake dancing,” Dix said. “Mainly it’s
just trying to close the gap.”
Jesse’s lungs seemed to expand and take in deeper breaths of
air.
“Jenn,” he said.
Dix looked noncommittal.
73
When Jesse came into the station Molly was making coffee.
“Hertz says the Volvo got turned in at the Toronto airport,” she
said.
“Nice to know we can trust them,” Jesse said.
Molly poured water into the green Mr. Coffee machine.
“And,” Molly said, “nobody who
flies out of Toronto has any
reservations for Arlington Lamont.”
“They could just show up and buy a ticket.”
“Doesn’t seem like their style,”
Molly said. “They reserved the
rental ahead of time. They think they’re safe.”
“Did they rent another car?”
“Not from Hertz,” Molly said.
“Call the other rental companies and check,” Jesse
said.
“Soon as I make us coffee,” Molly said.
She spooned ground coffee into the filter.
“I will also expect the department to pay all medical bills
related to getting concrete information in a human voice from twenty-three airlines,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded.
“Beyond the call of duty,” Jesse said.
“I’m sure we can do
something for you.”
“Suit’s in a car today, seven to three, but he says tell you
that he’s talked with San Mateo and the only thing they could tell
him was that, according to the 1993 telephone directory, Arlington Lamont lived there. And by 1996 he didn’t.”
“Any unsolved homicides?” Jesse said.
“Suit asked them that. They said they’d get back to
him.”
“He talk to San Francisco?”
“Yes. They have nothing.”
“Do me one other favor?” he said.
“Maybe,” Molly said.
“Let me know when the coffee’s
done,” Jesse said.
“Better than that,” Molly said.
“I’ll bring you
some.”
“Thank you,” Jesse said.
“I’m sucking up to you,” Molly
said. “‘Cause you’re the
chief.”
“Good a reason as any,” Jesse said and went into his
office.
He sat at his desk and put his feet up and looked out the window
at the relentless cluster of media. It was about a ten-hour drive to Toronto if you went out the thruway and crossed near Buffalo.
They could have gone up 81 through Watertown, about the same distance. He’d check with customs. But the border was an easy one,
and an attractive couple driving a Volvo wagon wasn’t too likely to
be questioned. There were 2.3 million people in Toronto. It wasn’t
exactly like having them cornered. Jesse tapped the desktop with his fingertips. Molly came in with two cups of coffee.
“Two?” Jesse said.
“One for you,” she said. “One
for Captain Healy.”
Jesse glanced past Molly toward the doorway.
“I saw him parking outside,” Molly said.
“I figured he wasn’t
coming to see me.”
She put one cup down in front of Jesse, and one cup on the edge
of the desk near the guest chair, and went back to the front desk.
In about thirty seconds Healy came in.
Jesse pointed at the second cup.
“Coffee,” he said.
Healy hung his coat on a rack in the corner, sat down, and picked up the coffee.
“You run a hell of a department,” he said.
Jesse nodded. They both sipped some coffee. When he had swallowed and put his cup down, Healy said, “Mr. and Mrs.
Arlington
Lamont reserved a room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto and guaranteed it with their American Express card.”
“They check in?”
“Yep.”
“They there now?” Jesse said.
“Nope,” Healy said.
He grinned.
“Toronto cops went there a half hour ago and picked them up,” he
said.
Jesse had the same feeling he’d had with Dix. His chest
expanded. He pulled in a large amount of clean air. He exhaled slowly through his nose. Then he reached across the desk and put his clenched fist out toward Healy. Healy tapped it with his own.
“I think I’ll go up,” Jesse
said. “See how they’re
doing.”
74
Mr and Mrs. Lamont were being held at Division 52 on the west end of Dundas Street, near the lake. Jesse stood outside an interview room with a sergeant of detectives named Gordon. There was a one-way glass window. Behind it Jesse could see the Lamonts sitting at one side of a table, holding hands. There was a uniformed Toronto policeman with them, leaning on the wall.