talking on the phone. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, holding the other three fingers straight.
“Does that translate to ‘I’ve
ID’d the three boys’?” Jesse
said.
Molly nodded.
“When you get a break on the desk,” Jesse said, “come see
me.”
Then he went on into the office and closed the door and called Marcy Campbell.
“You free tonight?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Can you come over to my place?”
“I’d be foolish not to,” Marcy
said.
“We can order in,” Jesse said.
“Chinese?” Marcy said. “You know
how erotic I get when I eat
Chinese.”
“Or when you don’t,” Jesse said.
Molly knocked and came into the office and lingered politely by
the door until Jesse hung up. Then she sat in the chair across from him, adjusted her handgun so it didn’t dig into her lower back, and
looked down at her notebook.
“Bo Marino, Kevin Feeney, Troy Drake,” she said.
“The three boys you saw hassle Candace.”
“Yes.”
“Got anything more?”
“Not yet.”
“You got a plan?” Jesse said.
“I’m going to haunt them,” Molly
said.
“You do have to work here sometimes,”
Jesse said.
“My time,” Molly said.
“Company time too,” Jesse said,
“when we can spare you. It is
company business.”
“It’s woman’s business,
too,” Molly said.
“I understand that.”
“I’m not sure you do,” Molly
said. “I’m not sure any man
does.”
“I don’t like rape much either,”
Jesse said.
“No. I’m sure you don’t. But you
haven’t lived with it since
before you even knew what it was.”
“Because it’s the worst thing that can happen?”
“No,” Molly said. “There are
several things worse. It’s one
reason women submit to it, it’s better than the alternative.”
“Like death,” Jesse said.
“Or torture or both. But rape is the thing your mother was
scared of. It’s the possibility that you have not only known but
felt, since little boys peeked up your dress.”
“You knew we did that?” Jesse said.
“Any woman has always known she is the object of sexual interest
from almost any man, and that almost any man, if he chooses, can force himself sexually upon her.”
“You ever been raped?” Jesse said.
“No. But almost any woman has had more sexual attention from
some man than she wanted. We all know about duress.”
“Not all of us are, ah, duressful,” Jesse said.
“No. But you know what they say - you have to judge what the
enemy can do, not what he might do.”
“Are we all the enemy?”
“Oh, God, no,” Molly said. “I
love you, Jesse … And my
husband …” She paused. “He’s
my best friend, my lover, my
…” She shook her head. “But there are things women know that
men may never know.”
“Which is why you’re all over this rape case like ugly on a
toad.”
“Yes.”
“Men may know things women
don’t,” Jesse said.
“I’m sure that is so. But rape is one of the things we know,”
Molly said.
Jesse nodded. “Control might become sort of an issue for some
women,” Jesse said.
“If they are with a controlling man,”
Molly said.
“You do a lot of thinking,” Jesse said.
“For an Irish Catholic
cop.”
“An Irish Catholic married female mother of three kids
small-town cop,” Molly said.
“Exactly,” Jesse said.
“So,” Molly said, “I’m
going to haunt them.”
“Just do everything right,” Jesse said,
“so if they did do it,
we don’t lose them.”
“I know.”
“And don’t forget that these may be high school kids but they
are bigger and stronger than you are.”
“It’s a thing women never, ever
forget,” Molly
said.
“Duh,” Jesse said. “I guess
that’s pretty much what you’ve been
telling me.”
“Pretty much,” Molly said, and smiled at him. “Don’t get
nervous, though. I won’t keep telling you.”
15
The woman’s body lay on its side, at the far end of the parking
lot in the Paradise Mall. Her head was jammed against the rear tire of a silver Volvo Cross Country wagon. A shopping cart full of groceries stood nose-in against the black Audi sedan next to the Volvo. Jesse sat on his heels beside Peter Perkins and looked at her.
“Two in the chest,” Perkins said.
“Look like small-caliber to
me.”
“Just like Kenneth Eisley,” Jesse said.
“At first look,” Perkins said.
“Keys were in her hand,” Jesse said.
“And she dropped them when
she was shot.”
“She probably popped the rear gate with the remote on her key
chain,” Perkins said. “Rear gate is unlatched but not
open.”
Jesse looked at the unemptied shopping cart. Behind them several
people, attracted by the blue lights on the patrol cars, stood in silence, held away from the crime scene by Simpson and deAngelo. In the distance a siren sounded.
“That’ll be the EMTs,” Perkins
said.
“She doesn’t need them anymore.”
“No,” Perkins said. “But they
can haul her away.”
Jesse nodded.
“So,” he said. “She food shops
in the market. And checks out and
wheels her cart out here … This her car?”
“I assume so.”
“Try her keys,” Jesse said.
Wearing gloves, Perkins picked up the key chain and pointed the
remote at the Volvo and clicked the power lock. The lights flashed and the door locks clicked. He unlocked the doors the same way, then dropped the keys into an evidence bag and made a notation on the label.
“Okay, so she comes out here to her car
…” He looked
around the parking lot. “Which is way out here because the lot is
full.”
“Friday night,” Perkins said.
“It’s always like this on a Friday
night?”
“Yeah. Worse before a holiday.”
“She pops her rear door,” Jesse said,
“to put her stuff away,
and gets two in the chest. She maybe lived five more seconds and turned half away before she died, and fell, and her head jammed up that way against the rear tire.”
Perkins nodded.
“That’s how I’d read
it,” he said.
The mercury floods in the parking lot gave everything a faint bluish tinge. In other parts of the lot cars were looking for spots and waiting for people to load their groceries and pull out so that they could pull in. If they saw the blue lights they didn’t react,
and having places to go, went.
The Paradise emergency response wagon rolled in to a stop and Duke Vincent got out. He knelt beside the woman and felt for a pulse. He knew, as they all knew, that he wouldn’t find one.
But it
was routine. It would be embarrassing to take a living body to the morgue.
“Can we move her yet?” he said to Jesse.
Jesse looked at Perkins. “You all set?” he said.
“Yeah, I’ve chalked the outline.”
“Okay, Dukie,” Jesse said.
“She got a name?” Duke said as they loaded her into the back of
the wagon.
“Driver’s license says Barbara
Carey.”
Vincent nodded. “You noticed she got shot just like the guy on
the beach,” he said.
“I noticed,” Jesse said.
“Just thought I’d mention it,”
Duke said, and got in the wagon
and drove away.
The people gathered to watch began to drift away. Suitcase Simpson came over to stand with Jesse and Peter Perkins.