“Yeah, I thought it might be,” Jesse said. “Thanks for the iced tea.”
He stood and walked through the open French doors, through the dining room, and out of the Yacht Club.
38.
Jesse stood with Jenn and Nina Pinero at the foot of the long, sloping lawn of the Crowne estate. At the top of the slope the children sat on the floor of the big front porch while one of the two teachers read them a book.
“Kids know about the murder?” Jesse said.
“Vaguely,” Nina said.
“Press?” Jesse said.
“We’ve been able to keep them away pretty well.” She looked at Jenn. “Until now.”
“I’m Jenn Stone,” Jenn said, “Channel Three News.”
“Stone?” Nina said. “Any relation?”
“We used to be married,” Jesse said.
“Does that give her special status?” Nina said.
“Yes,” Jesse said. “It does.”
“I won’t bother the children,” Jenn said. “I’m just gathering background for a larger story I’m working on.”
“Didn’t you used to do weather?” Nina said.
Jenn grinned at her.
“Sure did. Want some information on cold fronts and high-pressure systems?”
Nina smiled.
“No,” she said. “I very much don’t.”
“No one seems to,” Jenn said. “Except program directors and station managers.”
“I would prefer you not talk to the children,” Nina said.
“No need,” Jenn said. “I have a lot of film from the first day they arrived.”
“Nina,” Jesse said. “Do I recall you saying that one of these Crowne estate kids had a brother in the Horn Street Boys?”
Nina looked at Jenn.
“This conversation is off the record,” Nina said.
“Of course,” Jenn said.
“Yes,” Nina said to Jesse, “there’s a brother.”
“What’s his name?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“The Horn Street Boys have a connection to the victim,” Jesse said, “and a connection to the school. And the victim was found on school grounds.”
“You think the Horn Street Boys are involved?”
“I only know what I told you,” Jesse said. “I don’t even have a theory yet.”
“I won’t give you a name,” Nina said. “I shouldn’t have even mentioned the brother.”
“Why?” Jenn said.
“Improving life for these kids is so fragile a proposition,” she said. “Anything can ruin us.”
“Like having the head person in this program rat one of their brothers to the cops,” Jesse said.
“Just like that,” Nina said.
“But since you know of the relationship, the two boys must have some regular contact,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“So it’s possible,” Jesse said, “that the Horn Street Boys know abut the Crowne estate project and maybe even about the local opposition.”
“Yes.”
“You think they were making a statement?” Jenn said.
“I have no idea,” Nina said.
“We’re not the enemy,” Jenn said. “We’re just trying to help.”
“That may be true,” Nina said. “But what I said is also true. I don’t know anything more about the Horn Street Boys than what I’ve told you.”
Jesse said, “Thank you, Nina,” and turned and walked toward his car. Jenn lingered a moment, and then said, “Thank you,” and followed Jesse.
“That wasn’t very productive,” Jenn said, as they drove back across the causeway.
“I had to confirm what was a very passing remark, make sure I heard it right, so I’m not wasting time with a theory that isn’t so.”
“Meticulous,” Jenn said.
“It’s mostly what the work is about,” Jesse said. “Keeping track of stuff.”
“I wonder why people like Nina are so hostile to the media,” Jenn said.
“You and Nina have different goals,” Jesse said. “Even in the best case, you are trying to get at the truth. She is trying to salvage a few kids.”
“Are the two incompatible?” Jenn said.
“Sometimes, yes,” Jesse said. “Sometimes, no. People like Nina are intensely aware of the incompatible possibility.”
“You said ‘best case.’ What’s a worse case?”
“That your goal is not truth but advertising revenue,” Jesse said.
Jenn smiled.
“Oh,” she said. “That.”
39.
They were sitting on a bench by the marina five blocks from Horn Street, looking at the boats, sharing a can of Pepsi and a joint.
“You know how to get to Florida?” Esteban said.
“Florida?” Amber said.
“I’m supposed to take you to Florida,” Esteban said. “And I don’t know where it is.”
“What do you mean?” Amber said.
“Your old man’s giving me ten thousand dollars to bring you down.”
“I don’t want to go to Florida.”
“It’s ten thousand dollars, baby,” Esteban said.
“You gonna sell me to my father?” she said.
“No, no. I just bring you down, turn you over, he gives me the ten grand. I wait around a couple days. You run away and we come back up here. How long’s it take to get to Florida?”
“I won’t go,” she said.
“Yeah, baby, you will,” Esteban said. “Up front beside me, or in the trunk, either way you gonna go. Ten thousand dollars’s a lot of money.”
She looked at him in silence for a moment. Then she began to cry.
“Hey,” Esteban said. “Hey, hey. This is for us, baby. You spend a couple fucking days with the old man, and we’re outta there with the money.”
Amber stood and ran. Esteban went after her, out along Marshport Way along the water. A hundred yards up from the marina was a red light. A half-painted, half-primed pickup truck that might once have been blue was stopped at the light. The back was full of loose copper pipe. Amber reached it as the light turned green and as the car started to move Amber stepped up onto the running board and hooked her arm through the window.
A big guy in a black tank top and a do-rag sat in the passenger seat. He had a thick gold chain around his neck.
“What the fuck are you doing,” he said.
“Somebody’s after me,” she said. “Keep going.”
The driver was a wiry kid with longish blond hair, tattoos on both forearms, and the scruffy beginnings of a beard.
“Keep going, hell,” he said. “Whyn’t we stop and clean his clock?”
“No, please, keep going,” Amber said.
The driver looked in the rearview mirror.
“Hell,” he said. “He’s given up anyway. Lemme stop and you can get in.”
She rode in the front seat between them, still crying.
“What’s going on?” the big guy asked.
“I can’t tell you,” Amber said.
The big guy shrugged.
“Where you want to go?” the big guy said. “Want us to take you to the cops?”
“No,” she said. “I…I want to go to Paradise.”
“You want to take her to Paradise?” the big guy said to the driver.
“Sure,” the driver said. “Better than running copper pipe all day.”
40.
Crow came into the Paradise police station with Amber.
“Where the hell did you get her?” Molly said.
“She called me,” Crow said. “From the shopping center.”
“Paradise Mall?” Molly said.
Crow nodded.
“How’d she have your number?” Molly said.
“I gave it to her,” Crow said. “When you cut her loose.”
Molly looked at him for a moment and shook her head, and then looked at Amber.
Amber’s eye makeup was ruined again by crying. She wore lace-up black boots, and black jeans that had been cut off very short, and a tank top with some kind of heavy-metal logo that Molly didn’t recognize.
“How ya doing, Amber?”
Amber shook her head, looking down at the floor.
“He was going to make me go back to my father,” she said.