But unlike in the past, when those words would have made Petra glow with excitement and vow eternal loyalty, she began sobbing.
“What is it, lover? Don’t cry. Was it the interview?”
Petra said, “They know.”
It was all the older woman could do not to slap the girl and demand straight answers, but she knew she couldn’t play it the hard way. No, this performance had to be her best, because it was all about one thing — survival, her survival.
“It’s okay, darling.” She kissed her eyes. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this. Just tell me.”
“Jesse knows about you... not your name. I would never, ever tell him your name. I would die first, but he asked me if I knew about a female teacher at the high school being involved with the drugs.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay. As long as he doesn’t know my name and we’re sure you will never betray me. You know I would never betray you.”
“I know that. But things are... bad at home. My folks know I’ve been using and they knew I was lying when I told Jesse that I didn’t know anything about you. They pushed me to give them your name. My dad said we could use it as leverage in case the police charged me with anything, that they would drop charges against me if I could give up the teacher.”
She kissed the girl. “But you didn’t.”
“Never. I couldn’t. I love you.”
“And I love you and I have a gift for you to prove it.” She climbed off the girl, retrieved her own bag, and pulled out a vial. She placed the vial in the girl’s right palm and closed her fingers around it. “I crushed up some pills for you from my stash. Snort a line or two of the powder and you will get a jolt and everything will be better. I promise. It will make it all go away for a while.” She kissed the girl softly on the lips.
“I needed this,” Petra said. “Thank you. I’ve never snorted it before, so I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be afraid, lover. It’s easy.”
The girl began to twist open the vial.
“No, no, darling, not here. It will be too much the first time to be in public. At home, in your room first, where no one can see you. Here, this is for now.” She handed Petra a little green pill.
The girl swallowed it without hesitation. “Can we be together soon?”
“Together, yes. Very soon. I have to go.” She kissed the girl and left.
Jesse stared at the open file on his desk. He rarely felt dirty about his job. Sure, being a cop meant you sometimes had to look at people’s lives under a microscope and that you often wouldn’t like what you found there. But this was different. He wasn’t looking at just anyone under the lens, but a woman he had twice spent the night with and for whom he had a growing affection, a woman he now suspected of possibly being at the center of a high school drug ring and having seduced a teenage boy.
Molly stuck her head in. “Lundquist on line one. I have a call in to the state medical board, but they work at their own pace.” She didn’t bother waiting for Jesse to say anything and left.
Lundquist asked, “What’s up, Jesse?”
“I may have found something bigger than a drug ring at Paradise High School.”
“What’s that?”
“First, are you in good with the Narcotics Division?”
“I have some friends over there, yeah. Why?”
“I need a favor before I say for certain.”
“Okay, ask.”
“Find out how many prescriptions Drs. Rajiv Laghari and Myron Wexler have written over the last month and what they were for.” He spelled the doctors’ names for Lundquist. “Also, can you see if the Boston PD is working a Joint Narcotics Task Force? If so, are your people involved? When you come back to me with that, we’ll talk. Any progress on the Grimm homicide?”
“I’m going over to Helton later today to look at some surveillance-camera footage.”
“Keep me posted.”
Lundquist was off the line and Jesse went back to reading the file on Maryglenn.
Sixty-six
Cole walked into the stationhouse. He hadn’t been there since his first weeks in Paradise. The chip on his shoulder in those days was enormous. His misunderstanding of what had actually happened between Jesse and his mother had eaten at him for years. He had finally come to Paradise to see and take the measure of the man he thought had abandoned him and turned his back on his mother. Jesse was in the final stages of rehab when he came to town and Cole’s frustration at Jesse yet again being absent pushed him over the edge. He had twice been brought into the jail for drunk and disorderly behavior but had never been charged. That was department policy. As Jesse told his cops, he’d seen too many people’s lives ruined by getting fed into the system for no good reason. Cole didn’t know it then, but that policy had saved him. He knew it now.
“Molly,” he said, getting her attention.
Molly looked away from her computer screen. “Cole!” She stood up and came out from behind her desk. She thrust out her right hand. “I hear congratulations are in order, though there aren’t but two Staties I can stand being around. I guess you’ll be the third.”
“Thanks, Molly.” He shook her hand and smiled.
“What are you doing here?”
“Is my dad around?”
She tilted her head toward his office. “Go on in.”
“Thanks.”
Jesse was facing out the window behind his desk, his eyes not focused on anything in particular. He heard the door open and shut but didn’t turn around.
“What is it, Crane?”
“You always speak to Molly like that?”
When Jesse turned around he saw Cole standing by the door, shaking his head.
“Not always.” Jesse pointed to a chair in front of his desk. “C’mon, sit for a minute.”
Cole sat. “I haven’t been here long, but I can tell you’d be in trouble without Molly.”
“I know.”
“Does she?”
“Believe me, she does. She reminds me of it every five minutes.”
Cole smirked. “I doubt that. When you were staring out the window, what were you thinking about?”
“The drug case. Forget that. Why the visit?”
“I need to borrow your Explorer. I’ve got to go to the academy and do some final paperwork. And now, since you know about it and Daisy knows you know, I can’t really keep borrowing her car.”
Jesse threw his keys to his son.
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll see you later.”
Cole stood up, waved bye, and left.
Petra, still freaked about the cops and her parents breathing down her neck, and excited by the prospect of another night in the motel, cut her last two classes and drove home. The dose from that morning was wearing off and she was beginning to feel the sick, the kind of sick that had nothing to do with tender loving care or a nice long nap. It was the kind of sick with only a singular magical cure. And that cure was in a vial in her bag. She had been tempted to do a line in school or in her car, but she was pretty paranoid about the cops watching her and forced herself to wait. Besides, she knew that some of the sick was just worry.
Although she had the vial and had taken some pills out of the duffel bag before giving it back, the worry and fear always came with the sick. It came with it because she knew that eventually the day would come when there wouldn’t be a vial from her lover, or stolen pills or any more watches to trade, or another doctor to write a phony script. That someday she would have to turn to heroin and that she was much closer to that day than she was far away from the first time she felt the sick.
She had also come home to escape and be alone. She had put on a brave face for her lover and made promises she wanted to keep, meant to keep, but knew that she couldn’t keep forever. Petra understood she was weak and that even if she were strong, she had a soft spot. All her parents or the cops had to do was keep her away from her drugs for a few days. Petra knew if she got hungry enough for a dose she would say or do anything to get healthy. All addicts knew that about one another. Strength, bravery, and resolve could be measured by the milligram.