Authors: Robert B. Parker
“She doesn’t want them to know.”
“Maybe they should know anyway.”
“This part of the case is mine, Jesse,” Kelly Cruz said.
“And you are going to honor her wishes.”
“I am.”
Jesse was silent.
“I’ll stay on it, and I’ll keep you informed,” Kelly Cruz said. “But I’m going to protect this kid as much as I can.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Jesse said.
“Thanks.”
Again they were both quiet.
“There’s something wrong with that man,” Kelly Cruz said.
“Mr. Plum?”
“Yes. You haven’t seen him. He’s disconnected. You think maybe it’s Alzheimer’s or something, but he socializes. He plays tennis. He’s not suffering dementia that I can see. Drinks a ton. They both do.”
“Mr. and Mrs.?”
“Yes.”
“You think she knows?”
“Yes.”
“But doesn’t know what to do?”
“That’s my guess,” Kelly Cruz said. “She said to me the other day that they had been gutted by wealth. Her phrase,
gutted.
”
“Money doesn’t ruin people,” Jesse said. “They ruin themselves. Money just helps them to spread the ruination around.”
“I never had money,” Kelly Cruz said.
“Me either, but I’ve seen it in action.”
The soundless energy of the open phone line lingered between them as they sat silently for a long moment.
“You stay on it,” Jesse said.
“I will,” Kelly Cruz said.
“I thought it couldn’t get worse,” Jesse said.
“And now it has,” Kelly Cruz said.
“Big time,” Jesse said.
50
Y
our problem,” Dix said, “is you’re scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of the relationship. You were burned pretty badly, and now you are leery.”
“Once burned,” Jesse said.
“What’s your biggest fear in the relationship?”
“I’ll fuck up again, and lose her again.”
Dix smiled.
“And if she fucks up?” he said.
Jesse frowned.
“Molly said almost the same thing,” Jesse said. “For free.”
“What did Molly say?”
“She said maybe the breakup was Jenn’s fault.”
Dix nodded.
“Was it?” Dix said.
“I guess in any breakup there’s two people at fault.”
“That sounds good,” Dix said. “Do you believe it? Viscerally?”
“No. I‘m pretty sure I drove her away.”
Dix nodded and leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. Then he looked at Jesse.
“You are co-opting the responsibility,” Dix said. “Bad things happen. If it’s your fault, then you can hope to prevent it in the future by not making the same mistake again. But if it is her fault, wholly, or partly, then you can’t prevent it. You have to depend on her, wholly, or partly, to prevent it.”
Jesse didn’t say anything for a time. Dix waited. Jesse nodded to himself. Dix was right.
“It’s about control,” he said.
“You could think of it that way.”
“And trust.”
“If warranted,” Dix said.
“And the sexualization stuff?” Jesse said. “That would be part of the control thing?”
Dix sighed.
“I think that’s a paper tiger,” Dix said. “I think you’ve clung to it as a way of keeping the responsibility. If you are ever-alert, and don’t sexualize the relationship, then you won’t lose her.”
“So why we been talking about it?”
“I think you will be able to better integrate her past sexual indiscretions into your life,” Dix said, “if you spend less time thinking about her in exclusively sexual terms. It might bring you some peace. But I doubt that it was the cause of the breakup, or would cause one now. What you describe is mostly a healthy libido.”
“It is?”
“Sure,” Dix said, “and your fears have been exacerbated by the case you’re working on in which control and loveless sexual objectification is rampant.”
“And that’s why the case matters so much.”
“Probably,” Dix said.
“So how do we fix this?”
“You stop being the way you are,” Dix said.
“Like that?”
“Sure, like that. You think this is voodoo? If you’re doing something self-destructive, sooner or later you have to decide to stop.”
“So what the hell do you do?” Jesse said.
“I help get you to where you can stop.”
“And you think I’m there?”
“Hell, yes,” Dix said. “You are a tough guy. You can do what you decide you have to do. You’ll either trust Jenn, or accept that you don’t, and see what that brings.”
Jesse nodded.
“So all you’ve done is get me ready,” he said.
Dix smiled at him.
“Readiness is all,” he said.
51
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wo uniformed state troopers, one of them female, brought the Plum sisters into Jesse’s office. Molly followed them in.
“Captain says we should wait for instructions from you,” the male trooper said.
“What’s your name?” Jesse said to the female trooper.
“Maura Quinlin.”
“Maura, stick around here. Your partner can go.”
“I’ll be in the cruiser,” the male trooper said.
He left.
“Sit,” Jesse said, “please.”
The sisters sat. Molly closed the office door and took a chair behind them. Trooper Quinlin sat beside her.
“Thanks for coming in,” Jesse said.
“It was kind of cool,” Corliss said.
“Riding in the police car and everything,” Claudia said.
Jesse nodded.
“And the state police guy is a real skunk,” Corliss said.
“That like being a real fox?” Jesse said.
“Sure,” Claudia said.
“People your age would probably call him a hunk,” Corliss said.
Jesse nodded, looking at them. Corliss, it seemed to him, was usually the lead speaker. She’d say something and Claudia would follow up. He pointed at Corliss.
“Maura,” he said to the female trooper, “take Corliss into the squad room and sit with her.”
“What?” Corliss said.
“I have some heavy things to discuss,” Jesse said. “With your sister.”
“We always stay together,” Corliss said.
“It won’t be long,” Jesse said. “Maura?”
Trooper Quinlin stood and put a hand under Corliss’s right arm and helped her up.
“We always stay together,” Claudia said.
“Not this time,” Jesse said.
He nodded at Quinlin, who turned Corliss gently and walked her out of the office. Molly got up and closed the door behind them, and sat back down behind Claudia. Jesse looked at Claudia without speaking. Claudia smiled very brightly.
“We’re twins, you know, we don’t like to be separated,” she said.
Jesse continued to look silently at Claudia.
“Did your father sexually molest you?” Jesse said.
Claudia stared at him. “What?”
“Did your father sexually molest you,” Jesse said.
Claudia looked around the room as if Corliss might suddenly appear and answer the question. Jesse waited. Claudia stopped looking around and looked at him and opened her mouth and said nothing. Jesse waited. Claudia looked over her shoulder at Molly. Molly smiled at her but didn’t speak.
“That’s terrible,” Claudia said finally.
“It is,” Jesse said. “Did he molest you together or separately?”
Claudia shook her head.
“Did he molest all three of you together?”
“Three?”
“Florence, you and Corliss.”
“Stop asking me that,” Claudia said.
She began to cry. Jesse sat quietly and watched her. Behind Claudia, Molly sat looking at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. After a time Jesse took a box of Kleenex from a desk drawer and put it in front of Claudia, on the edge of his desk, where she could reach it.
“Let me define what I mean by molest,” Jesse said. “So there won’t be any confusion.”
Claudia took one of the Kleenex and dabbed at her eyes.
“Did he touch you in a sexual way? Did he penetrate you?”
Claudia bent forward double and put her hands over her ears and began to moan. Jesse watched her quietly.
“For God’s sake, Jesse,” Molly said. “Leave the poor child alone.”
“I need answers,” Jesse said.
“Well, there are other ways,” Molly said. “If you don’t stop traumatizing her, I’ll file a report with the selectmen.”
Jesse grunted. He stood without a word and went out of the office. As he closed the door behind him he saw Molly get up and put her arm around Claudia’s shoulder. Jesse smiled to himself. Then he went down into the squad room and closed the door.
Corliss and Maura Quinlin were sitting silently at the table. He sat down across from Corliss.
“Well,” he said, “the truth is out.”
“Excuse me?”
“About your father molesting you,” Jesse said.
“Oh…my…God,” Corliss said.
52
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he report to the selectmen line was inspired,” Jesse said to Molly.
“I thought so,” Molly said. “Made me look like really good cop at the same time it made you look like really bad cop.”
“And cowardly,” Jesse said.
Molly smiled faintly.
“You did scoot,” Molly said, “as soon as you heard it.”
They were quiet. Outside Jesse’s window the early evening was starting to darken.
“I need a drink,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded. He reached into the file cabinet where he kept it and brought out the bottle of Bushmill’s. He poured some in a water glass and handed it to Molly.
“What are you going to tell your husband when you come staggering home with booze on your breath.”
“I’ll tell him I had to do some really pukey police work today,” Molly said. “And I’ll try not to stagger.”
Molly drank from the glass and swallowed and put her head back and closed her eyes. She took a long breath. Jesse went to the refrigerator in the squad room and got a Coke and brought it back. Molly was still breathing deeply, with her eyes closed.
“What I hated the most,” Molly said, “was the way they kept calling him Daddy and saying how he loved them.”
“A way to keep it from killing them,” Jesse said. “Thinking it’s just Daddy loving you.”
“How could anyone think that?”
“You think what you have to,” Jesse said.
Molly sipped her whiskey.
“I wonder if Florence still thought her daddy loved her?”
Jesse shrugged.
“And if Daddy loved them so much,” Molly said, “why did they have to bop everybody else they could find?”
“Looking for love?” Jesse said.
“That’s love?”
“The only definition they had,” Jesse said.
Molly sipped some whiskey.
“So,” Molly said, “why wasn’t Daddy enough?”
“Daddy was married,” Jesse said.
“Jesus Christ,” Molly said. “Oedipus?”
Jesse shrugged.
“I’m just talking,” he said. “I don’t know enough about it.”
“The thought of sex with one of my children…” Molly shook her head. “I can’t even think about it. It makes me numb even to try.”
Jesse didn’t speak.
“We had to know,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded slowly. Molly drank again. The glass was empty. Jesse poured her a little more.
“But making them face it,” Molly said. “It was…” She looked for a word. “Nauseating.”
“We made them admit it,” Jesse said. “They’re a long way from facing it.”
“You know the worst part?” Molly said.
She was staring down into her glass, looking at the caramel surface of the whiskey.
“When we brought them back together,” Molly said. “And the fucking truth was sitting here in the room like some kind of ugly fucking toad and we’re all staring at it, and they’re both crying and saying, ‘Don’t tell Daddy. Don’t tell Daddy.’”
Jesse nodded. Molly drank more of her whiskey.
“Daddy, for God’s sake,” Molly said. “Daddy.”
“Daddy already knows,” Jesse said.
“He doesn’t know we know,” Molly said.
“That’s true,” Jesse said.
“Like they’ve been bad little girls, telling on Daddy, tattletales,” Molly said and drank. “Tattletales.”
Jesse didn’t speak. He had nothing to say in the face of Molly’s overpowering maternity. He listened.
“And what about them now?” Molly said. “Back in the hotel after the day they spent with us? What happens to them?”
“They don’t know anything they didn’t know before,” Jesse said.
“So what do they do?”
“My guess?” Jesse said. “Do some coke. Do some booze. Get laid. Giggle some.”
Molly stared at him.
“God.”
Jesse shrugged.
“That’s how they’ve coped until now,” he said.
“Jesse, these are twenty-year-old kids. They’re five years older than my daughter.”
“And they are depraved, stupid, careless, amoral people,” Jesse said.
“They are victims.”
“That may be,” Jesse said. “But sympathizing with them is not my business. My business is catching the person who killed their sister.”
“So why did you have to dig up all this awfulness?” Molly said.
“It was there,” Jesse said. “I needed to know about it.”
Molly held out her glass.
“One more,” she said. “Then I’ll go home and take a bath.”
Molly wasn’t a drinker. She was starting to slur her words. Jesse poured her another drink. She took a sip and looked at him over the glass. Her eyes had a sort of softness about them, the way Jenn’s got if she drank too much.
“You are so nice,” Molly said. “So often. And then…you are such a cynical, hard bastard.”
“Nice guys finish last,” Jesse said.
“Somebody said that.”
“Leo Durocher.”
“You know you don’t believe it.”
“Hell,” Jesse said. “I’ve proved it.”
Molly didn’t say anything else. She sat quietly and finished her third drink. Jesse sipped his Coke.
When Molly’s drink was gone, Jesse said, “Come on, hon, I’ll drive you home.”
“I can drive myself,” she said.
“No,” Jesse said. “You can’t.”
53
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ita Fiore’s office offered a long view of the South Shore.