Jesse sighed. He looked at Kelly. Kelly shrugged.
“Easy or hard,” Kelly said. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
“What do you mean?” Pollinger said.
He looked at Jesse.
“What does he mean by that?”
Jesse didn’t answer for a time, letting the question hang in the quiet.
“Here’s what I think,” Jesse said finally. “I think that the girl, who is almost certainly underage, came here to have sex with you. I assume for money.”
“Could be charm,” Kelly said. “He’s very charming.”
“I don’t think he’s charming,” Jesse said.
Kelly shrugged. “No accounting for taste,” he said.
“And,” Jesse said to Pollinger, “I bet it’s not the first time. And I bet if we start asking all your neighbors, and everybody where you work, if you are having paid sex with underage girls, sooner or later I bet we’ll prove it.”
“No,” Pollinger said.
Kelly pulled a straight-backed chrome chair from the dining table and pushed it toward Pollinger.
“You wanna sit down?” he said.
Pollinger sat.
“I don’t want you asking around about me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“So tell us about the girl?” Jesse said.
“Maybe I should have a lawyer,” Pollinger said.
“If you think you need one,” Jesse said.
“No… I… if I tell you, will you leave me alone?”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“I’m a financial manager,” Pollinger said. “I have fiscal responsibility. I can’t…”
“Mum’s the word,” Kelly said.
“Her name’s Dawn,” Pollinger said. “I don’t think she’s underage.”
“And I know you would care,” Jesse said. “What’s her last name?”
“I don’t know. But I have a phone number.”
“Garner’s?”
“No.”
Pollinger stood and went to a sideboard and took a piece of notepaper from a drawer. He handed it to Jesse. There was a phone number written on it in black ink. The hand was childish. The zero had a smiley face.
“I don’t think she was supposed to give it to me,” Pollinger said. “She made me promise not to tell Alan.”
“Cut out the middle man,” Kelly said. “Enterprising girl.”
“You get other girls from Alan?” Jesse said.
Pollinger nodded. He was looking hard at the texture of his subtle gray wall-to-wall carpeting.
“They all teenyboppers?” Kelly said.
“They are young women,” Pollinger said.
“I’ll bet,” Kelly said.
“Ever spend time in Paradise?” Jesse said.
“I’ve been up there. They have a nice restaurant on the town wharf.”
Jesse nodded.
“Ever know a girl named Billie Bishop?” he said.
“There was a girl named Billie,” Pollinger said. “Nice girl. They’re not really whores.”
“Of course they’re not,” Kelly said. “Except that they fuck for money.”
Pollinger didn’t look up from the carpet.
“Where were you, the beginning of July?”
“July?”
“Yeah. First week, after the Fourth?”
“I was in London. We went on a theater tour.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Yes. It was a package, Worldwide Theater Tours. They would have a record.”
“We’ll check,” Kelly said.
“Why? Why does it matter?”
“Just routine inquiry,” Jesse said. “You know any of Billie’s other clients?”
“No.”
“She never mentioned any, even in passing?”
“No. She was, we were, ah, very businesslike.”
“Wham bam, thank you ma’am,” Kelly said.
“No. It wasn’t like that. They are very nice girls. It’s just that we only talked about… each other.”
“You romantic fool,” Kelly said.
Chapter Forty-seven
“I ran into Mrs. Snyder at Stop & Shop,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded. He was rocked back in his swivel chair drinking coffee. The air-conditioning hummed quietly.
“She told me she’s getting divorced.”
“Husband still beating on her?” Jesse said.
“No. That’s the funny thing. She said he hadn’t touched her since the time you and he talked.”
“So?”
Molly smiled.
“She didn’t quite put it this way,” Molly said. “But it sounds like all those years he was punching her around, she used to think if he’d only stop we could be happy. And then he stopped. And she found out she still didn’t like him.”
“Can’t win ‘em all,” Jesse said.
“She might have won this one,” Molly said.
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Maybe she did.”
“You have anything to do with it?”
“With what?”
“With him not hitting her anymore.”
Jesse shrugged.
“You had a talk with him, didn’t you,” Molly said.
Jesse smiled.
“Nothing official,” he said.
“And, let me guess,” Molly said. “You told him if he ever touched her unkindly again you would do something really scary to him.”
“I’m the chief of police in this town, Moll. I can’t go around threatening the very citizens I’m sworn to protect.”
“Of course you can’t,” Molly said. “Cop named Kelly called from Boston. Said he had an address for that phone number, if you want to go visit.”
“Good.”
“Suit still on surveillance in Boston?” Molly said.
“No.”
“Good,” Molly said. “It’s been mucking up the vacation schedules.”
“It has,” Jesse said.
“This call from Kelly, is it about Billie?”
“I hope so.”
“You getting anywhere?”
“I think so.”
“We got an official suspect yet?”
“No.”
“Are we planning not to talk about it,” Molly said, “until we know what we’re talking about?”
“It’s an approach I’m experimenting with,” Jesse said. “I’m going into Boston. I’ll be gone most of the day. We got any police business to talk about before I go?”
“We might want to talk about how come I mostly run the department and you get the chief’s salary.”
“Sexism,” Jesse said, “would be my guess.”
Molly smiled and left the office. Jesse finished his coffee and phoned Kelly.
“It’s an address in Brighton,” Kelly said. “I’ll meet you in front of the new Star Market in the shopping center on Western Ave.”
“An hour,” Jesse said.
Chapter Forty-eight
They were in Kelly’s car, in front of a gray three-decker in Brighton.
“Pollinger’s alibi holds up,” Kelly said. “Tour company says he was in London when Billie got killed.”
Jesse nodded.
“What’s this kid’s name?” he said.
“Phone listing is D. P. Davis.”
“Dawn,” Jesse said.
“Maybe.”
The building had been painted brown a long time ago. Much of the paint had flaked away and a lot of bare gray clapboard was showing. There was no front yard. The first of the three front steps was hard against the sidewalk. The name Davis and the number 3 A were written with black Magic Marker above one of the doorbells. Jesse rang it. Nothing happened.
“You’re a smalltown cop,” Kelly said. “You don’t know how to do it right.”
He put his thumb on the bell and kept it there. Nothing happened.
“That how it’s done?” Jesse said.
“Could be no one home,” Kelly said.
“Or the bell’s br
oken.”
“But the front door’s unlocked,” Kelly said.
“Wow,” Jesse said.
“A trained professional,” Kelly said.
They went into the dank hallway and up two flights of sagging stairs. The stairwell was dark. There was a burned-out lightbulb in an old porcelain ceiling fixture at each landing. At the dark top of the stairs Jesse knocked on the door.
“It’s good practice,” he said. “How else do I learn?”
He knocked again. There was the sound of movement. Then silence. Then the door opened on its chain.
A young female voice said, “Come back later.”
The door started to shut but Jesse put his foot in the opening.
“Dawn Davis?”
“What do you want?”
“Boston Police,” Kelly said.
He held up his badge.
“Police?”
“Yep.”
“It’s too dark,” she said. “I can’t see what you’re holding up.”
Kelly put the badge into the door opening.
“You got a light in there?” he said.
“I guess so.”
“Turn it on,” he said.
There was silence for a moment, and then a light went on inside the apartment. The girl was a shadow in the narrow door opening. She stared at the badge for a time.
“Whaddya want?” she said.
“We want to come in and talk with you,” Kelly said.
“About what?”
“About whether or not to kick in this door and bust you as a material witness in a homicide investigation,” Kelly said.
“I didn’t kill nobody,” the girl said.
“Open the fucking door,” Jesse said.
The girl didn’t answer for a moment, then she made a shadowy movement that might have been a shrug.
“Okay,” she said. “Get your foot out so I can take the chain off.”
The shades were down. The room was dark except for a light from the bare bulb of a table lamp on the floor. A cookstove was against the back wall, and a sink. The floor was a brick-pattern linoleum, scuffed away in places to show the narrow floorboards underneath. There was a box spring and mattress with no sheets and a thick down comforter rumpled with sleep. There were clothes piled on the floor. A half-open door revealed a narrow bathroom with tile walls and an old tub.
“You ought to charge more,” Kelly said.
“For what?” the girl said.
She was a small girl, with big dark eyes that dominated her face. She was wearing jeans and a pink sweatshirt. The sleeves were too long and concealed her hands. She was barefooted and, except for a hint of bosom under the sweatshirt, looked about nine.
“Dawn,” Jesse said. “We’ve talked with T. P. Pollinger.”
“Who?”
Jesse realized that she might not know who Pollinger was. Just a John, at an address. One of many.
“Money manager in the Back Bay,” Jesse said. “I followed you there on Monday, after Alan Garner gave you the address.”
She bent down and picked up a pack of Virginia Slims, got a cigarette out of the pack, got a butane lighter out of her pocket, and lit the cigarette.
“So?”
“So we got prostitution if we want to arrest you,” Kelly said.
“So?”
Jesse looked at Kelly. They both smiled. She was a little girl alone in a run-down apartment with two men, and she was being tough. They both knew that the bravado of young kids was rooted mostly in ignorance. If they just braved it out they could get away with it. She was wrong this time, but both of them admired her a little.
“So,” Jesse said. “We don’t want to do that if you don’t make us. What we want is Garner.”
She stared at both of them.
“What do you want Alan for?”
“Do you know a girl named Billie Bishop?” Jesse said.
“No. Why are you after Alan?”
“He might be involved in a homicide we’re investigating,” Kelly said.
“Alan wouldn’t kill anybody.”
Kelly sighed and took his handcuffs from his belt.
“Dawn Davis,” Kelly said. “You are under arrest for prostitution. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney to assist you during questioning…”
“Hey, come on,” Dawn said.
“Turn around,” Kelly said. “Put your hands together behind your back.”
“Hey. No. Wait a minute, what do you want to know?”
“Is Alan Garner your pimp?” Jesse said.
“Well, he’s not really a pimp. I mean, you know. He’s nice.”
“Does he arrange for you to meet men, and does he take a portion of the money you receive for sexual favors?” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“Alan?”
“Un-huh.”
“Around,” she said.
“He pick you up?” Kelly said.
“Yes. He bought me lunch, and we talked. He was really nice.”
“Were you soliciting?”
“No.”
“Did he pick you up near the shelter?”
“Yes. It’s like we were going along in the same direction and we started talking.”
“He initiate?” Kelly said.
“What?”
“He start talking first?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know. I guess so. I wouldn’t have just started talking to some guy.”
“Unless you’d become a working girl,” Kelly said.
“I wasn’t then, honest to God.”
“That start with Garner?” Jesse said.
“I guess so.”
Both men were quiet. Kelly put the cuffs back on his belt at the small of his back.
“He said, like, where did I live, and I go, like, I’m staying at the shelter. And he says did I run away. And I said, like, of course and he says he’s helped a bunch of girls like me.”
She was talking to Jesse. Even though he’d sworn at her when they first came. Now he seemed much nicer than the other cop that was going to handcuff her. The other cop looked mean, like he might be laughing at her. But Jesse had kind eyes and he leaned forward, nodding gently, like he was interested in her.
“And?” Jesse said.
“He got me this place to stay.”
“You pay the rent?” Kelly said.
“No,” the girl said. “I don’t. Alan does for me. He gives me money, too.”
“He ever come on to you?”
“No. He’s never been like that. He’s really really nice.”
“Do they give money to you?”
“The men I meet? No, I guess they give it to Alan.”
“You like Alan?” Jesse said.
“Alan’s the nicest person I’ve ever met,” she said.
Chapter Forty-nine
“What are you going to do about that girl you found?” Lilly said.
They were sitting on Jesse’s deck, over the harbor, looking across to Paradise Neck, as the evening settled, and the space above the water turned a faint translucent blue. Lilly was drinking white wine. Jesse had a Coke.
“Dawn Davis,” he said.
“Can you send her home?”
“She wouldn’t tell us where she was from.”
“She’d rather be a whore than go home?”
“Yep.”
“Or go to jail?”
“Yep.”
“Is anybody looking for her?” Lilly said.
“Kelly checked Missing Persons, and if that’s her real name, there’s no paper on her.”
“Can’t you fingerprint her?”
“Did,” Jesse said. “There’s no match on file. It doesn’t identify her. It only tells us that there’s no match on file.”
“Which means she hasn’t been arrested before.”
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“How old
do you think she is?” Lilly said.
“Fifteen, maybe.”
“You could contact youth services,” Lilly said.
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“You don’t think much of them,” Lilly said.
“No.”
“You could arrest her, couldn’t you? For prostitution?”
“Yep.”
“But you’re not going to.”
“No.”
“A fifteen-year-old girl can’t be left to her own devices,” Lilly said.
“We dropped her off at the shelter,” Jesse said. “With Sister Mary John.”
“And if she runs away from the shelter?”
“We told her we’d arrest her.”
“But she might anyway,” Lilly said. “She doesn’t seem entirely law-abiding.”
“True.”
“What if she runs off? Can you still arrest whatsisname?”
“Garner?”
“Yes.”
“We still have Mr. Pollinger,” Jesse said. “He’s not going anywhere, and we can use him to nail Garner.”
With evening the heat had receded, and the salt breeze off the harbor made the deck comfortable. Jesse had his feet on the railing.
“Are you going to arrest Garner?” Lilly said.
“Sooner or later,” Jesse said.
“Why are you waiting?”
Lilly’s glass was empty. Jesse stood and filled her glass and got himself another Coke.
“Won’t that keep you awake?” Lilly said.
“Gotta drink something,” Jesse said.
He handed the wineglass to Lilly and sat down and put his feet back up on the rail. Early evening. End of day. Friday night. On the deck. The water, murmuring. A good-looking woman whom he liked, the slowly dwindling view of the neck across the black water. He should be having a drink. It was exactly the time for a drink. Exactly the situation.
“So why are you waiting to arrest Garner?”
“I’m not sure. I guess I don’t want to stir things up until I know what I’m stirring.”
“It’s still about Billie Bishop, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a theory?”
Jesse drank a little Coke. It had caffeine in it. It tasted like it should give him a pleasant jolt. There was none.
“Alan Garner is almost certainly recruiting runaway girls to prostitution. He doesn’t seem like your standard street pimp. He treats them nice, doesn’t come on to them, puts them up in a cheap apartment, and rents them out on a call basis. Maybe to a specialized market.”
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