Betsy was leaning forward toward Jesse, her shoulders hunched, her hands clasped tightly.
“Odd?” she said. “Odd that a dedicated educator would care enough about her charges that she would try to prevent these girls from growing up to be sluts?”
“Betsy,” Ingersoll said. “Please, please, please, please shut up. If not for yourself, then for me.”
“For you?” Betsy said.
“My reputation,” Ingersoll said.
“Your reputation?” Betsy said. “Your reputation. Your reputation is sluts. I sit here and look at that couch and wonder how many little law-school whores you’ve been with there.”
Ingersoll stared at her for a moment.
Then he said, “Fuck this. Hang yourself.” And walked out of the office.
She screamed at him as he left.
“Whoremaster!”
Jesse sat quietly.
Betsy said more quietly, “Whoremaster.”
She seemed to be speaking to herself.
“He why you faked the home invasion?” Jesse said.
“He didn’t even care,” she said thoughtfully. “You know what he said when he learned what happened?”
“Tell me,” Jesse said.
“He said, ‘If those pictures get out, I’ll be laughed out of court.’ ”
There was a dreamy quality to the way she was speaking.
“Did he know it was a fake?”
“No,” she said. “He thought it was real.”
“And he didn’t care,” Jesse said.
“No, he didn’t even want to hear about it. He seemed angry that I’d called the police.”
“That must have been hurtful,” Jesse said.
Betsy nodded absently.
“ ‘Hang yourself,’ ” she murmured.
She seemed to be talking to herself much more than to Jesse.
“Okay,” Betsy said. “I’ll hang us both. See how he likes that.”
Jesse nodded. Betsy took a deep breath.
“He has cheated on me since I’ve known him,” she said.
As she spoke, some tears appeared on her cheeks.
“He had a reputation when I married him,” she said.
Her voice was steady and soft.
“But he was so handsome, and I was, I guess, naively flattered that a man who had been with so many women would pick me. I assumed it was love.”
“That makes sense,” Jesse said.
“I thought he’d change,” she said.
“But he didn’t,” Jesse said.
“No matter what I did,” she said.
The tears came harder. “No matter what I did. No matter how hard I tried. God, I was an idiot.”
“Maybe not,” Jesse said.
“I tried everything. I read books on sex, I bought sexy lingerie. I tried so hard.”
She looked at Jesse suddenly, as if she’d come out of a trance.
“He laughed at the lingerie,” she said.
“Hard,” Jesse said.
“I even went to a therapist for a while, to find out what was wrong with me.”
Jesse nodded.
“Your husband must have been unpleasant about the incident at school,” he said.
“I did nothing wrong,” she said.
“But his reputation . . .” Jesse said.
She nodded.
“He was very angry,” she said.
“And with the Night Hawk being the talk of the town,” Jesse said, “you thought maybe it would distract people from the school incident, and also engage you husband’s sympathy.”
“I was hoping he might say something like ‘Thank God you weren’t harmed.’ ”
“But he didn’t.”
She shook her head slowly.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t.”
“You knew there had to be a picture,” Jesse said. “Everybody knows about the pictures.”
“Yes,” she said. “I did it with a timer.”
“Nice job,” Jesse said. “But you didn’t know how he operated, because we kept that to ourselves. The fact that he never touched anyone, that his letters to me were of a particular kind.”
“No,” Betsy said. “I just knew about the pictures.”
“The good thing about this plan,” Jesse said, “was if it didn’t work, and you got caught, at least he’d suffer, too.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Betsy said.
Jesse nodded.
“Can’t think of everything,” he said. “Do you suppose you could come in to my office tomorrow and make a statement.”
“He’ll have a fit,” she said.
“So?”
“Of course I will,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Am I in serious trouble?” she said.
“Not too,” Jesse said.
“Will I have to go to jail?”
“I doubt it,” Jesse said.
“Will you bring charges?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Thank you for your kindness,” Betsy said.
“You’re welcome.”
“May I go?” she said.
“Yes,” Jesse said. “I’ll walk out with you.”
They stood. Jesse took her arm and they walked past the couch to the door.
“You’ve seen the picture of me,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’m not so unattractive,” she said.
“You’re quite attractive.”
“Did you like seeing me undressed?”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
“He doesn’t even bother to look,” she said.
“Whatever he does, or doesn’t do,” Jesse said, “it’s not because of you.”
“What?”
“The reason he is a womanizer is not in you,” Jesse said. “They’re in him.”
“You seem so sure,” Betsy said. “How do you know that?”
Jesse smiled at her.
“I am the chief of police,” he said, and opened the door.
61
JESSE PHONED Sunny Randall in the morning.
“You’re still seeing that shrink, right?” he said.
“Dr. Silverman,” Sunny said. “Yes, I am.”
“So you still think she’s good?”
“Very.”
“Okay, I might have someone I’d like to refer to her. She taking new patients?”
“I’ll ask her,” Sunny said.
“What’s her first name?” Jesse said.
“Susan,” Sunny said. “Susan Silverman.”
Jesse wrote it down.
“Got a phone number and address?”
Sunny gave him both. He wrote that down.
“How soon?” Jesse said.
“Will I ask?” Sunny said. “Today. I see her at ten. I can give you an answer about eleven.”
“Good,” Jesse said. “Woman’s name is Betsy Ingersoll.”
“The panty peeker?”
“Yep,” Jesse said.
“The recent Night Hawk victim?”
“Sort of,” Jesse said.
“Sort of ?”
“She faked it,” Jesse said.
“Faked it?” Sunny said. “Why would you want to send her to a shrink?”
“Everybody’s going,” Jesse said.
“Speaking of that, why not send her to Dix?”
“Too close,” Jesse said. “Dix wouldn’t do therapy with me and take on someone I’m involved with as a cop.”
“Of course not,” Sunny said. “Dumb question. Why’d she fake it?”
“Maybe to get her husband’s attention,” Jesse said. “Maybe other reasons.”
Sunny was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, “You’re going to squeeze her.”
“You think?” Jesse said.
“You’re going to give her a choice between being arrested for filing a false police report and going to see a shrink.”
“That�
��s correct,” Jesse said.
“You’re a good guy,” Sunny said, “but I’m not sure you’re that good. She strike a nerve?”
“She did,” Jesse said.
“Which you don’t care to discuss with me,” Sunny said.
“Not at the moment.”
“But which has something to do with Jenn,” Sunny said.
“Stop showing off,” Jesse said.
“That’s a no-brainer,” Sunny said. “Everything has something to do with Jenn.”
“Some things change,” Jesse said.
“And some things don’t,” Sunny said. “I’ll call you after I see Dr. Silverman.”
62
SUIT AND Molly came in with Betsy Ingersoll after lunch. She had on a sober blue dress and low-heeled black shoes. She wore a pearl necklace and pearl earrings. She looked like the perfect corporate wife.
“Your husband with you?” Jesse said when she sat down.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t come home last night.”
“Is that unusual?”
“No.”
“I need to tape this,” Jesse said.
“That is acceptable,” Betsy Ingersoll said. “But could it be just you and me?”
“Of course,” Jesse said.
Molly and Suit left and closed the door behind them. Jesse turned on the tape recorder.
“This is Chief Jesse Stone, of the Paradise police. This interview is conducted in my office at Paradise police headquarters. The interviewee is Betsy Ingersoll. You ready, Betsy?”
“I’m ready,” she said.
“Do you wish an attorney?” Jesse said.
“No.”
“You have the right to one,” Jesse said.
“I’m very, very tired of attorneys.”
“If you don’t know who to call, or can’t afford one,” Jesse said, “we can provide you with one.”
“You’re reading me my rights,” she said.
“For the record,” Jesse said, “do you waive your right to an attorney.”
“I do,” Betsy said.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Tell me what you told me last night in your husband’s office.”
She told her story as if she was giving an oral report. As she talked she didn’t look at Jesse. She seemed to have picked out a spot on the wall to Jesse’s right. And she stared at it as she talked. She was well prepared. Jesse didn’t have to prompt her. When she finished, she shifted her gaze from the wall to Jesse and smiled and sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap. Jesse leaned forward and shut off the recorder.
“Thank you,” Jesse said.
“What will you do with me?” she said.
“Depends on you,” Jesse said.
“How?”
“I have the name of a very competent, highly recommended psychotherapist whom I would like you to see,” he said. “She has already agreed to see you, if you’ll call and make an appointment.”
“You think I’m crazy,” Betsy said.
“You’ve done some crazy things,” Jesse said.
“I’m not crazy,” she said.
“Not very,” Jesse said. “But I think you need help working things out with your husband.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I can probably get you jail time,” Jesse said.
“So those are my choices?” she said. “I see your stupid shrink or you arrest me?”
“That’s pretty much it,” Jesse said.
“You are being very cruel,” she said.
“I didn’t have to offer you the shrink,” Jesse said.
She shifted her gaze back at the spot on the wall to Jesse’s right and sat. Jesse sat with her.
After a time she sighed and said, “What’s his name?”
“Her name is Dr. Susan Silverman,” Jesse said.
“She a friend of yours?”
“I’ve never met her,” Jesse said. “A friend of mine sees her, and my own shrink recommends her highly.”
“You have a shrink?”
“I do,” Jesse said.
Betsy studied the wall.
“How often do I have to go,” she said.
“As often as you and she decide,” Jesse said. “And you have to go for at least a year.”
“A year?”
“Yes.”
“She decides how often during the year?”
“You and she,” Jesse said.
“So the more she tells me to come, the more money she makes,” Betsy said.
“Take it or leave it,” Jesse said.
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“You can’t be left alone,” Jesse said. “You need help.”
She began to cry. Jesse waited. This was real crying, with a lot of heaves and gasps. Eventually she got it under control enough to speak.
“You’re trying to help me,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“You may be the only one who ever has,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“I’ll see her,” Betsy said.
63
JESSE MADE two photocopies of the letter and put the original in his evidence file. When Molly came in he gave her one copy and kept the other for himself.
They read it together:Hey, Jesse,
Well, you don’t quit. I’ll give you that. You’ll enjoy the swingers. They’re a fun group. You probably wonder how I know you’re going to talk with the swingers. Let’s just say I keep in touch. One thing for sure, if you’re talking with the swingers group, you must be circling in on me, or think you are. Maybe you’ll get me one day. But if you do it won’t be you that does it. You’ll just be standing around when my old friend Mr. Obsession turns me in. Some shrink would probably say that I was externalizing my pathology and objectifying it by calling it Mr. O. You know anything about psychology, Jesse? Shrinks say tons of stuff like that . . . useless shit. You got any idea what it’s like to have Mr. O sitting on your chest all the time? Probably not. It’s like being a prisoner. I sit here and look at my pictures on my computer, and the more I look, the more they aren’t enough. Mr. O needs fresh meat. Funny, isn’t it? They all look about the same. They all got the same secret. But Mr. O keeps needing to discover that secret again, and again, and again. On that basis, I keep doing it, and doing it, you’ll probably catch me in time. It really sucks, you know? I hate myself for what I do, but if I don’t do it . . . I have to do it. The way you have to eat, or drink. Mr. O requires it. But Mr. O won’t let me touch them. Is that weird, or what? It’s why my wife and I joined the swingers. We didn’t have sex for three years, I think, before we joined. It was exciting to look at her, but I could never perform when it came to actual touching. I didn’t actually have sex with anyone at the swinger parties, either, but Mr. O is a clever bastard, and I think they didn’t know that. I don’t know really why I’m writing to you like this. You’re a small-town cop, probably thinks Freud is a kind of antifreeze. But we’re sort of comrades-in-arms. You know? We’re kind of in this together. Doing some kind of dance where I lead and you follow. Be interesting to see what happens when the music stops.
“He’s telling me who he is,” Jesse said.
“We know who he is,” Molly said.
“But he wants us to know. He’s making sure.”
“Then why doesn’t he just say, ‘My name is Seth Ralston,’ ” Molly said.
Jesse shook his head.
“Then he’s not the Night Hawk anymore,” Jesse said. “Think of this as foreplay.”
Molly nodded.
“And the meeting with the swingers?” she said.
“More foreplay,” Jesse said.
Molly frowned and then smiled.
“You’ll say things that you want him to hear,” she said.
“Try to keep the pressure on him,” Jesse said. “If he stays hunkered down someplace, I won’t be able to catch him.”
“You think he wants you to catch him?” Molly said.
“Does and doesn’t,” Jes
se said. “I’m trying to work on ‘does.’ ”
“How do you think he knows about the meeting?”
“Probably his wife,” Jesse said.
“Which means she knows where he is?”
“Or he calls her,” Jesse said.
“I feel sort of bad for him, in a strange way,” Molly said.
“I know,” Jesse said.
“And his wife,” Molly said.
“Yeah.”
“I guess we need to talk with her again,” Molly said.
“We do,” Jesse said.
Molly smiled, looking at the letter.
“And the dance continues,” she said.
64
JESSE AND Molly met the Free Swingers in the spacious atrium of a big gray shingled house that faced the ocean on Paradise Neck. Jesse was the only man in the room. No husbands attended. Hannah Wechsler was there. Kimberly Clark was not. Jesse stood in the center of the long room, with a view of the ocean at his back. Molly sat on a slipper rocker near him. Everyone else gathered in an extended semicircle facing him.
“Thank you for coming,” Jesse said. “Thanks to Mrs. Stevens for allowing us the use of her house.”
No one said anything.
“I am not interested as a police chief or a man in the non-criminal private behavior of consenting adults,” Jesse said. “But I am looking for a criminal, and you are in a unique position to help me.”
They all sat silently. Neatly dressed. A lot of flowered prints. He could have been addressing a group of den mothers, Jesse thought.
“I know you’ve heard of the Night Hawk. His behavior is essentially voyeuristic. Look but don’t touch, so to speak.”
“What about that school principal?” a woman asked.
Her voice was hoarse. She cleared it after she spoke.
“We think that may be a different person,” Jesse said.
“A copycat?” the woman said.
“Maybe,” Jesse said. “But it occurred to me that the Night Hawk might be attracted to a group such as yours. So it would help if you could tell me if there’s anyone you’ve encountered in the activities of your group that looks but doesn’t touch.”
Everyone looked at Jesse without speaking. Jesse waited.
“That’s not allowed,” a woman said finally.
“Would you know?” Jesse said. “Would you always know who was doing what with whom?”
Again there was silence. Then several of the women began to shake their heads.
The Jesse Stone Novels 6-9 Page 50