Molly tried to control a smile.
"And it wasn't a pretty sight. Jenn had torn most of Mrs. Hopkins' blouse off and given her a bloody nose. Mrs. Hopkins has got blood all over her skirt and her bra, which looked, may I add, as if it had been laundered a couple times too often. Jenn's got blood all over her blouse. As far as I know she's not hurt. It's Hopkins' blood, I'm pretty sure. There were two or three women trying to hold onto Jenn, who was kicking people and, as I arrived, was actually head-butting Gertrude Richardson, who's the chairwoman or whatever they call her. Peter Perkins wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do and looked so grateful when I showed up. I thought he was going to kiss me."
"You get her calmed down?"
"No, not really. Peter and I had to pretty well wrestle her down, and I had to cuff her before we could get her under control. Thing is neither Peter nor I recognized her at first. I seen her on TV a couple times after Suitcase told me she was your ex-wife and she was a weather girl."
"Curiosity," Jesse said.
"Absolutely," Molly said.
"But, you know, her hair was mussed and her shirttail was hanging out and one of her high heels was broken off and she didn't look the same. But man can she swear.
She called Mrs. Hopkins stuff I haven't even heard around the station. And I've heard a lot around the station."
"Jenn was always a good swearer," Jesse said.
"She tell you she was my wife-ex-wife?"
"Yes. When we got her in the cruiser and were bringing her back. The restaurant is going to bring some sort of charge once their attorney tells them what it is. I think she broke a table and certainly some crockery. I can talk to the owner. I know her. I think she'll back off when she finds out the whole story."
"Mrs. Hopkins planning to press charges?" Jesse said.
"Oh, I imagine," Molly said.
"And she probably won't back off."
Jesse nodded as much to himself as to Molly.
"Be a surprise if she did," he said.
"How is Jenn now?"
"Scared I think," Molly said.
"But still mad as hell."
"She's sort of a television celebrity," Jesse said.
"The press showed up yet?"
"Not yet."
"She want to see me?" Jesse said.
"Yes."
Jesse took in a long breath.
"Okay, I'll go down and talk to her. Alone."
"Of course," Molly said.
She left the office. Jesse sat for a moment. Then he took a bottle of Irish whisky from his desk, poured some into a paper cup, looked at it for a moment, and then drank it. He crumpled up the paper cup and threw it into the waste basket. He put the bottle back in the desk drawer. Then he stood and walked down the corridor toward the holding cells.
FORTY-SEVEN.
Macklin left the real estate office at 9:35 and walked toward the guard shack at the bridge fifty yards away. Crow walked with him. J. T. McGonigle, who had been there the first time Macklin came to Stiles Island, was on duty again. He was not cut from Captain Billups' pattern.
He was what the captain considered "a civilian employee." While he had on the tan regulation uniform shirt, he wore no hat, and he carried no weapon. If there was trouble, he called the patrol.
Macklin spoke to him as he reached the shack.
"How you doing, Mac?"
McGonigle put his clipboard down. There were no cars coming in either direction.
"Good, Mr. Smith, whaddya need?"
"Just wanted to say good-bye," Macklin said and shot McGonigle in the forehead.
He stepped away as McGonigle started to fall. Crow stepped in and caught McGonigle on his shoulder and picked him up.
Fran, carrying a briefcase and a folding sign, came from the real estate office as soon as he heard the shot. As Crow carried J. T. McGonigle away, Fran, wearing the tan shirt of the dead Michael Deering, placed the sign in the roadway by the gate and slipped into the guard shack.
Fran took a small remote control mechanism that looked like a garage door opener from the briefcase and put it on the counter beside the clipboard. He brought out a cellular phone and put it beside the remote. He took a big stainless steel Ruger.357 Magnum revolver with a walnut handle from the briefcase and laid it beside the phone. Finally, he placed a pair of binoculars beside the Ruger.
Crow reached the real estate office and bent forward and allowed McGonigle's dead body to slide to the ground, where it was concealed by two decorative cedar shrubs behind the building. Then he went back into the real estate office and waited for Macklin.
JD was sitting at the desk, toying with two cellular phones on the desk in front of him, turning them idly, in slow circles.
On the couch Marcy was trying not to look at anything. Nicelooking woman, Crow thought. Macklin came back into the real estate office.
"Okay," Macklin said.
"We got the bridge secured. JD, you ready to kibosh the phones?"
"Five minutes," JD said, "from whenever you say."
"After you do it," Crow said, "what do I hear, I try to use the phone?"
"Busy signal," JD said, "either way. Calling in, calling out. People call, get a busy signal, hang up. Be a while before anyone catches on that something's wrong.
"Every minute we can buy, helps us," Macklin said.
He looked at his watch.
"I got seven minutes before ten. Crow and I are going to start rounding people up at ten-fifteen. I want the phone lines fucked by then."
"Easy," JD said.
"Once you fuck the phone lines, you can cut Marcy loose. But keep her here. She wants her purse, give it to her. I've already checked it. She can go in the lav and lock the door, she wants.
There's no window."
"Be easier to leave her like she is," JD said.
"Then I don't have to watch her."
"We want you to do it our way," Macklin said.
"Don't we, Crow?"
"We do," Crow said and held JD's look until JD looked away.
JD shrugged as if Crow didn't scare him, which Crow did. And both of them knew it.
"Sure thing," JD said.
Macklin picked up one of the cell phones and followed Crow out the door.
FORTY-EIGHT.
We've got to stop meeting this way" Jenn said when Jesse came in.
She was sitting on the cot, with her feet tucked up under her. Jesse left the cell door open and leaned against the wall opposite her. The cell was so small there was barely any space between them.
"I don't know what to say."
"I couldn't stand it," Jenn said.
"It's not fair-that bitch trying to take you down.
You're so good, Jesse."
"Thank you, Jenn."
"It's the truth. They're lucky to have you. She should be grateful. They all should be grateful."
"Actually Jenn, I'm a little grateful to be here. I almost flushed myself in L.A."
"I know. I helped with that."
"Maybe not as much as you think."
"Have I fucked you up again?" Jenn said.
Jesse smiled.
"God, Jenn, I don't know. I mean, thank you for caring and for standing up for me. But now you're in my jail, and I have no idea what to do with you."
"You could just let me go."
"Yeah."
"But if you did, then Mrs. Bitch Face could accuse you of favoritism."
"Yeah."
"What would happen if I weren't me?" Jenn asked.
"You'd call your lawyer, and your lawyer would arrange your release."
"I don't have a lawyer."
"I could ask Abby Taylor," Jesse said.
"Didn't you fuck her?"
"Uh-huh."
Jesse decided not to mention how recently. Jenn was shaking her head.
"No. I can't have her."
"Station got a lawyer?" Jesse asked.
"Yes. I suppose they'll have him out here as soon as they get wind of it. I
may have made myself some trouble at the station."
Jesse smiled.
"Might be your big break," Jesse said.
"Jenn Stone, the fighting weather girl?"
"I better tell the station," Jenn said.
"Can I use your phone to call the news director?"
"Sure. You're free to go, Jenn."
"Won't you get in trouble, just letting me go like that?"
"If I do, I'll deal with it when it comes. I'm not going to lock you up."
Jenn sat for a moment without moving, and Jesse realized she was crying.
"Oh, shit," Jesse said.
"Here we are together, talking in a jail cell, Jesse," Jenn said.
"It's just so..."
"Not the way we first planned it," Jesse said.
"God, I've made such a goddamned mess of everything."
"It's not over," Jesse said, "until it's over."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means we're working on it, Jenn. When we're through working on it, we'll find out if it's a mess or not."
"I don't ever want to stop working on it," Jenn said.
"I don't want to lose you."
"You won't lose me," Jesse said.
"But I don't know. I don't know if I can ever be what you want me to be."
"I don't have any big rules about what you should be, Jenn.
Mostly I'm opposed to sharing you."
"I don't know," Jenn said.
"I just don't know."
"You will," Jesse said.
"I only know I can't imagine a world without you in it."
"I'm not going anywhere," Jesse said.
"I'm going to wait it out."
"God, I hope it's not a long wait," Jenn said.
"You seeing a shrink these days?"
"Dr. St. Claire gave me the name of two people-one in Chestnut Hill, one in Cambridge. I haven't called them. It's hard to go to a new shrink."
"I imagine it would be," Jesse said.
"You think I should go back into therapy?"
"Anything that will help you decide what you want to do, and then be able to do it, is a good thing," Jesse said.
"And you'll stay?"
"I'll stay," Jesse said.
"What if I get to a point where what I want doesn't include you?"
"Then I'll move on," Jesse said.
"And you'll be all right?"
"Jenn, I don't know if I'm going to be all right tomorrow. I can't possibly tell you if I'll be all right in six months or two years or whatever it takes."
"But you won't give up?"
"Not until you tell that you don't want me in your life."
"I can't ever imagine saying that."
"That seems like good odds to me," Jesse said.
"The other night was good."
"Yes," Jesse said.
They were both quiet for a moment. Then she stood, Jesse opened his arms, Jenn stepped into them, and he held her hard. He could feel the completeness surge up inside him. There was no logic to it; he simply knew when he touched her that she was not like other women. He kept his arms around her, fighting off the desire to squeeze too hard, while she pressed her face against his chest and cried softly but not, Jesse thought, hopelessly.
FORTY-NINE.
"You got a safe deposit box?" Macklin said.
The man was in designer sweat clothes that appeared as if they'd never been sweaty. His wife had on a tennis outfit, and she was standing rigidly still because Crow had the muzzle of the shotgun pushed up into the soft tissue under her chin. On the floor was a canvas duffel bag into which Macklin had dumped the cash and jewelry "You lie to me and your wife's brains will be decorating the ceiling," Macklin said.
He held his handgun casually in front of him, aimed more or less at the man's navel. The gun was cocked.
"I have one."
The man had iron-gray hair and a strong profile. He was the semi-retired CEO of something, and he was struggling to be brave and not succeeding. You can be brave, Macklin thought, with a gun in your face, though it's easier when there's no gun. But there's still nothing to do but what you're told.
"Paradise Bank?" Macklin said.
"Yes."
"Stiles Island branch?"
"Yes."
"Get the key."
The man hesitated. Macklin raised the handgun and placed the muzzle a half inch from the man's left eye.
"I'll count to three. Then your widow gets the key for us... One!"
"It's in my bureau drawer," the man said.
His voice wheezed out as if his throat was clogged with dust.
"I'll go with you," Macklin said, and he followed the man into the front hall and up the stairs.
"What are you going to do to us?" the woman said, her voice strained, her teeth clenched in parody of an upper-crust accent from the pressure of the shotgun.
"Nothing we don't have to," Crow said.
"You got a downstairs lav?"
"Yes."
"Let's see it," Crow said and lowered the shotgun.
They walked to the front hall and back toward the kitchen.
The woman indicated a door under the stairs next to the kitchen.
Crow opened the door. It opened outward. He looked in. It was a big lavatory with a wash basin and makeup mirror and no windows.
Macklin came back down the stairs with the man. He held up the safe deposit key so that Crow could see it.
Crow nodded and jerked his head toward the lavatory.
"Here," Crow said.
"Down this hall."
Macklin came down the hall and looked at the lavatory.
"Helps that these houses are all the same, don't it?" Macklin said.
"Okay, both of you go into the lav and close the door and stay there."
The man and woman did as they were told. They're glad to, Macklin thought. Means we're not going to kill them. When the door was closed, Crow went to the living room and got the big gym bag. He came back down the hall and took a hammer and some 12D nails from the bag and nailed the lavatory door shut. Then he dropped the hammer back into the bag, put the shotgun in, picked the bag up, and he and Macklin, who was carrying the canvas duffel bag, walked out of the house. On the sidewalk, Macklin looked at his watch.
"Pretty good," he said.
"We'll have them all by late afternoon."
"What's Fran telling people at the bridge?" Crow said.
"What's that sign say?"
Macklin smiled.
"The sign says "Caution: Blasting,"" he said.
"Any civilians, Fran tells them the island's closed for a couple hours."
They walked up the manicured walkway of the next estate.
Macklin rang the door bell and deep inside the house some chimes sounded. Macklin grinned at Crow.
"Avon calling," Macklin said and set his duffel bag down on the step beside him.
FIFTY.
Abby Taylor lived in a weathered shin home in the oldest part of Paradise. When!
she was married, she had bought it with her husband, and when they had divorced it remained with her. When her doorbell rang, she looked through the peephole in the front door and saw a well-dressed, good-looking, upper-class woman in her forties, who looked vaguely familiar. Abby J opened the door.
"Hello," she said.
"Hello," the good-looking woman said and hit Abby flush on the jaw with her clenched right fist. It was a good punch, and it staggered Abby backward several steps. The woman stepped through the front door and closed it behind her. By the time Abby got her balance, the woman was aiming a.38 Smith & Wesson Chief's Special at her.
"What... the... Christ are you... doing?" Abby said.
Her lip was already starting to puff.
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