“After this, what?” he said aloud in the empty room.
He sat and thought about what he’d said, and nodded his head slowly, and smiled faintly to himself.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
27
MOLLY HAD patched the desk phone into the conference room, and everyone but Arthur Angstrom and Buddy Hall was in there.
“We’ve had two more home invasions,” Jesse said. “Three so far. Pretty much the same M.O. Women home alone in the daytime. Man comes in with a mask and a gun, forces them to disrobe, takes their picture, makes them lie facedown and count to a hundred, and disappears.”
“He dress the same?” Suit said.
“Black pants, black windbreaker,” Jesse said. “Ski mask. Baseball hat, probably Yankees. The women aren’t sure.”
“Nobody in the neighborhood noticed anything?” Maguire said.
“Nope,” Jesse said. “Not that many people around. Most people’s husbands and wives both work. Kids are in school.”
“Do we know if he was in a car or on foot?” Suit said.
“Nope.”
“He dresses like our peeper,” Molly said. “Think it might be him.”
“They don’t usually escalate like that,” Suit said.
Jesse looked at him.
“I been reading up,” Suit said.
He had a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him, and a ballpoint pen. Jesse nodded and went to the big pot on the file cabinet and got some coffee. There was a box of doughnuts on the table. He took one.
“Any thoughts?” he said.
He took a bite of the doughnut, leaning forward so he wouldn’t get cinnamon sugar on his shirt front.
“We see a pattern anywhere?” Suit said.
“The women,” Molly said. “All of them in their forties. All of them married, with children in school.”
“All of them in neighborhoods which are relatively deserted during the day,” Suit said. “At least the school day.”
“So, which is the appeal?” Jesse said. “Married? Children? Forty?”
“Alone during the day?” Maguire said.
“Relatively upscale neighborhoods,” Suit said.
“All of the above?” Molly said.
“Age is maybe a function of other things,” Molly said. “Most women with kids in school would be in their thirties or forties.”
“Like you, Moll,” Suit said.
“Like hell,” Molly said. “I’m the same age as my oldest kid.”
“How’s that work?” Suit said.
“It just does,” Molly said.
Jesse looked at Maguire.
“Any reports of our Peeping Tom since the first home invasion?” Jesse said.
“No,” Maguire said.
“We have to consider that it may be the same guy,” Jesse said.
“We don’t know who he is,” Suit said. “So what we consider don’t make a hell of a lot of difference.”
Jesse ignored him.
“And we can also entertain the possibility that it’s not,” Jesse said.
“The peeper was my case, Jesse,” Maguire said. “Are the home invasions mine, too?”
“The home-invasions case belongs to all of us,” Jesse said. “If it is our peeper, he’s escalating, and we have no way to know how far it’ll go.”
No one said anything.
“Molly and I will keep talking to the victims,” Jesse said. “I want each of you to listen to everybody you know, questions, gossip, idle chitchat, thoughtful discussion, jokes, whatever, and always listening for anything that might send you somewhere, tell you something, lead you anywhere.”
No one said anything.
“A good police force,” Jesse said, “allows people to feel safe in their homes.”
Everyone was quiet.
“We need to do better,” Jesse said
No one spoke. Everyone looked glum.
Jesse grinned.
“Win one for the Stoner?” he said.
They all looked relieved.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Time to go back to work. Molly, you fill in Arthur and Buddy. Suit, stick around for a minute. Everybody else . . .” He jerked his thumb toward the door and they got up and left. Suit stayed sitting at the table with his yellow pad.
“We get all the rest of the doughnuts,” he said.
He reached into the box and took one.
“You still talking to the swingers?” Jesse said.
“Sure,” Suit said. “Can’t say I’m learning much.”
“See if they have anyone in their group that especially likes to watch.”
Suit nodded as he chewed down half a doughnut.
When it was swallowed he said, “You think it might be one of the swingers?”
“No,” Jesse said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t. But I got nowhere else to go, and at least the swingers group is atypical in their sexuality.”
“It’ll take a while,” Suit said. “I have to do a lot of schmoozing to get a little information, you know?”
“It’s called police work,” Jesse said.
“Awful long shot,” Suit said.
“At the moment, I don’t have a shorter one,” Jesse said.
Suit nodded. He finished his doughnut.
“You think this guy will do something worse?”
“If he’s our peeper, he went up the ladder pretty quick,” Jesse said.
“They dress the same,” Suit said.
“Could be a copycat,” Jesse said. “Could be on purpose to mislead us.”
“Or it could be him,” Suit said.
“Or it could be him,” Jesse said.
“I’ll see what I can find out,” Suit said.
28
“SO,” SPIKE SAID, “you two got anything going these days?”
“What we’ve got going,” Sunny said, “as you well know, is my ex-husband, and Jesse’s ex-wife.”
“It’s a start,” Spike said.
Jesse smiled.
“How are things with Marcy Campbell?” Jesse said.
The three of them were sitting on the deck of the Gray Gull as the sun set behind them, stretching the shadows of the boats at mooring toward Paradise Neck.
“Good,” Spike said. “She really likes you.”
“Everybody does,” Jesse said. “Is she finding you any property?”
“She doesn’t do commercial real estate, but she is co-brokering with a guy who does.”
“Find anything?” Jesse said.
He was drinking beer. Spike had a Maker’s Mark on the rocks. Sunny sipped some Riesling.
“Yep,” Spike said.
“You did?” Sunny said.
“Yep.”
“Well, where?” Sunny said.
Spike grinned.
“Right here,” he said.
“The Gray Gull?” Sunny said.
“Yep, soon to be Spike’s North.”
“My God,” Sunny said.
“Congratulations,” Jesse said.
“But you can’t call it Spike’s North,” Sunny said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s the Gray Gull,” Sunny said. “It’s been here forever.”
“Or at least since you started fooling around with the chief,” Spike said.
“At least that long,” Sunny said. “The name’s got history. People will be mad if you change it.”
“Like I should care,” Spike said.
“Customers will be mad at you,” Sunny said.
Spike smiled at Sunny. She often referred to Spike as her “compliance consultant,” and Jesse could see why. He wasn’t unusually tall. But he had about him the massive shapeless force of a bear.
“Like, I do care,” he said. “How about Spike’s Gray Gull?”
“Ick,” Sunny said.
“Okay,” Spike said. “Gray Gull.”
“A proven winner,” Sunny said
“Sound right to you, Chief Jesse?” Spi
ke said.
Spike’s receding hair was cut very close to his skull and his beard was trimmed short. There was a shiny go-to-hell look in his eyes.
“ ‘Fooling around’?” Jesse said.
“Fooling around what?” Spike said.
“Sunny and I weren’t fooling around,” Jesse said. “We were serious.”
“Ah,” Spike said. “Excellent. If I weren’t gayer than laughter, I’d be serious about her, too.”
“Would you like to talk about me further?” Sunny said. “I’ll try to be quiet.”
“When I heard you were a private dick, I was hopeful,” Spike said. “But then when I met you my hopes were dashed.”
“Short for detective,” Sunny said.
“Sure,” Spike said. “Now you tell me.”
Sunny giggled.
“When do you close?” Jesse said.
“Sixty days,” Spike said. “Then if you want, you can run a tab here.”
“What I need,” Jesse said. “An open tab at a bar.”
29
JESSE SAT in his office, reading a letter from the Night Hawk.
Dear Chief Stone,
I know you have been looking for me. I am your Peeping Tom, and I am the one who forced those women to undress so I could take their pictures (see enclosed, so you know it’s really me). When I’m doing that, I am in some sort of feverish coma. When it’s over I feel disgusted with myself and swear that I’ll never do it again. But I do. I am really afraid I might do something even worse than what I’m doing. When I’m in the coma, I seem to be somebody else. I guess it’s some kind of obsession. The funny thing about it is how I get pleasure from it when I do it, but overall it’s ruining my life. Maybe it’s the nature of obsessions. I hate it. I hate myself. I’ve seen plenty of naked women in my life. But never enough for my obsession. I won’t turn myself in. I probably should, but my obsession won’t let me. I guess I can’t. And I don’t even know if this letter is a cri de coeur asking for help, or if it’s part of my obsession to taunt you. What I know is that my life is becoming more unbearable every time I act out my obsession. . . . But I need to see, I need to know their secret.
The Night Hawk
Jesse picked up the three pictures that had come with the letter. They were remarkably similar. A frightened and humiliated woman standing naked, looking into the camera. The women even looked somewhat alike. Dark hair, not fat, about the same height. What secret were they revealing? Their naked selves? You could go online and find thousands of pictures of nude women. What was special about these women? Maybe it wasn’t about nudity or sex. Maybe it was about control, about power. In most men, Jesse suspected, sex and power were not unrelated. Did it matter that they looked superficially alike? Most women of their age and weight and social status would probably look pretty much like they did, if forced to stand naked in front of a stranger’s camera. Why had he written? Was it that he wanted to get caught? Or was he like those people who had sex in public places, the experience intensified by the possibility of getting caught? Or both.
Jesse took the pictures to his office window and looked at them carefully in the sunlight. They told him nothing. The Night Hawk had obviously used a digital camera and fed the pictures into his computer, and printed them out on ordinary printer paper. He turned the pictures over. Nothing. He turned them back faceup. Nothing. Nothing to tell him what computer, or what printer, or even what kind of camera. He went back to his desk and took a lavender file folder from a desk drawer. Molly bought his office supplies, and she liked colorful file folders. He spread the three pictures out on his desktop and covered them one at a time with the file folder and then slid the folder down an inch at a time, looking at each narrow segment of the picture as the folder revealed it. Nothing. He did the same with the letter. Nothing. He took the letter to the window and studied it in the sunlight. Ordinary paper. Common typeface. He went back to his desk and put the three photographs in the lavender folder with the letter on top of them. Then he went to his office door and yelled for Molly.
“Close the door,” he said when she came in.
She did, and sat down in front of his desk. Jesse handed her the folder.
“Read the letter first,” Jesse said. “Then look at the pictures.”
Molly nodded and opened the folder. She read the letter and looked at the pictures, and when she was done she put everything back in the folder, closed the folder, and put it on the edge of Jesse’s desk.
“The son of a bitch,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“You’ve been over these?”
“From every angle I could think of,” Jesse said.
“Prints?”
“Not yet,” Jesse said. “You can have Peter Perkins go over them, in your presence.”
“In my presence?”
“I want you to take care of these pictures,” Jesse said. “I give them to anybody else in the department and they’ll be in the copy machine thirty seconds later.”
“What is it with men and nudity,” Molly said.
“I guess we’re in favor of it,” Jesse said.
“I mean, I’ve been married seventeen years,” Molly said. “My husband has seen me naked maybe five thousand times. But every time I come out of the shower or whatever he looks at me like he’s peeking in a window.”
Jesse nodded.
“What’s that about?” Molly said.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said.
“Are you like that?” Molly said.
Jesse nodded slowly.
“Pretty much,” he said.
“In the time you’ve been a cop,” Molly said, “have you ever heard of a female Peeping Tom?”
“Nope.”
“I don’t get it,” Molly said.
“Me either.”
“I mean, have no interest in seeing a man with his clothes off,” Molly said.
“Not even certain Native Americans from the Apache tribe?” Jesse said.
“Oh, hell,” Molly said. “Will you ever let up on that?”
“I have no plans to,” Jesse said.
“One little indiscretion,” she said. “Why did I ever tell you?”
“I’m the chief of police,” Jesse said.
Molly nodded.
“Sad but true,” she said. “So, is this part of my case?”
“We gotta hang on to the pictures,” Jesse said. “They’re evidence. But I don’t want a bunch of male cops looking at nude pictures of them. I don’t want those women humiliated any more than they have been.”
Molly nodded again and picked up the folder. She stood for a moment, looking at Jesse.
“You’re not so bad,” she said. “For a guy.”
“If only I were Apache,” Jesse said.
Molly looked at him for another moment.
“Oh, fuck you,” she said.
“Hey,” Jesse said. “How ’bout a little respect.”
Molly grinned.
“Oh, fuck you, Chief,” she said, and left the office.
30
JESSE BROUGHT a copy of the Night Hawk’s letter with him when he went to see Dix.
“Could you read this for me?” Jesse said.
Dix nodded and picked up the letter. He read it carefully and handed it back to Jesse.
“The serial home invader in Paradise?” Dix said.
“Yes. There were pictures of his victims, but I didn’t bring them.”
“No need,” Dix said.
“Whaddya think?” Jesse said.
Dix tipped his chair back with his elbows resting on the arms and his fingers laced across his flat stomach.
“He seems to understand himself,” Dix said.
“You don’t think he’s crazy?” Jesse said.
“I do,” Dix said. “And that is what he seems to understand.”
Jesse nodded.
“Anything in there that will help me catch him?”
“Not much,” Dix said. “Tell me about the women.”
“Three so far,” Dix said.
“Yes.”
“So we may have some idea of what kind of woman he favors.”
“Kind of a small sample,” Jesse said.
“It’s all you have at the moment,” Dix said. “Theory of the case?”
“Guy likes to take pictures of naked women,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled.
“Hard to argue against that,” he said.
“Anything you see in the letter?” Jesse said. “Besides he knows he’s crazy?”
“He promises to keep doing it,” Dix said.
“It’s my impression that it is unusual for Peeping Toms to graduate to home invasion,” Jesse said.
“That is my impression as well,” Dix said.
“But it happens.”
“Yes,” Dix said.
“And it happened with this guy,” Jesse said.
“Unless he’s lying about being the Peeping Tom.”
“You think he is?”
“Don’t know,” Dix said.
“So, say it’s the truth. Why would someone take that step?”
“There’s no way to know, as was the case with your panty checker,” Dix said. “We have no idea what all of this means to him.”
“Peeping Tom work is so much less dangerous,” Jesse said. “And if you are caught, the consequences are much less severe.”
“Maybe that’s the charm of home invasion,” Dix said.
“The risk?”
“It seems from his letter that he wants to be caught,” Dix said.
“So we just sit around and wait until he catches himself?” Jesse said.
“He also doesn’t want to be caught,” Dix said.
“Conflicted,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled and nodded.
“And obsessive,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled and nodded again.
“If we knew why,” Jesse said.
“Probably wouldn’t do you much good,” Dix said. “A lot of obsessions are rooted in long-ago events that the obsessed aren’t even aware of.”
Jesse nodded.
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