Robert Parker - Death in Paradise

"Maybe it should be."

Jesse drank the rest of his beer.

"Because?"

"Because you can control the police work," Lilly said. "At least some of it."

"And I can't control Jenn."

"Nobody can control anybody," Lilly said.

"I don't want to control her, I just want to love her."

Lilly smiled in the darkness. She thought of all the psychotherapy that had escorted her through two bad marriages. Shrinks must get bored , she thought. Always the same illusions. Always the same mistakes .

"You can do that now," she said to Jesse. "What you want is for her to love you. You have to trust her to do that."

Jesse stared out through the windshield at the opaque surface of the darkening lake.

"I'm not sure I can," he said after a time.

"That's the bitch of it," Lilly said.

The parking lot was getting empty. Most of the beer was gone, and the Boys of Evening were drifting back to home and wives and children. Back to adulthood. None of them would have given that up to play ball forever in the twilight. But all of them were grateful for the evenings when they could.

Beside him in the front seat Lilly said, "I feel as if we ought to neck."

"If we can do it without breaking a rib on the storage compartment between us," Jesse said.

"When you were seventeen that wouldn't have bothered you," Lilly said.

"When I was seventeen I didn't have an apartment to neck in."

"And now you do."

"And now I do."

"Well then," Lilly said. "Lets go there."

"And neck?"

"For starters," she said.

Jesse, out of uniform, sat in his own car on Tremont Street and watched the front door of Development Associates. He had been doing that, when he could, off and on, for two weeks. Brian Kelly had done it when he could, off and on, for two weeks. They had learned that Alan Garner arrived every morning by nine. That Gino and Vinnie showed up when they felt like it. And that nobody else showed up at all.

It was hot. The windows were open. There was no breeze. The city smelled hot. Close hot. City hot. Hot asphalt. Hot metal. Hot brick. Hot exhaust. Hot people. The Explorer had air-conditioning. But a car parked all day with its motor running would, after a time, attract attention. Jesse had learned a long time ago how to sit almost motionless for as long as he needed. He'd learned how to relax his shoulders and widen his mind, and breathe easily, and sit.

As he sat, Brian Kelly came to the car and got in beside him.

"Gino come out and confess yet?" Kelly said.

"Surprisingly, no," Jesse said.

"Well, maybe I got something for you," Kelly said. "I called your office and they said you were here."

"I'm here a lot," Jesse said.

"That nun," Kelly said. "Sister Mary John. She wants to talk with you. But she forgot what police department you worked for."

"And called you?"

"No. She called Bobby Doyle. He called me. Didn't you leave a card?"

"She must have lost it."

"Well," Kelly said. "She's probably thinking of salvation and all that."

Jesse nodded.

"She say what she wanted?"

"No. Just that she wants to see you."

Jesse looked at his watch.

"Been here all morning?" Kelly said.

"Since quarter to nine," Jesse said.

"And the pretty boy comes at nine. And unlocks the place."

"That's right."

"Gino and Vinnie show up yet?"

"Not this morning," Jesse said.

"They must be developing something off-site."

"For all I've seen," Jesse said, "they haven't ever developed anything on-site. Nobody but the pretty boy and Gino and Vinnie ever come here."

"That's the evidence I've developed," Kelly said.

"If there's something going on with young girls, it doesn't seem to be going on here."

"Not while we're looking," Kelly said.

"Which, between us, is most of the time."

"But not all," Kelly said.

"No."

They were silent. The heat pressed on them. The street was nearly empty. The metal exterior of the car was too hot to touch.

"You're putting a lot of time on this," Kelly said.

Jesse nodded.

A single yellow cab rolled by, going slowly, as if it were too hot to drive fast.

"I worked homicide for a while," Kelly said. "I always hated it when it was a kid."

"Yes."

They were quiet again. Kelly shrugged.

"Not every case gets solved," Kelly said. "You worked homicide for a while. You know that."

"I do," Jesse said.

They were quiet again.

"I'm up the street," Kelly said after a while. "You want to go see that nun, I can sit here and do nothing for a while."

"That would be good," Jesse said.

"You find out anything interesting, you'll let me know."

"I will," Jesse said.

The basement room was cool. There was an air conditioner in the window near the ceiling. Sister Mary John was wearing cutoff jeans and a tank top.

When Jesse came in, he said, "Jesse Stone."

"I remember," Sister said.

"You have something helpful? About Billie Bishop?"

"I don't know. Most of the girls that we have here come and go without a trace. We have a first name, or a nickname, and no last name, and no address. They are not required to tell us any more about themselves than they wish to. Our rules are simple. No drugs. No alcohol. No sex partners."

"Sex partners?"

Sister smiled.

"Some years ago one of the girls was using the shelter as a place to ply her trade. We cannot allow a bordello to operate under our auspices, so we added a 'no men' rule."

"And things changed, so in the interests of sexual equality…" Jesse said.

"You understand," Sister said.

"I do. We now call our people police officers."

"It is good to be current," Sister said.

"It is," Jesse said. "Billie Bishop?"

"Some of the girls, like Billie, when they depart, leave us a phone number or forwarding address. It occurred to me that if I went through our file of those, I might find a pattern."

Sister paused. Jesse waited.

"And I believe I have," Sister said.

"Sister, social worker, counselor, sleuth," Jesse said.

"A renaissance nun," Sister said. "There were, in the past five years, fifteen girls who left us a phone number or address. There was no correlation among the addresses, but in the last year two of them left the same phone number."

"Did they leave here at the same time?" Jesse said.

"No. They left about six months apart."

"Did they overlap?"

"You mean were they here at the same time? No."

"Did you call the number?"

"I did."

"And?"

"It is no longer in service."

"But you have written it down for me."

"Yes."

Sister handed Jesse a piece of blue-lined notepaper with a phone number written on it in a very smooth and graceful hand.

"In this area code?" Jesse said.

"Yes."

Jesse took the notepaper and folded it and tucked it into his right hip pocket.

"Can you find out who had that number?" Sister said.

"Yes."

"Do you think it will be helpful?"

"We'll see," Jesse said. "Do you have anything else?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry, Sister. You do good work."

"God's work," she said.

It was odd to hear her talk that way, Jesse thought. Even though he called her Sister, he didn't think of her, in her tank top and shorts and ornate Nike running shoes, as religious.

"He's lucky to have you," Jesse said.

Across the table, through the candle flicker, Jenn's face looked like no other. Objectively, Jesse knew there were other women as good-looking as Jenn. But that was, at best, a factual conceit. At the center of his self, Jesse knew that she was the most beautiful woman in existence.