Robert Parker - Death in Paradise

"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.

"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."

"Men who like very young girls."

"Yes. Alan works for a mobster named Gino Fish. Gino is an acquaintance of Norman Shaw, the novelist Shaw lives in Paradise."

"Do you think that Garner recruited Billie Bishop?"

"Maybe."

"For this Fish person?"

"Yes."

"Do you think that Gino Fish is supplying adolescent girls to Norman Shaw?" Lilly said.

"I have no idea. I've met Mrs. Shaw and she would certainly be sufficient for me."

"You know that has nothing to do with it," Lilly said.

"I know."

"Do you think he might have sent Billie Bishop to Norman Shaw, which is how she ended up in Paradise?"

"In the lake," Jesse said.

"Yes. Do you think?"

"What I think," Jesse said, "is that I'm not going to jostle any of them, until I've got enough to get them all."

"Do you know who they all are?" Lilly said.

"Not yet."

"I had a thought," Jesse said to Suitcase Simpson.

"Excellent," Simpson said.

"Wise guys don't make sergeant," Jesse said. "What I was thinking was that if Norman Shaw was banging kids like Billie, where would he do it?"

"His house?"

"You think Mrs. Shaw would have a problem with that?"

"Oh, yeah."

"So if he's doing it, it must be someplace else."

"You really think he's involved?"

"No. I really think he isn't," Jesse said. "But I don't know he isn't. I want to know. It's where the chain of connection stops."

"Billie Bishop to Alan Garner to Gino Fish to Shaw," Simpson said.

"Sort of."

"Not much of a chain," Simpson said.

"Everybody's a critic," Jesse said. "If you had a teenaged beauty you wanted to score, where would you go?"

"Not my high school," Simpson said.

Jesse smiled.

"I guess I'd take her to a motel," Simpson said.

Jesse nodded. "You want to learn several things," he said. "You want to learn if a guy named Norman Shaw has registered there, in, say, the last six months, whatever they got for records."

"Would he use his real name?" Simpson said.

"Probably not," Jesse said. "So he couldn't use a credit card. Try to find who registered and paid cash."

"Hotels keep records like that?" Simpson said.

"Some do. Some don't," Jesse said. "Sometimes you can be lucky. You'll get a clerk who remembers."

"Shaw's pretty recognizable," Simpson said. "Even if he gave a false name and paid cash."

"So what would you do about that?" Jesse said. "If you were him?"

"Disguise?"

Jesse smiled.

"Ask if they remember a guy with a fake nose and glasses," he said.

"Really?"

"Suit, I'm kidding you. Be easier if he had the girl register."

"And if he was real careful," Simpson said, "he'd have her register at one of those places where you can park right in front of the door and go in your room once you got a key."

"Maybe you should start with that kind of motel, close to Paradise, and then circle out. Get a picture of Shaw. And take one of Billie. Show both of them."

"You're pulling me off shift again?"

"Special assignment," Jesse said.

"Guys are getting kind of annoyed," Simpson said, "covering for me."

"Un-huh."

"We don't even know if Shaw's got anything to do with it," Simpson said.

"That's true."

"There's a thousand motels around here."

"Un-huh."

"Jeez, on those TV real-life cop shows they don't do this. They got all kinds of guys with microscopes and computers figuring shit out."

"We're a small department," Jesse said. "We can't afford smart people."

"This could be a total waste of time," Simpson said.

"Ah," Jesse said, "you are beginning to understand the intricacies of police work."