Jesse nodded.

"And it's charming in a way I don't exactly understand," Lilly said.

"Good," Jesse said.

"That it's charming, or that I don't understand?"

"That I have your attention," Jesse said.

They were silent.

"Yes, you do," Lilly said finally.

Jesse smiled at her. She smiled back. Then she let her breath out audibly.

"Billie comes from a home," she said, "that would be officially classified as 'good.' "

"By which we normally mean two parents and some money."

Lilly nodded.

"Anything wrong with the parents?"

"Except that their daughter is a mess," Lilly said. "I don't know. I've never met them."

"Any of her teachers know them?"

"They were invited to come in and discuss their daughter's problems several times. But they never did."

"Siblings?" Jesse said.

"Her older sister graduated this school with honors. There is, I believe, a younger girl as well."

"In school here?"

"No. Still in middle school, I think."

"So aside from a tendency toward frequent indiscriminate sex, what kind of mess is she?"

"She failed a number of courses, which is, as you may know, in today's educational climate, not easy."

"She dumb?"

"No. Extremely passive. Apathetic. She never speaks in class. Between classes she didn't interact with other students."

"Didn't?"

"Excuse me?"

"You've been talking about her in the present tense until you said she didn't interact. Why the tense change?"

"Hooker," Lilly said.

"She interacted with Hooker?"

"Intensely," Lilly said. "Have you met him?"

"No, one of the other cops talked to him on the phone."

"He's a lovely boy," Lilly said.

"So how did the school hero end up with the town pump?" Jesse said.

"I don't know," Lilly said.

"Maybe it was influenced by the nymphomania."

"There's that cynical thing again," Lilly said.

"You have any idea where Billie might be now?"

Lilly shook her head. They both stared out the window for a time at the ocean, always in motion, going nowhere.

"If she's missing, wouldn't her parents have reported her missing?"

"You'd think so," Jesse said.

"But they haven't?"

"Not that I can find out. Swampscott cops have nothing."

"Do you think the girl in the lake is Billie?" Lilly said.

"Be my guess," Jesse said.

On Saturday morning, a Swampscott patrolman named Antonelli took Jesse to visit Billie Bishop's parents. The Bishops lived on Garland Terrace, off Humphrey Street, maybe half a mile away from the ocean. It was a two-story colonial house faced with brick. The shutters were dark green. The front door was white. Ivy had grown halfway up the front of the house.

Mrs. Bishop answered the doorbell.

The Swampscott cop said, "I'm Officer Antonelli, ma'am. Swampscott Police. This is Chief Jesse Stone from Paradise."

"Is there anything wrong?" Mrs. Bishop said.

"Just a routine investigation, ma'am. May we come in?"

"Oh, certainly."

Maybe forty-two, a lot of blond hair, a lot of eye makeup. She might have been a cheerleader. Hell, Jesse thought, she might be a cheerleader. She was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt that hung down to her thighs. In blue letters across the front was printed PERSONAL BEST.

"Hank," she said into the kitchen, "there are some policemen here."

Hank appeared drinking coffee from a large mug that had the word mug printed on it.

Everything's labeled, Jesse thought.

"Hank Bishop," he said. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Just routine," Antonelli said. "Could you tell us where your daughter is?"

"Carla's here," Bishop said.

A girl, maybe thirteen, was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Jesse smiled and nodded at her. She had no reaction. Antonelli looked at Jesse.

"How about Billie?" Jesse said.

"I have no daughter named Billie," Bishop said.

"Elinor Bishop?"

"No."

Jesse looked at the cheerleader wife. "Mrs. Bishop?"

She shook her blond head firmly.

"No," she said. "We have no Elinor Bishop."

"Do you have any other children?"

"Yes," Bishop said. "Carla's older sister, Emily."

"And where is she?"

" Mount Holyoke College," Mrs. Bishop said quickly.

"In the summer?" Jesse said.

"Many students go to college in the summer," Mrs. Bishop said. "Emily plans to graduate in three years."

Jesse was watching Carla. She was motionless in the doorway. Neither in the room, nor out of it. Her face was blank.

"We have a young woman dead in Paradise," Jesse said. "We have reason to believe her name is Elinor Bishop, and we were led to believe that she was your daughter."

"You were misled," Bishop said.

"You have no daughter named Elinor Bishop?"

"We do not," Bishop said.

Jesse looked at Mrs. Bishop. She shook her head firmly. He looked at Carla in the doorway. She seemed stiff with immobility. Her face perfectly inanimate. Jesse nodded. With his head he gestured Antonelli to the door.

"Thank you very much for your time," he said.

It was Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday nights he always spent with Jenn. Jesse looked at his watch: 4:20. He took a deep breath.

"Okay," he said. "Let's see if we can make this thing work out."

Molly was in the room, as she always was when they'd arrested a woman. She leaned against the wall beside Suitcase Simpson. Seated in front of Jesse in two straight-backed chairs were an unattractive man and woman who smelled strongly of alcohol. The woman had an evolving bruise on her cheekbone under her left eye. Her lower lip was fattening.

"There's nothing to work out," the man said.

He was a middle-sized man with a beard and curly black hair. It made what showed of his face look very pale. His aviator glasses were gold-framed and tinted amber.

"It's four-twenty in the afternoon and you're both drunk," Jesse said.

"You never had a few drinks?"

"And you were rowdy enough to cause the bartender at The Sevens to call us."

"We had a fucking argument," the man said. "You never had a fucking argument with somebody?"

"And when Officer Simpson arrived you were punching out your wife in the parking lot."

"I wasn't punching her out," the man said.

"How many times did he hit you, ma'am?" Jesse said to the woman.

The woman shook her head.

"There's some evidence on your face for at least twice," Jesse said.

"He didn't hit me," she said.

Jesse glanced up at Simpson.

"I saw him hit her twice with his right fist," Simpson said.

Molly said, "When Suit called it in I checked the computer. This is the third time they've been in here."

"Same occasion?" Jesse said.

"Yes."

"And we let it go why?"

"Mrs. Snyder wouldn't file a complaint," Molly said.

"How about this time?" Jesse said to Mrs. Snyder.

"He didn't hit me," she said.

"Sure he did," Jesse said. "Didn't you, Mr. Snyder."

Snyder shook his head. "I didn't hit her."

Jesse put his left elbow on the arm of his swivel chair and rested his chin in the palm of his left hand. He looked at the Snyders for a while without speaking, then he spoke to Molly.

"There's three times we know about," Jesse said. "How many times you suppose it happened and we don't know about it?"

"It's usually a lot more than is reported," Molly said.

"You got no right talking about us like that," Snyder said. "We didn't do anything but have a few drinks and get in a little squabble."

The word came out "schkwabble." I know the feeling, Jesse thought.