Lorrie reddened.

“Hendricks put a hand on her forearm.

“Ladies,” he said. “Ladies. This isn’t the time, ladies.”

Everyone was silent. Jesse waited. No one spoke.

“Does anyone have any thought on who might have wanted to kill Walton Weeks and Carey Longley?”

No one spoke. Jesse waited.

Then Hendricks said, “Maybe somebody only wanted to kill one of them and the other one died as a by-product.”

“Possible,” Jesse said. “Any idea which was the target?”

“Well, certainly Walton was the most prominent,” Hendricks said, “and after his death he was…displayed more prominently.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “That’s true. Anything else?”

No one spoke. Jesse smiled pleasantly at them.

“We will probably need to talk to each of you individually,” Jesse said, “in the course of the investigation. We’re not handy to each other, so it may take some travel. But we can phone and fax and e-mail. It’s a small department, but we’re very modern.”

No one said anything. Jesse gave out his card to those who didn’t have one.

“Detective Simpson, do you have anything to add?”

“No, sir,” Suit said.

Jesse nodded and smiled at them all again.

“We’ll be in touch,” he said.

22

I like those women,” Suit said in the car driving north through Connecticut.

“In the carnal sense?” Jesse said.

“Of course not, I’m, like, almost a detective for crissake,” Suit said. “I think if we push them a little, they will explode and a lot of stuff we don’t know will come flying out.”

“There’s usually tension between ex- and current wives,” Jesse said.

“You speaking from experience?” Suit said.

“Only way to speak,” Jesse said.

“So what do you think about those people?” Suit said. “Seems to me they were all living off of Weeks and now he’s gone, they’re scrambling to see what’s left.”

“Why do you think so?” Jesse said.

“Couple of things. One: Of course anytime the milk cow dies everybody starts worrying about where they gonna get milk,” Suit said.

Jesse nodded. The car went up the Charter Oak Bridge over the Connecticut River, with Hartford on the left.

“Second thing,” Suit said. “Nobody seemed to be mourning the guy much.”

“Sometimes after a murder,” Jesse said, “people seem flat and without feelings. It’s shock mostly.”

“You know what kind of guy he was?” Suit said.

“No.”

“Anyone say anything about him?” Suit said.

Jesse, from the passenger seat, glanced over at Suit and nodded slowly. Driving, his eyes on the road, Suit didn’t see him nod.

“Not that I can remember, Detective Simpson,” Jesse said.

“Nobody did,” Suit said. “I went over my notes last night in the hotel. Nobody said they loved him. Nobody said the world lost a great man. Nobody said they’d miss him.”

“Hendricks said he wanted to carry on Walton’s legacy,” Jesse said.

“What’s that mean?” Suit said.

“I think it means he wants Weeks’s job,” Jesse said.

Suit nodded.

“And the wife, the current one,” Suit said. “She didn’t even claim the body.”

Jesse nodded.

“And she didn’t worry when he didn’t come home, and she didn’t even come up when she heard he was dead. Nobody came up. The lawyer, the manager, the researcher guy. I think we’ll find that Lutz did all the arrangements.”

“Hendricks,” Jesse said.

“And the ex-wife,” Suit said.

“Stephanie,” Jesse said.

“That’s why I take notes,” Suit said. “I can’t remember anybody’s name.”

“Whatever works. What about Stephanie.”

“She implied that maybe the wife…”

“Lorrie.”

“That Lorrie,” Suit said, “might have been fooling around and didn’t care if Weeks came home.”

“She didn’t quite say that,” Jesse said.

“I think that’s what she meant,” Suit said.

“We’ll see,” Jesse said.

“We gonna stop up here in Vernon at that deli.”

“Rein’s,” Jesse said. “Yeah, tongue sandwich on light rye.”

“Tongue?”

“Yes.”

“Cow tongue?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Jesus,” Suit said.

They turned off Route 84 at the proper entrance.

“Did I miss anything?” Suit said.

“In New York? No. Or if you did we both did,” Jesse said.

“I don’t think we did,” Suit said.

“One suggestion, though,” Jesse said. “Based on my years of experience.”

“What?”

“The fact,” Jesse said, “that you liked those women for evidence doesn’t mean you couldn’t also like them in the carnal sense.”

“Wow,” Suit said as he pulled the car into the parking lot in front of Rein’s Deli. “No wonder you got to be chief.”

“It’s a gift,” Jesse said.

23

How is it?” Jesse said to Sunny on the phone.

He sat with a drink at the bar in his living room, in front of his picture of Ozzie Smith.

“Better than I feared,” Sunny said. “I was prepared to be sympathetic. We’re both women and she was raped.”

“The sisterhood is strong,” Jesse said.

“You’ll never understand,” Sunny said.

“No,” Jesse said.

He held the glass away from him and looked at the smooth whiskey and the clean ice. He drank some.

“But,” Sunny said, “what I wasn’t prepared for is…I like her.”

“She’s pretty likable,” Jesse said.

“She is,” Sunny said. “She’s interested. She’s smart. She listens. She gets it. She’s funny. She’s been around.”

“I’ll say.”

“All of us have been around,” Sunny said.

“I know.”

“But for all of that, there’s some quality in her,” Sunny said, “that makes you want to protect her. Some sort of little-girl thing, like she really shouldn’t be facing life alone.”

“I know that, too,” Jesse said.

He admired his whiskey.

“Yes. I can see why she’s hard to let go of,” Sunny said.

Jesse took another drink.

“Can I trust her?” Sunny said.

Jesse set the glass down on the counter.

“No,” he said.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Sunny said.

“Some are less perfect than others,” Jesse said. “Who’s with her at night?’

“Nobody. She lives in a secure building. Twenty-four-hour concierge. I take her home when she’s through for the night. And pick her up when she starts the morning.”

“Doesn’t leave a lot of time to find the rapist,” Jesse said.

“If he’s stalking her,” Sunny said, “I’m hoping that maybe he’ll find us.”

“Is there a Plan B?”

“Of course there’s a Plan B,” Sunny said. “You remember my friend Spike.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to introduce them,” Sunny said, “and see if she’ll let Spike babysit her sometimes, while I try to find the rapist.”

“Spike would be effective,” Jesse said. “She won’t like it so much that he’s gay.”

“Because she can’t vamp him?”

“Something like that,” Jesse said.

“You know her,” Sunny said.

“I know her better than anyone,” Jesse said. He put some more ice into his glass as he talked, and added whiskey. “But I have no judgment about her. I know the facts of her, but I can’t seem to make anything coherent out of what I know.”

“Yes,” Sunny said.

Jesse started on his second drink.

“How is Walton Weeks going?” Sunny said.

“Gathering information,” Jesse said.

“Anything promising?”

“Too early.”

“And the public attention doesn’t help,” Sunny said. “You’re sitting there looking at this pile of unassociated data, and everyone is clamoring for an arrest.”

“Clamoring,” Jesse said. “He was a friend of the governor’s.”

“Oh God!” Sunny said.

“Uh-huh.”

“We both know the first person to look at in a murder case,” Sunny said.

“Cherchez la significant other?”

“Oui.”

“There’s three ex-wives,” Jesse said. “The current significant other got killed with him.”

“Did she have a significant other,” Sunny said, “besides Walton?”

“Good thought,” Jesse said. “We don’t know yet.”