“You know what connection he had to Paradise?”

“Nope.”

“You know his connection to the governor?” Sunny said.

“Nope.”

“How about the bodyguard?” Sunny said.

“You’ve been following the case,” Jesse said.

“I read the papers with interest,” Sunny said. “I am tight with one of the cops involved.”

“I suspected as much,” Jesse said. “Bodyguard was a cop in Baltimore.”

“You check that out?”

“Not yet,” Jesse said. “If he were lying, why would he lie about something so easy to check?”

“Gun?”

“Carries a nine-millimeter Glock,” Jesse said. “We test-fired it. It isn’t the murder weapon.”

“You’ll find him,” Sunny said. “Or her. Or them.”

“Sometimes you don’t,” Jesse said.

“I know.”

They were silent. Jesse thought he heard Sunny swallow.

“You having a drink?” he said.

“White wine,” Sunny said. “Are you having scotch?”

“I am,” Jesse said.

“Having a virtual drink together,” Sunny said.

“Better than no drink at all,” Jesse said.

They were quiet again. It was an easy quiet. There was no strain to it. There was never any strain between them, Jesse thought.

“Ever see Richie?” Jesse said.

“I saw him today,” Sunny said. “He came to pick up Rosie for the weekend.”

“She like that?”

“Yes. She’s always happy to go with him.”

“He still married?” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“Wife like Rosie?”

“Richie says so, and Rosie likes her.”

“How’s that feel?”

“Awful.”

“You comfortable,” Jesse said, “letting her go?”

“Yes. I miss her, but Richie would never let her be mistreated. He loves her as much as I do.”

“How is it between you and Richie.”

“When he’s here?” Sunny thought about it. He heard her swallow. He took a drink. Companionable. “It’s very difficult. For both of us. We are still so…so stuck together…it’s hard to move naturally.”

“He like that, too?” Jesse said.

Sunny thought about that.

“Richie is so interior, it is hard to tell,” Sunny said. “But I think so. I don’t think I’m projecting it onto him.”

“Well,” Jesse said. “Aren’t we in a fucking mess.”

Sunny took another sip of wine. She swallowed slowly, and Jesse could hear her pour more wine, the bottle clinking against the rim of her glass.

“I guess,” Sunny said finally, “if I had to be in a fucking mess, there’s no one I’d rather be in a fucking mess with.”

“Me too,” Jesse said.

24

Jesse sat with Molly in the squad room watching videotapes of Walton Weeks. Molly was taking notes. On the screen, Weeks was interviewing a congressman.

“I am not, of course, an economist,” the congressman said.

“Thank God,” Weeks said.

“But I have yet to hear a valid argument against what used to be called trickle-down economics.”

“The theory that if rich people have money to spend, they’ll spend it, and everyone will benefit,” Weeks said.

“Yes, as a means of redistributing money, it is infinitely more efficient than having us give it to the government for redistribution,” the congressman said.

“In the form of taxes,” Weeks said.

“Yes. If taxes are lowered for people with money, they’ll do something with it. They won’t pile it in the cellar. They’ll invest it and some broker will get a commission. They’ll buy a car and some salesman will get a commission. They’ll build an addition to their house and carpenters, plumbers, electricians, et cetera, will be hired. The economy will benefit. Workers will benefit.”

“Makes sense to me,” Weeks said. “What about nonworkers?”

“Nonworkers?”

“Small children,” Weeks said. “Mothers of small children, elderly men, people who can’t work?”

“No one wishes to abandon those people, but higher taxes, and bigger welfare payments, are not the answer.”

“What is the answer,” Weeks said.

“We need to create stable families,” the congressman said. “Families with husbands and fathers to care for their children, their wives, their elderly parents.”

“How do we do that?”

“Walton, I’m not here to talk about social engineering,” the congressman said.

“Of course you are,” Weeks said. “What do you think taxes are?”

“Too high,” the congressman said, “is what I think taxes are.”

Weeks smiled and looked into the camera.

“On that note, we’ll take a break,” he said. “Be right back.”

Jesse clicked the screen dark. Molly looked at her notes. Jesse stood and walked down the room and looked out the back window at the public works parking lot.

“Pretty reasonable guy,” Jesse said.

“He asks hard questions and follows them up,” Molly said, still looking at her notes. “But he isn’t abrasive. He seems, like, actually interested, like there’s no gotcha going on, you know?”

“I like the one an hour or so ago, when some other guy was talking about creating stable families, and Walton says, ‘So are you in favor of gay marriage?’”

“Yes. You know what’s good,” Molly said. “He didn’t put words in his mouth. He didn’t say, ‘Aha! So you are in favor of gay marriage.’ He just asked the honest question.”

“No wonder people liked him.”

“You never watched him?”

“I only watch ball games,” Jesse said. “What do we know about him from watching his program all day?”

“He’s nonpartisan,” Molly said. “He challenged this guy about how to help impoverished people. He challenged some black activist a while back on welfare.”

She looked at her notes again.

“‘If it’s so good,’ he said, ‘why are there so many fewer intact black families than there were fifty years ago?’”

“Is that true?” Jesse said.

“How the hell do I know,” Molly said. “But you tend to believe him when he says things.”

“So he’s likable and believable, and essentially nonpartisan,” Jesse said. “He seems in a genuine search for the truth.”

“Yes.”

“No wonder somebody wanted to kill him,” Jesse said.

“We don’t want a lot of that going on in public,” Molly said.

“Be the end of politics as we know it,” Jesse said.

“Amazing they let him on television,” Molly said.

“I got a folder full of his columns that I’ll read tonight,” Jesse said. “But, cynicism aside, he doesn’t seem like somebody who would be murdered and hung from a tree because of his, for lack of a better word, politics.”

“Is that why we watched all this?” Molly said. “To find that out?”

“Good to know about your victim.”

“There were two victims,” Molly said.

“I know,” Jesse said. “But she didn’t leave us videotape. We get his killer, we’ll get hers.”

“The thing is,” Molly said, “it’s like we’ve got too much. Videotapes, newspaper columns, two victims, three ex-wives, bodyguard, researcher, lawyer, manager, and God knows who else.”

“There’s no such thing as too much,” Jesse said.

“Except that it’s sort of daunting,” Molly said.

“It’s just work,” Jesse said.

“A dauntingly lot of work,” Molly said.

Jesse smiled.

“We can work.”

Molly closed her notebook.

“We certainly can,” Molly said. “My kids are starting to call me Aunt Mommy.”

“Take tonight off,” Jesse said.

“Omigod,” Molly said. “Tough on the outside, tender on the inside.”

“Probably the right arrangement,” Jesse said. “For a cop.”

Molly smiled.

“Sometimes you’re the other way,” Molly said.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering about, Moll,” Jesse said. “Maybe you can help me with it.”

“Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

“What,” Jesse said.

“‘Maybe you can help me’ is usually code for ‘Molly, there’s something needs to be done that I don’t want to do.’”

“Molly,” Jesse said, “I’m the chief of police. I don’t do, I delegate.”

Molly nodded.

“And wonderfully well,” she said. “What do you need?”