I am not

God.”

“I thought they were the same thing,”

Jesse said.

“Think how disappointed I am,” Healy said.

“It’ll be a long

process.”

“How long?”

“Long,” Healy said.

They were silent for a moment.

“I got a bad little thought,” Jesse said.

“About the two guns?” Healy said.

“Each vie shot the same way,

in the same spot, either shot kills them?”

Jesse nodded.

“Be good if you could speed the process up,” Jesse

said.

“Do what I can,” Healy said.

They were silent, looking at each other.

“You used to play ball,” Healy said after a time.

“Yeah, Albuquerque,” Jesse said.

“I was with Binghamton,” Healy said.

“Eastern

League.”

“You get a sniff at the show?”

Healy shook his head.

“Nope. I was a pitcher, Phillies organization, pretty good. Then

I went in the Army and came home and got married and had kids

…”

Jesse nodded.

“And it went away,” Healy said.

“You?”

“Shortstop, tore up my shoulder, and that was the end of

that.”

“Were you good?” Healy asked.

“Yes.”

“Too bad,” Healy said. “You play

anywhere now?”

“Paradise twi league,” Jesse said.

“Softball.”

“Better than nothing,” Healy said.

“A lot better,” Jesse said.

19

Jesse sat with Suitcase Simpson in the front seat of Simpson’s

pickup parked up the street from Candace Pennington’s home on Paradise Neck. The weathered shingle house sat up on a rocky promontory on the outer side of the neck overlooking the open ocean.

“She walks from here down to the corner of Ocean Ave. to catch

the school bus,” Jesse said. “Which Molly will be driving.”

“School bus company in on this?” Simpson said.

“No. They think we’re trying to catch a drug

pusher.”

“I used to ride the bus to school,”

Simpson said. “Lot of shit

got smoked on that bus.”

“Focus here, Suit,” Jesse said.

“You’ll follow her when she

walks to the bus stop, and follow the bus to school and watch her until she’s in the building. You go in the building after her and

hang around near where she is, and, at the end of the day, reverse the procedure.”

“What did you tell the school?”

“Same thing, undercover drug

investigation.”

“I played football with Marino’s older brother,” Simpson said.

“Half the school knows me. How undercover can it be.”

“Suit,” Jesse said.

“We’re not really looking for druggies.

It’s

a cover. It’s good if everyone knows you’re a cop, as long as they

don’t know why you’re there.”

“Which is?”

“To protect Candace Pennington, and, maybe, while we’re at it,

get something on the three creeps that raped her.”

“But no one knows that,” Simpson said.

“They threatened her if she told on them,”

Jesse said. “And I

promised her that I’d keep it secret.”

“Do I wear my unie?” Simpson said.

“No, I told the school to pretend you were a new member of the

custodial staff.”

“Janitor?”

“Yep.”

“Do I get one of those work shirts that has my name over the

pocket?”

“Yeah. Do you want Suitcase?

Or

Luther?”

“I should never have told you my real name,” Simpson

said.

“I’m your chief,” Jesse said.

“You tell me

everything.”

“Yeah, well, my mother comes by and sees me sweeping up, I’m

gonna refer her to you.”

Jesse smiled.

“Kid’s alone,” Jesse said.

“She’s been raped. She’s afraid it

might happen again. She’s sixteen years old and afraid, and they’ve

threatened to show her naked pictures to everyone in the high school. She’s afraid they’ll hurt her.

She’s afraid of her mother’s

disapproval, and I don’t know where her father stands.”

Simpson nodded.

“So we’re gonna see that she

ain’t alone.”

Jesse nodded.

“Suit,” he said. “You may make

detective

someday.”

“We don’t have any detective

ranks,” Simpson

said.

“Well,” Jesse said. “If we

did.”

“Hell,” Simpson said. “I already

made janitor.”

20

Monday through Friday evenings, when Garfield Kennedy got off the commuter train at the Paradise Center Station, he waited for the train to leave, then walked a hundred yards down the tracks and cut through behind the Congregational Church to Maple Street where he lived. This Thursday night was like all the others, except that it was raining, and, as he walked behind the church, a man and a woman approached through the rain and shot him to death without a word.

When Jesse got there he already knew what he’d find.

Squatting

on his heels in the rain beside Peter Perkins, he saw the two small bullet holes in the chest, one on each side. The blood had seeped through Kennedy’s raincoat and been nearly washed away by the rain,

leaving only a light pink stain.

“Same thing,” Jesse said.

“Name’s Kennedy,” Peter Perkins

said. “He’s a lawyer, works in

Boston. He lives over there, on Maple. Figure he got off the train, cut through the church parking lot toward his house … and never made it.”

“Family?” Jesse said.

“Wife, three daughters.”

“They know?”

“They came over to see what was going on,”

Perkins

said.

“Christ,” Jesse said.

“It wasn’t good,” Perkins said.

“I’ll talk with them,” Jesse

said.

The rain was washing over Kennedy’s face and soaking his

hair.

“And they won’t have any idea why someone killed him,” Jesse

said. “And I’ll ask if they know Kenneth Eisley or Barbara Carey,

and they won’t. And we’ll find no connection among the three of

them and the bullets will be from the same guns that killed the other two.”

“You think it’s a serial killer,

Jesse?”

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Any fix on

when it

happened?”

“I talked with the pastor of the church and he says that the

church music director came in to practice on the organ at about four,” Perkins said. “And didn’t see anything. So, sometime between

four and when the call came in at seven-fifteen. Between four and seven-fifteen there were three commuter trains, the last one at six twenty-three.”

“Who found the body,” Jesse said.

“Couple kids skateboarding.”

“In the dark?”

“The pastor says the parking lot lights are on a timer and they

turned on at seven. They never changed the timer for daylight savings.”

“The kids still here?”

“Yeah. They’re in the cruiser with

Eddie.”

“Hang on to them.”

Jesse stood up. “Don’t move a

thing,” he said. “Everything just

the way it is.”

“Sure thing,” Perkins said. “I

still got to take my

pictures.”

Jesse walked away from the scene, a hundred yards up the railroad tracks to the Paradise Center Station. It was empty and dark. The last train would have been at 6:23. He turned and looked down the tracks. This time of year it would have been dark by six.

But if you were used to it, you probably wouldn’t have a problem.

He started down the tracks. He wasn’t used to it, but the light

from the church parking lot was helpful. Besides, I’m a natural

athlete. There was a pathway through the screen of trees into

the back of the church parking lot. He walked through this way,

carrying his briefcase. Lot was still dark. He’s walking down here,

toward Maple Street, and he sees a couple people walking toward him, and he doesn’t pay any attention and then they get close and