They were drinking coffee from paper cups. A third cup, with the plastic lid still on it, sat at the head of the table. A box of Dunkin‘ Donuts was open on the table. Suit had his notebook open in

front of him. Molly had a computer printout. Jesse came in, examined the box of donuts for a moment, took one, and sat at the head of the table and took the lid off the coffee. He took a bite of the donut.

“Cinnamon,” he said.

“I know you like them,” Molly said.

“What’re the ones with no hole and

chocolate

frosting?”

“Boston cream,” Molly said.

“Good God,” Jesse said. “What

have you got,

Suit?”

“Okay,” Suit said. He looked at his open notebook.

“First thing. Nobody took a cab to the mall on the day of the

shooting. The two cab rides to the mall were two days earlier and are regulars. Two sisters who live together and go shopping every week.”

“Okay,” Jesse said. “Anyone

picked up at the Lincolns’ condo on

the day of the shooting?”

“No. But the cab company has a log, you know for taxes and shit.

There was a fare went from Paradise to Wonderland on the day of the shooting. I know the cabdriver. Mackie Ward, we played football in high school. Mackie says he picked up a couple who fit our description, down in front of the Chinese restaurant on Atlantic Ave., in the morning on the day of the shooting, and took them to Wonderland.”

“They hail him?”

“No. They called for a cab and asked to be picked up there.”

“Probably a cell phone,” Jesse said.

“Okay. So they take the cab

to Wonderland. They take the train to Logan. Take the bus to one of the terminals. Catch the rental car bus in front of the terminal and go and pick up the rental car.”

“Pretty elaborate,” Molly said.

“They knew if they killed a cop

we’d look for them hard.”

“Too elaborate. It’s what amateurs do.

They would have been much

better off to drive the Saab to the airport, park it at the airport parking garage, pick up the rental car, and drive to the mall. You got anything else?”

“There were two other cab fares to the airport the day of the

shooting,” Suit said. “Both guys, alone.”

“We’ll check everything,” Jesse

said. “But it’ll turn out to be

Wonderland. How’d you make out, Moll?”

Molly finished chewing some donut, and sipped a little coffee.

“Piece of cake,” she said.

“There are thirteen hundred and

twenty-three listings for ocular scanning devices on the Patent Office website.”

“Names?” Jesse said.

“Yes, and cities.”

“Where they live or where they did the invention?”

“Don’t know.”

“Anybody named Lincoln?”

“No.”

“Anybody from Cleveland.”

“Didn’t check by city, yet.”

“Okay.”

Jesse looked at the donuts.

“Boston cream?” he said to Molly.

“You know, like Boston cream pie, except it’s a

donut.”

“And Boston cream pie is a cake, isn’t it?”

“Technically.”

Jesse took a Boston cream donut from the box and put it on a napkin in front of him and looked at it.

“I bet it would be easy to get this all over you,” he

said.

“Easier than you can imagine,” Molly said.

“It may be that only

women can eat them.”

“The neater species,” Jesse said.

“Exactly.”

They were quiet while Jesse took a careful bite of the donut.

He

chewed and swallowed and nodded slowly.

“Good body,” Jesse said, “with a

hint of

insouciance.”

“Insouciance?” Suit said.

“I don’t know what it means

either,” Jesse said. “Suit, you get

hold of Healy. Tell him we need the names of everybody who rented a car the day of the shooting. He’ll have a list.

They’ve already

told me there’s no one named Lincoln.”

“And I’ll see how many ocular scanners are listed from

Cleveland,” Molly said. “It might narrow the cross-referencing.”

“Don’t bother,” Jesse said.

“We’ll have to check every name

against the list of car rentals, anyway. They might not have patented it from Cleveland, or in Cleveland, or whatever the hell one does to get Cleveland mentioned.”

“And when we’re done?” Suit said.

“If we get a match we might have their new identity.”

70

Before he went to work, Jesse drove out to the Neck to see Candace and the dog. It was early March and still wintry with the ugly snow compacting where the plows had spilled it. The sky was overcast. As he drove across the causeway, the ocean, off to his right, was a sullen gray, with a few seabirds wheeling above it.

When he got out of his car at the top of Candace’s long curved

driveway he could smell the approaching snow. It hadn’t taken him

long, when he’d come from Los Angeles, to learn the anticipatory

smell of it. There were cars in the driveway when Jesse arrived, so he parked on the street and walked up. A sign hanging from the knob on the front door read OPEN HOUSE, BROKERS ONLY, PLEASE COME IN.

Below the invitation was a small logo with a house in it, and the words “Pell Real Estate.” Jesse went in. A woman sat on a folding

chair at a card table in the hall. She had a pile of brochures on the table in front of her, and a guest book. Jesse could hear voices and movement elsewhere in the house. The sound had the kind of echoed quality that one gets in a house devoid of furniture or rugs.

“Hi,” the woman said, “here for

the open house?”

“I’m here to see Candace

Pennington,” Jesse said.

“You’re not a broker?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, the Penningtons have

moved.”

“When?”

“Last week.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“I don’t really know,” the woman

said. “I’m just supervising the

open house.”

She was a heavy exuberant woman with short hair colored very blond.

“Who would know?”

“Oh, I’m sure the office has their new address,” the woman said.

“You could check with Henry.”

“Henry?”

“Henry Pell. Are you interested in the house?”

In the rooms that Jesse could see, the furniture was gone.

There

were no rugs or drapes. The house was blank, waiting to be re-created.

“No,” Jesse said, “I’m

not.”

As he walked back down the curving drive toward the street, the

snow had begun, a few flakes drifting down. More would follow, he knew. They were saying three to six inches. Weather Girl Jenn would be breaking into the regular programming with weather updates from Storm Center 3. Maybe standing in the parking lot. With her designer wool watch cap pulled down just right over her ears. And the flakes fluttering past. As Jesse drove back across the causeway, the snow came straight in at the windshield. Small flakes, the kind all the old-time townies said meant a heavy snowfall. He wasn’t long enough out of Southern California to argue

the point, though in the time he’d been here he’d seen no

correlation.

He could call Henry Pell and get Candace’s new address. He

wasn’t sure he would. They’d taken her where they needed to take

her. Where she had no history. Where there were no stories about her. No giggles in the hallways. No covert gestures about sex. No fears that a naked picture of her might surface. What did he have to say to her about that? What did anybody?

The snow had begun to accumulate and the roads were becoming slick as Jesse parked in his spot by the police station, and went in. Bo Marino was mopping the floor in the area of the front desk.

Jesse went past him to his office and stopped in the doorway and looked back.

“Where are the other two?” Jesse said.

“Cleaning the cells,” Molly said.