“Your old friend Johnnie Walker?” Dix asked.
“I am trying to protect people I care about,” Jesse said. “Like always. Even the ones who are fucking gone.”
“You’re pissed because you couldn’t protect Nellie.”
“Or Charlie. Or the shortstop.”
“You are aware that there was no way for you to know that Charlie needed protecting, right?”
“Maybe I should have.”
“And maybe beating yourself up over shit you can’t control gets you opening a drawer that should permanently remain closed. Or empty.”
Dix leaned forward, just slightly. “You mind if we jump around a little?”
“Like you’ve ever needed my permission to do that.”
“You know that boy likely killed himself.”
“Even if he did, I want to know why.”
“But if you never do, you need to be willing to accept.”
“The things I cannot change.”
“There you go!”
Then he told Dix about the scam call to Miss Emma’s phone bill and where it had come from.
“Miss Emma was sure about the date. She’s got a better memory than me,” Jesse said.
“So maybe you finally got a break.”
“Wonders never cease.”
“No chance that it was some kind of technical mistake?”
“It’s a mistake,” Jesse said. “But not by the phone company.”
“You’re convinced a scammer might have killed Charlie Farrell?”
“More than ever.”
Dix smiled. Jesse got one an hour usually. Occasionally two.
“Mind if I think like a cop?” Dix asked.
“You always think like a cop.”
“What about the dead guy in the wheelchair and the missing roommate?”
“Just because I don’t mention them doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten them.”
“You think it might have been them running a scam operation.”
“The thought has occurred,” Jesse said. “But then who killed Waterfield?”
“Hey, you’re the chief.”
“Nice that you still notice.”
“A regular crime wave you’ve got going.”
“Wow,” Jesse said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Dix shook his head. “Sarcasm.”
“It’s like Harry Bosch says in those books,” Jesse said.
“One of the great cop characters ever devised by mortal mind,” Dix said.
“Everybody matters or nobody matters.”
“Ought to be on the wall of every police station in the country,” Dix said.
Now Jesse was the one leaning forward, feeling his fists clenched, the back-and-forth ending, just like that.
“Charlie matters the most.”
“So find out who killed him.”
“What if I don’t?”
The second smile.
“You’ll probably drive yourself to drink,” Dix said.
Sixty-One
It hadn’t taken much detective work for Molly to find out where Ainsley Walsh got her nails done. California Nails and Spa wasn’t much of a spa, but it was where just about everybody went for nails in Paradise. Molly had been there herself the day before. She asked the college girl working on her, Fukiko, to see if she could find out when Ainsley Walsh’s next appointment was. It turned out to be today, an hour after school let out. Mani and pedi both.
It was five o’clock when Ainsley came out of the place, holding her hands out in front of her as if to admire Fukiko’s artistry. She was wearing flip-flops to protect her toenails.
There were few guilt-free girly pleasures that could beat nails.
They were at the opposite end of Main Street from More Chocolate. On the way over Molly had looked at her own rust-colored nails and noticed that one had tragically chipped.
“They look terrific,” Molly said when she fell in next to Ainsley on the sidewalk.
Ainsley jumped.
“You can’t sneak up on people like that,” she said.
Molly gave her a homecoming queen smile.
“Just did!” she said.
“What do you want, Mrs. Crane?”
“I was hoping we could have a chat. Just us girls.”
“Yeah... no.”
“I’m not your enemy,” Molly said. “We’re actually on the same side.”
“You’re on your own side.”
Ainsley kept walking, at an even brisker pace. Molly was starting to worry about the girl’s pedicure.
Molly picked up her own pace, got in front of her, turned, and stopped. Ainsley had no choice but to do the same thing. There were people walking the sidewalks on both sides of Main. The last thing Molly wanted was a scene, especially in the world of social media.
The whole world, Jesse liked to say, had become one extended photo op.
“Are you going to push me around like Jack’s uncle did with Scott?” Ainsley asked.
She hadn’t made a move to go around Molly, at least not yet. Her hair was to her shoulders. She was wearing Lululemon exercise tights that looked to have been applied with the same brush that Fukiko had just used. The makeup she must have put on before school had stood the test of time. She didn’t need it. Total knockout. Flawless complexion, body by God.
“Detective Simpson didn’t do anything with Scott Ford besides his job,” Molly said. “Which is what I’d very much like to do.”
Ainsley Walsh’s head suddenly swiveled around.
“I don’t want to be seen talking to you,” Ainsley said.
She started to turn and walk back toward the nail salon.
Molly gently placed a hand on her arm, hopeful that Ainsley wouldn’t start yelling about police brutality.
“Just give me a few minutes, Ainsley, that’s all, and I promise I will be permanently out of your really great hair.”
The girl seemed to relax then, if just slightly. Hair was as much a common language as nails. Molly had raised all those teenage girls. And had been one herself. You could never go wrong complimenting someone on hair, not one single time.
“I need to get it cut,” Ainsley said.
“Need to have it just right for graduation, right?”
“Totally.”
“Five minutes,” Molly said.
Ainsley looked around again.
“Where?”
“Where did you and Jack go when you wanted to talk?” Molly said.
Ainsley told her.
“Let’s go there,” Molly said.
Sixty-Two
Cameron Beach was about two miles from where Jesse lived. The two women stayed inside Molly’s car in the small public parking lot instead of walking down near the water. Ainsley was still being vigilant about her pedicure.
So they sat in the front seat of the old Cherokee, windows down, letting in the smell and the sound of the ocean. Molly hadn’t tired of it yet, likely never would.
“Jack and I used to come here and just talk,” Ainsley said. “Jack used to say he did some of his best thinking up here.”
“Even when you weren’t with him?”
“He used to joke that it got better when I wasn’t with him,” she said. “He said that when he was alone he liked to come here and write.”
Molly had decided to go slow, now that she’d gotten Ainsley this far.
“Who really broke it off?” she asked.
“I thought I already told you it was mutual.”
“Ainsley,” Molly said, “even though it might be difficult for you to believe, I was your age once. In addition to that, I have raised four daughters. It’s never mutual, whether you’re about to go off to college or not.”
The girl stared straight ahead, at some distant point on the water. Or even beyond that.
“I loved him,” she said. “I never loved anybody before.”
“Do you love Scott Ford the way you loved Jack?”
“That’s not just mean. It’s one more thing that’s none of your business.”