“Do you have any suspects?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“That would be telling. Next.”
The sparring went on for about fifteen minutes before Jesse turned the mics over to Healy, who was equally vague, just less annoyingly so. After ten minutes of Healy giving the press the runaround, they surrendered to the cold and left.
Jesse and Healy shook hands. Healy said he had to get back to the office, but that he could return to town tomorrow if Jesse needed him.
“I’ll let you know,” Jesse said. “Today I’ve got to talk to Ginny Connolly’s mother. Molly’s picking her up at Logan. Then it’s due diligence time. Going back and re-interviewing everyone mentioned in the old reports.”
At the mention of Ginny Connolly’s mom, Healy rolled his eyes.
Jesse asked. “What’s that about?”
“When you meet Maxie Connolly, you’ll see.”
17
The minute Maxie Connolly came through his office door, Jesse understood why Healy had rolled his eyes at the mention of her name. She didn’t just come through the door. She blew in like a force of nature. Watching her walk toward him, Jesse half expected to hear the blare of trumpets. It didn’t take a trained detective to get that Maxie was all about herself. But persistent narcissism catches up to the best of them. It had definitely caught up to Maxie Connolly and had started taking its toll. Time, too. The skin of her face was too tanned and taut. Her hair, too blond and brassy. Her sunglasses were too big, her full-length mink too outrageous, and her jewelry too tasteless. All the knobs on her were turned up to ten. Jesse expected to see Molly trailing behind, but Molly was nowhere to be seen.
“You’re cute,” Maxie Connolly said in her two-pack-a-day voice. She threw herself in the chair facing Jesse’s desk.
“Thank you. Where’s Officer Crane?”
She tilted her head in confusion. “Officer Crane? Who’s Officer— Oh, Molly. Jeez, little Molly Burke turned out to be some piece of ass, huh? Who woulda figured that? I mean, she was a cute girl, but I never figured she’d fill out like that. I bet you have trouble keeping your hands off that ass of hers.”
Jesse stood up and came around the desk. He held out his right hand.
“I’m Chief Stone, but I’d like it if you’d call me Jesse.”
She took his hand.
“I’d like it if you would call me yours.”
He laughed, but not at her. He’d been around grief and its many forms long enough to give Maxie Connolly a break.
“I’m too old for you,” he said. “I’d never be able to keep up.”
She bowed her head and smiled.
“Where is Molly?”
“She’s dropping Al at the hotel.”
“Al?”
“Husband number three. Traveling’s rough on him. Molly said she’d be here as soon as she got him settled in. Hey, Jesse, you got anything to drink in here?”
“I can get Officer Simpson to get you a glass of water.”
“That the big fella out by the desk?”
“That’s him,” Jesse said.
“Hunky as he is, I was hoping for something a little stronger than water.”
Jesse reached into his bottom drawer and pulled out the bottle of Jameson that someone had given him as a gift last Christmas. He didn’t prefer it. Bourbon was usually his backup after Johnnie Walker, but Healy liked it and Healy was the one he most often shared a drink with in the office. He took out a red plastic cup and poured a finger or two for Maxie Connolly. After pouring, he put the bottle away.
She raised the glass to him. “Slainte.” Maxie took it in a single gulp. “Thank you, Jesse.”
He nodded.
They sat there like that for a few seconds, in silence. Cracks were starting to show in her armor. They both knew what was coming next.
“Maxie — may I call you Maxie?”
Now it was her turn to nod.
“I’m going to ask Officer Simpson to come and sit with us.”
“Does he have to be in here?” she asked, her raspy voice quivering, her hands shaking.
“I think he does, Maxie. Usually I’d have Molly in here with us. It’s that I want someone to take notes when we’re talking. I need to pay careful attention to you, and if Officer Simpson is in here with us, I can do that more effectively.”
That wasn’t it at all. Jesse wasn’t comfortable being alone in his office with women he wasn’t acquainted with: not suspects, not women he was interviewing. These days it was just too easy for people to make accusations that were impossible to contain or disprove. He had already taken a big risk by giving Maxie a drink and he had no intention of taking any risks beyond that one.
“Can’t we wait till Molly gets back?”
“Let me check something.”
Jesse went to his door, poked his head through, and asked Suit to see where Molly was at. Just as Suit pressed the button on the mic, Molly walked into the station.
18
Molly Crane’s contempt for Maxie Connolly grew exponentially as her dead friend’s mother spoke to Jesse about her daughter. Jesse caught on to Molly’s ire quickly enough — not that she hid it — but he needed Molly there to listen. She’d grown up on the same street with Ginny and Maxie. She’d been witness to some of the events leading up to the girls’ disappearance. Maxie broke down briefly when Jesse assured her there was no mistake about her daughter’s remains. She asked for another drink and Jesse gave it to her. The second drink seemed to loosen her up even more.
“She was a lot like her father, Ginny was, all quiet and to herself,” Maxie said. “I don’t know what I saw in that father of hers to begin with. Sure, Steven was a handsome man, but I swear, the minute after he said ‘I do,’ it was, like, ‘Not anymore.’ Nuh-uh. I couldn’t get him to do anything. Not go to the movies. Not screw. I’m not even sure how Ginny was even conceived. Musta been a blue moon or something. And believe me, Jesse,” she said, putting her hand on his thigh as he leaned against the front of his desk, “I’ve never had trouble getting men interested in me.”
Jesse waited a beat and then went to sit behind his desk.
“All he wanted to do was to go to work, come home, eat dinner, and sit in front of the TV and watch his beloved Sox. I think the only way I could have gotten him interested in doing me was to dress up like Oil Can Boyd. Instead I went and wasted my money on garters and bustiers.”
“When did he leave?” Jesse asked.
“Not soon enough.” She saw Jesse wasn’t amused and gave him a serious answer. “When Ginny was a baby.”
“Where’d he go?”
“First to the Dominican to get a quickie divorce, then... who the hell knows. Who cares?”
Jesse asked, “Did he ever show any interest in Ginny at all after he left?”
“He wrote to her for a few years, no return address. Then that stopped when Ginny was ten. The letters just stopped coming. Never another one after that.”
“Did you ever read the letters?”
“Never. Steve was dead to me.”
“Did Ginny ever discuss what was in the letters with you?”
Maxie shook her head. “Me and Ginny... we didn’t have that kind of relationship. She wouldn’t talk to me about stuff like that. Jeez, it near killed her when she started bleeding to come to me and let me explain the facts of life.”
Jesse came back around the desk. “Why did you leave town so soon after Ginny went missing?”
“For the same reason Johnny O’Hara split,” she said. “I needed to breathe. Without Ginny here, I had nothing to hold me in Paradise any longer. Nothing except pain, and I don’t like pain, Jesse. I’d always wanted to get out of this place anyway. Paradise! Yeah, right. If Ginny turned up, I was a phone call away. You think I wanted to bury myself alive like Tess? She never had much use for me, Tess, but I heard she’s like a ghost these days. She’s still in that little crumby house over on Crestview. Still goes to Mass every day. That was never for me.”