“Threatened? He’s here? In Paradise?”
“Yes.”
“My God, why don’t you arrest him?”
Standing by the door, Suitcase smiled without comment.
“If you’d help us,” Molly said.
“I’m not a policeman,” she said. “It’s your job to arrest him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Molly said. “But we’re not allowed to arrest anybody we feel like. At the moment our only hope would be that he could be charged with participating in a capital crime. Otherwise the statute of limitations applies.”
“He has to have killed someone?”
“Someone had to die in a criminal enterprise of which he was a member,” Molly said.
“Oh, God,” Mrs. Snowdon said. “Gobbledygook. A number of people were killed, weren’t they?”
“We have to be able to demonstrate this man’s involvement,” Molly said.
“Well, I’m not going to do your job for you,” Mrs. Snowdon said. “What kind of job is this for a young woman? Why aren’t you making a home for a husband and children?”
“I do that, too,” Molly said.
She and Mrs. Snowdon stared at each other silently. Molly looked at Suit. Suit shrugged.
“I don’t think you need to worry about him,” Molly said. “He doesn’t appear to have any interest in anyone from his last visit.”
Mrs. Snowdon sat rigidly and said nothing. Molly let out some breath and stood.
“Thanks for your time,” she said. “We can find our way out.”
Mrs. Snowdon didn’t speak, and they left her there, sitting in her iron silence.
4.
Jesse took Marcy Campbell to supper at the Gray Gull. It was June. They sat outside on the deck next to the harbor. It was still light and there was still activity in the harbor.
“Things not working well with your ex-wife?” Marcy said.
Marcy had platinum hair and wore skillful makeup. She was older than Jesse but still good-looking, and clearly sexual. Jesse knew that from experience. But he had also known it before he had the experience. Jesse always wondered how he could tell. He never did quite know, only that there were women who were insistently aware of their bodies, and of their sex. And somehow by posture or magic they communicated that awareness as insistently as they felt it. Marcy was the gold standard for such women.
“You think I only show up when there’s a problem with Jenn?”
“Yes,” Marcy said, and grinned at him. “Fortunately for me, it happens enough so that I see you a lot.”
“Course of true love,” Jesse said, “never did run smooth.”
“You and me? Or you and Jenn?”
“True love? Both.”
“Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?” Marcy said.
“I love you, Marce, you know that.”
“Like a sister,” Marcy said.
“Not quite like a sister,” Jesse said.
“No,” Marcy said, “you’re right. Not like a sister.”
The waitress brought Marcy some white wine and Jesse an iced tea. Marcy looked at the tea.
“Off the booze again?”
“Got no plan,” Jesse said. “Tonight I thought iced tea would be nice.”
“Got any other plans for the night?” Marcy said.
“Let’s see what develops,” Jesse said.
“Let’s.”
They read their menus, Marcy got a second wine, Jesse got a second iced tea. The waitress took their food order and headed for the kitchen. The shipyard next to the Gray Gull was silent now, and in the harbor the last of the evening boats were coming back through the gathering evening.
“Of course you remember the events on Stiles Island ten years ago,” Jesse said.
Marcy seemed to immobilize for a moment like a freeze-frame in a movie.
Then she said, “When I was tied up and gagged and threatened with death by a bunch of cutthroats? Those events?”
“You do remember,” Jesse said.
Marcy nodded.
“I wish I didn’t,” she said. “Forced to think about it, I also remember that you came and saved me.”
Jesse nodded. The waitress returned with their salads. They didn’t speak while she set them down and left.
“You remember one of them? An Indian? A man named Crow?” Jesse said.
Marcy again had a freeze-frame moment. It lasted longer than the first one had.
“My protector,” she said.
“He’s passed the statute of limitations,” Jesse said. “But if I can get a witness or two to say he was involved in a felony that resulted in homicide, even if he didn’t do the killing, I can get around the statute.”
She shook her head.
“You won’t be a witness?”
“No.”
“Your protector?”
“Yes,” Marcy said. “Stockholm syndrome, gratitude, call it what you will. I was lying on my back with my hands and feet tied and my mouth taped. There were five bad men in the room involved in a crime that would send them all to jail forever if they got caught.”
Jesse nodded. “So they had nothing much to lose,” he said.
“Nothing,” Marcy said. “I was helpless, and they were free to do anything they wanted to with me. I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t even speak. About all I could do was wiggle. Can you even imagine what that is like?”
“No,” Jesse said.
“That’s right,” Marcy said. “You can’t. I wish I couldn’t. I wish I could forget it.”
“But they didn’t touch you,” Jesse said.
“No, because they knew that they’d have to deal with Crow, and they were afraid of him. Even Harry Smith.”
“Macklin,” Jesse said.
“I know. He was Harry Smith to me.”
“If he’d needed to,” Jesse said, “Crow would have swatted you like a fly.”
“No,” Marcy said. “I can’t bear to think about it if I don’t think of him protecting me.”
Jesse started to speak and stopped. He put his hand out and patted her hand.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “You came out of it okay, and that was because of Crow.”
“And you.”
“Me later, maybe,” Jesse said.
They ate their salads quietly. The waitress cleared their plates and brought the entrées. Marcy sat looking across the table at Jesse. She was tapping her fingertips together near her chin.
“He came to see me,” Marcy said. “Two days ago.”
Jesse nodded.
“He threaten you?”
“No,” Marcy said. “He was pleasant. Asked if I was okay. Said he had some business in town, and thought he’d check on me.”
“You believe that?”
“I believe what I need to believe,” Marcy said. “If I stop thinking of him the way I do, I can’t stand to live with the memory. I can’t be Marcy. Can you understand that?”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “I can.”
5.
Molly sat with Jesse in his office.
“Nobody on Stiles Island will say anything about Mr. Cromartie,” she said.
“Neither will Marcy Campbell,” Jesse said.
“Even though you questioned her all night?” Molly said.
Jesse raised his eyebrows at her.
“I’m a law officer,” Molly said. “I have my sources.”
Jesse nodded.
“She feels he saved her life,” Jesse said.
“All the hostages do,” Molly said.
“All women,” Jesse said.
“I told you he’s a hunk,” Molly said.
“Maybe they’re right,” Jesse said.
“That he did save their lives?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe they are,” Molly said. “Still, a lot of people got killed, including two of us.”
“And the only thing I saw him do was rescue the women,” Jesse said.
“The other people,” Molly said, “people in the bank, homeowners, other businesspeople, they won’t even say he was there. They’re scared, afraid to re-involve with him.”
“Don’t blame them,” Jesse said.
“So, we got no case.”
“No,” Jesse said. “I talked to Healy. No warrants out on him. I talked to my guy Travis, in Tucson. Nothing. Crow doesn’t seem to have been detected in a criminal act since he left here.”