“There’s no need to be caustic, Chief Stone,” Miriam Fiedler said. “We are simply trying to maintain the integrity of our property and the safety of our streets.”
Jesse nodded at Nina Pinero, and she gently pushed a little boy forward. Jesse took his hand as he stepped from the bus.
“Meet the enemy,” Jesse said.
The boy was wearing sandals and khaki shorts, and a snow-white T-shirt. Jesse could feel the stiffness in his hand when he held it.
“His name,” Jesse said, “is Roberto Valdez. He was five last week.”
Nina gently directed a little girl from the bus. Jesse took her hand as she stepped down. She had on red sneakers with red-and-white striped laces, and white shorts and a white T-shirt.
“This is Isabel Gomez,” Jesse said. “She won’t be five until later this month.”
He could feel Isabel tremble a little as he held her hand.
“Okay, Isabel,” Jesse said. “You stand with Roberto, right here, beside the bus, behind me.”
“Is this really necessary, Chief Stone?” Miriam Fiedler said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse said. “It is.”
One by one, the kids emerged from the bus and stood fearfully with Jesse for a moment while he introduced them. Finally they were through. Molly got out of the bus and stood with the kids. Nina Pinero got out and stood beside Jesse.
“Chief Stone,” Austin Carr said, “we do not have any animosity toward these children. We would support them, and I mean financially, if they wished to establish a nice school and summer camp in Marshport.”
At the top of the driveway, several young men and women in shorts and T-shirts came out of the house and stood, waiting.
“Staff is in place,” Nina Pinero said to Jesse.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Follow me, kids.”
“This is outrageous,” Miriam Fiedler said. “We are not a bunch of rabble to be brushed aside.”
“You’re not?” Jesse said.
With Nina Pinero and Molly herding the children behind him, Jesse walked straight through the seersucker circle and up the driveway. Behind him he heard Miriam Fiedler cry out in pain.
He heard Molly say, “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. I seem to have stepped on your foot.”
Jesse didn’t turn around to look. But he smiled as he led the kids up the driveway.
14.
Wilson Cromartie, in a tan summer suit and a yellow gingham shirt, walked down the center passage of a big mall that had replaced the nineteenth-century brick buildings in the heart of Marshport. There were some shoppers, but the majority of the people in the mall were Hispanic teenagers, in the various costumes of their age group. A number of them were in a store called Images, gazing at the television sets they couldn’t afford.
Crow went into the store.
“My daughter bought a big-screen TV here a while ago,” Crow said to the clerk. “And the delivery seems to have gone astray.”
“Astray?”
“Yes,” Crow said. “She never got it.”
“Oh, my,” the clerk said.
He turned to the computer.
“What’s your daughter’s name, sir?”
“Amber Francisco,” Crow said.
The clerk worked the computer for a moment.
“Twelve-A Horn Street?” the clerk said.
Crow nodded. The clerk smiled.
“It was delivered ten days ago,” the clerk said. He was triumphant. “Signed for by Esteban Carty.”
Crow looked puzzled.
“Here in Marshport?”
“Yes, sir. If you’d like to step around the counter, I can show you.”
“No,” Crow said. “Thank you. That’ll be fine.”
He shook his head.
“Damn kid will put me in an early grave,” he said.
He left the store. As he walked back through the mall, several of the teenage girls lounging about watched him as he passed.
15.
Jenn came into the police station with her cameraman, waved at Molly, and came to Jesse’s office, the cameraman behind her.
“No cameras in the station,” Jesse said when he saw them.
The cameraman looked at Jenn.
“You want to make it a freedom-of-the-press thing?” he said.
Jenn grinned.
“Go ahead, Mike,” Jenn said. “Take a break in the van. I’ll just talk with Jesse.”
The cameraman picked up his camera and went out. Jenn sat across from Jesse.
“Very impressive,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“Riding in with the little kids. Introducing them. Made the protesters look foolish,” Jenn said.
Jesse nodded again.
“I kind of liked it also,” Jenn said, “when Molly stomped on that woman’s foot.”
“Molly being Molly,” Jesse said.
“I am woman, hear me roar,” Jenn said.
“I suspect Molly would be Molly with or without feminism,” Jesse said.
Jenn nodded.
“I like her,” Jenn said.
“I like her, too,” Jesse said.
“What do you suppose the protesters really want in all of this?” Jenn said.
“We on the record here, Jenn?”
“I’d like to be,” Jenn said.
Jesse nodded.
“No comment,” he said.
Jenn leaned back a little in her chair and looked at Jesse with her head tilted to the side. Her summer dress had slid up to mid-thigh. Her legs were tan. Jesse felt the feeling. He had felt the feeling for such a long time now that it was nearly routine. Sometimes he thought it was the only feeling he had.
“Okay, then,” Jenn said. “Off the record.”
“First, a question for you,” Jesse said. “How’d you happen to be there.”
“It’s news,” Jenn said with a smile. “A lawyer named Blake called us up and informed us of that.”
Jesse shook his head.
“They actually think if they get coverage,” Jenn said, “they’ll get sympathy.”
Jesse nodded.
“Maybe a little out of touch,” Jesse said. “They probably have a couple of problems with the Crowne estate project. Neither of which, as you may have observed, is traffic.”
“Hell,” Jenn said. “Our van took up as much space as your bus.”
“It did,” Jesse said. “One of their problems is they fear a decrease in the value of real estate around the school. And if everybody is like them, the real estate next to a school for disadvantaged children will be harder to sell. And they think that everybody is like them. Or at least everybody who counts.”
“They do seem insular,” Jenn said.
“Most people are.”
“What’s their other problem?” Jenn said.
“They don’t want a bunch of low-class wetbacks moving into Paradise.”
“Simple bigotry?” Jenn said.
“It’s almost always that,” Jesse said, “when you wipe away the bullshit.”
“Wow,” Jenn said. “Cynical, cynical, cynical.”
“I like to think of it as profiting from the learning experience,” Jesse said.
“May I use any of this?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was off the record,” Jesse said. “Feel free to use anything I said on the record.”
“The only thing you said on the record was ‘no comment.’”
“Feel free,” Jesse said.
16.
Mostly Molly ran the front of the police station, but she had persuaded Jesse to allow her, at least once a week, to take a shift on patrol. Jesse had not wanted her shift to be at night. But after Molly explained that he was treating her like a woman, not a cop, and that she was both and should be treated as both, Jesse put her out every couple of weeks, at night, in one of the two patrol cars.
Tonight she was cruising Paradise Neck. She liked the night patrol. Every night would be awful. She’d never see her husband or her kids. But once every couple of weeks it was very soothing. She felt safe enough. Paradise was hardly a war zone. She also had a .40-caliber handgun, Mace, a nightstick, a radio, and the shotgun locked to the dashboard.