“Yes, ma’am.”
“May I call you Jesse?”
“Of course, Abby.”
She smiled automatically.
“Now, I know,” she said, “that
you are new not only to this job, but to this environment.”
Jesse smiled helpfully.
“But whatever the circumstances of your police work in Los Angeles, this is a town in which everyone’s civil liberties are important.”
Jesse nodded. He seemed interested.
“May I be frank with you?” Abby Taylor
said.
“You cannot go about beating people up,”
she said. “It leaves the town vulnerable to lawsuit. I understand the provocation. And I certainly am sympathetic to Carole Ge-nest’s situation. But we cannot permit you to take the law into your own hands. It is not only illegal. ‘It simply is not right.”
Jesse nodded thoughtfully.
“Let me ask you a question,‘ ”
he said.
“Of course.”
“You asked me if you could call me Jesse, and I said you could. But you did/C.t.”
“Excuse me?”
“You never used my name.”
“What the hell has that got to do with you brutalizing Mr. Genest?”
“Just seemed odd to me,” Jesse said.
“Well, if it does, it does,” Abby Taylor said. “I’m not going to be sidetracked.”
“Course not, Abby.”
“Do you have anything to say about the matter of your assault on Mr. Genest?”
“Not really,” Jesse said.
‘Tva afraid there has to be more than
that,“ Abby Taylor said.
“The restraining order wasn’t
working,” Jesse said.
“Think of me as implementing it.”
“You really have to take this seriously,”
Abby Taylor said.
“‘You have to take this more seriously, Jesse,’” he said.
Abby Taylor smiled.
“You have to take this more seriously,
Jesse.”
“No I don’t, Abby.”
“You don’t make it easy.. ·
Jesse.”
He nodded and leaned back a little in his chair. His blue uniform shirt was tailored and carefully pressed. He had nice eyes, she noticed, with small wrinkles at the corners as if he had spent a lot of time squinting into the sun
“Jo Jo Genest should be kicked in the balls once a day,” lesse said. “He’s terrorizing his ex-wife. He’s frightening his children. When Anthony went up there the youngest two were under the bed. There’s a restraining order in place. He paid no attention to it. It was necessary to get his attention.‘ ’
Abby was silent for a time, frowning, as she thought about his answer: He watched her think. He liked the way the small vertical wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows when she frowned.
“The selectmen are aware of the
provocation,” Abby said. “And they are prepared to go forward from here. But they would like your assurance that sometng like this will not occur in the future.”
“It might,” Jesse said.
“God,” Abby said. ‘You
