to take care of you.”
Jesse said.
“Yeah,” Carole said.
“Right.”
“So as long as you knew him, Jo Jo never had a regular job?”
“He tended bar once in a while. Worked as a bouncer.‘;
“Where?”
“Club in Peabody. The Eighty-six
Club.”
“He work there much?”
“No.”
Jesse stood and brought his coffee cup to the sink.
“Well, you need me, you know how to get me,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“Sure.”
Jesse looked for a moment at the little boy, his face dirty with melted Fudgsicle. You don’t have a prayer, Jesse thought. Not a goddamned prayer.
toast and bit off a corner, and chewed and swallowed.
“I asked you to have coffee with me, Jesse, because I’m concerned about some of the things that have happened in town recently.”
Hathaway held the now .truncated triangle of toast delicately‘ in his fight hand and moved it slightly in rhythm to his speech. Jesse waited.
“I mean, I know they are not serious
crimes. But the spray-painting of a police cruiser, and the killing of that police station cat… well, it’s all around town.”
Jesse had nothing to say to that, so he waited.
“Obviously someone wishes to embarrass the police department.‘’
Jesse continued to wait.
“Do you agree?” Hathaway said.
“Yes.”
“And,” Hathaway said,
“I’m afraid they’re
succeeding.‘’
“‘Fraid so,” Jesse said.
“Who might that be?” Hathaway
said.
Jesse leaned back in his seat and turned his coffee cup slowly with both hands.
“We roust some of the burnout kids in town every day.”
Jesse said. “We arrest several drunks a weekend. We referee a domestic dispute about once a week. We stop people for speeding. We tow cars for being illegally parked.
We‘ re in the business of telling people no.”
“So it could be anyone,” Hathaway
said.
“Could be,” Jesse said.
“But isn’t it more likely to be
one person than another?”
Hathaway said. “Don’t you have
any suspicions?”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“Perhaps you’d care to share them
with me,” Hathaway said. “I am after all the town’s chief executive.”
Jesse thought it an odd phrase to describe the selectman’s job, but he didn’t comment.
