“No, I don’t suppose I have,
altogether.”
“So where does that leave me?”
“Where you’ve always been, Ab.
You’re a really wonderful woman. But I am not really finished with my first marriage yet.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn’t put all your eggs in this basket, Ab.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry it’s that
way,” Jesse said.
“Hell,” Abby said,
“let’s play it as it lays. The worst we can do is have a hell of a good time for a while.”
“I don’t know how it will turn out,
Ab.”
“Me either, but let’s start with the
Halloween dance, and a drink beforehand.”
“And maybe we won’t have to stay
long,” Jesse said.
“And have the rest of the night to kill,”
Abby said.
“We’ll think of something,”
Jesse said.
“I already have,” Abby said.
eral Express envelope from Charlie Buck in the campbell County, Wyoming, Sheriff’s Department. Inside was a letter and a list of names.
“We have .a cooperative witness in
custody,” Buck wrote, “who says that Torn Carson was killed by a man sent by a militia group back east. Since Carson was from Massachusetts, we got a list of everybody who flew from Boston to Denver a week on either side of the crime. See if you recognize any names. The witness may be selling us a plea. Or the killer may have flown from New York, or drove out in a 1958 Rambler. But it makes sense to start with BostonDenver.”
There followed a list of names, three columns, eighteen pages.
On the twelfth page was Lou Burke’s name. Jesse stared at it for a long time, then he reorganized the list and put it in a manila folder along with Buck’s letter and locked the folder in the file cabinet in his office. He took Lou Burke’s personnel file out and brought it back to his desk and looked at it. L°u had been a twenty-year man in the Navy, before he retired and joined the police. Jesse ran his eyes down the list of Lou’s military occupation specialties until he found the one he remembered.
1970-1972 Underwater demolition specialist Jesse’s fingers tapped softly on the desk as he read the personnel sheet.
1970-1972 Underwater demolition specialist Holding the file in his lap, he swiveled his chair so he
‘could stare out the window, past the driveway where the fire tracks parked, and look at the full swat of the Massachusetts fall. Jesse was never one for nature’s grandeur, and he wouldn’t get in a bus and ride very far to look at the leaves either. But since it was there it was nice to look at.
Nothing like it in L.A. He watched the bright leaves for quite a while holding Lou Burke’s personnel file facedown in his lap.
He was still sitting when Molly Crane came in from the dispatch desk, and stood in the doorway, leaning on the jamb. She often did that, didn’t really come in, didn’t really stay out, just lingered in the doorway to talk.
“You thinking?” she said. “Or
daydreaming.”
“Looking at the leaves,” Jesse said.
“I’m on break,” Molly said,
Jesse nodded.
“You going to that dance at the Yacht
Club?” Molly said.
“Yeah. You?”
Molly laughed.
“Are you kidding? The police department dispatcher?”
“You’re a full-time police officer
too,” Jesse said.
