“Does it bother you?” Lilly said.
“No,” Jesse said. “I like it.”
“But you wouldn’t make love to me in a jail cell?”
“Not one of mine,” Jesse said.
Again Lilly looked straight at him. “How about your office?”
“Can’t,” Jesse said.
The sound was still in her voice and the look was still in her eyes, but there might have been the tinge of annoyance in both.
“Because?”
“Because I don’t want to be caught.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“It would embarrass me, and the department,” Jesse said.
“School principals aren’t supposed to do that kind of thing either. It would embarrass me, too. But the risk is part of the fun.”
“I like you. I like to have sex with you. But this is what I have. I’m divorced from the only woman I seem able to love. I am trying not to drink. I can’t play professional baseball like I was supposed to. All I can be is a cop, and this is my last chance at that.”
“And you can’t jeopardize it.”
Jesse smiled. He felt himself relax. She understood.
“No. I can’t. Not for fun.”
“Will Jenn always be the only woman you’re able to love?”
“I don’t know. She is so far.”
Lilly sighed, and smiled.
“Well,” she said. “I guess I’ll just hang around and see.”
“You can’t count on me changing,” Jesse said.
“Maybe not. But I can count on you to fuck my brains out, can’t I?”
“Absolutely,” Jesse said.
Chapter Thirty-two
Jesse had breakfast with Lilly before she went home, and he was late coming to work. It was a deeply still summer morning that you can only get in a small town. Cloudless. Hot. Silent. As if everything was going to live forever.
“Suit’s in the squad room,” Molly said when Jesse came into the station. “He says to come see him.”
Simpson was at one of the computers.
“I got a hit,” he said when Jesse came into the room.
“On what?” Jesse said.
“Gino Fish. I got a connection with Paradise.”
“Which is?”
“This’ll knock your socks off,” Simpson said.
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“Norman Shaw,” Simpson said. “How about that?”
“Knocks my socks off,” Jesse said. “What’s the connection?”
“Article in the Globe five years back,” Simpson said. “Shaw was going to write a book about Gino and they were going to make a movie out of it.”
“You print it out?”
“Yeah.”
Simpson handed Jesse a sheet of paper.
“Anything else?” Jesse said.
“Not that helps us. He did ten years at Walpole for killing a guy with a straight razor.”
“Nice,” Jesse said.
“Was one of the people they covered when they did that big spotlight thing on organized crime.”
“Anything about girls?”
“Says in here he is alleged to be gay.”
