him.”
“Can’t win ‘em all,” Jesse said.
“She might have won this one,” Molly said.
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Maybe she did.”
“You have anything to do with it?”
“With what?”
“With him not hitting her anymore.”
Jesse shrugged.
“You had a talk with him, didn’t you,” Molly said.
Jesse smiled.
“Nothing official,” he said.
“And, let me guess,” Molly said. “You told him if he ever touched her unkindly again you would do something really scary to him.”
“I’m the chief of police in this town, Moll. I can’t go around threatening the very citizens I’m sworn to protect.”
“Of course you can’t,” Molly said. “Cop named Kelly called from Boston. Said he had an address for that phone number, if you want to go visit.”
“Good.”
“Suit still on surveillance in Boston?” Molly said.
“No.”
“Good,” Molly said. “It’s been mucking up the vacation schedules.”
“It has,” Jesse said.
“This call from Kelly, is it about Billie?”
“I hope so.”
“You getting anywhere?”
“I think so.”
“We got an official suspect yet?”
“No.”
“Are we planning not to talk about it,” Molly said, “until we know what we’re talking about?”
“It’s an approach I’m experimenting with,” Jesse said. “I’m going into Boston. I’ll be gone most of the day. We got any police business to talk about before I go?”
“We might want to talk about how come I mostly run the department and you get the chief’s salary.”
“Sexism,” Jesse said, “would be my guess.”
Molly smiled and left the office. Jesse finished his coffee and phoned Kelly.
“It’s an address in Brighton,” Kelly said. “I’ll meet you in front of the new Star Market in the shopping center on Western Ave.”
“An hour,” Jesse said.
Chapter Forty-eight
They were in Kelly’s car, in front of a gray three-decker in Brighton.
“Pollinger’s alibi holds up,” Kelly said. “Tour company says he was in London when Billie got killed.”
Jesse nodded.
“What’s this kid’s name?” he said.
“Phone listing is D. P. Davis.”
“Dawn,” Jesse said.
“Maybe.”
The building had been painted brown a long time ago. Much of the paint had flaked away and a lot of bare gray clapboard was showing. There was no front yard. The first of the three front steps was hard against the sidewalk. The name Davis and the number 3 A were written with black Magic Marker above one of the doorbells. Jesse rang it. Nothing happened.
“You’re a smalltown cop,” Kelly said. “You don’t know how to do it right.”
He put his thumb on the bell and kept it there. Nothing happened.
“That how it’s done?” Jesse said.
“Could be no one home,” Kelly said.
