a house devoid of furniture or rugs.
“Hi,” the woman said, “here for
the open house?”
“I’m here to see Candace
Pennington,” Jesse said.
“You’re not a broker?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, the Penningtons have
moved.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“I don’t really know,” the woman
said. “I’m just supervising the
open house.”
She was a heavy exuberant woman with short hair colored very blond.
“Who would know?”
“Oh, I’m sure the office has their new address,” the woman said.
“You could check with Henry.”
“Henry?”
“Henry Pell. Are you interested in the house?”
In the rooms that Jesse could see, the furniture was gone.
There
were no rugs or drapes. The house was blank, waiting to be re-created.
“No,” Jesse said, “I’m
not.”
As he walked back down the curving drive toward the street, the
snow had begun, a few flakes drifting down. More would follow, he knew. They were saying three to six inches. Weather Girl Jenn would be breaking into the regular programming with weather updates from Storm Center 3. Maybe standing in the parking lot. With her designer wool watch cap pulled down just right over her ears. And the flakes fluttering past. As Jesse drove back across the causeway, the snow came straight in at the windshield. Small flakes, the kind all the old-time townies said meant a heavy snowfall. He wasn’t long enough out of Southern California to argue
the point, though in the time he’d been here he’d seen no
correlation.
He could call Henry Pell and get Candace’s new address. He
wasn’t sure he would. They’d taken her where they needed to take
her. Where she had no history. Where there were no stories about her. No giggles in the hallways. No covert gestures about sex. No fears that a naked picture of her might surface. What did he have to say to her about that? What did anybody?
The snow had begun to accumulate and the roads were becoming slick as Jesse parked in his spot by the police station, and went in. Bo Marino was mopping the floor in the area of the front desk.
Jesse went past him to his office and stopped in the doorway and looked back.
“Where are the other two?” Jesse said.
“Cleaning the cells,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded and continued to look at Marino. Was it possible that a jerk like this kid could grow into a decent man? Would the rape follow him and the other two, the way it was following Candace? Marino realized Jesse was looking at him.
“What?” he said.
Jesse didn’t answer.
“What are you looking at me for?” Marino said.
Jesse didn’t seem to hear him.
You could protect, Jesse thought, and you could serve. But you couldn’t really save.
Marino looked at Molly.
“How come he’s staring at me like
that?” he said.
