“Kevin usually leaves the house first in the morning,” he said.
“She leaves about a half hour later, at eight-thirty.”
“That means she’s home alone for half an hour every weekday
morning.”
“Yes, but it’s a neighborhood where
everyone is home looking out
the window,” he said.
“So where will we be able to do it?”
“She does the food shopping,” he said.
“At the Paradise Mall,” she said.
She pinned the last of the pictures onto the corkboard with a small red map tack, then stepped back beside him and the two of them looked at thirty-five photographs of Barbara Carey going about the business of her public life.
“Big parking lot,” he said. “At
the Paradise
Mall.”
11
Molly Crane had a pretty good body, Jesse thought, for a cop with three kids. The gun belt always looked too big for her. She adjusted it as she sat in the chair across from Jesse’s desk.
“I’ve been doing a little off-hours
snooping,” Molly
said.
Jesse waited.
“Into the rape thing.”
“Candace Pennington,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“How you doing?” Jesse said.
“Well,” Molly said, “mostly
I’m just watching. I park outside in my own car, no uniform, and watch her come to school, and go home.
During lunch hour, I hang out in the cafeteria kitchen and watch. I know the food service lady down there, Anne Minnihan.”
“Find out anything?”
“Maybe,” Molly said. “There was
a moment this morning in the
cafeteria. Three boys sort of circled her and they stood and talked for maybe two minutes. They were all big and she was against the wall, and you could barely see her. One of them showed her something. The boys laughed. Then they moved away.”
“How did Candace react.”
“Scared.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. She was terrified, and … something else.”
“Something else?”
“Yes. I can’t quite say what. It was like whatever they’d shown
her was … horrifying.”
“Know the boys?” Jesse said.
“Not by name, yet,” Molly said.
“But I’d recognize all of
them.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “We
don’t want to cause this kid any more pain than she’s already in. You need to ID these three boys without
them knowing it.”
“They were big, one of them was wearing a varsity jacket. I’ll
check the sports team photos in the lobby,” Molly said.
“Out of uniform,” Jesse said.
