“Well, maybe you could stop this undercover drug thing you’ve
got going at the high school. We got a damn killer on the loose.”
“Nope.”
“For crissake, who cares if there’s a couple kids smoking dope
in the boys’ room,” Hanson said. “Where are your
priorities.”
“I’m a cop,” Jesse said.
“I been a cop for fifteen, sixteen
years now. I’m good at it. I know how to do it. You don’t.”
“So we just stand aside and let you do what you want?”
“Exactly,” Jesse said.
“Jesse,” Morris Comden said. “I
know how you don’t like being
pushed. But, for God’s sake, you work for us. We have to justify
your budget every year at town meeting. We have the right to know what’s going on.”
“I’ve told you what I know about the killings,” Jesse said. “The
undercover thing at the high school is just that, undercover.”
“You won’t even tell us?”
“No.”
“And you won’t put the personnel working the high school on the
killings.”
“No.”
“Goddamnit,” Hanson said. “We
can fire you.”
“You can,” Jesse said. “But you
can’t tell me what to
do.”
No one said anything for a time. Comden looked down at his yellow pad and drummed the eraser end of a pencil softly on the tabletop.
Finally Comden said, “Well, I think Jim and Carter and I need to
discuss this among ourselves. We’ll let things ride as they are
while we do.”
Jesse nodded and stood up.
“Have a nice day,” he said and left the room.
24
Jesse walked around his apartment. Living room, dining area, bedroom, kitchen, and bath. Through the sliding doors to his balcony he could see the harbor. Over the bar, in the corner of his living room, he could look at his picture of Ozzie Smith. On his bedside table, he could look at his picture of Jenn, in a big hat, holding a glass of wine. He walked around the apartment again.
There wasn’t anything else to look at. He sat on the edge of his
bed for a time looking at Jenn. Then he got up and walked into the living room and stood and looked at the harbor. The apartment was so still he could hear himself breathing. He turned and went to the kitchen and got some ice and soda. He took it to the bar and made himself a tall scotch and soda with a lot of ice and sat at the bar and sipped it. There was nothing like the first one. The feeling of the first one, Jesse sometimes thought, was worth the trouble that ensued. He let the feel of the drink ease through him.
Better.
He wasn’t as alone as he felt, Jesse knew: Marcy, the other
cops, Jenn, sort of. But that was just reasonable. In the center of himself he felt alone. No one knew him. Even Jenn, though Jenn came close. His cops were good small-town cops. But a serial killer? No one else but him was going to catch the serial killer. No one else was going to protect Candace Pennington. No one else was going to fix it with Jenn. What if he couldn’t? His glass was empty.
He
filled it with ice and made another drink. What if the serial killer just kept killing people? He looked at the lucent gold color of his drink, the small bubbles rising through it. It looked like that odd golden ginger ale that his father had liked and no one else could stand. He could feel the pleasure of the scotch easing along the nerve paths. He felt its settled comfort in his stomach.
Maybe he should walk away from it. Maybe I should just say fuck
it and be a drunk, Jesse thought. God knows I’m good at
