…”
Resnick put his hand on Mrs. Pennington’s forearm.
“Chuck’s right, Margaret. Now is not the time.”
Mrs. Pennington opened her mouth, then closed it, and clamped her lips and sat back in her chair and folded her arms.
Pennington turned in his chair and looked at Jesse. He had very
pale blue eyes.
“I know the kind of pressure you must be under now,” he said.
“And I appreciate your taking the time for this.”
“Candace has always known who raped her,”
Jesse said. “But she
and I agreed that if she blew the whistle on them, uncorroborated, we might not get them, and her life in Paradise would be ruined.”
Pennington nodded.
“They were going to show my picture to everyone,” Candace
said.
Pennington nodded again. He showed no emotion, though Jesse noted that the knuckles on his clasped hands looked white.
“Now they probably won’t,” he
said.
He looked at Jesse.
“No,” Jesse said. “They
won’t. They’re scared.”
“Good,” Candace said.
Jesse nodded slowly.
“And they’re scared of you,”
Jesse said.
Candace looked at Jesse, then at her father, and then, more covertly, at her mother.
“Excellent,” she said.
“The law always talks about justice,”
Jesse said. “We’re
officially in favor of it. But if I were you what I would want would be revenge.”
“Chief Stone …” Mrs. Pennington
said.
Her husband shook his head at her.
“That’s what I would like,” he
said.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Marino,
Feeney and Drake have incriminated
themselves. If we didn’t know anything about you the pictures would
have led us to you.”
Candace nodded. She understood.
“So we need a statement,” Jesse said.
“And if we go to court
we’ll need you to testify.”
“Will anyone else see those pictures?”
Candace
said.
“If we go to trial,” Jesse said,
“the defense will argue that
you were a willing participant and made up the rape story. The pictures would be evidence to the contrary.”
“My God, naked pictures of my daughter,”
