Simpson nodded.
“Can I finish reading Arlo andjanis?”
Simpson
said.
“No.”
48
The resident cars at Seascape were parked behind the building at
the end of a winding drive, in a blacktop parking lot with a card-activated one-armed gate at the entrance. Jesse was driving his own car, and he parked it across from Seascape on a side street perpendicular to the point where the drive wound into Atlantic Avenue. He had far too many things under way, he knew, to be doing hopeful surveillance. But Jesse was the only cop on the force who was good at it. Any of the Paradise cops could do an open tail, Jesse knew. But he didn’t want the Lincolns to know they were being
tailed, and getting spooky on him. He was the only one he trusted to do an undiscovered tail. He couldn’t cover them all the time.
During the day he was too busy, but the nights were quieter, and half a tail is better than none, he thought, so each
night after work he drove over here and parked and waited.
He knew it was them. He couldn’t prove it, not even enough to
get a search warrant, but he’d been a cop nearly half his life, and
he knew. He had the advantage on them for the moment. They didn’t
know that he knew. They thought he was just the local bumpkin chief of a small department, and they felt superior to him. He knew that as surely as he knew they were guilty. And that too gave him an advantage. He’d watched their body language and listened to them
talk and heard the undertones in their voices. He was nothing. He couldn’t possibly catch them. Jesse had no intention of changing
their minds.
“I love arrogance,” Jesse said aloud in the dark interior of his
silent car.
At ten minutes past seven he saw the red Saab pull out of the drive and head east on Atlantic Avenue. He slid into gear and pulled out a considerable distance behind them. After a while he pulled up closer, and where Atlantic had a long stretch with only one cross street, which was one way into the avenue, he turned off and went around the block and rejoined Atlantic just after they passed.
Jesse had already shadowed them three nights that week. Once they had eaten pizza, at a place in the village. Once they had food shopped at the Paradise Mall. Once they had gone to a movie. Each time it got more boring, and each time Jesse tailed them as if it would lead to their arrest.
He let himself drop two cars back of the Saab as they went through the village and over the hill toward downtown. The other cars peeled off and when they turned east near the town wharf, Jesse was directly behind them. They drove for a little while with the harbor on their right, until the Saab pulled into the parking lot at Jesse’s apartment.
Jesse drove on by and parked around the bend. He walked down behind the condominiums, and stood at the corner of the building next to his, in the shadows, and watched. The Saab was quiet. The lights were out. The motor had been turned off. The parking lot was lit with mercury lamps, which deepened the shadow in which Jesse stood. The moon was bright. The passenger-side window of the Saab slid down. In the passenger seat, Brianna held something up and pointed an object at Jesse’s apartment. On the other side of his
condo the harbor waters moving made a pleasant sound. The object was a camera and Jesse realized that she was taking pictures of his home.
After ten minutes the window rolled back up. The Saab remained.
Nothing moved. Nothing happened. After half an hour the Saab engine turned over. The lights went on. And the Saab pulled out of the lot. Jesse made no attempt to follow. Instead he drove back to Seascape, taking his time, and checked the parking lot. The Saab was there. Jesse looked at the clock on his dashboard. 9:40. All of him was tired. His legs felt heavy. His shoulders were hunched. His eyes kept closing on him.
“You can only do what you can do,” Jesse said aloud, and turned
the car and went home.
49
Jesse was in the Essex County Court in Salem, sitting in a conference room with Martin Reagan, the ADA on the case, Rita Fiore, and lawyers for Feeney and Drake. Feeney’s lawyer was a
husky dark-eyed woman named Emily Frank, and Drake was represented by a loud-voiced man with a full white beard named Richard DeLuca.
“We don’t have to consult you,
Jesse,” Reagan said. “But we
thought your input might be useful in arriving at a plea bargain.”
Jesse nodded. Rita smiled at him. Jesse could feel the smile in
his stomach.
“None of these boys is a hardened
criminal,” Rita said. “All of
them are under eighteen. We’re thinking of no jail time.”
