“There’s nothing there, Jesse.”
“I know, and you know. But Mrs. Billups doesn’t know.”
“You are awful tenderhearted,” Molly said, “for a guy who banged Carl Radborn in the balls with a stick.”
“She’ll peek out the window when she sees the patrol car,” Jesse said. “Have Suit give her a little wave. Maybe a thumbs-up.”
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Molly shook her head in slow disapproval, but she turned as she did so, and called Simpson on the radio.
“Go do another Mrs. Billups drive-by,” she said.
“Oh shit, Molly, that old biddy sees things every day.”
Jesse leaned into the microphone.
He said, “Serve and protect, Suit.”
There was silence for a minute, then Simpson said, “Aye, aye, skipper.”
Jesse went into the squad room in back and got two coffees and brought one in for Molly.
“If you’re missing from a town or a city, people might not notice right away,” Jesse said. “But a yacht?”
“So she’s probably not off one of the yachts.”
“Or, if she is, people don’t wish it known,” Jesse said.
“Which would mean that someone murdered her.”
“Or that someone doesn’t want anyone to know she was on the yacht.”
Molly nodded.
“Like somebody else’s wife,” she said.
“Or a hooker, or a juror in a pending civil trial, or something neither of us can think of.”
“There’s nothing neither of us can think of,” Molly said.
“Except who the floater is.”
“ME can’t give you anything?”
“Sure they can,” Jesse said.
He looked at the ME’s initial report.
“Floater was about thirty-five. Alive she was about five-2 1
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
seven, probably weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. Brown eyes, natural brunette. She was wearing an expensive dress and silk underwear when she died. She had been drinking.
She showed traces of cocaine, and she was a smoker. Her breasts had been enhanced. She was alive when she went in the water. She was not a virgin.”
“No kidding.”
“Just running down the list, Moll,” Jesse said. “She had never had children.”
“We could start checking with plastic surgeons,” Molly said. “See if any enhancement patients are missing.”
“If it were done by a plastic surgeon,” Jesse said. “Any MD can do this kind of surgery.”
“But most intelligent people wouldn’t go to an allergist or somebody,” Molly said. “Would you?”
“For breast enhancement?” Jesse said.
“You know what I mean,” Molly said.
Another call came in. Molly answered and listened and wrote down an address.
“Okay, Mr. Bradley,” she said. “I’ll have an officer there in a few minutes. Call back if there’s any problem. And stay away from the animal.”
“Rabid animal?” Jesse said.
“Skunk. Guy working on a roof up on Sterling Circle says it’s staggering and walking in circles in the street. He was on his cell phone.”
“Suit should have saved Mrs. Billups by now. Have him go up and shoot the skunk.”
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“What if it’s not really rabid?” Molly said.
“Family can sue us.”
Molly called Simpson. When she was through she turned back to Jesse.
“Do people like urologists really do plastic surgery?”
“They may legally do so,” Jesse said. “Some people don’t know one doctor from another. In the white coat they all look the same.”
