“I don’t want to help them,” Jesse said. “I want to put them in jail.”
Both girls turned back toward Jesse. He could see Molly behind them, while they weren’t looking, take a deep breath.
“You have lied to me,” Jesse said to the girls, “every time you could, since the first time I talked with you.”
“We didn’t do anything, like a crime,” Corliss said.
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Jesse let his chair tip forward. He stood and came around his desk and bent from the waist and put his face an inch away from Corliss’s face.
“I don’t like you,” he said. “I hate everything you are. So you keep sitting there lying to me, it makes me happy. It makes it easier and easier for me to put your degenerate asses in jail for ten years.”
“Leave her alone,” Claudia said.
Jesse shifted his face a half inch toward her.
“Both of you,” he said.
“We’re not lying,” Corliss said. “We haven’t even said anything.”
“You don’t know that your father was up here in June,”
Jesse said.
Both of them said “Ohmigod” at the same time.
“You didn’t feel like you should tell me that, huh?” Jesse said.
“Jesse,” Molly said. “They’re kids.”
Jesse raised his eyes and stared at Molly.
“I’m getting sick of the bleeding heart, missy,” he said.
“You don’t like how I question suspects, you can leave right now.”
“I can’t leave them in here alone with you, for God’s sake,”
Molly said.
“Then button it up,” Jesse said.
“If I have to go to the selectmen, I will,” Molly said.
“Fuck the selectmen. I nail these two degenerates, they’ll give me a raise.”
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“Did Daddy kill Florence?” Corliss said.
Jesse was still for a moment. The anger left his face. Then he straightened and rested his butt against the edge of his desk, and folded his arms. His voice was gentle when he spoke.
“You think?” he said.
“We were afraid of it,” Claudia said. “It’s why we came here and why we wanted to get a private detective.”
“To whom you wouldn’t reveal a name.”
“We got too scared,” Corliss said.
“Of Daddy?” Jesse said.
“Yes,” Claudia said.
“If he found out,” Corliss said.
Jesse nodded.
“Let’s run over that videotape you made of your sister and the two guys,” Jesse said.
“It was for Daddy,” Claudia said.
Jesse could hear Molly exhale. He nodded softly.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
He went around the desk and sat down.
“She hated Daddy,” Corliss said. “She said this was her kissing him off.”
“And she sent him the tape?”
“A duplicate,” Claudia said. “She had a bunch of duplicates made. I think she was going to keep sending them to him, you know? Every month? Drive him crazy?”
They both spoke rapidly, the words flowing out as if through the widening crack in a dam.
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