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Healy pushed through the crowd of reporters outside the Paradise police station.
A reporter held out his microphone and said, “Who are you, sir?”
“The Pied Piper,” Healy said. “When I leave, I want you all to follow me out of town.”
He went in through the front door and closed it behind him. At the desk Molly said, “Hi, Captain.”
“Hello, darling,” Healy said.
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“Officer Darling,” Molly said. “Chief Stone is in his office.”
Healy grinned at her and went down the hall. In Jesse’s office he went straight to the file cabinet and got some coffee. Then he sat down and crossed his legs.
“Thought I’d stop by,” Healy said, “on my way to work, see how fame was affecting you.”
“I think I’m opposed to freedom of the press.”
“King Nixon might have agreed,” Healy said.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “It has its place.”
“Just not here,” Healy said.
“Exactly.”
“You know anything I don’t know?” Healy said.
“Probably,” Jesse said. “But not about Walton Weeks.”
“How ’bout Carey Longley?”
“Less,” Jesse said.
“She’s thirty years old, from New Jersey. Her father’s an executive with Curtiss-Wright,” Healy said. “Her mother’s a housewife. Two older brothers, both work at Curtiss-Wright. She was married to and divorced from a guy who works for her father.”
“So how come nobody has contacted me?” Jesse said.
“They all disowned her,” Healy said. “They’re very religious. When she divorced their handpicked husband and went off to work for Walton Weeks, and live sinfully, they all agreed she was no more.”
“They don’t like Walton?” Jesse said.
“They felt him to be an embodiment, I believe the phrase was, of the Antichrist,” Healy said.
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H I G H P R O F I L E
“Gee,” Jesse said. “He didn’t seem so bad, watching him on tape.”
“That’s because you’re not as, ah, Christian as they are.”
“Probably not,” Jesse said. “What’s your source?”
“Jersey state cop,” Healy said. “Named Morrissey. Want to talk with him?”
