“Any?” Jesse said.
“No.”
“Was his opposition to the Crowne estate project at your solicitation?”
“He was not hard to solicit,” she said. “No one was. Out here we were uniformly opposed to a bunch of little slum kids coming into the neighborhood.”
“Do you know anything about the Francisco woman’s body being found on the Crowne estate lawn?” Jesse said.
“No.”
Jesse looked at her. She looked back.
“I did not,” she said, with a small tremor of feeling in her voice.
Jesse nodded. And then quite suddenly she began to cry. For a moment it seemed to surprise her, and she sat perfectly still with the tears falling. Then she bent forward and put her face in her hands and cried some more. Jesse stood and put a hand gently on her shoulder. She shrank from it, and he took it away. I know the feeling, he thought. Sometimes you don’t want to be comforted.
“Maybe we can work something out,” Jesse said.
He turned and walked down the veranda steps and across the driveway to his car.
Like what?
61.
Esteban was on the vinyl-covered chaise, watching Jerry Springer, when his cell phone rang. He muted the television and answered. Three of the Horn Street Boys were watching with him, passing a bottle of sweet white wine among them. Smoking grass.
“It’s Amber,” a voice said.
“Yeah?” Esteban said. “So what?”
“I’m bored.”
“Yeah?” Esteban said.
He grinned at his friends and made a pumping movement with his free hand.
A skinny Horn Street Boy with tattoos up and down both arms mouthed the word Alice? Esteban nodded and made the pumping gesture again.
“Don’t you want to know where I am?” Amber said.
“I got no interest in you,” Esteban said.
“I miss you,” Amber said.
“Yeah?”
“I could see you if you promise not to send me back.”
“Yeah? Where are you?”
She giggled.
“I’m at the police chief’s house,” she said. “In Paradise.”
“No shit,” Esteban said.
He was still watching the soundless television as he talked to her. The Horn Street Boys who were watching with him didn’t like it when he muted the television. But
