“Who was supposed to be sitting on Mrs. Franklin, Moll?” Jesse said.
“Buddy.”
“He arrive yet?”
Molly pointed at the roadway behind Jesse’s car.
“Right now,” she said.
“Okay, whyn’t you see if you can find a clue or something.”
They both nodded. And as Jesse walked toward Buddy Hall’s cruiser, parked behind Jesse’s car, they both took out flashlights and began to walk the lawn, carefully.
“What happened,” Jesse said to Buddy Hall.
“She must have snuck out the back,” Buddy said. “I’m parked right outside her house all night until I hear the radio call about a body on Paradise Neck. So I call in, and Bobby Martin’s working the desk, and he tells me Molly called it in to him, and that it’s the Franklin broad. And I said, ‘Jesus, she hasn’t left the house.’ And I call Moll on her cell phone and she says yes it is Franklin and she’s been shot and I better get over there. So here I am.”
“You check her house?” Jesse said.
“No, I come straight here. Should I have?”
“It’s okay,” Jesse said. “You help Molly and Suit on the crime scene. I’ll go over there.”
“Yeah, okay. Jesse, I’m sorry if I fucked up. I didn’t think she’d sneak away.”
“We’ll play it as it lays, Buddy,” Jesse said. “Go look for clues…and don’t step on any.”
Buddy Hall nodded his head very hard and hustled toward the wide lawn that led up to the now-empty school. Jesse followed, looking at the ground, walking carefully until he got to Molly.
“Moll,” he said. “You run things here. Make sure everything is gone and cleaned up and no trace before those little kids get here at eight a.m.”
“Absolutely,” Molly said.
A state car pulled up behind the other cars and parked, and a smallish man got out with a doctor’s bag.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “The state ME. I want a report as soon as he can get us one.”
“I’ll tell him,” Molly said.
They watched as the ME trudged toward the body.
“Suit’s got a girlfriend out here,” Jesse said. “Doesn’t he?”
Molly nodded.
“And she’s, ah, inappropriate, probably married,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“And you discovered him, and he’s made you promise not to tell.”
“Yes. I gave him my word.”
“But you can’t resist busting his balls a little.”
Molly smiled.
