smoke a joint.”
Amber was watching the colors. She didn’t move. Esteban gave her a smart slap on the side of her butt.
“You gonna get us some wine?” he said.
Amber stood up.
“You don’t have to hit so hard,” Amber said.
“Told you, baby, I’m the devil.”
She giggled happily and went to the refrigerator, and came back with a jug of white wine. She put out two unmatched water glasses and filled each one with the jug wine. There were four more joints rolled and lying beside a box of kitchen matches on the wooden crate that served as a side table. Esteban drank some wine and lit another joint.
“You talking to my daddy?” Amber said.
“Yeah, we was arranging the payoff for putting Momma down.”
“Bye-bye, Momma,” Amber said, and giggled.
“Bye-bye,” Esteban murmured, and sucked in a big lungful of smoke. As it drifted slowly out of his lungs he murmured again, “Bye-bye.”
35.
Jenn came into Jesse’s office in the late afternoon.
“You look tired,” Jenn said to him.
“Up most of the night,” Jesse said. “I got a couple hours’ sleep in one of the cells in the back.”
Whenever he saw her, Jesse felt like jumping up and wagging his tail. He always wanted to tell Jenn how beautiful she was and how much he loved her and how nothing she could do or say would shake him on that. And the strain of not doing that, which both he and Dix had agreed was in his best interest, was very burdensome.
“So what can you tell me about this murder,” she said.
“On the record?”
Jenn paused for a minute, then she sighed a little.
“I hate when you ask me that,” she said.
“I hate that I have to ask it,” Jesse said.
Jenn nodded.
“But you do,” she said. “I’m in my professional reporter costume, so, yes, we’re on the record.”
Jesse nodded.
“The body was discovered by Officer Luther Simpson….” Jesse said.
“That’s Suit’s real name?” Jenn said.
“Yep,” Jesse said, “on routine patrol at approximately two a.m. this morning, on the front lawn of the Crowne estate on Paradise Neck. The victim has been identified as Fiona Francisco, who was a resident of Eleven Sewall Street in Paradise. While she lived there she was using the name Frances Franklin.”
“Why the alias?” Jenn said.
“We don’t know
