he said, ‘You want me here when the kids come home from school?’ ”
Her eyes filled as if she was going to cry. But she didn’t. She got under control again.
“So I undressed.” She looked down at her lap and shivered. “He stood there and watched me take my clothes off. In my living room, at, like, ten o’clock in the morning.”
Cox turned and looked out through the narrow glass sidelights flanking the front door.
Molly continued to pat Mrs. Browne’s arm.
“And when I got entirely naked, he just stood there looking at me. I think I said something like ‘Please don’t rape me.’ And he nodded and took out one of those little digital cameras and took pictures of me.”
“Oh, God,” Molly said.
“I didn’t know what to do. I just had to stand there. Then he told me to lie facedown on the couch and close my eyes and count to one hundred without looking up. . . . In some ways that was the worst; I didn’t know what he would do. So I counted, and when I got through counting I sort of peeked and he was gone. And I sat up and he was still gone. So I put on my clothes and called you.”
“How close did he get?” Jesse said.
“Close?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Not very,” Mrs. Browne said. “Not as close as you are now.”
“So he didn’t touch you,” Jesse said.
“No.”
Jesse looked around the living room. There were no pictures except the oil painting above the fireplace.
“How did he know you had kids?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Browne said.
“You didn’t mention them?”
“No.”
“You didn’t recognize this man?” Jesse said.
“He was wearing a ski mask,” she said. “I told you that.”
“I know,” Jesse said. “But sometimes people recognize a voice, or mannerisms, if the masked person is well known to them.”
“I have no idea who this man was.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Couple of things. First, I am very sorry that this happened to you. I can’t make it up to you. But I can try very hard to catch this guy.”
Mrs. Browne nodded.
“Second, when your husband gets home, you and he will need to decide what you’re going to tell the kids, keeping in mind that this story may become public knowledge.”
“What do you think he’ll do with the pictures,” Mrs. Browne said.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Often they keep them to themselves.”
“They?”
“People who do this sort of aggressive voyeurism,” Jesse said.
“There are people who do this?” Mrs. Browne said.
“Yes.”
“But they don’t always keep the pictures to themselves?” Mrs. Browne said.
“No,” Jesse said.
“Oh, God!”
“You and your husband should talk when he gets here,” Jesse said.
Mrs. Browne nodded.
“The other thing,” Jesse said. “Do you have a place where you could go for the rest of the day?”
“Kids, too?” she said.
“Yes, everyone, until about suppertime?”
“I guess we could go across the street,” she said. “The Cronins. Why?”
“I want to seal the house off so my crime scene guy can go over it.”
“There won’t be any fingerprints,” she said. “He was wearing those latex gloves, like doctors wear.”
“Still need to go over the house,” Jesse said. “If we may.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Officer Crane will go with you,” Jesse said. “You and she can talk more.”
“What if he comes back?” Mrs. Browne said.
