“Does Victoria’s Secret know about this?” Jesse said.
“You are badgering me, Chief Stone, pure and simple,” Mrs. Ingersoll said. “And I don’t know why.”
“I’m trying to understand, Betsy.”
“There is nothing to understand,” she said. “My job is the well-being of those children. Not merely that they can read and write; my concern is the whole child, and I will not allow my girls to be anything less than ladies.”
“Chilling,” Jesse said.
“I beg your pardon?”
The door to Jesse’s office was open, and Jay Ingersoll appeared in it.
“What the hell is going on here?” he said.
Jesse glanced up at him and smiled.
“Ah, Jay,” Jesse said. “If only I knew.”
24
THE NIGHT Hawk was frightened. He had gone way past what he’d ever thought he’d do.
And he’d done it in broad daylight. Would he have forced her if she resisted? Would he have shot her? He looked at her picture on the computer screen. Naked and frightened. He clicked onto the other pictures of her. Why? They were essentially the same picture. Yet he felt compelled to look at each of them. And each time he felt the same fearful surge. The same tangle of desire and fright and unsated appetite. It was an uncompleted experience, he realized. And no matter how much he looked, it remained incomplete, and yet looking somehow compelled him to keep looking. . . . He felt shaky. He’d gotten away with it this time, no one had seen him. He’d been careful and left no trace. He should stop. He’d done it. And now he should give it up. All of it. The whole Night Hawk thing. It wasn’t too late. He could have had this life and left it, and he could be safe . . . destroy these pictures, maybe even destroy the computer. Be perfectly safe. No one would ever know. . . . He stared some more at the naked, frightened woman whose name he didn’t even know. . . . I can’t destroy the pictures. . . . He clicked on the next one. Same woman. Same body. Same fear. Why keep looking . . . And just as he kept looking, he knew he’d do it again. He knew he’d scout carefully, observe another woman’s home, get the lay of the land, and, when he was sure, and things were right, he’d go in and make her undress. Take her picture. Then he’d have her secret, in his computer, available to study, never quite enough. I won’t stop. Maybe I can’t stop. What if I do something worse? I don’t want to do something worse. But what if I do? He shook his head as if to clear it, and began to click through his pictures again.
25
“YOU HAVE no business talking to my wife without me present,” Ingersoll said.
Jesse didn’t answer.
“What have you told him?” Ingersoll said to his wife.
“What is there to tell, Jay?” she said.
“This is harassment,” Ingersoll said to Jesse.
Jesse smiled and didn’t say anything.
“And you know it is,” Ingersoll said. “Don’t you.”
Jesse smiled some more.
“Can’t you make him leave me alone?” Betsy Ingersoll said.
“I can,” Ingersoll said, “and I will.”
“I wish you would,” Betsy said. “In fact, Jay, I wish you already had.”
“I told you,” Ingersoll said, “if he approached you in any way you were to call me at once.”
“Yes,” she said. “You did.”
“But you chose to disobey me,” Ingersoll said.
“I know,” she said.
“We’ll discuss that later,” Ingersoll said.
“Why later?” she said.
Ingersoll shook his head.
“Stone,” he said, “I have spoken to the district attorney about you.”
“He mentioned that,” Jesse said.
“And I have spoken to your board of selectmen,” Ingersoll said. “You will, I’m sure, hear from them shortly.”
“Doubtless,” Jesse said.
“Why not now,” Betsy Ingersoll said.
“What?” Ingersoll said.
“Why can’t we discuss my disobedience right now,” she said.
“For God’s sake, Betsy. We’re in the police chief’s office.”
“Perfect,” she said. “You can have him arrest me for disobedience.”
Jesse could see Ingersoll fighting his temper.
“I have no plans for that, Betsy.”
