house.”
“Did you see his car?”
“No.”
“Which way he went?”
“No,” Gloria said. “I went right to the phone and called nine-one-one and Officer Friedman was here in like a minute.”
Jesse looked at Steve Friedman, standing in the kitchen door.
“I was two blocks away,” Steve said. “I didn’t see him.”
“Description?”
“Oh, about my husband’s size, I would say. Five-eleven, hundred and eighty-five pounds.
Black jacket and pants, black ski mask, had on those latex gloves like doctors use.”
“The gun?”
“I don’t know anything about guns,” she said. “It looked small to me, kind of silver-colored.”
Jesse nodded.
“Any sign of a camera?”
“I think so,” Gloria said. “I think he had some sort of digital camera in his other hand.”
“Which hand had the gun?” Jesse said.
Gloria closed her eyes for a moment and pantomimed with her hands. She opened her eyes.
“Right hand,” she said. “He had the gun in his right hand.”
Jesse nodded.
“That would mean he’s right-handed,” Gloria said.
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“You wouldn’t carry a gun in your off hand,” Gloria said.
“Probably not,” Jesse said. “If he was anybody you knew, would you have been able to tell?”
“I don’t think so,” Gloria said. “His voice didn’t sound familiar.”
“Did he do anything to disguise his voice?” Jesse said.
“Like whisper or something?”
“Uh-huh.”
“No,” Gloria said. “That would mean he wasn’t someone I might know.”
Jesse grinned at her.
“Ah, come on, Mrs. Fisher,” he said. “Could you let me do a little of the police work?”
“But,” she said, “if we didn’t know each other, he would have no reason to disguise his voice. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“It does,” Jesse said. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“Not really,” she said. “He was only here, probably, a couple of minutes.”
“You’re a brave woman,” Jesse said.
“I didn’t know I was going to be,” Gloria said. “But . . .”
She looked at Molly.
“You got kids?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Daughter?”
“I have a daughter and three sons,” Molly said.
“I just have the one daughter,” Gloria said. “I kept thinking of her when I saw him. I knew who he was as soon as I saw him, you know? I’d heard about the other women. And I . . .
kept thinking of my daughter . . . and I couldn’t let her mother be forced to strip naked in her own living room in front of some stranger . . . I couldn’t. I would not.”
She looked at Molly again.
“Could you?” she said.
“I won’t know unless it happens,” Molly said.
Gloria nodded.
“We’ll leave Officer Friedman here,” Jesse said. “Until your husband gets home.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Driving back to the station, Jesse said, “Tough woman.”
