“You should be used to that,” she said.
Suit grinned.
“Can I be on another task force?” he said.
“Nope,” Jesse said. “You’re stuck with her.”
Suit nodded.
“So what’s the plan?” he said.
“You guys are assigned to this full-time. I know you got lives to live as well,” Jesse said,
“especially you, Moll. But I’d like as much surveillance on Seth as you can do. And if he spots you, no harm to it. Just cranks the pressure a little.”
They both nodded.
“And,” Jesse said, “I’ll start asking about him. Interview the wife, their swinger friends, academic colleagues . . . him.”
“That ought to squeeze his ’nads a little,” Suit said.
“Isn’t that sweet,” Molly said. “My task force partner. ‘Squeeze his ’nads a little.’ ”
“Short for gonads,” Suit said.
“I know what it’s short for,” Molly said.
“So?” Suit said. “Your point?”
“Oh, God,” Molly said.
39
“I THINK I have a lead on the home invader,” Jesse said when he sat down in Dix’s office.
“That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Dix said.
“Get a lead on the home invader?”
“Yeah,” Dix said. “You’re a cop. It’s your job.”
“So?”
“So it’s not my job,” Dix said.
“Which means what?”
“Which means for the last several weeks you’ve been busy telling me about the cases you’re working on.”
“You’ve been helpful,” Jesse said.
“And nothing about the case I’m working on,” Dix said.
“Which is me,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“Being a skilled investigator,” Jesse said, “I conclude that you want to talk about me.”
“That’s another thing you’ve been doing,” Dix said. “You kid about it.”
“About what?”
“About whatever it is,” Dix said, “that you don’t want to talk to me about.”
“And kidding is a clue to that?”
“It is,” Dix said. “It’s a distancing technique.”
Jesse was quiet. He looked around the office.
“Jenn went to New York,” Jesse said.
Dix sat back in his chair, clasped his hands in front of his mouth and waited, looking directly at Jesse.
“She got a job on a syndicated morning show, and she’s bunking with the producer till she finds her own place,” Jesse said.
“The producer is male?” Dix said.
“Yep,” Jesse said. “I suppose it would be cynical to suggest that she might have been bunking with him before she got the job.”
“Or it may be simply learning from experience,” Dix said.
“It’s her M.O.,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded. Jesse shook his head.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said.
Dix waited.
“I love her,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded.
“And,” Jesse said, “she loves me . . . or at least she hangs on to me.”
Dix nodded again. He had an attitudinal mode sometimes that encouraged you to follow a subject in the direction you had taken. He had another one that let you know he thought you were going the wrong way. This time
