“Course, she’s had no kids,” Molly said. “That helps.”
Jesse nodded.
“There a letter?” Molly said.
Holding it carefully by the edges, Jesse put a short note in front of her on the tabletop. The note read:
FYI,
The Night Hawk
“That’s it?” Molly said.
“Yes,” Jesse said.
Molly looked at the note again.
“Ordinary paper,” Molly said. “Typeface. Nothing that will tell us anything. Fingerprints?”
“I’ll have Peter go over it, but it seems unlikely.”
“What about all that save-me-from-myself gush,” she said, “that he usually writes.”
“Good question,” Jesse said. “Now, don’t look at the pictures again for a minute.”
Molly looked out the window.
“If you were going to pose for a nude picture of yourself, what would you do?” Jesse said.
“You mean that I took myself?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, you are a suspicious bastard,” Molly said.
“Just testing the hypothesis,” Jesse said. “What would you do?”
“Well, I wouldn’t send it to you,” Molly said.
“Disappointing,” Jesse said. “But think about it as if you were she. Imagine you have faked this attack and are now backing it up by taking a nude picture of yourself that you’ll send to the cops.”
Molly stood and walked to the window and looked out at the municipal parking lot where the trucks parked, and the plow blades waited for winter.
“Well,” Molly said, without turning from the window, “first I’d try out my poses in a full-length mirror.”
“See how you looked best?”
“Of course,” Molly said.
“Even though you’re naked.”
“Especially ’cause I’m naked,” Molly said. “I’d know it had to be frontal nudity, or no one would believe it. But within that, there’s ways to stand, and where the light falls, and do you want to emphasize your boobs, or your hips, or whatever. Any woman knows what her best assets are. Any woman knows where full-face or profile or something in between is her best look.”
“Makeup?” Jesse said.
“Absolutely,” Molly said. “It’s credible, and I’ll look a lot better.”
“Hair?”
“Ah,” Molly said.
She had turned from the window. She was engaged in the subject now. Her imagination was entirely invested in how to look best while naked. Jesse smiled slightly, but Molly wasn’t looking at him and she didn’t notice.
“Hair is a problem,” she said. “It has to look a bit tousled, as if maybe you’ve been roughed up, or your clothes have been forcibly removed. It can’t be not-a-hair-out-of-place.”
“Uh-huh?”
“But,” Molly said, “I would know how to tousle it so that I’d look as good as I could.”
“How would you wear it?”
“If it were me, I’d have a few thick strands loose on my forehead, and the rest sort of down and fluffed around my face.”
“You never wear it like that,” Jesse said.
“Jesse, for crissakes, I’m a cop. If I ever wear it like that I’m off-duty.”
Jesse grinned.
“I’ll check with Crow,” he said.
“Oh, shut up,” Molly said.
“How about if you were forced to disrobe at gunpoint?” Jesse said.
“I’d probably be too scared to think about it much. I’d just stand there and hope it was over soon, and that he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“No posing,” Jesse said.
“Well,” Molly said. “I might suck in my stomach a little.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Look at the pictures.”
