“You going to tell him about this?”
“I don’t know,” Molly said. “He deserves to know, but he’ll worry, and he’s a hundred miles at sea.”
Jesse nodded.
“You’ll decide,” he said.
“Yes,” Molly said.
“If you do decide to tell him, be sure he keeps it to himself. He’s probably not the only guy with a cell phone.”
“And word gets around,” Molly said. “I know.”
“How ’bout the kids?” he said.
“Get the bus at the end of the street at ten past eight,” Molly said. “Come home at three-thirty, except for my oldest, who usually doesn’t get home until supper.”
“What are we going to do about them?” Jesse said.
“They’ll have to be covered,” Molly said. “That’s my only rule in this.”
Jesse was looking out the squad-room window.
“Can they go visit somebody for a while?” he said.
“For a day or two, sure,” Molly said. “My sister lives in Newburyport and they get along with their cousins.”
“This may be more than a day or two,” Jesse said.
He turned from the window and walked the length of the room and leaned a shoulder against the wall next to the door.
“I know,” Molly said. “And they can’t miss that much school, and, frankly, I won’t send them away for that long. I miss them.”
Jesse nodded. He walked back to the window. He looked out.
“Okay,” he said. “Either of you got a contact at the town paper?”
Suit smiled.
“Used to date the editor,” he said.
“And she’s forgiven you?” Jesse said.
“She’s grateful as hell,” Suit said.
“Good,” Jesse said. “We want to plant a story.”
“What story?” Suit said.
Jesse turned and walked halfway down the room and leaned on the conference table, his palms flat on the tabletop.
“We’ll work that out in a minute,” Jesse said. “Moll, tell me about your neighborhood.”
70
IT WAS a shabby room in a shabby motel on the highway, where most people stayed only a few hours. But it had a bathroom and a bed, and the sheets seemed clean. The Night Hawk sat on the edge of the bed with his laptop, reading The Paradise Town Crier online.
PARADISE MOM BALANCES FAMILY AND POLICE
Michael Crane recently shipped out for George’s Bank on his brother Bob’s trawler, Sea Crane . Mike leaves behind his wife, Molly, who is a full-time mother, wife, and police officer.
And with her husband absent periodically for weeks at a time, Molly must juggle things even more adroitly. “Chief Stone has been great,” Molly says. “He gives me the freedom to do what I need to do as a mother. He has arranged my schedule so that I am home every morning to get the kids off to school and do the housework.” Molly Crane grew up in Paradise, as Molly Mulherne. She met her future husband in the fourth grade, and, she says, they have been together ever since. . . .
There was a picture of Molly Crane that looked as if it was taken from her high school yearbook. She didn’t look that different, he thought, but different enough for his purposes.
He’d studied her long enough and closely enough to see it. The story went on, and he read it to the end. The writing was amateurish, of course, like the writing in all those small-town local papers. And the information was good. He had at least a two-week window to make his final discovery in Paradise. For a moment he considered whether this was a plant, and Jesse was trying to trap him. No, he decided. Old Jess isn’t that smart. Time, he thought, to hop on the bus, and reconnoiter .
71
“EVERYBODY’S GOT a picture of Seth Ralston,” Jesse said to Suit.
“They have. I got his license picture from the registry and personally gave each guy a blowup,” Suit said.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Moll?”
“Paradise police cruiser parked on the street outside Betsy Ingersoll’s house,” Molly said.
“Twenty-four-seven.”
“Who?” Jesse said.
“Buddy, Paul, and Steve,” Molly said. “Eight hours each. Four on, four off.”
“They know it’s a head fake?” Jesse said.
“No,” Molly said. “I hoped it would help them pay attention if I told them we had reason to think the Night Hawk might make his move on her.”
