Death in Paradise

"Your father still pay your tuition?"

"Of course he does. You think he wants to have his daughter drop out of a seven fucking sisters school?"

"Good to be able to count on something," Jesse said.

"Fuck him," Emily said. "He owes it to me. I'll take him for everything he's got if I can."

Quite suddenly she began to cry. Jesse put an arm on her shoulder. She shrugged it off and stepped away from him. He stood quietly in the room without touching her until she stopped crying.

"You got someone to talk to?" Jesse said.

She nodded.

"Shrink?"

She nodded again. Jesse took out a card.

"You think of anything… or you need anything."

He handed her the card. She looked at it as if it meant more than it did.

"You'll do that?" Jesse said.

"Yes."

"Might be good if you called your shrink," Jesse said.

She didn't speak or move. Jesse stood for another moment and then he left.

Chapter Twenty-two

Jesse stood in the open slider of his condo, looking out over his balcony toward Paradise Neck. Below the balcony the black water of the harbor moved with aimless purpose against the rust-colored rocks. Jesse liked the sound. He would like it even more with a drink. He knew the girl was Billie Bishop. He couldn't exactly prove it yet, but he knew. He knew there was something wrong in the Bishop house. Were the girls being molested? They seemed angry. Especially Emily. He thought about how pleasant it would be to sit on his balcony with a tall scotch and soda and look at the harbor and listen to the gentle sway of the Atlantic Ocean and not think about molestation. He wondered if Emily was a lesbian. As the evening lengthened it grew dark enough for the lights of the big houses on the neck to show across the harbor. He wished Je

He got up and walked into his kitchen. He took a glass down from the cupboard, sixteen ounces, the kind you got when you ordered a pint of Gui

There was enough moonlight for Jesse to see the boats waiting at their moorings. Toward the outer harbor a single boat with bow lights cut across the harbor toward the town wharf. Jesse had another sip. Probably the harbor master. It was Friday night. He wasn't scheduled to see Je

His drink was gone. One more. He got up and went to the kitchen and made another one and brought it back to the deck. The scotch made him feel integrated, complete. Not a wild drunk, Jesse thought. Mostly quiet. Mostly the booze enriched him. Je

From the parking lot, out of sight of his balcony, Jesse heard a car door slam and the sound of brisk high heels. The front hall door of Jesse's building opened and closed. Jesse took another swallow. Sometimes on Wednesdays when Je

Out loud he said, "Fuck it," his voice intrusive in the pale darkness. Then he stood and went to the kitchen and made another drink.

Chapter Twenty-three

It took Molly a day on the phone to find the shelters in Boston run by nuns. There were three. Jesse found the right nun on his first try. Her name was Sister Mary John and she ran a shelter in the basement of a church in Jamaica Plain. When Jesse came in, Sister was sitting on the corner of a plywood banquet table with folding metal legs that obviously served as her desk. She was red-haired, wearing a black sweat suit with a white stripe on the sleeves. The only sign of her calling was a small gold cross on a thin gold chain that hung around her neck.

"Are you sure you're a nun?" Jesse said.

"Pretty sure," Sister said.

Jesse smiled.

"You talked with Molly Crane on the phone about a missing girl."

"Yes."

Jesse took out a blowup of Billie, processed from the family picture, and held it out for Sister Mary John to look at. Sister nodded her head slowly.

"When was she here?" Jesse said.

"Begi

"She's not here now?"

"No."

"Would you tell me if she were?" Jesse said.

"It would depend on who you were and why you wanted to know."

"You know who I am," Jesse said. "We think Billie was murdered."

Sister's face softened for a moment.

"Think?"

"Know, but can't prove. Condition of the body makes it hard."

Sister nodded.

A young black woman with a ring through one nostril came into the room and saw Jesse and, without changing her pace, turned and left.

"Am I that obvious?" Jesse said.

"A cop is a cop is a cop," Sister said. "My girls have learned to be alert."

"Do you know where Billie went when she left here?"

"I have a phone number. We'd agreed I would only give it to her older sister or somebody named Hooker."

"Did you give it to either?"

"Neither of them asked."

"May I have the phone number?" Jesse said.

Sister looked at him for a time.

"She's dead," Jesse said. "I'm trying to find who killed her."

Sister nodded. She reached under the desk and pulled a yellow plastic milk crate toward her. It was full of file folders. She riffled through them, pulled one out, and took from it a single sheet of paper. She looked at the sheet and copied the number onto a little pad of stickum notes.