Stone cold

“They could just show up and buy a ticket.”

“Doesn’t seem like their style,”

Molly said. “They reserved the

rental ahead of time. They think they’re safe.”

“Did they rent another car?”

“Not from Hertz,” Molly said.

“Call the other rental companies and check,” Jesse

said.

“Soon as I make us coffee,” Molly said.

She spooned ground coffee into the filter.

“I will also expect the department to pay all medical bills

related to getting concrete information in a human voice from twenty-three airlines,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded.

“Beyond the call of duty,” Jesse said.

“I’m sure we can do

something for you.”

“Suit’s in a car today, seven to three, but he says tell you

that he’s talked with San Mateo and the only thing they could tell

him was that, according to the 1993 telephone directory, Arlington Lamont lived there. And by 1996 he didn’t.”

“Any unsolved homicides?” Jesse said.

“Suit asked them that. They said they’d get back to

him.”

“He talk to San Francisco?”

“Yes. They have nothing.”

“Do me one other favor?” he said.

“Maybe,” Molly said.

“Let me know when the coffee’s

done,” Jesse said.

“Better than that,” Molly said.

“I’ll bring you

some.”

“Thank you,” Jesse said.

“I’m sucking up to you,” Molly

said. “‘Cause you’re the

chief.”

“Good a reason as any,” Jesse said and went into his

office.

He sat at his desk and put his feet up and looked out the window

at the relentless cluster of media. It was about a ten-hour drive to Toronto if you went out the thruway and crossed near Buffalo.

They could have gone up 81 through Watertown, about the same distance. He’d check with customs. But the border was an easy one,

and an attractive couple driving a Volvo wagon wasn’t too likely to

be questioned. There were 2.3 million people in Toronto. It wasn’t

exactly like having them cornered. Jesse tapped the desktop with his fingertips. Molly came in with two cups of coffee.

“Two?” Jesse said.

“One for you,” she said. “One

for Captain Healy.”

Jesse glanced past Molly toward the doorway.

“I saw him parking outside,” Molly said.

“I figured he wasn’t

coming to see me.”

She put one cup down in front of Jesse, and one cup on the edge

of the desk near the guest chair, and went back to the front desk.

In about thirty seconds Healy came in.

Jesse pointed at the second cup.

“Coffee,” he said.

Healy hung his coat on a rack in the corner, sat down, and picked up the coffee.

“You run a hell of a department,” he said.

Jesse nodded. They both sipped some coffee. When he had swallowed and put his cup down, Healy said, “Mr. and Mrs.

Arlington

Lamont reserved a room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto and guaranteed it with their American Express card.”

“They check in?”

“Yep.”

“They there now?” Jesse said.

“Nope,” Healy said.

He gri

“Toronto cops went there a half hour ago and picked them up,” he

said.

Jesse had the same feeling he’d had with Dix. His chest

expanded. He pulled in a large amount of clean air. He exhaled slowly through his nose. Then he reached across the desk and put his clenched fist out toward Healy. Healy tapped it with his own.

“I think I’ll go up,” Jesse

said. “See how they’re

doing.”

74

Mr and Mrs. Lamont were being held at Division 52 on the west end of Dundas Street, near the lake. Jesse stood outside an interview room with a sergeant of detectives named Gordon. There was a one-way glass window. Behind it Jesse could see the Lamonts sitting at one side of a table, holding hands. There was a uniformed Toronto policeman with them, leaning on the wall.

“They give you any trouble when you picked them up?” Jesse

said.

“Nope. Peaceful and i

must be some mistake.”

“They killed five people in my

town,” Jesse

said.

“Lotta pressure on you,” Gordon said.

“One of them was a woman I went out with.”

“Lotta pressure,”

Gordon said.

“Find any weapons?”

“Two twenty-two long target pistols,”

Gordon said. “Unloaded and

disassembled and packed away in their luggage. You been looking for those?”

“I have.”

They stood silently looking through the window at the man and woman holding hands.

“I’ll talk to them alone,” Jesse

said. “Though it’s possible

that the man may assault me and I’ll have to defend myself.”

Gordon was a short thick bald man with enough stomach to make the buttons pull a little on his shirt. He nodded thoughtfully.

“You got a right to defend yourself,” he said.

Jesse nodded. Gordon unlocked the door and went in and nodded his head to the uniform to leave.

“A visitor,” he said to the man and woman.

Jesse came into the interview room. Gordon went out and closed the door behind him. Jesse stood and looked at them.

“Jesse,” the man said.

“We’re so glad to see you,” the

woman said.

Jesse didn’t say anything. He stood motionless on the other side

of the table, looking down at them.

“Jesse,” the man said,

“what’s going on? They didn’t even tell us why they arrested us, just that we were wanted in the States.”

Jesse looked straight down at them and didn’t say anything.

“Wanted for what?” the man said.

“Jesse, what is it?” the woman said.

Jesse gestured with one hand at the man to stand up. When the man was standing Jesse called him closer with his crooked forefinger. The man was compliant. He walked closer. Jesse put up both hands to tell him to stop, then Jesse stepped in closer to him and drove his knee into the man’s groin. The man screamed and staggered backward, bent over, and fell on the floor. He brought his knees to his chest and lay with his hands between his legs and moaned. The woman jumped up and ran around the table toward him and Jesse hit her, a full swing, across the face, with the flat of his open hand. She staggered backward and bumped the wall and slid down and sat hard on the floor, with her face pressed into her hands, and began to cry. Jesse looked at both of them for a moment and then turned and looked at the opaque one-way window and jerked his thumb toward the door. In a moment Gordon came in.

“Lucky to escape with your life,” Gordon said.

“Eh?”

75

It was snowing softly. Jesse had parked his Explorer at the town

beach, and he and Je

“You all right?” Je

“Yes.”

“You’d say that even if you

weren’t,” Je

“I know.”

“This has been an especially difficult time for you.”

“It’s why I get the big bucks,”

Jesse said.

Behind them a plow clattered across the causeway toward Paradise

Neck. When it had passed, the silence was broken only by the sound of the wipers and the low fan sound of the heater.

“Did they tell you why they did it?” Je

“No.”

“Did you ask?”

“No.”

Je