Night Passage (19 page)

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Jesse said.

Abby’s eyes looked as if she might cry.

“I know,” she said. “I know you’ve had a hard go and being a cop you’ve seen a lot of bad things.”

Jesse put his hand out and patted her leg. He felt sorry that she was hurt, but it was an abstract sorry, more of an idea than a feeling. You need to be able to hear the truth, he thought. You can’t hear the truth, you got nowhere to start.

Across the street, standing near a table where they were selling dolls made out of cornstalks and dressed in pink gingham, Jo Jo Genest stood and stared at Jesse. As if he felt the stare, Jesse looked up and met Jo Jo’s gaze. Silently Jo Jo mouthed the word “slut.” Jesse saw it and his eyes locked with Jo Jo’s. He nodded slowly. Then Jo Jo spat and turned and walked slowly away. Jesse watched him go.

So I was right, Jesse thought. It’s Jo Jo.

Abby was too involved in her own issues to see the interchange.

“I feel sort of foolish,” she said softly, “being hurt and not being able to hide it. I really have a problem with being left out, and to have this relationship and to think you don’t trust me …”

Jesse shifted his attention to her. He nodded gently.

“I know how you feel,” he said. “I don’t blame you. Maybe I’ll be more and better later on. But right now, this is what you get.”

“Yes,” she said. “And this is a very nice man. But … oh hell,” she said.

She stood up abruptly and began to cry. With her head down, trying to hide the fact that she was crying, she walked away briskly. Everybody’s got baggage, Jesse thought. I just tripped over some of hers. He saw her get in her car and drive away. She had left her cider. He picked it up and drank some of it. The taste of her lipstick was on the cup. He drank the rest of her cider and crumpled the cup and shot it into the trash can. Outside shot is working. He nodded congratulations to himself.

“Okay, Jo Jo,” he said softly. “No secrets between us.”

Jesse was in his office early when Suitcase Simpson, fresh off the three-to-seven shift, came to the doorway and stood.

“I, ah, got my report to make,” Simpson said.

“Close the door,” Jesse said.

Simpson closed it and came and sat in front of Jesse’s desk. He took a small notebook from his shirt pocket and licked his thumb and opened it about five pages in. Jesse turned sideways and put one foot on the open desk drawer so that he could look out the window while he listened.

“I, ah, tried to be sort of cool about it,” Simpson said. “You know, not like I was investigating or anything.”

Jesse nodded.

“Best estimate is that about seventeen people applied for gun permits over the past five years that didn’t get them,” Simpson said. “Not all of this is firsthand, but that’s what I heard from people who applied, or friends of people who applied, that kind of thing. So there’s probably some I missed. But seventeen seems like a pretty solid low guess.”

“Any of them Horsemen?” Jesse said.

“No.”

“Surprise.”

“Another thing,” Simpson said. “Looking at the list, at least five people on it are Jews.”

“Because the names sound Jewish?” Jesse said. “Or because you know it for a fact?”

“That’s why I said ‘at least.’ I know the five Jewish people.”

“You got any idea how many Jewish-sounding names are on the membership list for Freedom’s Horsemen?” Jesse said.

“Well, I never really thought about it,” Simpson said.

“I have. I went through it a couple times. Want to guess?”

“None,” Simpson said.

“Surprise.”

Simpson sat back in his chair, holding his little blue notebook in his thick square hand, his forefinger keeping the place.

“Shit,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jesse said.

“I hate that,” Simpson said. “I hate thinking stuff like this about my hometown.”

“You don’t have to think it about the town,” Jesse said. “But you may have to think it about the Horsemen.”

Simpson sat frowning. It looked odd. His big pink-cheeked baby face wasn’t supposed to frown.

“What about us, Jesse? We don’t have a Jewish cop.”

“No blacks either,” Jesse said.

“I know, but, hell, I don’t think there’s any black people in town.”

“That would weed out a lot of applicants,” Jesse said.

“But there’s plenty of Jewish people in town. Christ, there were tons of them in school with me.”

“Who hired the force?” Jesse said.

“I don’t know. Tom hired me. Selectmen approved.”

“Which means Hathaway,” Jesse said. “The other two go along with what Hasty decides.”

“I guess so.”

“I checked,” Jesse said. “Tom hired everybody, with Selectmen approving, except Lou Burke. Lou was here before Carson came. Know any Jews who wanted to be cops?”

“Oh hell, Jesse, I don’t know. I mean I never thought much about it. I never even noticed there were no Jews on the force until we started talking.”

“So what do you think?” Jesse said.

“About what?”

“About all of this. No permits for people who aren’t Horsemen. No permits for Jews. No Jews in the Horsemen. No blacks. No Jews.”

“Oh hell, Jesse, I ain’t a thinker. Jesus! I come on the cops because it was a nice job for a guy with no college. You know? Some prestige, some benefits. People pay attention to you. I can’t figure out shit about Jews and gun permits and the damned Horsemen.”

Jesse grinned.

“Don’t kid me, Suit. You came on the cops because you were born to be a crime buster. Think about some things: Who runs the town?”

“Selectmen.”

“All of them?”

“Well, no. Mr. Hathaway, really.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “And who runs Freedom’s Horsemen?”

“Hathaway.”

“Right again. And, what is the connection between Freedom’s Horsemen and the Paradise Police Department?”

Simpson sat back frowning, like a slow earnest kid trying to get the right answer. Then suddenly his face cleared and he sat up.

“Lou,” he said.

Jesse nodded slowly.

“And does it appear the Freedom’s Horsemen are influencing policy in the Paradise Police Department?”

“Not since you came, Jesse.”

“Before me?”

“Yes.”

They were quiet. Through the office window Jesse watched the yellow school buses pulling out of the town lot.

“What’s this all mean, Jesse?”

Jesse kept looking at the school buses as they pulled out onto Main Street and peeled off in different directions. Then he swiveled his chair around so he could look at Simpson directly.

“Suit,” he said. “I don’t know what it means exactly. But one thing I think it means is that we better not talk about this with anybody but you and me.”

“Not even the other cops?”

“No.”

“Jesse, I known some of these guys all my life.”

“Just you and me, Suit.”

Simpson nodded.

“Capeesh?” Jesse said.

“Capeesh.”

Jesse nodded approvingly. Suitcase didn’t know, and didn’t need to know, yet, about Tom Carson’s murder. He didn’t need to know about Jo Jo’s silent taunt at the Harvest Fair.

“I don’t like all this,” Simpson said. “All this stuff that isn’t what it’s supposed to be.”

“I don’t either, Suit, but I guess we’re stuck with it. What do you know about Cissy Hathaway?”

The pink in Simpson’s cheeks deepened and spread over his whole face.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“She fool around?”

Simpson was in full blush. He started to speak and stopped and shifted a little in his chair.

“Suit,” Jesse said. “I watched her talk to Jo Jo at the Harvest Fair Saturday. I was asking about her and him.”

Simpson settled into the chair. His face seemed to cool slightly.

“Gee, Jesse, I haven’t heard a thing about that.”

“But I’m missing something. What am I missing, Suit?”

Simpson shrugged.

“Come on, Suit. I asked you about Cissy Hathaway and you looked like you just swallowed a squirrel.”

Simpson smiled. It was a complicated expression, Jesse thought. Uneasy, proud, confidential, evasive. He would not have thought Suitcase could feel that many things at the same time.

“Suit,” Jesse said, “you been plonking Cissy Hathaway?”

There was a long pause while Simpson looked around the room as if he were thinking about escape.

Then Simpson said, “Yes, sir. I have.”

Charlie Buck liked cowboy boots. He had never ridden a horse in his life, but he had seven pairs of cowboy boots. He liked the height they gave him. With his feet up on his desk he was admiring a new pair he was wearing for the first time, made from rattlesnake skin. He took a Kleenex from a box in the bottom left drawer of his desk, and rubbed a small stain off the toe of his right boot. It looked like a splash of coffee had dried on there. While he was doing this a uniformed deputy came in.

“Nice boots,” the deputy said.

“Rattlesnake.”

“I could see that. I got a guy downstairs, Charlie, wants to talk with somebody about the guy got blown up on Route Fifty-nine a while back.”

“That’d be me,” Charlie said.

He crumpled the Kleenex and put it in the wastebasket under his desk. Then he swung his boots down and stood up.

“Tell you anything else?” Charlie asked.

They started down the corridor to the elevator.

“Nope.”

“What do you have him for?”

“Armed robbery. Him and another guy tried to knock over the bank at the shopping center down on South Douglas.”

“You got him good?”

“Talk about a bad day,” the deputy said. “Two of our guys walked in on him, going to cash their paychecks.”

Charlie Buck smiled.

“So he hasn’t got much room to bargain.”

“He’s a lot of priors. He’s looking at twenty, easy,” the deputy said.

They got in the elevator and started down.

“What’s his name?” Charlie Buck asked.

“Matthew Ploughman. Says he’s from Denver.”

“He in the interrogation room?”

“Not yet. I didn’t know if you’d want to talk with him.”

“I’ll go in,” Charlie Buck said. “You bring him to me.”

The interrogation room was small with gray cinder block walls and no windows, and only a one-way observation port in the door. There was a shabby maple table and two chairs. A sign on the wall read “Thank You For Not Smoking.” Charlie went to the far end of the room and leaned on the wall. He waited silently while two deputies brought Ploughman in and left, closing the door behind them.

Ploughman was short and scrawny with a long beard and a lot of hair. His eyes were small and close together and his nose seemed insufficient compared to the rest of his face. He stood, not sure whether to sit, just inside the closed door.

“You got a smoke, man?” he said.

Buck nodded at the sign on the wall.

“Sit down,” he said.

Ploughman pulled out one of the chairs and sat, his clasped hands resting on the table edge.

“What have you got for me?” Buck said.

“I can help you with that bomb killing on Route Fifty-nine,” Ploughman said.

“Go ahead,” Buck said.

“Do I get something back?”

Buck shrugged.

“Hey, I ain’t trying for Eagle Scout, you know. I scratch your back, I want you to scratch mine.”

“Matthew,” Buck said. “You’re looking at twenty years, maybe more. You and I are not negotiating as equals.”

“Hey, don’t I know it. I’m the one sitting in a holding cell with no cigarettes. But I can help you, and if I do, you could get me a break in court.”

“Maybe.”

“Lemme get my lawyer in here, we can work out some sort of deal.”

Buck shook his head.

“You give me what you got, I like it, then we talk with your lawyer.”

“I got a right to an attorney,” Ploughman said.

“You been arrested, Matthew. You’re not being questioned. You asked to talk with me. You want to talk, talk. Otherwise I go back upstairs and finish my coffee.”

Ploughman was silent, the tip of his tongue ran back and forth across his lower lip. Buck waited a moment, then shrugged and started for the door. He knocked, and the door opened immediately.

“Wait,” Ploughman said.

“For what?” Buck said.

“I’ll do it your way,” Ploughman said.

Buck turned and walked slowly back to the end of the room and leaned on the wall. The door closed. Buck folded his arms on his chest.

“Go ahead,” Buck said.

Jesse resisted the impulse to smile. “So,” he said, “she fools around.”

“She does with me, yes, sir.”

Simpson was like a good boy in the principal’s office.

“Stop calling me sir,” Jesse said. “You think she fools around with anyone but you?”

“I don’t know.”

“How’d you and she get started?”

“Jeez, Jesse, I’m sorry, but I don’t see where it’s any of your business, you know?”

Jesse knew that Simpson was right. Unless it connected to something, Jesse had no business asking him personal questions. There wasn’t any particular reason not to tell about Jo Jo. But Jesse didn’t know his situation, didn’t know quite what was going on, and when he found himself in circumstances like that his instinct was to close down, trust no one, and watch carefully. But he needed information, any information, and here was some and it might be helpful.

“I think Jo Jo killed the Portugal girl,” Jesse said.

“You think he killed the girl?”

“Yeah, and he had to let me know it.”

“He told you?”

“No, nothing I can arrest him for, but he told me.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because it’s about me and him,” Jesse said. “He did the patrol car and he did Captain Cat, because I knocked him around in front of his wife.”

“So why wouldn’t he come straight after you?”

“Because he’s afraid to. I’m a cop. I’ve got authority. I’ve got a gun. He assaults me and I can have him in jail.”

“So he does stuff to embarrass you?”

“Yeah. Just like I embarrassed him. But it’s no good if I don’t know it’s him, so he had to let me know.”

“What’d he do?”

“He stood across the common from me and smiled and mouthed ‘slut’ at me.”