High Profile

“Not up to me,” Jesse said. “But you don’t have much to testify about that Molly or I couldn’t testify about.”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“You’ll be fine,” Jesse said. “I promise.”

The woman hugged her dog and pressed her face against the top of his head.

“You’ll both be fine,” Jesse said. “Officer Crane will drive you home.”

The woman nodded with her cheek pressed against the dog’s head. The dog looked uneasy. Jesse gave her one of his cards.

“You think of anything,” Jesse said, “or anything bothers you, call me. Or Officer Crane.”

The woman nodded. Jesse scratched the beagle under the chin and got out of the car.

3

Jesse was in the squad room with Molly Crane, Suitcase Simpson, and Peter Perkins. They were drinking coffee. “State lab has him,” Peter Perkins said. “They’ll fingerprint the body and run the prints. They haven’t autopsied him yet, but I’ll bet they find he died of gunshot. I didn’t see any exit wounds, so I’m betting they find the slugs in there when they open him up.”

“Had to have happened last night,” Suitcase said. “I mean, people are in that park all the time. He couldn’t have hung there long without being spotted.”

Jesse nodded and glanced at Peter Perkins.

“I haven’t seen all that many dead bodies,” Perkins said. “And very few who were hanged from a tree. But this guy looks like he’s been dead longer than that.”

Jesse nodded.

“And...” Peter Perkins glanced at Molly.

“And he smells,” Molly said. “I noticed it, too.”

Jesse nodded.

“And there was no blood except on him. He got shot and hanged, he’d have bled out and there’d be blood on the ground,” Suitcase said.

“So,” Jesse said. “He was shot somewhere else and kept awhile before they brought him up to the hill and hanged him.”

“You think it’s more than one?” Molly said.

“A two-hundred-pound corpse is hard for one person to manhandle around and hoist over a limb,” Jesse said.

“But not impossible,” Molly said.

“No,” Jesse said.

They all sat quietly.

“Anyone reported missing?” Jesse said.

“No,” Molly said.

“Anyone else know anything?”

“Nobody I talked with,” Suitcase said.

Molly Crane and Peter Perkins both shook their heads.

“Even if you knew the guy,” Simpson said, “be kind of hard to recognize him now.”

“Anyone want to speculate why you’d shoot some guy,” Jesse said, “hold his body until it started to ripen, and then hang it on a tree?”

“Symbolic,” Molly said. “It must have some sort of symbolic meaning to the perps.”

Jesse waited.

“Obviously they wanted him found,” Suitcase said.

“But why hanging?” Peter Perkins said.

Suitcase shook his head. Jesse looked at Molly. She shook her head.

“Perk,” Jesse said. “Any theories?”

Perkins shook his head.

“Okay,” Jesse said. “It looks like, for now, we wait for the forensics report.”

“Unless something turns up,” Suitcase said.

“Unless that,” Jesse said.

4

Dix was as shiny as he always was. His white shirt was crisp with starch. His slacks were sharply creased. His shoes were polished. His thick hands were clean. His nails were manicured. He was bald and clean shaven, and his head gleamed. The white walls of his office were bare except for a framed copy of his medical degree and one of his board certification in psychiatry. Jesse sat at one side of the desk, and Dix swiveled his chair to face him. After he swiveled, he was motionless, his hands resting interlaced on his flat stomach.

“I’m making progress on the booze,” Jesse said.

Dix waited.

“I quit for a while and it seemed to give me more control of it when I went back.”

“Enough control?” Dix said.

Jesse thought about it.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“But some,” Dix said.

“Yes.”

Dix was still.

“If I can control it,” Jesse said, “life is better with alcohol. Couple of drinks before dinner. Glass of wine with dinner. Civilized.”

“And without it?” Dix said.

“A lot of days with nothing to look forward to,” Jesse said.

“Behavior can be modified,” Dix said.

“In terms of drunks,” Jesse said, “I’m not sure that’s politically correct.”

“It’s not,” Dix said. “But it’s been my experience.”

“So I’m not fooling myself.”

“You may or may not be,” Dix said. “It’s possible that you’re not.”

“Day at a time,” Jesse said.

Dix smiled.

“Now,” Jesse said, “to my other problem.”

Dix waited.

“I’ve met a woman,” Jesse said.

Dix was still.

“Like the perfect woman,” Jesse said.

Dix nodded slightly.

“She’s good-looking, smart, very sexual. Even professionally — she’s a private detective. Used to be a cop.”

Dix nodded. It seemed to Jesse almost as if he were approving.

“She’s tough. She can shoot. She’s not afraid. And she’s a painter, too. Oils and watercolors, not houses.”

“Anyone else in her life?” Dix said.

“She’s divorced, like me, and she might still be a little hung up on her ex.”

“Gee,” Dix said.

Jesse grinned at him.

“Like me,” Jesse said.

Dix was quiet. The only window in the small room opened onto a budding tree against a blue sky. They looked almost like trompe l’oeil painting. When he was in this room with Dix, everything seemed remote to Jesse.

“Which is, of course, the problem.”

“She can’t let go of her ex-husband?” Dix said.