High Profile

“You know, the best of . . . same with the newspaper column.”

“Then what?”

Gates stepped in.

“Once the estate is settled,” Gates said, “we’ll proceed in consonance with the wishes of the estate.”

“Who is, in terms of the shows and the column?” Jesse said.

“Lorrie, unless there’s something untoward.”

“Such as?” Jesse said.

“A problem in settling the estate,” Gates said. “Extended litigation. Walton Weeks is a public franchise, and like all such, the franchise depends on currency and continuity. If Walton Weeks were off the market for an extended time, his value would diminish substantially. For everyone.”

“Do you plan to litigate?” Jesse said to Stephanie Weeks.

“No. She got him away from me fair and square,”

Stephanie said. “She’s earned it.”

Lorrie looked at Stephanie but said nothing.

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H I G H P R O F I L E

“What are your plans?” Jesse said to Hendricks.

“I hope to continue Walton’s legacy,” Hendricks said. “In some capacity or other.”

“Why all this interest in the estate?” Gates said.

“Just assembling information,” Jesse said.

“You think his inheritance would be a motive?” Gates said.

“We’ve drawn no conclusions,” Jesse said.

“Do you have a theory of the crime?”

“The same gun killed Walton Weeks and Carey Longley,”

Jesse said. “We speculate that it was used by the same person or persons.”

“That’s it?” Gates said.

“Yep. Anyone know why he was in Boston?”

No one answered.

“Mrs. Weeks?” Jesse said to Lorrie.

“Just said he was going up on business,” Lorrie said.

“How long was he going to stay?”

“He didn’t say.”

“You didn’t worry about it when he was gone for a while?”

“He was often gone for a while,” Lorrie said. “Our marriage was not about keeping tabs.”

“Did he do that when you were married to him?” Jesse said to Stephanie.

“Yes. Usually he was with a woman. Toward the end of our marriage the woman was her.” Stephanie pointed at Lorrie with her chin.

“Oh, like you were Miss Stay-at-home Faithful,” Lorrie said. “You were pretty busy yourself.”

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“Weren’t we all,” Stephanie said.

Lorrie reddened.

“Hendricks put a hand on her forearm.

“Ladies,” he said. “Ladies. This isn’t the time, ladies.”

Everyone was silent. Jesse waited. No one spoke.

“Does anyone have any thought on who might have wanted to kill Walton Weeks and Carey Longley?”

No one spoke. Jesse waited.

Then Hendricks said, “Maybe somebody only wanted to kill one of them and the other one died as a by-product.”

“Possible,” Jesse said. “Any idea which was the target?”

“Well, certainly Walton was the most prominent,” Hendricks said, “and after his death he was . . . displayed more prominently.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “That’s true. Anything else?”

No one spoke. Jesse smiled pleasantly at them.

“We will probably need to talk to each of you individually,” Jesse said, “in the course of the investigation. We’re not handy to each other, so it may take some travel. But we can phone and fax and e-mail. It’s a small department, but we’re very modern.”

No one said anything. Jesse gave out his card to those who didn’t have one.

“Detective Simpson, do you have anything to add?”

“No, sir,” Suit said.

Jesse nodded and smiled at them all again.

“We’ll be in touch,” he said.

9 4

22

I like those women,” Suit said in the car driving north through Connecticut.

“In the carnal sense?” Jesse said.

“Of course not, I’m, like, almost a detective for crissake,”

Suit said. “I think if we push them a little, they will explode and a lot of stuff we don’t know will come flying out.”

“There’s usually tension between ex-and current wives,”

Jesse said.

“You speaking from experience?” Suit said.

“Only way to speak,” Jesse said.

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“So what do you think about those people?” Suit said.

“Seems to me they were all living off of Weeks and now he’s gone, they’re scrambling to see what’s left.”

“Why do you think so?” Jesse said.

“Couple of things. One: Of course anytime the milk cow dies everybody starts worrying about where they gonna get milk,” Suit said.

Jesse nodded. The car went up the Charter Oak Bridge over the Connecticut River, with Hartford on the left.

“Second thing,” Suit said. “Nobody seemed to be mourning the guy much.”

“Sometimes after a murder,” Jesse said, “people seem flat and without feelings. It’s shock mostly.”

“You know what kind of guy he was?” Suit said.

“No.”

“Anyone say anything about him?” Suit said.

Jesse, from the passenger seat, glanced over at Suit and nodded slowly. Driving, his eyes on the road, Suit didn’t see him nod.

“Not that I can remember, Detective Simpson,” Jesse said.

“Nobody did,” Suit said. “I went over my notes last night in the hotel. Nobody said they loved him. Nobody said the world lost a great man. Nobody said they’d miss him.”

“Hendricks said he wanted to carry on Walton’s legacy,”

Jesse said.

“What’s that mean?” Suit said.

“I think it means he wants Weeks’s job,” Jesse said. 9 6

H I G H P R O F I L E

Suit nodded.

“And the wife, the current one,” Suit said. “She didn’t even claim the body.”

Jesse nodded.