High Profile

“Yum, yum,” he said. “But she didn’t say that he did do it. Any defense attorney in America would listen to that tape and see that I led her to it.”

Jesse ate some more of the turnover.

“Plus,” Molly said, “if it came to that, he could argue that she did it, and she could insist that he did it, and that would create reasonable doubt.”

“So, no, I didn’t hold him,” Jesse said. “This is an excellent turnover. You get it at Daisy Dyke’s?”

“I baked it,” Molly said.

“Baked it?”

“Yeah, you know, peeled the apples and made the crust and added the cinnamon and put in the sugar and folded it up and put it in the oven.”

“You know, turnovers are like donuts. They just seem to be. You don’t think of anyone making them.”

“I made them,” Molly said.

“Wow,” Jesse said. “Wife, mother, cop, baker.”

“Department sex symbol,” Molly said.

Jesse finished the turnover.

“Molly, I mean in no way to downgrade that, but you are the only woman in the department.”

“So unless some of the guys are gay,” Molly said. Jesse nodded.

“Which I don’t think they are,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded again.

“Well, it may be a meaningless distinction,” Molly said,

“but it is a distinction, and I’m claiming it.”

2 6 0

H I G H P R O F I L E

“Can I eat the other turnover?” Jesse said.

“Sure.”

“Did you make them specifically for me?” Jesse said.

“No. I made them for my husband and children. But I saved two for you.”

“Well, you’re right, one takes the distinctions one can get,” Jesse said.

“Besides, maybe a couple of the guys are secretly gay, and you actually are a department sex symbol.”

“I’d prefer not to go there,” Jesse said.

2 6 1

59

Jesse rang the bell at the front door of Timothy Lloyd’s condo in the Prudential Center, and held up his badge in front of the peephole. After a minute the door opened.

“I’m Jesse Stone, the chief of police in Paradise. We need to talk.”

“Paradise, Mass?”

“Yes, may I come in?”

“Yeah, sure, what’s up?” Lloyd said and stepped away from the door. Jesse went in and closed the door behind him. He tucked the badge away in his shirt pocket.

H I G H P R O F I L E

“I am also Jenn Stone’s former husband,” he said. Lloyd’s face sagged a little, and Jesse hit him hard with a straight left. Lloyd took two steps back and then lunged at Jesse. Jesse hit him with a left hook and then a right hook, and Lloyd stumbled backward and sat on the floor.

“You can’t come in here and do this,” Lloyd said. It always amazed Jesse what people said in extremis.

“Of course I can,” Jesse said. “I just did. And I may do it every day unless we have a thoughtful and productive discussion.”

Lloyd scooted on his butt backward away from Jesse and scrambled to his feet. Jesse could see his eyes shifting, looking for a weapon. Lloyd picked up a brass candleholder from the dining-room table, charged at Jesse, and tried to hit him with it. Jesse deflected Lloyd’s swing with his left forearm, grabbed him by the hair, and ran him forward behind his own momentum into the wall headfirst. Lloyd let go of the candlestick holder and went to his knees and stayed there, trying to get his legs under him. He had more stuff in him than Jesse had expected. Jesse’s business was to get rid of whatever stuff Lloyd had. He kicked him in the stomach and Lloyd yelped and fell flat on the floor and doubled up in pain and a kind of fetal concealment. Jesse walked to a red leather armchair near the front door and sat in it and said nothing. Lloyd stayed doubled up on the floor, groaning softly and occasionally. Something annoying impinged faintly on Jesse’s consciousness. He listened. There was a television on somewhere in 2 6 3

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

the apartment. He couldn’t hear what was being said. But he knew from the sound of it that it was blather. After a time when the only sound in the place was the distant and indistinct blather, Lloyd stopped groaning on the floor.

“I never did anything to your wife,” he said.

“You’ve been stalking her.”

“I never—”

“I’m not here to debate,” Jesse said.

He stood and walked over to where Lloyd lay on the ground, took his gun from his hip, and bent over and put the muzzle of the gun against the bridge of Lloyd’s nose.

“If you stalk her again, or bother her in any way, or have anything at all to do with her, I’ll kill you,” he said.

“Jesus Christ, Stone.” Lloyd’s voice was up a full octave. Jesse pressed the gun harder against Lloyd’s forehead.

“You understand that?”

“Yes, Jesus Christ, yes. I promise I’ll never go near her again. I promise.”

Jesse stood motionless for a moment, the gun pressed against Lloyd. He could feel the air going in and out of his lungs. He could feel the latissimus dorsi bunch. He could almost feel it. It was as if he were able to project himself ahead into the sudden discharge of energy that came with a gunshot.

“Please,” Lloyd said. “Please. I won’t ever bother her again.”

Jesse took in all the air his lungs would hold and let it out slowly, and straightened and put the gun back in its holster. 2 6 4