Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

of floating up, nothing like a nice hard clue or anything, just odd things that don’t look like they’re part of the soup.”
    “Like what?”
    Jesse shrugged and finished his first donut.
    “You know the old instruction on how to sculpture a horse out of granite. You take a piece of granite and chip away everything that doesn’t look like a horse.”
    “What the hell kind of answer is that?” Abby said.
    Jesse drank some cider.
    “I was trying to be folksy,” he said.
    Abby leaned away from him and stared at his face.
    “Jesse, you don’t want to tell me,” she said.
    “Talking about a case doesn’t usually do the case much good,” he said.
    “Goddamn it,” Abby said. “You don’t trust me.”
    Jesse didn’t say anything. The paper cup from which he’d drunk his cider was empty. He crumpled it and tossed it into a green trash barrel.
    “Two,” he said.
    “Jesse, you can’t not trust me.”
    He turned to look at her.
    “Ab,” he said. “I guess the ugly truth is, I don’t trust anybody.”
    “For Christ’s sake,” she said.
    “Nothing’s quite what it seems to be around here,” Jesse said. “Makes me careful.”
    “Including me?”
    “Don’t be hurt,” he said. “It’s just the way I have to be.”
    “I am hurt, but I’m also sad—for you. Not to trust me! You have to be able to trust somebody.”
    Jesse shrugged. He did trust someone. God help me, he thought, I guess I trust Jenn. He decided not to mention that. It wasn’t an answer that would make Abby feel better.
    “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.”

47
     
    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