High Profile

“Rape is something men can understand,” Sunny said.

“But women not only understand it, they feel it in their viscera. In terms of what happened to you, Jesse will never know what we know right now.”

“Yes,” Jenn said.

“Right now the most important thing in the room is what happened to you,” Sunny said. “I will protect you until the sonovabitch is in jail or dead. Either one.”

“Do you have a gun?” Jenn said.

Sunny opened her purse and took out a short revolver.

“And you can shoot?” Jenn said.

“Quite well,” Sunny said.

Jenn began to cry. Sunny put the gun away and went and sat on the arm of Jenn’s chair and put her arm around Jenn’s shoulders. Jenn turned a little and pressed her 5 3

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face against Sunny’s rib cage and cried harder. Sunny patted her.

“You’re going to be fine,” she said. “We’re going to do just fine together.”

Jesse felt as if he were intruding. He sat silently on his bar stool and rolled the empty glass in his hands. 5 4

15

Jenn and Sunny left together. Jesse sat at the bar for a time after they left, rolling the empty glass in his hands. The scent of their perfumes remained, commingling in the quiet room. The sun splash on the floor was gone. Jesse put the glass down, took his gun from a drawer and put it on, looked around the silent room for a moment. Inhaled. And went to the station.

“I got Lutz in the squad room,” Molly said. “Waiting patiently.”

“Good,” Jesse said.

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“And I’ve got the jerk from the governor waiting in your office.”

“Not patiently,” Jesse said.

“No.”

Jesse started down the corridor.

“Where you going?” Molly said.

“Squad room.”

Molly stared at him for a moment, and opened her mouth, and shut it and said nothing.

Jesse opened the door to the squad room.

“I’m Jesse Stone,” he said.

Lutz stood. They shook hands. He had a hard handshake.

“Con Lutz,” he said.

They sat. Lutz picked up a foam coffee cup from the conference table and drank some.

“Must be something genetic,” Lutz said. “I’ve never had good coffee in a police station.”

“You ever on the job?” Jesse said.

“Baltimore,” Lutz said.

“Molly show you the pictures?”

“Yep. It’s Carey Longley.”

“Tell me about her,” Jesse said.

“Walton’s assistant. Been with him about a year.”

“They an item?” Jesse said.

“You mean did they fool around?”

“Yeah.”

“I ain’t here to gossip about Walton,” Lutz said, “or badmouth him, either. I worked for him eight years.”

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“Bodyguard.”

“Yeah.”

“Where were you this time?” Jesse said.

Lutz looked into his coffee cup for a moment. He shook his head.

“They went out without me,” he said.

“Deliberately?”

“Yeah. Walton told me to take the night off. He said he and Carey were going out.”

“That unusual?” Jesse said.

“Yes, he liked me to stay with him.”

“They say where they were going?” Jesse said.

“No.”

“She was ten weeks pregnant,” Jesse said. “Weeks was the father.”

Lutz looked at the surface of his coffee again.

“Okay,” he said. “That takes it out of the realm of gossip, I guess.”

“They an item?”

“Sure. A hot one. She was his girlfriend for a while before he hired her. I figured they were going off for some sort of romantic something, you know?”

“Anything wrong with the relationship?” Jesse said.

“Just that he had a wife,” Lutz said. “Carey and Walton seemed fine.”

“Wife know about Carey?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, she knew he had an assistant. But I don’t think she knew he was fucking her.”

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“He do this often?” Jesse said.

“Yeah. Walton liked women. He married three of them. He probably cheated on them all.”

“What was he doing up here?”

Lutz shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Carey did all that stuff. I just protected him.”

“You didn’t know ahead of time?” Jesse said. “How’d you know if there would be security issues?”

“I wasn’t the Secret Service,” Lutz said. “Hell, Walton wasn’t the president, either. If he was going someplace to give a speech or whatever, Carey would notify the local cops and they’d do what they thought they should do. I was just along to see that no one assaulted him on the sidewalk or whatever.”

“Which you look like you can do,” Jesse said.

“Which I can,” Lutz said. “But tell you the truth, I think part of it was that Walton just liked having a bodyguard around. Good for his image.”

“Ever any trouble.”

“A few drunks,” Lutz said. “A few protesters.”

“Sometimes one and the same,” Jesse said.

Lutz grinned.

“You got that right,” he said.

“Any big trouble?”

“No.”

“You and he get along?” Jesse said.

“Sure. Once we both got it that I was a bodyguard, not 5 8

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somebody who runs errands, or makes coffee, or gets you a dinner reservation.”

Jesse nodded.

“You have any idea why they ended up dead in my town?”

Jesse said.

“No,” Lutz said.

“Hate mail, death threats, warnings, anything like that?”

Lutz shook his head. “None that he shared with me.”

“Who would he share them with?”