High Profile

“We maybe should ask him about that?” Suit said.

“Sooner or later,” Jesse said.

“First, you want to get all your ducks in a row?”

“I’d settle for getting them herded into the same area,”

Jesse said.

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30

Jesse stood with Sunny Randall, leaning on the railing at the town wharf, looking down at the dark water. The day was overcast again, and the wind off the water was cooler than it should have been in May. Jesse was very aware that their shoulders touched. On her leash, Rosie sat at Sunny’s feet in her bull-terrier sit, with her rear feet splayed and her tongue out. She too appeared to be interested in the harbor.

“Where’s Jenn,” Jesse said.

“Spike’s with her,” Sunny said.

“They get along?” Jesse said.

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

“Sort of. Jenn seems sort of uneasy with him. But it’s hard not to like Spike.”

“You getting along?”

Sunny nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “And no, we haven’t talked about you.”

“Thought never entered,” Jesse said. “Making any progress on who did it?”

“That’s why I wanted to talk,” Sunny said. “Right after I started taking care of her, we were eating lunch and I spotted a guy who seemed to be watching us through the window. I pointed him out to Jenn, and she said no, that was not the man.”

Jesse nodded. Rosie spotted a seagull and stiffened, motionless, looking at it. The seagull went about his business.

“But the thing is,” Sunny said, “I’ve seen him twice again. The last time I saw him I tried her again and she said no, and didn’t seem to remember that I’d pointed him out before.”

Jesse stared for a while at the water moving against the stone base of the wharf. Then slowly he raised his eyes and looked across the harbor at the neck. It was still morning, and the strength of the sun out of the east made him squint even through the overcast.

“Shit,” he said after a time.

“Yes,” Sunny said.

Jesse looked up at the overcast, and rolled his neck as if to stretch out a cramp.

“Well, at least someone’s actually following her,” he said.

“Yes.”

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H I G H P R O F I L E

Rosie held the seagull in her laser-like stare. The seagull had flown up on a pier piling and was staring back at Rosie.

“You ever notice that Rosie and the seagull have similar eyes?” Jesse said.

“Beady?”

“I guess,” Jesse said.

Sunny smiled.

“But soulful,” she said.

“In Rosie’s case,” Jesse said.

“Exactly.”

They were quiet. The seagull flew away. Rosie watched it briefly, then turned her blank attention to the harbor, where the gray water was calm and the upright masts of the sailboats were nearly still.

“This Walton Weeks thing is burying me,” Jesse said.

“I know. It’s okay. I’ll take care of Jenn.”

“We need to know if she actually was raped.”

“I know.”

“I can’t get away from the Weeks thing.”

“I’ll find out about the rape,” Sunny said.

“Could the stalker be someone different than the rapist?”

Jesse said.

“Seems crazy,” Sunny said.

“Why would she refuse to ID him if he was the rapist?”

Sunny was looking at the harbor, too.

“Don’t know,” she said.

“Didn’t she tell us the rapist was stalking her?”

“She told you that,” Sunny said.

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

“And she told me she didn’t know him before the rape.”

“Yes.”

“But that she recognized him as the rapist when he was stalking her.”

“Yes,” Sunny said.

“Any sign of anyone else stalking her?”

“No.”

“You have a plan?” Jesse said.

“Spike and I have been discussing one,” Sunny said.

“We want her safe,” Jesse said. “But we want him for the rape, too.”

“I know. If Spike had a talk with him, I’m sure he’d stop with the stalking. But, like you, I don’t want to scare him away. I want to know what’s going on.”

“Maybe you could get them in a room together,” Jesse said.

“That’s what Spike and I are talking about.”

“And?” Jesse said.

“I need to know she can do it. That it won’t traumatize her worse than she already has been.”

“If she was traumatized at all,” Jesse said.

“Something happened,” Sunny said. “I may not know her like you do . . . but something happened.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “I think so, too.”

At the open end of the harbor, a lobster boat plodded in around the outer tip of Stiles Island.

“She asked me to get her a gun,” Jesse said.

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H I G H P R O F I L E

“I have several,” Sunny said.

Jesse nodded.

“You can issue her the license.”

Jesse nodded again.

“But,” Sunny said, “you’re not sure she should be walking around with a gun.”

“No,” Jesse said. “I’m not.”

“It should be her call, Jesse.”

“She doesn’t even know how to shoot,” Jesse said.

“I can teach her.”

“You think she should have one?” Jesse said.

“Believe her story for a moment,” Sunny said. “Think about what that might be like. Would you like to face an overpowering enemy with no gun?”

Jesse nodded. The lobster boat had rounded Stiles Island now and was moving stolidly along the shoreline of Paradise Neck.

“And if we don’t believe her story?” Jesse said.

“Something has happened to her,” Sunny said. “She feels she needs a gun.”

“And maybe she needs to be trusted.”

“Skeptically,” Sunny said.

“We think we might want to be together, you and I,”