Stranger in Paradise

The door to Nina Pinero’s office had OUTREACH stenciled on it in black. Jesse went in. The office was a former classroom, on the second floor, in back, with a view of a playground where a couple of kids shot desultory baskets on a blacktop court at a hoop with a chain net. The playground was littered with bottles and newspapers and fast-food wrappers and scraps of indeterminate stuff.

The blackboard was still there, and the bulletin board, which was covered with memos tacked up with colored map pins. There were a couple of file cabinets against the near wall, and Nina Pinero’s desk looked like a holdover from the classroom days. There were three telephones on it.

“Nina Pinero?” Jesse said.

“I’m Nina,” she said.

There was no one else in the room.

“I’m Jesse Stone,” Jesse said. “I called earlier.”

“Mr. Stone,” Nina said. She nodded at a straight chair next to the desk. “Have a seat.”

Jesse sat.

“Tell me about your plans for the Crowne estate in Paradise,” Jesse said, “if you would.”

“So you can figure out how to prevent us?” Nina Pinero said.

“So we can avoid any incivility,” Jesse said.

“Latinos are uncivilized?” Nina Pinero said.

“I was thinking more about the folks in Paradise,” Jesse said.

She was slim and strong-looking, as if she worked out. Her hair was short and brushed back. She smiled.

“Excuse my defensiveness,” she said.

Jesse nodded.

“I understand you are going to bring in a few kids this summer, to get them started.”

She nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “A kind of pilot program.”

“And later add some more kids?”

“When the school year starts and if things have gone well, maybe.”

Jesse nodded.

“Your constituency,” she said, “probably has used the camel’s-nose-in-the-tent phrase by now.”

“They have,” Jesse said.

“And traffic,” Nina Pinero said.

She was dressed in white pants and a black sleeveless top. Her clothes fit her well.

“That, too,” Jesse said.

“You believe them?”

“No. They are fearful that when it’s time to sell their home, the prospective buyers will be discouraged by a school full of Hispanic Americans.”

“They have, I know, already tried the zoning route,” Nina Pinero said.

“Town council tells me there are no zoning limits in Paradise that apply to schools,” Jesse said. “There are regulations about what you can put near a school but none about what you can put a school near.”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve done your homework,” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“You have legal advice?”

“I’m a lawyer,” she said.

“And yet so young and pretty,” Jesse said.

“My only excuse is that I don’t make any money at it,” she said.

Jesse nodded.

“How old are these kids?” Jesse said.

“Four, five, a couple are six.”

“Best and the brightest?” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“How do they feel about breaking trail?” he said.

“Scared,” she said.

“But willing?”

“Marshport,” Nina Pinero said, “is not a good place to be a kid. Most of them are scared anyway. This way maybe we can save a few of them.”

“Not all of them?”

“God, no,” Nina Pinero said. “Not even very many of them. But it’s better than saving none.”

“Sort of like being a cop,” Jesse said.

“You do what you can,” she said.

They sat quietly for a moment. The room was not air-conditioned, and the windows were open. Jesse could hear the thump of the basketball on the asphalt court.

“You’re making your initial run Monday?” Jesse said.

“Yes. Do you expect trouble?”

“Probably not. Do you think the kids would mind if I rode the bus with them?”

“You?”

“Me and one of my officers,” Jesse said. “Molly Crane. I’d wear my uniform and polish up my badge.”

“You do think there might be trouble.”

“Not really,” Jesse said. “But there could be a picket or two. I’m thinking about the kids mostly.”

“Reassured by your presence?”

“Yes. And Molly’s.”

“Mostly, they are afraid of policemen,” Nina Pinero said.

“Maybe Molly and I can help them get past that,” Jesse said.

Nina Pinero nodded thoughtfully.

“Yes,” she said. “I can see how you might.”

12.

In the Gray Gull, Crow was nursing Johnnie Walker Blue on the rocks at the bar when his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID, and answered it as he walked outside to talk.

“The kid charged a big television set,” a voice said at the other end.

“On your account?” Crow said.

“Yeah. She got one of those satellite cards, you know? Her name’s on it, but the bill comes to me.”

“Her real name?”

“Yeah.”

“She know the bill comes to you?” Crow said.

“Who knows what she knows. Bills been coming to me all her life. I doubt that she ever thought about who pays. Hell, she may not even know that somebody has to.”

Crow smiled in the darkness outside the Gray Gull.

“Where’d she get it,” Crow said.

“Place called Images in Marshport, Massachusetts.”

“So she is around here,” Crow said.

“I told you she would be.”

“What kind of TV?” Crow said.

“I wrote it down,” the voice said.

It was a soft voice. But there was tension in it, as if it wanted to yell and was being restrained.

“Mitsubishi 517,” the voice said. “Fifty-five-inch screen.”

“So she didn’t carry it away,” Crow said.

“Not her,” the voice said.

“Maybe they’ll tell me where they sent it,” Crow said.