Sea Change

T he report to the selectmen line was in-spired,” Jesse said to Molly.

“I thought so,” Molly said. “Made me

look like really good cop at the same time it made you look like really bad cop.”

“And cowardly,” Jesse said.

Molly smiled faintly.

“You did scoot,” Molly said, “as soon as you heard it.”

They were quiet. Outside Jesse’s window the early eve -

ning was starting to darken.

“I need a drink,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded. He reached into the file cabinet where he S E A C H A N G E

kept it and brought out the bottle of Bushmill’s. He poured some in a water glass and handed it to Molly.

“What are you going to tell your husband when you come staggering home with booze on your breath.”

“I’ll tell him I had to do some really pukey police work today,” Molly said. “And I’ll try not to stagger.”

Molly drank from the glass and swallowed and put her head back and closed her eyes. She took a long breath. Jesse went to the refrigerator in the squad room and got a Coke and brought it back. Molly was still breathing deeply, with her eyes closed.

“What I hated the most,” Molly said, “was the way they kept calling him Daddy and saying how he loved them.”

“A way to keep it from killing them,” Jesse said. “Thinking it’s just Daddy loving you.”

“How could anyone think that?”

“You think what you have to,” Jesse said.

Molly sipped her whiskey.

“I wonder if Florence still thought her daddy loved her?”

Jesse shrugged.

“And if Daddy loved them so much,” Molly said, “why did they have to bop everybody else they could find?”

“Looking for love?” Jesse said.

“That’s love?”

“The only definition they had,” Jesse said.

Molly sipped some whiskey.

“So,” Molly said, “why wasn’t Daddy enough?”

“Daddy was married,” Jesse said.

2 4 7

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

“Jesus Christ,” Molly said. “Oedipus?”

Jesse shrugged.

“I’m just talking,” he said. “I don’t know enough about it.”

“The thought of sex with one of my children . . .” Molly shook her head. “I can’t even think about it. It makes me numb even to try.”

Jesse didn’t speak.

“We had to know,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded slowly. Molly drank again. The glass was empty. Jesse poured her a little more.

“But making them face it,” Molly said. “It was . . .” She looked for a word. “Nauseating.”

“We made them admit it,” Jesse said. “They’re a long way from facing it.”

“You know the worst part?” Molly said.

She was staring down into her glass, looking at the cara-mel surface of the whiskey.

“When we brought them back together,” Molly said.

“And the fucking truth was sitting here in the room like some kind of ugly fucking toad and we’re all staring at it, and they’re both crying and saying, ‘Don’t tell Daddy. Don’t tell Daddy.’”

Jesse nodded. Molly drank more of her whiskey.

“Daddy, for God’s sake,” Molly said. “Daddy.”

“Daddy already knows,” Jesse said.

“He doesn’t know we know,” Molly said.

“That’s true,” Jesse said.

2 4 8

S E A C H A N G E

“Like they’ve been bad little girls, telling on Daddy, tattletales,” Molly said and drank. “Tattletales.”

Jesse didn’t speak. He had nothing to say in the face of Molly’s overpowering maternity. He listened.

“And what about them now?” Molly said. “Back in the hotel after the day they spent with us? What happens to them?”

“They don’t know anything they didn’t know before,”

Jesse said.

“So what do they do?”

“My guess?” Jesse said. “Do some coke. Do some booze.

Get laid. Giggle some.”

Molly stared at him.

“God.”

Jesse shrugged.

“That’s how they’ve coped until now,” he said.

“Jesse, these are twenty-year-old kids. They’re five years older than my daughter.”

“And they are depraved, stupid, careless, amoral people,”

Jesse said.

“They are victims.”

“That may be,” Jesse said. “But sympathizing with them is not my business. My business is catching the person who killed their sister.”

“So why did you have to dig up all this awfulness?” Molly said.

“It was there,” Jesse said. “I needed to know about it.”

Molly held out her glass.

2 4 9

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

“One more,” she said. “Then I’ll go home and take a bath.”

Molly wasn’t a drinker. She was starting to slur her words.

Jesse poured her another drink. She took a sip and looked at him over the glass. Her eyes had a sort of softness about them, the way Jenn’s got if she drank too much.

“You are so nice,” Molly said. “So often. And then . . . you are such a cynical, hard bastard.”

“Nice guys finish last,” Jesse said.

“Somebody said that.”

“Leo Durocher.”

“You know you don’t believe it.”

“Hell,” Jesse said. “I’ve proved it.”

Molly didn’t say anything else. She sat quietly and finished her third drink. Jesse sipped his Coke.

When Molly’s drink was gone, Jesse said, “Come on, hon, I’ll drive you home.”

“I can drive myself,” she said.

“No,” Jesse said. “You can’t.”

2 5 0

53

R ita Fiore’s office offered a long view of the South Shore.

“Ms. Fiore will be right with you,” the

secretary said and left.