be the problem?"
"Just routine," Antonelli said. "Could you tell us where your daughter is?"
"Carla's here," Bishop said.
A girl, maybe thirteen, was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Jesse smiled and nodded at her. She had no reaction. Antonelli looked at Jesse.
"How about Billie?" Jesse said.
"I have no daughter named Billie," Bishop said.
"Elinor Bishop?"
"No."
Jesse looked at the cheerleader wife. "Mrs. Bishop?"
She shook her blond head firmly.
"No," she said. "We have no Elinor Bishop."
"Do you have any other children?"
"Yes," Bishop said. "Carla's older sister, Emily."
"And where is she?"
"Mount Holyoke College," Mrs. Bishop said quickly.
"In the summer?" Jesse said.
"Many students go to college in the summer," Mrs. Bishop said. "Emily plans to graduate in three years."
Jesse was watching Carla. She was motionless in the doorway. Neither in the room, nor out of it. Her face was blank.
"We have a young woman dead in Paradise," Jesse said. "We have reason to believe her name is Elinor Bishop, and we were led to believe that she was your daughter."
"You were misled," Bishop said.
"You have no daughter named Elinor Bishop?"
"We do not," Bishop said.
Jesse looked at Mrs. Bishop. She shook her head firmly. He looked at Carla in the doorway. She seemed stiff with immobility. Her face perfectly inanimate. Jesse nodded. With his head he gestured Antonelli to the door.
"Thank you very much for your time," he said.
Chapter Fourteen
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It was Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday nights he always spent with Jenn. Jesse looked at his watch: 4:20. He took a deep breath.
"Okay," he said. "Let's see if we can make this thing work out."
Molly was in the room, as she always was when they'd arrested a woman. She leaned against the wall beside Suitcase Simpson. Seated in front of Jesse in two straight-backed chairs were an unattractive man and woman who smelled strongly of alcohol. The woman had an evolving bruise on her cheekbone under her left eye. Her lower lip was fattening.
"There's nothing to work out," the man said.
He was a middle-sized man with a beard and curly black hair. It made what showed of his face look very pale. His aviator glasses were gold-framed and tinted amber.
"It's four-twenty in the afternoon and you're both drunk," Jesse said.
"You never had a few drinks?"
"And you were rowdy enough to cause the bartender at The Sevens to call us."
"We had a fucking argument," the man said. "You never had a fucking argument with somebody?"
"And when Officer Simpson arrived you were punching out your wife in the parking lot."
"I wasn't punching her out," the man said.
"How many times did he hit you, ma'am?" Jesse said to the woman.
The woman shook her head.
"There's some evidence on your face for at least twice," Jesse said.
"He didn't hit me," she said.
Jesse glanced up at Simpson.
"I saw him hit her twice with his right fist," Simpson said.
Molly said, "When Suit called it in I checked the computer. This is the third time they've been in here."
"Same occasion?" Jesse said.
"Yes."
"And we let it go why?"
"Mrs. Snyder wouldn't file a complaint," Molly said.
"How about this time?" Jesse said to Mrs. Snyder.
"He didn't hit me," she said.
"Sure he did," Jesse said. "Didn't you, Mr. Snyder."
Snyder shook his head. "I didn't hit her."
Jesse put his left elbow on the arm of his swivel chair and rested his chin in the palm of his left hand. He looked at the Snyders for a while without speaking, then he spoke to Molly.
"There's three times we know about," Jesse said. "How many times you suppose it happened and we don't know about it?"
"It's usually a lot more than is reported," Molly said.
"You got no right talking about us like that," Snyder said. "We didn't do anything but have a few drinks and get in a little squabble."
The word came out "schkwabble."
I know the feeling
, Jesse thought.
"Molly," Jesse said. "I think you better take Mrs. Snyder down to Channing Hospital