Night and Day

Table of ContentsTitle PageCopyright PageDedication Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Chapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49Chapter 50Chapter 51Chapter 52Chapter 53Chapter 54Chapter 55Chapter 56Chapter 57Chapter 58Chapter 59Chapter 60Chapter 61Chapter 62Chapter 63Chapter 64Chapter 65Chapter 66Chapter 67Chapter 68Chapter 69Chapter 70Chapter 71Chapter 72Chapter 73Chapter 74THE SPENSER NOVELSRough Weather Now & Then Hundred-Dollar Baby School Days Cold Service Bad Business Back Story Widow’s Walk Potshot Hugger Mugger Hush Money Sudden Mischief Small Vices Chance Thin Air Walking Shadow Paper Doll Double Deuce Pastime Stardust Playmates Crimson Joy Pale Kings and Princes Taming a Sea-Horse A Catskill Eagle Valediction The Widening Gyre Ceremony A Savage Place Early Autumn Looking for Rachel Wallace The Judas Goat Promised Land Mortal Stakes God Save the Child The Godwulf Manuscript THE JESSE STONE NOVELSStranger in Paradise High Profile Sea Change Stone Cold Death in Paradise Trouble in Paradise Night Passage  THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELSSpare Change Blue Screen Melancholy Baby Shrink Rap Perish Twice Family Honor  ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKERResolution Appaloosa Double Play Gunman’s Rhapsody All Our Yesterdays A Year at the Races (with Joan H. Parker) Perchance to Dream Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler) Love and Glory Wilderness Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan H. Parker) Training with Weights (with John R. Marsh)G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Publishers Since 1838 Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Copyright © 2009 by Robert B. ParkerAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Parker, Robert B., date. Night and day / Robert B. Parker. p. cm.eISBN : 978-1-101-01605-31. Police chiefs—Massachusetts—Fiction. 2. Sex crimes—Investigation—Fiction. 3. Voyeurism—Fiction. I. Title. PS3566.A686N53 2009b 2008054245 813’.54—dc22   This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.For Joan: Only you beneath the moon and under the sun. 1JESSE STONE sat in his office at the Paradise police station, looking at the sign painted on the pebbled-glass window of his office door. From the inside it read FEIHC, or it would have, if the letters hadn’t been backward. He tried pronouncing the word, decided he couldn’t, and stopped thinking about it. On his desk was a glamour head shot of his ex-wife. He looked at it for a time, and decided not to think about that, either.Molly Crane came from the front desk and opened the door.“Suit just called in,” she said. “There’s some kind of disturbance at the junior high school and he thinks you and I ought to come down.”“Girls involved?” Jesse said.“That’s why he wants me,” Molly said.“I understand,” Jesse said. “But why does he want me?”“You’re the chief of police,” Molly said. “Everybody wants you.”Jesse glanced at Jenn’s picture again.“Oh,” Jesse said. “Yeah.”Jesse stood, and clipped his gun to his belt.“Though you sure don’t dress like a chief,” Molly said.Jesse was wearing a uniform shirt, blue jeans, Nikes, a dark blue Paradise police baseball hat, and a badge that said Chief. He tapped the badge.“I do where it counts,” he said. “Who’s on the desk?”“Steve,” Molly said.“Okay,” Jesse said. “You drive. No siren.”“Oh, damn,” Molly said. “I never get to use the siren.”“Maybe when you make sergeant,” Jesse said.There were two Paradise police cruisers parked outside of the junior high school.“Who’s in the other cruiser,” Jesse said as they got out of the car.“Eddie Cox,” Molly said. “He and Suit have seven to eleven this week.”They walked into the school lobby, where a thick mill of parents was being held at bay by two Paradise cops. Most of the parents were mothers, with a scatter of fathers looking oddly out of place. When Jesse came in they all swarmed toward him, many of them speaking to him loudly.“You’re the chief of police, are you gonna do something?”“I want that woman arrested!”“She’s a goddamned child molester!”“What are you going to do about this?”“Do you know what she did?”“Did they tell you what happened here?”Jesse ignored them.He said to Molly, “Keep them here.”Then he pointed at Suit and jerked his head down the hallway.