He called both Jane and Danny Esposito once he had his phone back and told them what he had—or might have—and that they couldn’t wait until tomorrow to decide what to do with it.
“How did you know I might not be on a date?” Jane asks.
“You already had your date night for the week.”
“Am I really that predictable?” she says.
“We both know the answer to that,” Jimmy says.
The gun he took from Kellye is on the table in front of them. He had the girl put it in the baggie that he held open for her, even knowing that the only usable prints on the thing were likely going to be hers.
“So you think this could be the gun Rob used on the Carsons?” Esposito says.
“I think you meant to say thatsomeonemight have used on the Carsons,” Jane says.
Jimmy sees a cocky grin from the guy. By now Jimmy is well aware what a cocky bastard Danny Esposito is. But he has to admit Esposito wears it well, like the leather jacket, and the long hair, and the shades that he at least manages to take off when he’s indoors, sometimes only as a last resort, the sunglasses being one more piece to help him stay in character.
“Whatever could have gotten into me?” Esposito says to Jane, and drinks some beer. “Occasionally I forget I’m a dedicated public servant.” He toasts her with his mug. “My apologies.”
“Accepted,” Jane says, “even though we both know you’re not really sorry.”
“But as you are a dedicated public servant,” Jimmy says to Esposito, “and a sneaky shit when you need to be, you are going to test-fire this thing tomorrow—or have somebody test-fire it for you—as a way of looking at the lands and the groove measurements of the rounds they recovered at the scene and in a couple of the bodies.”
“And if the gun turns out to be the murder weapon,” Danny says to Jane, “then you, being a dedicated officer of the court, will be duty bound to turn it over to Katherine Welsh, correct?”
“Shit,”Jane says. “I was afraid of that.”
Esposito makes eye contact with a good-looking blonde at the far end of the bar and gives her the nod.
“Stay with us,” Jimmy tells him.
“Guy can look,” Esposito says.
“And dream,” Jane says, looking across the room at the blonde.
Now Esposito says, “Has it occurred to either one of you that somebody besides Jacobson might have hid that gun at his place?”
Kellye showed Jimmy where in the town house she’d found it, in a closet in the master bedroom, top shelf, underneathmore cashmere sweaters than you’d find in the men’s department at Bloomingdale’s.
“What was this Kellye girl doing in there, by the way?” Jane asks.
“She says she searches the place from time to time, hoping she might find cash he might have stashed and forgotten,” Jimmy says. “Like his rainy-day fund.”
“Sounds like a sweet kid,” Esposito says.
“Daddy’s little girl,” Jimmy says.
“Well, sugar daddy maybe,” Jane says.
Jane takes a sip of red wine. Jimmy was surprised when she ordered it, but doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s feeling better tonight.
“Or maybe the gun really does belong to Jacobson and hewantedher to find it,” Esposito says.
“Or wanted me to find it when he agreed to let me search the place,” Jimmy says.
“But you didn’t. She did. And why plant his own murder weapon, if that’s what it is?” Jane says.
“To mess with us?” Jimmy muses. “Wouldn’t be the first time, right? And it’s a long-established fact that the guy obviously thinks he can get away with anything.”
