High Profile

44

Walton Weeks Enterprises had offices in a building near Penn Station. There were several secretaries in a big front space, Walton’s imposing office, now bearing silent witness in the corner, and a somewhat smaller but still substantial office beside it where Jesse sat with Alan Hendricks.

“You nervous?” Jesse said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re about to become Walton Weeks,” Jesse said. “Does that make you nervous.”

“Well,” Hendricks said. “They are certainly big shoes to fill.”

“Of course, you’ve walked some distance in them already,” Jesse said.

Hendricks’s face looked stiff to Jesse.

“Meaning?” Hendricks said.

“Well, you have done a lot of Walton’s research and writing,” Jesse said. “Have you not?”

“Well, of course, I’ve been with him for some years.”

“And you’re prepared to proceed, alone,” Jesse said.

“If Mrs. Weeks wants me to.”

“Does she?”

“She has suggested as much,” Hendricks said.

He looked humble.

“And you get along,” Jesse said.

“She’s a very fine woman,” Alan said. “I hope I don’t disappoint her.”

“Have you ever?”

“I don’t think so.”

Jesse smiled and didn’t say anything.

“What are you implying,” Hendricks said.

Jesse shrugged.

“Maybe you’re inferring?”

Hendricks stared at Jesse.

“I have interviewed half a dozen heads of state,” Hendricks said. “If you think I’m going to be intimidated by some small-town police chief, you are sadly mistaken.”

“Damn,” Jesse said.

“Why are we having this conversation?”

“The time-of-death issue has opened up,” Jesse said. “I suppose you have an alibi for the last six weeks?”

“Six weeks,” Hendricks said. “That’s a joke. I thought you had time of death established.”

“We thought so, too,” Jesse said. “But we didn’t.”

“So you now come here on some sort of fishing expedition, implying something illicit between me and Lorrie Weeks?”

“I don’t recall suggesting that,” Jesse said.

“I know what you’re doing,” Hendricks said. “I’m not some scared teenager you’ve stopped for speeding.”

“I guess not,” Jesse said. “So were you intimate with Mrs. Weeks?”

Hendricks stood suddenly up behind his desk.

“This interview is over,” Hendricks said.

Jesse stood more slowly. He smiled and nodded.

“You were,” he said. “Weren’t you.”

Hendricks said nothing. Jesse turned and left. Stephanie had that one right, Jesse thought as he waited for the elevator.