Free Death In Paradise by Robert B. Parker

girl."
    "Yes."
    Jesse took out a blowup of Billie, processed from the family picture, and held it out for Sister Mary John to look at. Sister nodded her head slowly.
    "When was she here?" Jesse said.
    "Beginning of the summer," Sister said.
    "She's not here now?"
    "No."
    "Would you tell me if she were?" Jesse said.
    "It would depend on who you were and why you wanted to know."
    "You know who I am," Jesse said. "We think Billie was murdered."
    Sister's face softened for a moment.
    "Think?"
    "Know, but can't prove. Condition of the body makes it hard."
    Sister nodded.
    A young black woman with a ring through one nostril came into the room and saw Jesse and, without changing her pace, turned and left.
    "Am I that obvious?" Jesse said.
    "A cop is a cop is a cop," Sister said. "My girls have learned to be alert."
    "Do you know where Billie went when she left here?"
    "I have a phone number. We'd agreed I would only give it to her older sister or somebody named Hooker."
    "Did you give it to either?"
    "Neither of them asked."
    "May I have the phone number?" Jesse said.
    Sister looked at him for a time.
    "She's dead," Jesse said. "I'm trying to find who killed her."
    Sister nodded. She reached under the desk and pulled a yellow plastic milk crate toward her. It was full of file folders. She riffled through them, pulled one out, and took from it a single sheet of paper. She looked at the sheet and copied the number onto a little pad of stickum notes.
    "Ever call the number?" Jesse said.
    "No."
    "When the girls are at the shelter they don't stay here, do they?"
    "No. We are what the name implies, a shelter. They come, they go. They know they have a place to sleep if they need it. They know we will feed them."
    "How long was Billie here?"
    Sister looked at her sheet of paper.
    "Two weeks," she said.
    "Did she tell you why she was leaving?"
    "She said she had a job."
    "She say where?"
    "No."
    "How about the rest of the staff?" Jesse said.
    Sister smiled. Jesse liked her smile.
    "It's pretty much a one-nun show," she said.

Chapter Twenty-four
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    Jenn was doing a stand-up outside a junior high school. It was part of a station promotion campaign designed to prove once again that Channel 3 was an integral part of the community. Jesse parked on the street and walked to the shoot. He stood outside the shot while Jenn did a cute weather quiz and wrapped the segment. She saw him while she was wrapping, and as soon as it was over, she came to Jesse and kissed him lightly on the lips.
    "Did you know the answers to my weather quiz?" she said.
    "Do you?"
    "I will when the time comes," she said.
    "Does anyone care what the answers are?" Jesse said.
    "Not that I know of," Jenn answered.
    She turned to the crew.
    "This is my starter husband," she said.
    The crew smiled. Jesse smiled, too.
    "Kerry Roberts with the camera; Dolly Edwards, makeup; and Tracy Mayo, my producer."
    They all said hello.
    "You guys pack up and take off," Jenn told the crew. "I'll go with Jesse."
    "How about you pack up," Dolly said. "And I go with Jesse."
    Everybody laughed, and Jenn put her arm through Jesse's and they walked to his car.
    "What about that girl?"
    "Billie?"
    "You sound like she's someone you know."
    "Yeah, sometimes you get that way. You spend so much time thinking about a victim that you're surprised when you remember you've never met them."
    "So you know who she is now," Jenn said.
    "I know. I'm not sure I can prove it yet. But I know it's Billie."
    As he drove, Jesse took a manila envelope down from the car visor and took out a picture of Billie.
    "It's blown up from a small picture of the family."
    "She's cute," Jenn said.
    "I guess so."
    "Smile looks awfully forced though."
    "Everybody's smile looks forced in a posed picture," Jesse said, "except you professionals."
    "That would be me," Jenn said. "A big-time professional doing weather quizzes in front of a junior high school."
    "Show biz isn't for sissies," Jesse said.
    They had dinner in