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Night and Day

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On sale Feb 24, 2009 | 5 Hours and 3 Minutes | 9780739357460
Police chief Jesse Stone has received his share of unusual calls, but none can top the one from the local junior high school. When reports of lewd conduct by the school’s principal, Betsy Ingersoll, filter into the station, Jesse is faced with a particularly delicate situation. Jesse, of course, would like nothing more than to see the prim, peculiar Ingersoll punished. But Betsy Ingersoll is married to the managing partner of the biggest law firm in the state, and Jay Ingersoll wants the matter buried. And he is used to getting what he wants.

At the same time, the women of Paradise are being threatened by a tormented voyeur, dubbed “The Night Hawk,” who’s been scouring suburban neighborhoods as evening falls. Initially he’s content to simply peer through windows, but as pressure builds, he becomes more reckless, entering homes, forcing his victims to strip at gunpoint, then photographing them at their most vulnerable. And according to the notes he’s sending, he’s not satisfied to stop there. It’s up to Jesse to catch the Night Hawk, before it’s too late.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

THE SPENSER NOVELS

Rough 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 NOVELS

Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage

 

 

THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor

 

 

ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

Resolution
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. Parker

All 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 : 978-1-101-01605-3

1. 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.

1

JESSE 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.

Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Police Chief Jesse Stone, the acclaimed Virgil Cole–Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. View titles by Robert B. Parker

About

Police chief Jesse Stone has received his share of unusual calls, but none can top the one from the local junior high school. When reports of lewd conduct by the school’s principal, Betsy Ingersoll, filter into the station, Jesse is faced with a particularly delicate situation. Jesse, of course, would like nothing more than to see the prim, peculiar Ingersoll punished. But Betsy Ingersoll is married to the managing partner of the biggest law firm in the state, and Jay Ingersoll wants the matter buried. And he is used to getting what he wants.

At the same time, the women of Paradise are being threatened by a tormented voyeur, dubbed “The Night Hawk,” who’s been scouring suburban neighborhoods as evening falls. Initially he’s content to simply peer through windows, but as pressure builds, he becomes more reckless, entering homes, forcing his victims to strip at gunpoint, then photographing them at their most vulnerable. And according to the notes he’s sending, he’s not satisfied to stop there. It’s up to Jesse to catch the Night Hawk, before it’s too late.

Excerpt

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

THE SPENSER NOVELS

Rough 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 NOVELS

Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage

 

 

THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor

 

 

ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

Resolution
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. Parker

All 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 : 978-1-101-01605-3

1. 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.

1

JESSE 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.

Author

Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Police Chief Jesse Stone, the acclaimed Virgil Cole–Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. View titles by Robert B. Parker