Текст книги "Sea Change"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 10 страниц)

“For us, it’s mostly fights and public urination and van-dalism,” Jesse said.

“Boy,” Jenn said, “just like Mardi Gras.”

“What’s up this afternoon?” Jesse said.

“I’m off a couple hours,” Jenn said. “Marty and Jake are going out and get B roll of the races.”

“Without you?”

“In a helicopter.”

“Without you,” Jesse said.

The crowd on the streets, even at midday, was thick and 6 0

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boisterous. The range of dress was extreme. Horizontal-striped shirts were popular, with three-quarter-length white canvas pants. There were a lot of women in big hats and gauzy dresses. Men in blazers and white flannels. Some of the crowd looked like eighteenth-century sailors. Some of them looked like they were at Churchill Downs. Jesse wore jeans and a blue short-sleeved oxford shirt. He had his gun and badge on his belt. Two young men and two young women, all in tank tops and cutoff jeans, were walking along carrying open bottles of beer. Jesse pointed at his badge, then at the beer, then, with his thumb, at a trash container chained to the lamppost. They looked like they wanted to argue, but none of them did. They dropped the beer into the trash and moved away.

“Zero tolerance,” Jesse said.

“Egad,” Jenn said at Daisy’s door. “Maybe we should have gone to the Gull.”

The door was open and the line of people waiting was out onto the sidewalk.

“Be the same,” Jesse said. “It’s like this everywhere.”

Several people on the sidewalk had drinks. Jesse ignored them.

“Selective enforcement?” Jenn said.

“You bet,” Jesse said. “They’re just waiting to have lunch.

They won’t do any harm. Besides, I don’t want to hurt Daisy’s business.”

“Is there actually a Daisy?”

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“I’ll introduce you,” Jesse said.

“But first, could you arrest somebody at a good table,”

Jenn said. “So we can have it.”

“I’ll talk to Daisy. Stay here.”

Jesse slid past the crowd and in through the open door. He came back out with a strapping red-faced blond woman wearing a big white apron and holding a spatula. The woman pointed at Jenn.

“You Jenn?” she said.

“I am.”

“I’m Daisy, get your ass in here,” she said.

A woman in wraparound sunglasses and a large straw hat said, “We’ve been waiting half an hour.”

“And you’ll wait a lot longer,” Daisy said, “you keep talking.”

“But they . . .”

Daisy waved the spatula under the woman’s chin.

“My restaurant,” Daisy said. “I decide. Come on, Jenn.”

Jenn slid sheepishly in behind Daisy, and followed her to a table by the back window where Jesse was drinking root beer. Inside, the restaurant was not crowded. The tables were well spaced and the conversation was absorbed by carpeting and sailcloth that draped the ceiling.

“Sorry I left you twisting in the wind out there,” Jesse said.

Jenn sat down.

“A woman outside hates me,” she said.

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“Oh fuck her,” Daisy said. “I can’t find a table for the chief of police and his friend, what good am I?”

“Excellent point,” Jenn said. “Can I have a root beer, too?”

“Sure you can, darlin’, I’ll send the waitress right over.”

“Thank you, Daisy.”

“You bet,” Daisy said. “I was you I’d order one of the sandwiches, I just baked the bread this morning.”

Jenn smiled. Daisy swaggered off.

“Heavens,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded.

“Daisy Dyke,” he said.

“Is that her real name?”

“No, I don’t know her real last name. Everybody calls her Daisy Dyke. She calls herself Daisy Dyke. She had to be talked out of calling the restaurant Daisy Dyke’s.”

“She is, I assume, a lesbian.”

“She is.”

“And she is, I assume, out.”

“As far out as it is possible to be out.”

“She have a partner?”

“She has a wife,” Jesse said. “They got married May twen-tieth, right after the Massachusetts law passed.”

“Mrs. Daisy Dyke?”

“Angela Carson,” Jesse said. “She kept her own name.”

“Is Angela a housewife?”

“Angela paints,” Jesse said.

“Well?”

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“No,” Jesse said.

“But persistently,” Jenn said.

“That would be Angela,” Jesse said.

Jenn ordered an egg salad sandwich on sourdough. Jesse had a BLT on whole wheat.

“Never order that on a date,” Jesse said. “Too messy.”

“What the hell am I,” Jenn said.

“I don’t know,” Jesse said, “but whatever you are, date is too small a word.”

Jenn smiled at him.

“Yes,” she said, “I guess it is, isn’t it?”

“We’ll come up with something,” Jesse said.

6 4

15

W ith the harbormaster at the wheel, they had visited five yachts, three of them

from Fort Lauderdale, anchored at the

outer edge of the harbor. The harbormaster was new. His name was Hardy Watkins. He was overweight and red-faced, and, on those rare moments when he took off his long-billed cap, he was mostly bald.

“Where to next?” Watkins said.

“How about that one over there,” Jesse said. “Black with a yellow stripe.”

He and Suitcase Simpson stood on either side of Watkins as the squat harbor boat plugged through the low swell.

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

Among the yachts it looked like a warthog. Jesse wore jeans and sneakers and his softball jacket over a white tee shirt.

Simpson was in uniform. He carried a transparent folder with head shots from the sex video.

“Sloop there with the cutter rig,” Watkins said.

“Sure,” Jesse said.

He looked at Simpson.

“You know what a sloop is?” Jesse said. “With a cutter rig?”

“Hey,” Simpson said, “I grew up here. Paradise, Massachusetts, the sailing capital of the world.”

“So you know what a sloop is,” Jesse said. “With a cutter rig.”

“No,” Simpson said.

“Sloop’s a single-masted boat,” Watkins said.

“And a cutter?”

“Single-masted boat with the mast set further aft.”

“So what’s a sloop with a cutter rig.”

With one hand on the wheel, Watkins pointed at the yacht ahead of them.

“That,” he said.

“You don’t know either,” Jesse said.

“I do,” Watkins said, “but you’re too fucking landlocked to understand the explanation.”

“Good,” Jesse said.

Watkins steered the harbor boat under the stern of the yacht. The name lady jane was stenciled across the stern.

And beneath it, miami. A small landing float bobbed beside the Lady Jane, and Watkins brought the harbor boat softly 6 6

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up against it. Simpson leaned over and secured the stern of the harbor boat to a cleat. Then he climbed past the small cockpit and onto the short deck and secured the bow. Jesse climbed the short stairs to the deck of the Lady Jane. Simpson followed with the pictures.

A crewman in uniform met them. Jesse took his badge out of the pocket of his softball jacket and showed it.

“I’m Jesse Stone, Paradise Police. This is Officer Simpson.”

“I’m Nils Borgman,” the crewman said with a small accent. “First mate.”

Jesse glanced around the yacht.

“Sloop with a cutter rig,” he said.

“Yes sir,” Borgman said. “It is.”

Simpson looked carefully out to sea.

“I’ll need to talk to everyone on board,” Jesse said. “Who do I see about that.”

“What is this about, sir?” Borgman said.

“Investigating the death of a young woman, we’re trying to find anyone who recognizes her.”

“Do you need a warrant or something for that?” Borgman said.

“No,” Jesse said.

“I’ll speak to the captain, sir. I’m sure he’ll consult with Mr. Darnell.”

“Mr. Darnell is the owner of this cutter-rigged sloop?”

Jesse said.

“Yes sir. Please wait here.”

Jesse and Simpson waited, squinting in the brightness of 6 7

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the sun and its seaborne reflection. Below them the harbor boat swayed gently against the boarding float. Watkins was sitting behind the tiller reading a book, the long bill of his cap pulled low to keep the sun from his eyes. A dozen other yachts rode anchor in sight, and back in the harbor, the clutter of smaller boats seeming closer together from the deck of the Lady Jane than they actually were.

The deck was dark polished wood. Probably teak, Jesse thought, or some other wood that could resist the salt water.

Polished brass was nearly everywhere. Under a canopy in the cockpit lunch was being eaten and drunk, by a group of three men and three women, seated on built-in couches on either side of a built-in table. A man in a hat with lots of gold braid came from forward into the dining area and spoke softly to one of the men at lunch. The man listened and nodded and turned to look at Jesse and Simpson. Then he got up and walked back to them.

“Harrison Darnell,” he said. “What’s all this?”

“We’re investigating the death of a young woman,” Jesse said, “and we need to show some pictures to everyone on board, see if they recognize anyone.”

“I’ll discuss this with my attorney, if you don’t mind,”

Darnell said.

“I don’t mind,” Jesse said. “Of course, I guess we’ll need to round up everybody on board and bring them into the station for questioning.”

“You can’t do that.”

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“Of course I can, Mr. Darnell. But by all means call your attorney first.”

Mr. Darnell was wearing blue flip-flops, pale khaki shorts and a red short-sleeved shirt decorated with a pattern of blue flowers. The shirt was open. He wore some sort of braided leather around his neck. His hairless chest was tanned, as was the rest of him. His blond hair was shoulder length, kept off his face by sunglasses worn, as if pushed up casually, on his head. His face was old enough looking so that Jesse suspected artifice in the hair color. You didn’t often see a man with absolutely no hair on his chest, Jesse thought.

Jesse wondered if Darnell shaved it. Maybe it was gray.

“Oh for crissake,” Darnell said.

He turned back into the lunch area.

“People,” he said. “I’m sorry. The local gendarmes wish to show you some pictures. They’ve promised it won’t take long.”

One blond woman with a long oval face squealed as she turned and looked at them.

“Ohmigod,” she said. “The fuzz.”

She was wearing a bikini bathing suit and huge sunglasses. She had a nearly empty glass of champagne in her hand. Because she was sitting on a blue-and-yellow-striped couch, Jesse couldn’t see well enough to be sure, but he was confident that the bikini bottom was a thong.

“Show them the pictures,” Jesse said.

Suit stepped to the table and showed them to the blonde.

Jesse watched her face. It was why he had Simpson show the 6 9

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pictures, so he could stand and look for a reaction. She barely glanced at the photographs.

“Nobody I know,” she said and looked back at Jesse.

“How come he’s wearing a uniform and you’re not?” she said, and emptied her champagne glass and held it out toward the crew member in charge of pouring. He refilled it.

“I’m the chief,” Jesse said. “I get to wear what I want.”

Simpson showed the picture to the man beside the blonde. The blonde drank some champagne.

“And you chose that?” she said.

Jesse was studying the face of the man looking at the pictures.

“They do call it plain clothes,” Jesse said.

She drank again and shifted a little so he could see the line of her thigh better. Jesse kept his eyes on her companions, as, one at a time, they looked at the pictures.

“Are you carrying your gun?” the blonde said.

“In case of pirates,” Jesse said.

The blonde took a cigarette from a silver cigarette case.

The man next to her snapped a lighter. She inhaled deeply and took a drink of champagne and let the smoke out through her nose while she swallowed. Simpson showed the pictures to the final person at the table. No one recognized them and no one had shown any reaction to them.

“There, now can you have a nice drink?” the blonde said.

“Show it to the crew,” Jesse said to Simpson.

“Well, isn’t he a good big boy,” the blonde said, “doing everything the chief says.”

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Jesse was studying each crew member as the pictures were shown. No recognition, no reaction.

“Why do you keep staring at everybody,” the blonde said.

“Clues,” Jesse said, “I’m looking for clues.”

“Oh pooh,” the blonde said. “Why don’t you join us for a nice cocktail?”

“What could be better?” Jesse said. “Except I’m afraid that Suit here would rat me out to the Board of Selectmen.”

“Why do you call him Suit?” the blonde said.

Amazing, Jesse thought, no matter what she says, she manages to make it sound like a challenge. Jesse nodded at Suit.

“My name’s Simpson, ma’am, and there used to be a ballplayer named Suitcase Simpson, so the guys started calling me that, and it sort of got shortened to Suit.”

She laughed and finished her glass of champagne and held it out toward the pourer.

“What a boring answer,” she said.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Simpson said. “The question wasn’t all that interesting, either.”

The blonde had a full glass again. She drank, and took in a big inhale and held it for a while before she let it out slowly, blowing the smoke out in a thin stream toward Jesse and Simpson. She shook her head.

“Local yokels,” she said and turned away back toward her lunch mates.

Darnell had been standing throughout the picture showing.

Now he stepped forward. He was taller than Jesse and exag-gerated the difference in height by bending forward to speak.

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“If there’s nothing else,” he said.

“Can’t guarantee that,” Jesse said. “But there’s nothing else right now.”

He took a card case from his jacket pocket, took out a number of cards and tossed them on the lunch table.

“If anyone has anything, remembers anything, sees any of these people, whatever, please call me.”

The blonde ostentatiously reached out, picked up one of the cards, looked at it for a moment and then tucked it into the top of her bikini bottom.

“Maybe I’ll call you, Jesse,” she said.

“Or e-mail me,” Jesse said. “Localyokel.com.”

Hanging from the corner of the dining area, there was an ornamental brass monkey sitting on an ornamental brass tra-peze bar, with a long brass ornamental tail. Jesse stopped to look at it.

“Not anatomically correct,” Jesse said. “Must have been very cold somewhere.”

He chucked the monkey under its chin, smiled at the lunch crowd and went down the ladder behind Simpson.

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16

J esse was in his office watching the Florence Horvath sex video when Jenn knocked and

entered without waiting.

“Jesse, I . . .”

She stared at the screen.

“Jesse, you pervert,” she said.

“Evidence,” Jesse said. “Care to watch?”

Jenn stood for a minute looking at the threesome on the screen.

“Oh, ick!” she said.

Jesse clicked the remote. The image froze. He clicked again. The screen went dark. Jenn wrinkled her nose.

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“I’m looking for something,” Jesse said.

“I hope so,” Jenn said. “The image of you sitting alone in your office watching a gang bang is not a pretty one.”

“I think a gang bang requires more people,” Jesse said.

“This is more a ménage à trois, I believe.”

“It’s a ménage à yuck,” Jenn said. “What are you looking for?”

“Something I saw on a yacht yesterday afternoon,” Jesse said. “A brass monkey with a long brass tail, and I have some sort of subliminal memory that I saw something like it, or part of it, or something brass, on this tape.”

“A brass monkey tail,” Jenn said.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “And the couch on the boat where they were eating lunch was the same color as the bed she’s having her liaison on.”

“Blue-and-yellow stripe,” Jenn said.

“Wow, you journalists are observant.”

“I think the correct phrase is still weather weenie, ” Jenn said. “At least until after they air my Race Week special.”

“Okay, ween,” Jesse said. “You’re still observant, want to help me watch?”

“Okay,” Jenn said, “but you better not enjoy it.”

Jesse clicked the remote again. The tape proceeded. Jesse and Jenn watched silently. As Florence shifted slightly in her delight, the camera moved right to stay on her, and something gleamed fractionally in the right corner of the screen.

“There,” Jenn said.

Jesse froze the frame, but it was past the flash. He rewound, 7 4

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and went forward and froze the frame again, and this time he got it. Curling into the picture was a brass monkey tail.

“Every person on that boat said they didn’t recognize anyone in the pictures,” Jesse said.

“It doesn’t actually prove that it’s the same boat.”

“No, but it’s a pretty good coincidence,” Jesse said. “And coincidence just isn’t useful in cop work.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get some stills made,” Jesse said.

“Then what?” Jenn said. “Confront them with it?”

“First I think I’ll check more on the boat. Some of those yachts are rented. These people may not have been aboard when Florence was. I need to be sure it has been around these parts long enough. She was in the water awhile.”

Jenn nodded.

“Why do you think she made that tape?” Jenn said.

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Could have been money.”

“That seems more like a home movie,” Jenn said. “Video camera with a light bar.”

“You would know amateur from professional?” Jesse said.

Jenn shrugged.

“I’ve seen a few porn films,” she said.

“And?”

“And nothing,” Jenn said. “I didn’t enjoy them.”

“But your date thought you would?” Jesse said.

Jenn shook her head and didn’t say anything. Jesse reeled himself back in.

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“I have known women,” he said, “who were interested in seeing themselves having sex on film.”

“With two men at the same time?” Jenn said.

Jesse shrugged.

“Do you have any idea,” Jenn said, “how . . . how a thing like that would make a woman feel?”

“The men, too,” Jesse said.

Jenn looked startled.

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose that’s right. It doesn’t glamor-ize them, either.”

Jesse nodded.

“Most women I know don’t like that,” Jenn said.

“No,” Jesse said.

“But men do,” Jenn said.

“More than women, probably,” Jesse said. “Most men will look. Most men wouldn’t want to spend too much time looking. And almost all men know that it gets old really quick.”

“Why would you want to look at something that turns you into a thing?” Jenn said.

Jesse was quiet. They were veering into Dix territory again.

“You’re a man,” Jenn said. “Why do you think men are like that?”

This was about more than pornography, and in some vis-ceral way Jesse realized that it was about him. He took in some air.

“This could turn quickly into psychobabble,” Jesse said.

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“But you’ve had enough shrink time to know what some of the reasons might be.”

“Objectification is control,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded.

“Of what?” Jenn said.

Jesse shook his head and shrugged.

“Of the object,” he said.

“Are you still talking to Dix?” Jenn said.

“Some.”

“Well, you better keep it up,” Jenn said. “’Cause you’re getting crazier.”

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17

J esse sat in his car on the tip of Paradise Neck, at Lighthouse Point. The car windows were down. The sea air was coming in gently,

and he was looking at the Lady Jane with a pair of good binoculars. The sailboat races were under way east of Stiles Island, and several of the yachts anchored at the harbor mouth had moved out to watch. Lady Jane stayed at anchor.

They hadn’t come for the races. They’d come for the cocktails. Jesse could count six people and three crew from where he sat, though he couldn’t see well enough to pick out Darnell or the mouthy blonde. He couldn’t see the brass monkey, either.

S E A C H A N G E

Molly called him on his cell phone.

“Why don’t you ever take your official chief car?” Molly said. “I keep trying to raise you on the radio.”

“I like mine better,” Jesse said.

“Christ,” Molly said. “You don’t drive the car, you hardly ever wear your uniform, you don’t use the department issue gun. What’s wrong with you anyway?”

“More than we have time to examine,” Jesse said.

“What’s up?”

“Two things,” Molly said. “One, the Lady Jane is in fact out of Miami, owned by Harrison Darnell.”

“Un-huh.”

“And, two, Detective Kelly Cruz of Fort Lauderdale PD

wants you to call her on her cell phone. If you’d been in the company car I could have patched her through to the radio.”

“How many kids you got, Molly?” Jesse said.

“Four, you know that.”

“And am I one of them?” Jesse said.

“Oh go fuck yourself . . . sir.”

“Give me Cruz’s cell phone number,” Jesse said.

Molly told him, Jesse wrote it down and smiled as he broke the connection. He dialed Kelly Cruz.

“Couple things,” Jesse said. “You guys got that tape dated yet?”

“No,” Kelly Cruz said. “Don’t have the budget for it.”

“Okay, you owed me,” Jesse said. “You got a date?”

“Lab found a date and time stamp,” she said. “March seventh, this year, at three-oh-nine in the afternoon.”

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“And I think I know where,” Jesse said.

“Really?”

“Cockpit of a yacht named Lady Jane out of Miami,” Jesse said.

“Cockpit’s appropriate,” Kelly said. “You know who owns the boat?”

“Harrison Darnell,” Jesse said.

“Address?”

“I’ll have Molly Crane call you as soon as we stop talking,”

Jesse said. “She’s got it.”

“Okay. You know where the yacht is now?”

“Here,” Jesse said.

“Mr. Darnell aboard?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll check on him,” Kelly Cruz said. “I got people I can call in Miami.”

“Appreciate it,” Jesse said. “Got anything else?”

“Talked to the parents,” she said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Plum?”

“Yes. They live in Miami.”

“Close at hand,” Jesse said.

“Sure, ’bout twenty miles from me. They didn’t know even where she was living, they said. They had no commu-nication with her, and hadn’t for a couple years.”

“Any, ah, precipitating incident?” Jesse said.

“Wow,” Kelly Cruz said. “Precipitating incident. Not really, they just, they said, were at the end of their tether. Her grandfather, guy that founded Plum and Partridge, left her a 8 0

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ton of money in trust until she turned twenty-five. When she got it, they told me, she was pretty smart with the money.”

“So she got richer,” Jesse said.

“Yeah. She lived high up on the hog,” Kelly Cruz said,

“off the invested principal.”

“That an issue?”

“Yeah. She drank too much, did too much dope, fucked whoever stopped by. They think she’s some kind of bad seed.

But whenever she’d get drunk or strung out or pregnant, or divorced, she’d come home until she straightened out. Then she’d fight with her parents and her two younger sisters and disappear again.”

“How old are the sisters?”

“Twenty,” Kelly Cruz said. “They’re twins.”

“Our ME says she was mid-thirties.”

“Thirty-four,” she said.

“Fourteen years,” Jesse said.

“I know. They didn’t comment,” Kelly Cruz said. “But they felt she was a bad influence on her sisters and last time she left they told her not to come back.”

“Talk to the sisters?”

“Nope. They’re spending the summer in Europe.”

“Plum and Partridge doing okay?”

“Very well,” Kelly Cruz said. “You should see where they live.”

“They got any theories on Florence’s death?” Jesse said.

“No,” Kelly Cruz said. “But I think they feel she deserved it.”

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“Home is where the heart is,” Jesse said.

“You got kids?” she said.

“No.”

“I got two,” she said. “No matter what they did or what they turned into, they could never deserve it.”

“What are the twins’ names?” Jesse said.

“You’ll love this,” Kelly Cruz said, “wait a minute, I got it in my notes. . . . Corliss and Claudia. Isn’t that sweet?

Corliss and Claudia Plum.”

“When are they coming back from Europe?”

“Don’t know. Probably in time for senior year at school.”

“What school?”

“Emory,” Kelly Cruz said.

“When you talk with Molly about Darnell’s address, could you leave her the Plums’ address, and phone?”

“Sure,” she said. “You coming down?”

“Maybe if the case runs into winter,” Jesse said.

“Lemme know,” Kelly Cruz said. “You’ll be on expenses and I can get us into Joe’s Stone Crab.”

“Sure,” Jesse said. “You tell the parents about the sex tape?”

“No.”

“You didn’t have the heart.”

“That’s right.”

“Show them head shots from the tape?” Jesse said. “The two guys?”

“Yes. They didn’t recognize either one.”

“Thanks, Kelly,” Jesse said. “I know you got other cases, but anything comes across your desk . . .”

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“I’m a curious girl,” Kelly Cruz said. “And sometimes it’s slow around here. I get time I’ll look up Harrison Darnell, and I’ll sniff around when I can.”

They hung up. Jesse sat looking at the Lady Jane without the binoculars.

“I wouldn’t have told them about the video, either,” he said aloud to no one.

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18

M olly stuck her head in the door to Jesse’s office.

“Lady to see you, Jess.”

Jesse nodded. Molly went away and came back in a moment with the mouthy blonde from the Lady Jane. She was wearing sunglasses, a backless yellow halter sundress with large blue flowers, and white slingback shoes with three-inch heels. The dress came to about the middle of her thighs.

“The local yokel,” she said.

“Chief Yokel,” Jesse said.

“You really are the chief of police,” she said.

“I am,” Jesse said.

S E A C H A N G E

She came in and sat opposite him. She crossed her legs.

The skirt of the sundress slid further back on her tan thighs.

She placed her small yellow straw purse in her lap and opened it.

“Mind if I smoke?” she said.

“I do,” Jesse said.

“You mind?”

“Yes.”

She had the silver cigarette case halfway out of her purse.

“You do mind?” she said.

“I do,” Jesse said.

“Jesus Christ!” she said.

She put the case back in her purse.

“I knew you were so prissy,” the blonde said, “I wouldn’t have come to help you.”

Jesse was quiet.

The blonde said, “You got any coffee at least?”

“Sure,” Jesse said.

He got her some.

“Cream and sugar?”

She shook her head. He handed her the cup. She took a sip.

“Well,” she said. “It’s strong.”

Jesse nodded. The blonde sipped coffee, and looked around the room.

“Are you carrying your gun, Chief Yokel?”

“Always armed and ready,” Jesse said.

The blonde seemed somehow to wiggle motionlessly.

“Really?” she said.

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Jesse smiled. The blonde smiled back. Her teeth were very white. Dental intervention, Jesse assumed. Bonding or whiten-ing or glazing or whatever the hell.

“My name’s Blondie Martin,” she said.

“Jesse Stone.”

“I know,” Blondie said, “the police chief. You told us on the boat.”

Jesse nodded.

“Have you always been the chief of police?” Blondie said.

“No.”

“So how long have you been Chief Local Yokel?”

“About seven years,” Jesse said.

“What before?”

“I was a cop in Los Angeles,” Jesse said.

“Oh my,” Blondie said, “a not-so-local yokel.”

Jesse didn’t say anything. Blondie crossed her legs the other way. She drank some more coffee, holding the white mug in both hands.

“You married?” she said.

“Sort of,” he said.

“How can you be sort of married?”

“My ex-wife and I are giving it another try,” Jesse said.

“Some people just won’t let go,” she said.

Jesse nodded. She drank the rest of her coffee and stood and poured herself another cup from the Mister Coffee on top of the file cabinet. Standing, she sipped her coffee, and looked sideways at Jesse and smiled.

“Remember I said I’d come to help you?” she said.

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“Yes.”

“Are you wondering what help I’m bringing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you are certainly calm about it.”

“I try,” Jesse said.

“What was that sports jacket you were wearing on the boat?”

“Paradise Twi-league,” Jesse said. “Softball.”

“What’s your position?”

“Shortstop.”

“Are you good?”

“Yes.”

“Very good?”

“Yes.”

“You look like you’d be very good,” Blondie said. “If you’re so good, why aren’t you playing someplace instead of being Chief Yokel?”

“Hurt my shoulder,” Jesse said. “Can’t throw much anymore.”

“But you’re still playing.”

“I can throw enough for the Paradise Twi-league,” Jesse said. “Not for the Show.”

“Show?”

“Big leagues,” Jesse said.

“Were you good enough for the, ah, Show, before you got hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Bummer,” Blondie said.

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Jesse waited. She drank more coffee. She couldn’t smoke.

He wasn’t serving cocktails. Any stimulant in a pinch.

“At least two people on the Lady Jane were lying to you the other day,” Blondie said.

“Happens a lot,” Jesse said.

“Harrison knew those two guys in the pictures you showed us.”

Jesse waited.

“They crewed for him last year. I was on the boat with him a few times last year. I recognized them both.”

“Anyone else that should have recognized them?” Jesse said.

“No, just Harrison and me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me on the boat?”

“Didn’t want Harrison getting mad. I’m a long way from home and he’s my ride back.”

“Where’s home?”

“Palm Beach. Harrison picked me up there and we came on up for Race Week.”

“You with him?” Jesse said.

“Sort of, I guess,” Blondie said. “Got to be with somebody.”

8 8

19

J esse was at his desk, checking overtime slips and drinking coffee, when Molly stuck her head in.

“Wait’ll you get a load of this,” she said.

Jesse looked up.

“More sex tapes?”

“Live action,” Molly said. “The sisters Plum.”

“Florence Horvath’s sisters?”

“In the, ah, flesh,” Molly said.

Jesse put the neat pile of overtime slips aside.

“Bring them in,” he said.

Corliss and Claudia Plum were very blond, very slim, very R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

tanned and very slightly dressed. They wore very dark eye makeup, very light lipstick. One of them had on a sleeveless aqua-and-coral patterned summer dress with a short skirt, and showed very deep cleavage. The other had on a robin’s-egg-blue-and-pink dress of the same length, and showed lots of cleavage. Both wore slip-on shoes with very high heels.

One pair was aqua, the other was blue. Neither wore stock-ings. It was also clear that neither was wearing a bra. Jesse stood when they came in.

Aqua and coral said, “I’m Corliss.”

Blue and pink said, “I’m Claudia.”

“Jesse Stone.”

Both girls shook his hand and then sat without much re -

gard to the minimal length of their dresses.

Well, Jesse thought, at least they’re wearing underpants.

“I’m very sorry about your sister,” Jesse said.

“That’s why we’re here,” Claudia said.

“We want to know the truth,” Corliss said.

“We found your sister floating in the harbor,” Jesse said.

“So who killed her,” Corliss said.

“We don’t know that anyone did.”

“You don’t know? How come you don’t know. You think she just jumped in the ocean?”

“We don’t know exactly how she got in the ocean,” Jesse said.

“Well, she sure didn’t jump in,” Claudia said.

“Do you have a theory?” Jesse said.

“What about DNA?”

9 0

S E A C H A N G E

“We know her identity,” Jesse said. “Why do you think someone killed her?”

“She wouldn’t just fall in,” Corliss said.

“Did she drink?” Jesse said.

“Course,” Corliss said. “But she could handle it, she wouldn’t get drunk and fall in the ocean.”