Текст книги "Sea Change"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 10 страниц)

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“They give him any clue where he was supposed to look?”

Jesse said.

“Miami and Boston,” she said.

Rita looked at her notes.

“Miami or Boston,” she said, “or travel between.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jesse said.

Rita waited. Jesse didn’t say anything.

“I would guess,” Rita said after a time of silence, “that I have provided you a clue.”

“Yes,” Jesse said.

They were quiet again.

Then Rita said, “I would guess that you are not going to share it with me.”

“Also true,” Jesse said.

“Because?”

“Because you are the best criminal defense lawyer in the state,” Jesse said. “And you might end up defending someone I want convicted.”

“Are you suggesting I would take unfair advantage of our, ah, relationship?”

“Yes.”

Rita smiled.

“Well, of course,” she said. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to call Kelly Cruz,” Jesse said.

“Who’s Kelly Cruz?”

“Somebody I’m going to call,” Jesse said.

Jesse stood. Rita stared at him for a moment.

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“If I’d known you were like this,” she said, “I’d never have bopped your socks off.”

Jesse grinned at her.

“Yeah,” he said. “You would have.”

And they both began to laugh.

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54

B ack with the Plums, Kelly Cruz thought, as she sat on the same terrace, looking at the same blue-green water. Mr. and Mrs. Plum

were both tanned and immaculate in white. The drink trolley was set up on the terrace. It was late afternoon and the cocktail hour had begun. Probably been in effect for a while, Kelly Cruz thought. She declined alcohol, and accepted a 7-Up.

“Just a few follow-up questions,” Kelly Cruz said when they were all settled. “Have you been traveling at all in the last couple of months?”

“No, we haven’t,” Mr. Plum said pleasantly.

He smiled at Kelly Cruz. His eyes crinkled attractively when he smiled.

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

“Say, since the end of May?”

“No, we haven’t,” Mr. Plum said, just as pleasantly.

“Mrs. Plum?” Kelly Cruz said.

“No,” she said. “I believe Willis drove up to Tallahassee, around the beginning of June, but I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“No, I didn’t, Mommy,” Mr. Plum said.

“You went up to visit the new store,” Mrs. Plum said.

Mrs. Plum looked at Kelly Cruz.

“Willis loves to get in the car and drive off by himself. He drives all over the country.”

“No,” Mr. Plum was kind but firm, “you’re confused.”

Mrs. Plum looked at her husband. He was serene in his certainty, sipping a gin and tonic today. Pacing himself, Kelly Cruz thought.

“Didn’t you open a new store in Tallahassee? Right after Memorial Day?”

Mr. Plum smiled fondly at his wife.

“Mommy, you’re getting old on me. I didn’t go anywhere in June.”

“You have a car,” Kelly Cruz said.

“My dear,” Mr. Plum said. “Of course we do.”

“Wow,” Kelly Cruz said. “I never think of cars at a place like this. Is there a parking garage?”

“Indeed,” Mr. Plum said. “And valet service all through the day and night.”

He seemed proud.

“I suppose you have assigned spaces?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Probably deeded.”

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She was aware as she chatted with Mr. Plum that Mrs.

Plum was staring at him. Mr. Plum looked at her indulgently.

“Of course,” he said kindly.

He rang a small bell, and the Cuban maid came in and brought the Plums another drink from the trolley. Kelly Cruz nursed her 7-Up. As he sipped his new drink, Mr.

Plum seemed to lose interest in Kelly Cruz. Instead he looked thoughtfully out from the patio at Biscayne Bay. Mrs.

Plum appeared not to look at anything.

“Well,” Kelly Cruz said. “So, no travel, I guess.”

Mr. Plum seemed not to hear her. Mrs. Plum shrugged and shook her head.

Kelly Cruz put her unfinished soft drink on the coffee table and stood.

“Well, thanks, sorry to bother you,” she said.

Mr. Plum continued to look at the bay. Mrs. Plum reached forward and rang the bell, and the Cuban maid came and showed Kelly Cruz to the door.

Kelly Cruz paused at the door and smiled at the maid, just a couple of palsy Cuban girls taking a moment to chat.

“Mi hermana,” Kelly Cruz said. “You remember when Mr.

Plum went up to Tallahassee a couple of months ago?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Mrs. Plum didn’t go with him, did she?” Kelly Cruz said.

“No ma’am.”

“Good,” Kelly Cruz said. “Thanks, Magdalena. The garage on the lower level?”

“Yes ma’am.”

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55

J esse was on the phone with Kelly Cruz.

“He’s so empty and sweet,” she said. “It’s like part of him is missing but he doesn’t mind and there’s no reason you should be upset about it.”

“Except for him being a pedophile.”

“Except for that,” Kelly Cruz said.

“And you think the wife knows,” Jesse said.

“She knows,” Kelly Cruz said. “I can’t promise you that she even knows she knows.”

“But she knows.”

“She knows,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Can you work on her?”

S E A C H A N G E

“Some. If I can catch her away from him. They are nearly always together, as far as I can tell.”

“Contentment,” Jesse said. “After years of marriage.”

“Except for him being a pedophile,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Except for that,” Jesse said.

“How about the maid?”

“See no evil, speak no evil.”

“Not even for a sister?”

“She doesn’t care if I’m of pure Cath-tilian heritage,”

Kelly Cruz said. “She’s got a good job and she won’t do anything to risk it. I had to trick her to say anything.”

“Any other servants?”

“Houseman and a cook. They are much less forthcoming than the maid.”

“So the servants are a dead end,” Jesse said.

“Complete,” Kelly Cruz said. “However, being a stubborn broad, I check out the parking garage. The attendant doesn’t remember whether Mister took his car out or not at the beginning of June. So I say, Is it there now? And he says it is and shows it to me. Actually I say this all in Spanish.”

“Muy simpatico,” Jesse said.

“Si,” Kelly Cruz said. “It’s an Escalade. Black. Loaded. I checked it out. It told me nothing. But I did see a small E-ZPass transponder inside the windshield.”

“New York,” Jesse said. “Our system works with it, too.”

“Lot of them do, along the East Coast,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Then I called the new Plum and Partridge store in Tallahassee, and yes, they opened the day after Memorial Day, and 2 5 9

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no, Mr. Plum didn’t attend. No one at the store that I talked to even knows what he looks like. I gather he’s not a hands-on manager.”

“But you are convinced he went somewhere,” Jesse said.

“Yes. Mrs. Plum shut up once he made it clear he would deny it,” Kelly Cruz said. “But he wasn’t home the first few days in June.”

“So if I tracked down the hits on his E-ZPass transponder, maybe I’d learn something,” Jesse said.

“If he drove someplace where the system is in effect,”

Kelly Cruz said.

“And at worst I’d learn what I already know,” Jesse said.

“Which is?”

“Next to nada. ”

“Wow,” Kelly Cruz said. “You really do speak our language.”

“I used to work in L.A.,” Jesse said.

“Sorry to hear that,” Kelly Cruz said.

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56

Y our guest is already here,” Daisy Dyke told Jesse. “Hoo ha.”

“Hoo ha?” Jesse said.

“Wasn’t a married woman I might take a run at her m’self.”

“I think she’s on my side of the fence,” Jesse said.

“Never know till you try,” Daisy said. “You taking a run?”

“No. It’s business.”

Blondie Martin was at a table in the back of Daisy’s beside the bar, drinking Lillet on the rocks. Daisy held the chair out for Jesse and pushed it in as he sat.

“So,” Blondie said, when Daisy had left them. “How come you’re not grilling me in the back room of the station house.”

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

“I was afraid you’d like it too much,” Jesse said.

“Especially with handcuffs,” Blondie said.

The waitress appeared. Jesse ordered iced tea. Blondie asked for another Lillet.

“No drinking on duty?” Blondie said.

“Or off,” Jesse said.

“You ever drink?”

“I did.”

“Are you an alcoholic?”

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “At the moment, I’m not drinking.”

The waitress brought their drinks, and took their order for lunch.

“So what do you want with me, Chief Yokel?” Blondie said. “You been watching me in the video?”

“I’ve worn it out,” Jesse said. “But today I’d like to talk about Darnell.”

“Harrison? Why talk about Harrison when we can talk about me?”

“This is a working lunch,” Jesse said. “What is Harrison’s attraction for women?”

“Money,” Blondie said.

“That what appeals to you?” Jesse said.

“Sure,” Blondie said.

“Anything else?”

“Well, I mean money can only buy you so much. Some of these freakos are scary. Harrison isn’t. He’s kinky, yes. But if you aren’t kinky in the same way, he doesn’t insist.”

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“Is he jealous?”

“Of what?” Blondie said.

“Any of his women being with other men?”

“Oh God, no,” Blondie said. “This is recreational, Jesse.

Nobody gets jealous or possessive or anything.”

She grinned at him and finished her first Lillet.

“We just all like to fuck,” she said.

Jesse smiled.

“Doesn’t make you a bad person,” Jesse said.

Blondie didn’t laugh.

“Actually, I am sort of a bad person,” she said. “I’m shallow and careless, pretty selfish. But I try to be honest.”

“That why you told me that Darnell was lying about the two crewmen in the video with Florence?”

“Oh hell, I don’t know,” Blondie said. “You looked pretty good on the boat. I thought it might be fun to see how good you were in bed.”

“So it was a seduction ploy,” Jesse said.

“Yeah,” Blondie said. “See what I mean? I ratted out Harrison, just because you looked like you might be hot.”

Jesse nodded. The waitress delivered lunch. A tongue sandwich on light rye for Jesse. Something called a California Salad for Blondie. Blondie ordered a bottle of Char-donnay.

“Was Florence Darnell’s favorite?”

“I don’t think so,” Blondie said.

“I was told she was and that he ditched her for you.”

Blondie Martin looked at Jesse with blank astonishment.

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“Ditched her? For me?”

Jesse nodded. Blondie stared.

“Harrison’s favorite,” Blondie said, “was whoever gave him his most recent BJ.”

“Well,” Jesse said. “It’s a standard.”

“The only way this whole deal works on the boat is that absolutely nobody aboard cares about anything but their own orgasm,” Blondie said.

“Including the high-school girls he recruits locally?” Jesse said.

“Sure. You think they’re out there looking for love?”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“Oh, fuck the shrink shit,” Blondie said. “They are out there to get laid.”

“Like you,” Jesse said.

“Like me,” Blondie said, “and have some laughs and a good time and maybe come away with a little jing.”

“So why did Florence send him the videotape?”

“She sent it?”

“Didn’t she?”

“I don’t know who sent it. I picked up our mail in town that day. There was no return address. When I gave it to Harrison he wondered who sent it.”

“Did you see it?”

“Sure, we watched it together. It was cool. Harrison especially got a kick out of it. Wanted to try it with me. But . . .”

Blondie shook her head.

“And he wasn’t upset by it?”

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“No, of course not. What’s to be upset about. He loved it.”

“So when did it arrive? Can you remember?”

“While Florence was off the boat.”

“Off the boat?”

“Yeah.”

“So when was the last time you saw her?” Jesse said.

“She came up with us on the boat from Florida.”

“This trip?”

“Yeah, sure,” Blondie said.

“And everybody on the boat saw her.”

“Sure.”

Blondie sipped her wine. She hadn’t, Jesse noticed, eaten much of her California Salad.

“And everyone lied about it,” Jesse said.

“Of course we lied,” Blondie said. “We didn’t want anybody snooping around into our lifestyle.”

“So how come you are talking to me now?” Jesse said.

Blondie shrugged.

“I like you. I want to impress you. I’m drinking. I feel like it.”

“So how did she die?” Jesse said. “You know that, too?”

“No. She went ashore for a few days. Said her daddy was in town. The tape arrived while she was gone. I remember Harrison being excited to watch it with her and asking when she’d be back.”

“And it was mailed from Miami,” Jesse said.

“I didn’t notice,” Blondie said. “But that’s what Harrison told me.”

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“So if she were really here with her daddy,” Jesse said, “she couldn’t have mailed it to him.”

“Somebody could have mailed it for her,” Blondie said.

She poured herself some wine.

“Why would she go to that trouble?” Jesse said.

“Haven’t got the foggiest,” Blondie said. “You’re the damn master detective.”

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “That would be me.”

He sat and looked at the second half of his sandwich.

Blondie drank some wine.

“Do you remember when she went ashore to see her father?” Jesse said.

“Nope.” Blondie said. “No idea really. You know, Florence wasn’t a big deal to me.”

Blondie picked up a small tangerine segment from her California Salad and ate it.

“How was she when she came back?” Jesse said.

Blondie drank some wine and swallowed, pursed her lips and looked at the corner of the room for a moment.

“I don’t think she came back,” Blondie said.

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E -ZPass transponder number you gave me,”

Healy said, “belonging to Willis Plum of

Miami?”

“Yeah.”

“Was used between June first and June fourth in Mary-land and Delaware and Jersey and New York, and in the Fast Lane entrances on the Mass Pike inbound at Sturbridge and at Brighton. It was used going the other way between June seventh and twelfth.”

“Why would he have an E-ZPass transponder, living in Miami?” Jesse said.

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

“Lot of people who drive to New York a lot have them,”

Healy said. “Nice to zip past the tollbooth backups.”

“And our system works with theirs,” Jesse said.

“Convenient,” Healy said.

Jesse and Healy leaned on the iron railing at the edge of the pier above the float where the small boats docked. In the dark water along the edge of the wharf, an occasional dead fish floated, and orange peels, and indestructible bits of Styrofoam, scraps of seaweed, an occasional crab shell, one condom, and a red-and-white bobber that had come loose from a fishing line.

“Found her right there,” Jesse said. “Against the float.”

“With the other flotsam,” Healy said.

“Fancy word,” Jesse said.

“Yeah. Sometimes I read things.”

They were quiet, watching the slow water slap gently at the pier. Jesse raised his eyes and looked at the mouth of the harbor. He thought he could pick out the Lady Jane anchored there. He took in a big breath and let it out slowly.

“Maybe I should reformulate my theory of the case,” Jesse said.

“What would your new formulation be?” Healy said.

“That I don’t know what the fuck is going on and I don’t know who to believe and I have been chasing my own ass up to now.”

“You know this business,” Healy said. “You have to as-2 6 8

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sume everyone’s lying to you. But you have to act as if they weren’t.”

“The bastard was up here,” Jesse said.

“His car was up here,” Healy said.

“She went ashore to see him and never came back.”

“Blondie says.”

“Why would she lie,” Jesse said, “about this.”

Healy smiled.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “She’d lie about the time of day if it seemed like a fun thing. Or she had an itch she felt like scratching.”

“Still,” Healy said. “He probably was here. He is probably a pedophile. He probably molested his daughters. He’s a lying bastard. What’s Cruz think of him.”

“She thinks there’s something really wrong with him.”

Healy smiled.

“I’ll bet she’s right,” he said.

“So why would he decide all of a sudden to drive up here and kill her?”

“If that’s what he decided,” Healy said.

“I know,” Jesse said. “I know. I can’t prove it yet. But let’s assume he killed her.”

“Okay,” Healy said.

“Why would he suddenly drive up here and kill her and drive home?”

“Maybe she told him it had to stop,” Healy said. “Her, the twin sisters, all of it.”

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“As far as I know she came up with Darnell from Miami, so she was around there before June. Maybe they had the falling out then.”

“And she left in a huff and came north with Darnell,”

Healy said.

“And he decided to follow her.”

“Why not kill her right there, during the falling-out moment?” Healy said.

“Maybe it was in front of the mother and he couldn’t do it then.”

“She knows, you think?” Healy said.

“Cruz says she does.”

“She know he killed their daughter, assuming he did?”

Healy said.

“I don’t know. It might be a nice piece of leverage to shake her loose.”

“Course, your original theory might actually be true,”

Healy said. “Darnell, or Ralston, or both.”

“Or they’ve just been lying every step of the way because they’re afraid of getting caught in the sex ring stuff.”

“Most of which is not illegal.”

“True,” Jesse said. “But it is not universally popular in the best yacht clubs.”

“Everybody has things to cover up in this thing,” Healy said.

“Most things,” Jesse said.

Healy grinned at him.

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“Ah, Laddy Buck,” Healy said. “The job is making you cynical.”

“Anyway, I’ve got them on the stat rape charge,” Jesse said.

“Nice to have a fallback position,” Healy said.

Jesse smiled for a moment.

“At least I can arrest somebody,” he said.

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58

W e’re going to have to talk to the Plum twins again,” Jesse said to Molly. “Can

you stay sober long enough to sit in?”

Molly blushed.

“Shut up,” she said.

“Let’s have a little respect here,” Jesse said.

“Shut up, Chief Stone,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded.

“Better,” he said. “Get Steve to cover the desk.”

“We doing good cop, bad cop again?”

“Play it by ear,” Jesse said. “But it doesn’t do any harm if they like you and fear me.”

S E A C H A N G E

“They bring a lawyer?” Molly said.

“Nope.”

“Wow,” Molly said. “They are dumb.”

“I’m counting on it,” Jesse said.

The twins sat beside each other in front of Jesse’s desk.

Molly sat as she had before, behind them, near the door.

“We want to stay together,” Corliss said.

Jesse looked at them without expression.

“Maybe I can get you adjoining cells at Framingham,”

Jesse said.

“Framingham?” Claudia said.

“Women’s Reformatory,” Molly said behind them.

They both turned toward her.

“Jail?” Corliss said.

“We might go to jail?” Claudia said.

“It happens,” Molly said. “If you don’t let us help you. It could happen.”

Jesse glared at Molly.

“What are we, the Salvation Army?” he said.

“Part of our job is to help people,” Molly said.

“I don’t want to help them,” Jesse said. “I want to put them in jail.”

Both girls turned back toward Jesse. He could see Molly behind them, while they weren’t looking, take a deep breath.

I know, Jesse thought, I know.

“You have lied to me,” Jesse said to the girls, “every time you could, since the first time I talked with you.”

“We didn’t do anything, like a crime,” Corliss said.

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Jesse let his chair tip forward. He stood and came around his desk and bent from the waist and put his face an inch away from Corliss’s face.

“I don’t like you,” he said. “I hate everything you are. So you keep sitting there lying to me, it makes me happy. It makes it easier and easier for me to put your degenerate asses in jail for ten years.”

“Leave her alone,” Claudia said.

Jesse shifted his face a half inch toward her.

“Both of you,” he said.

“We’re not lying,” Corliss said. “We haven’t even said anything.”

“You don’t know that your father was up here in June,”

Jesse said.

Both of them said “Ohmigod” at the same time.

“You didn’t feel like you should tell me that, huh?” Jesse said.

“Jesse,” Molly said. “They’re kids.”

Jesse raised his eyes and stared at Molly.

“I’m getting sick of the bleeding heart, missy,” he said.

“You don’t like how I question suspects, you can leave right now.”

“I can’t leave them in here alone with you, for God’s sake,”

Molly said.

“Then button it up,” Jesse said.

“If I have to go to the selectmen, I will,” Molly said.

“Fuck the selectmen. I nail these two degenerates, they’ll give me a raise.”

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“Did Daddy kill Florence?” Corliss said.

Jesse was still for a moment. The anger left his face. Then he straightened and rested his butt against the edge of his desk, and folded his arms. His voice was gentle when he spoke.

“You think?” he said.

“We were afraid of it,” Claudia said. “It’s why we came here and why we wanted to get a private detective.”

“To whom you wouldn’t reveal a name.”

“We got too scared,” Corliss said.

“Of Daddy?” Jesse said.

“Yes,” Claudia said.

“If he found out,” Corliss said.

Jesse nodded.

“Let’s run over that videotape you made of your sister and the two guys,” Jesse said.

“It was for Daddy,” Claudia said.

Jesse could hear Molly exhale. He nodded softly.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

He went around the desk and sat down.

“She hated Daddy,” Corliss said. “She said this was her kissing him off.”

“And she sent him the tape?”

“A duplicate,” Claudia said. “She had a bunch of duplicates made. I think she was going to keep sending them to him, you know? Every month? Drive him crazy?”

They both spoke rapidly, the words flowing out as if through the widening crack in a dam.

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“So how did a copy end up on Harrison Darnell’s boat?”

Jesse said.

“We talked about that,” Corliss said. “Me and Claud. We thought maybe Florence brought a copy to show him. Harrison liked stuff like that.”

“I think it was mailed from Miami,” Jesse said.

“That’s the other thing we thought,” Claudia said.

“Which was?” Jesse said.

“Maybe Daddy sent it,” Corliss said.

“Why would he do that?”

“Daddy’s odd sometimes,” Claudia said.

“We thought maybe he sent it to Harrison to embarrass Flo,” Corliss said.

“He didn’t know that it wouldn’t?” Jesse said.

“I think he thought Flo had a nice upper-class wealthy beau,” Claudia said.

“He thought we did, too,” Corliss said.

“What were you afraid Daddy would do if he found out you had hired a private detective to investigate him?” Jesse said.

“We thought he’d kill us,” Claudia said.

She looked at Corliss. They both nodded.

“Who told you about your sister’s death?” Jesse said.

“Mom,” Corliss said.

“So why did you tell me Kimmy Young told you?”

“Kimmy?” Claudia said.

“We told you Kimmy?” Corliss said.

“Yep.”

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“God, why would we do that?” Claudia said.

“That was what sort of tore the cover off,” Jesse said.

“We were scared,” Corliss said. “I guess we just said a name.”

“We were afraid if we told you Mom, that would sort of lead you to Daddy,” Claudia said.

“Because you didn’t want to get him in any trouble,” Jesse said.

“Yes,” Corliss said.

“We love him,” Claudia said.

“And he loves us,” Corliss said.

“And you were afraid he might kill you,” Jesse said.

“Daddy gets so mad sometimes,” Claudia said.

They looked at each other again and nodded.

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59

K elly Cruz met Jesse at the gate in the Miami airport. She had a short black haircut and a wide mouth and nice posture. Her

ass was, in fact, perky. She was wearing white heels and white slacks and a blue linen jacket and holding a handmade sign that said stone. Jesse was glad that she was good-looking. They shook hands and he followed her outside where they got into a maroon Crown Victoria parked under a no-parking sign in front of the terminal. Kelly Cruz got into the front beside the driver. Jesse got in back.

“Jesse Stone,” Kelly Cruz said. “Raymond Ortiz.”

The driver turned and said hello.

S E A C H A N G E

“Raymond works Homicide,” she said. “Here in Miami.”

“Nice to have an official presence,” Jesse said. “In case we want to arrest somebody.”

“That’s me,” Ortiz said. “Official presence.”

“How you want to handle this?” Kelly Cruz said as they headed east from the airport on the Dolphin Expressway.

“My usual approach,” Jesse said, “is to blunder in and shake the sack and see what falls out.”

“Works for me,” Ortiz said.

“It’s your case,” Kelly Cruz said.

“But you know the people,” Jesse said. “Got a suggestion?”

“The wife’s ready to pop,” Kelly Cruz said. “The old man is buried so deep inside somewhere that I got no clue on him.”

“And the help’s nowhere,” Jesse said.

Kelly Cruz shook her head.

“Nowhere,” she said. “Working for the Yankee dollar. Got no other interest.”

“You’re Cuban,” Jesse said.

“My mother is,” Kelly Cruz said.

“And Raymond.”

“Si,” Raymond said in a parody Latino accent.

“And that doesn’t help.”

“Not a bit,” Kelly Cruz said. “About as much as you being a gringo will help with the Plums.”

“Gringo?” Jesse said.

“I’m trying to sound authentic,” Kelly Cruz said. “I was you I’d go for the mother, and how the pervert killed her daughter.”

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Jesse nodded. Kelly Cruz glanced at her watch.

“Eleven-fifty,” she said. “They’ll be drinking by the time we get there.”

“Good or bad?” Jesse said.

“Doesn’t seem to have much effect,” Kelly Cruz said.

“We’re expected,” Jesse said.

“We are, if they remember,” Kelly Cruz said.

The valet service knew a cop when they saw one. Nobody offered to take the Crown Vic, and nobody objected when Ortiz parked it right in front of the main entrance and got out. In the lobby, Ortiz showed his badge to the concierge.

She called upstairs, and when they got out of the elevator at the penthouse, the maid was waiting for them at the front door of the Plums’ vast condo. She led them through the un-ruffled living room to the terrace where the drink trolley had been wheeled into place, and a small buffet was set up.

Mrs. Plum, in a frothy ankle-length turquoise dress, was reclining on a chaise. Mr. Plum, wearing a white shirt and white linen slacks, sat erect in his chair near her head. Both were drinking Manhattans. Jesse stared at the father. You son of a bitch.

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O rtiz’s only duty was to add jurisdictional presence where Jesse and Kelly Cruz had

none. They declined to eat. Ortiz accepted a large plateful of assorted tea sandwiches and ate them quietly, leaning his hips against the railing of the terrace, and sipping mango iced tea from a glass he balanced on the top rail. Kelly Cruz sat opposite the Plums in a white satin chair with no arms. Jesse remained standing.

“Chief of police,” Willis Plum said. “That’s quite an achievement.”

Jesse ignored him.

“Mrs. Plum,” he said. “A while ago you told Detective R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

Cruz your husband had taken a trip at the beginning of June, and it appeared that you were mistaken.”

“I often am,” Mrs. Plum said, in a tone that didn’t mean it.

“Good news,” Jesse said. “You were right. He didn’t go to Tallahassee. But he was in the Boston area the first week in June.”

She looked quickly at her husband.

“I knew I was right,” she said.

Mr. Plum shook his head.

“He’s wrong, Mommy,” Plum said gently, “just like you were.”

“He has an E-ZPass transponder on his car,” Jesse said.

“It’s compatible with the Fast Lane system in Massachusetts.

He was driving on the Massachusetts Turnpike the first week in June.”

“Transponder,” she said.

“The car goes through the no-toll lane and is electroni-cally recorded. Toll is charged to your credit card.”

“The thing on the windshield,” Mrs. Plum said.

“It is useful almost everywhere north of Washington,” Mr.

Plum said. “I drive often to New York. It is a great time-saver.”

Jesse showed no sign that Mr. Plum had spoken.

“So when you thought he was off to Tallahassee to open the new store,” Jesse said to Mrs. Plum, “he was, in fact, driving up to Boston to see Florence.”

Mr. Plum spoke in the same gentle voice.

2 8 2

S E A C H A N G E

“What he’s saying is wrong, Mommy.”

She stared at him for a moment. He sat very erect, his ankles together. He drank his Manhattan carefully and patted his lips with a napkin. Jesse thought he looked prim.

“Mommy,” Mr. Plum said.

“Do you have any theory, Mrs. Plum,” Jesse said, “why he went up there?”

“No,” she said.

“Do you have any theory on why he pretends he didn’t?”

“I never went, Mommy.”

Mrs. Plum didn’t look at her husband. She kept her gaze fixed on Jesse.

“No,” Mrs. Plum said. “I don’t.”

The room was silent. The sky was very blue above the terrace. The bay beyond the terrace looked clean and bright.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Mr. Plum said.

Mrs. Plum stared at Jesse. Jesse walked over to the railing and leaned on it beside Ortiz. Mr. Plum poured himself a Manhattan from a silver shaker beaded with moisture. He offered the shaker to Mrs. Plum who shook her head. She sipped from her still-sufficient glass.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Mr. Plum said.

Ortiz ate his sandwiches. Kelly Cruz sat with her legs crossed, her hands clasped over her right knee. Jesse waited.

No one spoke. Slowly Mrs. Plum shifted her gaze from Jesse to her husband. He smiled at her.

He said, “It’s going to be all right, Mommy.”

2 8 3

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

She continued to look at him. He sat calmly with his Manhattan delicately held with thumb and forefinger. His face was toward her, but he didn’t appear to be looking at anything.

“You are a monstrous pig of a man,” Mrs. Plum said to him.

Her voice was calm and the tone was simply the assertion of an obvious fact.

“Mommy,” he said, “please. Not in front of guests.”

“You killed her,” Mrs. Plum said. “Didn’t you.”

“Mommy,” he said again in his pleasant detached way,

“please let’s mind our manners.”

“She sent you the tape and you went into a jealous frenzy and drove up there and killed her.”

“Tape?” Mr. Plum said.

“You think I don’t know about the tape? You think I didn’t recognize her handwriting when it came? You think I didn’t find it in your study while you were out? You think I didn’t play it? You think I don’t know about you?”

Her voice went slowly, almost ploddingly, up the scale until she was almost screaming.

“That tape was private,” Mr. Plum said.

“Private?” Mrs. Plum’s voice was down into calm again.

“That is my daughter.”

“And mine,” Mr. Plum said. He seemed still to be looking at nothing. “It was private between me and my daughter.”

“Whom you have been fucking since she was thirteen,”

Mrs. Plum said.

Mr. Plum suddenly looked at her.

2 8 4

S E A C H A N G E

“Mommy,” he said firmly, “don’t be crude.”

She stared at him and then looked at Jesse and Ortiz, then at Kelly Cruz.

“He’s been doing it since they were little girls,” she said to Kelly Cruz. “All three of them. We never talked about it.

Maybe he thought I didn’t know, but I knew.”

“And did nothing?” Kelly Cruz said.

“He had money and we were well situated,” Mrs. Plum said. “He made no demands on me. It was easier to drink.”