Jesse nodded.
“People don’t always work that hard to clear somebody else’s case,” Healy said.
“I think she’s kind of hooked into it,” Jesse said. “Talking to all the people.”
Healy nodded.
“Happens,” he said.
Jesse went on.
“I went aboard when everyone was at the clambake,” he read.
“With a warrant,” Healy said.
Jesse smiled, and didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” Healy said. “No warrant. I, of course, don’t know that and never thought to ask.”
“Absolutely,” Jesse said.
He went on. Healy listened. At one point Buck got up and drank water loudly from the blue-rimmed soup bowl.
When he was through he went back to where had been, turned around twice and reassumed his position, with his nose pointed seaward.
“The twins told their parents they were in Europe,” Jesse said. “But they were actually in Sag Harbor, New York, with some guy named Carlos Coca.”
“You check that?” Healy said.
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“No.”
“There’s a loose end,” Healy said.
“Here’s another one,” Jesse said. “They say they learned of their sister’s death from someone named Kimmy Young.”
“Haven’t checked her out, either,” Healy said.
“No.”
“Happens,” Healy said.
“Shouldn’t,” Jesse said.
Healy shrugged.
“Where’s Kimmy Young from?”
“Don’t know,” Jesse said. “I assume South Florida.”
“I’ll bet Kelly Cruz can find her,” Healy said.
Jesse nodded. He went back to the notes. It was late afternoon when they finished. Jesse had drunk four Cokes. Healy had nearly finished his beer.
“You don’t like to drink?” Jesse said when he picked up the can and found it not quite empty.
“I like to drink,” Healy said. “But I only like to drink a small amount.”
“Hard to imagine,” Jesse said.
“Never liked being drunk,” Healy said.
Jesse nodded. Jenn came in through the front door and walked to the balcony. Buck raised his head, looked at her carefully and put his head back down. Jenn saw Healy’s beer can. Jesse saw her eyes flick to him. She saw the Coca-Cola can.
“Captain Healy,” Jenn said with a big smile. “How nice to see you.”
Jenn was dressed in what she considered weekend leisure 2 1 8
S E A C H A N G E
wear. Yellow running shoes with pale green laces. Green cargo pants with a studded yellow belt. A yellow top, a choker of green beads around her neck and jade earrings.
“Nice to see you, too,” Healy said. “Nice to see you here.”
“I know,” Jenn said.
Jenn crouched on her heels beside the dog. The movement made the cargo pants very smooth along her thighs and butt.
Buck opened his black eyes and made a small movement with his miniscule tail.
“Is that a wag,” Jenn said.
“It is.”
“What’s his name?”
“Buck.”
“May I pat him?” she said.
“Sure,” Healy said. “He only bites kids.”
“Can’t blame him for that, can we?”
“Hell no,” Healy said. “Bite them myself if I wasn’t wor -
ried about my pension.”
2 1 9
46
K elly Cruz sat courtside at the Tennis Club with Mrs. Plum while Mr. Plum played
men’s doubles. Kelly Cruz had an iced tea.
Mrs. Plum was drinking gin and tonic.
“Your husband plays very well,” Kelly Cruz said.
“Yes,” she said. “Doubles.”
“Not a good singles player?” Kelly Cruz said.
“No. I don’t think he could take the stress of one-to-one confrontation. Inferior players used to beat him regularly.
He rarely plays singles anymore.”
“He’s more of a team player,” Kelly Cruz said, to be saying something.
S E A C H A N G E
Mrs. Plum didn’t comment.
“I’m sorry to bother you again,” Kelly Cruz said.
Mrs. Plum drank some gin and tonic. She shrugged.
“It’s not like my days are filled with important matters,”
she said.
Kelly Cruz smiled. She felt very bad for Mrs. Plum.
“Do you know anyone named Kimmy Young?”
“Kimmy Young,” Mrs. Plum said, and took another drink. “Kimmy Young. Yes, of course, she was in school with my twins. She used to come over sometimes. Pajama parties. CDs. Brownies. You know how teenagers are. Her mother was Miss Oklahoma when she was a girl. Married Randy Young, Young Financial Services. He’s done really wonderfully well.”
“Do you know where I might find her?”
“The Youngs moved to Sarasota, I think. They found life in Miami a little fast, I suspect.”
Kelly Cruz glanced around at the sea of tennis whites.
Mrs. Plum noticed.
“They’re somewhat younger than we are,” she said. “I suppose we’ve slowed our pace a bit.”
“Did the girls go to private school?”
“Oh yes.”
“Which one.”
“Vandersea,” Mrs. Plum said. “The Vandersea School.”
“Here in Miami?”
“Yes.”
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Kelly Cruz wrote briefly in her notebook. Mrs. Plum flagged down a waiter and got another drink.
“Why are you asking about Kimmy?”
“Her name came up in that same case up north,” Kelly Cruz said.
“Kimmy was a nice girl,” Mrs. Plum said, watching her husband serve. “Smart.”
He had a nice hard serve, but Kelly Cruz noticed Mr.
Plum didn’t follow it in. She didn’t know much about tennis; maybe it was strategy.
“Know anyone named Carlos Coca?” Kelly Cruz said as she wrote.
“Heavens, no,” Mrs. Plum said.
Kelly Cruz nodded, and kept writing. The Plums probably wouldn’t know the Cocas.
“It must be exciting being a, ah, policewoman,” Mrs.
Plum said.
“Not too much excitement,” Kelly Cruz said. “Lots of asking questions and taking notes.”
“But it must give you some satisfaction. Solving crimes.
That must seem important.”
Kelly Cruz put the notebook into her purse beside her gun.
“It does,” she said. “Trouble is, then another crime comes along and you’re slogging along again.”
“This is the most important thing I’ll do today,” Mrs.
Plum said.
Kelly Cruz didn’t say anything.
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S E A C H A N G E
“The money, you know. The money guts you. After a while all you have left to do is look nice, and drink.”
Kelly Cruz stood and put her hand out.
“Thank you very much,” she said.
Mrs. Plum shook her hand and smiled absently and began to look for the waiter.
2 2 3
47
J esse was on the phone with Carlos Coca in Sag Harbor.
“Who’d you say you were?” Coca said.
“Jesse Stone. I’m chief of police in Paradise, Massachusetts.”
“And why do I want to talk with you?” Coca said.
“So I won’t get a couple of big mean New York state troopers to come over and yank you out of your swimming pool,” Jesse said.
“I’m not in my pool.”
“Figure of speech,” Jesse said. “Tell me about Corliss and Claudia Plum.”
There was silence. Jesse waited.
S E A C H A N G E
“Dumb
and dumber,” Coca said after awhile. “Yeah, they were here.”
“When.”
“Early in the summer. Memorial Day weekend, I think.
Kinda cool. Not good party weather.”
“How long did they stay?”
“Too long,” Coca said. “I kicked them out after about three days.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t fit in,” Coca said.
“How so?”
“They’re fucking crazy, awright? They were drunk by noon. Walked around topless. I got a lot of top-drawer people here. Christ, I got the president of a real estate development company. Big company. International. He’s sitting outside with his wife, having a cocktail before lunch. One of them, who the fuck knows which one, topless, thong bikini bottom, goes and sits in his lap. Takes a drink from his glass. Man!”
“Wasn’t she cold?” Jesse said.
“Who, Missy Hot Bottom? I don’t know. Why?”
“You said it was cool.”
“Well, hell,” Coca said. “I’m not even sure what weekend.
All my weekends are pretty lively. But I’m pretty sure nobody was swimming.”
“So the bikini was for effect.”
“Sure, those two assholes don’t do anything except for effect. For crissake, some of my important guests left because of them.”
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“And how do you know them?” Jesse said.
“Their sister.”
“Florence?”
“Yeah. Now there was a babe. She was even wilder than the twins, but she had a little class. You know? She never of-fended any of my guests. And she could hold her booze.”
“She brought her sisters to party with you?” Jesse said.
“Not this year, they came on their own, but yeah, they used to come with her. Hell, they were still jailbait when they started coming here. The jailbait twins.”
“They get along?”
“Sure. It was like Florence was showing them the ropes.
Like she was breaking them in.”
“Lot of sex at your parties?” Jesse said.
“Hey,” Coca said. “What about privacy here. I’m entitled to my privacy.”
“I don’t care if your guests had carnal knowledge of a vending machine,” Jesse said. “I’m only interested in my case. Anything you tell me is off the record.”
“Well, sure. There’s usually some sex at a big weekend party, you know? Why wouldn’t there be? I think it’s one reason Flo brought her sisters. Learn their way around, in a safe environment.”
“Safe environment?” Jesse said.
“Yeah. There’s always a good class of people at my parties.
Good place for young girls to, you know, grow up.”
“Even when they were jailbait?” Jesse said.
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S E A C H A N G E
“Not with me,” Coca said. “But yeah. There’s guys like them young. It wasn’t like anyone’s first time.”
“Any idea where anyone might have lost her cherry?”
“Got me,” Coca said. “Flo told me they weren’t virgins.”
“Know where they were headed when you gave them the boot?” Jesse said.
“Nope. They packed up, and my driver took them into the city and dropped them.”
“Where?”
“He said he took them to the Peninsula Hotel.”
“And this would have been the beginning of June?”
“Yeah, sure, first week or so for sure.”
“And you haven’t heard from them since?”
“No. What’s this all about, anyway? What’d they do?”
“Just routine stuff, Mr. Coca, names came up in a case here.”
“Flo involved?”
“Indirectly,” Jesse said.
“Well, Flo had more class, but they’re all crazy. Whole goddamned family was crazy, Flo said.”
“Whole family?”
“Yeah. That’s what she used to say.”
“Any details?”
“No, just that they were all crazy. That the money had ruined them all.”
“You think she was including her parents?” Jesse said.
“She never said. All of them seemed kind of hung up on the old man.”
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“How so?” Jesse said.
“What am I, fucking Dr. Phil? They just talked about him a lot. Daddy this, Daddy that. Like he mattered.”
“Parents do,” Jesse said.
“Yeah. I’ve heard that.”
“Can you think of anything they said about Daddy?”
“You listen to those fucking twins for long, your brain fries,” Coca said. “You know what I’m saying? I worked my fucking ass off not to pay any attention to them. Mostly they fucking giggle.”
“So you can’t remember an example.”
“What’d I just say, for crissake.”
“That you can’t remember an example,” Jesse said.
“Thanks for your time, Mr. Coca. I may call back in a few days, see if anything has occurred to you.”
“I hope not,” Coca said.
After he had hung up the phone Jesse sat in his office and swiveled his chair aimlessly. Then he swiveled back and picked up the phone and called Kelly Cruz.
2 2 8
48
K elly Cruz sat in the small living room of Kimmy Young’s apartment in Coconut
Grove.
“How’d you find me?” Kimmy said.
“Vandersea alumnae office,” Kelly Cruz said.
“God,” Kimmy said. “They never lose you, do they? CIA ought to use them.”
Kelly Cruz smiled.
“Let me tell you why I’m here,” she said.
“Yes ma’am,” Kimmy said.
“My name is Kelly Cruz, I hope you’ll call me Kelly.”
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“I’m Kimmy.”
“Okay,” Kelly Cruz said. “We have that settled.”
Kimmy was blond, of course. Everyone is blond, except Detec -
tive Cruz. She was pretty but overweight, and she had a cheerful manner.
“You know Corliss and Claudia Plum,” Kelly Cruz said.
“I went to school with them.”
“And did you inform them of their sister’s death?”
“Flo?”
“Florence Horvath.”
“She’s dead?” Kimmy said.
“She is.”
“My God!” Kimmy said.
“I’m guessing that you didn’t inform them of Florence’s death.”
“God, no.”
“So how did they hear of it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them in years.”
“Really?”
“Years. Not since I was, like, fifteen.”
“And you are?”
“I’ll be twenty-one in August.”
“And are you in school?”
“I’m going into my senior year at U. Miami.”
“Your family lives in Sarasota?”
“Yes. That’s the last time I saw the Plums. Before we moved.”
“And that was in?”
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“Ah . . . senior year at Vandersea. I was seventeen.”
“So you haven’t seen them since you were seventeen,”
Kelly Cruz said.
“No.”
“But you said fifteen.”
“Well, I didn’t see much of them for a while before then.”
“I understood that you were pretty good friends.”
“Not really.”
“I heard you used to sleep over sometimes. That seems like friends.”
“I only did it a couple of times.”
“When you were fifteen?”
“Yes.”
The room seemed very quiet. Kimmy didn’t look at Kelly Cruz. There was no longe
r any hint of cheerfulness. She suddenly seemed almost furtive. Kelly Cruz could feel a click inside, as if something had snapped into place, and a connection had been completed.
“What happened when you were fifteen?” Kelly Cruz said.
Kimmy looked at the floor and shook her head slowly.
“Something happened,” Kelly Cruz said.
Kimmy kept shaking her head. Kelly Cruz paid no atten -
tion. She knew she was right.
“Florence Horvath died under suspicious circumstances,”
Kelly Cruz said. “Up in a town outside of Boston. I’m helping out on this end of the investigation.”
Kimmy neither looked up nor stopped the slow movement of her head.
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“Before I came over here, I talked on the phone with the police chief up there. He said that maybe I should be alert for things involving Mr. Plum.”
Kimmy stopped shaking her head. Her shoulders hunched up as if to protect her neck. Kelly Cruz had seen abused children before. She knew at a level she didn’t understand that what happened had to do with sex.
“Did anything happen involving Mr. Plum?”
Kimmy stood and went to the bathroom and closed the door. Kelly Cruz heard the lock turn. She waited. Nothing happened. After a time she went to the bathroom door.
“Kimmy?” she said.
“Go away.”
“Can’t do that, Kimmy.”
“I won’t come out,” Kimmy said.
“Sooner or later you will,” Kelly Cruz said.
“I won’t talk about it.”
“You have to, Kimmy,” Kelly Cruz said. “You want to spend the rest of your life with the door locked?”
Kelly Cruz waited. Kimmy didn’t speak. The door didn’t open.
“Kimmy?” Kelly Cruz said. “Are you all right?”
Silence.
“Kimmy, I have to know you’re all right, and the only way I can know that is if you open the door and talk to me.”
Silence.
“I’m concerned for your welfare,” Kelly Cruz said. “Either 2 3 2
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you come out now, or I kick the door in. I’m a cop, I know how to do that.”
Silence.
Kelly Cruz backed off two steps and drove her heel into the door next to the handle. She could hear the jam tear. The door slammed open and she went in. She didn’t see Kimmy.
She pulled the shower curtain aside. Kimmy was sitting in the tub with her knees up and her face pressed against them.
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