(5/10) Sea Change

by Robert B. Parker

  “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.

  “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 glamorize 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 visceral way Jesse realized that it was about him. He took in some air.

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

  17

  Jesse 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.

  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.”

  “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 communication 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 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.”

  “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.�
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  “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…”

  “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.

  18

  Molly 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 sling back 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.

  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.

  Jesse smiled. The blonde smiled back. Her teeth were very white. Dental intervention, Jesse assumed. Bonding or whitening 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.

  “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.

  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.”

  19

  Jesse 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 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 stockings. 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 regard
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?”

  “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.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “I thought you were in Europe,” Jesse said.

  The twins looked at each other.

  “That’s what we told the parents,” Claudia said.

  They both giggled.

  “Partying,” Corliss said.

  “Where?”

  “In New York.”

  “Manhattan?” Jesse asked.

  “No, no, Sag Harbor.”

  “All summer?”

  Both girls giggled.

  “Staying with friends?”

  “Ohhh yes,” Corliss said.

  “Could I have a name?” Jesse said.

  “Name?”

  “Of the friend you stayed with.”

  “Why?”

  “Better to know than not know,” Jesse said.

  “You think we did something bad?” Claudia said.

  “Ohhh yeah,” Jesse said, and smiled.

  The twins giggled again.

  “Well, we didn’t do anything bad to Flo,” Claudia said.

  “Of course not,” Jesse said. “Where were you staying on Long Island?”

  “Well,” Corliss looked at her sister.

  “We were at a guy’s house in Sag Harbor.”

  “Name?”

  “Ah, the guy that owned the house was, ah, Carlo.”

  Jesse nodded and waited. Corliss looked at her sister again.

  “What was Carlo’s last name?” she said. “You remember?”