Sea Change

Book design by Meighan Cavanaugh

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Joan il miglior fabbro

T hey were out of the harbor, off Stiles Island, in the weather. The day had turned bad. The sky was dark. The wind had gotten hard, and a thin rain slanted in front of the wind. They had drunk all the wine and talked most of the talk and now it was time to get home.

The person at the tiller said, “It feels as if there’s something foul-ing the centerboard, could you check it?”

Florence stood and leaned over and raised the centerboard. It felt free to her. The boat slid slightly sideways. She let the board down.

The boat stabilized, and came hard about, and the boom swung over the small cockpit and hit her a numbing blow in the chest and knocked the wind out of her. She pitched over the side into the black R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

water. It was painfully cold. She went under, gasping for breath, inhaling some of the water, choking on it. She struggled toward the surface. When she broke water she could see the sailboat turning and coming back for her. She struggled to breathe, to stay afloat, to focus.

In the far distance where Paradise rose up from the harbor she could see, on the top of the highest hill, the steeple of the oldest church in town. The sailboat was coming. She treaded water desperately. Only another minute at the most before the boat reached her. Hang on.

Hang on. Through the gray rain, she could see the little white bone of spray at the prow, the brass turnbuckle of the mast stay, the dark protective paint on the belly of the boat, as it leaned hard to the side, straining against the wind.

In a moment it would head up into the wind and sit, its sail luff-ing while she got hold of the rail. She was treading water. She was afloat. She was getting her breath. The boat didn’t head into the wind. It came straight on and the bow hit her in the chest and forced her under as the boat passed and sailed on. Barely conscious, she struggled to the surface. The boat was past her, sailing away. She tried to scream but she choked on the seawater. And then she went under and choked some more and lost consciousness.

Running before the wind with its sheet full out, the little sailboat headed home without her.

2

1

T he bouncer at the Dory was holding a wet towel against his bloody nose when Jesse

Stone arrived. Suitcase Simpson was with

him. Simpson was in uniform. Jesse was wearing jeans and a white short-sleeved oxford shirt. His gun was on his right hip and his badge was tucked in his shirt pocket so that the shield showed.

“You usually win these, Fran,” Jesse said to the bouncer.

The bouncer shrugged. His right eye was nearly closed.

“Too big for me, Jesse. You guys may have to shoot him.”

“We’ll see,” Jesse said.

Jesse pushed into the crowded bar. There was no noise. A R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

big man was standing on the bar drinking from a bottle of Wild Turkey. The bottle had a pour spout on it and he would hold it away from his open mouth and pour the whiskey in.

The bartender, whose name was Judy, had ducked out from behind the bar and was standing near the door. She had blonde hair in a ponytail and wore sneakers, shorts and a tank top.

“You call us?” Jesse said to her.

She nodded.

“He was drunk when he came in,” she said.

Jesse nodded.

“He made some remarks,” Judy said. “I told him I wouldn’t serve him. He made some more remarks, Fran tried to help . . .” She shrugged.

“You know who that is?” Simpson murmured in Jesse’s ear.

“Carl Radborn,” Jesse said. “All-Pro tackle. Shall we get his autograph?”

“Just letting you know,” Simpson said.

Jesse slid through the quiet crowd with Simpson behind him.

“Hey,” Radborn yelled. “Run for your fucking life, it’s the Paradise cops.”

Radborn was 6'5" and weighed more than 300 pounds.

Standing on the bar he seemed too big for the room. Jesse smiled at him.

“Should have brought an elephant gun,” Jesse said.

“Shit,” Radborn said and jumped down off the bar, still holding the whiskey bottle. “You know who I am?”

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S E A C H A N G E

“I always love that question,” Jesse said. “Yeah, I know who you are. Jonathan Ogden knocked you down and stomped on your face when you played the Ravens last year.”

“Fuck you,” Radborn said.

“Oh,” Jesse said, “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

A few people snickered.

“I don’t give a fuck. You a cop or what,” Radborn said.

“I’ll kick your ass and Fat Boy’s right here and now.”

Simpson reddened.

“A lot of that is muscle,” Jesse said.

“I play football,” Radborn said. “You play football, you’ll go with anybody. You ready to go?”

“Be better if you walked outside with us,” Jesse said.

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Jesse said. “Suit, gimme your stick.”

Simpson took the nightstick from the loop on his belt and handed it to Jesse.

“You think that fucking toothpick gonna matter?” Radborn said.

He was six inches taller than Jesse and more than 125

pounds heavier. Jesse took the stick from Simpson and with one motion hit Radborn in the testicles with it. Radborn gasped and doubled over. Jesse stepped around him quickly and hit him behind each knee with the stick. The legs col-lapsed. Radborn went to his knees. Jesse took a handful of hair and yanked him forward so that he was facedown on the floor. He glanced back at Simpson.

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

“I played baseball,” Jesse said. “Cuff him, Dan-o.”

Simpson handcuffed Radborn. With help from the bouncer they got Radborn on his feet and stumbled him to the squad car and strapped him in. He’d been drinking all day. It was having its effect. He was half conscious, rocking in the backseat. He was so big that the squad car rocked with him. He bent forward suddenly against the seat belt and vomited. Some of the crowd had followed them outside. They applauded.

The two cops and the bouncer looked in at him for a moment without saying anything.

“Race Week,” the bouncer said.

“And it’s only the first day,” Jesse said.

Simpson got in to drive and Jesse sat up front beside him. They put the front windows down. Jesse looked back through the thick wire screening that separated them from Radborn in the backseat. As he looked, Radford threw up again.

“One of the perks of being chief,” Jesse said, “is you don’t have to clean the patrol car.”

“That be your driver’s job?” Simpson said.

“Yes,” Jesse said. “I believe so.”

6

2

J enn sat with Jesse outside, at a table on the deck of the Gray Gull restaurant, where

they could look at the harbor.

“Is it always like this during Race Week?” Jenn said.

“Has been since I arrived,” Jesse said.

“Just to watch a bunch of sailboats race?”

“And drink and eat and fornicate,” Jesse said, “and maybe snort a little something, bet some money. Maybe make a deal with somebody important. Big boats start arriving a month before. Lot of people come here for Race Week and never see a race.”

He was drinking iced tea. She had a daiquiri. She was R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

wearing Oakley wraparounds. The veranda looked east at the harbor, and the sun was very low in the west and entirely screened from them by the body of the restaurant. Jenn was a weather girl on a Boston television station and people occasionally recognized her. The glasses didn’t prevent that, and, he thought, that wasn’t why she wore them. She saw him looking at her and put her hand on top of his across the table.

“How we doing?” she said.

“So far, so good,” Jesse said.

The harbor was dense with racing sailboats, and beyond, in the deeper water near the point where the harbor opened onto the limitless ocean, the big yachts lay at anchor.

“Do they race those big ones?” Jenn said.

“Some of them,” Jesse said. “At the end of Race Week some of the yachts race from here to Virginia Beach. I’m told that the racing yachts are different than the yachts you just sail around in, but I’m not a seagoing guy, and I can’t tell you what the difference is.”

The waitress brought lobster salad for each of them and a glass of white wine for Jenn.

“It came in on the news wire that you had to arrest that huge football player yesterday,” Jenn said. “One of the sports guys told me.”

“He was drunk at the Dory,” Jesse said. “Broke the bouncer’s nose.”

“The sports guy said you subdued him with a nightstick.”

“I borrowed Suit’s,” Jesse said.

8

S E A C H A N G E

“I was with, what’s his name, Redford?”

“Radborn,” Jesse said.

“I was with Radborn at a charity thing,” Jenn said. “He’s enormous. Weren’t you intimidated? Even a little?”

“The bigger they are . . .” Jesse said.

“Oh God,” Jenn said. “Not that.”

Jesse smiled. “How about, ‘it’s not the size of the dog in the fight . . .’?”

“I’m serious. It interests me. You interest me.”

“If you’ve been a cop,” Jesse said, “especially a big city cop, like I was, after awhile you sort of expect to handle it.”

“But he’s twice your size.”

“It’s not really about the other guy,” Jesse said. “It’s about yourself.”

“So what’s your secret?”

Jesse grinned.

“Usually it’s backup.”

“And this time?”

“Well, Suit was there, but the guy was out of control and the place was crowded . . .”

“And he gave you attitude,” Jenn said.

“He did. So if you’re going to go, do it quick. You gotta get a guy like Radford right away or you’re going to have to shoot him.”

“What did you do?”

“I hit him in the balls with Suit’s stick.”

“Ouch,” Jenn said. “And that was it?”

“Essentially it was,” Jesse said.

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

“I was talking to the bartender before you arrived,” Jenn said.

“Doc,” Jesse said.

“Yes, he said you didn’t press charges.”

Jesse drank some iced tea, and grinned at her as he put the glass down.

“This morning when he was sober with a deadly hangover, we gave him the choice: district court or clean the squad car.”

“Clean the squad car?”

“He puked in it.”

“Oh yuck,” Jenn said. “So much for dinner.”

“Don’t kid me, you’re about as queasy as a buzzard.”

“But much cuter,” Jenn said. “Did he do it?”

“He did,” Jesse said. “And we let him walk.”

“With his hangover,” Jenn said.

“Awful one, as far as I could tell.”

“You would know about those,” Jenn said.

“I would.”

They ate their lobster salad for a time. It was mediocre.

Jesse always thought the food at the Gray Gull was mediocre, but it was a handy place, and friendly, and had a great view of the harbor on a summer night sitting on the deck.

Jesse didn’t care much what he ate anyway.

When they finished supper they walked along the water-front for a stretch. The street were full of people, many of them drunk, some of them raucous. Jesse seemed not to notice them.

“I brought my stuff,” Jenn said.

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S E A C H A N G E

“For an overnight?”

“Yes,” Jenn said. “I’m not on air until tomorrow after -

noon.”

“You bring it in the house?”

“Yes, I unpacked in the bedroom.”

“That sounds promising,” Jesse said.

“It is promising, but I need to walk off my supper first.”

“You never were a love-on-a-full-stomach girl,” Jesse said.

“I like things just right,” Jenn said.

“Sure,” Jesse said.

Away from the wharf the street life grew sparse. No more bars and restaurants, simply the old houses pressed up against the sidewalks. There were narrow streets, and brick sidewalks, bird’s-eye glass windows, weathered siding, and widow’s walks and weathervanes. It was dark and there weren’t many streetlights. Away from the Race Week crowds, the old town was dim and European. Jenn took Jesse’s hand as they walked.

“This time,” Jenn said, “things might be just right.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said. “If we’re careful.”

The street-side windows were lighted in many of the homes, and people sat, watching television, or reading something, or talking with someone, or drinking alone, behind the drawn curtains only inches away from Jesse and Jenn as they walked.

“How long since you’ve had a drink, Jesse?”

“Ten months and thirteen days,” Jesse said.

“Miss it?”

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“Yes.”

“Maybe, in time, you’ll get to where you can have a drink occasionally,” Jenn said. “You know, socially.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“Maybe in awhile you and I can be more than, you know, one day at a time.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

In this neighborhood fewer lights were on. The streets seemed darker. Their footsteps were very clear in the silent sea-smelling air.

“You’ve slept with a lot of women, since we got divorced,”

Jenn said.

Jesse smiled in the darkness.

“No such thing as too many,” he said.

“There certainly is,” Jenn said, “and you know it.”

“I do know it.”

“There’s been a lot of men,” Jenn said. “For me.”

“Yes.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Jesse shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“Not until I understand it more.”

Jenn nodded.

“Do you still talk to Dix?”

“Sometimes.”

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S E A C H A N G E

“Do you talk about that?”

“Sometimes,” Jesse said. “The women in my life bother you?”

“Not very much,” Jenn said. “Mostly I don’t think about them.”

In their walk they had made a slow loop along the water-front, up into the town, and back around down to the wa-terfront again to Jesse’s condominium. They stopped at Jesse’s front steps.

“Well,” Jenn said. “You are the man in my life now.”

“Yes,” Jesse said.

“You want to neck on the porch for a while?” Jenn said.

“Or go right on in and get serious?”

Jesse put his arms around her.

“No hurry,” he said.

“I love that in a man,” Jenn whispered, and put her face up and kissed him.

1 3

3

T he body moved gently, facedown, against the town dock, in the dark faintly oily water, among the broken crab shells, dead fish and fragments of Styrofoam which seemed to survive all adversity. It tossed easily on the small rounded swells of a powerboat wake. The seagulls were interested in the body, and below Jesse could see the shimmer of small fish.

Simpson said, “A woman, I think, wearing a dress.”

“Not proof positive, but we’ll assume,” Jesse said.

They looked at her as she eddied in the seaweed, and the body turned slightly so that the feet swung toward shore.

“Gotta get her out,” Jesse said.

S E A C H A N G E

“She been in awhile,” Simpson said. “You can see the bloat from here.”

“Get a tarp,” Jesse said, “and you and Arthur and Peter Perkins get her up on the dock and put the tarp over her.

Don’t want the sailors all puking before the race.”

“What about the cops?” Simpson said.

“Try not to,” Jesse said. “Bad for the department image.”

Jesse had seen enough floaters, and he had no need to see another one. Nor smell one. He looked at the small racing boats forming up and heading out to the harbor mouth where they would race off Stiles Island. Out by the end of Stiles Island he could see whitecaps. Be some bumpy races today. Behind him the coroner’s wagon arrived and the ME’s people got out a gurney and wheeled it down the ramp to the dock. One of them, a woman, squatted on her heels over the body and pulled back the canvas. Jesse saw all three of his cops look away. He smiled. The ME woman didn’t seem bothered, holding up the tarp, inspecting the body. When she was through she put the tarp back and jerked her thumb toward the wagon and they got the body on the gurney, and wheeled it up to the truck. A small crowd, mostly teenaged kids, watched the process. Occasionally one of them would giggle nervously.

“Anything interesting,” Jesse said to the woman.

“Need to get her on the table,” she said. “She’s too big a mess to tell much here.”

“ID?” Jesse said.

“Not yet.”

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“She in the water long?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “Looks like the crabs been at her.”

“Crabs?”

“Un-huh.”

“Means she was on the bottom,” Jesse said.

“Or at the water’s edge.”

Jesse nodded. “Anything else?” he said.

She shook her head.

“We’ll know more after we get her into the shop,” she said.

“Mind if I send my evidence specialist along with you?”

Jesse said.

“Hell no,” the woman smiled, “we’ll show him some stuff.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Peter Perkins said.

Simpson watched the van pull away. He was very fair, with a round face and pink cheeks. Now there was no pink.

“You see something like that,” Simpson said, “chewed up, full of bloat, and stinking, makes you wonder about life and death, you know?”

Jesse nodded.

“I mean,” Simpson said, “it’s hard to imagine something like that going to heaven.”

“The body don’t go, anyway,” Arthur said.

“Yeah, I know.”

The three men didn’t say anything.

“You ever think about stuff like that, Jesse?” Simpson said.

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Jesse nodded.

“So whaddya think?”

Jesse smiled.

“I think I don’t know,” he said.

“That’s it?” Simpson said.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “I don’t know doesn’t mean there’s no afterlife. Doesn’t mean there is. Means, I don’t know. ”

“That enough for you, Jesse?”

“Kind of has to be. Universe is too big and complicated for me to understand.”

“That’s where faith comes in,” Arthur said.

“If it can,” Jesse said.

“Can for me,” Arthur said.

Jesse nodded.

“Whatever works,” he said. “Let’s see if we can find out who our floater was.”

1 7

4

J esse was leaning on the front desk in Paradise Police Headquarters reading the ME’s report on the floater. Molly was working

the phones. It was only 8:40 in the morning and the phones were quiet.

“You think she came off one of the yachts?” Molly said.

Jesse smiled. Molly always looked too small for the gun belt. In fact there wasn’t all that much that Molly was too small for. She was dark-haired and cute, full of curiosity and absolute resolve.

“Only if they got here before Race Week,” Jesse said. “ME

says she’s been in the water awhile.”

S E A C H A N G E

“Any signs of trauma?”

“Nope, but it’s pretty hard to tell. Crab, ah, markings indicate she was probably on the bottom, which might suggest she was weighted, and decomposition, tidal movement, whatever, pulled her loose and sent her up. Or she could just have been in shallow water.”

“Could be lobster markings,” Molly said.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Jesse said. “Next time I’m ordering dinner at the Gray Gull.”

He heard himself say Gray Gull the way locals did, as if it were one word, with the stress on gray, not gull. I been here awhile, Jesse thought. I’m beginning to be local.

“It couldn’t be gulls?” Molly said.

“No.”

“How do they know?”

“They know,” Jesse said. “There’s evidence of blunt trauma on her body, but nothing that couldn’t have come from being rolled against rocks by the surf.”

“Oh. Well if she did come off a yacht, it’s strange no one has reported her missing.”

“No one seems to have reported her missing, yacht or no yacht,” Jesse said.

“We got five missing persons in the Northeast that could be her,” Molly said. “Except none of the dental IDs match.”

Jesse wore blue jeans and sneakers and a short-sleeved white police chief shirt, with the badge pinned to the shirt pocket. He carried the snub-nosed .38 that he’d brought with him from L.A. The issue gun, a nine-millimeter semiauto-1 9

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

matic, she knew, was in the right-hand bottom drawer of his desk. His hair was cut short. He was tanned, and, Molly always noticed this about him, while he wasn’t a particularly big man he seemed very strong, as if his center were muscular.

The phone rang and Molly took it and said, “Yes ma’am.

We’ll have someone check right on it.” She wrote nothing down, and when she hung up she took no further action.

“Mrs. Billups?” Jesse said.

Molly nodded.

“Says there’s a man she doesn’t recognize walking past her house. He looks sinister.”

“How many is that so far this month?”

“Four,” Molly said.

“And this year?”

“Oh God,” Molly said, “infinity.”

“Mrs. Billups hasn’t got much else to occupy her,” Jesse said. “Who’s on patrol?”

“Suit.”

“Have him drive slowly past her house,” Jesse said.

“There’s nothing there, Jesse.”

“I know, and you know. But Mrs. Billups doesn’t know.”

“You are awful tenderhearted,” Molly said, “for a guy who banged Carl Radborn in the balls with a stick.”

“She’ll peek out the window when she sees the patrol car,” Jesse said. “Have Suit give her a little wave. Maybe a thumbs-up.”

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Molly shook her head in slow disapproval, but she turned as she did so, and called Simpson on the radio.

“Go do another Mrs. Billups drive-by,” she said.

“Oh shit, Molly, that old biddy sees things every day.”

Jesse leaned into the microphone.

He said, “Serve and protect, Suit.”

There was silence for a minute, then Simpson said, “Aye, aye, skipper.”

Jesse went into the squad room in back and got two coffees and brought one in for Molly.

“If you’re missing from a town or a city, people might not notice right away,” Jesse said. “But a yacht?”

“So she’s probably not off one of the yachts.”

“Or, if she is, people don’t wish it known,” Jesse said.

“Which would mean that someone murdered her.”

“Or that someone doesn’t want anyone to know she was on the yacht.”

Molly nodded.

“Like somebody else’s wife,” she said.

“Or a hooker, or a juror in a pending civil trial, or something neither of us can think of.”

“There’s nothing neither of us can think of,” Molly said.

“Except who the floater is.”

“ME can’t give you anything?”

“Sure they can,” Jesse said.

He looked at the ME’s initial report.

“Floater was about thirty-five. Alive she was about five-2 1

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seven, probably weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. Brown eyes, natural brunette. She was wearing an expensive dress and silk underwear when she died. She had been drinking.

She showed traces of cocaine, and she was a smoker. Her breasts had been enhanced. She was alive when she went in the water. She was not a virgin.”

“No kidding.”

“Just running down the list, Moll,” Jesse said. “She had never had children.”

“We could start checking with plastic surgeons,” Molly said. “See if any enhancement patients are missing.”

“If it were done by a plastic surgeon,” Jesse said. “Any MD can do this kind of surgery.”

“But most intelligent people wouldn’t go to an allergist or somebody,” Molly said. “Would you?”

“For breast enhancement?” Jesse said.

“You know what I mean,” Molly said.

Another call came in. Molly answered and listened and wrote down an address.

“Okay, Mr. Bradley,” she said. “I’ll have an officer there in a few minutes. Call back if there’s any problem. And stay away from the animal.”

“Rabid animal?” Jesse said.

“Skunk. Guy working on a roof up on Sterling Circle says it’s staggering and walking in circles in the street. He was on his cell phone.”

“Suit should have saved Mrs. Billups by now. Have him go up and shoot the skunk.”

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“What if it’s not really rabid?” Molly said.

“Family can sue us.”

Molly called Simpson. When she was through she turned back to Jesse.

“Do people like urologists really do plastic surgery?”

“They may legally do so,” Jesse said. “Some people don’t know one doctor from another. In the white coat they all look the same.”

“A woman wearing silk underwear would know,” Molly said.

Jesse grinned.

“Depends who bought the underwear,” he said.

“Still, odds are it would be a plastic surgeon. I can make some calls.”

“Sure,” Jesse said. “If we’re lucky, maybe she did them around here.”

“Of course,” Molly said. “She could have driven here from Grand Junction, Colorado, and parked on the Neck someplace and jumped in.”

“Except we haven’t found any abandoned vehicles,” Jesse said.

“Or someone was with her and threw her in and drove away.”

“Or she’s a space alien,” Jesse said.

“Or, just shut up,” Molly said.

“I am the chief law enforcement officer of Paradise, Massachusetts,” Jesse said. “And your chief. Surely you can be more respectful than that.”

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“Of course,” Molly said. “I’m sorry . . . shut up, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“Are they all through with her?” Molly said.

“The coroner? No, this is a preliminary report. They’re still poking around.”

“Ick,” Molly said.

“Cops don’t say ‘ick.’ ”

Molly laughed and leaned over the desk and kissed Jesse on the forehead.

“Do cops do that?” Molly said.

“Oh yeah,” Jesse said, “most of them.”

The phone rang again and Molly answered, “Paradise Police,” while Jesse took the coroner’s report back to his office.

2 4

5

D ix always looked so clean, Jesse thought. His white shirts were always brilliant white.

His head gleamed as if he had just shaved it, and his face glistened with aftershave.

“Jenn asked me the other day if it bothered me about her being with other men.”

Dix nodded. He sat with his elbows on the arms of his chair, his hands clasped chest high. They were big square competent hands.

“I said it did.”

“You wanna talk about that?” Dix said.

“Yes.”

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

“Whaddya want to say?”

“I, well, I mean I hate it,” Jesse said. “But that doesn’t seem too weird.”

“Hate it that she was with other men?”

“Them having sex,” Jesse said.

Dix nodded. Neither of them said anything. Dix’s desk was completely empty except for a phone and a calendar pad.

His degrees were on the wall, and there was a couch, which Jesse had never used, against the wall behind him.

“Does it bother you to think of them talking intimately, laughing together, sharing a joke, enjoying a meal, watching a ball game?”

“Sure. Isn’t it, to use a nice shrink word, appropriate, to be jealous when your wife’s cheating on you?” Jesse said.

“It is certainly human,” Dix said. “Is it with the same in-tensity that you think of her having sex?”

“No.”

“Is she cheating on you now?”

“No. Right now we’re good.”

“So?” Dix said.

Jesse started to speak and stopped and sat. Dix was quiet.

“I can’t seem to let it go,” Jesse said.

“What part can’t you let go of?” Dix said.

“Her having sex. I think about it. I imagine it. I can’t get rid of it when I’m with her.”

Dix waited, his head cocked slightly. Jesse was staring at his hands, which were clasped in front of him. After a time he looked up at Dix.

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“It’s like, almost, like I maybe don’t want to let it go.”

Dix’s face changed just enough for Jesse to see that he approved of the direction the conversation was taking.

“What the hell do I get out of it?” Jesse said.

“Something,” Dix said. “Or you’d let it go.”

“Yes.”

Again they were silent. The hushed whir of the air conditioning was the only sound in the office. It was hard to imagine Dix being hot, or tired, or puzzled, Jesse thought. No one could put up with silence like Dix could. It was like his natural element. Jesse felt winded. He took in another big breath.

“You went out with a lot of other women after your separation and divorce,” Dix said.

“Sure.”

“Did you imagine them with other men?”

“Not really,” Jesse said. “I love Jenn. I liked everyone I slept with. But I never loved them the way I love Jenn.”

“Therefore?” Dix said.

“Therefore I didn’t care who else they’d slept with,” Jesse said.

“Excuse the cliché,” Dix said. “But isn’t that more about you, about how you felt, than it is about Jenn or the other women?”

Jesse looked blankly at Dix for a moment.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” Jesse said.

“You’re human,” Dix said. “A common ailment.”

2 7

6

W hen Jesse got back to the station Jenn was in his office, sitting at his desk with the swivel chair tilted back, her legs

crossed under her short skirt, showing a lot of thigh. Jesse felt the little pinch of desire in his stomach. He always felt it when he saw her. It was so consistently a part of being with her that he just thought of it as part of the nature of things.

He had always assumed it was what everyone felt when they looked at the person they loved. Why worry about it now?

Was he looking for something to worry about?

“Oh Jesse,” she said. “I have great news. They’re doing an S E A C H A N G E

hour-long special at the station on Race Week. And I’m going to be the on-camera host and do the voiceover, too.”

“Wow,” Jesse said.

“It’s not just some feature for the six o’clock news,” she said. “It’s a full-hour feature and the company plans to syn-dicate it.”

“That’s great, Jenn.”

“I’ll be here every day with the crew. I’ll have input. Jesse, this is a really big break for me. We’re owned by Allied Broadcasting, and they have stations in most of the major markets.”

Jesse went around the desk and bent over and kissed her.

She put her arms around his neck, kept her mouth pressed against his and let him pull her from the chair when he straightened up. They held the kiss a long time. When they broke, Jesse exhaled audibly.

“When’s it being broadcast?” he said.

“Well, in syndication it varies by market. But we’re hoping to show it next year around Race Week,” Jenn said.

Jenn kept her arms around his neck and her body pressed against him.

“So you have a whole year to edit and do whatever you do,” Jesse said.

“Yes. Lay in the narration, the music track, enhance the pictures, spruce up the sound. A lot of work, and it gives you an idea of how much hope they have for this, that they’d give us so much time.”

2 9

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

“A year,” Jesse said.

He felt the press of her thighs against him, of her breasts.

He felt the miasmic press of emotion that he always felt.

“Not really a year. They need it finished in December for the syndication deal.”

“Still a lot better than editing this afternoon for on air tonight,” Jesse said.

They let go of each other.

“Here,” Jenn said. “Sit in your chair. I just couldn’t wait to tell.”

Jesse sat behind his desk. Jenn took a chair on the other side.

“You need a place to stay up here?” Jesse said.

“When we worked late, I was hoping to bunk in with you.”

“That’ll work,” Jesse said.

Here was something to worry about.

“I know you’re not so sure you want to live together full time,” Jenn said.

“I’m not sure what I want,” Jesse said. “Except you . . .

exclusively.”

She nodded.

“Well, I won’t be here every night,” Jenn said.

“One night at a time,” Jesse said, and smiled. “They know you used to be married to the chief of police?”

“I think so. Truth is, I think it’s one reason I got the job.

They figure it’ll give me extra access. I mean I’m a fucking weather girl, you know?”

3 0

S E A C H A N G E

“People like you, Jenn.”

“As long as you do,” Jenn said.

“I love you.”

“Does that mean you really, really like me?”

“I think so,” Jesse said.

3 1

7

Arthur Angstrom came into Jesse’s office with a leathery gray-haired man that Jesse didn’t know.

“This is Mr. Guilfoyle,” Arthur said. “Runs a small boat rental operation out of Ned’s Cove. Says one of his boats is missing. Don’t seem like much, except for that floater, so . . .” He shrugged.

Jesse nodded.

“Thanks, Arthur,” Jesse said. “Have a seat, Mr. Guilfoyle.

Tell me about your boat.”

“A little day sailor, twelve feet long. Marconi rigged, no jib. Centerboard.”

S E A C H A N G E

Jesse nodded as if he understood, or cared.

“And when did it go missing.”

“Woman rented it from me last month,” Guilfoyle said.

“Never returned it.”

“How long did she rent it for?”

“Just the day. These boats sleep no one, you know? Nobody rents them overnight.”

“Do you have the woman’s name?” Jesse said.

“Sure,” Guilfoyle said. “I don’t pass these things out like samples. I got a credit card and a driver’s license. But the thing is, my boat is down in Nelson’s place. In among the other boats.

Nelson didn’t even know he had it, until one of the kids that works for him tried to put one of his own boats away and there was a boat in the slot. He recognized my ID number on the bow and called me. For crissake, she didn’t even clean it out.”

“What was in it?”

“Trash. Half a loaf of bread, some plastic cups, paper napkins all soaking wet, some moldy cheese, couple apple cores, empty wine bottle, some rotten grapes. Didn’t even put it in the damn bag.”

“Where was the bag from?”

“Ranch Market, in town. Like somebody bought stuff for a picnic.”

“Just lying on the floor of the boat,” Jesse said.

“Yeah.”

“Who’s Nelson,” Jesse said.

“Paradise Rentals,” Guilfoyle said. “He’s the big guy in the business, right over here off the town wharf.”

3 3

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

Jesse nodded.

“I know the place. You think she made a mistake, took it back to the wrong place?”

“How do you do that?” Guilfoyle said.

He wore a pink striped shirt and white duck trousers with wide red suspenders. The shirt was unbuttoned over his chest, as if he were proud of the gray hair.

“I mean he’s here, I’m way the hell down the other end of the harbor. He’s got a hundred boats. I got fifteen. He’s short and fat.”

“And you look like Cesar Romero,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, right. So how does somebody make that kind of mistake.”

“Hard to figure,” Jesse said.

“Plus I got her damn driver’s license. I always hold it until they bring the boat back.”

“You have that with you?” Jesse said.

“Yeah. The credit card slip and her license.”

Guilfoyle took a brown envelope out of his hip pocket and put it on the desk in front of Jesse.

“Kid’s sailing the boat over to my place. I got to charge her credit card for all the time it’s been gone, you know.”

“That’ll be up to you and the credit card company,” Jesse said. “I’ll need to hang on to the license for a few days.”

“What if they want some kind of proof ?”

“I’ll make it available,” Jesse said. “I just want to see what happened to the woman.”

“Something happened?”

3 4

S E A C H A N G E

“Yep.”

“I don’t want to get involved in no trouble,” Guilfoyle said.

“Don’t blame you,” Jesse said.

“But you think I might?”

“Not unless you’re what happened to her,” Jesse said.

“It’s that dead girl they found floating down by the wharf.”

“Don’t know if it is or not,” Jesse said.

“But if you look at the picture on her driver’s license . . .”

Guilfoyle paused.

Jesse was shaking his head.

“Oh,” Guilfoyle said.

“Thanks for coming in, Mr. Guilfoyle.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want no trouble over this. I just want to get paid for the time my boat was missing.”

“And I wish you well on that,” Jesse said.

“I’m going to talk with a lawyer.”

“That’ll be swell,” Jesse said.

Guilfoyle looked at him. Jesse looked back.

“Don’t lose that license, either,” Guilfoyle said.

“Okay,” Jesse said.

Guilfoyle lingered.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Jesse said.

Guilfoyle hesitated another moment, then went.

3 5

8

I t was a Florida driver’s license. The photo was not flattering. But it showed that she was blond and thirtyish. Kind of cheap-looking, Jesse thought, and smiled. It was something his mother would have said. What the hell does it even mean? Mostly a matter of hair and makeup, probably. Her name was Florence E.

Horvath. Her address was in Fort Lauderdale. Her date of birth was February 13, 1970. Jesse took the license and credit card to the copy machine, made a copy of each and took the copies to the front desk and gave them to Molly.

“Call Fort Lauderdale,” Jesse said. “Tell them we have a body that might be this woman, see what they got on her, or S E A C H A N G E

what they can get. Dental records would be good. Then call the bank that issued this credit card and see what you can get—history of purchases this month and so forth.”

“I know you’ll explain this to me later,” Molly said.

“Being chief means never having to explain,” Jesse said.

“Might mean making your own coffee every morning, too,” Molly said.

“I’ll explain this to you later,” Jesse said.

Molly turned to the switchboard. Jesse went back to his office and looked in the phone book. There was only one Horvath listed in Paradise. He called. There was no one there named Florence, nor did they know anyone named Florence. He called the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, waded through a long menu of options, finally got someone in enforcement and arranged to have some blowups of Florence Horvath’s driver’s license photograph sent to Paradise. The he got up and went into the squad room where Peter Perkins was drinking a Diet Pepsi and reading the Globe sports section.

“You get through with the sports page,” Jesse said, “see if you can scan this license picture into the computer and send it over to Forensics. Ask them if it could be the floater.”

“Condition of the body,” Perkins said, “I don’t think they can tell much.”

“Ask them if anything here rules Florence out.”

“Okay, Jess,” Perkins said and folded the paper and put it on the conference table. “You’re the chief.”

“Yes I am,” Jesse said.

3 7

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

In the hall outside the squad room he saw Suitcase Simpson come in herding three college-aged kids, all of whom were drunk.

“I want a lawyah,” a blond kid kept saying. “I got right to a lawyah.”

“What’s up,” Jesse said. “A riot in day care?”

“They were pissing in the watering trough in the town common,” Simpson said.

“Put them in a cell,” Jesse said, “and call their parents to come get them.”

One of the kids was wearing plaid shorts and a muscle shirt he was too skinny to sustain.

“What charge,” he said. “Can’t lock us with no charge.”

“Inadequate potty training,” Jesse said. “Go on down there with Officer Simpson, and when you get sick try to puke in the hopper.”

Simpson herded them ahead of him toward the cell corridor. They were saying they weren’t drunk. There was no need to call their parents. They were being picked on for being kids. This was harassment. There was a mention of police brutality, then the door to the cell corridor closed and shut it off.

As Jesse walked past the desk, Molly said, “Fort Lauderdale says they’ll send a patrol car over to check on the address, and they’ll see what they can find on her. Like who her dentist is, or was. Bank will send us a copy of her last statement, and a printout of the credit card charges for the period since the statement.”

3 8

S E A C H A N G E

“Thank you,” Jesse said. “You ever piss in a watering trough?”

“That what Suit busted them for?”

“Yep.”

“I am a mother and a wife, and an Irish Catholic,” Molly said. “I don’t piss at all.”

3 9

9

T hey were eating pepper and mushroom pizza at the little table on Jesse’s balcony, with the strong salt sea smell of the harbor drifting pleasantly around them on the soft July air. Jenn had a glass of red wine. Jesse was drinking a Coke.

“When we’re together,” Jesse said, “what do you feel coming from me.”

“I feel strong vibes that I should undress and lie down,”

Jenn said.

“Really?”

Jenn was about to bite the point off a pizza slice. She stopped and looked at him with the pizza poised in front of her.

S E A C H A N G E

“You’re serious, aren’t you,” she said.

“Yes.”

Jenn put the pizza slice back on the plate.

“Well, I . . . you know I don’t think much about stuff like that,” she said.

“I been talking with Dix about it,” Jesse said. “I need help with it.”

“Well, I mean, I know you love me.”

“Yes.”

“And I love you,” Jenn said.

“Perfect,” Jesse said.

“We’ve been together for a long time,” Jenn said.

“Sort of,” Jesse said.

“I mean, even at our worst and most separate we were connected.”

“Yes,” Jesse said.

“And we are more than two people who fuck.”

“Yes,” Jesse said.

“Which,” Jenn said, “is much better than being two people who don’t.”

“So you don’t mind about the undressing and lying down.”

“I like it,” Jenn said.

“And you don’t feel objectified.”

“Ob—what?” Jenn said. “Christ, you’re getting like whats-isname, Hamlet. You think too much. We are much more than the damn missionary position and we both know it.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with the missionary position,” Jesse said.

4 1

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

“A little unimaginative, maybe,” Jenn said.

In the harbor there were lights showing on the bigger boats moored farther out. Cocktail on the deck, supper cook-ing in the galley, the running lights of a small tender boat creeping soundlessly across the black water like a firefly. Jesse drank some Coke. Caffeine. Any stimulus is better than none.

“Dix and I talked about how sexually charged our relationship is,” Jesse said.

“And that’s a bad thing?” Jenn said.

She poured herself a half glass more of red wine.

“Maybe you’re supposed to sexualize our relationship.

Ever think about that, Hamlet boy? Maybe it has to do with you loving me more than the spoken word can tell.”

“Well,” Jesse said, “there’s that.”

4 2

10

H ealy hiked his pants up at the knee when he sat, to keep the crease. He had on a

tan poplin suit and a coffee-colored snap-brim straw hat with a wide brown headband. His plain-toed cordovan shoes gleamed with polish.

“On my way home,” Healy said. “Thought I’d stop in, see what’s happening with your floater.”

Jesse pointed over his shoulder at the photo.

“That her?” Healy said.

A blowup of Florence Horvath’s driver’s license was stuck on a cork board to the left of the window behind Jesse’s desk.

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

“That’s her, Captain,” Jesse said. “Florence Horvath, thirty-four years old, address in Fort Lauderdale. She had her teeth cleaned a month ago and charged it on her credit card. We called the dentist, got the dental records, forensic people compared them.”

“You’re lucky,” Healy said. “Lot of floaters are such a mess we never do figure out who they are.”

“Got nothing to do with luck,” Jesse said.

“Right,” Healy said. “It was crack police work that some guy walked in and handed you her driver’s license and credit card.”

“And,” Jesse said, “we didn’t lose them.”

“Got me there,” Healy said. “Now that you know who she is, do you know why she’s up here?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m only a state police captain,” Healy said, “not a chief of police, like you, but since you found her in the water and since this is Race Week, could there be a connection?”

“I got a couple of people checking the yachts in the harbor, see if any of them are out of Fort Lauderdale.”

“Or even docked there in the last three weeks,” Healy said.

“If she came on a yacht.”

“If,” Healy said. “How about the airlines?”

“No Florence Horvath on any of them.”

“Not just from Florida,” Healy said.

“From anywhere,” Jesse said.

“Molly been working her ass off,” Healy said. “How about a car.”

4 4

S E A C H A N G E

“Nope.”

“Rental car?”

“None of the big agencies, at least, have her in the computer,” Jesse said. “We haven’t gotten to the Rent-a-Lemon yet.”

“Nothing on her credit card to indicate a rental.”

“Could have several credit cards.”

“True.”

“Hotels?” Healy said.

“What is this,” Jesse said, “a quiz?”

“Trying to learn police work,” Healy said.

“She’s not registered in any of the area hotels.”

“Including Boston?”

“Including Boston.”

“Anybody in town she might be visiting?” Healy said.

“One family named Horvath. I called them. They never heard of her.”

“Doesn’t mean they didn’t kill her.”

“We don’t know if anyone killed her,” Jesse said. “Could just as well be an accident for all the forensics we got.”

“Sure,” Healy said. “She fell overboard and drowned and no one noticed.”

“For all we know,” Jesse said, “she fell off the Queen Eliz-abeth on her way to Liverpool and the currents brought her in.”

“You think so?” Healy said.

“No,” Jesse said.

“Usually when someone is missing for the length of time 4 5

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

she was in the water,” Healy said, “somebody wonders where she is.”

“That’s true whether it’s murder or not,” Jesse said.

“But if she were traveling, and the only person who knew her was the person she was traveling with, and that person killed her . . .” Healy rolled his hand.

Jesse leaned back in his swivel chair and grinned at Healy.

“It was a quiz, and we both aced it,” Jesse said. “Sure, I’m with you. I think she was murdered.”

“But you have no proof,” Healy said.

“Hell no,” Jesse said. “Not yet.”

“She might have arrived by bus,” Healy said.

“Yeah, and she might have hitchhiked. I got twelve people in this department including me. We’re dancing as fast as we can dance.”

Healy smiled.

“You got a homicide. I’m the commanding officer of the state homicide unit.”

“So you’re offering to help?”

“I am.”

“Never too big to give the little guy a hand,” Jesse said.

“Exactly,” Healy said.

“Just as long as we’re clear on whose case it is.”

“It belongs to all of us,” Healy said, “who love truth and justice.”

“Like hell,” Jesse said. “It belongs to me.”

“Oh,” Healy said. He shrugged. “Okay.”

4 6

11

J esse was on the phone to a detective in Fort Lauderdale named Kelly Cruz.

“Your floater was a woman of means,”

Kelly Cruz said.

“Really?”

“Un-huh, family owns a bunch of health food markets all over the South. Plum and Partridge.”

“Cute,” Jesse said.

“It’s even cuter,” Kelly Cruz said. “Family name is Plum.”

“Not Horvath,” Jesse said.

“Nope, that’s a married name,” Kelly Cruz said. “She’s had several.”

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

“You know the husbands?” Jesse said.

“Not yet,” Kelly Cruz said. “But she was divorced most recently from a guy named Lawton Horvath.”

“What do you know about Lawton?”

“White, blond hair, even tan, slim, good at golf and tennis, pretty good at bridge, no visible means of support.”

“When’s the last time Lawton saw her?” Jesse said.

“When they got divorced. He got the house and a cash settlement. She moved here.”

“Worked out nicely for Lawton,” Jesse said. “He with anyone now?”

He could hear the laughter in Kelly Cruz’s voice.

“Attractive young heiress, recently divorced, with a thing for older men,” she said.

“We may have stumbled across his means of support,”

Jesse said.

“We’re law officers,” Kelly Cruz said. “We’re probably too suspicious.”

“What else you know about Florence?”

“Soon as she moved to Fort Lauderdale she joined the East Bay Yacht Club,” Kelly Cruz said. “Started hanging out at the bar there. Bartender says she was making a lot of friends fast.”

“Male friends?”

“Yep.”

“Got any names?”

“Not yet, you know, it’s not really our case,” Kelly Cruz said. “I’m the only one working it.”

4 8

S E A C H A N G E

“Understand,” Jesse said.

“I found something sort of interesting when I tossed her condo. I’ll FedEx it to you, you gimme a FedEx number.”

“Tight budget in Fort Lauderdale,” Jesse said.

“Like I say, it’s not our case.”

Jesse gave her the Federal Express number.

“What are you going to send me?” he said.

“Videotape. Florence and two guys having sex together.”

“Amateur?” Jesse said.

“Far as I can tell. She’s having sex with both of them at the same time,” Kelly Cruz said. “Looks uncomfortable as hell to me but she seemed happy with it. Kept turning to smile into the camera. Sort of proud.”

“As well she should be,” Jesse said. “You got anything else?”

“I got a call into her family but so far nothing back. I’m working on the earlier husbands, but so far no names. She used to live in Boca. I’ll check around up there. Not too many people knew much about her around here.”

“It’s ten or fifteen miles, isn’t it?” Jesse said. “You sure the budget will stand it?”

“Good, be a northern wiseass,” Kelly Cruz said. “It encourages us down here in the swamps.”

“Just a little light-hearted banter,” Jesse said.

“Is that what it was,” Kelly Cruz said. “You hotshots learn anything up there?”

“We’re in the middle of a series of yacht races up here,”

Jesse said. “Race Week.”

4 9

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

“Oh boy,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Three of the yachts are out of Fort Lauderdale,” Jesse said.

“Hot damn,” Kelly Cruz said. “I’m only a detective for five years, but that might be a clue.”

“Might be,” Jesse said. “They are owned by the following, you got a pencil?”

“I’m ready.”

“Thomas Ralston,” Jesse said. “Allan Pinkton. Harold Berger.”

“Addresses?”

“All in Fort Lauderdale,” Jesse said and read them off.

“Never heard of any of them,” Kelly Cruz said. “But they probably never heard of me, either. I’ll check them out. They may not be home, of course, they may be up there taking part in the excitement.”

“You seem negative, Detective Cruz,” Jesse said, “about yacht racing.”

“Don’t mean to,” Kelly Cruz said. “Must be at least as exciting as watching a miniature golf match.”

Jesse was silent for a moment.

“Well, no,” Jesse said slowly. “It’s not that much fun.”

5 0

12

C hannel 3 Action News set up downtown in Paradise, in the parking lot behind the Ranch Market. There was an equipment

truck, and an air-conditioned mobile home to house production, wardrobe, and makeup and Jenn. Jenn had a small dressing room in it, with her own bathroom. A maze of hookups ran around the trailer and across the parking lot.

“I can even take a shower,” Jenn said.

“Always wise,” Jesse said.

A stocky strong-looking woman came in without knock-ing. She had short gray hair and Oakley sunglasses and seemed, even standing still, to be in a hurry.

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

“Marty,” Jenn said, “this is my . . . friend Jesse Stone.

He’s the police chief here. Jesse, this is Marty Freeman, my producer.”

“Stone?” Marty said. “Same name as yours.”

“We used to be married,” Jenn said.

“Nice to meet you,” Marty said. “Come on, Jenn, got to use all the light we can.”

Jenn was in full makeup. She kissed Jesse, very carefully, on the mouth, and went out after Marty. Jesse watched as she went away. She had on a dark blue top and white pants, and expensive sneakers. Very yacht-y. The pants fit her well, and Jesse watched her backside twitch as she walked away. He was seeing her sexually again. Was he supposed to? Christ, who wouldn’t see her sexually? He looked around the small dressing room. There was a small closet with several changes of clothes. He could smell her perfume. He knew that when she took a shower and toweled off, she would spray scent in the air and walk into it naked. He wondered how many other men knew that. He imagined them watching her, as he had.

A group of them. Faceless, nameless, somehow triumphant.

Laughing and elbowing each other like players in a bad farce.

She smiled at them. Soon she’d have sex with them. He could hear himself breathing. That’s it, he thought. That’s the bastard. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s not love.

He looked at himself in the mirror. His face looked ordi-nary, the way it always looked. He spoke to the image in the mirror.

“Man,” he heard himself say. “I need a drink.”

5 2

13

E verybody’s in the squad room,” Molly said.

“Alert and ready to examine evidence.”

“Video come in from Fort Lauderdale?”

Jesse said.

“How’d you guess?”

“Male intuition,” Jesse said. “Who’s in the cars?”

“Martin and Friedman,” Molly said. “Not happy.”

“And the other eight members of Paradise’s finest?”

“In the squad room,” Molly said. “Waiting for you. Prob -

ably sent out for popcorn.”

“You want to watch it?”

“I’m a cop,” Molly said. “I need to see it, I’ll see it.”

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

“You don’t need to see it with eight lecherous loud-mouths,” Jesse said. “Stay on the desk. There’s something you need to see, you can watch it alone later.”

Molly was silent for a moment.

“I’m part of the department, Jesse,” Molly said softly. “I don’t want everyone else to know something I don’t know.”

Jesse said, “Somebody has to be on the desk, Moll.”

She nodded. Jesse turned toward the squad room.

“I’ll watch it later,” Molly said.

“Absolutely,” Jesse said. “You can use the VCR in my office.”

Molly was silent for another moment. Then, just as Jesse was opening the door to the squad room, she said, “Thank you.”

Jesse said, “You’re welcome,” and went in.

The cops were gathered at the long table. The VCR and monitor, which were on a small metal cart, had been wheeled into position at the foot of the table. The screen was glow-ing. Jesse’s chair at the head of the table was empty, and in front of it was the padded mailer from Kelly Cruz. All of the cops were drinking coffee and someone had brought a cup for Jesse. He peeled the lid off as he sat down.

“No Jujubes?” Jesse said.

“We was going to get a keg of beer,” Suitcase Simpson said. “But we figured you’d be prudish about it.”

“Remember, the woman in this tape is dead,” Jesse said,

“and she may be the victim of a crime. We are looking at evidence. Try to notice something other than her snatch.”

5 4

S E A C H A N G E

Somebody said, “Yes sir!”

Jesse opened the mailer, took the cassette down to the other end of the table, put it in the VCR, picked up the remote, walked back to his chair, sat down and pointed the remote at the VCR.

“To serve and protect,” he said and clicked play.

There was a naked woman, shot from behind. She was having sex with a man who lay on his back beneath her on a bed, or sofa, or something with a blue-and-yellow stripe. As the camera watched, another man walked into the shot and mounted her.

The cops around the table cheered. Simpson was the youngest of them.

“Jesus,” he said. “Front and back.”

The woman turned, sandwiched between the two men, and smiled widely at the camera. It was clearly Florence Horvath. She was a lot better-looking than her license photo.

Jesse smiled to himself without pleasure, Or any other time I’ve seen her. Clearly she wanted to be recognized. She kept looking back at the camera as she enjoyed her double penetration, which enjoyment she was at pains to display. Jesse didn’t enjoy it much. I can’t define pornography, he thought.

But I know it when I see it, and pro or amateur, this is it.

After about two minutes’ running time, the cops began to talk. Pornography gets boring quick, Jesse thought.

“Between wives,” Arthur Angstrom said, “I used to date a woman, wanted me to bring a friend. I told her I could never get it up with another guy involved.”

5 5

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

“I heard you couldn’t get it up anyway, Arthur,” Peter Perkins said.

“Give you a list of satisfied customer, you want,” Arthur said.

“Look at the weapon on that guy,” Buddy Hall said.

“Jesus,” Suitcase said, “if that’s a penis, what am I walking around with?”

The film ended after about eight minutes with Florence apparently having an historic orgasm while the cops laughed and bantered. Jesse wondered if the banter covered any dis-comfort. He didn’t enjoy porn very much. But he didn’t mind it much unless it was gross. Jesse had always thought heterosexual anal sex verged on gross. Nothing in Florence’s home movie had changed his mind about that.

“Didn’t see any clues,” Peter Perkins said. “Maybe we should play it more.”

“Did you look at the guys?” Jesse said.

Nobody said anything.

“Okay, we’ll run it again,”Jesse said.

Around the table the cops groaned. Perkins had been kidding. Most of them were bored with it already.

“Look at the guys, this time,” Jesse said. “Maybe we’ll see one again.”

Jesse rewound the tape. And rolled it. The cops watched again, looking at the men. Jesse noticed they were quieter.

Less uncomfortable, maybe. Jesse looked, too. There was nothing in the film to tell him where it was shot. Just a bed-5 6

S E A C H A N G E

room. Or at least a place with a bed. There was a hint of decorative brass. The room looked small. Could be a boat.

When the tape had finished, Jesse said, “Okay, Peter, you’re the evidence specialist. Take the tape and get some head shots made of the guys. May as well get one of Florence, too. It’s better than her license photo.”

“Guys at the lab will love this,” Perkins said.

“Just make sure it comes back,” Jesse said.

“You don’t think they’ll make a dupe?”

“Of course they will,” Jesse said. “But I want the original in our case folder.”

“Yessir.”

Perkins started to remove the tape from the VCR.

“Leave it,” Jesse said. “I’ll give it to you after lunch.”

“Gotta look for more clues, Jesse?”

“Chief Jesse to you, pal. Go relieve Molly on the desk. Tell her I want to see her in my office.”

Perkins saluted and the cops filed out. Jesse took the tape and went in his office. In a moment Molly came in. Jesse put the tape into the office VCR.

“You know how to run this?” Jesse said.

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll start it and leave.”

Molly nodded. Jesse punched up the tape and went out.

He closed the office door behind him and leaned on the wall near it. He smiled to himself. Porn guard.

When Molly came out she said, “That was disgusting.”

5 7

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

“Yes,” Jesse said. “It was.”

“Did the guys like it?”

Jesse shrugged.

“They pretended to. In fact, I think they probably found it a little disgusting, too.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“You going to get head shots made?”

“Peter Perkins is going to take care of it,” Jesse said.

Molly nodded. “Thanks for letting me watch it alone,” she said.

Jesse shrugged.

“You’re a nicer guy than most people know,” Molly said.

Jesse smiled at her. “Let’s not let that get around,” he said.

5 8

14

W hen Jesse went to meet Jenn for lunch she was finishing a long Steadicam walk-and-talk the length of the town pier with the sail-dappled harbor in the background. Jesse walked down and stopped beside Marty the producer. She picked up a pair of earphones that were hanging on the back of a fold-ing chair and handed them to Jesse. He put them on. He could hear Jenn.

“What draws them here,” she was saying. “What brings them from all over the Atlantic coast to converge here . . . in Paradise . . . for Race Week.”

The director who had been staring at the monitor yelled R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“Cut.” And as Jenn looked up at him with her hands on her hips, he yelled, “Keeper.” Jenn nodded as if to say It better be, and came up the dock toward Jesse. He applauded silently as she came. When she reached him, Jenn kissed him.

“I smell Emmy,” Jesse said.

“You smell something,” Jenn said and took his hand. “I’m sick of the Gull. Is there someplace else? Quick? Good?”

“We could walk up to Daisy’s,” Jesse said. “They bake all their own bread.”

“Let’s,” Jenn said.

“So what does draw them?” Jesse said as they walked up Washington Street. “Top-flight police work?”

“Probably that,” Jenn said. “And a full month of booze and sex.”

“Anybody sail?” Jesse said.

“Not in the evening,” Jenn said. “I mean, wow! Like Mardi Gras.”

“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

S E A C H A N G E

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?”

6 1

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

“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.

6 2

S E A C H A N G E

“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?”

6 3

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

“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

S E A C H A N G E

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

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

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.”

6 8

S E A C H A N G E

“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

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

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.”

7 0

S E A C H A N G E

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.

7 1

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

“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.

7 2

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

S E A C H A N G E

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.

7 5

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

“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.

7 6

S E A C H A N G E

“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.”

7 7

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.”

7 9

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

“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

S E A C H A N G E

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.”

8 1

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

“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 . . .”

8 2

S E A C H A N G E

“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.

8 3

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.

8 5

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

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.

8 6

S E A C H A N G E

“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.

8 7

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

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.”

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.

9 1

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

“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?”

Claudia frowned cutely.

“Funny name,” she said, “like it was part of his first name.”

Corliss frowned cutely. Jesse waited.

“Like Coca-Cola,” Corliss said.

“Carlo Coca,” Claudia said.

“C-O-C-A?” Jesse said.

“I guess,” Claudia said.

Both twins looked pleased. Jesse wrote down the name.

“Got an address?” Jesse said.

“Oh,” Claudia said, “I don’t know.”

She looked at Corliss.

“On the beach,” Corliss said.

“Phone?”

They both shrugged. Jesse nodded.

“Well, we’ll find him,” Jesse said.

“He may not remember us,” Corliss said.

Jesse smiled at them.

“Hard not to,” he said.

9 2

S E A C H A N G E

“You can’t tell our parents,” Claudia said.

“They’d have a shit fit,” Corliss said.

“I have no reason to tell your parents,” Jesse said.

“They think we’re still their little baby virgins,” Claudia said.

“How did you hear of Florence’s death?” Jesse said.

“One of our friends called,” Corliss said.

“The friend knew where you were?”

“Not really, she called on our cell phone.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kimmy,” Corliss said.

“Kimmy Young,” Claudia said. “Why?”

“I’m a cop,” Jesse said. “I like to know stuff.”

“We were thinking maybe we should hire some kind of private detective,” Corliss said.

Jesse nodded.

“You know?” Corliss said.

Jesse nodded again.

“I mean this is like a small town,” Claudia said. “You know?”

“I do,” Jesse said.

“So you won’t be like, insulted?” Corliss said.

“No.”

“But we don’t know how to go about it,” Claudia said.

Jesse nodded.

“Talk with Rita Fiore,” Jesse said.

He wrote the name and phone number on a piece of yellow paper and handed it to Claudia.

9 3

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

“Criminal lawyer at a big Boston firm,” Jesse said. “Use my name. I’m sure she can put you in touch with someone.”

“We, ah, forgot your name,” Corliss said.

Jesse took a card from the middle drawer of his desk and handed it to Corliss.

“She’ll be, ah, you know, she won’t talk about us to anyone,” Corliss said.

“Soul of discretion,” Jesse said.

They nodded.

“Are you planning to stay awhile?”

“Until our sister’s killer is brought to justice,” Corliss said.

“Before you leave here this morning, give Molly your address.”

“Is that the policewoman out front?”

Jesse smiled. Molly would bite them if they called her that.

“At the desk,” he said.

“Okay. We got a nice suite at the Four Seasons. With a view.”

“In Boston,” Jesse said.

“Un-huh,” Corliss said.

“Did anything bad happen to Flo before she died?” Claudia said.

“Hard to say.”

“I mean did anybody hurt her?”

“Can’t tell,” Jesse said. “You think someone would?”

9 4

S E A C H A N G E

The twins looked at each other.

“Not really,” Corliss said. “But she ran with a weird crowd sometimes.”

“Names?” Jesse said.

Both twins shook their heads.

“Oh, we don’t know that,” Claudia said.

“We don’t know any of them really,” Corliss said.

Jesse took the sex video head shots from a drawer and put them out on the desk where the Plum twins could see them.

“Know either of these gentlemen?” Jesse said.

They did. Jesse could tell by the way their shoulders froze when they looked. They both shook their heads at the same time.

“No,” Claudia said.

“No, we don’t,” Corliss said.

Jesse took out three other pictures.

“One of these Florence?” Jesse said.

They looked.

“Course,” Corliss said.

“That one,” Claudia said.

“You didn’t even know which one she was?”

“I did,” Jesse said. “I wanted to be sure you did.”

They both stared at him silently for a moment.

Then Claudia said, “Jesus Christ.”

Corliss said,” Don’t you trust anybody?”

“Trust,” Jesse said, “but verify.”

“What’s that mean?”

9 5

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

“It’s a reference to Ronald Reagan,” Jesse said.

“That president?”

“Him,” Jesse said.

“Well, I think it’s mean not to trust us,” Claudia said.

“You’re right,” Jesse said. “I’ll never do it again.”

9 6

20

After the twins were gone, Molly stuck her head in the office door.

“Steve Friedman called in,” she said. “Got a couple of kids shoplifting in Waldo’s Variety Store.”

“What did they take?”

“Skin magazines.”

“Tell Steve to confiscate the magazines, let the kids sit in the cruiser for ten minutes to scare them, then kick ’em loose. No lectures.”

Molly grinned.

“That’ll be hard for Steve,” she said.

“I know. Tell him I said so.”

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

“No parent notification?” Molly said.

“No.”

Molly was still grinning.

“How were the twins?” Molly said.

“Vague,” Jesse said.

“You survive with your virtue intact?”

“So much sex,” Jesse said, “so little brain.”

“You learn anything useful?” Molly said.

“Mostly I learned that they know more than they are say -

ing, and that they conceal that fact badly.”

“What do you think they know?”

“They know the two guys in the sex video,” Jesse said.

“They say so?”

“No.”

“What did they want?”

“I don’t think they quite know,” Jesse said. “They asked me to recommend a private eye.”

“To help us on the case?”

“Un-huh.”

Molly rolled her eyes.

“There are some good ones,” Jesse said. “I sent the little darlings to Rita Fiore, told them she could recommend.”

“Can she?”

“Probably. I know she uses some guy in Boston that’s supposed to be good.”

“You think they were serious?”

“I don’t think they’ve been serious in their whole vapid life, either one of them.”

9 8

S E A C H A N G E

“And you sent them to Rita,” Molly said, “so you could call her in a while and asked if they showed up.”

Jesse smiled and pointed a finger at Molly.

“You’re mastering my technique,” Jesse said. “When I leave, you can be chief.”

“Fat chance,” Molly said. “I better get on the horn to Steve. He’s probably already started his lecture.”

“Cruel and unusual punishment,” Jesse said.

“Wading through the skin magazines would be cruel enough,” Molly said.

“Not if you’re an adolescent boy,” Jesse said.

“You would know,” Molly said and left the office.

Jesse stood and walked to the door.

“Be sure Steve brings in the confiscated magazines,” he said.

9 9

21

J esse was on the small balcony off the living room, drinking club soda, with his shirt

off, when Jenn came home. It was hot, but the air off the harbor was cool and as the sun went down it got cooler. When they had been married and worked in Los Angeles, Jesse and Jenn had lived in one of those old bunga-lows in Hollywood, with an overhanging roof and a big front porch. Jesse used to like to sit out on the front steps of the porch in his undershirt and drink beer and feel the air.

She kissed him gently when she came in.

“I’ll join you,” she said. “Thank God it’s evening.”

S E A C H A N G E

She went to the kitchen and got some white wine and brought it with her to the balcony and sat in the other chair.

It was late enough to be dark. Jenn sipped her wine. Many of the boats in the harbor showed lights, particularly the big yachts farther out. The black water moved quietly below them. In daylight there was usually some trash floating on it. In the darkness it was unmarred. Barely visible, its presence announced mostly by its dark movement.

“Domestic,” Jenn said after a time.

“That’s us,” Jesse said.

“I mean it,” Jenn said, “as a good thing.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

“Just sitting together,” Jenn said. “At the end of the day.”

“Maybe I should buy a couple of rocking chairs,” Jesse said.

“And a shawl,” Jenn said.

Jesse looked at his glass.

“Nothing like a bracing club soda,” he said, “at moments like this.”

“You still miss it,” Jenn said.

“Every day.”

“Is it a physical craving?”

“No, never quite has been a craving,” Jesse said. “It’s just, I like it and I miss it.”

Jenn smiled.

“Like me,” she said.

“No,” Jesse said. “You’re a craving.”

They were quiet for a time. There was a dim sound of mu-1 0 1

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

sic from among the moored boats in near shore. Across the harbor, they could see the running lights of a powerboat moving silently along the inner shoreline of the Neck.

“Glad I’m ahead of Johnny Walker,” Jenn said after a time.

Jenn drank the rest of her wine and went to pour a second glass. Jesse drank some soda, and put his feet on the balcony railing. He crossed his ankles. The running lights of the powerboat turned silently and began to trace the causeway at the south end of the harbor. Jenn came back.

“You know,” Jesse said. “Craving is pretty much all about the craver and nothing about the cravee.”

“No shit,” Jenn said.

Jenn had kicked off her shoes. She put her feet up on the balcony next to his. It made her skirt slide up her thighs.

Jesse felt the surge of desire. What was that about? He’d seen her naked a thousand times. He’d had sex with her a thousand times. Why did he feel this way because her skirt slid up her thighs? He’d always assumed such feelings were the result of normal masculine humanity.

“I’m leering at your thighs,” Jesse said.

“Good.”

“You want to be desired, you dress sexy, you look sexy, you want to be seen as sexy. We both know that.”

“And we both know you are making something out of nothing, Looney Tunes,” Jenn said. “You’re supposed to get riled up looking at my thighs, for crissake. You’re supposed to leer.”

1 0 2

S E A C H A N G E

“Looney Tunes,” Jesse said.

“It’s like we don’t have problems anymore,” Jenn said.

“And you’re trying to invent some.”

Jesse wished he had a drink. He shrugged.

“Anyway,” Jesse said. “It was a loving leer.”

1 0 3

22

M olly came into Jesse’s office and stood in front of his desk.

“I called the registrar at Emory,” she

said. “The Plum sisters haven’t been students there since first semester last year.”

“I assume they didn’t graduate.”

“No, they left school after first semester of their junior year.”

“Did they say why?”

“They didn’t say anything. They just ceased to be there.”

Molly smiled.

“They didn’t get the boot or anything?”

S E A C H A N G E

“No. Just stopped going.”

“Take all their belongings?” Jesse said.

“I don’t know. I can check back.”

“Please,” Jesse said.

Molly went out. Jesse picked up his phone and called Kelly Cruz in Fort Lauderdale.

“Know anything new about the Plum sisters?” Jesse said.

“Models of decorous southern behavior,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Decorous?”

“I’m taking a night course,” Kelly Cruz said, “at the com-munity college. So far that’s what I’ve learned.”

“Who says they’re, ah, decorous?” Jesse said.

“Mom and Dad.”

“You check with anyone else?”

“Not yet,” Kelly Cruz said. “I told you, this isn’t the big one on my caseload, you know? This is yours.”

“And here’s what I know,” Jesse said. “The Plum girls haven’t been in Europe looking at art. They’ve been in Sag Harbor, Long Island, partying. And they dropped out of Emory last fall.”

“But did they do it decorously?” Kelly Cruz said.

“I think we need to know more.”

“Wonder what else the parents don’t know?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Or do know and aren’t saying. What do you know about the three yachts registered in Fort Lauderdale?”

“Thomas Ralston, Allan Pinkton, Harold Berger,” Kelly Cruz said.

1 0 5

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

“Wow,” Jesse said.

“Thank you,” Kelly Cruz said. “Berger is up there with his wife and three children. Pinkton has his grown daughters and their husbands aboard, along with their combined four children, and his wife.”

“How about Ralston.”

“Owns the Sea Cloud, ” Kelly Cruz said. “He’s single, up there with some guests.”

“Find anything on Harrison Darnell?”

“Family money,” she said. “Been rich for a couple genera-tions. Real estate development. Never married. Playboy rep-utation. No record.”

“Never married,” Jesse said.

“Everyone concurs that he’s straight, and actively so.”

“Hence the playboy rep,” Jesse said.

“Hence,” Kelly Cruz said.

“How about Darnell? Any connection between him and Ralston?”

“They’re about the same age,” Kelly Cruz said. “Single playboys who live in South Florida and own yachts which they sailed up to Paradise for Race Week. They could easily know each other.”

“Or not,” Jesse said.

“Or not,” Kelly Cruz said. “I’ll look into it.”

“How about the ex-husbands?”

“Aside from Horvath? Can’t find one of them. He’s not in the area, wherever he is. The other one is convinced she was a nymphomaniac.”

1 0 6

S E A C H A N G E

“I don’t think we use that term anymore, do we?” Jesse said.

“This guy does, with an accent. He’s an Argentine polo player.”

“When were they married?”

“Nineteen ninety-four, ninety-five,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Divorced?”

“Nineteen ninety-five,” Kelly Cruz said. “Sex life was hurt-ing his game.”

“Tired all the time?”

“That’s what he says.”

“He get a nice settlement?” Jesse asked.

“Yes.”

“You know where he’s been the last couple of months?”

“Playing polo. Every day. In Miami. I checked the papers.

He was there.”

“There’s polo writeups in the papers down there?”

“You know what papers to look in,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Okay. So he’s not a prime suspect.”

“Too bad, I was hoping I’d need to interview him more.”

“Didn’t you say you had kids?”

“I did, but no husband.”

“And rich polo players make notoriously good fathers,”

Jesse said.

“Notoriously,” Kelly Cruz said.

“What you need to do,” Jesse said, “is see if there’s a connection between Ralston and Darnell. And I think you need to pressure the parents. There’s too much going on that we don’t understand.”

1 0 7

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

“No more Miss Nice Girl?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Exactly.”

“Okay, I need to do that,” Kelly Cruz said. “What do you need?”

“I need to get a look at their boats,” Jesse said.

1 0 8

23

Y ou go on the boat without a warrant,”

Molly said, “nothing you find can be used as evidence.”

“I don’t have enough for a warrant.”

“Not even Judge Gaffney?” Molly said.

Jesse shook his head.

“Marty Reagan says the new DA is very careful.”

“So he won’t even ask,” Molly said.

“Right.”

“So what’s the point of going aboard?”

“Better to know than not know.”

“Even if you can’t use it.”

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

“Can’t use it in court,” Jesse said. “But maybe it’ll point me toward something I can use.”

“Be good to know if they’re viable suspects,” Molly said.

“It would,” Jesse said.

“Be good to know if they weren’t viable suspects,” Molly said.

“Also true,” Jesse said.

“So you could start looking someplace else.”

“Um-hm.”

“Of course, it’s illegal,” Molly said.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Jesse said.

Molly nodded slowly.

“You cut some corners, Jesse.”

“Sometimes you have to, if you’re going to do the job right.”

“So you do something wrong to do something right?”

“Sometimes,” Jesse said.

“I’m not sure Sister Mary Agnes would agree,” Molly said.

“Sister Mary Agnes a cop?” Jesse said.

Molly smiled.

“She taught Philosophy of Christian Ethics at Our Lady of the Annunciation Academy.”

“Certainties are harder to come by,” Jesse said, “in police work.”

“But there’s a danger, isn’t there,” Molly said, “that you start cutting corners and you end up doing bad, not good?”

“Yes, there is,” Jesse said.

“Do you worry about that?”

“Yes,” Jesse said, “I do.”

1 1 0

S E A C H A N G E

“But you’ll do it anyway.”

“Sometimes,” Jesse said. “I trust myself to keep it clean.”

“Pride goeth before a fall is what Sister Mary Agnes would say.”

“Sometimes,” Jesse said, “it goeth before an indictment.”

Molly smiled at him.

“I guess, if I’m going to have somebody bending the law on me,” she said, “I’d just as soon it be you.”

“Better than Mary Agnes?”

“Sister dealt mostly in theory,” Molly said.

“Like when they do marriage counseling,” Jesse said.

“Do I hear anti-Catholicism?”

“No,” Jesse said, “anti-theory-ism.”

Molly smiled again. “You better hide your tracks,” she said, “in case you do get them in court. You don’t one of those fruit from the poisoned tree things.”

“You’re still taking those law courses,” Jesse said. “Aren’t you.”

“One a semester,” Molly said.

“Different than Philosophy of Christian Ethics?”

“Just as theoretical,” Molly said.

“But more commonly applied,” Jesse said.

“By people like us,” Molly said.

“You’ll be DA someday.”

“I was thinking more about president,” Molly said. “How are you planning to search the boat without getting caught.”

“Everybody,” Jesse said, “goes to the Stiles Island Clambake.”

1 1 1

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

“Second Saturday in Race Week,” Molly said.

“Which is tomorrow,” Jesse said.

“Midpoint of Race Week,” Molly said.

“Was Race Week ever just a week?”

“I think so,” Molly said, “but sometime back when my mother was in high school it started expanding at both ends.

The small boats the first two weeks, the big yacht races the second two. With the clambake in the middle.”

“But they still call it Race Week,” Jesse said.

“Race Month just doesn’t sound right,” Molly said.

“But it is the social occasion. Everybody goes.”

“Except me, this year,” Molly said. “I’m right here three to eleven. Applying legal theory.”

“And I’ll be out in the harbor,” Jesse said, “committing piracy.”

“Shiver me timbers,” Molly said.

1 1 2

24

T he caterer’s clambake crew started Friday afternoon, digging a hole two feet deep and fifteen feet across. They lined it with rocks, built a bonfire on top of the rocks and let it burn, feeding it through the night with hardwood. In the morning, when the fire had burned down, they spread seaweed over the rocks and then began layering in clams, lobsters, corn on the cob, potatoes and thick Portuguese sausages. They repeated the seaweed and the food layers until the pit was full. Then they put on a final layer of seaweed, and stretched a tarpaulin over the pile while the hot stones made the seaweed steam, and the food cooked.

Another crew set up a vast striped tent with a pole peak at R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

either end, from which flew Paradise Yacht Club banners. A full bar set up underneath it, and beer kegs chilled in huge tubs of ice. By two-thirty in the afternoon the island was already crowded. People came from the harbor in their own small boats, or were ferried by the Paradise Yacht Club launch.

People from town drove over the causeway and parked where they could. A four-man police detail would try to manage the traffic, and later, the clambakers.

Jesse stood beside Hardy Watkins, resting his elbows on the low cabin of the harbor boat, as it idled near the outer harbor. Through the binoculars, Stiles Island was a swarm of tan legs, white shorts, tank tops, big hats, long dresses, pink cotton, blue ribbon, floral patterns, yellow linen. The smell of the bake drifted to him, edged with the smell of fresh spilled beer.

Jesse moved the glasses back to the Lady Jane, where a woman came over the side and joined others in the small launch. It might have been Blondie Martin. The launch pulled away from the Lady Jane and ran in a big smooth curve toward the Stiles Island dock.

“That’s nine,” Jesse said. “The boat should be empty.”

“You want to come in from the other side,” Hardy said.

“Yes.”

Hardy opened the throttle gently and the harbor boat moved quietly through the small harbor chop, behind the screen of moored yachts, to the far side of the Lady Jane. He throttled back and let the boat drift in against the side of the yacht, and held it there.

1 1 4

S E A C H A N G E

“You see anyone heading for the boat,” Jesse said, “give me a shout. If we get caught, I’ll lie, and you’ll swear to it, that I just went aboard thinking there was someone home, and was about to leave when I found there wasn’t.”

“We doing something illegal?” Hardy said.

“We are.”

“I was hoping it would be something better than this.”

Jesse went effortlessly over the side, and onto the deck of the Lady Jane. Away from the low idle of the harbor boat, Jesse heard music coming from Stiles Island. There was no sound on the yacht.

“Hello?” Jesse yelled.

No one answered.

He walked into the cockpit and stopped beside the helm.

“Hello?”

No one answered. He went down the short wide teak stair-way. It was a big boat, but there was no extra space. Jesse paused for a moment and yelled once more. No answer.

Everything was built-in. Dining table, seating for six, bar, galley, a big plasma television screen, polished hardwood and shiny brass. A small corridor off the back of the dining room had staterooms along either side. Each had a built-in bed and bureau. The master suite had its own head. There were several other facilities tucked in among the staterooms. Jesse counted sleeping for more than nine, though it probably depended somewhat on gender and relationship. Everything looked neat and cozy and expensive and luxurious. The table was set. There were flowers in small crystal vases. Jesse won-1 1 5

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

dered how it was in thirty-five-mile-an-hour winds with a six-foot sea running. The thought made him smile.

The boat was empty. After his walk-through, Jesse began to search each space. He began with the master bedroom. Most people hid the most incriminating stuff, Jesse knew, in their bedroom. Or stateroom, or whatever the swabbies called them.

There were women’s clothes and toiletries as well as men’s.

There were sex toys in the top bureau drawer under some neatly folded sport shirts. One of the toys was a massager which was held onto the back of the hand with springs and imparted its vibration to the hand. Jesse remembered that when he was a small boy in Arizona, his grandfather had used one like it for scalp massage. Jesse smiled. Or maybe not. In the bottom drawer of the same bureau, among a lot of exotic woman’s underwear, was a stack of videotapes held together with a thick red elastic band. Jesse picked them up and took off the rubber band. The tapes were numbered with a Magic Marker, but there was nothing else to say what they were. Jesse glanced around the bedroom. In a wall cabinet was an entertainment center which included, Jesse was sure, a videotape player. Jesse studied the equipment. There seemed to be a computer involved. After awhile he shook his head.

Defeated by technology.

If I try this, I will fuck it up, and they’ll know I was here.

He glanced around the room. He didn’t see anything that would help. He went to the closet and opened the bifold doors. The clothes were hung neatly and carefully spaced.

Men’s and women’s. On the top shelf were several long-1 1 6

S E A C H A N G E

billed caps and a stack of videotapes. Jesse took them down.

They were unmarked, and, he realized, unopened. He went back out and up the stairs to the helm and navigation area, and found a Magic Marker, one of several, in a beer mug on the shelf by the steering wheel.

He took it back downstairs, took out the stack of numbered videotapes, slipped one from the middle, number five, took the wrapping cellophane off the new video, marked it number five, slipped it in among the others marked tapes, put the red elastic back around them and put the real number five inside his shirt. He put the other new videos back where he’d found them, crumpled the cellophane that he’d removed and put it in his pocket.

Let’s hope it’s not his kid’s confirmation.

Jesse went through the other rooms, and found a lot that was titillating, but nothing that was useful. Then he went back and sat and looked at the master bedroom. He thought about the tapes. It could all be in there. How hard could it be? He studied the entertainment center.

Okay, this is the remote.

He studied the many buttons. Some had arrows or squares or two bars, or dots. Some were labeled. He found a switch that was labeled all on. He found no other switch that said all off.

So this must be the one, all on/all off.

He pressed it. The set clicked on, the screen brightened.

And in a moment there was a picture. Jesse studied it for a moment. He was looking at a small shower. He clicked the 1 1 7

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

button that read CH. He was looking at a bed. The plaid spread looked familiar.

For Christ’s sake. It’s on the boat. The bastard’s got the place wired.

Jesse stood and walked to the bedroom with the plaid spread. He placed a pillow in the middle of it and went back to the master bedroom. The bed on the screen now had a pillow in the middle of it. Jesse went back, replaced the pillow and stood in the small bedroom looking at the ceiling. There were small recessed lights in the ceiling. Jesse examined them in the low ceiling. He could find nothing unusual. He went back to the master bedroom and clicked the channels.

Each shower and each bedroom could be accessed on the screen, including the master bedroom. Jesse went and turned on one of the showers and came back. He could hear it.

Sound and Picture.

He went back and shut off the shower. Then he went to the master bedroom and pressed the all on button. The screen went black. Jesse whistled to himself softly. Master technician!

Has to be through the ceiling lights. The fact that I can’t figure it out means nothing. I can’t even play the fucking VCR. He put the remote carefully back where he’d found it. He looked around. Everything looked the same as it had.

Jesse went up on deck and over the side onto the harbor boat. Hardy eased it away from the Lady Jane, and curled it inconspicuously back in toward the town wharf, moving slowly among the moored sailboats.

1 1 8

25

T he videotape player in Jesse’s office was simplicity itself. It didn’t do anything but play, and required only the ability to push the play and stop buttons on the remote. Jesse put in tape number five and clicked pla .

y

It was a red-haired woman with slim hips and, Jesse spec-ulated, enhanced breasts. The videotape showed her naked in a variety of activities: taking a shower, shaving her legs, washing her hair, putting on makeup, changing clothes, having various and inventive sex with Harrison Darnell. The tape was a long one and repetitive. Showers, sex, changing clothes, sex, showers, clothes.

Jesse sat quietly at his desk watching. He felt like a dirty R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

old man, alone in a room watching sex videos. It was exciting for about a minute. The pleasures of voyeurism. A moment of discovery. Jesse could not remember seeing a naked redhead before. And then the increasing boredom as the scenes became repetitive. There was sound, but little to listen to, except the sex with Darnell, which was so noisy that Jesse muted it. Somewhere in the middle of the tape the redhead got a perm. What had been longish wavy hair became short curly hair. Otherwise she continued to shower and change clothes and have sex with Darnell.

The tape ran an hour. The boredom was penetrating. Jesse forced himself to watch it. When it ended he rewound it and sat quietly in his office for a while. He was pretty sure what was on the other tapes. Blondie probably had her own tape.

What if tape number five had been Florence Horvath. Then he’d have a choke hold on the son of a bitch. Jesse shook his head. He was guessing. Darnell may not have known Florence Horvath. Florence Horvath might have fallen off the Stiles Island Causeway and drowned. Darnell may have lied just because he didn’t want to be bothered. Guys like him would be too busy to be involved in a homicide. Had nude film to watch. Jesse sat for a moment doodling the yellow legal pad on his desktop. Why would Darnell kill Florence?

Why would he go to such voyeuristic lengths to get nude movies of women he saw naked regularly? Sick bastard.

The door opened a crack and Molly looked in.

“Got some time?”

“Sure,” Jesse said.

1 2 0

26

M olly brought in Sam Holton and his wife and daughter.

“You know Sam,” Molly said.

“From softball,” Jesse said. “Lotta stick, not much foot.”

Sam said, “Hi, Jesse.”

“This is his wife, Jackie, and his daughter Cathleen. Cathleen says she’s been raped.”

“I’m sorry,” Jesse said.

Cathleen nodded. She was a tall, robust, dark-haired girl with big breasts and long legs. She looked about twenty-five. Her mother was thin and small and pale-skinned, with R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

narrow lips and small eyes which looked bigger behind thick glasses. Nobody said anything.

“Says it happened onboard a yacht named the Lady Jane, ”

Molly said.

Thank you, Lord.

“Tell me about it,” Jesse said.

“I already told her,” Cathleen said.

“Tell me,” Jesse said gently.

“Go ahead, Cathleen,” her father said.

“Sam, it’s embarrassing,” Jackie said. “She already told the woman.”

Jesse looked at Molly.

“Rape kit?” he said.

“Inconclusive. Signs of penetration, but no semen, no evidence of force.”

“You saying I lied,” Cathleen said.

“No, honey, inconclusive doesn’t mean you lied.”

“He wore a rubber,” Cathleen said. “Naturally there’s no sperm.”

“Who?” Jesse said.

“She doesn’t know for sure,” Molly said. “She thinks it was the boat owner.”

Jesse nodded.

“Could you pick him out of a lineup?” Jesse said.

“Absolutely,” Cathleen said.

“Good,” Jesse said. “How’d you happen to end up on the yacht?”

1 2 2

S E A C H A N G E

Cathleen looked down and didn’t answer.

“She met one of the crew,” Molly said, “at the Dory. He offered to show her the boat.”

“How old are you, Cathleen?” Jesse said.

“Seventeen,” she said. “Ill be eighteen in September.”

“What happened when you got to the boat?” Jesse said.

Cathleen looked irritated.

“I can’t talk about stuff like that in front of them,” she said.

Sam looked at his hands, folded in his lap. He was a thick man, a landscaper in town. As he got older he’d put on weight but he still looked like someone who’d worked all his life. Jackie glared silently at everyone. Her thin self was tight with anger.

“How about me?” Jesse said.

She looked disgusted.

“No way,” she said.

“Okay, then it’ll be Molly. Take her to the squad room,”

Jesse said. “It should be empty. If anyone’s in there, give them the boot.”

Molly nodded.

Cathleen said, “I don’t like talking about it.”

“Come on, hon,” Molly said. “I’m fun to talk with.”

“Yeah, right,” Cathleen said. But she stood and followed Molly out.

“She didn’t do nothing wrong,” Jackie said. Her thin hands were clenched together in her lap.

1 2 3

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

“I’m sure she didn’t,” Jesse said.

“Probably shouldn’t have gone out to the yacht,” Sam said.

“She’s a teenager,” Jackie said. “They do foolish things.”

Sam nodded. His head was down, and he appeared to be studying his thick hands.

“You got to do something about this, Jesse.”

Jesse nodded.

“I didn’t want to come here. I wanted to get some guys and go out and beat the shit out of everybody on the fucking boat.”

“Coming here was better,” Jesse said.

“I have to, I’ll go out there myself and break the fucking boat up.”

“You won’t have to,” Jesse said.

“She’s a good girl,” Jackie said. “A little wild, maybe, like most kids. But at heart she’s a good girl.”

“Anyone can see that,” Jesse said.

“She’s got a boyfriend. She’s going to UMass in the fall.”

“This will pass,” Jesse said, just as if he meant it.

“And she’s underage, isn’t she?” Jackie said.

“No, Jackie, she’s not. Not if she’s seventeen,” Jesse said.

“Statutory age of consent in this state is sixteen.”

“Well, they took advantage of a young girl.”

Jesse nodded. Everyone was quiet. Jesse was good at quiet.

Silence was his friend.

“Does everyone have to know?” Sam said.

“There might be some publicity, depends mostly on the 1 2 4

S E A C H A N G E

suspect. If he’s not newsworthy, and we stay out of court with a plea bargain, nobody needs to know. I got no need to talk about it.”

“You called him a suspect,” Jackie said. “You think she’s lying?”

Jesse shook his head. “Just cop talk, Jackie. He’s a suspect until we convict him.”

“Well, she says she was raped, she was raped.”

Molly brought Cathleen back.

“I have a full statement,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded.

“Anything else you want to say, Cathleen?”

“Nope.”

“Okay,” Jesse said. “We’ll arrange a lineup.”

“I’ll know the bastard,” Cathleen said.

“Cathleen!” Jackie said.

“Well, he is a bastard,” Cathleen said.

Sam stood.

“He gets off, Jesse, I swear, I’ll deal with him myself,”

Sam said.

Jesse stood and put out his hand.

“No need, Sam, we’re on it.”

They all shook hands, and Molly showed them out. Jesse thought that Cathleen’s handshake was not enthusiastic.

1 2 5

27

W hen Molly came back into Jesse’s office, Jesse was looking out his window at the

fire trucks being washed on the firehouse driveway beneath his window. He liked the way the stream of water from the hose sluiced away the suds worked up by the sponge. He liked the way it slid smoothly off and as the water dried up, the red finish of the truck gleamed in the morning sun.

“Rape, my ass,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded. Outside the firemen began to polish the chrome. They liked that truck. Like grooming a horse, Jesse thought. If it was alive, they’d give it a carrot.

S E A C H A N G E

“Let’s hear her statement,” Jesse said.

Molly got the audiotape of her interview with Cathleen and they listened to it in Jesse’s office.

“They made me do a striptease,” Cathleen said.

“What were the circumstances?” Molly asked.

“They got a video camera, and they said I had to do a striptease or they wouldn’t take me home.”

“Who is they?” Molly said.

“The guy that raped me and other guys and some women, too.

They said I had to strip.”

“Perfect,” Jesse said.

“Keep listening,” Molly said.

“And then the guy who owned the boat took me into his bedroom and closed the door and threw me on the bed and raped me. He was like an animal. Just threw me down and jumped on me and stuck it in.”

“But, he did wear a condom,” Molly said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Did he put that on just before he jumped on you like an animal?”

“Yeah, just before.”

“Was it in a packet?” Molly said. “Did he have to open the packet?”

“No, he just . . . he had it in his pocket and just pulled it out and put it on.”

They listened to the rest of it. She might have had a drink, but if she did, it was only one and she didn’t finish it. What kind of drink? Vodka. Straight? Yes. Who brought her home?

1 2 7

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Same guy brought her out. The one she met in the bar. Could she pick him out of a lineup? Yeah, ’course.

When the tape was finished, Jesse said, “She got drunk at the Dory, went on a lark to the yacht. They fed her more booze.

She got drunker and did a striptease. Then the owner brought her into his bedroom and had sex with her. They brought her home. Maybe they didn’t treat her respectfully. Maybe she just was in trouble at home for being late and being drunk. Maybe she was afraid the tape they made of her striptease would get out. Whatever, she came up with this story.”

Molly nodded.

“Her mother knows she wasn’t raped,” Molly said.

“Yes,” Jesse said. “She does.”

“I guess Sam believes her. I hope he doesn’t do something about this that will get him in trouble.”

“He’ll let us do our thing,” Jesse said. “He’s like a lot of fathers in this situation. He’s saying what he thinks he’s supposed to say.”

“What are you going to do?”

Jesse smiled.

“We don’t know she’s making this up,” Jesse said.

“We’re pretty sure,” Molly said.

“It’s not our job to decide,” Jesse said. “It’s our job to in -

vestigate. The DA and the courts decide.”

“If we got her in here alone and talked to her for a while,”

Molly said, “she’d tell us she’s lying.”

“We don’t want to do that,” Jesse said.

“We don’t?”

1 2 8

S E A C H A N G E

“Then we’d have no reason to search the alleged crime scene.”

“The Lady Jane?” Molly said.

“And confiscate any videotape we might find,” Jesse said.

Molly began to nod her head slowly.

“And since it is a lawful search, if we stumbled across anything that looked like evidence in the Florence Horvath homicide . . .” she said.

“Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” Jesse said.

“It helps to know what to do with the luck when it comes your way,” Molly said.

“Yes, it does,” Jesse said.

1 2 9

28

K elly Cruz sat on a terrace in the tallest building south of New York and looked at

Biscayne Bay. The Cuban maid brought

her iced tea with mint.

“Mister and Missus will come right out, soon,” the maid said.

Kelly Cruz nodded. The maid backed off the terrace.

Kelly Cruz watched an ornate white cruise ship plod fatly south in the bay. She had never been on a cruise, but she couldn’t imagine it was much fun.

“Miss Cruz? Nice to see you again.”

Kelly Cruz put her tea down and stood.

S E A C H A N G E

“Mr. Plum,” she said. “Mrs. Plum.”

Everyone shook hands.

“Sit down,” Mr. Plum said, “please.”

The Cuban maid appeared with iced tea for the Plums.

“That will be all, Magdalena,” Mrs. Plum said. “Thank you.”

The first time she’d met them, Kelly Cruz thought they looked like brother and sister. Mrs. Plum had thick silver hair brushed back, and very large sunglasses. Her skin was evenly tanned. She was slim and wearing a white silk shirt with white linen slacks and sandals. Her toenails were polished. Early sixties, Kelly Cruz estimated. Both of them. Mr.

Plum looked like his wife. Silvery hair, brushed back, even tan, dark glasses, white shirt and slacks. Mr. Plum smiled at Kelly Cruz.

“Did I tell you when you came by last time?” he said.

“That you’re quite attractive for a detective.”

“It’s a disguise,” Kelly Cruz said.

Mr. Plum smiled widely and nodded in a way that made Kelly Cruz think he hadn’t understood what she said.

“Do you have any new information about Florence’s death,”

Mrs. Plum said.

“I need to ask you some more questions, tell you some things we have learned,” Kelly Cruz said, “and get your comments. Not all of the things will be pleasant.”

“Must you?” Mrs. Plum said. “Don’t you think we may have heard enough unpleasant things?”

“She has to do her job, Mommy,” Mr. Plum said.

1 3 1

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“Do you know a man named Thomas Ralston?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mr. Plum looked thoughtful for a time.

Then he said, “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Mrs. Plum?” Kelly Cruz said.

“He’s one of the crowd of pimps and gigolos that Florence knew.”

“Florence? Are you sure, Mommy? I don’t remember him.”

“You remember only what you want to,” Mrs. Plum said.

“And I’m not your mother.”

Mr. Plum smiled at his wife.

“Which was he,” Kelly Cruz said.

“I don’t know. He had money. He owned a yacht. That was enough for Florence.”

“How did he get his money?”

“Wise choice of parents,” Mrs. Plum said. “Or, more likely, grandparents.”

She glanced briefly at her husband. Perhaps he wasn’t a self-made man, either, Kelly Cruz thought. He smiled hap-pily at his wife.

“How well do you know him.”

“I’ve met him once or twice.”

“So you don’t know him well?”

“To know him at all is to know him too well.”

“He doesn’t seem like a bad sort, Mommy,” Mr. Plum said.

“I thought you didn’t know him,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Mommy, Mrs. Plum, reminded me,” he said.

Kelly Cruz nodded.

1 3 2

S E A C H A N G E

“Any thoughts?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Me?” Mr. Plum said. “No. As I said, he seemed nice.”

“Where did you meet him.”

Mr. Plum looked blank. Mrs. Plum said, “Tennis club luau. Florence brought a bunch of people. We didn’t even know she’d be there.”

“Would you have gone if you’d known?”

“No.”

“Do you know where I could find Mr. Ralston?”

“I believe he lives aboard his boat,” Mrs. Plum said.

“In Fort Lauderdale?”

“He never said.”

Kelly Cruz nodded. She knew that Mr. Ralston’s boat was currently in Paradise, Massachusetts.

“We have in our possession,” Kelly Cruz said, “a videotape of Florence having sex with two men.”

Mrs. Plum squeezed her eyes tight shut and dropped her head. Mr. Plum looked faintly quizzical. Neither of them spoke.

“I’m sorry,” Kelly Cruz said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Well,” Mr. Plum said, with a pleasant smile, “Florence was sort of wild, I guess.”

“Mrs. Plum?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mrs. Plum hadn’t moved. She appeared to be staring at her knees.

“I’m not surprised,” she said without looking up.

“Would you know what the circumstances would be that would . . .” Kelly Cruz stopped.

1 3 3

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

“Cause her to do something like that?” Mrs. Plum said.

“Too much money, too much freedom, too little super-vision . . . too little love.”

“But you don’t know of any, ah, commercial enterprise that she might have been involved with?”

“Oh my God, no,” Mrs. Plum said. “Nothing that smacked of work. She would have done it because it was shocking, or depraved, or unconventional. Maybe because she thought it was fun. But never work. Never anything as worthwhile as commercial enterprise.”

Mr. Plum seemed to have lost interest.

“It’s not an investigative question, Mrs. Plum, but I have two children, and . . .”

“And you can’t imagine giving up on them so completely.”

“Did you love her?”

“Yes, I did. God save me, I do. But I had to make choices.

I have two other daughters, much younger. I couldn’t let her corrupt them as she had been corrupted.”

“By whom,” Kelly Cruz said.

Still staring down at her knees with her eyes shut, Mrs.

Plum said, “See above.”

“Too much freedom, too little love?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mrs. Plum nodded. Mr. Plum was looking at his watch.

“You know, it’s after five somewhere,” he said.

He picked up a small silver bell and rang it. The maid appeared.

“I’m going to order drinks,” Mr. Plum said. “What’s your pleasure, Miss Cruz.”

1 3 4

S E A C H A N G E

Kelly Cruz shook her head.

“I’m working,” she said.

Mr. Plum nodded.

“Two old-fashioneds, Magdalena,” he said. “Tell Felix to be sure and use those lowball glasses I like. He knows.”

Magdalena nodded and went out.

Kelly Cruz took a deep breath.

“Your twin daughters,” she said. “They aren’t in Europe.”

Mrs. Plum’s shoulders rose and fell as she breathed deeply.

“They are not students at Emory University.”

No one said anything. From under Mrs. Plum’s closed eye-lids, a couple of tears began to slip down her face. Mr. Plum looked puzzled. He glanced hopefully toward the patio door.

“Did you know that,” Kelly Cruz said, “when I talked with you last time?”

Mrs. Plum nodded.

“Why did you lie?”

“I . . . I knew they had dropped out and I didn’t know where they had gone.”

“Why’d you lie?”

“What kind of a mother doesn’t even know where her kids are?” Mrs. Plum said.

The maid came in and put an old-fashioned next to Mrs.

Plum. Mr. Plum took his from her hand and drank some. He smiled and exhaled audibly. Mrs. Plum opened her wet eyes and looked at the drink which was already beginning to bead moisture in the warmth of the terrace.

“Oh God,” she said, and picked up her glass.

1 3 5

29

S o how come I get to go on this big search,”

Molly said. “There women involved?”

“There’s some women,” Jesse said.

They were on the harbor boat.

“Otherwise you and Suit would have done it yourselves.”

“Nice to have a woman, in an isolated situation, where there are other women.”

“So I’m like the nurse in the examining room.”

“Exactly,” Jesse said.

“How come I never get to do guy cop things.”

Jesse shrugged.

S E A C H A N G E

“Next time Carl Radborn gets drunk in the Dory we’ll give you a shout,” he said.

Molly grinned.

“Women are nice,” she said.

Hardy pulled the boat in alongside the Lady Jane, and held it there while the three cops went aboard.

“Be awhile, Hardy,” Jesse said. “I’ll call you on the cell phone.”

“I’ll lay off here a little to the leeward,” Hardy said. “No hurry.”

“Leeward,” Suitcase said.

“I love it,” Molly said, “when you talk salty.”

Hardy didn’t respond and the three cops scrambled up onto the deck of the Lady Jane.

Harrison Darnell met them himself. His guests were gathered at breakfast. The crew, except for the captain, was serving. There were bagels and muffins. There was cheese and a platter of fruit, coffee and a pitcher of orange juice. A bottle of champagne stood in a bucket. Blondie was drinking a Bloody Mary.

“What is it now?” Darnell said.

He was in shorts and boat shoes and a flowered shirt. Jesse handed him the warrant.

“A crime has been alleged on board,” Jesse said. “That’s a warrant to search the boat.”

“Crime?”

“A young woman alleges rape.”

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

“Rape? For crissake, Stone, I don’t have to rape anyone.”

“We will also require that you not leave the harbor, and that you come in for a lineup.”

“Lineup?” Darnell said. “What the fuck are you talking about. A fucking lineup?”

Jesse nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes,” Jesse said, “that’s what it’s often called.”

“You have no damned jurisdiction here,” Darnell said.

“We’re at sea.”

“You’re in Paradise Harbor, Mr. Darnell,” Jesse said.

“Why don’t you sit down over there, have a nice cup of tea or something.”

“I want a lawyer.”

Jesse shrugged.

“Call one,” he said. “Officer Crane and I will search the ship. Officer Simpson will stay with you on deck.”

“I won’t allow it,” Darnell said. “It is a travesty. There has been no crime. Ask anyone.”

He stepped in front of the stairwell.

“You are not going below.”

“Of course we are, Mr. Darnell,” Jesse said. “It’s just a question of hard or easy.”

“What’s hard?” Blondie Martin asked from her seat at the table. Her eyes were wide and full of excitement as she looked at Jesse over the rim of her glass.

“Easy is Mr. Darnell goes and sits down with you,” Jesse said. “Step aside, Mr. Darnell.”

1 3 8

S E A C H A N G E

There was something frantic in Darnell’s resistance.

“No,” he said. “You aren’t going below.”

Jesse took the cuffs off his belt.

“You are under arrest, Mr. Darnell, for refusing a lawful order. Face the bulkhead, please. Hands on the top.”

Darnell’s voice slid up into a high vibrato.

“No,” he said. “No.”

Jesse took hold of Darnell’s right forearm. Darnell tried to pull away, Jesse started to turn him, and Darnell swung at Jesse with his left hand. Jesse avoided the punch, used the momentum it generated to spin Darnell, slammed him against the bulkhead and pinned him there with his shoulder while he snapped the cuff on his right wrist. Darnell flailed with his left hand, but Jesse caught it, brought it down and clicked onto the left wrist. It was all so quick, Darnell had no chance to stabilize himself for a real resistance.

Blondie said, “Ooooh!”

Jesse let Darnell away from the bulkhead.

“Suit, sit him down somewhere, and keep him there,”

Jesse said.

“Boy, Chief Yokel,” Blondie said. “You’re really quick.”

“Maybe Mr. Darnell is really slow,” Jesse said.

“Any time you want to play with your handcuffs . . .”

Blondie said and giggled.

Jesse heard Molly make a small sound.

“First we’ll search the boat,” Jesse said.

He and Molly started down the stairs.

1 3 9

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

“Did I hear you snicker, Officer Crane?” Jesse said.

“You might have, Chief Yokel,” Molly said, laughter bub -

bling beneath her voice.

“Well, as long as it was a respectful snicker,” Jesse said.

“Absolutely,” Molly said.

Wearing gloves and carrying evidence bags, they went stateroom to stateroom together. Jesse never split a search. It was Jesse’s view that two people searching the same room made it less likely that either would miss something. The videotapes were right where Jesse had left them. There were two more. He took the tapes, including the empty substitute that he had substituted, so everything would look kosher.

“There is a selection of controlled substances here,” Molly said. “Some weed. Some, I assume, coke. Couple of other things I’d need help with.”

“Pack it up,” Jesse said.

“We going to arrest them for possession?”

“I might find it useful as leverage,” Jesse said.

In the night table of the master cabin, Jesse found a Browning Hi-Power and a box of shells. He took the pistol and left the shells. In the crew quarters he found a shotgun.

He left it. Most boats had a long gun aboard. He didn’t think it would do much for him. They confiscated a video camera.

They found sex toys in most of the staterooms. There were several vibrators, some anatomically correct. Molly turned one over in her hands, looking at it from all angles.

“When I was in parochial school,” Molly said, “we weren’t 1 4 0

S E A C H A N G E

allowed to wear patent leather shoes, for fear someone might look up our dress in the reflection.”

“I was always hopeful about that,” Jesse said. “But I never saw it work.”

“But it probably kept you alert,” Molly said.

“I don’t want you sneaking home with that thing,” Jesse said.

Molly rolled her eyes at him, and put the vibrator back where she found it.

“Ah, the stories it could tell,” he said.

“What exactly is this,” Molly said.

“That’s a ball gag,” Jesse said, “and those are restraints.

Fetish toys. You can order them on the Internet.”

“Ick,” Molly said.

“You and hubby don’t use those?” Jesse said.

“There are times, I think, he might want to stick that gag in my mouth,” Molly said. “But not during sex.”

“Irish Catholic girls have sex?” Jesse said.

“When we go bad,” Molly said, “we go way bad.”

When they were through the search it was midway through the afternoon. Jesse made an inventory of what they’d confiscated, in duplicate, and signed it. Then he called Hardy on the cell phone.

“What did you take?” Darnell said, when they reached the deck.

“Stuff,” Jesse said. “Uncuff him, Suit.”

Simpson unlocked the cuffs on Darnell. Jesse separated 1 4 1

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

the two sheets of his inventory and handed the carbon sheet to Darnell.

“You can’t take the tapes. They’re private property.”

“We’ll need you to come in and do a lineup,” Jesse said.

“All of you. Crew as well. We’ll arrange a date and get back to you.”

“Those tapes aren’t even mine. Somebody left them on board. I don’t even know what’s on them.”

“We’ll take a look, let you know. Meanwhile, if you leave the harbor I’ll have the Coast Guard impound the boat.”

“I want a lawyer,” Darnell said.

“Sure, when you get one, tell him you are suspected of forcible rape. In fact, all of you are suspects.”

“Those aren’t my tapes,” Darnell said again.

“Have a swell day,” Jesse said, and waited at the rail while Molly climbed down to join Suit in the harbor boat.

“Can the Coast Guard impound his boat?” Molly said as they headed back through the moored boats toward the town pier.

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “I probably ought to ask somebody.”

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30

K elly Cruz sat at the bar of the Boat Club, at the marina, near the causeway in Fort Lauderdale, sipping a Diet Coke. The bar-

tender was maybe twenty-two, and red-haired. He wore small blue oval sunglasses with blue lenses. He had on big shorts and a white tee shirt that said big red on the front.

There was some sort of choker around his neck.

“Why you wanna know about Mr. Ralston?” the bartender said.

“What is your name?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Brick,” he said.

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“I’m Kelly Cruz,” she said, and showed him her badge.

“Tell me about Mr. Ralston.”

“You’re a cop?”

“I am.”

“What’d he do?”

“I understand he lives on his boat in this marina,” Kelly Cruz said.

“I don’t know where he lives,” Brick said. “But he’s in here a lot.”

“Seen him lately?”

“No, I think he went up north to some boat racing thing.”

“You remember all your customers?” Kelly Cruz said.

“The ones tip like Mr. Ralston,” Brick said. “Plus he’s a really cool dude, you know. I mean, no offense, but he comes in here with some of the most bodacious-looking women, hoo hah!”

“Hoo hah?” Kelly Cruz said.

“You know,” Brick said, “bada-bing! Excellent.”

The bar was mostly empty. There were a few people scat -

tered at tables in the glass-walled room with the turquoise light from the ocean coming in on two sides. Outside on the deck, several other tables were occupied. A waitress moved among them with her tray.

“Know any of them?”

“The babes that hang with Mr. Ralston? Just to say s’happenin’.”

“Are any of these women here now?”

“No.”

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“Does Mr. Ralston have anyone, like, steady?”

“Naw,” Brick said. “Guy like that doesn’t do steady. He just hooks up, you know? Blonde one night, brunette the next.

No flames, no games. No hellos, no goodbyes. No aches, no pains. Just slam bam alakazam.”

Brick grinned.

“You admire Mr. Ralston,” Kelly Cruz said.

“You bet. He’s leading my life, instead of me.”

Brick slid a saucer of mixed nuts within Kelly Cruz’s reach.

“But I’ll get there.”

“Everybody needs a dream,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Want me to freshen up that DC?” Brick said. “Wedge of lime, anything?”

Kelly Cruz shook her head.

“Know what Mr. Ralston does for a living?”

Brick grinned wider.

“I think it’s maybe just slam bam alakazam,” he said.

“You ever been on his boat?”

“I have, in point of actual fact,” Brick said. “Worked a private party for him one night, tending bar. That was tough, baby. That was an absolute groove.”

“Wild party?” Kelly Cruz said.

“I mean, I don’t want to cause anybody any trouble,” he said.

“Just gathering information,” Kelly Cruz said. “I don’t care if there was a little blow being snorted.”

“Blow? Yeah, I guess so, and booze, and mara-joo-wanna, 1 4 5

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sure. But it was the sex thing, man, everybody doing everything with everybody and the video cameras rolling, and . . .

whew! I was afraid for a time there, I was going to lose my cherry.”

He smiled broadly.

“Know any of the people on the boat?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Not really, you know, ‘hi, howya doin’. But Courtney does.”

“Courtney,” Kelly Cruz said.

“The waitress,” Brick said. “Right over there. I know she hangs with one of Mr. Ralston’s girls. You wanna talk with her?”

“I do,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Hey, Court,” Brick said. “Come talk to the nice lady for a minute.”

The waitress came to the bar.

“I got half a dozen tables, you idiot,” she said to Brick.

“Nobody’s at the bar,” Brick said. “They need something I’ll cover it.”

Courtney frowned. Her face was so blank that the frown looked as if it had hurt to perform.

“No offense, ma’am. How can I help you?”

Kelly Cruz showed her badge.

“Kelly Cruz,” she said.

Courtney said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Kelly. Just a couple of girls gossiping.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

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“You know Thomas Ralston?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Mr. Ralston?”

“Un-huh.”

“Everybody knows him,” Courtney said. “He comes here a lot.”

“Do you know any of his, ah, girls.”

“His girls?”

“I heard,” Kelly Cruz said, “you hung with one of Mr.

Ralston’s girls.”

Courtney made her frown face again, and looked at Brick.

He grinned at her.

“You know, Court, the one with all the hair,” he said.

“Mandy.”

Kelly Cruz looked at Courtney and waited.

“Mandy,” Courtney said. “Yo, I know Mandy.”

“And she’s, ah, friendly with Thomas Ralston?” Kelly Cruz said.

Courtney looked back at the tables she was waitressing.

No one was looking for her. She looked at Brick. He smiled and shrugged.

“She dates him sometimes,” Courtney said after a time.

“Un-huh,” Kelly Cruz said. “You ever date him?”

“Me? Oh, God no. I’m in college.”

“Mr. Ralston doesn’t date college girls?”

Courtney struggled with her face. Kelly Cruz waited.

“No . . . I don’t know,” Courtney said. “I’m not the kind of girl he dates is what I mean.”

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“What kind of girl does he date?”

“Not like me,” Courtney said. “He’s been around too much, you know? I like guys my own age. He’s too . . . he’s too sexy.”

Kelly Cruz nodded.

“I’d like to get in touch with Mandy. Could you give me her address, please.”

“I don’t want to get her in trouble,” Courtney said.

Kelly Cruz nodded.

“I’ll need the address, Courtney.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, honey,” Kelly Cruz said, “you do.”

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31

I can’t watch those tapes with Molly,” Suitcase Simpson said.

“I’m all right with it, Suit,” Molly said.

“I’m not,” Suit said. “I’d be too embarrassed.”

“Okay,” Jesse said. “No need. If you have to see them you can watch later on your own.”

Molly and Jesse watched the tapes. They were predictably repetitive: sex, showers, changing clothes. One tape was of Cathleen Holton doing a drunken clumsy embarrassing strip on the deck. The tape continued with her having sex with Darnell, during which she was clearly willing, in fact eager, and clearly inept.

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“Oh God,” Molly said, watching Cathleen. “The poor thing.”

Jesse nodded. The tapes ground on. Many women. Several no older than Cathleen Holton. Jesse counted five other men besides Darnell. Two of them Jesse had seen aboard the Lady Jane. He wondered if the men knew they’d been videotaped.

“There’s no bathroom stuff,” Jesse said.

“Just the showers,” Molly said.

“Doesn’t fit the fantasy,” Jesse said.

“I guess not,” Molly said.

On the screen another young girl was climbing into bed with Darnell.

“Jesus Christ,” Molly said.

Jesse froze the frame.

“I know her,” Molly said.

“Local girl,” Jesse said.

“Katie, Kate DeWolfe. She’s in school with my oldest.”

“Which would make her how old?” Jesse said.

“Fifteen.”

“Under age.”

Molly nodded. They both stared at the frozen image of the girl.

“Which gives us another handhold on Darnell,” she said.

“Doesn’t prove he killed Florence Horvath,” Jesse said.

“Proves he’s a bad man,” Molly said.

“We knew that.”

“What in God’s name will I tell her mother?” Molly said.

Jesse didn’t say anything. They both looked at Katie De-1 5 0

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Wolfe for another moment. Then Jesse pressed play, and the videotape unspooled relentlessly. The tapes seemed infinite.

Blondie Martin took her turn. They watched all day and when it was over had not seen Florence Horvath.

They sat silently when the last scene had played and the last tape had rewound. There was nothing to say. They didn’t look at each other.

“I may never have sex again,” Molly said after a time.

“I know,” Jesse said.

“You’ve probably seen worse,” Molly said.

“Yes.”

“But . . .”

“It’s the quantity,” Jesse said.

“Yes,” Molly said. “That’s what it is. The women become interchangeable. They are just parts. Nipples and pubic hair.

There’s no . . . there’s no . . .”

Molly stopped and shook her head.

“Humanity,” Jesse said.

“Yes. Nothing human is happening. Do men find this exciting?”

“I don’t,” Jesse said.

“Not for a minute?”

“First ten seconds, maybe,” Jesse said. “More anticipation, probably, than anything.”

“Those tapes shouldn’t exist,” Molly said. “Am I a prude?”

“We had to watch it,” Jesse said. “Not everybody does.”

“So you’re saying it should exist.”

“Most people, I’d say if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.”

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“It’s worse than that,” Molly said. “I don’t want it available to anyone who wants to look.”

“Not my area,” Jesse said. “But my guess is that it would probably do more harm to try and prevent it.”

“Censorship and all that,” Molly said.

“I don’t mind censorship,” Jesse said, “long as I get to be censor.”

Molly smiled.

“Yes. I know. But damn . . .”

“Consenting adults,” Jesse said.

“Not all of them,” Molly said.

Jesse smiled.

“There’s that,” he said.

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32

K elly Cruz sat with Mandy Morello at an outdoor table outside a bakery and deli

near the Marriott Marina Hotel. Kelly

Cruz was drinking coffee. Mandy was having a Pepsi-Cola and eating some sort of napoleon and smoking a cigarette.

“Is sex against the law?” Mandy said.

“Not for consenting adults.”

“How about posing for nude pictures?”

“Not for consenting adults.”

“Okay,” Mandy said. “What would you like to know?”

“Does being one of Mr. Ralston’s girls involve sex and nude pictures?” Kelly Cruz said.

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“Sure,” Mandy said.

She wiped whipped cream off her upper lip.

“Tell me about that,” Kelly Cruz said.

“That give you a charge?” Mandy said. “Hearing about it?”

Kelly Cruz sighed.

“Mandy,” she said. “I’m a fun person, just like you, but I am also a cop investigating a homicide, and I would just as soon not fuck around with it too much, okay?”

“Whoa,” Mandy said. “Kelly, I didn’t mean anything. It’s just how I talk.”

“Sure,” Kelly Cruz said. “Tell me about life with Thomas Ralston.”

“Well, ah, what can I tell you. He parties.”

“With you?”

“Sometimes with me.”

“Sometimes with others?”

“Sure.”

“One at a time?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mandy rolled her eyes and laughed.

“Not always,” she said.

“Other men involved?”

“Sometimes.”

“Are we talking about gang bangs here, Mandy?”

“Sometimes.”

“Willing?”

“Willing? Oh, sure, willing. Of course, it’s all in fun. Somebody doesn’t groove on that. Fine. Don’t party. You know?”

“What about the nude pictures.”

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“Oh those,” Mandy laughed and stubbed her cigarette out in the remains of her napoleon. “Tommy got it all rigged on his boat, cameras in the bedrooms, all hooked to a VCR.”

“Do the participants know they’re being taped?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mandy shrugged.

“I know,” she said, “because he showed me some pictures of me.”

“You didn’t mind?”

“Hell, no, fun stuff. I thought it was cool.”

“How’d you meet Mr. Ralston?” Kelly Cruz said.

“Around. I like yachts and men who own them,” Mandy said. “You hang around the right marinas and you get to see a lot of both.”

“And the other women?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mandy laughed.

“I’m not there,” she said, “because I’m interested in the other women.”

“Any names?”

“No. I don’t know any of them. There’s some babe named Brittany, and somebody named Janine, but I don’t know any last names.”

“Men?”

“Harry,” Mandy said with a big smile, “and Mike and a guy named Ace.”

“No last names,” Kelly Cruz said.

“We’re real informal on the yacht,” Mandy said.

“You know what Mr. Ralston does with all his videotapes?”

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“He looks at them, I guess, in his spare time.”

Kelly Cruz nodded.

“Do you know where he is now?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mandy tipped her glass so that the small chunks of ice in the bottom slid into her mouth. She crunched them thoughtfully, and shook her head.

“He’s up north near Boston someplace,” she said after she swallowed. “There’s some big race thing going on.”

“Do you know when he’ll be back?” Kelly Cruz said.

Mandy shrugged and shook her head.

“Do you know anyone named Florence Horvath?” Kelly Cruz said.

“There was a Florence, hung with Tommy for a while.”

“Know anything about her?”

“She was old for Tommy.”

“Anything else?”