(5/10) Sea Change Read online

  (5/10) Sea Change

  10 [5]

  Parker, Robert B.

  Harlequin (2005)

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  * * *

  Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone faces the case of his career in the newest novel in the bestselling series.

  When a woman's partially decomposed body washes ashore in Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone is forced into a case far more difficult than it initially appears. Identifying the woman is just the first step in what proves to be an emotionally charged investigation. Florence Horvath was an attractive, recently divorced heiress from Florida; she also had a penchant for steamy sex and was an enthusiastic participant in a video depicting the same. Somehow the combination of her past and present got her killed, but no one is talking-not the crew of the Lady Jane, the Fort Lauderdale yacht moored in Paradise Harbor; not her very blond, very tan twin sisters, Corliss and Claudia; and not her curiously affectless parents, living out a sterile retirement in a Miami high rise. But someone-Jesse-has to speak for the dead, even if it puts him in harm's way.

  SEA CHANGE

  THE SPENSER NOVELS

  School Days

  Cold Service

  Bad Business

  Back Story

  Widow’s Walk

  Potshot

  Hugger Mugger

  Hush Money

  Sudden Mischief

  Small Vices

  Chance

  Thin Air

  Walking Shadow

  Paper Doll

  Double Deuce

  Pastime

  Stardust

  Playmates

  Crimson Joy

  Pale Kings and Princes

  Taming a Sea-Horse

  A Catskill Eagle

  Valediction

  The Widening Gyre

  Ceremony

  A Savage Place

  Early Autumn

  Looking for Rachel Wallace

  The Judas Goat

  Promised Land

  Mortal Stakes

  God Save the Child

  The Godwulf Manuscript

  THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

  Stone Cold

  Death in Paradise

  Trouble in Paradise

  Night Passage

  THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

  Melancholy Baby

  Shrink Rap

  Perish Twice

  Family Honor

  ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  Appaloosa

  Double Play

  Gunman’s Rhapsody

  All Our Yesterdays

  A Year at the Races (with Joan Parker)

  Perchance to Dream

  Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler) Love and Glory

  Wilderness

  Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan Parker)

  Training with Weights (with John R. Marsh)

  ROBERT B. PARKER

  SEA CHANGE

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panscheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2005 by Robert B. Parker

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Parker, Robert B., date.

  Sea change / Robert B. Parker.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-7865-8916-7

  1. Stone, Jesse (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—Massachusetts—Fiction. 3. Police chiefs—Fiction. 4. Massachusetts—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3566.A686R33 2005 2004043150

  813'.54—dc22

  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

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  They 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 fouling 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 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 t
readed 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 luffing 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.

  1

  The 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 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?”

  “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 collapsed. 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.

  “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.”

  2

  Jenn 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 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.

  “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.”