(5/10) Sea Change Read online

  “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 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.”

  30

  Kelly Cruz sat at the bar of the Boat Club, at the marina, near the causeway in Fort Lauderdale, sipping a Diet Coke. The bartender 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.

  “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 scattered 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.”

  “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, 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.”

  “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.”

  “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.”

  31

  I can’t watch those tapes with Molly,” Suitcase Simpson said.

  “I’m all right with it, Suit,” Molly said.r />
  “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.

  “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 DeWolfe 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.”

  “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.

  32

  Kelly 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.

  “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.”

  “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?”

  “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?”

  “No.”

  �
��Know where she is now?” Kelly Cruz said.

  “No.”

  “Know any other friends of hers?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know Corliss and Claudia Plum?”

  “Twins?” Mandy said.

  “Yes.”

  “Corliss and Claudia, yeah. They been on the boat with Tommy, pretty sure. I mean how many twins you meet, let alone named Claudia and Corliss. Yikes.”

  “They party with Tommy too?”

  “Absolutely. College cuties, you know.”

  Kelly Cruz took out the three head shots Jesse had sent.

  “Know any of these?” she said to Mandy.

  Mandy studied the pictures.

  “I mighta seen them around the marina, hard to say. Pictures aren’t really great, you know?”

  “I know,” Kelly Cruz said.

  Mandy looked some more.

  “I can’t tell,” she said. “Everybody hangs around the marina looks the same, tan, blond. Boys, girls, doesn’t matter. Hard to remember.”

  Kelly Cruz nodded and took the pictures back. She took a card out of her purse and handed it to Mandy.

  “Anything occurs to you, call me.”

  “Sure,” Mandy said and tucked the card into her bra.

  “Tommy give you money?” Kelly Cruz said.

  “He helps out, bless his horny little heart.”

  “So what are you doing now,” Kelly Cruz said, “while Tommy’s away?”

  Mandy paused to light a new cigarette.

  “I have other friends,” she said.

  33

  I been working my little butt off for you down here,” Kelly Cruz said on the phone.

  “Glad to know it’s little,” Jesse said.

  “Perky, too,” Kelly Cruz said.

  “Even better,” Jesse said. “What do you know.”

  “I talked to the vic’s parents,” Kelly Cruz said. “The old man is off in happy land someplace. Booze, denial, Alzheimer’s, I don’t know. But as far as he knows, everything is dandy and let’s have a cocktail.”

  “How about the mother?”

  “She knows. And she doesn’t know what to do with it, and so she pretends she doesn’t know, and let’s have a cocktail.”

  “She know the twins aren’t in school?”

  “Yes,” Kelly Cruz said. “I feel kind of bad for her.”

  “She know anything else?”

  “She knows that Florence was pals with Thomas Ralston.”