(5/10) Sea Change Read online

  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.

  “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.

  “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?”

  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?”

  “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.”

  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.”

  “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 saying, 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.”

  “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.

  21

  Jesse 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 bungalows 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.”

  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 music 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.”

  “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.”

  22

  Molly 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?”

  “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 community 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.

  “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 generations. Real estate development. Never married. Playboy reputation. 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.”

  “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 hurting 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 con
nection between Ralston and Darnell. And I think you need to pressure the parents. There’s too much going on that we don’t understand.”

  “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.

  23

  You 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.”

  “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.”

  “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.”