(5/10) Sea Change Read online

  “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.”

  “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.

  24

  The 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 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.

  “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 stairway. 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 wondered 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-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 th
at 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 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.

  25

  The 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 PLAY.

  It was a red-haired woman with slim hips and, Jesse speculated, 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 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.

  26

  Molly 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 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?”

  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.

  “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 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.

  27

  When 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.