Authors: Robert B. Parker

(5/10) Sea Change (16 page)

Jurgen did. Jesse took the pad back and looked at it.

“Gimme your driver’s license,” Jesse said.

Jurgen produced it and Jesse compared addresses. They were the same. Jesse gave the license back and grinned at Jurgen.

“Suspicious by nature,” Jesse said.

“That is fine, sir. I know you have a job to do.”

Jesse nodded.

“I’d like it if you didn’t talk about this conversation.”

“They will ask me, sir.”

“Tell them it was routine. I simply asked you if you’d observed anything unusual on board.”

“My God, sir…”

Jesse put up his hand.

“Just say you told me no.”

Jurgen smiled.

“If you say so, sir,” he said.

J
esse had a drink with Rita Fiore at the Seaport Hotel on the South Boston harbor-front.

“Thanks for coming out here through the Big fucking Dig,” Rita said. “But I’ve been in federal court most of the day and needed a double martini immediately after.”

“Glad to oblige,” Jesse said.

“You drinking Coke?”

“Yes.”

“On the wagon?”

“Eleven months,” Jesse said.

“Eek,” Rita said.

She drank some of her martini.

“That’s like the last time I saw you,” she said.

“I stopped shortly after.”

“Scared you sober, huh?”

Jesse smiled.

“There were other issues,” he said.

“Yeah. I know. Like the ex-wifey-do.”

“She would be one,” Jesse said.

“How you and she doing.”

Jesse held up crossed fingers.

“We’re living together at the moment.”

“Oh,” Rita said, “how nice for you.”

“Aw, come on,” Jesse said. “You and I weren’t going anywhere.”

“Maybe
you
weren’t,” Rita said.

“You were?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Rita said.

Jesse didn’t say anything. Rita wore her thick copper hair long. She was wearing a short skirt, and sitting sideways on the bar stool with her legs crossed. Jesse studied her for a moment. Rita watched him and raised her eyebrows.

“You would be a good idea,” Jesse said. “Anytime.”

“But not a keeper,” Rita said.

Jesse smiled and didn’t answer. Rita gestured to the bartender for another martini. She turned back toward Jesse and smiled widely.

“Okay, so you’re not here to propose,” she said.

“I sent a couple of sisters to you awhile ago,” Jesse said.

“The Plum twins,” Rita said.

“Anything work out?” Jesse said.

“Hey, you think just because you got my clothes off a couple of times, I’ll betray professional confidences?”

“I was hoping,” Jesse said.

“Actually they didn’t employ me. I have no obligations to them. They wanted help finding out who killed their sister.”

Jesse nodded.

“I sent them to a guy I know. But it didn’t work out.”

“They see him at all?”

“Yes,” Rita said. “But they didn’t tell him anything and when he asked them stuff they were evasive, so he told them to blow.”

“Excuse me?” Jesse said.

“In a manner of speaking,” Rita said.

“They say anything to you?” Jesse said.

“I think they were worried that you are a small-town doofus,” Rita said, “rather than a high-powered urban hotshot…like, say, me.”

“Anything else?”

“I’d say their combined intelligence is about that of a mud puddle.”

Jesse nodded.

“They told me they were staying at the Four Seasons,” he said.

“Yep. That’s what they told me.”

“Too bad they didn’t hook up with your guy.”

Rita shook her head.

“He wouldn’t have told you anything. He’s a very hard case.”

“Just right for you,” Jesse said.

Rita shook her head slowly.

“Fat chance,” she said. “He’s in love with a shrink.”

“Probably handy to have one in house,” Jesse said.

“Certainly would cut down on the travel time,” Rita said. “What’s your interest in the Plum girls?”

“They might be a little less innocent in all this than they claim.”

“But no smarter.”

“God, no,” Jesse said.

“Tell me,” Rita said.

Jesse drank some of his Coke.

“All of it?” he said.

“Keep you talking,” Rita said, “you may weaken.”

“Especially if you ply me with Coca-Cola,” Jesse said.

“Have another,” Rita said.

They both smiled. And Jesse told her what he knew about the death of Florence Horvath. When Rita listened, Jesse noticed, the sexual challenge left her face.

“Wow,” she said when Jesse was through.

“Yeah,” Jesse said.

“I’ve been a prosecutor,” Rita said, “and a defense attorney. I’ve been on one side or another of criminal law all my adult life.”

Jesse nodded.

“I have also probably slept with more men than you’ve arrested.”

“And I’m a good cop,” Jesse said.

“And I’m shocked.”

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “It’s pretty bad.”

“It’s disgusting,” Rita said.

“But only some of it is illegal,” Jesse said.

“Enough of it,” Rita said. “These aren’t people society has abandoned. They didn’t grow up with no parents in some goddamned project someplace. They’re not victims of racism, or class contempt or poverty. They have no excuse for being trash.”

“True,” Jesse said.

“This is bothering the hell out of me,” Rita said. “And I’m not even involved.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

“Doesn’t it bother you? The obsession with sex, devoid of affection? The exploitation of young girls? The…” Rita waved her hands. “The lack of any feeling anywhere among any of these fucking automatons?”

“I have my own problems with it,” Jesse said. “But I try not to let it interfere with the work.”

Rita sat back a little on the bar stool and looked at Jesse and nodded slowly.

“And,” she said, “you haven’t had two martinis on an empty stomach.”

“Sadly, no,” Jesse said.

J
esse sat with the Plum twins on a bench in the Public Garden, across from the hotel, near the Swan Boats.

“Our room is such a mess,” Corliss said.

“The maid hasn’t cleaned up yet,” Claudia said.

“This is fine,” Jesse said. “Right here.”

“What would be a trip,” Corliss said, “would be to get high and take a ride on those boats.”

“At night,” Claudia said.

“You took the pictures of your sister and the two men,” Jesse said.

“Whaa?” Corliss said.

“You took the threesome video of your sister.”

“We did not,” Claudia said.

“Not,” Corliss said.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Eric already told me, and Kon will say so as well.”

“How do you know Eric?” Corliss said.

“I’m the chief of police,” Jesse said. “I know everything.”

“You know Konrad?” Claudia said.

Jesse smiled.

“So what’s up with that?” he said.

Both of them giggled. Jesse wasn’t sure at what. Maybe that was a Plum family technique. When in doubt, giggle. He waited. They looked at each other.

“Flo,” Corliss said. “Flo asked us to.”

“On Darnell’s boat,” Jesse said.

“Ohh, you know that,” Claudia said.

Jesse nodded. No one said anything. Full of adults and children, the Swan Boats elegantly pedaled their slow circuit of the pond.

“Flo wanted us to do it that way,” Corliss said.

They seemed to speak with instinctive deference to each other’s turn.

“Why?” Jesse said.

Again the girls looked at each other. “She wanted to jerk Harry’s chain,” Claudia said.

“Harry?”

“Harrison,” Corliss said.

“Darnell,” Jesse said.

Both girls nodded.

“Because?”

“Because he dumped her,” Claudia said.

“She was his girlfriend?” Jesse said.

Both girls laughed.

“Aren’t you funny,” Corliss said.

“What was their relationship?” Jesse said.

“She was the one, you know,” Claudia said, “the one he kept.”

“And the other women?”

“Entertainment, you know?” Corliss said.

“Like fishing,” Claudia said, “or skeet, or bridge.”

“And Florence didn’t mind them?”

“Not as long as she had her place,” Corliss said.

“Which was?” Jesse said.

“Head nigger,” Claudia said.

Both girls giggled again.

“But Darnell reorganized?” Jesse said.

“He dumped her,” Corliss said. “For Blondie Martin.”

“And Florence took this video on his boat to make him jealous?” Jesse said.

“She would never do it with him,” Claudia said.

“Harrison was always after her to go with him and Tommy Ralston,” Corliss said.

“But she wouldn’t.”

“No. But when he dumped her…”

“She done it with a couple of former crew guys, and sent him the tape.”

“To make him jealous.”

“Yeah.”

“Did it work?”

“He sent for her,” Corliss said. “Flew her up to Boston.”

“There’s no record of her flying to Boston,” Jesse said.

“He had his pilot fly her up in his private plane.”

“When?”

“Beginning of June,” Corliss said.

“She told us he was up here early for Race Week and she was going to join him.”

“What is the pilot’s name?” Jesse said.

The sisters looked at each other. They both shrugged.

“Larry,” Corliss said.

“Last name?”

They both shook their heads.

“Just Larry is all we ever knew,” Claudia said.

They watched the Swan Boats for a time. Some squirrels darted among the attendant pigeons, hoping for a peanut.

“So how come you didn’t tell me any of this before?” Jesse said.

Both sisters shrugged.

“I guess we thought you’d be mad,” Corliss said.

“Mad?”

“You know, about us sneaking on the boat and taking the pictures. We were afraid you’d say something to Willis and Betsy,” Claudia said.

“Your parents?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you care?” Jesse said.

“They still got some control of our trust funds.”

“Of course,” Jesse said. “So why’d you come up here and see me?”

“We liked Flo. We felt bad about her.”

“And you wanted to know what I knew,” Jesse said. “For fear it might come out.”

“If someone hurt Flo,” Claudia said, “we wanted to know. We wanted to help.”

“So you set up headquarters here,” Jesse said, glancing behind him at the hotel, “and began to ferret out the truth.”

“We’re having a pretty good time here,” Corliss said. “You ever do two guys and a woman?”

“No.”

“We like two women and a guy,” Claudia said, and pressed her breast against Jesse’s left shoulder.

It had no part in the investigation. The question wasn’t professional. But Jesse couldn’t help it.

“Ever think about love?” Jesse said.

The twins stared at him for a time and then giggled.

L
eaning their backsides against the trunk of her car, Kelly Cruz and Larry Barnes stood and talked and watched the private planes land and take off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.

“You flew Florence Horvath up to Boston,” Kelly Cruz said, “in June.”

“Yeah, sure, I remember, last month.”

“That would be June,” Kelly Cruz said.

Barnes grinned at her. He had a thick black mustache and longish hair and big aviator glasses and a short-sleeved white shirt. And his big silver wristwatch looked complex. Neatly across his right forearm just above the wrist was a tattoo that read
BAD NEWS
.

“Tell me about the trip,” Kelly Cruz said.

“Mr. Darnell called, said he wanted me to bring her up. Told me she’d be in touch to arrange the schedule.”

“Darnell often do this?”

Barnes’s face didn’t change, but somehow Kelly Cruz knew he was amused.

“Often,” he said.

“With different women?”

“Often,” Barnes said.

“Anything unusual about this flight?”

“She required Cristal on ice instead of Krug.”

“What was Florence Horvath like?” Kelly Cruz said.

Barnes looked at her and she knew he was even more amused.

“How much of this is on the record,” Barnes said.

“Only the questions of fact. Did you take her? When? At whose request? Your opinions are between me and you.”

Barnes nodded.

“She was like about two hundred other bimbettes I’ve transported,” Barnes said. “Blond, stupid, sure she was sexy. Asked me if I had ever done it at thirty thousand feet.”

Kelly Cruz nodded.

“And you left her in Boston,” she said.

“Private terminal. Carried her bags in for her. She was pretty well fried. Gave her to the limo driver. Got the plane serviced, refueled, came on home.”

“Happen to know what limo company?”

Barnes shook his head.

“Nope. Just a limo guy with a sign,” he said.

“And you never went back to get her,” Kelly Cruz said.

“No. I usually didn’t. Most of the babes were one-way. I’d fly them someplace and Mr. Darnell would sail them home.”

“Know anybody named Thomas Ralston?”

“Fat guy, thinks he looks better than he does?”

“I don’t know,” Kelly Cruz said. “I’ve never seen him. I’m helping out some police up north.”

“What is this all about, anyway?” Barnes said.

Kelly Cruz smiled.

“So you know Thomas Ralston?”

“Yeah, sure, I think so. Mr. Ralston. He flies a lot with Mr. Darnell.”