(5/10) Sea Change (7 page)

Jesse was studying each crew member as the pictures were shown. No recognition, no reaction.

“Why do you keep staring at everybody,” the blonde said.

“Clues,” Jesse said, “I’m looking for clues.”

“Oh pooh,” the blonde said. “Why don’t you join us for a nice cocktail?”

“What could be better?” Jesse said. “Except I’m afraid that Suit here would rat me out to the Board of Selectmen.”

“Why do you call him Suit?” the blonde said.

Amazing,
Jesse thought,
no matter what she says, she manages to make it sound like a challenge.
Jesse nodded at Suit.

“My name’s Simpson, ma’am, and there used to be a ballplayer named Suitcase Simpson, so the guys started calling me that, and it sort of got shortened to Suit.”

She laughed and finished her glass of champagne and held it out toward the pourer.

“What a boring answer,” she said.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Simpson said. “The question wasn’t all that interesting, either.”

The blonde had a full glass again. She drank, and took in a big inhale and held it for a while before she let it out slowly, blowing the smoke out in a thin stream toward Jesse and Simpson. She shook her head.

“Local yokels,” she said and turned away back toward her lunch mates.

Darnell had been standing throughout the picture showing. Now he stepped forward. He was taller than Jesse and exaggerated the difference in height by bending forward to speak.

“If there’s nothing else,” he said.

“Can’t guarantee that,” Jesse said. “But there’s nothing else right now.”

He took a card case from his jacket pocket, took out a number of cards and tossed them on the lunch table.

“If anyone has anything, remembers anything, sees any of these people, whatever, please call me.”

The blonde ostentatiously reached out, picked up one of the cards, looked at it for a moment and then tucked it into the top of her bikini bottom.

“Maybe I’ll call you, Jesse,” she said.

“Or e-mail me,” Jesse said. “Localyokel.com.”

Hanging from the corner of the dining area, there was an ornamental brass monkey sitting on an ornamental brass trapeze bar, with a long brass ornamental tail. Jesse stopped to look at it.

“Not anatomically correct,” Jesse said. “Must have been very cold somewhere.”

He chucked the monkey under its chin, smiled at the lunch crowd and went down the ladder behind Simpson.

16

J
esse was in his office watching the Florence Horvath sex video when Jenn knocked and entered without waiting.

“Jesse, I…”

She stared at the screen.

“Jesse, you pervert,” she said.

“Evidence,” Jesse said. “Care to watch?”

Jenn stood for a minute looking at the threesome on the screen.

“Oh, ick!” she said.

Jesse clicked the remote. The image froze. He clicked again. The screen went dark. Jenn wrinkled her nose.

“I’m looking for something,” Jesse said.

“I hope so,” Jenn said. “The image of you sitting alone in your office watching a gang bang is not a pretty one.”

“I think a gang bang requires more people,” Jesse said. “This is more a ménage à trois, I believe.”

“It’s a ménage à yuck,” Jenn said. “What are you looking for?”

“Something I saw on a yacht yesterday afternoon,” Jesse said. “A brass monkey with a long brass tail, and I have some sort of subliminal memory that I saw something like it, or part of it, or something brass, on this tape.”

“A brass monkey tail,” Jenn said.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “And the couch on the boat where they were eating lunch was the same color as the bed she’s having her liaison on.”

“Blue-and-yellow stripe,” Jenn said.

“Wow, you journalists are observant.”

“I think the correct phrase is still
weather weenie,
” Jenn said. “At least until after they air my Race Week special.”

“Okay, ween,” Jesse said. “You’re still observant, want to help me watch?”

“Okay,” Jenn said, “but you better not enjoy it.”

Jesse clicked the remote again. The tape proceeded. Jesse and Jenn watched silently. As Florence shifted slightly in her delight, the camera moved right to stay on her, and something gleamed fractionally in the right corner of the screen.

“There,” Jenn said.

Jesse froze the frame, but it was past the flash. He rewound, and went forward and froze the frame again, and this time he got it. Curling into the picture was a brass monkey tail.

“Every person on that boat said they didn’t recognize anyone in the pictures,” Jesse said.

“It doesn’t actually prove that it’s the same boat.”

“No, but it’s a pretty good coincidence,” Jesse said. “And coincidence just isn’t useful in cop work.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get some stills made,” Jesse said.

“Then what?” Jenn said. “Confront them with it?”

“First I think I’ll check more on the boat. Some of those yachts are rented. These people may not have been aboard when Florence was. I need to be sure it has been around these parts long enough. She was in the water awhile.”

Jenn nodded.

“Why do you think she made that tape?” Jenn said.

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Could have been money.”

“That seems more like a home movie,” Jenn said. “Video camera with a light bar.”

“You would know amateur from professional?” Jesse said.

Jenn shrugged.

“I’ve seen a few porn films,” she said.

“And?”

“And nothing,” Jenn said. “I didn’t enjoy them.”

“But your date thought you would?” Jesse said.

Jenn shook her head and didn’t say anything. Jesse reeled himself back in.

“I have known women,” he said, “who were interested in seeing themselves having sex on film.”

“With two men at the same time?” Jenn said.

Jesse shrugged.

“Do you have any idea,” Jenn said, “how…how a thing like that would make a woman feel?”

“The men, too,” Jesse said.

Jenn looked startled.

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose that’s right. It doesn’t glamorize them, either.”

Jesse nodded.

“Most women I know don’t like that,” Jenn said.

“No,” Jesse said.

“But men do,” Jenn said.

“More than women, probably,” Jesse said. “Most men will look. Most men wouldn’t want to spend too much time looking. And almost all men know that it gets old really quick.”

“Why would you want to look at something that turns you into a thing?” Jenn said.

Jesse was quiet. They were veering into Dix territory again.

“You’re a man,” Jenn said. “Why do you think men are like that?”

This was about more than pornography, and in some visceral way Jesse realized that it was about him. He took in some air.

“This could turn quickly into psychobabble,” Jesse said. “But you’ve had enough shrink time to know what some of the reasons might be.”

“Objectification is control,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded.

“Of what?” Jenn said.

Jesse shook his head and shrugged.

“Of the object,” he said.

“Are you still talking to Dix?” Jenn said.

“Some.”

“Well, you better keep it up,” Jenn said. “’Cause you’re getting crazier.”

17

J
esse sat in his car on the tip of Paradise Neck, at Lighthouse Point. The car windows were down. The sea air was coming in gently, and he was looking at the
Lady Jane
with a pair of good binoculars. The sailboat races were under way east of Stiles Island, and several of the yachts anchored at the harbor mouth had moved out to watch.
Lady Jane
stayed at anchor. They hadn’t come for the races. They’d come for the cocktails. Jesse could count six people and three crew from where he sat, though he couldn’t see well enough to pick out Darnell or the mouthy blonde. He couldn’t see the brass monkey, either.

Molly called him on his cell phone.

“Why don’t you ever take your official chief car?” Molly said. “I keep trying to raise you on the radio.”

“I like mine better,” Jesse said.

“Christ,” Molly said. “You don’t drive the car, you hardly ever wear your uniform, you don’t use the department issue gun. What’s wrong with you anyway?”

“More than we have time to examine,” Jesse said. “What’s up?”

“Two things,” Molly said. “One, the
Lady Jane
is in fact out of Miami, owned by Harrison Darnell.”

“Un-huh.”

“And, two, Detective Kelly Cruz of Fort Lauderdale PD wants you to call her on her cell phone. If you’d been in the company car I could have patched her through to the radio.”

“How many kids you got, Molly?” Jesse said.

“Four, you know that.”

“And am I one of them?” Jesse said.

“Oh go fuck yourself…sir.”

“Give me Cruz’s cell phone number,” Jesse said.

Molly told him, Jesse wrote it down and smiled as he broke the connection. He dialed Kelly Cruz.

“Couple things,” Jesse said. “You guys got that tape dated yet?”

“No,” Kelly Cruz said. “Don’t have the budget for it.”

“Okay, you owed me,” Jesse said. “You got a date?”

“Lab found a date and time stamp,” she said. “March seventh, this year, at three-oh-nine in the afternoon.”

“And I think I know where,” Jesse said.

“Really?”

“Cockpit of a yacht named
Lady Jane
out of Miami,” Jesse said.

“Cockpit’s appropriate,” Kelly said. “You know who owns the boat?”

“Harrison Darnell,” Jesse said.

“Address?”

“I’ll have Molly Crane call you as soon as we stop talking,” Jesse said. “She’s got it.”

“Okay. You know where the yacht is now?”

“Here,” Jesse said.

“Mr. Darnell aboard?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll check on him,” Kelly Cruz said. “I got people I can call in Miami.”

“Appreciate it,” Jesse said. “Got anything else?”

“Talked to the parents,” she said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Plum?”

“Yes. They live in Miami.”

“Close at hand,” Jesse said.

“Sure, ’bout twenty miles from me. They didn’t know even where she was living, they said. They had no communication with her, and hadn’t for a couple years.”

“Any, ah, precipitating incident?” Jesse said.

“Wow,” Kelly Cruz said. “Precipitating incident. Not really, they just, they said, were at the end of their tether. Her grandfather, guy that founded Plum and Partridge, left her a ton of money in trust until she turned twenty-five. When she got it, they told me, she was pretty smart with the money.”

“So she got richer,” Jesse said.

“Yeah. She lived high up on the hog,” Kelly Cruz said, “off the invested principal.”

“That an issue?”

“Yeah. She drank too much, did too much dope, fucked whoever stopped by. They think she’s some kind of bad seed. But whenever she’d get drunk or strung out or pregnant, or divorced, she’d come home until she straightened out. Then she’d fight with her parents and her two younger sisters and disappear again.”

“How old are the sisters?”

“Twenty,” Kelly Cruz said. “They’re twins.”

“Our ME says she was mid-thirties.”

“Thirty-four,” she said.

“Fourteen years,” Jesse said.

“I know. They didn’t comment,” Kelly Cruz said. “But they felt she was a bad influence on her sisters and last time she left they told her not to come back.”

“Talk to the sisters?”

“Nope. They’re spending the summer in Europe.”

“Plum and Partridge doing okay?”

“Very well,” Kelly Cruz said. “You should see where they live.”

“They got any theories on Florence’s death?” Jesse said.

“No,” Kelly Cruz said. “But I think they feel she deserved it.”

“Home is where the heart is,” Jesse said.

“You got kids?” she said.

“No.”

“I got two,” she said. “No matter what they did or what they turned into, they could never deserve it.”

“What are the twins’ names?” Jesse said.

“You’ll love this,” Kelly Cruz said, “wait a minute, I got it in my notes…. Corliss and Claudia. Isn’t that sweet? Corliss and Claudia Plum.”

“When are they coming back from Europe?”

“Don’t know. Probably in time for senior year at school.”

“What school?”

“Emory,” Kelly Cruz said.

“When you talk with Molly about Darnell’s address, could you leave her the Plums’ address, and phone?”

“Sure,” she said. “You coming down?”

“Maybe if the case runs into winter,” Jesse said.

“Lemme know,” Kelly Cruz said. “You’ll be on expenses and I can get us into Joe’s Stone Crab.”

“Sure,” Jesse said. “You tell the parents about the sex tape?”

“No.”

“You didn’t have the heart.”

“That’s right.”

“Show them head shots from the tape?” Jesse said. “The two guys?”

“Yes. They didn’t recognize either one.”

“Thanks, Kelly,” Jesse said. “I know you got other cases, but anything comes across your desk…”

“I’m a curious girl,” Kelly Cruz said. “And sometimes it’s slow around here. I get time I’ll look up Harrison Darnell, and I’ll sniff around when I can.”

They hung up. Jesse sat looking at the
Lady Jane
without the binoculars.

“I wouldn’t have told them about the video, either,” he said aloud to no one.

18

M
olly stuck her head in the door to Jesse’s office.

“Lady to see you, Jess.”

Jesse nodded. Molly went away and came back in a moment with the mouthy blonde from the
Lady Jane.
She was wearing sunglasses, a backless yellow halter sundress with large blue flowers, and white sling back shoes with three-inch heels. The dress came to about the middle of her thighs.

“The local yokel,” she said.

“Chief Yokel,” Jesse said.

“You really are the chief of police,” she said.

“I am,” Jesse said.

She came in and sat opposite him. She crossed her legs. The skirt of the sundress slid further back on her tan thighs. She placed her small yellow straw purse in her lap and opened it.