Sea Change

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

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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“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.

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23

Y ou 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.”

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“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.”

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S E A C H A N G E

“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.”

“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.”

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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“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.

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24

T he 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.