Sea Change

“Again,” Jesse said, “long answer. Short version is you don’t become more important because a lot of people are willing to fuck you.”

“I’m not trying to be important,” she said. “I’m just having some fun.”

“I need the names of the other girls,” Jesse said.

“Are you going to tell them I told?”

Jesse looked at Molly, who had said not a word during the entire conversation. She shrugged and shook her head.

“To tell you the truth, Katie,” Jesse said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’ll start by taking names.”

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35

J enn always brushed her teeth before bed.

Jesse lay in bed on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, watching her

through the open door of the bathroom. She was wearing one of his shirts, just the way she used to, and when she bent over to rinse her mouth, her butt showed. Jenn turned off the bathroom light and got into bed beside Jesse.

“Were you leering at me?” Jenn said.

“I was admiring your butt,” Jesse said.

“It is cute, isn’t it.”

“So you don’t mind admiring,” Jesse said.

S E A C H A N G E

“Admiring is good; leering is good.”

“I was admiring,” Jesse said.

Jenn tuned her head and kissed him lightly.

“Tell me about your day,” she said.

He knew she was mocking their domesticity.

“Any day that ends up with us in bed,” Jesse said, “is a good day.”

“Oh,” she said, “you charming devil.”

“I would like to get through with this floater case,” Jesse said. “It’s turned into a goddamned cesspool.”

“The one where you were watching the dirty movies?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s gotten worse.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“I do,” Jesse said. “It’s one of the things I really missed when you were gone.”

“Talking to me?”

“I could always talk to you,” Jesse said.

“So talk,” Jenn said.

They had left the balcony doors open, and they could hear the sound of the harbor as Jesse talked, lying on his back in the nearly dark room, looking up the blank, uninteresting ceiling. Jenn turned on her side toward him as she listened.

Through the open French doors, they could hear a boat mo-tor. Softer, more persistent, so familiar in its endless rhythm as to be nearly soundless was the movement of the waves against the causeway at the south end of the harbor. Jenn 1 7 1

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

already knew some of the story, about the videotapes from Darnell. He told her the rest. He told her what Kelly Cruz had learned. He told her about Katie DeWolfe.

“So the bastards recruit?” Jenn said when he was finished.

“And apparently swap.”

“Tapes, too,” Jenn said, “wouldn’t you guess?”

“They probably leer at them,” Jesse said.

“Almost certainly,” Jenn said. “And, my God, what about the women on board? You know the older women? What are they?”

“Put the young ones at ease. Maybe. On the other hand, Katie says, they ‘jump right in.’”

“Jesus,” Jenn said. “You can get them both, can’t you? For statutory rape?”

“I can always do that,” Jesse said. “I want them for murder.”

“Both of them?”

“Whoever killed her,” Jesse said. “And whoever helped.

And whoever knew.”

“What if neither of them did it?” Jenn said.

“One of them did it. Maybe both.”

“You’re so sure?”

“I’m so sure.”

She continued to lie on her side, looking at him. He continued to look at the ceiling.

“If I was looking at your butt and just thinking it was a good-looking butt?” Jesse said after a while.

“That would be admiring,” Jenn said.

1 7 2

S E A C H A N G E

“And if I also imagined holding on to your butt while we were making wild and exotic love?”

“That would be leering.”

“And is one better than the other?” Jesse said.

“Jesse, this sex case is making you crazy,” Jenn said.

“You think?”

Jenn took in a deep breath.

“I am your main fucking squeeze,” she said. “You are supposed to admire me and leer at me and feel desire and act on it.”

“Act on it?”

“Yeah, act. That too much for you, Hamlet?”

Jesse grinned at her.

“Then out swords,” he said, “and to work withal.”

“That’s not Hamlet,” Jenn said.

“Jose Ferrer said it in some movie I saw.”

“That was Cyrano de Bergerac.”

“Close enough,” Jesse said, and pressed his mouth on hers.

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36

T hanks for coming in, Mr. Ralston,” Jesse said.

Thomas Ralston’s head was shaved. He

had a deep tan. He was a little taller than Jesse. Six feet, maybe. And he was the kind of fat guy who pretends that it’s brawn. His white shirt had epaulets. It was unbuttoned halfway down his fat tan chest. He had on tan linen slacks and brown leather sandals. A gold cross on a thick chain nes-tled among the gray chest hairs. He kept his wraparound sunglasses on indoors.

“What’s this all about, Chief?” he said.

“Just routine,” Jesse said. “We’re looking into a homicide.

Woman from Fort Lauderdale named Florence Horvath.”

S E A C H A N G E

“Never heard of her,” Ralston said.

“Well, that answers one question,” Jesse said. “We think she may have come off one of the yachts here for Race Week.”

Ralston shrugged.

“So, you being registered in Fort Lauderdale and all.”