Authors: Robert B. Parker
“Ms. Fiore will be right with you,” the secretary said and left.
Jesse looked at the South Shore for a short while until Rita came in wearing a red suit and sat behind her desk.
“Wow,” she said, “a coat and tie.”
“Trying to fit in,” Jesse said. “You talk to your private eye?”
“I did,” Rita said.
She took a notebook from her middle drawer and opened it and thumbed through some pages.
“He gave me what he had.”
“Didn’t I run into him once?” Jesse said. “Working on something in Paradise?”
“I think so,” Rita said.
“Him and a terrifying black guy.”
“Terrifying is one description,” Rita said. “Toothsome would be another.”
Jesse smiled.
“What did he tell you?” he said.
Rita looked at her notes.
“They wanted to know if he could find a person and track his movements,” Rita paused and studied her notes a moment.
“I hate my handwriting,” she said. “And he said, ‘You want someone followed?’ and they said mostly they wanted to know where someone had been in the last few months. And he said that was possible, who did they have in mind?”
Rita looked up and smiled.
“Then they ran into a snag,” Rita said. “The girls didn’t want to tell him who.”
“Whose movements they wanted him to discover?”
“That’s right.”
She returned to her notes and studied them for a moment.
“He said that it would be difficult to trace someone’s movements if he didn’t know who they were, and, he told me, ‘They acted like they hadn’t thought of that.’ He told me, ‘They kept looking at each other and silently agreeing that they couldn’t give the name.’ So he declined the employment offer…he claims, graciously.”
“They give him any clue where he was supposed to look?” Jesse said.
“Miami and Boston,” she said.
Rita looked at her notes.
“Miami or Boston,” she said, “or travel between.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jesse said.
Rita waited. Jesse didn’t say anything.
“I would guess,” Rita said after a time of silence, “that I have provided you a clue.”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
They were quiet again.
Then Rita said, “I would guess that you are not going to share it with me.”
“Also true,” Jesse said.
“Because?”
“Because you are the best criminal defense lawyer in the state,” Jesse said. “And you might end up defending someone I want convicted.”
“Are you suggesting I would take unfair advantage of our, ah, relationship?”
“Yes.”
Rita smiled.
“Well, of course,” she said. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to call Kelly Cruz,” Jesse said.
“Who’s Kelly Cruz?”
“Somebody I’m going to call,” Jesse said.
Jesse stood. Rita stared at him for a moment.
“If I’d known you were like this,” she said, “I’d never have bopped your socks off.”
Jesse grinned at her.
“Yeah,” he said. “You would have.”
And they both began to laugh.
54
B
ack with the Plums,
Kelly Cruz thought, as she sat on the same terrace, looking at the same blue-green water. Mr. and Mrs. Plum were both tanned and immaculate in white. The drink trolley was set up on the terrace. It was late afternoon and the cocktail hour had begun.
Probably been in effect for a while,
Kelly Cruz thought. She declined alcohol, and accepted a 7-Up.
“Just a few follow-up questions,” Kelly Cruz said when they were all settled. “Have you been traveling at all in the last couple of months?”
“No, we haven’t,” Mr. Plum said pleasantly.
He smiled at Kelly Cruz. His eyes crinkled attractively when he smiled.
“Say, since the end of May?”
“No, we haven’t,” Mr. Plum said, just as pleasantly.
“Mrs. Plum?” Kelly Cruz said.
“No,” she said. “I believe Willis drove up to Tallahassee, around the beginning of June, but I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“No, I didn’t, Mommy,” Mr. Plum said.
“You went up to visit the new store,” Mrs. Plum said.
Mrs. Plum looked at Kelly Cruz.
“Willis loves to get in the car and drive off by himself. He drives all over the country.”
“No,” Mr. Plum was kind but firm, “you’re confused.”
Mrs. Plum looked at her husband. He was serene in his certainty, sipping a gin and tonic today.
Pacing himself,
Kelly Cruz thought.
“Didn’t you open a new store in Tallahassee? Right after Memorial Day?”
Mr. Plum smiled fondly at his wife.
“Mommy, you’re getting old on me. I didn’t go anywhere in June.”
“You have a car,” Kelly Cruz said.
“My dear,” Mr. Plum said. “Of course we do.”
“Wow,” Kelly Cruz said. “I never think of cars at a place like this. Is there a parking garage?”
“Indeed,” Mr. Plum said. “And valet service all through the day and night.”
He seemed proud.
“I suppose you have assigned spaces?” Kelly Cruz said. “Probably deeded.”
She was aware as she chatted with Mr. Plum that Mrs. Plum was staring at him. Mr. Plum looked at her indulgently.
“Of course,” he said kindly.
He rang a small bell, and the Cuban maid came in and brought the Plums another drink from the trolley. Kelly Cruz nursed her 7-Up. As he sipped his new drink, Mr. Plum seemed to lose interest in Kelly Cruz. Instead he looked thoughtfully out from the patio at Biscayne Bay. Mrs. Plum appeared not to look at anything.
“Well,” Kelly Cruz said. “So, no travel, I guess.”
Mr. Plum seemed not to hear her. Mrs. Plum shrugged and shook her head.
Kelly Cruz put her unfinished soft drink on the coffee table and stood.
“Well, thanks, sorry to bother you,” she said.
Mr. Plum continued to look at the bay. Mrs. Plum reached forward and rang the bell, and the Cuban maid came and showed Kelly Cruz to the door.
Kelly Cruz paused at the door and smiled at the maid,
just a couple of palsy Cuban girls taking a moment to chat.
“Mi hermana,” Kelly Cruz said. “You remember when Mr. Plum went up to Tallahassee a couple of months ago?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Mrs. Plum didn’t go with him, did she?” Kelly Cruz said.
“No ma’am.”
“Good,” Kelly Cruz said. “Thanks, Magdalena. The garage on the lower level?”
“Yes ma’am.”
55
J
esse was on the phone with Kelly Cruz.
“He’s so empty and sweet,” she said. “It’s like part of him is missing but he doesn’t mind and there’s no reason you should be upset about it.”
“Except for him being a pedophile.”
“Except for that,” Kelly Cruz said.
“And you think the wife knows,” Jesse said.
“She knows,” Kelly Cruz said. “I can’t promise you that she even knows she knows.”
“But she knows.”
“She knows,” Kelly Cruz said.
“Can you work on her?”
“Some. If I can catch her away from him. They are nearly always together, as far as I can tell.”
“Contentment,” Jesse said. “After years of marriage.”
“Except for him being a pedophile,” Kelly Cruz said.
“Except for that,” Jesse said.
“How about the maid?”
“See no evil, speak no evil.”
“Not even for a sister?”
“She doesn’t care if I’m of pure Cath-tilian heritage,” Kelly Cruz said. “She’s got a good job and she won’t do anything to risk it. I had to trick her to say anything.”
“Any other servants?”
“Houseman and a cook. They are much less forthcoming than the maid.”
“So the servants are a dead end,” Jesse said.
“Complete,” Kelly Cruz said. “However, being a stubborn broad, I check out the parking garage. The attendant doesn’t remember whether Mister took his car out or not at the beginning of June. So I say, Is it there now? And he says it is and shows it to me. Actually I say this all in Spanish.”
“Muy simpatico,”
Jesse said.
“Si,”
Kelly Cruz said. “It’s an Escalade. Black. Loaded. I checked it out. It told me nothing. But I did see a small E-ZPass transponder inside the windshield.”
“New York,” Jesse said. “Our system works with it, too.”
“Lot of them do, along the East Coast,” Kelly Cruz said. “Then I called the new Plum and Partridge store in Tallahassee, and
yes,
they opened the day after Memorial Day, and
no,
Mr. Plum didn’t attend. No one at the store that I talked to even knows what he looks like. I gather he’s not a hands-on manager.”
“But you are convinced he went somewhere,” Jesse said.
“Yes. Mrs. Plum shut up once he made it clear he would deny it,” Kelly Cruz said. “But he wasn’t home the first few days in June.”
“So if I tracked down the hits on his E-ZPass transponder, maybe I’d learn something,” Jesse said.
“If he drove someplace where the system is in effect,” Kelly Cruz said.
“And at worst I’d learn what I already know,” Jesse said.
“Which is?”
“Next to
nada.
”
“Wow,” Kelly Cruz said. “You really do speak our language.”
“I used to work in L.A.,” Jesse said.
“Sorry to hear that,” Kelly Cruz said.
56
Y
our guest is already here,” Daisy Dyke told Jesse. “Hoo ha.”
“Hoo ha?” Jesse said.
“Wasn’t a married woman I might take a run at her m’self.”
“I think she’s on my side of the fence,” Jesse said.
“Never know till you try,” Daisy said. “You taking a run?”
“No. It’s business.”
Blondie Martin was at a table in the back of Daisy’s beside the bar, drinking Lillet on the rocks. Daisy held the chair out for Jesse and pushed it in as he sat.
“So,” Blondie said, when Daisy had left them. “How come you’re not grilling me in the back room of the station house.”
“I was afraid you’d like it too much,” Jesse said.
“Especially with handcuffs,” Blondie said.
The waitress appeared. Jesse ordered iced tea. Blondie asked for another Lillet.
“No drinking on duty?” Blondie said.
“Or off,” Jesse said.
“You ever drink?”
“I did.”
“Are you an alcoholic?”
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “At the moment, I’m not drinking.”
The waitress brought their drinks, and took their order for lunch.
“So what do you want with me, Chief Yokel?” Blondie said. “You been watching me in the video?”
“I’ve worn it out,” Jesse said. “But today I’d like to talk about Darnell.”
“Harrison? Why talk about Harrison when we can talk about me?”
“This is a working lunch,” Jesse said. “What is Harrison’s attraction for women?”
“Money,” Blondie said.
“That what appeals to you?” Jesse said.
“Sure,” Blondie said.
“Anything else?”
“Well, I mean money can only buy you so much. Some of these freakos are scary. Harrison isn’t. He’s kinky, yes. But if you aren’t kinky in the same way, he doesn’t insist.”
“Is he jealous?”
“Of what?” Blondie said.
“Any of his women being with other men?”
“Oh God, no,” Blondie said. “This is recreational, Jesse. Nobody gets jealous or possessive or anything.”
She grinned at him and finished her first Lillet.
“We just all like to fuck,” she said.
Jesse smiled.
“Doesn’t make you a bad person,” Jesse said.
Blondie didn’t laugh.
“Actually, I am sort of a bad person,” she said. “I’m shallow and careless, pretty selfish. But I try to be honest.”
“That why you told me that Darnell was lying about the two crewmen in the video with Florence?”
“Oh hell, I don’t know,” Blondie said. “You looked pretty good on the boat. I thought it might be fun to see how good you were in bed.”
“So it was a seduction ploy,” Jesse said.
“Yeah,” Blondie said. “See what I mean? I ratted out Harrison, just because you looked like you might be hot.”
Jesse nodded. The waitress delivered lunch. A tongue sandwich on light rye for Jesse. Something called a California Salad for Blondie. Blondie ordered a bottle of Chardonnay.
“Was Florence Darnell’s favorite?”
“I don’t think so,” Blondie said.
“I was told she was and that he ditched her for you.”
Blondie Martin looked at Jesse with blank astonishment.
“Ditched her? For me?”
Jesse nodded. Blondie stared.
“Harrison’s favorite,” Blondie said, “was whoever gave him his most recent BJ.”
“Well,” Jesse said. “It’s a standard.”
“The only way this whole deal works on the boat is that absolutely nobody aboard cares about anything but their own orgasm,” Blondie said.
“Including the high-school girls he recruits locally?” Jesse said.
“Sure. You think they’re out there looking for love?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
“Oh, fuck the shrink shit,” Blondie said. “They are out there to get laid.”
“Like you,” Jesse said.
“Like me,” Blondie said, “and have some laughs and a good time and maybe come away with a little jing.”
“So why did Florence send him the videotape?”
“She sent it?”
“Didn’t she?”
“I don’t know who sent it. I picked up our mail in town that day. There was no return address. When I gave it to Harrison he wondered who sent it.”
“Did you see it?”
“Sure, we watched it together. It was cool. Harrison especially got a kick out of it. Wanted to try it with me. But…” Blondie shook her head.
“And he wasn’t upset by it?”
“No, of course not. What’s to be upset about. He loved it.”
“So when did it arrive? Can you remember?”
“While Florence was off the boat.”
“Off the boat?”
“Yeah.”
“So when was the last time you saw her?” Jesse said.
“She came up with us on the boat from Florida.”
“This trip?”
“Yeah, sure,” Blondie said.
“And everybody on the boat saw her.”
“Sure.”