Authors: Robert B. Parker
“Mind if I smoke?” she said.
“I do,” Jesse said.
“You mind?”
“Yes.”
She had the silver cigarette case halfway out of her purse.
“You do mind?” she said.
“I do,” Jesse said.
“Jesus Christ!” she said.
She put the case back in her purse.
“I knew you were so prissy,” the blonde said, “I wouldn’t have come to help you.”
Jesse was quiet.
The blonde said, “You got any coffee at least?”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
He got her some.
“Cream and sugar?”
She shook her head. He handed her the cup. She took a sip.
“Well,” she said. “It’s strong.”
Jesse nodded. The blonde sipped coffee, and looked around the room.
“Are you carrying your gun, Chief Yokel?”
“Always armed and ready,” Jesse said.
The blonde seemed somehow to wiggle motionlessly.
“Really?” she said.
Jesse smiled. The blonde smiled back. Her teeth were very white. Dental intervention, Jesse assumed.
Bonding or whitening or glazing or whatever the hell.
“My name’s Blondie Martin,” she said.
“Jesse Stone.”
“I know,” Blondie said, “the police chief. You told us on the boat.”
Jesse nodded.
“Have you always been the chief of police?” Blondie said.
“No.”
“So how long have you been Chief Local Yokel?”
“About seven years,” Jesse said.
“What before?”
“I was a cop in Los Angeles,” Jesse said.
“Oh my,” Blondie said, “a not-so-local yokel.”
Jesse didn’t say anything. Blondie crossed her legs the other way. She drank some more coffee, holding the white mug in both hands.
“You married?” she said.
“Sort of,” he said.
“How can you be sort of married?”
“My ex-wife and I are giving it another try,” Jesse said.
“Some people just won’t let go,” she said.
Jesse nodded. She drank the rest of her coffee and stood and poured herself another cup from the Mister Coffee on top of the file cabinet. Standing, she sipped her coffee, and looked sideways at Jesse and smiled.
“Remember I said I’d come to help you?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Are you wondering what help I’m bringing?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you are certainly calm about it.”
“I try,” Jesse said.
“What was that sports jacket you were wearing on the boat?”
“Paradise Twi-league,” Jesse said. “Softball.”
“What’s your position?”
“Shortstop.”
“Are you good?”
“Yes.”
“Very good?”
“Yes.”
“You look like you’d be very good,” Blondie said. “If you’re so good, why aren’t you playing someplace instead of being Chief Yokel?”
“Hurt my shoulder,” Jesse said. “Can’t throw much anymore.”
“But you’re still playing.”
“I can throw enough for the Paradise Twi-league,” Jesse said. “Not for the Show.”
“Show?”
“Big leagues,” Jesse said.
“Were you good enough for the, ah, Show, before you got hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Bummer,” Blondie said.
Jesse waited. She drank more coffee. She couldn’t smoke. He wasn’t serving cocktails. Any stimulant in a pinch.
“At least two people on the
Lady Jane
were lying to you the other day,” Blondie said.
“Happens a lot,” Jesse said.
“Harrison knew those two guys in the pictures you showed us.”
Jesse waited.
“They crewed for him last year. I was on the boat with him a few times last year. I recognized them both.”
“Anyone else that should have recognized them?” Jesse said.
“No, just Harrison and me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me on the boat?”
“Didn’t want Harrison getting mad. I’m a long way from home and he’s my ride back.”
“Where’s home?”
“Palm Beach. Harrison picked me up there and we came on up for Race Week.”
“You with him?” Jesse said.
“Sort of, I guess,” Blondie said. “Got to be with somebody.”
19
J
esse was at his desk, checking overtime slips and drinking coffee, when Molly stuck her head in.
“Wait’ll you get a load of this,” she said.
Jesse looked up.
“More sex tapes?”
“Live action,” Molly said. “The sisters Plum.”
“Florence Horvath’s sisters?”
“In the, ah, flesh,” Molly said.
Jesse put the neat pile of overtime slips aside.
“Bring them in,” he said.
Corliss and Claudia Plum were very blond, very slim, very tanned and very slightly dressed. They wore very dark eye makeup, very light lipstick. One of them had on a sleeveless aqua-and-coral patterned summer dress with a short skirt, and showed very deep cleavage. The other had on a robin’s-egg-blue-and-pink dress of the same length, and showed lots of cleavage. Both wore slip-on shoes with very high heels. One pair was aqua, the other was blue. Neither wore stockings. It was also clear that neither was wearing a bra. Jesse stood when they came in.
Aqua and coral said, “I’m Corliss.”
Blue and pink said, “I’m Claudia.”
“Jesse Stone.”
Both girls shook his hand and then sat without much regard to the minimal length of their dresses.
Well,
Jesse thought,
at least they’re wearing underpants.
“I’m very sorry about your sister,” Jesse said.
“That’s why we’re here,” Claudia said.
“We want to know the truth,” Corliss said.
“We found your sister floating in the harbor,” Jesse said.
“So who killed her,” Corliss said.
“We don’t know that anyone did.”
“You don’t know? How come you don’t know. You think she just jumped in the ocean?”
“We don’t know exactly how she got in the ocean,” Jesse said.
“Well, she sure didn’t jump in,” Claudia said.
“Do you have a theory?” Jesse said.
“What about DNA?”
“We know her identity,” Jesse said. “Why do you think someone killed her?”
“She wouldn’t just fall in,” Corliss said.
“Did she drink?” Jesse said.
“Course,” Corliss said. “But she could handle it, she wouldn’t get drunk and fall in the ocean.”
Jesse nodded.
“I thought you were in Europe,” Jesse said.
The twins looked at each other.
“That’s what we told the parents,” Claudia said.
They both giggled.
“Partying,” Corliss said.
“Where?”
“In New York.”
“Manhattan?” Jesse asked.
“No, no, Sag Harbor.”
“All summer?”
Both girls giggled.
“Staying with friends?”
“Ohhh yes,” Corliss said.
“Could I have a name?” Jesse said.
“Name?”
“Of the friend you stayed with.”
“Why?”
“Better to know than not know,” Jesse said.
“You think we did something bad?” Claudia said.
“Ohhh yeah,” Jesse said, and smiled.
The twins giggled again.
“Well, we didn’t do anything bad to Flo,” Claudia said.
“Of course not,” Jesse said. “Where were you staying on Long Island?”
“Well,” Corliss looked at her sister.
“We were at a guy’s house in Sag Harbor.”
“Name?”
“Ah, the guy that owned the house was, ah, Carlo.”
Jesse nodded and waited. Corliss looked at her sister again.
“What was Carlo’s last name?” she said. “You remember?”
Claudia frowned cutely.
“Funny name,” she said, “like it was part of his first name.”
Corliss frowned cutely. Jesse waited.
“Like Coca-Cola,” Corliss said.
“Carlo Coca,” Claudia said.
“C-O-C-A?” Jesse said.
“I guess,” Claudia said.
Both twins looked pleased. Jesse wrote down the name.
“Got an address?” Jesse said.
“Oh,” Claudia said, “I don’t know.”
She looked at Corliss.
“On the beach,” Corliss said.
“Phone?”
They both shrugged. Jesse nodded.
“Well, we’ll find him,” Jesse said.
“He may not remember us,” Corliss said.
Jesse smiled at them.
“Hard not to,” he said.
“You can’t tell our parents,” Claudia said.
“They’d have a shit fit,” Corliss said.
“I have no reason to tell your parents,” Jesse said.
“They think we’re still their little baby virgins,” Claudia said.
“How did you hear of Florence’s death?” Jesse said.
“One of our friends called,” Corliss said.
“The friend knew where you were?”
“Not really, she called on our cell phone.”
“What’s her name?”
“Kimmy,” Corliss said.
“Kimmy Young,” Claudia said. “Why?”
“I’m a cop,” Jesse said. “I like to know stuff.”
“We were thinking maybe we should hire some kind of private detective,” Corliss said.
Jesse nodded.
“You know?” Corliss said.
Jesse nodded again.
“I mean this is like a small town,” Claudia said. “You know?”
“I do,” Jesse said.
“So you won’t be like, insulted?” Corliss said.
“No.”
“But we don’t know how to go about it,” Claudia said.
Jesse nodded.
“Talk with Rita Fiore,” Jesse said.
He wrote the name and phone number on a piece of yellow paper and handed it to Claudia.
“Criminal lawyer at a big Boston firm,” Jesse said. “Use my name. I’m sure she can put you in touch with someone.”
“We, ah, forgot your name,” Corliss said.
Jesse took a card from the middle drawer of his desk and handed it to Corliss.
“She’ll be, ah, you know, she won’t talk about us to anyone,” Corliss said.
“Soul of discretion,” Jesse said.
They nodded.
“Are you planning to stay awhile?”
“Until our sister’s killer is brought to justice,” Corliss said.
“Before you leave here this morning, give Molly your address.”
“Is that the policewoman out front?”
Jesse smiled. Molly would bite them if they called her that.
“At the desk,” he said.
“Okay. We got a nice suite at the Four Seasons. With a view.”
“In Boston,” Jesse said.
“Un-huh,” Corliss said.
“Did anything bad happen to Flo before she died?” Claudia said.
“Hard to say.”
“I mean did anybody hurt her?”
“Can’t tell,” Jesse said. “You think someone would?”
The twins looked at each other.
“Not really,” Corliss said. “But she ran with a weird crowd sometimes.”
“Names?” Jesse said.
Both twins shook their heads.
“Oh, we don’t know that,” Claudia said.
“We don’t know any of them really,” Corliss said.
Jesse took the sex video head shots from a drawer and put them out on the desk where the Plum twins could see them.
“Know either of these gentlemen?” Jesse said.
They did. Jesse could tell by the way their shoulders froze when they looked. They both shook their heads at the same time.
“No,” Claudia said.
“No, we don’t,” Corliss said.
Jesse took out three other pictures.
“One of these Florence?” Jesse said.
They looked.
“Course,” Corliss said.
“That one,” Claudia said.
“You didn’t even know which one she was?”
“I did,” Jesse said. “I wanted to be sure you did.”
They both stared at him silently for a moment.
Then Claudia said, “Jesus Christ.”
Corliss said,” Don’t you trust anybody?”
“Trust,” Jesse said, “but verify.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s a reference to Ronald Reagan,” Jesse said.
“That president?”
“Him,” Jesse said.
“Well, I think it’s mean not to trust us,” Claudia said.
“You’re right,” Jesse said. “I’ll never do it again.”
20
A
fter the twins were gone, Molly stuck her head in the office door.
“Steve Friedman called in,” she said. “Got a couple of kids shoplifting in Waldo’s Variety Store.”
“What did they take?”
“Skin magazines.”
“Tell Steve to confiscate the magazines, let the kids sit in the cruiser for ten minutes to scare them, then kick ’em loose. No lectures.”
Molly grinned.
“That’ll be hard for Steve,” she said.
“I know. Tell him I said so.”
“No parent notification?” Molly said.
“No.”
Molly was still grinning.
“How were the twins?” Molly said.
“Vague,” Jesse said.
“You survive with your virtue intact?”
“So much sex,” Jesse said, “so little brain.”
“You learn anything useful?” Molly said.
“Mostly I learned that they know more than they are saying, and that they conceal that fact badly.”
“What do you think they know?”
“They know the two guys in the sex video,” Jesse said.
“They say so?”
“No.”
“What did they want?”
“I don’t think they quite know,” Jesse said. “They asked me to recommend a private eye.”
“To help us on the case?”
“Un-huh.”
Molly rolled her eyes.
“There are some good ones,” Jesse said. “I sent the little darlings to Rita Fiore, told them she could recommend.”
“Can she?”
“Probably. I know she uses some guy in Boston that’s supposed to be good.”
“You think they were serious?”
“I don’t think they’ve been serious in their whole vapid life, either one of them.”
“And you sent them to Rita,” Molly said, “so you could call her in a while and asked if they showed up.”
Jesse smiled and pointed a finger at Molly.
“You’re mastering my technique,” Jesse said. “When I leave, you can be chief.”
“Fat chance,” Molly said. “I better get on the horn to Steve. He’s probably already started his lecture.”
“Cruel and unusual punishment,” Jesse said.
“Wading through the skin magazines would be cruel enough,” Molly said.
“Not if you’re an adolescent boy,” Jesse said.
“You would know,” Molly said and left the office.