Sea Change

“You’re welcome, but there’s one other thing, maybe,”

Kelly Cruz said. “One of the people I talked with down here, a girl, maybe twenty-one, twenty-two, mentioned that Florence Horvath seemed a little old for Thomas Ralston.”

“She was thirty-four,” Jesse said.

“No accounting for taste,” Kelly Cruz said. “Maybe he passed her on to Darnell.”

“Darnell seems somewhat able to tolerate age diversity,”

Jesse said.

“I’ll keep snooping around when I’m not busy with my real job,” Kelly Cruz said.

When she hung up Jesse sat silently, looking at nothing.

The scientists had established that all the tapes were recent.

He wondered who the redhead was. He hadn’t seen her on Darnell’s yacht. There were several he hadn’t seen. He had to talk with Katie DeWolfe. And her mother. He couldn’t let it slide. She was fifteen. Her mother had to know, too. Molly hadn’t mentioned a father. Sometimes he thought the fathers were harder. Maybe just because I’m male. He’d have Molly sit in. She knew the mother. When he sat at his desk, Jesse was more comfortable when he took the gun off his hip and laid it on the desktop. He looked at it now, lying there. Be simpler if they would let him just shoot people who deserved it. Who would decide? I would. What if you’re wrong? Ah, there’s the rub.

He stood and went out to the desk.

“Can you arrange for Katie DeWolfe and her parents to come see me?” he said.

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S E A C H A N G E

“Father’s not around,” Molly said. “They’re divorced.”

Jesse nodded.

“I should be the one,” Molly said. “I know Katie, and I know her mother.”

Jesse nodded again.

“You’re going to ask me to sit in, too,” Molly said.

“Aren’t you.”

Jesse continued to nod. Molly stared past him for a moment. Then she breathed in audibly.

“Any special time?” she said.

“Soon as they can,” Jesse said. “But, you know, try to ac-commodate to them. I’ll be available.”

Molly continued to stare at nothing. Jesse could hear her breathing.

“I wish you could do it,” Molly said.

“I can. But I thought it might be more comfortable for them if you did.”

“It will be,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded.

“This is not going to be fun,” Molly said.

“I never promised you fun.”

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34

K atie DeWolfe was scared. Her small face was pinched with it. She walked stiffly and swallowed frequently. Her mother had the

same look. They looked alike. They were both slender, and blond, and had about them a look of furtive sexuality. Jesse could never quite pin down what the look was. But he always knew it when he saw it, and in those instances when he’d had occasion to test it, he had always been right.

Molly brought them both in, introduced everyone, got the DeWolfes seated, facing the desk, and sat herself in a straight chair crowded in to Jesse’s left.

“Do you know what this is about, Katie?” Jesse said.

S E A C H A N G E

Katie shook her head.

“You’re sure?” Jesse said.

“I got no idea,” Katie said.

Jesse nodded and took a breath.

“Okay,” he said. “There’s no easy way to say it. I have a videotape of you having sex with a man named Harrison Darnell.”

“You’re lying,” Katie said. “It’s not me.”

“No, honey,” Jesse said. “It’s you.”

Mrs. DeWolfe said in a strangled voice, “Katie?”

“No way,” Katie said.