“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.”
“Sure,” Ralston said. “Perfectly understandable. Why do you think she fell off a yacht.”
“I didn’t say she fell,” Jesse said.
“Whatever. You got any evidence?”
Jesse took out his head shots from the Horvath video.
“Know any of these three people?” Jesse said.
Ralston studied the pictures for a time, then shook his head and handed them back.
“Don’t know any of them,” he said.
Ralston took a leather cigar case out of his shirt pocket.
“Care for a cigar, Chief?” Ralston said. “The real thing. I’d deny it in court, of course. But genuine Cuban.”
“No thank you,” Jesse said.
Ralston shrugged and began to take out a cigar.
“There’s a town ordinance against smoking on town property,” Jesse said.
Ralston paused and shook his head and then put the cigar back in the case and the case back in his pocket.
“Amazing,” he said.
“Know anyone named Katie DeWolfe?” Jessie said.
Jesse could almost hear something click shut inside Ralston. He seemed to think about the name for a moment.
Then he shook his head.
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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“No,” he said. “I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“Know Harrison Darnell?”
“Darnell?” Ralston said. “Yeah. Sure. I know him a little.
Not well. Just casual, you know? Yachting isn’t that big a world. He’s on the
