“Mr. Darnell called, said he wanted me to bring her up.
Told me she’d be in touch to arrange the schedule.”
“Darnell often do this?”
Barnes’s face didn’t change, but somehow Kelly Cruz knew he was amused.
“Often,” he said.
“With different women?”
“Often,” Barnes said.
“Anything unusual about this flight?”
“She required Cristal on ice instead of Krug.”
“What was Florence Horvath like?” Kelly Cruz said.
Barnes looked at her and she knew he was even more amused.
“How much of this is on the record,” Barnes said.
“Only the questions of fact. Did you take her? When? At whose request? Your opinions are between me and you.”
Barnes nodded.
“She was like about two hundred other bimbettes I’ve transported,” Barnes said. “Blond, stupid, sure she was sexy.
Asked me if I had ever done it at thirty thousand feet.”
Kelly Cruz nodded.
“And you left her in Boston,” she said.
“Private terminal. Carried her bags in for her. She was pretty well fried. Gave her to the limo driver. Got the plane serviced, refueled, came on home.”
2 0 6
S E A C H A N G E
“Happen to know what limo company?”
Barnes shook his head.
“Nope. Just a limo guy with a sign,” he said.
“And you never went back to get her,” Kelly Cruz said.
“No. I usually didn’t. Most of the babes were one-way. I’d fly them someplace and Mr. Darnell would sail them home.”
“Know anybody named Thomas Ralston?”
“Fat guy, thinks he looks better than he does?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly Cruz said. “I’ve never seen him. I’m helping out some police up north.”
“What is this all about, anyway?” Barnes said.
Kelly Cruz smiled.
“So you know Thomas Ralston?”
“Yeah, sure, I think so. Mr. Ralston. He flies a lot with Mr.
Darnell.”
“Where?”
“Ports usually. Crew sails the boat somewhere and Darnell meets them there. I guess Ralston has the same deal. I never asked.”
“Did you fly either of them up to Boston?” Kelly Cruz said.
“Not this year.”
“Anyone fly with them?”
“Usual bevy of beauties,” Barnes said. “They get drunk.
Do some dope.”
“Sex?”
He shrugged and gestured.
“I stay up front,” he said. “But yeah, I’d say quite a lot.”
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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“And you know this how?”
Barnes looked at her for a moment with the expressionless hint of humor that he projected.
“Ah, trace evidence,” he said.
