Sea Change

“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 2 5 9

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

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.

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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.”

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“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?”