(5/10) Sea Change Read Online Free PDF

said.
    “She’s not registered in any of the area hotels.”
    “Including Boston?”
    “Including Boston.”
    “Anybody in town she might be visiting?” Healy said.
    “One family named Horvath. I called them. They never heard of her.”
    “Doesn’t mean they didn’t kill her.”
    “We don’t know if anyone killed her,” Jesse said. “Could just as well be an accident for all the forensics we got.”
    “Sure,” Healy said. “She fell overboard and drowned and no one noticed.”
    “For all we know,” Jesse said, “she fell off the Queen Elizabeth on her way to Liverpool and the currents brought her in.”
    “You think so?” Healy said.
    “No,” Jesse said.
    “Usually when someone is missing for the length of time she was in the water,” Healy said, “somebody wonders where she is.”
    “That’s true whether it’s murder or not,” Jesse said.
    “But if she were traveling, and the only person who knew her was the person she was traveling with, and that person killed her…” Healy rolled his hand.
    Jesse leaned back in his swivel chair and grinned at Healy.
    “It was a quiz, and we both aced it,” Jesse said. “Sure, I’m with you. I think she was murdered.”
    “But you have no proof,” Healy said.
    “Hell no,” Jesse said. “Not yet.”
    “She might have arrived by bus,” Healy said.
    “Yeah, and she might have hitchhiked. I got twelve people in this department including me. We’re dancing as fast as we can dance.”
    Healy smiled.
    “You got a homicide. I’m the commanding officer of the state homicide unit.”
    “So you’re offering to help?”
    “I am.”
    “Never too big to give the little guy a hand,” Jesse said.
    “Exactly,” Healy said.
    “Just as long as we’re clear on whose case it is.”
    “It belongs to all of us,” Healy said, “who love truth and justice.”
    “Like hell,” Jesse said. “It belongs to me.”
    “Oh,” Healy said. He shrugged. “Okay.”

11

    J esse was on the phone to a detective in Fort Lauderdale named Kelly Cruz.
    “Your floater was a woman of means,” Kelly Cruz said.
    “Really?”
    “Un-huh, family owns a bunch of health food markets all over the South. Plum and Partridge.”
    “Cute,” Jesse said.
    “It’s even cuter,” Kelly Cruz said. “Family name is Plum.”
    “Not Horvath,” Jesse said.
    “Nope, that’s a married name,” Kelly Cruz said. “She’s had several.”
    “You know the husbands?” Jesse said.
    “Not yet,” Kelly Cruz said. “But she was divorced most recently from a guy named Lawton Horvath.”
    “What do you know about Lawton?”
    “White, blond hair, even tan, slim, good at golf and tennis, pretty good at bridge, no visible means of support.”
    “When’s the last time Lawton saw her?” Jesse said.
    “When they got divorced. He got the house and a cash settlement. She moved here.”
    “Worked out nicely for Lawton,” Jesse said. “He with anyone now?”
    He could hear the laughter in Kelly Cruz’s voice.
    “Attractive young heiress, recently divorced, with a thing for older men,” she said.
    “We may have stumbled across his means of support,” Jesse said.
    “We’re law officers,” Kelly Cruz said. “We’re probably too suspicious.”
    “What else you know about Florence?”
    “Soon as she moved to Fort Lauderdale she joined the East Bay Yacht Club,” Kelly Cruz said. “Started hanging out at the bar there. Bartender says she was making a lot of friends fast.”
    “Male friends?”
    “Yep.”
    “Got any names?”
    “Not yet, you know, it’s not really our case,” Kelly Cruz said. “I’m the only one working it.”
    “Understand,” Jesse said.
    “I found something sort of interesting when I tossed her condo. I’ll FedEx it to you, you gimme a FedEx number.”
    “Tight budget in Fort Lauderdale,” Jesse said.
    “Like I say, it’s not our case.”
    Jesse gave her the Federal Express number.
    “What are you going to send me?” he said.
    “Videotape.