by Diane Capri
“I am truly sorry about George, Mrs. Carson. He is one fine man. I just can’t believe he killed General Andrews.” He spoke slowly and clearly, still holding onto my hand. As if I might be hysterical and he needed to talk me down off a high building before I jumped. “If there’s anything I can do for George, you just let me know, okay?”
Maybe I’m not as good at hiding my feelings as I think. Or maybe he talked to all the little ladies this way. At least the ones who might be married to murderers.
I cleared my throat and tried to extract my hand from the warm, moist grip that swallowed it. “Actually, uh, what did you say your name was?”
“Curly, ma’am.” I tried again to pull my hand away, but he kept a tight hold on it.
“Um, Curly. Of course. George has mentioned you. It’s nice to meet you.” George had never said anything about this man to me in my life, but I wanted to get my hand back. I pulled gently. No luck.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, ma’am,” he said, sorrow for George and me practically seeping from his pores.
Yes. Well. Let’s get to the point.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Tampa, Florida
Friday 5:40 p.m.
January 28, 2000
“CURLY, I NEED TO see George’s locker and pick up some things. Is that okay with you?”
I gave my hand another little tug, just to see if I could dislodge it. He tightened up. It was like playing with Chinese handcuffs. The more I tried to pull my hand away, the tighter his hold became.
“Sure it is, ma’am. But you need a key to get into George’s locker. Did you bring one?”
“I guess I just thought you’d have a key. You do have one, don’t you Curly?” I wasn’t batting my eyelashes and blushing, honestly.
He hesitated a few seconds, looking at me with more curiosity than hostility. If George had guns in his locker, which I suspected he did, Curly had to be wondering what I wanted them for.
“Do you want to shoot, Miz Carson?” He asked me, his head titled sideways in a gesture that reminded me of our dogs when they didn’t quite understand my instructions. “I don’t know if I can let you do that without Mr. Carson’s permission.”
Shoot? A gun? Me? I felt my head shaking back and forth, almost involuntarily. I tried to put him at ease. “I just need to look for the shooting log George keeps, Curly. I know he keeps track of when he shoots and how well he does. And he keeps an inventory of his guns. I want to look at that.”
And I wasn’t pleading, either. If my tone was a little less confrontational than the one I use in the courtroom with recalcitrant litigants, it was purely expedience.
Curly thought about it, at glacial speed. It wasn’t smart to underestimate your opponent, but Curly was either dim-witted or foxy and slow on purpose.
I bet on the former. “You can come with me and watch what I look at, if you want,” I suggested, as if he wouldn’t have thought of that on his own.
I wanted to rifle through George’s locker by myself, but if the only way I could get Curly the Giant here to let me do that was with his supervision, that would be better than no look at all.
About a month later, Curly finally nodded his head and released my hand, which now felt curiously cold and lightweight after its imprisonment in the damp recesses of Curly’s grip. He told me to follow him and we went back out into the noise where conversation was, thankfully, impossible. Curly picked up his keys and walked through another door, into the locker room, while I followed.
Apparently you don’t have to shower and change clothes to use a shooting range, because there was only one room filled with lockers and nothing else.
The lockers were numbered and stacked in sets of two, one on the top and one on the bottom, with a long bench separating them horizontally. Lockers abutted each other in rows covering every wall of the room. Two or three rows of back-to-back lockers rested, freestanding, in the middle of the room. The noise was a little less earsplitting in here, but multiple gunshots continued, like closely set fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Curly led me toward the back wall of the locker room. There were men and women standing around the lockers. I didn’t recognize any of them and they didn’t recognize me. And to be honest, I wasn’t looking too closely. The last thing I wanted was to see someone I knew.
When we got to George’s locker, I almost laughed out loud. The locker number was 007. Did George imagine himself as some sort of James Bond? Reliable, sturdy, predictable George? Did he have a Walter Mitty life? Or was this just a joke?
Curly opened the locker for me, and stepped aside to let me see. Hanging on the hooks on either side of the locker were two sets of ear protectors that resembled the ones Curly now wore around his neck like a choker.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I found the spiral notebook containing George’s shooting log on the bottom shelf. Either Michael Drake didn’t know enough about George’s habits to have obtained a search warrant for the locker, or he simply hadn’t gotten to this point in his investigation yet.
Under the log was a single sheet of plastic laminated paper containing a list of his guns with serial and license numbers neatly printed. The licenses themselves, I knew, were kept in our safety deposit box.
I picked up the log book and flipped back through the last few entries.
George is a man of habits and rituals. Maybe all humans are. His habit here was to shoot each gun in the order it was listed on the inventory. The log reflected that he’d come to shoot at irregular dates and times, which was a little unusual, and not enlightening.
But then I noticed that he had been here every Wednesday morning for more than two years. And on Wednesdays, he shot the snub nosed .38, the gun that killed General Andrews.
The log also reflected that George sometimes lent his guns to other people. His blocky printing listed the borrowers’ names, most of whom I recognized, but some of them were strangers to me.
Curly cleared his throat. “Um, Miz Carson, are you about finished here? This is kinda unusual, you know?” He seemed to be a little impatient with me, now. Perhaps he was having second thoughts about letting me in here.
Actually, I found that comforting, in an odd way. If Curly didn’t want to let George’s wife into his locker, maybe he kept other unauthorized people away. That wouldn’t be a good thing for George’s defense, but it made me feel safer to know that just anyone couldn’t walk in here and steal a murder weapon.
Quickly, I counted the number of guns listed on the inventory. Seven. Then, I looked at the boxes stored inside the locker. Seven.
I counted again.
How could that be?
I flipped through the log, checking to see whether George had, for some reason, listed more guns in another location. I didn’t find any such list.
Long ago, I learned that I think best in pictures, so I closed my eyes and visualized George removing the .38 and using it. In my mental movie, he cleaned the gun thoroughly when he was finished as I knew was his habit. When he’d cleaned the gun, he returned it the purple velvet bag and then the black, clearly labeled box.
The box sitting right there, in plain sight, on the shelf in front of me. Stacked neatly with all the other boxes. All seven of them. I felt like shouting Eureka! but that would have drawn more attention than I wanted. I reached up and lifted the box slightly, without bringing it out of the locker. I was right. The box was empty.
George, my ritualistic, practical husband, would never, ever, have taken the gun away from here without the box. And without the box, the gun would have been so much easier to conceal. Another question arose now: how did the gun and the box get separated?
Glancing up, I noticed Curly watching me, shifting from foot to foot. Sometime this century, he might decide I shouldn’t have had access to George’s locker at all. There were other people in the locker room and none had seemed to recognize me yet.
“Curly, does George have more than one locker?”
The puzzled look
on his face was almost comical. “No, ma’am. This is the only one. Why?”
Ignoring the question, I counted once more. I pulled out my digital camera and took a picture of the locker, inside and out. If Curly wanted to know why I did so, he didn’t ask.
Then, I told him, “I’m going to take George’s log and inventory with me.” I stuffed the documents into my tote bag before he could protest. Without making the mistake of offering to shake hands in farewell, I said, “Thanks for your help,” turned around and headed out of the locker room.
“You’re welcome, Miz Carson,” he said to my retreating back as I beat feet with the log and the inventory in the bag under my arm.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Tampa, Florida
Friday 5:50 p.m.
January 28, 2000
OUT IN THE PARKING lot, seated in the car, engine running and air conditioning on, I pulled George’s gun log and inventory out of my tote bag and began to study them. My journal and digital recorder were also in the bag, but I was too impatient to dictate.
I pulled out my checkbook, which had a tiny, unreadable pocket calendar going back two years and forward three more. I’d left my reading glasses at the office and I couldn’t read the miniscule numbers on the calendar in the darkened interior of the car. I fished out the small, flat flashlight I’d been carrying in my purse the past couple of years. Even with the light, I could barely make out the calendar’s markings.
Squinting at the tiny print, I saw my quick observation inside had been right. George had recorded a regular schedule of Wednesday morning shooting in his log for the past three years.
Aside from Wednesdays, his shooting schedule was irregular. Some days, he shot in the morning, some days in the afternoon. Some weeks he shot two or three times, and some weeks, only on Wednesday.
The really interesting thing was that on Wednesdays, he always shot the .38, the murder weapon. But I noticed that he sometimes shot it on other days of the week as well.
If someone wanted to steal George’s .38 without his knowledge, the best time to do it would be Wednesday afternoon. That way, they might have kept the gun for about a week before he planned to shoot it again. Maybe he wouldn’t miss the gun during the week. The thief couldn’t be sure, but it was as close to a reasonable bet as he could make.
The Andrews murder took place on a Saturday, so the gun thief could easily have gone undetected.
Of course, the thief would have to get past Curly, but surely another member or guest of a member could have done so, using the right amount of guile and speed. Curly was by far the most physically intimidating person I’d come across, but his reflexes and movements were slow and, I suspected, he was not a Rhodes Scholar, although appearances are often deceiving.
Someone could have gotten past him. After all, I just walked out with the log after taking photographs.
And someone had definitely removed the gun from George’s locker and the club.
That fact couldn’t be denied.
Looking back at the inventory, I confirmed that George had seven guns listed. He’d bought the .38, the inventory reflected, about five years ago.
Once I found the .38 on the list, I compared the inventory to the gun log. George’s meticulous rituals were evident again. He shot the guns in order, from the top of the inventory to the bottom. If someone had wanted to predict which gun George was likely to shoot next, that would have been fairly easy to do.
After staring at them for a while, I realized neither the log nor the inventory reflected whether each gun was in the locker at any particular time. That is, George didn’t have the equivalent of a library card to document when each gun was removed or returned.
My methodical husband would have had no need for such a system. George always keeps track of his possessions. He never loses anything. It’s quite annoying, really.
But in this instance, I knew that if George’s guns were taken out of the locker, he would have been the one to take them. And he’d know exactly where each one was.
Unless it was stolen, and his response to my questions about his gun led me to believe that George felt otherwise.
Drake assumed George took the .38 out to Andrews’s house and killed him with it. I would never believe that happened. So the question was still: how did George’s gun get into the hands of the killer?
Three hard, rapid knocks on the window inches from my face sounded like gunshots.
I jumped and whipped my face around to see Curly standing outside my door.
My hand flew to my pounding heart as I tossed the log onto the passenger side floor and gave thanks for Greta’s automatic door lock feature. I felt like he’d startled three years off my life.
When I’d calmed down a second or two, I realized he was talking to me, through the closed window.
“Miz Carson? Miz Carson?” He held up his right hand, showing me my digital camera. “You left this inside.”
I pulled the button to lower Greta’s driver side window. Then, I reached out and snatched the camera with my left hand. “Thanks, Curly,” I said, pressing the button to automatically raise the window again before I moved the gear shift into reverse and waved goodbye, leaving him staring after me.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Tampa, Florida
Friday 6:45 p.m.
January 28, 2000
IN THE AFTERNOON DALE Mabry traffic, even though most of it was headed out of the city in the opposite direction, it took me too long to reach South Tampa. I finally made it to Robbie Andrews’s house, but it was later than I’d wanted to be.
God watches over fools and children, because as I rounded the corner onto Jetton Street, I saw Gorgeous Gargoyle get into her Honda and pull out of the driveway. Mercifully, she went the other way. I didn’t think she’d noticed me.
I made a mental note of the time she left. If I wanted to surprise Robbie Andrews again, I would make it a point to come by after her assistant had gone for the day. All I wanted was to confirm her alibi for myself. It seemed weak to me. And she was just a little too quick to point the finger at George. But then, maybe I was just engaging in denial and wishful thinking.
Which started me to thinking about when Gorgeous Gargoyle might arrive for work in the morning. Maybe ten? So how could she know when Robbie’s online therapy sessions began?
I pulled into Robbie’s driveway and parked Greta in the middle, blocking both sides. Halfway up the front walk, I heard the automatic door opener lifting the heavy double garage door. I returned to the driveway just in time to see Robbie entering her car inside the garage.
“Hello, Robbie,” I said as I approached.
For a woman who worked at home on a computer where no one could see her, Robbie certainly was well dressed. When I work at home, I favor cotton shorts and T-shirts. Not Robbie.
Except that she was larger than three runway models, Robbie could have come straight from the fashion houses of Paris.
She wore a trendy haircut, great makeup and flowing caftan type clothes, all suggested her clothing budget exceeded her huge size. Spiked heels caused her to appear taller than five-feet-three. And she had beautifully manicured hands and feet.
Robbie held her purse straps near her shoulder with one hand and her keys in the other. Slung over her back was one of those fashionable and pricey bags that everyone in Tampa seemed to carry since the new International Mall opened. The bag looked like an open horse feeder, what the designers call a bucket bag. I stayed far enough away from her that she couldn’t hit me with it. That thing would pack quite a wallop, I imagined.
Looking at her, it occurred to me again why advertising works. The newspaper is full of bad news while advertising sells hope, possibilities, potential. We want to believe. Advertising, like multiple marriages, was the triumph of hope over experience.
Robbie bought it all. She tried to hide her size by covering it in expensive packaging, probably hoping people would focus on the wrapper and not the contents.
“Willa,
I really have an appointment and I don’t have time to deal with you right now.” She snapped at me, nastier than she had been at her mother’s house a few days ago.
Holding onto my patience, I ran my hand through my short hair, which had been blowing around since I’d left the Gun Club and stopped to put Greta’s top down. I hadn’t replaced my lipstick and my clothes looked like I’d been walking around in a dusty parking lot. Which, of course, I had. I felt tired, grimy and not really up to doing battle with Robbie Andrews.
“I only need a few minutes. Since you can’t get out unless I move my car, why don’t you just talk to me and get it over with.”
The war of her emotions was plain on her face. First anger, then outrage, and finally, resignation. But she didn’t have to be nice about it.
“Alright. What do you want?” She emphasized the want, managing to put as much derision in the word as possible.
What I really wanted was to scream at her, and maybe hit her a couple of times, too. But I didn’t think that was a good idea. I really had very few options. If Robbie didn’t talk with me voluntarily, I had no legal right to force her. It’s not like I owned a badge.
I tried reason first. “I need to talk to you and I don’t think either one of us wants to discuss this in the driveway. Why don’t we go inside? I won’t keep you long.”
Without another word, Robbie walked right past me and up to the front door, digging deep into the bucket bag for her keys. When she got to the door, opened it and stepped inside, she turned around and snapped, “Come on then. Let’s get this over with. I have to be somewhere else in fifteen minutes.”
I hustled to get through the door before it slammed in my face.
Robbie continued walking through the house and into the dining room where she remained standing and didn’t offer me a seat. I followed quickly after her, but I noticed the beautiful antique furnishings in the house. Many of them would have looked perfectly suited at Minaret.
