Ed McBain_Matthew Hope 12

by Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear

  “The cockpit,” I said.

  “I thought that was airplanes.”

  “Boats, too. But different.”

  “Anyway, she was sitting there alone, her hands in her lap, staring down at her hands…”

  “Lights on, Morrie?”

  “What?”

  “In the cockpit.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Why?”

  “Just wondered. Go ahead.”

  “Coop and I went to her, and he handled the questioning while I took notes. You get a feel whether the white guy or the black guy should do the talking. I didn’t get a sense it would make any difference at all here. So he talked, and I wrote.”

  “What’d she tell you?”

  “How she’d gone on the boat around a quarter past midnight and found her husband dead downstairs. Coop asked her did she touch anything and she said No, just the phone, and Coop asked did she call anyone but the police, and she said No, just the police. So we all went downstairs to take a look.”

  “Mrs. Toland, too?”

  “No, no, she stayed upstairs in the cockpit, whatever. I went down with Coop and the M.E., who’d arrived by then.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “A dead man lying on his back on the far side of the bed, blood all over him. Looked like he took two in the face, which the M.E. said either one could’ve been the cause of death. We later found another spent bullet. Because we were looking for it, Matthew. There were three ejected cartridge cases, you see. We figure the third bullet missed him entirely, maybe it was the first one she fired, maybe her hand was shaking, who knows, you ought to ask her. Anyway, we later dug out the bullet from the wall behind the bed, near the door to the bathroom. Your client must’ve pumped the slugs into him from two, three feet away, very nice, Matthew.”

  “And left the gun behind,” I said.

  “Yeah, on the bed.”

  “You think she shot him and then placed the gun neatly on the bed?”

  “I just report the facts, Matthew. The S.A. decides what’ll play to the jury.”

  “Does Folger think that’ll play, Morrie?”

  “Gee, I guess not, since you say he’s already offered you a deal.”

  “Was the gun on the bed the murder weapon?”

  “That’s what Ballistics says.”

  “You have a report?”

  “We had it before we brought your client in.”

  “Was the gun test-fired?”

  “Of course.”

  “What were the results?”

  “The ejected cartridge cases and the bullet we recovered on the boat were fired from the .45 Colt automatic pistol we found on the bed. The bullets the coroner removed from the victim’s head were also fired from that gun. It’s the murder weapon, Matthew, no question about it.”

  “Have you traced the gun?”

  “Purchased by one Brett Toland.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “There’s more, Matthew.”

  “Okay,” I said, and sighed.

  “We took your client into custody around seven that morning. As permitted by Miranda, we…”

  “Brought her here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Questioned her here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m assuming, since she was in custody…”

  “Come on, Matthew.”

  “Then she was made aware of her rights, correct?”

  Bloom merely cocked a baleful eye at me.

  “Okay, okay. I was just wondering why she didn’t call me right then. Put an end to it right then.”

  “Said she didn’t need a lawyer, this was all ridiculous.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Even agreed to let us print her. Though I guess you know, under the Miranda guidelines we don’t need permission to take fingerprints. We asked solely as a courtesy.”

  “And she said okay?”

  “Said she was innocent.”

  “She is.”

  “They all are, Matthew. I have never met a guilty felon in my entire lifetime.”

  “This one is innocent, Morrie.”

  “Then why are her prints all over the murder weapon?”

  I looked at him.

  “Palm prints?” I said. “Fingerprints?”

  “Both.”

  “You still don’t have her at the scene. She left that boat at ten-thirty. She was home in bed by…”

  “Not according to four eyewitnesses.”

  “All eminently reliable. One of them is Toland’s loving wife, another one was on a moving boat in the dark, and the last two were drunk and going back to their boat to smoke pot.”

  “You don’t know that, Matthew.”

  “It’s what they told me yesterday.”

  “I guess you can prove…”

  “The point is,” I said, plunging ahead regardless, “Lainie Commins wasn’t even on that boat when the murder took place. She got there at ten, drank a nonalcoholic drink, listened to what Toland had to say, advised him that she’d talk it over with her lawyer, and left the boat at ten-thirty, without once budging from that cockpit.”

  “Then what was her scarf doing downstairs?”

  “What scarf?”

  “A Gucci scarf. Tiny red anchors on a blue field.”

  “Where’d you find…?”

  “The master bedroom. Downstairs.”

  “You don’t know it’s hers.”

  “She identified it as hers.”

  “I can’t believe…”

  “That’s when we called in the state attorney, Matthew”

  I was shaking my head.

  “That’s when we charged her with first-degree murder.”

  Still shaking my head.

  “I’m sorry, Matthew,” he said. “But she did it.”

  No, I was thinking.

  “No,” I said.

  But it looked a hell of a lot like yes.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Lainie said.

  “Lainie,” I said, “your fingerprints are on the gun.”

  She was sitting in my chair behind my desk. I was pacing the floor of my office. My partner Frank was half-sitting, half-leaning on the corner of my desk, his hands in his pockets, his shirtsleeves rolled to his forearms. He was wearing suspenders today. He looked like Larry King interviewing a celebrity—except that Larry King had a fox face. Anyway, this was not a celebrity. Not yet, anyway. This was merely a woman who’d been indicted for murder in the first degree. With the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, she kept twisting the Victorian seal ring on her right pinky. The digital clock on my desk read 4:03 P.M.

  “How do you know they have fingerprints?” she asked.

  “Folger has a forensics report.”

  “That’s impossible. They’re lying to you.”

  “They know I’ll be seeing the report.”

  “Even so.”

  “How’d your fingerprints get on that gun?”

  “Oh. Yeah,” she said. “Right.”

  Frank and I both looked at her.

  “Now I remember touching it,” she said. “The gun. When I asked Brett if it was loaded. I sort of put my hand on it. Ran my hand over it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’d never touched a gun in my life. I guess I wanted to see what it felt like.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows.

  “Lainie,” I said, “you told me you got to the boat at a little before ten, and left half an hour later.”

  “That’s right. That’s exactly what I did.”

  “Folger has the security guard seeing you go aboard at a few minutes past ten…”

  “That’s exactly right…”

  “…and he’s got another witness coming in on a sailboat at ten forty-five, and spotting you and Brett Toland drinking at the cockpit table.”

  “No, he’s wrong about the time. I left the boat at ten-thirty.”

  “Did you see that sailboat coming in?”

  “Yes, but it was before I left the boat.
”

  “Were you still there at eleven?”

  “No. I was home by eleven.”

  “Folger has two witnesses who heard shots at eleven-forty.”

  “I was already home by then.”

  “Shots coming from the saloon. Three shots.”

  “I didn’t go down to the saloon at all. Brett and I sat in the cockpit all the while I was there.”

  “Then you couldn’t have been below, firing the shots they heard.”

  “I couldn’t have been anywhere on the boat. Not at eleven-forty. I was home by eleven.”

  “Your fingerprints were on the gun,” Frank reminded her.

  “I told you how they got on the gun.”

  “How’d your scarf get down there in the master cabin?” he asked.

  Good old Frank. Straight New Yorker style. No bullshit.

  “I told the police all about that,” Lainie said.

  “How come you never mentioned it to me?” I asked.

  “I told you that Brett asked everybody to take their shoes off.”

  I saw the faint flicker of disapproval that flashed in Frank’s eyes. He knew, as I knew, but apparently Lainie did not know, that the word “everybody” was singular and that she should have said “his shoes” or “her shoes,” but certainly not “their shoes.” Or perhaps she knew the correct construction and was merely trying to avoid saying “his shoes” lest she fall into a sexist-pig trap. Besides, what did her shoes have to do with her scarf?

  “You didn’t tell me he asked you to take off your shoes,” I said.

  “I told you he asked everybody to take off their shoes.”

  Again.

  “Because of his precious teak decks,” Lainie said.

  “You told me he asked a state senator’s wife to take off her shoes. “You didn’t mention anything about your shoes.”

  “Well, I must have forgotten. He asked me to take them off.”

  “How could you have forgotten something the police had already questioned you about?”

  “Because I told them exactly what happened and I thought that was that. Brett asked me to take them off, and he carried them below when he went looking for the Perrier.

  “The scarf, too?” Frank asked.

  Lainie looked at him.

  “He took my shoes and my scarf, yes,” she said.

  “Why’d he take the scarf?” Frank asked.

  “Because I didn’t need it. It was a warm night.”

  “So he carried it below, together with your shoes.”

  “Yes.”

  “When did he ask you to take off your shoes?” I asked.

  “When I reached the top of the gangway.”

  “Asked you to take them off…”

  “Yes.”

  “…and then took them from you and carried them below.”

  “Not right that minute. He carried them below when he went looking for the Perrier.”

  “Did he ask you for the scarf, too?”

  “No, I handed him the scarf. Because I didn’t need it.”

  “What time did you leave the boat, Lainie?”

  “Around ten-thirty.”

  “At any time before that, did Brett Toland offer you a cash settlement to drop your suit?”

  “No. Never. Who told you that?”

  “Do you know a man named Bobby Diaz?”

  “Of course I do. How would he know what Brett told me?

  “Was he present at a meeting last September, during which Brett Toland mentioned his idea for a cross-eyed bear?”

  “Never. There was never such a meeting. The idea for the bear was mine.”

  “And you’re sure Brett didn’t offer you a cash settlement last Tuesday night?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “And you’re equally certain you left the boat at ten-thirty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Drove out of the parking lot at ten-thirty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Etta Toland couldn’t possibly have seen you driving out at a little after midnight.”

  “I was home asleep by midnight.”

  “Then you weren’t racing out of that parking lot at a little past midnight, is that right?”

  “I told you. I was home asleep.”

  “Did you drive home barefooted?” Frank asked.

  “No, I put on my shoes before I left the boat.”

  “Went below to put them on?”

  “No, Brett went down to get them for me. I was never anywhere on that boat except the cockpit.”

  “But he forgot your scarf, is that it?”

  “I guess we both did.”

  “When did you discover you’d left it on the boat?” I asked.

  “When the police wanted to know about it.”

  “What time was that?”

  “When they came to the house.”

  “Were you asleep when they came to the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Six in the morning.”

  “So you’d been asleep…what time did you say you went to bed?”

  “I didn’t. It was around eleven-thirty.”

  “So you’d had six and a half hours sleep by the time the police came to see you.”

  “Yes. Six, six and a half.”

  “Didn’t miss the scarf when you got home, huh?” Frank asked.

  “I guess not.”

  “Didn’t notice you’d left it behind.”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  “I guess I’d had a little to drink.”

  “You told me you were drinking Perrier,” I said.

  “I also had a vodka-tonic.”

  “When was that?”

  “After Brett made his proposal.”

  “Thought it was a good proposal, did you?” Frank asked.

  “I thought it sounded good, yes. I wanted to check it with Matthew, but it sounded good to me, yes.”

  “But you didn’t call Matthew when you got home.”

  “It was late.”

  “Eleven o’clock.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were in bed by eleven-thirty.”

  “Yes.”

  “How many drinks did you have?” I asked. “On the boat.”

  “Just one. Well, maybe a bit more than one. I think Brett freshened it for me. Poured a little more vodka into the glass.”

  “You didn’t tell me any of this.”

  “I didn’t think it was important.”

  “Is there anything else you didn’t tell me?”

  “Nothing else. I didn’t kill him. And besides, I thought you guys were my lawyers.”

  “We are,” I said.

  “Then stop yelling at me!”

  “Lainie, did you go below at any time last Tuesday night?”

  “No.”

  “Not the saloon…”

  “No.”

  “Not the master stateroom…”

  “No. I told you. We sat on deck, in the cockpit, till I left the boat.”

  “Without your scarf,” Frank said.

  “Yes, without my goddamn scarf!” she said.

  “Did anyone see you leaving the boat?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “Yes, I saw the man in the booth as I drove out.”

  “He says he didn’t see you.”

  “Then he must be blind. I drove right by him.”

  “See anyone else?”

  “People coming out of the restaurant.”

  “Did you know any of them?”

  “No. I mean, how could I tell? I was just driving around the oval, they were just people.”

  “So you drove past the guard booth…”

  “Yes.”

  “Say anything to the guard?”

  “No.”

  “He say anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Wave at you? Anything like that?”

  “No.
”

  “And then you came around the oval in front of the restaurant…”

  “Yes.”

  “And saw these people coming out…”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “I drove to the pillars at the club entrance and made a left turn onto Silver…oh, wait a minute.”

  We waited.

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “What’s right?”

  “I almost hit this car parked on the side of the road.”

  “What road?”

  “Silver Creek. To the right of the entrance. I was making a left turn out of the club, and this car was parked just beyond the stone pillar on the right there. I guess I was cutting the corner too tight. I almost hit it.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “I don’t know. It was dark.”

  “What color?”

  “I don’t know. I almost didn’t see it. The headlights were off, it was just parked there.”

  “Anybody in it?”

  “No one.”

  “Did you notice the license plate?”

  “No. It was all very dark. I started to make the turn and saw the car and realized how close it was. I just yanked the wheel over and drove on by. I may have yelled something, too, I don’t remember.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you jackass, you jerk, something like that.”

  “But if no one was in the car…”

  “I know, it was just a reaction.”

  “This was at ten-thirty, correct?” Frank asked.

  “Yes. Ten-thirty. Yes.”

  “Did you see anyone wandering on foot in the parking lot at that time? While you were driving out?”

  He was thinking the same thing I was. First, why would anyone park a car just outside the club entrance when there was a parking lot inside those stone pillars? And next, where was the person who’d left the car there? The Bannermans had heard shots at eleven-forty that night. If someone had been prowling the lot an hour or so earlier…

  “Did you see anyone?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” Lainie said.

  7

  He kept remembering what Amberjack had told him about keeping an eye on the weather. Warren didn’t want to get caught out here on a small craft some thirty miles from shore in case any storm was on the way. Not much traffic out here, just your occasional fishing boat and now and then a big motor cruiser passing by in the distance. But the way he figured it, all of these boat people knew more about weather than he did, so as long as there was anybody out here, he didn’t feel foolhardy. Minute he saw any boats heading in, he’d be right behind them. Meanwhile, if there was any danger he expected he’d begin hearing Coast Guard advisories on the weather channels.