He was turned toward her now, away from the wheel. Never mind the wheel, never mind the boat, or the storm or anything but the beautiful blonde slithering toward him through the rain like some kind of wet sea serpent, Come to me, baby.
Warren was coming to him, too, baby.
But Toots kept her eye on Juanito here, sidling toward him, not giving him the slightest hint that Warren was about to drop in uninvited, licking her lips instead, narrowing her eyes like some kind of screen siren of the thirties, Sí, come to me, querido, Warren almost in place, lust and greed and sheer joyous amazement at his good fortune all shining together in Juanito’s eyes as he lurched toward her through the driving rain. A moment too late, he realized that someone had dropped into the cockpit behind him. He was starting to turn when Warren’s clenched fist smashed a hammerblow to the base of his skull. Stunned, stumbling forward, belatedly realizing he’d been tricked, he grabbed for Toots and she said, “Sí, muchacho,” and took him into her embrace and brought her knee up into his groin.
He went for the nine.
Doubled over in pain, yelping in Spanish, he fumbled under the wet shirt for the stock of the gun, but Warren was on him now, grabbing him in a choke hold he’d learned on the St. Louis P.D., dragging him down to the deck, and then releasing him suddenly, kicking him unceremoniously in the head, and then kicking him once again for good measure. Juan was out of it.
Toots knelt and yanked the nine from his belt.
“Good,” Warren said.
“Where’d they stash the shit?” Toots asked, and leveled the gun at him.
Skye Bannister himself, the elected state attorney for the Twelfth Judicial District of the State of Florida, was present at the deposition I took at ten o’clock that Thursday night in my office on Heron Street. Also there were Assistant State Attorney Peter Folger, my partner Frank Summerville, and Sidney Brackett, the very same copyright attorney who was defending the infringement case for the Tolands. Why she had called him, rather than a criminal lawyer, was beyond me. But she was here to confess—or so she’d led me to believe—so perhaps she just wanted to get it over and done with.
Skye Bannister does not like me, nor does he like the fact that I am romantically involved with one of his best prosecutors. What Skye does like is the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, and there are frequent recurring rumors that he will run for that office in the next election, or the one after that, or the one after that. Meanwhile, he is still here, and he is still a blond blue-eyed pain in the ass who looks a lot like Dan Quayle. Given that Brackett looked like a pudgier Newt Gingrich and Folger a skinnier Phil Gramm, all we needed was a video technician who looked like Bob Dole, but unfortunately the technician was a woman, and she looked like a beautiful redhead in her twenties who was pissed off because she’d been called at home while she was watching television.
Etta Toland kept weeping intermittently as she was sworn in. I led her swiftly through the preliminaries of identifying herself, asked her to tell me where she lived, asked if she and I hadn’t had a lengthy conversation at that same address earlier tonight, and then asked if she’d be willing to repeat for me and for the camera—in the presence of her attorney and the gentlemen from the State Attorney’s Office—essentially what she’d told me earlier. She said she had no objections.
Brackett sighed.
Etta dabbed at her eyes.
She had changed her clothes before we’d left the house on Fatback, and was wearing now a pair of simple tailored slacks, a beige blouse to match, and low-heeled pumps. Her black hair was combed sleek and straight to her shoulders. Her eyes, wet with tears, looked luminous and large. The redhead looked at her watch. We began.
Q: To begin with, can you tell me whether or not you were present when your husband called Lainie Commins and asked her to meet him on your boat?
A: I was.
Q: What time was it that he called her?
A: At about nine o’clock.
Q: Did he call from the house?
A: Yes.
Q: In an earlier deposition, you said that he’d called her from the boat. Are you revising that now?
A: He called her from the house.
Q: Did you have opportunity to overhear that conversation?
A: I heard what he said to her.
Q: And what was that?
A: He told her he wanted to discuss a settlement. Said he didn’t want to drag lawyers in just yet. Wanted to discuss this face-to-face, just the two of them. But not on the phone. He said he wasn’t going to compromise her case at all, this wasn’t a trick.
Q: Did he say he was already on the boat?
A: Yes.
Q: Then he was lying.
A: Yes. He wanted to lend urgency to it. Wanted to make it seem he was already there waiting, eager to make a deal. She agreed to meet him, said it would take her an hour or so to get there.
Q: You didn’t hear her say that, did you?
A: No. Brett repeated it to me. Before he left the house.
Q: What time did he leave the house?
A: A few minutes after the phone call. Nine-fifteen? Thereabouts.
Q: How long does it take from your house on Fatback to the Silver Creek Yacht Club?
A: Ten, fifteen minutes. Depending on traffic.
Q: So he would have been there no later than…well…say, nine-thirty?
A: I would say so.
Q: Mrs. Toland, you told me earlier tonight, did you not, that a man named Bobby Diaz came to your house on the night of the murder…
A: Yes.
Q: Sometime after your husband left for the boat.
A: Yes.
Q: At around ten that night, isn’t that so?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you tell me who Bobby Diaz is?
A: Design chief for Toyland.
Q: Was he aware of the infringement suit Lainie Commins had brought against the firm?
A: He was.
Q: Did the matter of this suit come up at all while he was in your house that night?
A: It did.
Q: Can you tell us what was said about it?
A: He said he’d given Brett a videotape.
Q: What sort of video?
A: A pornographic tape.
Q: Did it have a title?
A: Idle Hands. It’s four women masturbating. Lainie Commins is one of the women on the tape.
Q: How did Bobby happen to give this tape to your husband?
A: He said it would help him win his case. He wanted a finder’s fee for it. Ten percent of whatever we grossed on the teddy bear.
Q: By the teddy bear…
A: Gladys. Our bear. The one Lainie claims we stole from her.
Q: Had your husband agreed to give Bobby this ten percent?
A: No. That’s why he was there. He wanted the tape back.
Q: Did you know anything about this tape before he mentioned it to you?
A: Nothing.
Q: Had you ever seen it?
A: Never.
Q: Ever watched it?
A: Never.
Q: Did you even know of its existence?
A: No, I did not know of its existence.
She began crying again. The Republican look-alikes looked patient and supportive. The angry redhead looked bored. I offered Etta a box of Kleenex. She blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes, wiped her cheeks. She brushed a strand of hair back from her face. She raised her chin. Her eyes met mine. They were clear and intent and alert. We resumed.
Q: Did Bobby Diaz ask you to look for that tape?
A: He did.
Q: And did you conduct a search for it?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: Did you eventually find it?
A: Yes. In our bedroom safe. Just the cassette. The case was gone.
Q: What time was it when you found the tape?
A: About a quarter to eleven.
Q: Then what?
A: We watched a little of it. To make sure it was the right one. Because the
case was missing, you see. The black vinyl case they come in. There was no way of identifying it.
Q: Was it the correct tape?
A: Yes. Lainie was on it.
Q: You watched it for how long?
A: Oh, no more than a minute.
Q: Then what happened?
A: Bobby wanted it back. I told him I wouldn’t give it to him. Because I thought maybe Brett had paid him for it, after all, and this was just some kind of trick.
Q: What did he say to that?
A: Nothing. He just left.
I looked at her.
The room was silent except for the whirring of the video camera. I glanced at Frank. His nod was almost imperceptible.
“Mrs. Toland,” I said, “excuse me, but didn’t you tell me earlier tonight that your refusal to give Diaz…?”
“I told you earlier tonight exactly what I’m telling you now.”
“Didn’t you tell me that he…?”
“I told you that he left the house.”
“Didn’t he say something to you before he left the house?”
“Yes, he said good night.”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Didn’t he tell you that until this past Christmas, your husband was having an affair with Lainie Commins?”
“No, he did not.”
“And wasn’t it this that caused you to…?”
“Do I have to answer any more questions?” she asked, and turned to Brackett.
“Not if you don’t choose to,” he said.
“I don’t choose to,” she said.
“Where?” Toots said. “Where’d they put it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Warren said.
“The eight keys, Warren. Where?”
“I don’t know anything about…”
“I was in the john when they came aboard with it. Where’d they put it?”
“I never saw it.”
“Warren, I’m going to shoot you.”
“Go ahead.”
“You know where that coke is, Warren.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“Tell me, or I’ll shoot you.”
“You see this man here?” Warren said, and jerked his head toward where Juan lay motionless and silent on the deck. “Three minutes after they came aboard, he hit me with that gun you’re holding in your hand there. I never saw anybody bringing any dope onto this boat.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Fuck you, then, I’ll find it myself.”
“Go right ahead.”
She went down the ladder. The rain kept pouring down. He shook his head, sighed, and went to the wheel. He could hear her storming around belowdecks, banging cabinet doors, tossing around pots and pans, whatever. He sighed again. Some ten minutes later, she came topside again.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
She began searching through the storage bins on either side of the boat, tossing aside life jackets and lines, rags, a billed cap. Lifted the lid to the bait locker. Felt around under the ice and the beer cans. Warren held the boat steady. The rain kept slashing the deck. She came to where he was sitting, gestured with the gun toward the closed compartment under the dash, just above his knees.
“Move,” she said.
“It won’t drive itself,” he said.
“Then open that.”
He thumbed the button in the drop-front lid. The lid fell open. He saw at once a yellow oilskin-wrapped package wedged inside the compartment among the charts and a flashlight and a cigar box and a whistle.
Eight keys, she’d said. Two point two pounds to a kilo, ask any schoolboy. Seventeen and a half pounds of the white lady, give or take.
“Give it to me,” she said.
“No,” he said, and slammed the compartment shut, and raised his knee against it as if to tell her it was going to stay shut. Right knee wedged against the drop-front lid. Rain sweeping in over the boat, slicing back to where they stood side by side, the gun steady in Toots’s hand, and the wheel steady in his.
“Warren,” she said, “this isn’t a joke here.”
“I know that, Toots.”
“Then move away.”
“No.”
“Warren, I need that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I fucking need or don’t need!
“Toots…”
“Don’t force me to hurt you, Warren!”
She peered at him through the fiercely falling rain, her eyes squinted, her hair plastered to her head, her clothes drenched, water streaming down her face. He wasn’t sure whether that was just rain on her face or whether she was also crying. He didn’t think she would shoot him, but he wasn’t sure of that, either. The gun was trembling in her fist.
“Warren…” she said, “please.”
“Toots…”
“Please, Warren…”
“Toots…”
“Please.”
He sighed heavily.
He thumbed open the compartment. Reached in. Took out the package wrapped in yellow oilskin. Slammed the compartment shut. She realized what he was about to do even as he started doing it. She reached for him as he turned, reached for the package in his hands, was still reaching for it as it left his hands, reaching across him to rescue it, salvage it, snatch it from the rain and the night as he hurled it over the side of the boat into the sea.
Her shoulders slumped. She stared disconsolately into the rain and suddenly began crying. He rose and put his arm around her. Still holding the wheel with his free hand, he pulled her gently close to him.
“Toots,” he said, “let’s go home now, okay?”
She could not stop sobbing.
“Toots? Can we go home now?” he said.
Deep wracking sobs that broke his heart.
“Okay, Toots? Can we please go home?”
She nodded weakly.
“Toots? Okay?”
She nodded again.
He held her close in the rain.
13
Well,” Bannister said, “that was one hell of a confession, Matthew.”
“Look,” I said, “you know me well enough to…”
“Oh, I know you well enough,” he said.
He was impeccably dressed in a hand-tailored blue tropical suit with a faint green shadow stripe. Blue shirt. Green tie. Highly polished black shoes. He and his wife had been having dinner with a state senator when he took my call. I’d told him I had a confession in the Toland murder case. I’d told him I wanted to do a videotaped Q and A in my office.
So here we were.
And Etta Toland had recanted.
Pete Folger, who looked like Phil Gramm and sounded like Phil Donahue, looked at his watch. His expression said this had been a waste of time and he wanted to go home to his wife and kiddies in time to catch the eleven o’clock news. Skye Bannister, who looked like Dan Quayle and who, in fact, sounded like him, was wearing an expression that said he knew me well enough to realize I was smart enough not to have dragged him down here if I didn’t have what is known in the trade as “real meat,” in which case why the hell was he here?
“Matthew,” he said, “I’m going to assume she told you something you wanted us to hear…”
“Didn’t sound that way to me,” Folger said.
“Pete,” I said, “she recanted. What the hell’s wrong with you?
“What’s wrong with me is we’ve got your lady cold and you’re dragging in somebody you claim …”
“He’s not stupid,” Bannister said sharply.
“What?” Folger said.
“I said he’s not stupid. Make that mistake, and you’re in trouble. What’d she tell you, Matthew? And what do you want us to do about it now that she’s turned her back?”
“He told her just what I said he told her.”
“Who? And what?
”
“Bobby Diaz. Said her husband broke off his affair with Lainie Commins this past Christmas.”
“And?”
“You want it exactly the way she told it?”
“I’d be much obliged,” Bannister said.
She doesn’t know quite how to answer Bobby’s accusation.
It’s not something that hasn’t crossed her mind before, the hours Brett and Lainie spend together late at night, poring over designs at the office, the possibility has occurred to her. She supposes Lainie is an attractive woman, in a lost-waifish sort of way, if that kind of thing appeals to you. Brett has always had a roving eye, but his taste runs more to sleek, sophisticated women. Still, it’s entirely possible that what Bobby is telling her is true, though she won’t reveal this to him by even the faintest flicker of recognition on her face, the tiniest glimmer of suspicion in her eyes. Instead, she tells him to get the hell out of her house, and the moment he’s gone she calls the boat.
“This was now about ten to eleven,” I said. “In her earlier deposition, she told me she called the boat at eleven forty-five. That was to cover her tracks.”
Calls the boat at ten to eleven and gets no answer.
Wonders why he isn’t answering the phone.
Wonders if he’s already on the way home.
In which case, why hasn’t he called to say how the meeting went?
Wonders then why he asked Lainie to meet him on the boat in the first place. Instead of here at the house.
Wonders why he didn’t even mention this hot little tape in his possession, his hot little bimbo doing herself for all the world to see, wide open.
Has he been watching his hot little tape in private?
Does it recall memories of his hot cross-eyed little bimbo, wantonly spread and energetically enticing?
Does she excite him to tumescence?
Incite him to action?
Meet me on the boat again, hmmm?
Wonders, in fact, if his cockeyed little bitch isn’t doing herself right there on Toy Boat right this very minute, doing him in the bargain, shouldn’t be a total loss, no wonder no one’s answering the phone.
She decides that if this is true…
If he really did have an affair with Lainie…
If he is still having an affair with her…
She will kill him.
It is a decision she makes in the snap of an instant.
Ed McBain_Matthew Hope 12 Page 26
