Murder is My Racquet

by Otto Penzler

  “On the Intracoastal Waterway. Near ‘Las Olas Boulevard,’ I think you call it?”

  Kind of Fort Lauderdale’s Rodeo Drive, but toned down rather than tonier. Several engineered isles stuck out from Las Olas into the channel with canals cut between them to maximize the amount of “waterfront” property.

  I said, “Are the Lauderdale police still investigating?”

  “According to them, the case ‘remains open.’”

  Which could mean anything, but in my limited experience usually suggested there was no active suspect. “Why do you want to hire me?”

  Schiff shrugged again. She seemed an “in-charge” kind of person, and I got the feeling “shrugging” wasn’t something she did often or enjoyed doing at all.

  Schiff said, “Sol was everything to—God, I’m repeating myself, aren’t I?”

  “Under the circumstances, I’d say you’re entitled.”

  She passed her left palm over her face. “Thank you, Mr. Calhoun. To answer your question, though, I’d like you to approach this opposite to the way the police have.”

  “Meaning?”

  “They’re assuming it was a burglary gone wrong. If it was something else, I want to know that.”

  She fixed me with eyes I’d hate to negotiate against myself. Then I realized that, in a sense, I already was.

  Schiff said, “And I want to know who killed the dearest man in my life.”

  I looked over her shoulder at a painfully blue sky, made the more so by a few clouds scudding past, pushed by the maybe-ten-mile-per-hour breeze that lifted the petals on the cut, graveside flowers all around us.

  As though they were still living plants, reaching toward the sun.

  Naomi Schiff said, “Mr. Calhoun?”

  “I’ll give it a try.”

  • • •

  Don Floyd started his car, pulling out of the parking area of the chapel. “Did Naomi tell you there was a reception—the Jewish people call it ‘sitting shivah,’ I believe?”

  “She told me.” I shifted in the passenger seat. “Don, if what happened at Solomon Schiff’s house wasn’t a burglary, is there anyone I should talk to?”

  Floyd frowned, then stopped for a traffic light. “Nobody who’d wish him harm, Rory. But there are some who knew him better than others.”

  “For instance?”

  “Sol’s business partner died—not like his brother, though. This was complications from a stroke, some five years or so back. The partner’s name was Bourke, spelled B-O-U-R-K-E. Casey Bourke. His widow still lives at the Club. Karen?”

  “Haven’t met her.”

  “Sweet lady. Then there’s Sol’s… girlfriend.”

  “You don’t say it like you mean it.”

  The light changed, and we moved forward. “Well, she’s quite a bit younger. Early thirties, I’d say. In my view, Karen—the widow—might have been a better choice, but Sol was kind of strongheaded that way.”

  “You sure that there wasn’t anything between Schiff and this Karen Bourke?”

  “Romantically? Hard to say for certain, Rory, but you know how the Club is.”

  I pictured it. Eight condominium buildings, four stories each, arrayed in a wide fishhook pattern around twenty clay—actually, Har-tru—tennis courts. Every building was a squared-off horseshoe with its own common-area patio, and the entrances to each unit were visible to pretty much anyone who bothered to look. Also, there was an “Olympic Village” atmosphere I’d sensed about the place within days of moving into my apartment there. Gossip would be hard to avoid.

  I said, “What’s the name of this girlfriend?”

  “Shirlee—that’s with two Es instead of E-Y. I don’t remember her last name, but I can tell you which building she’s in.”

  “Meaning, also at the Club?”

  “Right.”

  “Anybody else, Don?”

  “For you to talk to, now?”

  “Yes.”

  Floyd seemed to mull it over. “Well, I don’t know if they were real friends, but Luh-nell Kirby comes to mind.”

  “Can you spell that one for me, too?”

  “Sure. L-Y-N E-L-L. Big and black, with an even bigger serve.”

  “And this Kirby…?”

  Floyd seemed to stifle a laugh. “Sol was in his seventies, Lynell his sixties. They were pretty evenly matched, but Sol always beat him.”

  “Just as a regular opponent, or tournaments, too?”

  “Tournaments only, I believe. You see, Sol was a real competitor. Nothing pleased him more than to play down and win.”

  In most tournaments, older entrants can “waive” age limits and “play down” in a lower, presumably tougher age bracket, but younger ones can’t play up. Otherwise, so the thinking goes, they’d trounce their seniors.

  “How did Kirby take that?”

  “About as well as you’d expect a former colonel in the Army Rangers to accept defeat in anything.”

  I made simple, mental notes on all three people. “Don, thanks.”

  “You want, we can swing by the reception. I’m pretty sure Karen and Shirlee will be there, and maybe even Lynell as well.”

  “Not a comfortable time for interviewing people.” I reached into my pocket. “Besides, Naomi Schiff gave me the key to her uncle’s house, and I’d like to see it before talking with them about what happened there.”

  “Then you want to visit Sol’s place?”

  “No.” I returned the key to my packet. “No, just drop me back at the Club so I can pick up my own car. There’s a stop I ought to make even before the crime scene.”

  • • •

  I’d used the prize money from my last satellite victory to buy a two-year-old Chrysler Sebring convertible at a rentacar fleet auction. It was candy-apple red, with a tan interior and top. Given the stalling of my tennis career, the flashy wheels soothed my ego.

  I parked outside the Fort Lauderdale Police headquarters on West Broward Boulevard. The building is gray with blue piping detail, enough palm trees and flower beds around it to confuse you on its function.

  Inside, I showed my investigator’s license to the dour woman behind the first-floor INFORMATION counter, but she wouldn’t buzz me upstairs to the Homicide Unit, telling me instead to have a seat on one of the gray plastic scoop chairs in the lobby.

  A few minutes later, a different woman came through the security door to the left of the counter. She had a golden tan that I thought came more from gene pool than sunbathing, with slightly darker hair drawn up in a high ponytail that just reached the collar of her blouse. Slim and somewhere in her high thirties, she had the kind of cheekbones that would wear well.

  “You are Rory Calhoun?”

  A slight edge of Spanish on her words. Standing, I said, “Yes.”

  “Lourdes Pintana.” She extended a hand, and we shook. “Can I also see your ID, please?”

  I took it out again, remembering that a lawyer in town had told me Pintana was the sergeant in charge of the Homicide Unit.

  She took her time studying the print on my license before giving it back. “And what does a private investigator want with us?”

  “Just some time. And permission, maybe.”

  Pintana studied me harder than she had my ID. “It is a nice day. Let us walk a little.”

  I followed her outside, thinking she spoke precise, “no-contractions” English like the Castro refugees I’d met on the circuit. Pintana seemed to think the parking lot was safer than the sidewalk, because she simply began strolling between the rows of vehicles. I fell in beside the woman, shortening my strides to match hers.

  Pintana said, “Your meter is running, no?”

  I took the hint. “I’ve been asked to look into the murder of Solomon Schiff.”

  A sad smile. “Let me guess. The niece?”

  “Her name’s Naomi. She seems to feel you all may be looking in the wrong direction.”

  “It has been known to happen.” Pintana kicked at a loose stone like
a soccer player might a ball, sending it under one of the parked cars. “But this time, I think not.”

  “Because?”

  She crossed her arms. “No motives among those he knew. Solomon Schiff seemed to live his life around a tennis court. He was retired from active business, had a young girlfriend with no other boyfriends, and a nice house on the Intracoastal that would tempt many who believe in the redistribution of wealth.”

  An academic way of putting it. “So, a burglary gone sour.”

  “Sí, and almost a refreshing change of pace.” Pintana looked up at me. “We get so many domestics, so many ‘senior suicides,’ so many drug killings, that the occasional felony-murder invigorates us.”

  “But not quite to the level of solving this one.”

  “Solving it? What fingerprints and fibers we found one could have predicted: Mr. Schiff’s, Shirlee Tucker—that’s the girlfriend. There were marks on the victim’s wrists, like somebody wearing gloves held him by both in a struggle, with traces of velvet left on his skin.”

  “A burglar who uses velvet gloves?”

  A nod. “And the body was found face up on the floor at the foot of his bed. When the official cause of death came back ‘heart failure,’ it was not a surprise.”

  “Anything from the autopsy that was?”

  Pintana crossed her arms. “I do not think it ‘surprising’ for a man in his seventies, but Mr. Schiff had cancer.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere. Metastasis run wild.”

  I tried to match that up with the man I’d seen play tennis. “It didn’t show.”

  “Some people are stronger than others.”

  “Schiff knew this about himself?”

  “For about six months, according to his doctor. The victim declined the alternative treatments of chemotherapy and radiation, choosing instead to ‘tough it out.’” Pintana shook her head. “In his situation, I might have felt the same.”

  We were almost at my car. “Okay if I visit the house?”

  “Schiff’s, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do not see why not. We released it as a crime scene two days ago.”

  I stopped at the Sebring’s rear bumper. “Thanks for the help.”

  Pintana continued for several steps before turning and looking at my convertible. “This is yours?”

  “It is.”

  Sergeant Lourdes Pintana looked it over, then did the same for me. “Take my advice, Mr. Calhoun. You will not make a very good living by trying to follow subjects in secret.”

  • • •

  Solomon Schiff’s house was on the second isle south of Las Olas. The sprawling ranch looked like one of the older homes on the street, especially given the number of places being bought and then torn down for the construction of mansions, two of which were in progress. I parked in the driveway behind a jaunty, teal Toyota, which I assumed was Schiff’s.

  The key his niece had given me fit the top and bottom locks on the front door. When I swung it open and stepped into the foyer, the muzzle of a black semiautomatic was aimed about belly high on me from ten feet away.

  The woman holding it said, “Sol always told me to aim at the fella’s belt buckle and fire till he falls.”

  Slight southern lilt to the voice, hands shaking a little.

  Keeping my own hands open and shoulder high, I managed to speak past a cottony tongue. “Even good advice isn’t always right.”

  “Come any closer, and we’ll both find out.”

  I decided to give her a moment. She was thirtyish, with dark, full hair cut just off her neck. The tank top showed about a third of the kind of breasts that make South Florida the true “Silicon Valley,” and her Capri pants looked to be painted on her butt and legs. I remembered Don Floyd saying Schiff’s girlfriend was much younger.

  She blinked first. “Well, aren’t you going to tell me who you are?”

  “A man given a key to this place,” I said, wiggling it for her to see.

  “Oh, hell,” the woman said, lowering the gun. “Why didn’t you say you were from the Realtor’s?”

  “I’m not, but if I can show you some identification…?”

  “Sure.” She let the gun rest against her thigh as we moved together. Her eyes were hazel and just a little too far apart for smart.

  “A private investigator? Like, really?”

  “Really.”

  “Oh, wow. And you’re even cute.”

  “And you’re even Ms. Tucker?”

  “Right, right. Shirlee Tucker. But with two Es. My mama couldn’t spell real good. So, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been hired to look into Solomon Schiff’s death.”

  “Ugh. Tell me about it. I was the one found him.”

  “Where?”

  “Just like on TV, huh?”

  “Let’s start there, anyway.”

  Tucker led me through a living room that seemed sparsely furnished except for shelving that held more tennis trophies than books, but then Naomi Schiff had told me there’d been a lot of breakage and that she’d cleaned up the house. By the time we reached the bedroom, Tucker’s gait, enhanced by the fit of her Capris, had started to hypnotize me.

  “In here.”

  I moved past her in the open doorway, something musky coming off Tucker that I didn’t think originated in a bottle. The room was fifteen by twelve, a king-sized brass bed against one wall, a master bath through another. There were no sheets or pillows in sight, and just an overhead light fixture hung down from a ceiling fan.

  “Where exactly was Mr. Schiff’s body?”

  Tucker now moved past me to the footboard of the bed, which had a pattern of sturdy, vertical pickets between lateral top and bottom pieces the diameter of bar rails. She grasped the top rail as support and lowered herself to the floor until she was faceup and lying flat, head toward the bed and feet toward the door.

  Tucker said, “Sol was like this?” the lilt making her statement sound like a question.

  “How about his arms?”

  She moved hers to a more exaggerated version of my “Don’t Shoot” in the foyer, her fingernails almost touching the base of the brass footboard.

  “What else did you see?”

  Tucker did a partial situp, now resting on her elbows, which pushed the doctored bust more aggressively forward. “His bed had been slept in,” now a coy cocking of her head, “but not with me.”

  “Meaning with somebody else?”

  “I didn’t get any perfumy smell. Ugh, Sol’s was bad enough.”

  When people die, their muscles relax and release a lot of unpleasantness. “You didn’t see anybody else?”

  “No. And Sol had pajama bottoms on.”

  “Bottoms, but no top?”

  “Right, right. That’s how he dressed for bed when I wasn’t here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because,” the head now cocking the other way, though to the same effect, “when I was with him, he’d sleep naked.”

  Not exactly logical, but the last part struck me as pretty probable. And probably enjoyable.

  Tucker said, “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

  I decided not to lie. “Yes.”

  Her tongue came out, moistened her lips. “Me, too. Minute I saw you in the foyer back there? I was hoping it wouldn’t come to shooting you.”

  Reassuring. “Had you and Mr. Schiff been sleeping together much recently?”

  A frown, like that wasn’t my next line in her script. “No, truth to tell. Oh, Sol was no great shakes in the sack, but he was—Sol liked to call himself ‘inventive.’”

  “Inventive.”

  “Yeah. Loved going into the sex shops, buying me things like teddies or bikini thongs.” Tucker stretched the top of her Capri pants to show me some red lace. “These, for instance.”

  My throat felt a little tight. “How about sex toys?”

  “Oh, he had just a drawerful of those.” Another frown,
directed toward the bureau. “But I think his prudy niece must have gone and thrown them all away when she cleaned up the place, account of that’s what I wanted to take back with me, and they aren’t there now.”

  I couldn’t see somebody ransacking the house for one of those. “Shirlee, did Mr. Schiff have anything in the house that somebody might have searched for?”

  “Searched for? You mean like treasure or something?”

  “Jewelry, cash, anything somebody else might want.”

  A third cocking of her head. “Just me.”

  Actually Tucker’s answer gave me several ideas. “Did Mr. Schiff ever take any photos of you?”

  “You mean, like, nudie shots?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. No, Sol was into gadgets, not cameras.” Yet another nice cocking of her head. “Of course, you don’t look like you need any of those things to please, and this floor’s getting awful hard.”

  The floor wasn’t alone in that. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Full situp now. “Like when you’re ‘off-duty,’ right?”

  Clearing my throat, I agreed with Shirlee Tucker, who recited her phone number, including how easy it was to remember the last four digits because “you just have to keep subtracting by two for each?”

  • • •

  I had a resident decal pasted on my windshield, so the security guard at the Club just waved me through the main gate. As I drove around the fishhook road toward my building, Wingfield, I spotted the man I believed to be Lynell Kirby walking toward the clubhouse with a tennis bag slung over his shoulder and that purposeful stride that I’ve always associated with doctors on their way to major operations and players on their way to important matches. Instead of continuing all the way to Wingfield, I parked in a guest slot for Lenglen.

  Every one of the Club’s residential buildings is named for a historic tennis player, and there’s a twenty-foot mosaic of each legend—in this case, Suzanne Lenglen of France—on a peach wall in the respective courtyard. Lends a nice air of tradition, a sense of permanence that I hadn’t found anywhere else in the Lauderdale area.

  Jogging, I caught up with Kirby as he reached the pool area, which, along with the tiki bar on the patio, overlooks the front five courts. “Colonel Kirby?”

  The man turned. Six-three, great muscle definition in arms and legs, no gut. From fifty feet away, you’d be off thirty years on his age, but up close, his spring-coil hair was spritzed with gray, and his eyes had that faraway look of some older guys I’d known who’d fought in Vietnam.