Beauty and the Beast

11

AT 9:00 sharp on Thursday morning, from my office in Calusa, I placed a call to the US Army District Recruiting Command on the South Dixie Highway in Miami. I had tried to reach them the night before from the airport, before I caught my Sunwing flight back, but I got only an answering machine telling me the office was open daily from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., except on Saturdays when it closed for the weekend at noon. A woman named Corporal Dickinson answered the phone now. I told her I hoped I was calling the right place, I was trying to get in touch with a recruiting sergeant named Ronnie Palmer, and she asked me to wait, please, sir.

“Sergeant Palmer,” a man’s voice said.

“Sergeant, my name is Matthew Hope, I’m an attorney representing George Harper.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Is this the Ronnie Palmer who knew Mr. Harper while he was in the service?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I understand he called you while he was in Miami several weeks back. That would’ve been on Sunday, November the fifteenth, do you remember him calling you?”

“Yes, sir, he called me at home.”

“Do you remember what you talked about?”

“Sir?”

“Do you remember the gist of your conversation?”

“Well, it was just an ordinary conversation, sir. We knew each other in Germany, he wanted to know how I was, what I’d been doing, and so on.”

“Would he have asked you any questions about the Artillery?”

“Well, yes he did. As a matter of fact, I found that puzzling at the time. I was George’s ISR in Germany, you see—”

“His what?”

“In-Service Recruiter. Which is how I happened to be familiar with his particular commitment to the army. Do you know how this works, sir?”

“Not entirely.”

“Well, when a man enlists, he normally commits to the army for six years, four on active duty, two in the reserve. In George’s case — well, this gets a little complicated. To make it simple, when George’s four years of active service were completed, he reenlisted for another three, and I was the one who helped him to pull those in Germany, too, instead of someplace where another shooting war could break out any minute. But, you see, when he came home from Germany, he was finished — that is, he didn’t owe the army any reserve time. Which is what puzzled me.”

“I’m not sure I understand, Sergeant.”

“Well, he asked me whether a guy who’d been in the MP could end up in the artillery reserve.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I said it was entirely possible. We don’t have any reserve MP units here in Miami. So someone who’d been with the MP would have had to request a new MOS, and assuming it—”

“MOS?”

“Military Occupational Specialty. And assuming his request was approved, he could then join one of the existing reserve units here in Miami. The field artillery is one of those units. The Seven/Nine Field Artillery Battalion.”

“The Seventy-Ninth?”

“No, sir, the Seven-Slash-Nine. The Seven/Nine, sir.”

“I see. And you told this to Harper?”

“Yes, sir. And then he asked me where somebody attached to the Seven/Nine would go for his monthly drills. I told him that depended on the battery. HHB is divided into—”

“HHB?”

“Headquarters and Headquarters Battery Battalion.”

“Yes?”

“Is divided into Main Company, Service Battery, A-Battery, and B-Battery. The first two normally drill at Pompano...”

“Pompano, yes, go on.”

“A-Battery drills at Vero Beach. B-Battery drills at Port Charlotte.”

“Did you tell this to Harper?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Thank you very much,” I said.

“Sir, do you have any idea why he wanted this information?”

“I think so, yes. I think he was trying to find someone. Sergeant, I wonder if you could do me one other favor. Could you check your records on a man named Lloyd Davis? He would have been with the Military Police, and I’m fairly certain he’s now in a field-artillery reserve unit. Can you let me know what battery he’s with?”

“I’d have to make some calls on that, sir.”

“Could you? And get back to me, please?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Be happy to.”

“Thanks, Sergeant,” I said.

He called me back ten minutes later to report that Corporal Lloyd C. Davis had begun his cross-training, or retraining, with the Seven/Nine in January almost two years ago, and that he would fulfill his obligation to the army next January, on the fourteenth. He further told me that Davis was with A-Battery of the Seven/Nine Field Artillery Battalion and that they had been drilling at Vero Beach on the weekend of November 14–November 15. The first sergeant of A-Battery had informed Palmer that Lloyd Davis had taken a phone call at about nine Sunday morning, November 15, and had come to him immediately afterward asking to be excused that weekend because there was an emergency at home. He promised he would make up for the missed session within the thirty days allowed by the army. The last his sergeant had seen of him, he was driving south in a red Thunderbird convertible.

I thanked Palmer again, and then hung up.

The call from Detective Morris Bloom did not come until almost the end of the day. I was, in fact, packing my briefcase and clearing my desk when Cynthia buzzed to say he was on the line.

“Matthew,” he said, “we’ve got Harper. The Miami cops picked him up early this afternoon — he sure likes Miami, doesn’t he? He was driving a car stolen here in Calusa, a Cadillac Seville, no less. He’s here now; we’re about to question him on Sally Owen’s murder. I think you ought to come down.”

I asked Bloom if I could have a few words with my client before they began the Q and A. A uniformed cop brought Harper into the empty office where I was waiting for him. He was manacled and chained. I had never before this moment seen a human being chained like an animal. The chain was wrapped around his waist and through the connecting links of the handcuffs that held his hands fastened behind his back, and then looped between his legs and through the connecting links of the leg irons on his ankles. There was blood caked on his face and both his eyes were swollen and discolored. Looking at him, battered and chained that way, I couldn’t help remembering what Sally Owen had called him: King Kong.

“How are you?” I said.

“So-so,” he said.

“Sit down.”

“Ain’t too comfortable, my hands locked behind my back this way.”

He sat anyway, easing his huge body into a leather chair, shifting his weight so that he was resting on one hip.

“Why’d you hit me?” I asked.

“You was about to turn me in.”

“No, I asked you to turn yourself in voluntarily.”

“Same thing.”

“Because I was afraid you might get hurt out there.”

“Got hurt out there anyway, dinn I?”

“Who did it?”

“Don’t actually know. Lots of cops ’tween Miami an’ here, all of them with clubs.”

“What were you doing in Miami again?”

“Sightseein. Lookin.”

“For Lloyd Davis?”

He shifted his weight in the chair. His eyes avoided mine.

“Mr. Harper? Did you go to Miami looking for Lloyd Davis?”

He did not answer me.

“How about Pompano? You were there on the fifteenth, did you go there looking for Lloyd Davis?”

He still did not answer.

“Or Vero Beach? You went there that same day. Did you expect to find Lloyd Davis there?”

“Thass a lot of questions, Mr. Hope.”

“But no answers so far. How about helping me?”

“Why would I go any of those places lookin for Lloyd?”

“Because his wife told you he was with an artillery reserve unit, and your former buddy Ronnie Palmer told you where all the Seven/Nine batteries drilled. You didn’t know which battery he was with, so you had to start trying them all. Why were you looking for Lloyd Davis?”

“Thass personal, Mr. Hope.”

“Not anymore, it isn’t.”

“I ain’t sure I know what you mean by that.”

“I think you found out about him and Michelle, Mr. Harper. I think that’s why—”

He shoved himself out of the chair and lunged toward me. The chain between his legs and fastened to the leg irons caught him up short. He stood there shaking, straining at the chains, and I thought for a moment he might snap them as easily as King Kong had. And then suddenly, he began weeping the way he had the first time in this building, only this time he wasn’t sitting, this time he stood there like a huge mountain erupting tears, his shoulders and his chest heaving, his entire body quaking, the tears streaming down his face like molten lava.

I went to him. I put my arm around his shoulders.

“It’s all right,” I said.

He shook his head.

“Sit down.”

He shook his head again.

“Please. Sit down.”

I helped him into the chair. He sat bent forward, his hands cuffed behind his back, his body still shaking, the tears still coming uncontrollably.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“I found the paintin Sally Owen done.”

“The one in your garage?”

“Yessir.”

“What about it?”

“Found it in the closet, ast Michelle whut it was. Ast her whut it was spose to be. White woman kissin a black man, whut was it spose to be? She tole me it was her an’ me, said it was spose to be her an’ me. Said it was a present from Sally. I tole her the man in that pitcher dinn look nothin at all like me, an’ if it was spose to be us, if it was a present from Sally spose to be us, then whut was she hidin it in the closet for? And then she... she tole me.”

“When was this, Mr. Harper? When did you find that painting?”

“Saturday night, I been watchin television, musta been about one in the mornin’ when I went in the bedroom. She’d been out on the beach all day, had herself too much sun, turned in early. Way I happened to spot the pitcher, I planned to do some fishin the next day, Sunday, and there was this ole pair of boots I kept in the back there, way back in the closet, an’ thass where the pitcher was, face to the wall. So I wondered whut it was doin there, an’ juss then she got up t’go to the bathroom an’ I ast her. An’ then it all come out.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Said it was her an’ Lloyd in that pitcher, said they’d begun seein each other reg’lar in Germany, right after that night they fust met. Said she... Mr. Hope, I can’t tell you this, it hurts me to have to say this. Thass why I been keepin it all inside me, you unnerstan? Because of the shame of it.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“She... tole me she loved him, Mr. Hope. Said she’d... loved him from the start.”

“What happened then?”

“I got dressed an’ left for Miami.”

“Why?”

“To go fine him,” Harper said, and suddenly raised his head and looked directly into my eyes. “To kill him, Mr. Hope. Thass why I went to Pompano an’ Vero Beach. Thass why I went back to Miami when I couldn’t find him either of those places. To kill him. I planned to stay in Miami till hell froze over, waitin for him to come home from wherever he was. But then I heard the news about Michelle, an’ I come right back here to Calusa. I busted outa jail to go lookin for him again, Mr. Hope. They’s still business needs tendin to, Mr. Hope. Once I get outta here—”

“Let’s worry about that later, okay? Right now, they’re going to ask you about Sally Owen’s murder. You’re not to answer a single question, do you understand?”

“I dinn plan to anyway, Mr. Hope. I answered all they questions ’bout Michelle, an’ I ended up in jail. I dinn kill Sally Owen neither, an’ I don’t plan to tell them nothin now but my name, rank, an’ serial number.”

“Name, rank, and serial number, right,” I said, and smiled for the first time in three days.

I got home at a little after seven that night, mixed myself a martini, and then went directly into the study to play back the messages on the answering machine. There were only three crank calls; sic transit gloria mundi. One of the callers was my secret admirer, Lucille. “Still waiting for your call, honey,” she said, and hung up. The other two calls were from men who described in detail what they would do to me if that nigger didn’t get the electric chair. Castration was the gist.

The next call was from Jim Willoughby.

“Matthew,” he said, “don’t bother calling me back, okay? I simply want you to know I’m ending my association with you on this case. I don’t like the way you’ve been handling it, I feel in fact that you’ve jeopardized any chance we might have had for an acquittal, and I want out. Good luck with it.”

Mealymouthed Eliot McLaughlin was the next caller.

“Matthew, this is Eliot,” he said. “I’d like you to call me back on this very serious matter of breaching the settlement agreement. I think you know what I’m referring to, Matthew. Hasta la vista.”

Stupid son of a bitch, I thought.

“Matthew,” the next caller said, “this is Frank. Your partner, remember? I wanted to remind you that you’ve got a closing at Tricity tomorrow morning at nine. Our fee is close to twenty thousand dollars on this one, need I say more? Rumor in the trade has it that you’re planning to open an office in Miami. Is that true?”

I smiled.

The machine hummed.

I snapped it off, and then picked up the receiver and dialed Kitty Reynolds’s number. She answered on the fifth ring.

“Miss Reynolds,” I said, “this is Matthew Hope.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I’d like to ask you some questions if I may. Will you be home for a while?”

“Well, actually...”

“Yes?”

“I was just on my way out to dinner.”

“What time will you be back, Miss Reynolds?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Would ten o’clock be convenient?”

“Well... can’t this wait till morning?”

“I’d rather talk to you tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

“Well then... can you make it a bit later?”

“Ten-thirty?”

“Eleven?”

“I’ll be there at eleven. Tell the security guard I’m expected, will you?”

I put the receiver back on the cradle, took off my jacket, and went out into the kitchen. In the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, I found a package of frozen chicken cacciatore, read the instructions on the back of the box, set a pot of water to boil, and then mixed myself a second martini. When the water was boiling, I dropped the plastic package into it, set the timer on my Japanese watch for twenty minutes, and then went into the living room and tried to make sense of the bits and pieces of information I now possessed.

There were still some questions that needed answering.

Why had Michelle Benois, for example — apparently enough in love with Lloyd Davis to have followed him to the States three months after he’d left Germany — settled for marriage with Harper instead?

Why had Michelle waited two weeks before coming to Calusa to find Harper?

Where had Lloyd Davis gone when he’d begged off drill at Vero Beach early Sunday morning, November 15, after receiving a phone call from—

Who?

Where had he been since?

Where was he now?

And what the hell was The Oreo?

Lots of questions.

The timer on my watch went off. I went out into the kitchen, spooned the plastic bag out of the boiling water, cut off one corner of it with a pair of scissors, spilled my chicken cacciatore out onto a plate, sat down at the kitchen table to eat, and hoped all through the meager meal that Kitty Reynolds would have the answer to at least one of those questions when I saw her at eleven o’clock.

I asked her flat out.

“What’s The Oreo?”

She answered me flat out.

“I have no idea.”

“What does that word mean to you?”

“Nothing. What does it mean to you?”

“It means a cookie. A layer of white icing between two chocolate wafers.”

“Oh yes,” she said, “of course. Oreo cookies.”

We were sitting in her living room. She was dressed more sedately than I’d ever seen her, wearing a simple navy-blue linen dress with muted horizontal stripes of a paler blue and pink, a checked sash in the same colors wrapped around her waist. A fire was going on the grate; apparently she’d learned how to make one since the last time I’d seen her.

“Does an Oreo cookie suggest anything to you?” I asked.

“What could it possibly suggest? Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Then why are you asking me about cookies?”

“Lloyd Davis’s wife told me Sally Owen had given her a painting — and I’m quoting now — ‘from when we still had The Oreo.’ ”

“Leona’s a junkie,” Kitty said, “I wouldn’t trust anything she—”

“Oh? How do you happen to know that?”

“Well... it’s common knowledge.”

“Have you seen her recently?”

“No, but—”

“Have you seen Lloyd Davis recently?”

“Not since we had the committee.”

“Was Leona a drug addict at the time?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Then how do you know she’s an addict now?”

“Look, Mr. Hope, I’m not under oath here. I was kind enough to let you come here, but you can just walk right out again if this is going to turn into a third degree. I don’t know anything about when Leona got to be an addict, I just know she is one, period. And I don’t know anything about Sally’s black-and-white paintings, either, or this Oreo you’re—”

“How do you know they’re black-and-white?”

“You said they were.”

“No, I never mentioned that.”

“I thought you did.”

“But they are black-and-white, aren’t they?”

“If you say so. Mr. Hope, you’re beginning to irritate me. I just had a very boring dinner with a lingerie salesman from Tampa, so if you don’t mind...”

“Miss Reynolds,” I said, “I can subpoena you before trial, and take a deposition under oath—”

“Yes, well, you just do that,” she said.

“I’d rather we talked quietly and sensibly here. Someone’s murdered two people, do you realize—”

“Yes, George Harper.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Have you ever seen any of Sally’s paintings?”

“If I knew they were black-and-white, then I guess I’d seen them someplace, yes.”

“Where?”

“At her house, I suppose. You know I was in her house for one of the meetings.”

“Yes. Which is where you met Andrew, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“And Lloyd Davis and his wife.”

“Yes.”

“Andrew had a little trouble remembering Davis.”

“I’m not responsible for Andrew’s memory.”

“Doesn’t it seem odd to you that Sally’s paintings were black-and-white, and this committee you formed—”

“I didn’t form it.”

“The lady on Fatback then. This committee was composed of concerned black and white citizens—”

“Yes, we were concerned. Don’t try to make it sound silly, Mr. Hope. We were actually concerned about what had happened. Deeply concerned.”

“Was the committee called The Oreo?”

“No.”

“Then what was?”

“I have no idea.”

“Would it have been the group you socialized with after the committee broke up?”

“I don’t know what it is, I already told you that.”

“Have you ever seen the painting hanging in the bedroom of the Davis house?”

“I’ve never been to the Davis house.”

“Have the Davises ever been here?”

“I wasn’t even living here when The Oreo—”

She cut herself off.

“Yes, Miss Reynolds?”

“I wasn’t living here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I had the apartment over the store.”

“Uh-huh. What were you just about to say?”

“Nothing.”

“About The Oreo, I mean.”

“Nothing.”

“The painting I saw in the Davis bedroom—”

“I think you’d better leave, Mr. Hope.”

“...depicted a white woman performing fellatio on a black man.”

She looked at me and blinked.

“If you already know—” she said, and cut herself off again.

I said nothing.

“You’re trying to get me in trouble, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re trying to involve me in what happened.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then what difference does it make whether I was part of The Oreo or not?”

“Were you?”

“What the fuck difference does it make? Why don’t you ask yourself why your precious client killed his wife, why don’t you ask yourself that? I’ll tell you why, Mr. Hope. Because he found out about Michelle, that’s why. And Sally was the next one because that’s where the whole thing started, with the three of them.”

“Which three?”

“I thought you knew already. You saw the painting, I thought you—”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then forget it.”

“You’ve come too far already, Miss Reynolds.”

“I came too far the minute I let them talk me into...”

She stopped again.

“Go ahead.”

“What do you want, a free show, Mr. Hope? Dirty movies? We had a little club, okay? It started with Michelle, Sally, and Lloyd, and then Andrew got involved, and one night they asked me if I’d like to party with them, so I did. Only five of us that first time, three on the bed, two of us — Lloyd and me — on the overflow mattress.”

“The one on the floor?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead.”

“That’s all.”

“There’s more.”

“All right, there’s more,” she said, and sighed. “Michelle and I were the only white women at first. But there were plenty of other whites on the committee, men and women both, and eventually — after the committee broke up — they drifted into The Oreo.”

“How many people?”

“In The Oreo? When it was in stride? A dozen, I guess.”

“Leona was a part of this?”

“In the beginning. Before she got on heroin.”

“Did George Harper ever attend any of these—”

“George? That ape? Don’t be ridiculous! He never even knew what was going on. He was out peddling his junk while his wife was romping in the hay. Why do you think he killed her, Mr. Hope? Because he found out, that’s why.”

“What about those paintings?”

“Sally gave one of them to all of us in The Oreo. You saw the one at the Davis house, the one of Michelle and Lloyd? They posed for that one night, out on Fatback I think it was, Sally high on pot and sketching Michelle and Lloyd. Made the painting later. I’ve still got my own Oreo painting someplace. Mine has a panther on it. A black panther. Eating a white kitten.”

I nodded.

“Got it all, Mr. Hope?” she said. “Any further questions, counselor?”

“Just one,” I said, and paused. “Why?”

“Why? Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Hope. At first it was just a way of communicating. The committee had broken up, we’d failed to produce even a ripple, and this was a way of maintaining contact. Of proving that we were color-blind, proving it didn’t matter to us who was white or who was black on those beds, it just didn’t matter. And later...”

She shrugged.

She smiled wistfully.

“It was exciting,” she said. “It was just so damn exciting.”