Rumpelstiltskin

2

My partner Frank calls Summerville and Hope the Old Curiosity Shop of the legal profession, this because we handle a great variety of cases and do not specialize in any one branch of the law. There are three lawyers in our office — Frank, myself, and a young man named Karl Jennings, who’d been admitted to the bar only a bit more than a year ago. Normally, we divide the work among us. If we find ourselves coping with a case requiring skills one or another of us doesn’t possess, we will turn the case over to an outside shop. Rarely will we handle litigation of any sort, preferring to defer in such matters to attorneys who regularly handle court work. The firm employs as well a receptionist, a file clerk, and a secretarial pool consisting of two secretaries shared by Frank, Karl, and me. Only once in our history have we been involved in a criminal case, the one we still refer to around here as the “Goldilocks” case. I was about to become personally involved in another one that Monday morning, but I didn’t yet know it.

The day started with an unannounced visit from a certifiable nut named Louis Dumont, whom I did not at first recognize as a lunatic. He arrived at ten minutes past nine, while I was still reading the morning mail. Cynthia buzzed from outside and said there was a man named Louis Dumont here to see me. I asked her to come in for a minute. Cynthia Huellen is a native Floridian with long blond hair and a glorious tan that she works at almost fanatically; never a weekend goes by that does not find Cynthia on a beach or a boat. She is easily the most beautiful person in the law offices of Summerville and Hope, twenty-four years old, and employed by us as a receptionist. Frank and I keep telling her to quit the job and go to law school instead. She already has a B.A. from the University of South Florida, and we would take her into the firm the minute she passed her bar exams. But each time we raise the possibility, Cynthia grins and says, “No, I don’t want the hassle of school again.” She is one of the nicest young people I know, and she is blessed besides with a keen mind, an even-tempered disposition, a fine sense of humor, and the kind of clean good looks that went out of style in the sixties. If I were twenty-eight, I would ask her to marry me, even considering the possibility that this might not sit too well with a daughter only eleven years younger than she is. The moment the door closed behind her, I asked, “Who’s Louis Dumont?”

“He says it’s about the Cummings property. You look terrible.”

“Thank you. Does he have an appointment?”

“No.”

“It’s nine o’clock in the morning, are you telling me he just walked in without an appointment?”

“It’s nine-fifteen, and yes, that’s what he did.”

“All right, bring me the Cummings folder, give me a minute to look at it, and then send him in.”

Louis Dumont was a man in his mid-fifties, I guessed, with a complexion that would have seemed pallid even in Minnesota but which made him appear positively moribund here in Florida. He was almost entirely bald, and he had a pencil-line mustache under his nose. His deep-set, restless brown eyes should have provided the first clue to his instability, but it was only a little past nine in the morning, and I wasn’t paying that much attention after less than four hours of sleep. He stood silently before my desk, looking me over, a short man in a suit too heavy and too somberly hued for Florida. I guess he was waiting for me to offer him a seat. I offered him one, and he took it. He spoke very slowly and very calmly, deceiving me completely. He told me that ten years ago the property in question was owned by his stepfather, Peter Landon, a widower who died intestate, leaving the building to Louis himself and his stepbrother John.

“Uh-huh,” I said. As he spoke, I was rummaging through the Cummings folder again, looking for the probate record on Peter Landon’s estate.

“So you see,” he said, “the building still belongs to me and my stepbrother.”

I now had the probate record in my hands. I read it over silently and looked across the desk. “According to this,” I said, not for a moment realizing what violent effect my words would have, “Peter Landon died leaving only one child, a son named...”

Dumont leaped to his feet as though I’d touched him with a cattle prod. I saw those eyes then, burning unpredictably bright in his head. “You’re just like all the rest!” he shouted, and then put both hands flat on the desk and leaned on his arms, the elbows locked, and yelled in a shower of spittle, “Why won’t you recognize my claim? Why are you trying to cheat me out of my inheritance? You fucking sheeny Jew cocksucker shyster, I want what’s coming to me!”

I’m not a Jew, and I have never sucked even a tiny little cock in all my life, and to the best of my knowledge I’m an honest practitioner of the law. But I was scared to death that if I denied any of Dumont’s accusations he would lean farther across the desk and strangle me with his bare hands.

“Mr. Dumont,” I said, “I’m basing my response only on what the probate record...”

“What the fuck does the probate record know?” he shouted. “Does it tell you how Peter took in an orphan and raised him as his own?”

“Well, no, it...”

“I was that orphan!” he shouted.

“Mr. Dumont, please try to...”

“He raised me as his own son! And when he died, he left that property to me and that rotten bastard John!”

“Well, I... I can find no record of that, Mr. Dumont.”

“Records!” he shouted.

“That’s all we have to go on,” I said. “If the records...”

“Records!” he shouted again.

“Mr. Dumont, however close you may have felt to this man who took you in as an orphan...”

“He did!”

“Nor am I denying it. But however close you may have felt to him and the rest of the family...”

“Not that bastard John!”

“Not John, of course not John, but Mr. Landon himself perhaps, and perhaps his wife when she was alive.”

“I never met his wife! What the fuck are you talking about?”

“My point is that in the absence of other evidence...”

“Evidence!”

“... I’m afraid you have no claim as an heir to Peter Landon. In any event, sir, the property has changed hands four times since Mr. Landon died, and the present owner’s obligation...”

“Obligation!” he shouted. “Don’t tell me about obligation! I know all about those fucking sales and conveyances, I know all about titles and real estate, too, I know all about them, and I know my rights. If I have to bring an ejectment action to get my share of that million dollars...”

“Mr. Dumont, we’re selling the property for three hundred thous—”

“It’s worth a million, and I want my share! And I’ll tell you something else, you fucking sheeny Jew cocksucker shyster, I’ll kill any lawyer or judge who tries to keep me from getting what’s mine!”

“Mr. Dumont,” I said, “you’re beginning to annoy me. On behalf of my client, I’ll offer you five hundred dollars to sign a release and a quitclaim deed. Otherwise, we’ll simply disregard your claim. What do you say? Do you want the five hundred?”

“I want my share of the million!”

“Your share of the million is five hundred dollars, take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” Dumont said.

“Fine.”

“I’ll take it, you cocksucker.”

“You go wait outside while I have the papers and the check drawn.”

“I want it in cash,” Dumont said.

“No, you’ll take it by check. I want a record of payment in settle—”

“Records!” he shouted.

“Go sit outside,” I told him. “And watch your language in front of that young girl out there.”

“You cocksucker,” he said, but he left the office.

That was the beginning of my Monday. Ten minutes later I got a call from a man who owed nine hundred dollars to another of my clients, a surgeon who’d performed a gall bladder operation for him. The man’s name was Gerald Bannister. He started the conversation by saying, “What’s this all about?”

“It’s about nine hundred dollars, Mr. Bannister.”

“So what’s the matter? Ralph thinks I’m not going to pay him?”

“If by Ralph you’re referring to Dr. Ungerman, yes, he’s afraid that all he’s going to get out of this is your gall bladder.”

“Ha-ha, that’s very funny,” Bannister said. “Of course I’m going to pay him. Tell him to stop dunning me, okay? My gall bladder, that’s very funny. What’s he got it in a jar or something?”

“Mr. Bannister, when do you plan to pay Dr. Ungerman?”

“I’ll pay him, don’t worry.”

“I am worried. When will you pay him?”

“I can’t pay him now.”

“When can you pay him?”

“I can’t pay it all right now is what I mean.”

“How much of it can you pay right now?”

“A hundred.”

“What about the remaining eight hundred?”

“I’ll pay him a hundred a month.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“You’ll have to do better.”

“I can’t do better than two hundred a month.”

“You didn’t say two hundred, you said a hundred.”

“I meant two hundred.”

“A hundred now, and two hundred a month for the next four months, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“All right, I’ll need you here to sign the notes. And remember, Mr. Bannister, you’re the one who’s setting this schedule...”

“I know I am.”

“I’m simply warning you that any future delinquency won’t be tolerated.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“I’ll prepare the notes. When can you come here to sign them?”

“Next week sometime.”

“Make it tomorrow.”

“I can’t make it tomorrow.”

“When can you make it?”

“Thursday.”

“All right, nine o’clock Thursday.”

“One o’clock Thursday.”

“One o’clock, fine.”

“I never been dunned like this in my life,” Bannister said, and hung up.

It was almost ten when Cynthia buzzed to say that Frank wanted to see me in his office. There are people who say that Frank Summerville and I look alike. I cannot see any resemblance. I’m six feet two inches tall and weigh a hundred and ninety pounds. Frank’s a half-inch under six feet, and he weighs a hundred and sixty, which he watches like a hawk. We both have dark hair and brown eyes, but Frank’s face is rounder than mine. Frank says there are only two types of faces in the world — pig faces and fox faces. He classifies himself as a pig face and me as a fox face. There is nothing derogatory about either label: they are only intended to be descriptive. Frank first told me about his designation system more than a year ago. Ever since, I’ve been unable to look at anyone without automatically categorizing him as either pig or fox.

He took one look at me now and said, “Look what the cat dragged in.” I did not believe I looked all that awful. It was true that I’d had very little sleep last night, but I had felt vaguely refreshed after showering and shaving this morning, and moreover I was wearing one of my best suits, an English tropical I’d had hand-tailored for me at Chipp in New York. That was before the divorce. Since the divorce I have not been able to afford any hand-tailored suits.

“The Downings are coming in about those wills,” Frank said. “I don’t know what to advise them, Matt. I hate to be put in the middle of this.”

“What’s the problem?”

“They’re taking a six-month cruise around the world, and they want to sign new wills before they take off. But Sally’s reluctant to make her brother-in-law the alternate executor of the will...”

“You mean if Howard predeceases her?”

“Right. She doesn’t like her brother-in-law, plain and simple. She feels that if Howard dies first and then she goes, her no-good brother-in-law will make a mess of the estate.”

“Has she any reason to believe that?”

“The man pissed away his half of the fortune Howard’s father left them. Sally’s afraid he’ll do the same with their estate once both of them are dead.”

“So? Who does she want as alternate executor?”

“Her brother.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“He’s no better than Howard’s brother. A two-bit gambler from what I understand, running up to Miami every weekend to play the dogs or the frontons.”

“So where’s King Solomon?” I said.

“They’ll be here in twenty minutes. What do I tell them?”

“Would she accept one of us as executor?”

“She might.”

“Or a bank? What’s their bank?”

“First Union.”

“They’ve got a good trust department, why don’t you suggest them?”

“She’s dead set on her brother.”

“How does Howard feel about it?”

“He’s holding out for his brother.”

“Then tell them to cancel the goddamn trip,” I said.

“I’ll suggest First Union.”

The buzzer on his desk sounded. Frank clicked on.

“Yes?” he said.

“There’s a policeman here to see Mr. Hope,” Cynthia said.

“You expecting the fuzz?” Frank asked.

“No,” I said.

He was waiting in the reception area, a beefy young man with china-blue eyes and sandy-colored hair. He introduced himself as Sergeant Halloway and politely asked if I would mind coming along with him.

“What for?” I said.

“You’re Matthew Hope, aren’t you?” he said.

“I’m Matthew Hope,” I said.

“Mr. Hope,” he said, “a woman named Victoria Miller was found dead early this morning by the colored lady come to clean her house. People live across the street said a tan Karmann Ghia bearing the Florida license plate HOPE-1 was still parked in deceased’s driveway there at three in the morning. Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles says that’s your car, Mr. Hope. Also, it seems a baby-sitter named Charlene Whitlaw was introduced to a man named Mr. Hope in deceased’s house at around midnight last night, which puts you at the scene of the crime for at least three hours. So what they want to do is ask you some questions is all. You think you’d like to come with me?”

In Calusa the police station is officially called the Public Safety Building, and these words are lettered in white on the low wall outside. Less conspicuously lettered to the right of the brown metal entrance doors, and partially obscured by pittosporum bushes, are the words POLICE DEPARTMENT. The building is constructed of varying shades of tan brick, and its architecturally severe face is broken only by narrow windows resembling rifle slits in an armory wall. This is not unusual for Calusa, where the summer months are torrid and large windows produce only heat and glare. I had spent a lot of time in this building last March with a client named James Purchase, whose wife and two daughters had been brutally stabbed to death in his house on Jacaranda Drive. The detective I’d worked with then was a man named George Ehrenberg. When I asked Sergeant Halloway, in his car on the way downtown, whether Ehrenberg was on duty today, he told me curtly that Detective Ehrenberg didn’t work in Calusa anymore, he was working for the Lauderdale police now. I asked Halloway if Ehrenberg’s partner was around, a man named Detective Di Luca.

“Vinnie’s on vacation,” he said. “He won’t be back till the twenty-first.”

“Oh,” I said. The twenty-first was a week away.

An orange-colored letter-elevator rose like an oversized periscope from the floor, diagonally opposite the entrance doors to the third-floor reception area. There was a desk against the paneled wall facing us, and a girl sat behind it, typing furiously. The clock on the wall above her head read ten minutes to eleven. All of it looked very familiar — except that Vincent Di Luca was on vacation, and George Ehrenberg had transferred to the Fort Lauderdale P.D. The man who was waiting to talk to me introduced himself as Detective Morris Bloom. He was a heavyset man in his mid-forties, taller than I by at least an inch, and wearing a rumpled blue suit and a wrinkled white shirt with the tie pulled down and the top button open. He had the oversized knuckles of a street fighter, a fox face with a nose that appeared to have been broken more than once, shaggy black eyebrows, and dark brown eyes that seemed on the imminent edge of tears. I recalled that George Ehrenberg had also possessed an ineffable air of sadness, and I wondered now if everyone on the Calusa police force was pained by the job he had to do. Bloom told me at once that he was investigating a homicide here, and said he would like to inform me of my rights before he asked any questions. The word “homicide” had been spoken at last. Sergeant Halloway had told me only that Vicky had been found dead. In this state suicides and homicides were investigated in exactly the same fashion, and so it had been reasonable for me to believe that if I’d been the last person to see Vicky alive, a visit from the police was almost certainly in order. But now it was official. Homicide. Either way I felt rotten. If I had stayed with her last night—

“I’m an attorney,” I told him. “I’m familiar with my rights.”

“Well, Mr. Hope, the way I look at it, you’re technically in custody here, and I’m obliged to advise you of your rights. I’ve been a police officer for close to twenty-five years now, and nothing gives me a bigger pain in the ass than interpreting Miranda-Escobedo. But if I’ve learned one thing about interrogations, it’s that it’s better to be safe than sorry. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just reel off your rights to you, and then we’ll be over and done with it.”

“If it makes you feel better,” I said.

“Nothing about murder makes me feel very good, Mr. Hope,” he said, “but at least this way we’ll be starting off even, everything according to how the Supreme Court wants it, okay?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “In keeping with the 1966 Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona, we are not permitted to ask you any questions until you are warned of your right to counsel and your privilege against self-incrimination. First, you have the right to remain silent. Do you understand that?”

“I do.”

“You are not obliged to answer any police questions, do you understand that?”

“I do.”

“And if you do answer any questions, the answers may be used as evidence against you.”

“I understand.”

“Next you have the right to consult with an attorney before or during police questioning.”

“I am an attorney. We can skip the rest, can’t we?”

“I guess so,” Bloom said dubiously. “Do you understand all of your rights?”

“I do.”

“Are you willing to answer my questions?”

“I am.”

“Okay, I’ll start with the big one: were you with Victoria Miller last night from midnight to sometime after three a.m.?”

“If you mean at her house, it was more like eleven-thirty. Mr. Bloom, can you tell me what happened?”

“Well, you see, Mr. Hope, and no offense, but you’re here because I want to learn from you what happened. Because, Mr. Hope, and I’m sure you realize this, being a lawyer, since you were with her for three, four hours last night, I guess you must understand that the possibility exists you maybe killed her.”

“She was alive when I left her,” I said.

“What time was that?” he asked at once.

“Sometime between three and three-thirty.”

“Would you remember the time exactly?”

“Three-fifteen, three-twenty, somewhere in there.”

“Anyone see you leaving the house?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Lady across the street was up watching a movie on TV, she says she saw your car parked over there when she turned off the lights at three a.m.”

“Yes, I was still there at three.”

“How come you’re so sure of that?”

“A clock chimed the hour.”

“A clock where?”

“In the living room. A little porcelain clock.”

“Were you in the living room when the clock went off?”

“No. We were in the bedroom.”

“Uh-huh. In bed?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Hope, excuse me, but did you have sexual relations with Victoria Miller last night?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How long had you known her, Mr. Hope?”

“A little more than three weeks.”

“Had you been intimate with her all that time?”

“No. Not until last night.”

“Are you married, Mr. Hope?”

“Divorced.”

“From what I understand, Miss Miller was a singer...”

“Yes.”

“... who was performing out there at the Greenery, out there on Stone Crab.”

“I was with her there last night, yes.”

“While she was singing?”

“Yes.”

“From what time to what time?”

“I got there at a little before nine. The show ended at ten, and we sat talking to some friends of hers until... it must’ve been about a quarter to eleven. We got back to her house at eleven-thirty.”

“Anyone there when you got there?”

“Yes. Vicky’s sitter. Vicky paid her, and after she was gone we sat down to...”

I hesitated.

“You can tell me about the dope,” Bloom said. “I’m not looking for a drug bust. We found a couple of roaches in the living room ashtray and two unwashed brandy snifters. So what you did was sit down to smoke some grass and have a few drinks, am I right? Then what?”

“We went into the bedroom.”

“To make love?”

“Yes.”

“Until three, three-thirty in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see the little girl at any time last night?”

“No. She was asleep.”

“Ever see the little girl?”

“Yes, once.”

“When was that?”

“A week ago Friday.”

“But you didn’t see her last night, huh?”

“No.”

“Not when you came in, and not before you left either.”

“No. The sitter had given her some Nyquil to put her to sleep.”

“The sitter told you this?”

“She told Vicky. Vicky reported it to me.”

“How’d you get along with her?”

“Vicky? Fine.”

“No spats, no lovers’ quarrels, no...”

“We weren’t lovers.”

“Until last night. What were you before last night?”

“Friends.”

“Good friends?”

“Casual friends.”

“But last night it wasn’t casual.”

“No, it wasn’t casual.”

“So how about last night? Any spats last night?”

“No. Well, wait... yes. I suppose so. I guess we had a small argument. What might be considered an argument.”

“Oh? What about?”

“She wanted me to stay, I wanted to go home. We discussed it briefly, and I left.”

“How’d she feel about that?”

“She was angry, I guess.”

“But you left anyway.”

“I left.”

“And you say she was alive when you left, huh?”

“She was very much alive.”

“I think maybe she was,” Bloom said, and nodded. “Mr. Hope, this line of work, you develop what Ernest Hemingway used to call a built-in shit detector. You familiar with Ernest Hemingway? The writer?”

“I’m familiar with him.”

“You learn to sense whether somebody’s telling the truth or somebody’s lying, I’m sure it’s the same in your line of work. I think you’re telling the truth. If I’m wrong, sue me,” he said, and shrugged. “I don’t have to remind you not to leave town, this isn’t a movie. The autopsy’s being done right this minute at Calusa General, and I might want to get back to you after I have the results. From what you’ve told me, they’ll be finding sperm in the vaginal vault, which won’t help us any when it comes to determining whether the killer raped her beforehand or not. But unless they come up with something besides the obvious cause of death...”

“What was that, Mr. Bloom?”

“She was beaten to death.”

“Beat—”

“Yeah, nice, huh? We figure it had to be a man because of the sheer power involved, broke her jaw and her nose and a dozen ribs, cracked her skull wide open, probably by pounding it on the tile floor in the bathroom. That’s where the maid found her at nine o’clock this morning, in the bathroom, blood all over the fucking floor. But you never know, it could’ve been a woman, too. Some women, when they get mad, they’re strong as an ox, you know? I had a case when I was with the Nassau County cops, this woman no bigger than my thumb strangled her two-hundred-pound husband. You think he could’ve brushed her off like a fly, am I right? But she had this unnatural strength in her hands. This rage in her fingers, you know?” He demonstrated by clasping his huge hands together, the fingers interlocked, and squeezing an imaginary throat between them. “Guy didn’t have a chance against such fury. I’ll tell you something, Mr. Hope, never start up with a guy who’s really angry. He’ll kill you before you can bat an eyelash.” He relaxed his hands, nodded soberly, and said, “I moved down here ’cause I figured you don’t get such shit in a nice place like Calusa, am I right? Only high-class cat burglars down here, prowling the condos. Instead, some bastard beats a girl to death in the middle of the night.” Bloom shook his head. The sad brown eyes looked even sadder. He sighed and then said, “You know anybody who might’ve wanted that little girl badly enough?”

“What?” I said.

“The little girl.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Badly enough to have killed the mother for it.”

“I still... ”

“The little girl’s gone, Mr. Hope. Whoever killed Victoria Miller took the little girl with him.”