The House That Jack Built

2. This is the cock that crowed in the morn that waked the priest all shaven and shorn…

The body was in one of the refrigerator compartments at Good Samaritan’s morgue. It had been transported by ambulance from Whisper Key to the hospital on the morning of January thirtieth, and the autopsy had been done that very day. This was now the fifth of February, but no one had yet claimed the body. The only person who might have wanted to claim the body was in jail, accused of having caused its present condition.

“Except for the defense cuts on the palms of the hands, it was a very neat stabbing,” Bloom said. “Straight to the heart and goodbye, Charlie.”

He seemed not to notice the stink in the morgue.

Matthew wished it would start raining here in the morgue. Wash away the stink. The stink was compounded of three parts bodily gasses to one part chemicals. Even here in the refrigerator room, the stink seeped through. Matthew wanted to hold a handkerchief to his nose, but he thought Bloom might consider that unprofessional.

“The knife matches the other ones on the kitchen rack, same set,” Bloom said. “A chefs knife. Ten-inch blade, very effective.”

A weapon of convenience. Which meant the killer had not gone to the house with the express purpose of committing murder. Which lent credence to Ralph Parrish’s claim that the killer had gone there in search of something. But what? And why kill?

“Accused’s fingerprints on the knife,” Bloom said.

Reeling off the facts tonelessly. Big man with a nose broken more than once, hands of a street fighter, shambling gait, cadences of the Big Apple in his speech, New York City to Nassau County to Calusa, a policeman for half his life. Just the facts, ma’am.

“Victim’s blood all over him, same type, no question about it. Tested positive for AIDS, by the way, did you know that?”

“No,” Matthew said.

“The way it looks to the S.A., and the Sheriffs Department, and us, is Parrish was still pissed off the next morning, starting arguing with his brother all over again, stabbed him in anger. The best you can hope for, Matthew, is Murder Two. You can prove there was no premeditation, you got a shot at Murder Two. Otherwise, your man fries.”

No emotion in his voice. Your man fries. The Indiana farmer fries. The farmer who, for the past God knew how many years had been supporting his only brother, keeping him in style down here where the sun always shone (except in February). Kept him in luxury in a house he himself had paid for, prime beachfront property on Whisper. Presumably accepted — or at least ignored — his brother’s homosexuality until that night last week when he’d expressed revulsion for it… And killed him?

“I loved my brother,” Ralph Parrish had told him.

And Matthew believed it.

The good guys and the bad guys.

Detective Morris Bloom was one of the good guys. On the wrong side this time, or at least on the opposing side, in that the Calusa PD. was running routine witness checks for the S.A.’s office even though the crime had been committed outside the city limits. Whisper Key was Calusa County. The Sheriffs Department had responded. The Sheriff’s Department had made the arrest.

“You take the wrong cases,” Bloom said.

He looked sad saying it. Matthew was his friend.

“You know about the man in black,” Matthew said. “Running off after Parrish came downstairs. Parrish mentioned him during the Q and…”

“Sure,” Bloom said. Dismissal in a single word.

“And you surely know there was a man dressed in black at the party.”

“We already talked to him.”

“Ishtar Kabul?”

Warren had given him the name last night.

“His street name,” Bloom said. “His square handle is Martin Fein. He’s Jewish.” He shook his head. He was wondering how a nice Jewish boy could have become homosexual. In Bloom’s old neighborhood, nice Jewish boys didn’t grow up to be fags. Not many of them grew up to be cops, either, but that was because in New York you had to be Irish to rise above the rank of captain. Or, nowadays, black. You were Jewish, it was better to aspire to the rabbinate. Or better yet, become an accountant.

“Matthew,” Bloom said, “your man had the murder weapon in his hand…”

“He pulled it out of his brother’s chest.”

“Stupid thing to do, don’t you think?”

“But he did it.”

“So he says. Which is how the blood got all over his clothes.”

“That’s right.”

“No, Matthew, that’s wrong. Nobody is so stupid that he finds somebody on the floor with a knife in his chest and he pulls the knife out. Nobody. Unless he’s been living on Mars and has never seen a movie or a television show. Your man argued with his brother the night before, there are twelve witnesses who are willing to swear they almost came to blows. The argument flared again the next…”

“One of those twelve witnesses was a man in black.”

“What is this, a mystery story?” Bloom asked. “There are no mysteries in police work, Matthew, there are only crimes and the people who commit them. No strangers in black running up the beach into the swirling mists, no…”

“But there was.”

“According to Parrish. Parrish is the only one who saw this mysterious man in black.”

“Kabul was at the party. And he was wearing black.”

“And he was also in bed with a lady…”

Bloom cut himself short.

“Okay, I gave you his alibi,” he said. “You probably could’ve got it from the S.A., anyway, if you’d asked him. Kabul is clean, believe me. The lady swore up and down that she was with him at seven o’clock on the morning of the murder.”

“A lady, huh?”

“A lady, yes. You never heard of bisexuals, Matthew?”

“Her name wouldn’t be Christie Hewes, would it?”

Bloom blinked.

“You know this already, huh? The S.A. told you?”

“No, the S.A. didn’t tell me.”

I was in bed with a lady named Christie Hewes.

Kabul’s initial alibi to Warren last night. Lied to the police and tried to lie to Warren as well. The only difference was that the police had been ready to accept the lie because they already had their killer. Warren hadn’t been ready to accept anything; he was working to prove that Ralph Parrish had not committed murder.

“I assume you’ve got a statement from Miss Hewes,” Matthew said.

“In a sworn deposition.”

“Then I guess Kabul is clean,” he said.

“Sure. You know what you’ve got here?” Bloom asked, and looked down at the body on the stainless-steel drawer. “You’ve got a queer who was living high off the hog on his brother’s money. A faggot cocksman. Brought charges of gay-bashing against one of his own lovers last September, a real sweetheart, Jonathan Parrish. You’ve got a straight brother from…”

“Tell me about the gay-bashing,” Matthew said.

“Sure,” Bloom said.

September seventh of last year. The Monday night ending the Labor Day weekend. Complaint call clocked in at a quarter to eleven. Calusa PD. responded leisurely at eleven twenty-four. Scandal’s, the gay bar over the Greek restaurant in Michael’s Mews.

The responding uniformed cop — in Calusa, the blues rode solo — angled the car into the curb where a tall blond man stood at the gate to the Mews, holding the wrist of a sultry-looking woman wearing a purple dress, purple high-heeled ankle-strapped shoes, a purple leather shoulder bag, and a frizzied blonde wig. The blond man was bleeding from a cut over his left eye. The woman in the purple dress kept trying to pull away from him, but he held tightly to her wrist. It was a hot and humid night. The woman was sweating through her clingy purple dress. Big blotchy stains around the armpits. More stains between her abundant breasts. The police officer recorded the temperature as ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit, perhaps in corroboration of the woman’s appearance.

At first, the blond man — who identified himself as Jonathan Parrish, the person who’d placed the call to the police — claimed only that the sultry, sweating woman in the purple dress had stolen his wallet. He told the police officer that he’d been “chatting her up at the bar” (Parrish’s words) when the topic of conversation suddenly turned to sex. The woman in the purple dress told him she was a working girl who got a hundred bucks a throw, and Parrish took out his wallet and put it on the bar, and the next thing he knew the woman excused herself to go to the “loo” (Parrish’s word again) and lo and behold, his wallet was gone. When she came back to the bar stool some five minutes later, he accused her of the theft. When she denied any knowledge of the missing wallet, Parrish immediately called the police. He now wanted the responding cop to search both the woman and the restroom, because if the wallet wasn’t in her handbag or else tucked in her bra or her panties, then it was surely inside the toilet tank someplace.

The cop — whose name was Randolph Hasty — didn’t know what to do at first. He knew he was not empowered to toss this lady unless circumstances reasonably indicated that she had committed, was committing, or was about to commit a violation of the criminal laws of the state. Hasty had only Parrish’s word that a crime had actually taken place. But even if a crime had occurred, and he didn’t yet know that for a fact, he was positive he’d be in very deep shit if he, as a male cop, went rummaging through this female’s panties and bra. He wasn’t even sure he could march into the ladies’ room without a search warrant. It was all very puzzling. Hasty admitted this in his report. Well, sort of admitted it. What he wrote, actually, was: “The initial evidence at the scene was unclear as to 901.151.” Which was Florida’s Stop and Frisk statute.

It got even more puzzling in the next ten minutes.

The more Hasty kept looking at the lady with the blonde wig and the big tits, the more something seemed funny about her. Too much lipstick on her mouth, too much eye makeup. Voice a little husky. It occurred to him that perhaps she wasn’t a woman at all.

In which case, maybe he could search her.

Him.

If a criminal offense had, in fact, already taken place.

At which point Parrish told him that the lady, or the gentleman as the case may have been, had struck him above the eye with his or her handbag, causing the bleeding cut which was positive evidence of the crime of Battery, a first-degree misdemeanor — if Parrish was telling the truth. Parrish went on to explain that he suspected the woman in the purple dress wasn’t a woman at all, which conclusion Hasty had already reached, but was instead a man in drag cruising a known homosexual bar for the explicit purpose of gay-bashing.

“Are you accusing this person here of Battery?” Hasty asked.

“I am,” Parrish said.

“Miss,” Hasty said, “are you a male?”

The sultry blonde in the purple dress said nothing.

“If this person is a male,” Hasty said to Parrish, “I think I can maybe search her.”

“This person is a male,” Parrish said.

“What is your name. Miss?” Hasty said.

The blonde still said nothing.

“His name is Mark Delassandro,” Parrish said.

“Very well. Miss,” Hasty said, and began his frisk.

With some embarrassment, he found a pair of foam-rubber breasts inside Delassandro’s bra, and foam-rubber buttocks enhancers inside his panties. He did not find Parrish’s wallet anywhere on Delassandro’s person. Nor did he find it anywhere in the ladies’ room, which he entered after a discreet knock on the door, and a brusque “Police officer!”

“I find no evidence of a crime having been committed,” he told Parrish.

“How about him hitting me with his handbag?” Parrish asked. “Isn’t that a crime?”

“Are you willing to make a sworn statement to that effect?” Hasty asked.

“I am,” Parrish said.

At the police station — what was discreetly known as the Public Safety Building in staid Calusa — Bloom interviewed Mark Delassandro and learned that he and Parrish had been living together as lovers since the middle of July. He further learned that they had gone together to Scandal’s that night (Delassandro in the dress and wig and shoes and padded lingerie Parrish had purchased for him at a Calusa boutique called Trash and Stuff) and that the cut above Parrish’s eye had been precipitated by a quarrel that started at about ten-thirty that night.

The continuing gospel according to Mark maintained that the quarrel had begun because Parrish was flirting outrageously with a muscular twenty-year-old twit wearing a navy blue T-shirt and a dragon tattoo, who after two martinis began boasting to everyone at the bar that in New York City he had engorged organs larger than the one at Radio City Music Hall. Sitting there in drag all sexy and slinky while Mr. America flexed and boasted and Parrish adoringly batted his eyelashes, Delassandro had felt enormous discomfort, extreme jealousy, and something close to female helplessness. So he picked up his handbag and swung it at Parrish’s head, hoping to knock his left eye out of its socket, but instead inflicting only a relatively minor cut over the eye.

The story about the wallet was sheer nonsense, Delassandro claimed. Parrish never even carried a wallet because it showed a bulge that spoiled the cut of his tailor-made trousers and detracted from the natural bulge he was flaunting. As for the so-called sexual solicitation, he and Parrish often played Hooker-John in public, for kicks, a sort of game that seemed exciting and theatrical. But yes, he had hit Parrish with his handbag. And yes, he had tried to put out his eye.

Battery, for sure, Matthew thought.

Attempted Aggravated Battery as a second charge.

“What’d you charge him with?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Bloom said.

Matthew looked at him.

“Let me tell you something, Matthew,” Bloom said. “On my block, this was a routine family dispute that should’ve been settled on the street by the responding blue. Okay, it wasn’t. So there I was with an unsigned admission of Batt with a tack-on of attempted Agg-Batt in that Delassandro said he was trying to put out Parrish’s eye, which was certainly intent to cause great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement as defined in the statutes under 784.045, are you following me?”

“I’m following you,” Matthew said.

“So. If I threw Delassandro in jail — he was only twenty-four years old — he’d be fish in ten seconds flat. If he got convicted after trial, he’d be facing a year in prison on the Batt charge and five more on the Agg-Batt attempt. So I asked myself a question. I asked myself, ‘Morrie, is two fags having an argument a good enough reason to send this kid to prison, where they’ll paint tits on his back and rape him day and night?’ And you know the answer I got?”

“What answer did you get?”

“I got, ‘Morrie, I think you better let him go with a warning.’ You understand me?”

“Sure. You’re softhearted.”

“Bullshit,” Bloom said. “Parrish wouldn’t give us the statement he’d promised, and Delassandro refused to sign the confession, told me he’d made the whole thing up. A family dispute, plain and simple. So I asked myself, ‘Morrie, do you have a case?’ And you know the answer I got?”

“Morrie, you do not have a case.”

“Correct. Morrie, you do not have a case.”

“So you let Delassandro walk.”

“I let him walk,” Bloom said. “And you and me never had this conversation.”

“Have you looked him up since the murder?”

“Delassandro? He’s living in San Francisco. He did not kill Parrish. Matthew, if that’s what you’re thinking. He did not come back with his pocketbook to stab the man in the heart with it. As I was saying, Matthew, but you weren’t listening…”

“I was listening.”

“I was saying that what you’ve got here is a no-good fag prick who was kept in style by his straight brother from Kansas…”

“Indiana.”

“Wherever, who suddenly can’t take it any longer. He starts an argument with Parrish when he sees all those prancing queers…”

“Your star witnesses, Morrie.”

“Sure, and don’t think the S.A. isn’t worried about that. But they heard and saw the argument, Matthew, that’s all that matters. And then the brother wakes up even madder than when he went to bed. The priest next door hears the two of them screaming their heads…”

“What priest?” Matthew asked at once.

“You got your witness list, I’m sure he’s on it.”

“There’s no priest on the list I got.”

“Then maybe he’s a new witness. Ask the S.A., he’ll give you his name. He’s the priest at St. Benedict’s. He heard them yelling. They woke him up with their yelling.”

“They woke him up.”

“Yes.”

“They were yelling loud enough to wake him up.”

“Yes.”

“Did he call the police?”

“No.”

“He heard yelling, but he didn’t call the police,” Matthew said.

He was thinking priests wore black.

He was thinking maybe Ishtar Kabul was clean, whoever the hell he’d been sleeping with on the morning of the murder.

“Look, you’ll get his name from the S.A.,” Bloom said, “you can talk to him yourself. What I’m saying, I’m saying this is open and shut. A violent argument witnessed by twelve people. More screaming the next morning, only this time the guy who hears it is a priest, Matthew, try to discredit a priest’s testimony. And here’s your farmer client with bloody clothes and the murder weapon in his hand. Tell me something, will you please?”

“What?”

“Why did you take this case?”

The rain drilled relentlessly on the roof of Warren Chambers’s four-year-old dark gray Ford. Ideal car for a private eye. Shabby, fading, perfectly camouflaged at night, hardly noticeable during the day, no flashy Corvette or Alfa Romeo, not in this profession, man, even if you could afford one.

His appointment with Charles Henderson — the man with whom Ishtar Kabul claimed to have been in bed on the morning of the murder — was for six o’clock tonight. On the phone, Warren had identified himself as Harold Long of the Prudential and had told Henderson that he’d been named as one of the beneficiaries in an insurance policy. There was not a man or woman on earth who would refuse to see someone coming around to give away money.

It was now three in the afternoon and Warren was watching the front plate-glass window of what had once been a beachwear shop but was now an aerobics studio. The plate-glass window was painted over red and the words The Body Works were lettered onto it in pink. Leona Summerville, carrying a black umbrella and wearing yellow tights, a black leotard, and black aerobics shoes, had gone into The Body Works at one forty-five. He had watched her running across the mall from where she’d parked her green Jaguar, dodging puddles, the black leotard riding high on the yellow tights and showing a lot of ass, and he had thought she didn’t look at all like a woman in need of any body work, but perhaps she’d been a three-hundred-pound midget before she started coming here.

Axiom of the trade: If a fat married woman suddenly starts losing weight, she is having an affair.

He wondered how long she’d be jumping around in there.

He looked at his watch.

Two minutes past three.

My how the time did fly when you were having a good time.

After his phone call to Henderson at eleven, he had driven over to the address Matthew had given him, just to check out the Summerville house, get the feel of the place, see how many vehicles were usually parked outside, the gardener, the maid, the pool man, whoever, get some idea of who came and went legitimately. He’d been surprised on his second pass of the house when the lady herself backed out of the garage in the green Jag, there had to be a God. He followed her first to a beauty salon on Lucy’s Circle where she spent an hour and a half in her exercise clothes and a blue smock getting her hair cut.

Second axiom of the trade: If a married woman suddenly changes her hair style, she is sucking some stranger’s cock.

Leona Summerville drove next to a soup-and-sandwich shop on the mainland where, still in the exercise clothes, she took a table near the window and sat eating what looked like yogurt, staring out at the rain distractedly, her eyes sweeping the gray Ford once, and causing Warren to think he’d been made the first day on the job.

It was almost one-thirty when she finished eating.

Some men entering the shop turned to look at her as she came out.

Small wonder.

That high-cut leotard showing half her ass.

He thought he saw her smile.

Lots of married women, when they started having an affair, they began to think of themselves as infinitely more desirable. You saw a married woman flashing a lot of leg, or walking with a bouncy little wiggle, you knew she was thinking of herself as sexy and seductive, you knew she was thinking that if one stranger wanted to fuck her, then surely all strangers wanted to fuck her. Third axiom of the trade.

Warren was full of axioms today.

The work brought them out.

The moment she came out of the shop, she ran to a phone booth, didn’t even bother opening the umbrella, just ran through the rain to the nearest phone booth, as if she’d been thinking about this call all the while she’d been eating her yogurt and staring at the rain.

When a married woman started making phone calls from a public booth, watch out, mister. Axiom number…

He watched her.

Turned her back to the traffic on the road.

Inserted a coin.

Dialed a number by heart.

Leaned in close to the mouthpiece.

Smiled.

Talked rapidly.

Nodded.

Hung up.

Came out into the rain again, no longer smiling, opened the umbrella this time, and ran to where she’d parked the Jag. Closed the umbrella, got into the car. Started it. Looked at her watch. Nodded again, and then drove to the mall and The Body Works.

She was still inside there.

Quarter past three now, how the hell long did these sessions take?

The door opened.

A flurry of women in leotards, tights, leg warmers.

Ooooo, it’s still raining…

See you tomorrow, Betty…

Call me, Fran…

And Leona Summerville appeared in the doorframe in yellow and black, grimacing at the rain. Her umbrella snapped open like a spinnaker. She rushed for her car, long antelope strides, yellow legs flashing like streaks of sunshine in the pervading gloom.

Now we see who she called, Warren thought, and started the Ford.

“She went straight home,” Warren told Matthew on the phone. “I stayed outside there till five-thirty, when Frank got home. She didn’t budge from the house.”

“Okay, good,” Matthew said.

“You want me to pick up on her later tonight? I’m on my way now to see Charlie Henderson, find out who was doing what to whom while Parrish was getting himself juked. But if you can find out whether she plans to go out tonight, I can maybe be waiting when she leaves.”

“I’ll check with Frank,” Matthew said.

“Does he want me to catch her?” Warren asked.

“He simply wants to know.”

“An axiom of the trade…” Warren started, and caught himself.

“Yes, what?”

“A guy puts a detective on his wife, Matthew, he already knows she’s fucking around. That’s an axiom of the trade.”

“Well… let’s see,” Matthew said.

“I’ll call you when I finish with Henderson.”

“I’ll be home,” Matthew said.

“Talk to you,” Warren said, and hung up.

Charles Henderson was a stockbroker with the firm of Lloyd, Mallory, Forbes on Main Street in downtown Calusa. He was the only employee still there when Warren arrived at ten minutes to six. He explained to Warren that he himself usually went home at five-thirty; the exchange closed in New York at four, and the firm’s switchboard shut down at five, so there was no sense hanging around.

“Unless, of course, someone has named me a beneficiary in his insurance policy,” he said, and grinned.

He was a tall, thin man in his early forties, Warren guessed, prematurely white hair, blue eyes, a deep suntan. A framed photograph on his desk showed a woman and two little girls, presumably his wife and daughters. He was dressed as conservatively as a member of Parliament, and he had no speech or body mannerisms that would indicate he was homosexual. But Ishtar Kabul had said he was in bed with Henderson on the morning of January thirtieth.

“So,” Henderson said, “who died?”

“Jonathan Parrish,” Warren said, and watched his eyes.

Nothing flashed there. Not a glimmer of recognition.

“I don’t know the name,” he said. “Are you sure you’ve got the right beneficiary?”

“Do the name Ishtar Kabul ring a familiar note?” Warren said.

Instant spark in the eyes.

Then immediate recovery.

“Who?”

“Ishtar Kabul.”

“I don’t know that name, either,” Henderson said. “What is this?”

“It’s not insurance. And it’s not blackmail, if that’s what you think.”

“No, what I think is I’d better call the police.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Who are you?”

“Warren Chambers.”

“You said…”

“Only so I could talk to you.”

“About what?”

“About where you were on the morning of January thirtieth.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“I asked a question.”

“So did I.”

“This sounds like Pinter.”

“Who’s Pinter?” Warren said.

Henderson stared at him.

“Are you a policeman?”

Warren shook his head. “Private investigator,” he said.

“Investigating what?”

“Investigating for a law firm.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“My grandfather always told me if I didn’t like any particular question I should just answer a different question.”

“I was in Savannah, Georgia,” Henderson said.

“On the thirtieth?”

“No, on the seventh. I’m following your grandfather’s advice.”

“Oh? Didn’t you like my particular question, Mr. Henderson?”

“What was the question?”

“The question was about the thirtieth of January. A Saturday morning. Seven o’clock last Saturday morning, the thirtieth of January. Where were you?”

“If that’s the question, you’re right. I don’t like it. In fact, I don’t like any of this. You come here under false pretenses…”

“Yes.”

“Mention names of people I don’t know…”

“You don’t know Ishtar Kabul?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Then how do you know he’s a he? Ishtar could be a woman’s name.”

“Male, female, or three-eyed pig, I have no knowledge of anyone named Ishtar Kabul.”

“Not even carnal knowledge?”

Watch the eyes.

Wary now.

“I’m a married man,” Henderson said. “If you’re suggesting…”

“I know you’re married.”

“How do you…? Oh, of course, the photograph.”

“No, Ishtar told me.”

“I have two children…”

“Yes, I know.”

“Ishtar again?”

“No, the photograph.”

“Are we back to Pinter?”

“Who’s Pinter?” Warren said again.

“What is this law firm looking for? The firm you represent?”

“A murderer,” Warren said.

“Did this Kabul person murder someone?”

“Our client saw someone in black running from the scene of the crime.”

“This Kabul person?”

“Ishtar was wearing black at a party on the night before the murder.”

“Has he no other clothing, this Kabul person?”

“I’m going to level with you, Mr. Henderson. I gave Ishtar a lot of bullshit about our client maybe identifying him, but the truth is our client never saw the person’s face and wouldn’t know Ishtar from a hole in the ground.”

“Then surely this Kabul person has nothing to worry about.”

“Not so. We can take a sworn deposition from him. If he sticks to his alibi, and if you deny the alibi, then he’s hiding something. And the State Attorney would be duty bound to find out what he’s hiding.”

“And what alibi is that, Mr. Chambers?”

“You tell me.”

“I assume this Kabul person said he was with me.”

“Why do you assume that?”

“You mentioned carnal knowledge…”

“I did.”

“So I have to assume…”

“You assume correctly.”

“This Kabul person said he was with me, is that it?”

“Yes, this Kabul person said you were in bed together on the morning of the thirtieth, is what this Kabul person said.”

“And if I say we weren’t?”

“We take it from there.”

“To where?”

“To the deposition. Under oath.”

“Then take it from there, Mr. Chambers. This Kabul person wasn’t with me, and I wasn’t with him. Neither of us was with each other, the man is lying, it was nice meeting you.”

“You recognize…”

“Of course.”

“His alibi…”

“I’m married.”

“If he can’t prove…”

“Entirely his problem.”

“The State Attorney will…”

“Let him.”

“He loves you.”

“The State Attorney?”

“Are we doing Pinter again?” Warren asked.

“Who’s Pinter?” Henderson said.

Silence.

“Gee,” Warren said. “I forgot to tell you the next step.”

“The next step is you get out of here.”

“The next step, if Ishtar decides to save his own ass by naming you in his deposition, the next step is we go to the S.A….”

“So go to him.”

“I see you want to play hardball, huh?”

“What do you call this? Softball?”

“So far, it’s just you and me. Your wife is home cooking dinner for you and your darling little daughters…”

“We have a housekeeper who prepares dinner.”

“Terrific, but hear me out. We go to the S.A. and say here’s a deposition in which Ishtar swears he was with you on the morning of the thirtieth. So now the S.A. calls in Ishtar who tells him, Yes, that’s who I was with, and the S.A. comes to you to hear your side of it, just in case Ishtar is lying. Would you like to explain to your wife why the S.A. suddenly wants to talk to her straight-arrow husband? Would you like to explain why Ishtar Kabul thinks he was in bed with you that morning? It can get very messy, Mr. Henderson.”

“How would it be any less messy if I tell you here and now that we were, in fact, together that morning?”

“It’d be less messy because the buck stops here.”

“How do I know that?”

“Here’s the way I figure this, Mr. Henderson. Kabul got Christie Hewes to alibi him…”

“That cunt,” Henderson said, and rolled his eyes.

“Be that as it may, she’s sworn to his whereabouts on the morning of the murder. So I have to figure Ishtar got her to lie for one of two reasons. One, he committed the murder. Two, he was protecting you. If he was, in fact, protecting you, then we’ve got no reason to pursue this any further. We’re looking for whoever ran away from that house on the morning of the thirtieth. We’re not looking to persecute two consenting adults doing their thing in private.”

“How do you know I won’t lie to protect him? The way Christie did.”

“Because you’d have done it already, instead of my having to pull teeth here.”

Henderson was silent for what seemed like a long time.

Then he said, “We were together.”

“Good. From when to when?”

“Two in the morning to twelve noon. I was waiting for him when he left the party. My wife thought I was in Tampa on business.”

“Where were you waiting?”

“A friend’s house. ”

“His name, please.”

“Her.”

“Who?”

“Annie Lowell.”

“Her address, please.”

“1220 Beach Road.”

“On Fatback Key?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll check this, you realize.”

“I thought you told me the buck stopped here.”

“I was lying,” Warren said.