There Was a Little Girl

6: But when she was bad...

At seven o’clock on Friday morning, the first day of April, a chambermaid making her rounds at the Shelby Arms happened to notice that the door to room thirty-seven was slightly ajar. Curious, she knocked on the door and then pushed it open a bit further and peeked inside. A man in white undershorts were lying face downward on the bed. The back of the man’s head, the back of his neck, was covered with blood. The chambermaid merely nodded, left the door open, went downstairs to the lobby, and mentioned to the night clerk that somebody was dead upstairs in room thirty-seven.

Then she took her coffee break.

The night clerk told Bloom he’d come on at midnight and wasn’t due to be spelled till eight in the morning. Although Bloom needed no identification, the clerk told him the dead man in the white undershorts was Mr. Peter Torrance. He told Bloom that Mr. Torrance had checked in on the twentieth. That would’ve been two Sundays ago. Gratuitously, he mentioned that Mr. Torrance was the only white man in the house at the present time. Or had been the only white man, since now that the gentleman was deceased the night clerk figured he could no longer rightly be considered a guest, wasn’t that so? In fact, he wanted to know who’d be paying Mr. Torrance’s bill now that he’d gone to his final reward. Bloom said he didn’t know.

The room was surprisingly large, with a double bed against one wall, the corpse still bleeding on it, a dresser against the other, an easy chair near the windows, a standing floor lamp behind it. The bilious green paint on the walls was peeling and the ceiling plaster was falling, but the windows opened onto a good view of the small garden three stories below. Outside, the mobile lab techs were chatting with the assistant M.E., who’d just arrived. Nobody was in a hurry to come upstairs where a corpse awaited them. Voices climbed the early morning air, drifting.

The night clerk said he had to go downstairs now, get things in order for the day man’s arrival any minute. Bloom assured him he’d be okay up here alone, and realized all at once that the man was fearful of leaving him unattended in the room. Maybe he was afraid Bloom might run off with the gorgeous lamp there, or one of the tattered window shades. Bloom told him to send up one of the uniformed cops, they’d keep an eye on him, keep him honest. The night clerk didn’t know whether he was kidding or not. Still suspicious, he left the room, looking back over his shoulder, hoping to catch Bloom in the act.

On the floor beside the bed, close to Torrance’s dangling hand, Bloom found what looked like an Iver Johnson .22-caliber Trailsman Snub revolver. He figured this might be the gun that had shot Matthew. He did not touch it. Left it right where it was. Looked down at the corpse. Nodded. Went to the one closet in the room.

A beige sports jacket and vanilla-colored slacks hung side by side in the closet. A matching tie was draped over the hanger holding the jacket. A pair of tan leather shoes rested on the closet floor, alongside a zippered black cloth valise with a tiny combination lock hanging from it. Bloom hoisted the valise off the floor, carried it to the bed, and sat on the bed beside it.

A name tag hanging from the handle gave Torrance’s address as 2314 Littlejohn Way in Atlanta, Georgia. The space for a telephone number had been left blank. The combination lock was open. Apparently, there was nothing of value in the valise. Bloom unzipped it.

There was a coach airline ticket to Atlanta in the valise.

There was a copy of Willa Torrance’s will in the valise.

There was a small black notebook in the valise.

There was also a box of .22 long rifle cartridges in the valise.

She had put an exhausted Joanna into a cab at a little past eight A.M., instructing and paying the driver to take her back to her mother’s condo. Now Patricia sat beside Matthew’s bed, holding his hand, talking to him much as his daughter had, reciting a different sort of litany, but a litany nonetheless.

She was reminding him of their history together.

Reminding him that they already shared a considerable back story, you know, which, if they played their cards right, might just possibly turn into a bright and promising scenario for the future.

“If only you’d wake up, Matthew,” she said.

She had already reminded him about the first time they’d met, when she’d crashed into his car in the rain, and now she began telling him about their next little accident, a collision between humans this time, rather than automobiles.

“Do you remember that day in the police gym?” she asked. “Neither of us knew the other was there running on the indoor track — and whammo, we suddenly crashed into each other, and got all entangled, and fell to the floor... which, by the way, is probably when I fell in love with you. Though actually I think it was the very first time I saw you, when I skidded into your car. The thing is, I probably kept falling in love with you over and over again, every time I saw your sweet little face. That time with the car, and that time in the gym, and the time you turned down my breakfast invitation...”

Want to have breakfast with me? I’ll open some champagne. Celebrate your victory.

Thanks, but I’m exhausted. Some other time, okay?

Sure. See ya.

“...turned me down cold, I couldn’t believe it. I figured you probably had another date, probably with that Vietnamese girl, the translator, whatever her name was. Me walking off trying to look indifferent, swinging my hips, tossing my hair, ‘Hell with you, bub,’ was what the body language said. But I was furiously jealous, don’t ask me why, I hardly knew you. Do you remember how outrageously I flirted that night we met on the Barton case, when you thought I was going to offer a deal? Both of us drinking martinis...”

To justice.

Fair enough.

Mmmm.

Indeed.

Hard day.

You don’t look it.

I went home.

So did I. Otherwise we’d have frightened the horses.

“Did that really come from my mouth? An allusion to making love? The very first time we’re in a social setting together, people everywhere around us? It’s a wonder I didn’t frighten you, never mind the horses. A wonder you didn’t run for the hills...”

I have a bottle of twenty-year-old cognac at the house. A gift from one of my clients. When I was still practicing on the Coast. Never found the right occasion to open it.

“The way you looked at me, I thought ‘There he goes, I’ve lost him.’ But, what the hell, in for a penny...”

Want to sample it?

“...staring into your eyes, dropping my gaze to your mouth, thinking ‘He’s going to run for sure,’ leaning over the table and trying to melt you with my eyes, hoping I didn’t look like six kinds of brazen hussy, waiting for your answer, praying...”

Sure, why not?

“It was perfect from the very first minute, wasn’t it, Matthew? Neither of us had to learn anything, we knew it all from the very start. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure I was planning it from the moment I ran into your car. In fact, I think it may have been fated, my running into your car...”

Do you believe in destiny?

No.

You don’t think it was fated?

Yes, I do.

Then you do believe in destiny?

No.

I’m a very jealous person, you know, I’d rip out your eyes. This is crazy. I think I love you, Matthew.

I think I love you, too.

Yes, say it.

I love you, Patricia.

Ahh, say it, say it.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

“Oh, God, we were crazy,” she said, and squeezed his hand. “Do you remember the...?”

“Nuts,” he said.

“...night you...”

— and realized all at once that he’d spoken.

She stood up instantly and leaned over the bed and looked into his face. His eyes were still closed.

“Matthew?” she said.

Nothing.

“Matthew?”

Still nothing.

“Matthew,” she said, “we were nuts, you’re right, we were crazy. Totally. Totally nuts. Crazy, insane, nuts. Say it again, Matthew, tell me how nuts we were, please. Say it again. Please.”

She stood looking down into his face, his hand caught between both her hands, willing his eyes to open, willing his lips to part, squeezing his lifeless hand hard, willing him to speak, begging him to speak again, “Please, darling, please, please, please,” but he said nothing more, and at last she wondered if she hadn’t imagined him muttering that single word.

She sat beside the bed again, his hand still between hers.

“Do you remember,” she started again, “the night you...?”

Still sitting on Bloom’s desk when he got back to the office at nine that morning was Miss Finch’s list of the calls Matthew had made from his home last week. Bloom placed it alongside Torrance’s little black book and Matthew’s calendar entries for March 19 through March 23. His handwritten breakdown looked like this:

Torrance had told Bloom that he hadn’t gone to see his daughter since his arrival here in Calusa. Maria had told Toots the same thing. But Torrance had also claimed that he didn’t know anyone named Matthew Hope. Bloom’s focus zeroed in on Torrance’s actual calendar entry:

Bloom pulled the phone to him and quickly punched out Aggie Donovan’s number again. She picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?” she said.

“Mrs. Donovan?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Bloom, I’m sorry to bother you again, but...”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I’m wondering if you’ve given any further thought to those calls Matthew Hope made to you in Bradenton last Thursday afternoon. Specifically...”

“Mr. Bloom, I have nothing else to say to you.”

“Mrs. Donovan, he was shot the very next...”

“I don’t know anything about who shot him.”

“Did you tell him anything that might have...?”

“I don’t remember what I told him.”

“Did you tell him where Peter Torrance was staying?”

“No,” she said, and hung up.

Lightning kept flashing in the darkness, lightning crackled incessantly inside his head. He could remember telephone wires crackling...

“This is a terrible connection,” she’d said.

“Shall I call you back?”

“No, don’t bother, Mr. Hope.”

Click and another flash of lightning, the sound reverberating inside his head, ricocheting off the walls of his head like tracer bullets, everything echoing and resonating. He punched out the number again.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Donovan...”

“Look, I told you...”

“Aggie, don’t hang up again. If you do...”

Another click, louder this time, remembering it now, the shattering sound of the CLICK. Adamantly, he punched out the number again.

“If you hang up, I’ll come there.”

“Mr. Hope, please...”

“Where’s Peter Torrance staying?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know. I have to see him.”

“Why?”

“I want to know what he can tell me about Willa Torrance’s murder.”

A long silence on the line.

“She wasn’t murdered, she...”

“She was murdered, Aggie.”

Another long silence.

“I thought she was your friend,” he said.

“She was, yes.”

“Then tell me.”

“Peter had nothing to do with it.”

“Then he has nothing to hide.”

“They’ll say he did it.”

“Not if he didn’t.”

“He was in Missouri, they’ll say he did it.”

“What?”

“Mr. Hope, please, I don’t...”

“Are you saying he was in Missouri at the time of her...?”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

“Just tell me where he’s staying. I just want to talk to him.”

He waited.

Patience, he thought. I’m learning, Frank. Patience, patience, come on, Aggie, let go of it.

“Aggie?” he said.

“The Shelby Arms,” she said.

The day clerk Bloom spoke to was the one with the jade eyes and a complexion the color of strong tea. His name was Muhammad Azir. He looked at the newspaper photo of Matthew Hope and said he’d never seen the man before in his life.

“He might’ve been here last Friday morning, around ten A.M.,” Bloom said.

“Don’t recognize him.”

“He would’ve been visiting the dead man,” Bloom said.

“Still don’t know him.”

“Let’s talk about the clientele here, okay?”

“Nothing wrong with the clientele here,” Azir said.

“Except, they’re mostly hookers and johns.”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Get many white johns in here?”

“White, black, we get all kinds of guests here.”

“Equal opportunity employers, huh? The hookers?”

“I don’t know of any hookers here at the Shelby Arms.”

“You’d’ve noticed a white man if he walked in here, though, wouldn’t you? White man at ten in the morning?”

“We get white men walking in here all the time. White, black...”

“All kinds, sure. White man visiting the only white guest in the hotel? Now you’d’ve noticed that, wouldn’t you?”

“I notice everything that goes on here.”

“But you didn’t notice...”

“Except when I have the day off,” Azir said.

The man who’d had the day shift behind the desk at the Shelby Arms on Friday, March 25, was a thirty-eight-year-old black man named Abdul Shakhout. Bloom found him in a room he was renting in a house not far from the hotel. The house was a single-family structure with part of it remodeled to accommodate a tenant. There was a separate path along the side of the house, a separate entrance door at the rear of the house. The room was a fifteen-by-twenty-foot rectangle that contained a bed, a dresser, an easy chair, a small enamel-topped table under the backyard window, two chairs at the table, a stove, a fridge, several lamps, a kerosene heater for frosty nights, and a television set. An open door led to a tiny bathroom. When Bloom arrived, a white girl wearing nothing but a slip was sitting on the bed reading a magazine. He figured her for sixteen, seventeen, in there. Shakhout introduced her as his wife. Bloom made no comment.

“Were you working the desk at the Shelby Arms last Friday at ten in the morning?” he asked.

“Yes, I was there last Friday morning,” Shakhout said. “It’s my second job. I’m also a bellhop at the Hyatt.”

“You got a warrant?” the girl asked, looking up sharply from her magazine.

“Did a white man come in asking for Mr. Torrance?” Bloom said, ignoring her.

“You got a warrant?” she asked again.

“Miss,” Bloom said, “I don’t have any business with you. So butt out.”

“Oh, you don’t, huh?” the girl said, and pulled a snotty face and went back to her magazine.

“Recognize this man?” Bloom asked, and showed Shakhout the newspaper photo.

“Yeah, I seen him,” Shakhout said.

“When?”

“When you said. Around ten last Friday.”

“Asked for Peter Torrance?”

“Told him room thirty-seven.”

“What then?”

“Went upstairs. Elevator was out again, he had to climb up.”

“When did he come down again?”

“Around quarter to eleven.”

“So he was up there almost an hour.”

“Well, forty-five minutes or so.”

“Say anything to you when he left?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, thanks,” Bloom said.

“Sure hope you got what you needed,” the girl said snottily from where she was sitting on the bed.

They were taking a short lunch break away from the hospital. Frank was eating a hamburger and alternately drinking a Coke. Patricia was dipping a spoon into a bowl of yogurt and sliced banana. She was telling him that Matthew had spoken to her. She’d reported this to Dr. Spinaldo as well, and he’d thought it was a good sign. Frank sounded skeptical.

“Just that single word, though, huh?”

“Yes, but it was relevant to what I was saying.”

“So you think he understood you, is that...?”

“Yes, and was commenting. The way people...”

“Yeah.”

“Will keep up a running commen—”

“Yeah.”

“The way you’re doing now,” she said.

“Yeah. Well, I hope so.”

Patricia sipped at her iced tea. Frank took another bite of the hamburger. High on the wall above their table, an air-conditioning unit hummed noisily. It was a familiar sound in Florida, a sort of background leitmotif. In Florida, you stepped from one air-conditioning space to another, and you got used to the incessant drone of air-conditioning wherever you went.

“Have you spoken to Bloom?” Frank asked.

“Not this morning. He was out on the Torrance murder.”

“Related, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because Matthew was tracking him, wasn’t he?”

“From what Bloom told me, yes.”

“He’s been terrific, you know.”

“Yes.”

“Keeping us informed.”

“Yes.”

Frank nodded.

They were both silent for a moment.

Patricia sipped at her tea again.

“I wonder what Matthew had,” Frank said.

“If we knew that...”

“Oh sure. I went through his desk yesterday, his filing cabinets, everything in his office. To see if there was anything there. We’ve been partners a long time now, I know how he works. He’s a very meticulous man, I don’t know if you know that about him, keeps detailed notes on whatever he’s working on, a closing, a brief, a deposition, whatever. So where are the notes here?”

“Well, there’s his appointment calendar...”

“Yeah, but that’s not...”

“You mean... stuff he would’ve dictated?”

“Yes, or written by hand. I just can’t believe there’s nothing.”

“Did you check with Cynthia?”

“Yeah. Nothing there. He was really on the go last week, popped in and out, hello, goodbye, no dictation, no typing, nothing.”

“He was probably still working it all out. Piecing it together.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Frank sighed heavily, picked up his Coke, idly swished the lemon wedge around with his straw.

“Still,” he said, “it’s funny there aren’t any.”

“Notes,” she said, and nodded.

“Yeah.”

She was lifting another spoonful of yogurt and bananas to her mouth when suddenly the spoon stopped midair and her eyes opened wide. For an instant, Frank thought she’d spotted something horrible in the spoon. A bug or a hair or...

“Not nuts,” she said. “Notes!”

She was as familiar with the house on Whisper Key as she was with her own. Matthew had given her a key almost as soon as they’d begun seeing each other, and she used it now to open the front door, remembering him charging out of that door the day she’d slammed into his brand-new car, the house silent and washed with morning sunlight now as she waited for Frank to follow her in, and then closed the door behind them.

“Where do you suppose?” he said.

“The study,” she said, and led him knowledgeably through the living room, and then back toward the rear of the house to where Matthew’s office occupied an alcove just off the bedroom. Through the open bedroom door, she could see that he’d left the bed unmade. This was unlike him. He had probably gone out of here in one hell of a hurry last Friday. Frank noticed this, too. He said nothing, but she remembered him describing his partner as a meticulous man. Together they went into the study.

The room was a smallish one, with a teak desk and teak bookshelves bearing the Florida Statutes, and Weinstein on Evidence, and LeFave on Search and Seizure, and McCormick on Criminal Law, and a novel called Closing Arguments by someone named Frederick Busch. There was a combination telephone answering machine on the desk, and a fax machine on the waist-high counter that ran under the bookshelves. Resting on that same counter was a framed picture of Joanna lying in a lounge chair by the pool and grinning at the camera.

On one wall, there was a framed cartoon someone on the Calusa Herald-Tribune had drawn while Matthew was trying the Mary Barton case. It showed him questioning his client, who was caricatured as an absolute harridan. The caption under the photo said, “Tell us, Miss Barton, can you also fly through the air on a broomstick?” On that same wall, there was a framed front page headlining the acquittal Matthew had won in the so-called Three Blind Mice case, the one he’d been trying when first she’d met him. Seeing the headline almost brought tears to her eyes.

The house seemed so empty, so still without him.

Frank appeared reluctant to touch anything in the room.

Patricia sighed deeply, and opened the top drawer of the desk. Together, they began.

His notes were disjointed and scattered, written in a hurried hand that sometimes defied scrutiny, personal memos to himself in a scrawl decipherable only by himself. Here and there, Patricia and Frank caught glimmers of the track he was on...

He’d been trying to trace parallel time frames.

Pinpointing the year Willa DeMott had joined the circus, the year she’d married Torrance, the year her daughter was born, the year Torrance ran off with the high-flying Aggie, the year Jeannie Lawson joined S&R, the year Willa’s trailer was burglarized, the year she was murdered.

Like a spaceship zooming into an uncharted sky, his notes rocketed off in six directions at once, tracking the relationships between Willa and Barney Hale, Torrance and Aggie, Willa and Davey Sheed, Willa and Jeannie, Jeannie and the two little girls in Willa’s act, and lastly Willa’s daughter and Sheed.

In one section of his notes, he had jotted a timetable for the morning of May eleventh, three years ago:

At another point in his notes, Matthew had outlined the Byrd/Rafferty/Lawson triangle:

At yet another point, Matthew seemed trying to understand what had happened on the tour during Jeannie’s single season with S&R:

On the page following this outline, Matthew lettered in a large, lucid hand:

None of his notes were dated, so they assumed the ones at the bottom of the sheaf were the most recent ones. These were headed PETER TORRANCE, the name underlined. In an abbreviated style similar to many of his other entries — as if he were jotting down only the bare bones of ideas, hurriedly getting them on paper before they eluded him — Matthew had scrawled:

And then:

And then:

And then:

And then:

“What Torrance tape?” Frank asked.

The notes ended there.

They searched the desk from top to bottom, every drawer, every hidden corner, and found no tape. They went through every shelf in the study, and found nothing. They went into the bedroom and searched through the bedside night tables, finding the condoms Patricia had brought over one night before she and Matthew had both taken tests for AIDS, and finding a plastic nose-spray container, and five pairs of cuff links, and four Japanese watches, and a dozen or more mail-order catalogs from L.L.Bean and J.Crew and Lands’ End... but no tape.

“The night he was shot,” Frank said, “did he have a tape recorder with him? You had dinner with him...”

“Yes, but...”

“Did you see a tape recorder?”

“No.”

“If he was going around taping conversations...”

“...he’d’ve had it with him, yes.”

“But where? Was he carrying a briefcase that night?”

“No. We had dinner out, this was after office hours, Frank, no briefcase, no dispatch case. We’d planned on going back to my house later, but he told me something had come up. He said he didn’t know how long the meeting would take, he’d try to stop by later.”

“No phone calls while you were in the restaurant, isn’t that what you told me?”

“That’s right.”

“Which means that even before dinner, he knew he’d be going to Newtown.”

“Yes.”

“So... if he was running around taping people... and he needed to have a recorder with him... where would he have kept it?”

“Of course,” Patricia said at once. “His car.”

No one had thought to ask how Matthew had got to Newtown. In a town where most people drove wherever they went, and where public transportation was inadequate at best, it must have been assumed that Matthew had driven himself there, but the detectives initially investigating the shooting had made no attempt to locate his automobile. This was Newtown, after all, where drive-by shootings were common. Detectives Kenyon and Di Luca weren’t anticipating any big murder mystery plot here; this was just an unfortunate white man who’d got himself shot because he was someplace he shouldn’t have been. They never even thought of looking for his car, which was parked on M Street, a block from the bar.

Similarly, the uniformed cop who’d tagged the car with a parking ticket and had it towed off to the pound on the day after the shooting never once connected the name he saw in the newspaper headlines with the name provided by Motor Vehicles, whose computer had located the registered owner of the vehicle. Bloom kicked himself in the ass for having been so stupid. Then he rushed over to Good Samaritan, retrieved Matthew’s car keys from the personal belongings they’d confiscated when he’d been admitted, and drove over to the car pound.

In the trunk of Matthew’s Acura, Bloom found a tan leather attaché case with the initials W.C. monogrammed in gold on the front panel. Inside the case, fastened to the frame, was a battery-powered reel-to-reel tape recorder. Bloom had recovered the NAGRA Warren Chambers had loaned to Matthew on Thursday of last week.

The instrument’s microphone was constructed to look like part of the hinge holding the top half of the case to its bottom half. The button in the clasp at the front of the case activated the recorder. Once the tape was rolling, the batteries were capable of recording four hours of conversation before they gave out. A tape was already in position on the pickup reel, and from the look of it, half of it had already been used.

— Mr. Torrance?

Matthew’s voice.

— Yes?

Bloom recognized Torrance’s voice, but it sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of a well. He realized all at once that Matthew had been calling from his car phone, and that Torrance was on the speaker. The car phone. Another thing Bloom had missed. How many calls had Matthew made from that same car phone last week? Again, he kicked himself in the ass for not having asked the productive Miss Finch if any other phones were listed under Matthew’s name.

— hoping I could talk to you sometime this...

Bloom hit the stop button, rewound the tape, hit the play button again.

— Yes?

— My name is Matthew Hope, sir, I understand you’re in town seeking redress on exclusion from your former wife’s will. I was hoping I could talk to you sometime this evening...

— How do you know why I’m in town?

— I’m an attorney, sir. I may be able to help you in this matter. It happens.

— Did you talk to my attorney? Did he ask you to...?

— Yes, I did. But, no, I’m calling on my own.

Playing it straight, Bloom thought. Just in case D’Allessandro had told him about Matthew’s visit.

— Did he tell you where to find me?

— No.

— Then who did?

— A woman named Agnes Donovan.

Who wouldn’t give me the right time, Bloom thought.

— Mr. Torrance, I’m assuming you obtained a copy of your former wife’s will from Probate...

— Deceased wife, not former wife. And a will is a matter of public record, there’s nothing wrong...

— Nothing wrong with that at all, sir. I’m calling because I think I may be able to help expedite matters for you. If, indeed, you’re interested in getting this settled as soon as possible.

Bloom was wondering what he had up his sleeve.

— As I said, I can stop by sometime this evening, if you like. I’m on my way to the mainland right this minute, I can be at the Shelby Arms in, oh, half an...

— Are you representing my daughter?

— Maria? No, sir.

— Oh, you know her, do you?

— I’ve had several conversations with her, yes.

— What about?

— She thinks Davey Sheed killed her mother.

— Ridiculous.

— In any case, if I can come by...

— I’m busy right now.

— How about later tonight?

— Busy then, too.

— Tomorrow morning?

— What time?

— Nine o’clock?

Eager to get to him, Bloom thought.

— Too early.

— How does ten sound?

— I’ll look for you.

There was a click.

Bloom kept listening.

— Friday, March twenty-fifth, nine fifty-five A.M. Entering Shelby Arms Hotel on L Street...

Sound of footsteps, background noises, indistinct voices.

— Mr. Torrance, please.

— Who shall I say is here?

— Matthew Hope. He’s expecting me.

— Second.

More background buzz.

— Mr. Torrance. Man here by the name of Hope, says he... yep, right away. You can go on up, it’s room thirty-seven. Elevator’s broke, you’ll have to walk it.

— Thanks.

Ambient noise, sound of somewhat heavy breathing. Little out of shape, Matthew? The sound of knocking. A muffled voice. Then:

— Matthew Hope.

The muffled voice again. A clicking sound.

— Mr. Torrance?

— Come in.

The sound of a door closing. Another clicking sound. The lock turning?

— Have a seat.

— Thank you.

— So what’s this all about?

— Let me cut to the chase, Mr. Torrance. From what I understand, you’re electing a statutory share of your former wife’s...

— Where’d you get all this stuff?

— I have friends at the courthouse.

— I didn’t discuss this with anyone at the courthouse.

— I have friends who have friends.

— Someone who knows D’Allessandro?

— Does it really matter? If my information is correct, and if I can help you get thirty percent of Willa’s estate without any fuss or bother...

— How can you do that?

— The problem is not how I can do it, it’s whether or not I can do it without opening a bigger can of worms.

— What are you talking about?

— I’m talking about Willa’s murder, Mr. Torrance.

— She wasn’t murdered, she killed herself. And I had nothing to do with her death, either way.

— Well... there seems to be a bit of a cloud in Missouri.

— Fuck the cloud in Missouri. I’m not a weatherman.

— I’m suggesting that if the other side brings this up in litigation...

— What other side?

— Your daughter, of course. I’m sure she’s not eager to give up thirty percent of what she inherited.

— Are you sure you’re not representing her?

— Positive.

— Who are you representing?

— I’m hoping to represent you.

— What are you, some kind of ambulance chaser?

— Let’s say I’m an opportunist who’d like to own ten percent of a thirty percent share of half a circus.

— Huh?

— Maria inherited half of S&R, didn’t she?

— You know that, huh?

— I know it, yes, sir.

— And you’re looking for ten percent of whatever I get.

— Only if I win. If I lose, you go home to Atlanta without paying me a dime.

— You know that, too, huh?

— That you live in Atlanta? Yes, I do.

— You’ve been busy.

— Mm. What do you say?

— What makes you think there’ll be litigation? Did my daughter tell you that?

— No, she didn’t. By the way, have you seen her since you got here?

— No.

A lie, Bloom thought. His appointment calendar for Wednesday of last week had read:

— Makes you think she’ll bring up Willa’s suicide?

— Because you’re claiming a share of her estate, Mr. Torrance. And you happened to be in Missouri at the time of her death.

— What?

— You sound surprised.

— Who told you that?

— Aggie Donovan.

Playing it straight all the way down the line, Bloom thought. Best way to do it. No lies to remember later on.

— I was nowhere near Missouri when...

— Please.

— I’m telling you...

— Do you want my help, or don’t you?

— If you’re going to keep saying I was in Missouri...

— Well, fine. If you weren’t, you’ve got nothing to worry about. The other side can’t possibly claim you had anything to do with Willa’s death.

— But I didn’t!

— But you were in Missouri, weren’t you?

Silence.

— Well, listen, lots of luck, Mr. Torrance. Maybe they won’t bring it up, after all.

— Sit down.

— Sure.

Another long silence. The sound of a bird twittering somewhere in the distance. Then:

— I was gone before anything happened.

— But you were there?

— I was there.

— In Rutherford, Missouri, on or about the eleventh of May, three years ago.

— Yes. But...

— When did you get there, Mr. Torrance?

— On the eighth.

And now the conversation followed pretty much the path that Bloom’s later conversation with Torrance had taken, with much of the information jibing almost exactly. He had told Bloom, for example:

I arrived three or four days before her death.

That would’ve made it the seventh, the eighth, around then.

If you say so.

And you left when?

The day before she shot herself.

And now Bloom heard on the tape:

— When did you get there, Mr. Torrance?

— Several days before she killed herself.

— Can you pinpoint that for me?

— The seventh, I believe it was.

— When did you leave?

— On the tenth.

— Did you see Willa while you were there?

— I did.

Mr. Torrance, did you happen to see Willa while you were there in Rutherford?

Yes, I did. So what?

When did you see her?

I don’t recall the date.

— Do you remember when that was?

— Yes, I went to see her shortly after I arrived.

— The eighth? The ninth?

— I saw her on the eighth. And again on the tenth.

— Twice, then?

— Yes. Twice.

And now the two accounts began to vary even more widely:

What was the purpose of your visit?

I’d heard certain things while moving around...

What things did you hear?

Things I thought Willa should know.

Like what?

I heard there was a little girl, you see.

— Why’d you go see her, Mr. Torrance?

— The first time simply to... to say hello, to tell her there were no hard feelings.

— About what?

— Well... the separation.

— But you were the one who’d left her.

— Yes. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That was all.

— I see. But the separation had been a long time ago...

— Eighteen years. Almost nineteen years.

— Hadn’t told her you were sorry in all that time, hm?

— Well.

— And yet, while you were in Missouri, you saw her twice, is that it?

— Yes. I’d heard there’d been a burglary in her trailer. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was.

— About the burglary this time.

— Yes.

Bloom thought it amazing that Torrance had expressed all this remorse to a man he later claimed he’d never met:

Mr. Bloom, I want you to know that I’m answering your questions only because you seem to believe I had something to do with the shooting of this Hope person you keep mentioning. I want to repeat that I do not know the man, I’ve never met the man, and I had nothing whatever to do with his shooting, whenever that may have been.

He figured Torrance had merely been trying to distance himself from an attempted murder. In much the same way, while speaking to Matthew, he seemed trying to convince him he’d had nothing to do with either of those long-ago felonies in Missouri.

— What did she say when you appeared on her doorstep? I’m talking about the first time. After twenty years.

— She was surprised, of course. But...

— You said this was before the burglary?

— Yes. The day before the burglary.

— The eighth of May.

— Yes.

— Was she cordial? After her initial surprise, I mean.

— Oh, yes. Offered me a drink. Sat and chatted for...

— Champagne?

— What? No, not champagne. Champagne? No.

— I understand she used to keep champagne in the refrigerator.

— I really couldn’t say.

— She didn’t offer you any that day?

— No. I drank Scotch and soda.

— With ice?

— Yes.

— Did she take ice cubes from the refrigerator?

— Yes. I’m sorry, what...?

— Club soda, too?

— Yes, she did. From the fridge, do you mean?

— Yes.

— Well, yes, she did.

— You didn’t happen to see a safe in there, did you?

— A what?

— When she opened the refrigerator. A small safe. Apparently that’s where she kept the safe.

— I didn’t notice any safe in there.

— This was on the eighth, is that right?

— Yes.

— And you went back to see her again after the burglary.

— Yes.

— That would’ve been the tenth.

— Yes.

— But you left town on the tenth, didn’t you?

— Later that day, yes.

— So this would’ve been when? The morning? The afternoon?

— When I went by her trailer, do you mean?

— Yes.

— The morning.

— You’d heard about the burglary by then?

— Oh, yes. Word travels fast in a circus.

— Where’d you hear about it?

— What?

— You said word travels fast...

— Oh. Well... I... I was there on the grounds that morning. Not to see Willa. Merely to talk to some old friends. When I heard about the burg—

— Which old friends did you talk to?

— George Steadman, actually.

— What’d you talk about?

— The burglary mostly. Everyone was talking about the burglary. Excuse me, Mr. Hope, but you said you thought you could help me. So far, all you’ve done...

— Did you talk to your daughter?

— No.

— Why not?

— Maria and I never got along. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for having left her mother.

— How about Willa? Had she forgiven you?

— Well, we’re both adults, you know.

— How’d she treat you when you stopped by again? After the burglary, I mean.

— She was still very cordial.

— You didn’t discuss what’d happened all those years ago, did you?

— No, we didn’t. We talked mostly about the burglary.

— No mention of Aggie McCullough? Or Barney Hale?

— No.

No hard feelings between the two of you?

No, no. Why should there have been?

Well... her and Barney Hale.

That was years ago.

You and the McCullough woman.

Willa and Aggie were good friends by then.

— Was that a usual habit of hers, by the way? When you were still married, I mean.

— We are still married, Mr. Hope. That’s the basis of my claim. We were never properly...

— Of course. But did she usually keep a safe in the refrigerator?

— I don’t remember her keeping a safe in the refrigerator. I don’t even remember her having a safe.

— Odd place to keep a safe, wouldn’t you think?

— Yeah.

— I wonder how the burglar knew to look there.

— Burglars know to look everywhere.

— Did you know Maria had a combination to that safe?

— Yes. Willa mentioned that she did.

— Oh? Why was that?

— It just came up.

— How?

— Well...

— How did Willa happen to mention that her daughter had a combination to the safe?

— Because of what was stolen.

— I’m not sure I’m following you, Mr. Torrance.

— Well... There was a little girl, you see.

“What?” Bloom said aloud, and missed the next few words on the tape. He rewound at once, hit the play button again:

— a little girl, you see.

— A little what?

— Cocaine.

— I’m sorry, what...?

— Girl. Cocaine. Maria was keeping cocaine in the safe.

— Willa told you this?

— Yes.

Wait a minute, Bloom thought, hold it one goddamn minute. Didn’t you tell me...

I’d heard about Willa in more than one town, most recently in Rutherford, from contacts who still had a great deal of regard for me — and for her, of course — and who didn’t want to see her get in trouble with the law.

“Damn it,” he said, and rewound the tape again, and played it back from where he’d started losing it.

— Maria was keeping cocaine in the safe.

— Willa told you this?

— Yes.

— She felt comfortable enough to confide this to you?

— Oh, yes. Well, she’d only discovered it the day before the burglary, you see. She told me...

No, Bloom thought. You told me...

I felt obliged to inform Willa that my old circus cronies all over were saying she’d turned into a Grade A nose!

But no. Now it was turning into something else again. Now it was turning into there was a little girl who had a little girl who was doing a little girl. Now it was turning into Willa’s daughter Maria who was...

— doing cocaine, you see. Maybe even...

The tape was running ahead of him again. He rewound it, played it back:

— discovered it the day before the burglary, you see. She told me...

— When you say she’d just discovered it...

— Yes.

— Do you mean she just opened the safe and found it there?

— Yes. And immediately figured it was Maria’s.

— Why Maria?

— Because she was the only other person who knew the combination to the safe. Which meant she was doing cocaine, you see. Maybe even dealing it. Because this wasn’t just a couple of ounces in there, this was a real stash she’d found in that safe.

— Did she tell you how much?

— She guessed about two kilos. She...

“Jesus,” Bloom said.

— told me she thought Maria had to be dealing the stuff. She was afraid that whoever had stolen the safe might come back to blackmail her.

— Did she think he’d known beforehand?

— I’m not following you.

— The thief. That there was cocaine in the safe?

— No, no. She just thought he’d lucked out. And would try to take advantage of the situation.

— Well... What’d Maria have to say about all this?

— She denied the stuff was hers.

— Then how’d it get in the safe?

— Oh, she’d put it there, all right, but she said it didn’t belong to her.

— Then whose was it?

— Davey Sheed’s.

The cat man again, Bloom thought.

Maybe the son of a bitch did kill her.

— The point is, whoever it belonged to, and whoever put it in the safe, somebody else had it now. And Willa was afraid he’d come back to blackmail her.

Or kill her, Bloom thought. Whenever dope is on the scene...

— Did she confront Sheed?

— I don’t know.

— I’m assuming she didn’t go to the police. If she was afraid of blackmail...

— No, I don’t imagine she went to the police.

Me neither, Bloom thought.

— So what do you think?

— About what, Mr. Torrance?

— My chances of getting a proper share of the estate. I mean, with all this funny stuff going on back then...

— Which funny stuff do you mean?

— All of it.

— Like what?

— Well, Maria living with Sheed, for one. I happen to think that’s pretty damn funny. A nineteen-year-old girl sleeping with a man old enough to be her father? Man who used to be her mother’s lover? Man who incidentally gives her two keys of dope to hide in her mother’s safe? I find that pretty peculiar, don’t you? What I’m trying to say... well, if Maria’s dumb enough to bring up my accidental presence in Missouri, we can counter with all this other stuff, can’t we? The dope, her sleeping with Sheed, intent to sell, all of it. Can’t we nail her that way?

— Do you want to know what I think, Mr. Torrance?

— Of course. Why do you suppose I...?

— I think you know damn well that you and Willa were properly divorced...

— What?

— and that you’re not entitled to a nickel of her estate. I also...

— Hey, listen, you...

— think you’re lying about what happened back there in Rutherford, Missouri.

— What?

— I think you spotted that safe when Willa opened the fridge...

— Good-bye, pal.

— and came back to steal it. You’re the one who found all that coke, Mr. Torrance. You’re the one who tried to blackmail...

— Get the hell out of here!

— Sure. Nice talking to you.

“You’ve come at a bad time, Detective Bloom.”

Bloom wondered if there ever was a good time.

It was now four P.M. on the afternoon of April first. At exactly ten-fifteen P.M. on Friday a week ago, Matthew Hope had been shot outside a bar in Newtown. Now, as the circus band began playing the music for the show’s finale, the entire S&R troupe lined up for the dress-rehearsal blow-off, waiting to be led into the tent by Steadman in jodhpurs, boots, red ringmaster’s jacket, and black top hat.

“Wait here,” he said sourly, and signaled to the workmen standing by to throw open the tent flaps. Under the big top itself, the trumpet blasted an entrance cue fit for a Roman emperor. The workmen pulled the flaps back wide and Steadman stepped through, a smile magically lighting his face as he went out to greet an imaginary audience, his right hand moving to the top hat as he removed it in a salute.

And now, as Bloom watched in wide-eyed wonder, the performers moved past him, all twinkling and bright, a sequined Fellini movie parading before him close enough to touch. Here were horses led by sylvan sylphs in flowing white, and behind them were leapers and vaulters and tumblers and clowns, and now the Zvonkovas dressed in forest-green tights and looking somehow smaller on the ground than they did while balancing high in the air. The Chen family came somersaulting through the flap in ascending order, and there were yet more horses, and acrobats and balancers, and here came the aerialists in their skintight pinks, Marnie and Sam and the flying McCulloughs, and there were girls and more girls stepping out in sequined high heels now rather than the practical ballet slippers they wore in performance, and now came Davey Sheed in star-spangled tights and a glittering silver vest open over his bare chest, a matching silver band crossing his forehead, snapping a whip as he entered the tent and stepped out grandly. And there were yet more girls, girls, girls, and dogs pulling carts, and jugglers, and ponies, and a ventriloquist with his dummy, and clowns on bicycles, and finally the elephants draped in silk thundered past Bloom, one of the elephant girls grinning down at him and winking, and the last of the parade disappeared into the tent to the blaring of the band and the flashing of the lights and there was a climactic flourish and the lights dimmed, and the tent went black for just an instant before the lights came on again.

It was show time.

Steadman was breathing hard and sweating profusely after his stint around the tent. He had taken off the top hat the moment they’d entered the office trailer, and now he tossed it impatiently onto one of the cabinets. His white shirt clinging to him under the red jacket, his hair matted and damp, he looked flushed and cross, his manner clearly indicating that the only thing on his mind right now was getting his goddamn show on the road tomorrow morning. He seemed annoyed, too, that Bloom was here when there were important matters to discuss with S&R’s major attraction, the King of All the Beasts. Sheed looked no less annoyed. His sun-bronzed body glistening with sweat, and rippling with muscles, and bristling with the scars he wore like bravery medals, he paced the trailer in his glittery silver vest and blue tights sprinkled with oversized stars, violently waving away the clouds of smoke Steadman created while lighting his cigar.

“What’d you think of it?” Steadman asked him.

“Everything ran too long,” Sheed said.

“I know it.”

“Including my act.”

“Well, a little.”

“Sakti’s beginning to think she’s the star, instead of me.”

“Cute, though.”

“Also, the band missed almost all its cues.”

“I know. What else?”

“The Chens were too cute by half. They want their own circus, tell ’em to go buy one.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Marnie missed the triple. Again. In fact, she almost missed the fuckin double.”

“Tell me about it,” Steadman said sourly.

“One of the elephant girls was flashing. Olga? Whoever. The redhead.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Ask her to put a tuck in that costume.”

“What else?”

“Actually, I thought it went — oh, by the way, what spooked that horse?”

“I don’t know.”

“Something the band did?”

“Maybe.”

“That band needs talking to, George.”

“I know it.”

“Did you think the charivari worked?”

“Not enough yelling.”

“Not only the yelling. Too mild altogether.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“Otherwise it went okay, I think.”

“Yeah, not too bad.”

“For beginners,” Sheed said, and smiled.

“Beginners, yeah,” Steadman said, and returned the smile, and then turned to Bloom. “How’d you like it?” he asked.

“All I saw was the climax,” Bloom said.

“Best part,” Sheed said, and winked.

“Well, how’d that look?” Steadman asked, puffing furiously on the cigar.

“Terrific,” Bloom said.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Sheed said, and started for the door.

“I’ll go with you,” Bloom said.

Sheed looked at him.

“Few questions I want to ask you.”

“Sure,” Sheed said, and opened the door. “See you, George.”

“Early!” Steadman warned, and waved to them both as they went out.

The grounds were littered with performers discussing their first full dress rehearsal. All of them looked somehow exhilarated and exhausted at one and the same time.

“Want a beer?” Sheed asked.

“No, thanks.”

“I do,” he said, and walked Bloom to the cookhouse, where he bought a bottle of Heineken, had it popped by the guy behind the counter, and began drinking it as they walked outside again. Dusk was gathering quickly; it happened that way in Florida.

“So what’s on your mind?” Sheed asked.

“My friend made some notes...”

“Which friend would that be?”

“Matthew Hope.”

“Right, the lawyer. Notes about what?”

“Notes about Peter Torrance.”

“Come on, will ya? First Hope, and now him? You guys must think I’m running around shooting everybody in town.”

“You know about Torrance, huh?”

“I watch television,” Sheed said. “Same as anyone else.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Years ago. After I joined S&R, he used to pop in every now and then. Talk to his old buddies, shoot the shit, share a few brews. But I thought he was dead by now. In fact, he is, come to think of it.”

“You didn’t happen to see him in Missouri, did you?”

“Once or twice, I guess. Why?”

“I mean recently.”

“How recently?”

“Three years ago come May eleventh.”

“Oh, that again, huh?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Willa’s suicide.”

“Did you see Peter Torrance in Missouri, three years ago?”

“No. I heard he was there, but I didn’t see him. He was broke. Tried to borrow money from Willa. She turned him down cold.”

“My friend thinks Torrance broke into Willa’s trailer, carried away her safe...”

“Your friend is right.”

Bloom looked at him.

“Torrance stole the safe, found cocaine when he opened it...”

“Two keys,” Bloom said.

“Two keys. And then tried to shake Willa down.”

“Where’d you get this?”

“Maria told me,” Sheed said, and shrugged.

“When?”

“The night before Willa shot herself.”

And now, as Bloom listened, he had the distinct feeling that he was watching a Japanese movie titled Rashomon... well, not quite, but certainly close enough. As he recalled the film, none of the characters was actually lying, but everyone’s perception of the truth was a different one. In effect, everyone was seeing the same event through different eyes, making it impossible to know which retelling of the story was the real one. Torrance had already related two different versions of his visit to Missouri three years ago, one to Matthew and another to Bloom. In each of his tellings, he’d been the friendly former husband offering solace in a time of crisis, but this time around — if Sheed was to be believed — Torrance was the villain of the piece.

“Nobody likes to believe a thief’s working a circus,” Sheed was saying, “but half the gazoonies come aboard with jailhouse time behind them, and you never know who you can trust. This was the night after the burglary, you understand, and that’s all anybody could talk about, anyway. The rain was...”

...coming down in sheets, turning the circus grounds into an ocean of churning mud, dripping into the cookhouse tent, seeping into the bones, slanting into the cages where the big cats are restlessly pacing. Maria doesn’t want to sleep with Sheed that night. After the burglary, her mother’s afraid to be alone, and Maria thinks she should stay with her. Sheed tells her he wants her there with him, where she belongs, in his trailer, what’s this on-again, off-again shit? Is she his woman or some fuckin teenybopper firefly?

She spills it all then, tells him Torrance went to her mother to tell her there was cocaine in that safe, enough to presume trafficking, and whereas he doesn’t plan to blow the whistle, what he would enjoy is a little piece of the action for old time’s sake. After all, if sweet Wee Willa Winkie had once upon a time fucked another man who hung from his hair at the top of a tent while Torrance was out slaving on the road, wasn’t it now fair — if indeed this miniature treacherous cunt was now dealing dope — that she should share the proceeds with her wronged husband? Or so Torrance had argued reasonably.

Willa knew the dope wasn’t hers. She also knew her daughter had a combination to the safe. In tears, the wind and the rain raging outside Sheed’s trailer, Maria told him about the confrontation that afternoon between her and her mother, Maria swearing she’d merely been holding the dope for someone else...

“Me, Davey Sheed...”

...and would never again do such a stupid thing in her life, oh, how could she have been so stupid?

Truth of the matter was that Maria had been doing this stupid thing for more than a year now, selling coke to half the gazoonies and performers on the show, distributing it like candy to the eager street dealers all along the circus route. Torrance had already left town, but he’d told her mother he’d catch up with her again in Tennessee, at which time he wanted her decision on what his cut would be. Otherwise, contrary to his benevolent nature and fond feelings for her, he might be compelled to inform the authorities.

What to do, oh, what to do?

“What Maria did was call her partner for advice,” Sheed said.

“What partner?” Bloom asked.

“Her little girlfriend from when she was seventeen.”

“Who do you mean?”

“Who do you think I mean? Jeannie Byrd.”

Di Luca and Kenyon — the two detectives who’d originally caught the Matthew Hope shooting — questioned Maria Torrance in an interrogation room on the third floor of the Public Safety Building. In a room next door, Bloom questioned Jeannie Byrd. Neither of the women knew that the other had been brought in. It was explained to each of them that they were in police custody and entitled to an attorney if they wished one. It was also explained that they did not have to answer any questions if they chose not to. Maria Torrance asked for an attorney. Jeannie Byrd opted to answer questions without any legal representation. They figured Jeannie would be the weak link, simply because she was so goddamn supremely sure of herself.

“Miss Torrance,” Di Luca said, “there’s something we’d like you to hear, if you...”

“Oh? What’s this?” her attorney asked at once.

His name was Howard Mandel, and he was one of the best criminal lawyers in Calusa, something Matthew would have been the first to admit. In fact, when Patricia learned that Maria had called him, she rolled her eyes in despair. Now, standing some six feet tall in a brown tropical-weight suit, maize-colored shirt, and hunter-green tie, Mandel waited with his hands defiantly on his hips, back ramrod straight, chin thrust out, trying to terrify Kenyon and Di Luca, who’d both been cops for almost twenty years, and who had seen it all and heard it all, and who were not about to back away because of any body language. Eyes bright, pert attentive look on her face, wearing her red wig and a green suit with matching high-heeled pumps, Maria Torrance sat looking serenely secure in the knowledge that her appointed champion would protect her from any harm or discourtesy.

“Counselor,” Kenyon said, “this is a tape Matthew Hope made of a conversation between him and Peter Torrance.”

“Have you seen him lately, by the way?” Di Luca asked.

“Mr. Hope is in the hospital,” Maria said.

“Just a minute here...” Mandel said.

“I meant your father,” Di Luca said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Have you talked to him lately?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t know he’s in town, right?”

“News to me,” she said, and smiled.

“Because his appointment calendar had you written in for a one o’clock last Wednesday,” Di Luca said, and then, “Sorry, Counselor, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Are you finished now?” Mandel asked.

“Yes, sir, sorry about that.”

“How do I know this tape is what it purports to be?” Mandel asked.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. I’m sure you’ll advise your client accordingly if you think the tape’s a fake.”

“I’m assuming you have some specific charges in mind here. Otherwise...”

“What we’re thinking is homicide, sir,” Kenyon said. “Plus attempted murder and conspiracy. And illegal possession of a firearm.”

“For starters,” Di Luca said.

“So if you’ll accept that this is Mr. Hope and Mr. Torrance talking on this tape and not some actors we got from Burt Reynolds’s dinner theater over on the east coast...”

“What’s your purpose in playing this tape?”

“We just want Miss Torrance to listen to it and answer some questions about it.”

“She may listen to it, but as for answering any questions, I’ll hold judgment on that in abeyance.”

“Well, sure, Counselor. As you know, though, she can call this off anytime she likes. That’s what Miranda’s all about, right?”

Mandel shot him a dirty look.

“Okay to play it, then?” Kenyon asked.

“Go ahead and play it. You don’t have to answer any questions about it if you don’t want to,” he advised Maria.

“I have nothing to hide,” Maria said.

Famous last words, Di Luca thought.

“According to a record of calls I obtained from the telephone company,” Bloom said, “Matthew Hope made a call to your home on Flamingo Key last Friday morning at...”

“Yes, I remember,” Jeannie said at once.

“Can you tell me what that call was about, Mrs. Byrd?”

“He was trying to reach my husband. I told him Andrew was still in Mexico.”

“Reach him about what?”

“I have no idea. I don’t pry into my husband’s affairs.”

“I thought you were partners,” Bloom said.

“We are.”

“But you don’t pry into his affairs.”

“I don’t know why Matthew Hope called him.”

“This would’ve been after a conversation he’d had with a man named Peter Torrance. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“Never met him while you were with the circus?”

“I was only with them for one season.”

“Didn’t run into him at that time?”

“No. I just told you, I don’t know the man.”

“Do you know Davey Sheed?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I wonder if you’d care to comment on some things Davey Sheed told me earlier today.”

“Depends on what things he told you.”

“Well, let’s start with this,” Bloom said, and flipped open his notebook. “Davey Sheed says Maria sought your advice the day after her mother’s safe was stolen. Care to comment?”

“I won’t bore you with the whole tape,” Kenyon said, and opened the lid of a dispatch case monogrammed with the letters W.C. “I’ve got it set where I... Let me see... Yeah, here it is... I can start it whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now, Detective,” Maria said, and smiled.

Kenyon hit the play button.

— discovered it the day before the burglary, you see.

— When you say she’d just discovered it...

— Yes.

— Do you mean she just opened the safe and found it there?

— Yes. And immediately figured it was Maria’s.

— Why Maria?

— Because she was the only other person who knew the combination to the safe. Which meant she was doing cocaine, you see. Maybe even dealing it. Because this wasn’t just a couple of ounces in there, this was a real stash she’d found in that safe.

— Did she tell you how much?

— She guessed about two kilos. She told me she thought Maria had to be dealing the stuff. She was afraid that whoever had stolen the safe might come back to blackmail her.

— Did she think he’d known beforehand?

— I’m not following you.

— The thief. That there was cocaine in the safe?

— No, no. She just thought he’d lucked out. And would try to take advantage of the situation.

— Well... what’d Maria have to say about all this?

— She denied the stuff was hers.

— Then how’d it get in the safe?

— Oh, she’d put it there, all right, but she said it didn’t belong to her.

— Then whose was it?

— Davey Sheed’s.

Kenyon snapped off the recorder.

“Boy,” Maria said.

“Excuse me,” Mandel said, “but are you...”

“Some fairy tale,” Maria said.

“...investigating a narcotics case here?”

“No, sir, this was a long time ago, the event they’re talking about on the tape. I think Miss Torrance knows about the event, if she’d care to discuss it with us.”

“What dope is he talking about?” Maria asked, eyes wide. “That man on the tape.”

“That’s Peter Torrance,” Di Luca said. “Your father.”

“The dope that was in your mother’s safe,” Kenyon said.

“Where is this dope?” Maria asked. “Do you have this dope?”

“No, miss, we surely don’t,” Kenyon said.

“Neither do I,” Maria said, and smiled again.

“If you have questions regarding homicide and attempted murder,” Mandel said, “or conspiracy, or whatever else was on your laundry list, I wish you’d...”

“He must’ve made all that up,” Maria said, and paused for the merest tick of an instant. “And he’s dead now, isn’t he?” she said.

“Davey Sheed confirms his story,” Di Luca said.

“Davey killed my mother. He’d confirm anything.”

“Just a minute here,” Mandel said. “You understand you don’t have to answer any of these questions, don’t you, Maria? Questions relating to crimes other than...”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“What’d Jeannie advise when you called her?” Di Luca asked.

“Jeannie who?”

“Byrd.”

“When was this?”

“The day after the burglary.”

“What burglary?”

“Come on, a hundred people have already told us...”

“Oh, that burglary.”

“Miss Torrance,” Mandel said, “I feel I should advise you. These felonies they keep...”

“Not to worry,” Maria said calmly.

They were beginning to think she was the one who’d outsmart herself.

“Mrs. Byrd?” Bloom said. “Any comment?”

“Davey Sheed is a foul-mouthed, ill-mannered, totally amoral animal who would say anything or do anything to extricate himself from a threatening situation. I imagine you were asking him about Willa Torrance’s murder...”

“No, as a matter...”

“Which everyone is still convinced he committed, by the way. That he would lie to protect himself comes as no...”

“Who’s everyone?” Bloom asked.

“Anyone familiar with the circumstances of her death.”

“Are you familiar with the circumstances of her death?”

“I’m called every year at about this time by journalists who want to know all about Willa. Yes, I’m familiar with the case.”

“Who told you Davey Sheed killed her?”

“No one had to. I know Davey.”

“What’d you and Willa argue about?”

“When?”

“You know when. You were only with the circus for a single season, when do you think I mean?”

“I thought Warren Chambers was working with you.”

“He is.”

“Then go ask him. I told him all about it.”

“I’m asking you,” Bloom said.

Jeannie heaved an enormous sigh.

Bloom waited.

“She thought I was bothering the two little girls in her act.”

“That’s not why Sheed says you argued.”

“I told you. Davey is...”

“He thinks Willa came to see you about her daughter.”

“I hardly knew Maria.”

“About you and her daughter.”

“Why would...?”

“About you and her daughter being lovers.”

“How well do you know Jeannie Byrd?” Di Luca asked.

“We’re casual acquaintances,” Maria said.

“Still know her, though, do you?”

“As I said...”

“Casually, right,” Kenyon said. “How well did you know her while she was with the circus? When she was still Jeannie Lawson.”

“Casually.”

“Casually then, casually now.”

“Correct.”

“Did you call her the day after your mother’s safe was stolen?”

“No. Why would I have done that? Who even knew where she was?”

“You didn’t know where she was, huh?”

“No. Well, Calusa, I guess. I heard she’d gone back to Calusa, married someone...”

“Didn’t you know who she married?”

“Not then.”

“But you know now?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What’d Jeannie say when you called her?”

“I didn’t call her.”

“She’s already told you she didn’t call her,” Mandel said.

“I heard her. Davey Sheed thinks you called her.”

“Anything to say about that, Mrs. Byrd?”

“Davey has a lively imagination. It comes from sleeping with cats.”

“So there’s no truth to his claim that you and Maria...”

“None whatever.”

“You were not lovers.”

“We were not.”

“Not then, not now...”

“Not ever.”

“Yet she called you for advice on what to...”

“She never called me for advice.”

“Called you in tears, Sheed said, wanting to know what to do about that dope.”

“What dope?”

“The dope Torrance found in her mother’s safe.”

“I don’t know what dope you’re talking about.”

“You know there was a burglary two days before Willa’s murder, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know that.”

“You know that a safe was taken from her trailer...”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know what was in that safe?”

“No.”

“You don’t know that two kilos of cocaine were in that safe?”

“How would I know that?”

“Because Maria called you about it.”

“Maria did not call me about anything!”

“Maria called you to say Torrance knew about the dope...”

“No, she did not!”

“...her mother knew about the dope...”

“Listen, Detective...”

“Maria called wanting to know what the hell to do! Isn’t that so? Isn’t that what happened?”

“Maria did not call me,” Jeannie said flatly. “Are we finished here?”

“Not quite.”

“Well, I am,” she said.

Which left them with just Maria Torrance, after all.

“Let’s talk again about the night your mother’s safe was stolen from that fridge, okay?” Kenyon said.

“Sure,” Maria said.

“Toward what end?” her lawyer asked.

“Try to clarify a few things,” Bloom said.

He had joined them not a few moments earlier. Now there were three cops in the room. Three cops were always more impressive than two, especially when an attorney was present. Maria sat at her end of the table with her legs crossed, one foot jiggling. Bloom read this as a sign of nervousness. Either that or she had to pee.

“Where was your mother that night, would you know?”he asked.

“Doing the show. She was an entertainer, you know.”

“Came back to the trailer and found the safe gone, huh?” Kenyon said.

“Apparently. I didn’t learn about it till the next day.”

“When your mother told you about the cocaine, right?” Di Luca said.

“I don’t know anything about any cocaine.”

“As she’s already told you ad infinitum,” Mandel said. “If you gentlemen have any new questions to ask...”

“We’ll get to them, Counselor,” Kenyon said.

“When? My client’s already been here...”

“No one’s breaching her rights, Counselor,” Di Luca said.

“I’m suggesting that either you charge her or let her go,” Mandel said.

“In a hurry to have her charged, huh?” Di Luca asked.

“No, but I know a fishing expedition when I see one,” Mandel said. “You’re dredging up ancient history here because you haven’t got a damn thing...”

“Language, language,” Bloom scolded.

“...that links her either to the Hope shooting or the Torrance murder. Nothing at all. So you’ve invented a cockamamie story about a stolen safe...”

“The burglary’s a matter of record,” Bloom said. “Check with Missouri, if you like.”

“How about the cocaine? Is that a matter of record, too?”

“No, but...”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Peter Torrance told me there was cocaine in that safe,” Bloom said.

“My father is dead,” Maria said dryly.

“I’m not. And that’s what he told me.”

“My father is a liar,” Maria said. “Was.”

“What’d you and he talk about when you saw him?”

“I haven’t seen him in years.”

“What’d he call you about yesterday?”

“He didn’t call me.”

“Mind if I show her something, Counselor?”

“What now?” Mandel said.

Bloom took a folded computer printout from his jacket pocket, spread it on the table so that both Maria and her lawyer could look at it.

“Recognize any of those numbers?” he asked.

“What is this document, anyway?” Mandel asked.

“A log of the phone calls charged to room thirty-seven at the Shelby Arms. We figure that Matthew Hope left Torrance at about eleven on the morning of the twenty-fifth. Here’s a call Torrance made at a few minutes past eleven. Recognize the number, Miss Torrance?”

“Yes, it’s...”

“Maria...”

“...my home phone number.”

“Maria, I think it may be time to...”

“Relax, Howard,” she said coolly.

That was when Bloom knew he had her. The way she said the word “relax.”

“Didn’t you tell Detective Di Luca that you didn’t know Torrance was in town?”

“That’s right.”

“Hadn’t seen him...”

“Right.”

“...or talked to him...”

“Right.”

“Yet here’s a phone call to your house on Fatback Key at eleven-oh-seven on March twenty-fifth...”

“I wasn’t even home at that time yesterday.”

“Then he must have talked to someone else there.”

“I have no idea,” she said.

“You have a maid, don’t you?”

“Yes?”

Somewhat cautious note in her voice now.

“So maybe he talked to her, is that possible?”

“That’s entirely possible. I know he didn’t talk to me.”

“So he must have talked to her, right?” Bloom said, and hit her with the hammer. “For forty-five minutes, right?”

Maria looked at him.

“That’s what the hotel’s computer says. Forty-five minutes. A Mr. Muhammad Azir there provided the information, if you’d like to check on its authenticity, Counselor. It says that the call Torrance made from his room to Miss Torrance’s number was forty-five minutes long.”

“Who is this Muhammad Whatever?”

“Day clerk at the Shelby Arms. What’d you talk about all that time, Miss Torrance?”

Maria took a deep breath.

“Want to tell us?” Bloom asked.

“Sure,” she said, “why not? He was trying to blackmail me. He told me he’d just had a meeting with a lawyer named Matthew Hope, and it occurred to him during the meeting that if I opposed his claim, he’d reveal everything he knew about... well, the burglary.”

“What about the burglary?”

“That there was cocaine in the safe. Or so he said. It was nonsense, of course. There was only jewelry and...”

“Then you knew about that, huh?” Kenyon said. “The cocaine.”

“Only after we talked about it on the phone.”

“But when I played that tape for you...”

“What tape?” she asked, eyes wide, tone mocking.

Oh, yes, we have you now, Bloom was thinking.

“The tape Hope made of him and your father...”

“Oh, that tape.”

Sure, Bloom was thinking, play it big, honey, we are about to nail you.

Kenyon flipped open his notebook.

“After I played the tape, you said, ‘Boy, some fairy tale, what dope is he talking about, where is this dope, do you have this dope, he must’ve made all that up.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, more than just possibly, because it’s what I wrote down here. When all the while you knew about the cocaine because that’s what you and your father talked about on the phone, isn’t that right?”

“So what?” Maria said.

“Miss Torrance,” Bloom said, “did you have occasion to call Jeannie Byrd after your phone conversation with your father?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I think you did. And I can always get a court order asking the telephone company to release information regarding...”

“Okay, I called her.”

“The way you did in Missouri?” Bloom asked.

“I didn’t call her in...”

“To tell her your father knew about the dope?”

“I didn’t...”

“The same way you did on the twenty-fifth?”

“That’s enough, Maria. Don’t answer...”

“In panic about the dope again?”

“No!”

“Maria!”

“This is all bullshit, Howard!”

“You didn’t know anything about that coke in Missouri, right?” Bloom said.

“How many times do I...?”

“How about the coke here? In Florida?”

“What?”

“What I’m going to do, Miss Torrance, is make application for a warrant to search your house for cocaine.”

“On what grounds?” Mandel said at once.

“On information and belief that...”

“What information?”

“Information from a licensed private investigator named Toots Kiley that on the patio of Miss Torrance’s home on Fatback Key, at or around four P.M. last Sunday... that would’ve been the twenty-seventh... Miss Torrance asked her if she’d care for a drink, and when Miss Kiley declined, then asked, ‘How about a toot instead?’ Miss Kiley declined this as well, at which point Miss Torrance said, ‘I think I’ll have one,’ and walked back into the house. Isn’t that true, Miss Torrance?”

Maria said nothing.

“May I have a word with my client?” Mandel said softly.