Three Blind Mice

12

He lived in one of those little shacks up on stilts that lined the beach just north of Whisper Key Village. At this time of year, and especially at this time of night, there was a ghostly silence shrouding the strip of wooden structures standing in a row on the edge of the sea. During high season, there would be music into the empty hours of the night, laughter, the sounds of young people flexing their muscles and their hormones. Tonight, all was still. The shacks stood on their stilts like tall wading birds, silhouetted against the shoreline sky. It was almost midnight, but a light was burning in the second-story apartment. Matthew climbed the steps and knocked.

“Who is it?”

The distinctive voice, plainly evident when you were listening for it. The John F. Kennedy voice.

“Me,” he said. “Matthew Hope.”

“Just a minute, please.”

Puzzlement in that voice now; it was almost midnight.

The door opened.

He was wearing only tennis shorts. Barechested, barefooted. Forty-one years old, but still looking like a boy, the way many athletes that age looked, the well-defined muscles on his arms, legs, and chest, the tousled blond hair, the welcoming grin. Your average, garden-variety All-American Boy. Who had only done murder five times over.

“Hello, Kit,” Matthew said. “Sorry to be stopping by so late.”

“No, that’s okay,” he said. “Come on in.”

Matthew stepped into the apartment. A studio with a tiny kitchen area and a closet space defined by a rod with a hanging curtain on it. Double bed against the windows on the ocean side. Framed photographs on the walls. Most of them of Christopher Howell in action on a tennis court. One of them of Christopher Howell in an army uniform, posing with half a dozen other American soldiers, all of them grinning into the camera, all of them wearing combat helmets and bandoliers, some of them holding assault weapons. In the corner, several tennis rackets stood on end against the wall. There was a thriftshop easy chair slip-covered in a paisley pattern. A telephone on a nightstand beside the bed. A lamp on the nightstand. The lamp was on. There was no air conditioning, the windows were wide open. Outside, the ocean rushed in against the sand.

“I think I’ve worked out a game plan,” Matthew said.

Howell blinked.

“Would you like to hear it?”

“Well…”

This is midnight, his face said.

“Sure,” he said.

“Did you know,” Matthew said, “that in the state of Florida, all rental-car license plates begin with either a Y or a Z?”

Howell looked at him.

“No, I didn’t know that,” he said.

“A little-known fact,” Matthew said, and smiled. “But true.”

“I see,” Howell said.

“Did you further know that rental-car companies keep records on all the cars they rent? Names of renters, addresses, and so on.”

“Uh… excuse me, Mr. Hope,” Howell said, “but it is late, and…”

“Later than you think,” Matthew said.

Outside, an incoming wave broke with a thunderous crash. There was the whispering sound of the ocean retreating. And then silence again.

“I made some phone calls before coming here,” Matthew said. “To all the rental-car companies in town. Well, not all of them, I struck pay dirt on the sixth call.”

“Mr. Hope, I’m sorry, really…”

Blue eyes wide with innocence. Puzzled boyish look on his face.

“… but I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you know what I’m talking about, Kit.”

“No, really, I…”

“I’m talking about the car you rented.”

“Car?”

The way he said that single word. The regional dialect. Caah. Paak the caah in Haavaad Yaad. The same way he must have said alarmed when he was talking on the phone to Stubbs. Alaaamed.

“The one you rented on August thirteenth,” Matthew said. “An Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with the license plate ZAB 39…”

The racket was in Howell’s hand before Matthew could complete the sentence. His right hand. Shake hands with the racket. The racket firm in his grip. He had a powerful forehand and a devastating backhand, and moreover he was ambidextrous. Matthew suddenly knew which blunt instrument had crushed Frank Bannion’s skull.

“So let me hear your game plan,” Howell said, and swung the racket at Matthew’s head.

Matthew had no game plan.

The racket came at him edgewise. Howell wasn’t trying to hit a ball, he wasn’t concerned about meeting a ball solidly on the strings, never mind a sweet spot, the sweet spot was Matthew’s head. Howell was concerned only with inflicting damage. The aluminum frame of the racket, for all its lightness, was thick enough and dense enough and strong enough to knock plaster out of the wall. Which is exactly what it did in the next second because Matthew did the only thing he could do, he sidestepped and ducked. The plaster flew out in a large solid chunk, exposing naked lath and what looked like chicken wire behind it. Howell danced away, positioning himself for his next shot.

“Guess which hand?” he said, and grinned, and tossed the racket into his left hand and then immediately tossed it back to the right. He was bouncing on his bare feet. Priming himself for the big match. Matthew did not want his skull to become the U.S. Open.

If your opponent is armed, and you’re not…

Bloom’s voice. In the gym this past Tuesday. Teaching him the tricks of the trade. Teaching him a game plan.

Don’t try to disarm him. You’II be dead before you figure out how.

Howell was bouncing. Circling. Tossing the racket back and forth between his hands. Guess which hand? Where will it be coming from? The right or the left?

Forget the weapon.

But the next one was going to be an ace.

The next one was going to crush Matthew’s skull.

Go for the man.

Howell was pulling the racket back for the shot. It was going to be a left-handed shot, and it was going to be a backhand shot. Matthew had seen that backhand in action. Its force could tear off his head. Arm crossing Howell’s chest now, racket coming back, mouth set in a tight line, eyes blazing, arm coiled like a spring, in a moment he would unleash the shot, the arm would unfold, the edge of the racket…

Matthew hit him while the racket was still back.

Threw his shoulder into Howell while his weight was still on the back foot. Surprised, Howell staggered for an instant, trying to keep his balance, the racket still back, the weight on that right foot, the proper form for the shot, his full body weight working against him now, fighting against gravity and losing as he went crashing to the floor. He landed solidly on his right hip and was rolling over when Matthew stomped on his groin. He did not kick him in the groin, he stomped him. He did not use the point of his shoe, he used the heel. Stomped his balls flat into the carpet, the way Bloom had taught him.

Breathing hard, Matthew went to the telephone.

Howell was still writhing on the floor.

It was a little after two in the morning when he got to the farm on Timucuan Point Road. Not a light showing in any of the buildings. Not in the main house, not in the guest cottage at the far end of the road, where Ned Weaver lived. Matthew rang the doorbell. He kept ringing it. A light went on at the other end of the house. The bedroom. He kept ringing the doorbell.

“Who is it?”

Jessica’s voice. Just inside the door.

“Matthew Hope.”

“What?”

“Please open the door.”

“What? What?”

Incredulously. This was two o’clock in the morning.

“Please open the door, Mrs. Leeds.”

Silence.

Then: “Just a minute.”

He waited. It took almost five minutes for her to open the door. She had undoubtedly gone back to the bedroom to put on the robe she now wore over her nightgown. Green nylon. Over white nylon. Barefooted. The way Howell had been barefooted when he’d opened the door to his place.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” Matthew said. “May I come in?”

“Why?”

“Because the police have just arrested Christopher Howell and charged him with five counts of homicide. There are some questions I’d like to ask you, Mrs. Leeds.”

“What questions?” she said.

“We both want your husband cleared,” he said. “I just want to make sure Howell doesn’t try to implicate him.”

He was lying.

“Howell?” she said. “Kit, do you mean? The tennis pro at the club?”

She was lying, too.

“May I come in, please?” he said.

“Yes, certainly. Forgive me, I… I was asleep… all that ringing… I didn’t mean to be rude. Kit, did you say? What does he have to do with any of this?”

From the switch panel just outside the entrance to the living room, she turned on the lights and then led him in. She sat on the leather sofa. He sat in a leather easy chair opposite her. There was a large green pillow behind her, the color of her eyes, the color of her robe. He remembered that the lady favored green.

“I just drove out from the police station,” he said. “They’re trying to locate Skye Bannister so he’ll be there for the formal Q,and A. He’s down in Sanibel for the weekend, they’re not sure where.”

“Skye…?”

“Bannister. The State Attorney. His office is going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

“I still don’t understand…”

“Howell confessed to the murders.”

“Kit?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Such a quiet, unassuming person,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Why would he have… are you saying he killed all of them?”

“Yes.”

“He’s admitted that?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing,” she said again.

The room went silent. The house was still. She sat in the center of the sofa, looking at him, her hands clasped in her lap. He sat opposite her, watching her.

“And you think he may try to implicate Stephen?” she said.

“Yes.”

Lying again.

“How?”

“He might claim Stephen put him up to it.”

“Has he done that?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Well… what has he said?”

“I told you. He’s confessed to killing the three men who raped you…”

“Yes, I understand that part of it.”

“And the old man who saw the license plate on the rented car…”

“One of the Vietnamese witnesses.”

“Yes. And also the investigator who learned what the number on that plate really was. He killed all five of them. He’s already made a statement to that effect.”

“I see. I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with… which investigator do you mean?”

“You didn’t see this morning’s newspaper?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“This was an investigator from the State Attorney’s office. A man named Frank Bannion.”

“And he learned… what was it he’d learned?”

“He figured out what the license plate was.”

“I see.”

“Which led him to Howell.”

“I see.”

“The same way it led me to Howell.”

“I see,” she said, and hesitated. “Did…?”

And hesitated again. Wondering quite how to put this.

“Did Kit say… why he’d committed these murders?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

“For you,” he said.

“For me?”

She seemed almost amused.

“For me? I hardly know the man!”

“Mrs. Leeds…”

“That’s perfectly ridiculous,” she said. “For me? Is the man crazy?”

“Mrs. Leeds, outside of the…”

“He said he did it for me?”

“… various lawyers and law-enforcement people working on this case…”

“I can’t believe he…”

“… only two other people knew that license-plate number.”

She looked at him.

“The number Trinh thought he saw.”

She kept looking at him.

“You and your husband,” Matthew said.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” Matthew said. “I told your husband, and he told you.”

“I don’t remember hearing…”

“You and I talked about it later, Mrs. Leeds. You knew the number, and you…”

“I did not!”

“… gave it to Howell.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t even know the man, except as…”

“He’s admitted it.”

She looked at him again.

“He said you gave it to him.”

She kept looking at him.

“He said he killed Trinh because of that number.”

And suddenly she was crying.

Tonight, she cannot get enough of him.

This is four days before Christmas, the twenty-first day of December, a Thursday. In the motel room, she is insatiable. She knows she will not be seeing him over the holidays; she and her husband are going up to New York on the twenty-sixth and will not return until the second of January. And so tonight’s lovemaking must hold her until then, a junkie’s last desperate fix before an anticipated shortage of supply, she cannot get enough of him.

She is dressed provocatively for him. She always dresses provocatively for him. Black bikini panties, lace-edged. A black garter belt. Black, seamed nylon stockings. No brassiere. Black, high-heeled patent-leather pumps. He tells her she looks like a hooker in the Combat Zone. That’s an area in Boston, he explains. Where all the hookers parade. She asks if he’s ever been to bed with a hooker. Only in Nam, he says. He tells her he killed seven people in Nam. This excites her. The idea that he has killed people. Her husband has killed people, too, in the same war, in the same place. But when Kit describes cutting off cocks, it excites her.

She has been seeing him for almost a year now, ever since he took the job at the club. A sun god. Walking out onto the court, his head bent, blond hair glowing, looking up suddenly, blue eyes flashing. Good morning, Mrs. Leeds, I’m Christopher Howell. They call me Kit.

Well, hello, Kit, she thinks.

Aren’t you lovely, Kit.

Are you ready for your lesson? he asks.

Oh yes, she thinks, I am ready for my lesson. Kit.

He has been giving her lessons for almost a year now, on and off the court. She cannot imagine what her life was like before he entered it. He is the same age as her husband, but by comparison Stephen seems far older. Stephen and his boat. Always the damn boat. Felicity. She hates the name of the boat. He comes in off the boat tasting of salt. Kisses her tasting of salt. She hates his kisses, they make her want to wash out her mouth. Stephen is a big man going to fat. Kit is the same age, they both fought in the same war, but Kit is lean and hard and savage, and she cannot get enough of him.

They talk a lot about her leaving Stephen. Divorcing him. But Florida’s courts aren’t quite as liberal with alimony as they are elsewhere in the United States. Most judges down here will grant alimony for a so-called period of adjustment and then you’re on your own, sink or swim. She is trying to figure out some way to get him to put the farm in her name. She has told him that if something happened to him, God forbid, the estate taxes would murder her, they’d be giving the government enough money to invade Grenada all over again. Over and over again, she hits on the Grenada theme. He’d hated Reagan when he was president, hated the invasion of Grenada, the bombing of Libya, a man who’d killed people himself, it was strange. Try to get the farm in her name. The farm was the fortune. Get him to put it in her name and then kiss him off, spend the rest of her life lying in the sun with Kit, making love to Kit. They talk about that tonight, too. They always talk about that. In each other’s arms, they talk about her leaving Stephen once the farm is in her name.

Their watches are on the dresser, lying side by side, hers tiny and gold with a slender black strap, his massive and steely, with digital readouts and stubby little studs.

Their watches toss seconds into the room.

Minutes.

More minutes.

On the bed across the room, they are making love again, lost in their need for each other, savoring these last passionate moments before their long separation, she cannot get enough of him. And at last they lie back on the pillows, her head close to his, his arm lying across her breasts, spent, content, silent. A fire engine races past on U.S. 41, its siren howling.

Fire someplace, she says.

Mmmm, he says.

They listen to the sound of the siren fading, and then it is gone, and the room is silent again save for the ticking of her watch on the dresser. She wonders aloud what time it is, and gets out of bed naked, and walks flatfooted across the room and picks up the watch and—

Jesus!

It’s a quarter past eleven!

This is when the nightmare begins.

Not later.

Now.

This instant.

It will take at least fifteen minutes to get back to the mall. This will put her in the Maserati at eleven-thirty, an hour and a half later than she’d planned. It’ll take another half hour to get back to the farm, she won’t be home till midnight! Never mind him putting the farm in her name, he’ll kick her out of the house if she walks in there at midnight! He’ll throw her out on the street! He’ll file for divorce tomorrow morning! How could they have been so stupid, wasn’t somebody watching the time? She is saying all this to Kit as she dresses, hastily putting on the garter belt and then the seamed nylon stockings, and fastening the stockings to the garters, He’ll kill me, she says, and stepping into the black lace-edged bikini panties, I can’t believe we let this happen, and then putting on the short black skirt and the sleeveless white silk blouse, and buttoning the little pearl buttons up the front. What can I tell him, she says, what can I possibly say to him?

The mall has been closed for an hour and a half by the time they reach the parking lot. There is an hour and a half she must account for. The movie has already let out, even the restaurant is closed, its neon sign dark, its front plate-glass windows black. The parking lot is empty, everything is dark, everything is still, save for a single light hanging over the rear door of the restaurant and a light shining through a narrow window beside the door. Kit drives her directly to where she’s parked the car. She does not even kiss him as she gets out. She is thinking ahead. She is still wondering what she can possibly tell her husband. She is thinking there is no possible way to explain a time lapse of an hour and a half, it’s all over, finished and done, he’ll kill her. Swiftly, she unlocks the door to the Maserati.

She has parked it behind the restaurant, which is shaped like a pagoda, and which in fact is named The Pagoda. The car is an expensive one, and this is four days before Christmas. With all the traffic in the mall’s lot a dented fender is a distinct possibility, but this was not her prime concern when she chose this deserted spot; she is a married woman having an affair, and moving from car to car is the most dangerous time. So she has parked it far from where — if she’d been back here on time — there would have been other cars, parked it instead here behind The Pagoda, alongside a low fence beyond which is undeveloped scrub land. She climbs in behind the wheel, locks the door, and starts the engine.

The dashboard clock reads twenty minutes to twelve.

The sound of the engine tells Kit that everything’s okay, but she flashes her headlights anyway, signaling, and he flashes his own headlights in farewell and begins backing his car away from the fence. She puts the gearshift lever in reverse. Kit makes a wide turn and then begins driving toward the exit. It is best not to follow him too closely, the night has eyes. She waits until in her rearview mirror she sees him turning out of the lot. Then she steps on the accelerator, and begins backing her own car away from the fence, and realizes almost at once that she has a flat tire.

The nightmare is about to escalate.

She knows how to change a flat tire, she has changed many of them in her lifetime, she is not one of these helpless little women who eat bonbons on a chaise longue while reading romance novels. She takes the jack out of the trunk, lifts out the spare, lays it flat on the ground behind the rear bumper, and then kneels beside the right rear tire to loosen the lug nuts on the wheel. She has removed one of them and placed it in the inverted hubcab, when…

The first thing she hears is the rear door of the restaurant opening.

And then voices.

Foreign voices.

Well, a Chinese restaurant, she figures they’re Chinese voices.

And then three men come out of the restaurant, through the back door, talking and laughing, and she recognizes them as the men who’d been out back here smoking earlier tonight when she’d parked the car, eight o’clock tonight when she’d parked the car, three hours and forty minutes ago when she’d parked the car. Three young men out back smoking. “Good evening, boys,” she’d said cheerfully — well, perhaps a bit flirtatiously, too; she was a woman on her way to meet her lover, and a woman with a lover thinks the whole world is dying to fuck her. “Good evening, boys.” Three hours and forty minutes ago. A nightmare ago.

One of them reaches in to snap off the inside lights. There is only the light over the door now. Another one pulls the door shut. The sound of the spring bolt clicking into place is like a rifle shot on the night. The three are still talking among themselves, their backs are to her, they haven’t yet seen her. One of them laughs softly. And then they turn from the door, and… and… they… they…

“They were starting to move away from the restaurant,” she said, “when they saw me. And they… stopped and… and… one of them… the leader. Ho… smiled at me and… and said in his singsong English, ‘Oh, good evening, boys,’ imitating me, mocking me! And then they…”

She fell silent.

She took a tissue from a box on the coffee table, dabbed at her eyes and her cheeks.

Matthew waited.

“You know the rest,” she said, “I told you the rest. I had to lie about the time, but the rest was all true.”

“So you risked a conviction…”

“Yes.”

“… to protect your he.”

“To protect my life!”

“You let three rapists go free…”

“They were my alibi.”

“Your what?”

“Stephen believed it, that’s all that mattered. He believed I left the mall at ten and was raped fifteen minutes later. He believed it.”

“The jury didn’t.”

“That was a chance I had to take. Otherwise, I’d have lost everything.”

“You’ve still lost everything.”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “Stephen will still believe me.”

“The State Attorney won’t. Kit told the police you planned it together.”

“Oh? Planned what together?”

There was a faint smile on her face now. He had seen this smile before. On the faces of people who had decided to bluff it through because there was nothing worse that could possibly happen. Kit Howell had told them everything; Jessica Leeds would tell them nothing.

“They have his sworn statement,” Matthew said.

“He’s lying. Besides, he’s a tennis bum.”

“Whatever he is, he signed…”

“Tell me,” Jessica said. “If an infatuated tennis bum goes out on his own to redeem the honor of a farmer’s wife… how is the lady to blame?”

“Where’s the lady?” Matthew asked, and walked out.

The Q and A took place in Captain Rushville Decker’s office in the Public Safety Building at 6:25 A.M. that Sunday morning, August 26. Present were the captain himself, in cleanly pressed blues and looking wide awake at this early hour; Christopher Howell in jeans and a blue T-shirt; Skye Bannister, who’d finally been located at his sister’s house in Sanibel, and who looked tall and blond and suntanned and elegant in a dark-blue tropical suit and silk rep tie; Patricia Demming, who was dressed now in a grey pin-striped business suit and low heels, looking extremely beautiful but also very grave; Matthew Hope, who had not slept at all the night before and who needed a shave and who was still wearing the clothes he’d lived in all day yesterday; and a uniformed police stenographer, who was operating the recording machine and taking backup shorthand notes and looking essentially bored. Bannister read Howell his rights, confirmed that he understood them, further confirmed that he did not, repeat not, wish a lawyer present, and then began the questioning:

Q: Can you tell me your full name, please?

A: Christopher Leslie Howell.

Q: Where do you live, Mr. Howell?

A: At 2115 Ocean Drive, Whisper Key.

Q: Any apartment number?

A: 2A.

Q: Mr. Howell, earlier today you made a voluntary statement to a Detective Howard Saphier of the Calusa Police Department, is that true?

A: That’s true.

Q: I show you this, and ask if it is a true representation of the statement you made?

A: It is.

Q: Is this your signature at the bottom of the statement?

A: It is.

Q: And is the date alongside your signature the correct date?

A: It is.

Q: Mr. Howell, with your permission, I’d like to go over some of the things you told Detective Saphier. To make sure we’ve got them right.

A: Sure.

Q: You told Detective Saphier, did you not, that on the night of August thirteenth, you drove a rented automobile to so-called Little Asia and ambushed and murdered three Vietnamese men named… Pat, have you got those names, please?

A: (from Ms. Demming) Yes, Mr. Bannister, right here.

Q: Let’s see now. that would be… Ho Dao Bat… and Ngo Long Khai… I’m not sure I’m pronouncing these correctly… and Dang Van Con? Are those the men you say you murdered?

A: Not in that order.

Q: Pardon?

A: Ho was last.

Q: Mr. Howell, perhaps it would be helpful to go over the events of that night chronologically. I’m still talking about August thirteenth, the night these three men were murdered.

A: Where do you want me to start?

Q: You told Detective Saphier that you called the Riverview Marina…

A: Yes.

Q: And identified yourself as Stephen Leeds…

A: Yes.

Q: And spoke to a man named Charles Stubbs…

A: Yes.

Q: At approximately nine o’clock that night.

A: Yes. To tell him I’d be taking the boat out.

Q: Where’d you make this call from?

A: My apartment.

Q: What’d you do then?

A: I waited for Jessie’s call.

Q: By Jessie, do you mean Jessica Leeds?

A: Yes.

Q: What was the nature of her call?

A: She told me it was okay to come on over.

Q: Come on over where?

A: The farm.

Q: Do you mean the Leeds farm?

A: Yes.

Q: What did you do after you received her call?

A: I drove out there.

Q: Why did you go there?

A: To pick up some things.

Q: What things?

A: Jessie’s car, for one. The Maserati.

Q: What else did you pick up?

A: Her husband’s jacket and hat.

Q: Stephen Leeds?

A: Yes.

Q: Anything else?

A: The boat keys. And his wallet.

Q: Whose wallet?

A: Her husband’s.

Q: Did you go into the Leeds house to pick up all these items?

A: Not the car. The car was parked outside.

Q: Why are you smiling, Mr. Howell?

A: Well, the car couldn’t be in the house, could it?

Q: You find that amusing, do you?

A: Yes. That you asked if I had to go in the house for the car.

Q: How about the other items? The jacket and hat, the wallet, the…

A: Yes.

Q: You went into the house to gather those, did you?

A: Yes.

Q: Where were Mr. and Mrs. Leeds while you were doing all this?

A: Jessie was helping me. Her husband was asleep in the bedroom.

Q: Asleep all the while you were in the house?

A: Asleep till sometime the next morning.

Q: Mr. Howell, did you tell Detective Saphier that you knew Mr. Leeds would be asleep because his wife had administered sleeping pills to him?

A: Two pills. In his drink. They were having an after-dinner drink when the movie started. She called me the minute he went off.

Q: Would you know what kind of pills these were? The name of the drug?

A: They were prescription pills. That’s all I know about them.

Q: Which movie are you referring to?

A: A rented movie. They were watching it after dinner.

Q: So Mr. Leeds was asleep when you got there…

A: Yes.

Q: What time was that?

A: About ten o’clock.

Q: Was he asleep when you left the farm?

A: Yes.

Q: How did you leave the farm?

A: In Jessie’s car.

Q: The Maserati.

A: Yes.

Q: You left your car there?

A: In the garage.

Q: What time was it when you left the farm?

A: About ten after ten.

Q: Where did you go then?

A: To the Riverview Marina. On Willowbee Creek.

Q: Why did you go there?

A: To take out the boat. I was wearing his jacket and hat…

Q: Mr. Leeds’s jacket and hat?

A: Yes. I was hoping whoever saw me taking the boat out would think it was him. That was the plan. To have people see me and think it was him. Because I’d called ahead, you see. We’re about the same size, you see. He’s a bit heavier, but basically we’re the same size.

Q: When you say ‘That was the plan’… whose plan do you mean?

A: Jessie’s. And mine. Our plan.

Q: To be mistaken for Stephen Leeds?

A: Yes. That was the whole idea. That was why I went to all the trouble of calling the marina and telling them I’d be taking the boat out, and then wearing his clothes, you know, and dropping his wallet where it was sure to be found. That was all part of the plan.

Q: When did you concoct this plan?

A: Monday morning.

Q: Monday morning? The day of the murders?

A: Yeah. That’s my day off. Monday.

Q: Why are you grinning now, Mr. Howell?

A: I just think it was a good plan to have thought up on the spur of the moment like that.

Q: You’re saying that you sat down with Mrs. Leeds on Monday morning.

A: We were in bed, actually.

Q: I see.

A: Mondays were when we usually got together.

Q: I see. And you figured out…

A: Yeah, all of it. The whole plan. Two birds with one stone.

Q: What do you mean by that?

A: Get the gooks who raped her, and get rid of her husband at the same time.

Q: So you drove to the marina in Mrs. Leeds’s car…

A: Yeah, that was part of it, too. To make sure somebody saw the car.

Q: Wearing Mr. Leeds’s jacket and hat.

A: Yeah.

Q: And you took his boat out…

A: Felicity, yeah. I had the keys, you see.

Q: And went where with it? Where did you take the boat, Mr. Howell?

A: To Kickers. That’s a place just south on the Intercoastal. Just past marker 63, near the south bridge to Whisper. Willowbee is just off 72, it’s a quick run down, especially at night when there’s no traffic on the water. Kickers is where we dropped the rental car that afternoon.

Q: We?

A: Me and Jessie. I rented the car and drove it to Kickers, and then she drove me back to my place.

Q: Why did you leave a rented car at Kickers… is that the correct name? Kickers?

A: Kickers, yeah. To pick up when I got off the boat. Because we didn’t want the Maserati to be seen where those gooks lived.

Q: Is that where you drove in the rented car?

A: Little Asia, yeah.

Q: And what did you do there?

A: I took care of the gooks.

Q: By the gooks, do you mean the men we mentioned earlier? Pat, would you read those names again, please?

A: (from Ms. Demming) Ho Dao Bat, Ngo Long Khai, and Dang Van Con.

A: (from Mr. Howell) Yeah, the three gooks.

Q: What do you mean when you say you took care of them?

A: I stabbed them. And blinded them. And cut off their cocks. Excuse me, miss.

Q: And then what?

A: I dropped the wallet on the floor.

Q: Mr. Leeds’s wallet?

A: Yes.

Q: And then?

A: I drove back to Kickers and left the rental car in the parking lot there, and got back on the boat, and took it back to Willowbee. Then I drove the Maserati out to the farm and went back home in my own car. And that was that.

Q: Why are you grinning again, Mr. Howell?

A: Because it worked out so neat. It would’ve worked out, anyway, if that old gook hadn’t’ve seen me getting in the Olds and driving off. He got the plate wrong, but he wasn’t off by much, and I figured it’d come back to him sooner or later. So I had to go after him, too. Actually, Jessie and I discussed that, and we figured he had to go. Had to be killed. So I did it.

Q: You seem not to have any remorse about killing these people.

A: Well… they were gooks. You know.

Q: By gooks, do you mean Vietnamese?

A: Gooks. Yes.

Q: Is that an expression you learned in Vietnam?

A: Yes. Well, sure.

Q: During the war?

A: Yes.

Q: You served in Vietnam during the war?

A: I was in the Army, yes.

Q: Did you see any combat?

A: I did.

Q: How long were you over there?

A: I got there in time for the Tet Offensive.

Q: I see.

A: Something wrong with that?

Q: No, no.

A: Nothing wrong with a man serving his country.

Q: I was simply wondering… you haven’t expressed any remorse for killing Mr. Bannion, either. Now, certainly, he wasn’t what you’d term…

A: That was different.

Q: Different how?

A: He was there! The man shows up on my fucking. excuse me, miss, I’m sorry. He shows up on my doorstep, flashes his badge, tells me it’s all over, he knows I’m the one who rented that fucking car, excuse me. What was I supposed to do? Let him take me in? Blow the whole thing? We were home free, don’t you see? The gooks were dead and Jessie’s husband was in jail for the murders. She’d get the farm, she’d get everything. It was a terrific plan, I mean it. Sure, a few things went wrong, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good plan. It should’ve worked. I’d have bet my life on that plan.

Q: You did.

A: What?

Q: Mr. Howell, is there anything you’d like to add to what you’ve just told us?

A: No, nothing.

Q: Any corrections you’d like to make?

A: No.

Q: No additions or corrections?

A: No.

Q: That’s it, then. Thank you.

The stenographer snapped off the tape recorder. Captain Decker pressed a button on his desk and a uniformed cop came into the room. He merely nodded to the cop. The cop went over to Howell and said, “Let’s go, mister.” Howell got up from where he was sitting, and then, to no one in particular, said, “It was a good plan,” and went out with the cop.

“You’d better send someone to pick up the woman,” Bannister said.

“Right away,” Decker said, and went to his phone.

Bannister turned to Matthew, a penitent look on his face; he was going to make a good politician.

“What can I say?” he asked, his arms outstretched, his hands palms up, the fingers widespread.

“You can say you’re dropping all charges against my client,” Matthew said.

“Well, of course we are. We’ll start the formal machinery at once, won’t we, Pat?”

“Yes, sir,” Patricia said.

“Appreciate your getting down here so early,” he said, and put his arm around her and gave her shoulder a brief comradely squeeze. “Matthew,” he said, extending his hand, “you’re a good lawyer and a good man. I’ve always known that.”

“Thanks,” Matthew said drily, and shook hands with him.

“Let me know if there’s any problem. Rush.”

“Will do.”

“Talk to you tomorrow, Pat,” he said, and walked out.

Patricia glared at his retreating back.

“I’ll walk you down,” she said to Matthew.

The sun had been up for almost half an hour.

Everything outside was wet with early-morning dew.

Everything smelled so sweet and clean and fresh.

Everything looked so very Florida.

“Want to have breakfast with me?” Patricia asked.

He looked at her.

“My painters are gone,” she said. “I’ll open some champagne. Celebrate your victory.”

He looked at her a moment longer.

Then he said, “Thanks, but I’m exhausted. Some other time, okay?”

“Sure,” she said. “See ya.”

He watched her as she walked toward the parking lot behind the building. Confident swing to her hips, long stride, blond hair reflecting sunlight… Will there really be some other time, Matthew?

Will we ever know each other better?

There was a pay phone on the corner.

He dialed Mai Chim’s number from memory. She answered on the fifth ring.

“Hello?” she said.

The singsong voice, fuzzy with sleep now.

“Want to have breakfast with me?” he asked.