James Hall - Miami Noir

“She asked me to do it... in the clearest way one could, without saying it right out.”

“In bed, was it?”

“In bed. Her bed. I have no evidence for that. But if I were to say she had done so, even now, would the police not at least speak to her?”

“Cops aren’t that eager to open settled cases from 1962.”

“But there was scandal and she’d become respectable again. And she might think the police would care. My impression was that she was scared that I’d appeared in her building.”

“Okay. Let’s say you’re right. She should’ve avoided you. Instead, what did she do?”

“She wanted to get together, she said. I agreed to see her, but said I had a lot of work.” He laughs his dry laugh. “So we made the date for a week from then. I was to come to her place, have a drink, then maybe we’d go out to dinner. I wanted a week to think. What would she do with the loose end? She’d be looking for a way to kill me, I felt. She had to. I considered running, but she would be able to find me now. People can’t disappear as easily they used to. So I put on my jacket and tie, and left my dog with plenty of food and water and the door ajar in case I didn’t come back, and went to see her.”

“Did you take your gun?” I gesture at it.

“No, I didn’t own it then. When I got there I was scared. She offered me a cigarette, but I don’t smoke. Offered me a drink, a martini, which I accepted, but didn’t drink, just lifted it to my lips and put it down. My dog, Archie, has quite a few ailments. I had a dog tranquilizer with me to put in her drink, but I didn’t get a chance. Her eyes were on me all the time. Intent.” He sighs. “I was raised to think of women as emotional creatures.”

“Creatures?”

“Weren’t you? Soft, dependent, lacking calculation. Of course, that’s a mistake we make about many other creatures too, underestimating them. In any case, believe me, she was rational, detached, watchful. She said she’d thought about me, a lot. That she’d been alone a long time. And she invited me into the bedroom. Perhaps I was supposed to be woozy. I know I was shaky, anyway, following her in.”

“My God,” I say. “That bedroom.”

“She lay back on the bed the same way she had when—” He pauses, clears his throat. “And I sat beside her and leaned forward and I put the pillow over her face.”

“That’s why you stole the pillowcase.”

He nods. “She died unexpectedly fast. I was thinking I would give her an empty injection, just put some air into her vein and cause an embolism.”

“You had a hypodermic on you?”

“I have a whole kit. You know, you can buy anything in Miami. But she just stopped breathing. She must have had a heart attack — perhaps the shock?”

“She was old.”

“And she smoked,” he says. “She may have had heart disease. I figured nobody pays attention to the death of an old lady in her own bed. I took off her shoes, and wiped them, and set them under the bed. I wanted it to look like she’d felt ill and had to lie down and then died. I cleaned up the glasses, dried them, put them away. I have them now — I got them from the kitchen. I believe I have washed them half a dozen times. Interestingly, among her liquor there was a bottle with a dropper, hand-labelled Bitters . I don’t know what was in it. Maybe it was bitters, maybe something else. I moved it to the kitchen cabinet, and later threw it out, then realized I should have kept it, had it tested if I needed to prove self-defense. I left her one cigarette butt in the ashtray. I wiped whatever I thought I’d touched. But I was fairly sure we’d be in there to do the estate clean-up and I’d handle a lot of things and so my fingerprints wouldn’t mean anything. I’m not going back to jail!” He shrieks this last.

“I understand,” I say, soothingly. “How did you know Alex would get the estate job?”

“Oh,” he says, “Alex left cards when we were there before — at the desk and by the mailboxes and so on. So I didn’t think anyone would find it odd that Helena had picked one up and had it in her desk, where she had other business cards. The daughter saw it and called. It was a gamble, but a good one. I left feeling fairly confident and calm. It was only afterwards that I started to doubt myself and worry about little things. I couldn’t have taken the pillowcase. That would have drawn attention. But later I kept thinking about it — forensics people can pick up tiny fibers, hairs. That day we were there, I never could get into the bedroom alone till after Jeff and Hank carted off the furniture, and by then Sharon had packed up the bedclothes. I am sorry I had to steal from her.”

“What’d you do with the pillowcases?”

“I burned them both. I didn’t know which one was which.”

“And the rest of the stuff you took?”

“In my van. I was going to put it in a dumpster, but I kept worrying it would be found.”

“Sharon was going to give it to abused women.”

He looks somewhat ashamed.

“Did you touch the dressing table?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. But afterwards I wasn’t sure.”

“So on Lincoln Road you touched it and you let the dog hop up there?” He nods. “Did you touch the portrait?”

“I don’t recall. There were a number of pictures in the living room that she showed me — her daughter and her grandchildren. I think it was there. I don’t think I touched it. Did I?”

I say, “Lucite does hold prints. But I had already cleaned it myself when I got it home. Here — look at it. You’re safe.”

He takes it, holding it between both palms, and I lift his pistol off the chair arm and put it on the floor beside me.

“So there’s no evidence,” he says.

“Just what’s in your head.”

“What are you going to do?”

I shake my head. “Don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t have hurt you, Ray,” he says. “Tonight, I didn’t even think you’d be here.”

“But you brought the gun. Where’d you get it?”

“In my neighborhood. I bought it from a sad woman, a... prostitute. I said I wanted it to defend myself. I just thought if the police were to surprise me — if I had no warning — I could use it on myself. Or wave it at them and they’d shoot me. I’m not going back to jail.” He says it calmly this time.

“Miami,” I say. “This place is full of killers. Guys who work on your car may have been in death squads in Peru, dictators own steak houses, drug kingpins become developers. I can’t fix every little thing. Go home. I know you did it, and you know I know, but there’s not a bit of evidence left, I promise you. She’s ash and her things are scattered, and scattering further every day.”

He uses his shirttails to wipe off the picture frame and hands it back to me. I clasp it. Her eyes smile at me in the lamplight.

“Is that how she looked when you knew her?”

“She’s a little younger, but yes.”

“It’s driving you nuts,” I say, “isn’t it?”

“What is?” he says, but he knows.

“The shred of a shadow of a glimpse of a chance that she might have been innocent. That the first story was true, the one she told, with Dorsett the killer and bully and you the rescuer. The one you went to jail on.”

He says, “I’m sure as one can be.”

“It’s just too bad you have a conscience.”

He blinks at me. “She didn’t,” he says. And sighs. He picks up his flashlight and nods to me and leaves. I bolt the door after him. On close inspection, his gun’s in even worse shape than I thought. I put it into a bag. I’ll drop it out to sea. I listen to the sound the palmettos make chattering against my windows and treat myself to a cigarette.