Ed McBain: The House That Jack Built

It was raining hard again.

The dashboard clock read five minutes to twelve.

She checked her lipstick in the mirror. Freshened it. Blotted it. Tossed the Kleenex into the little plastic trash container.

Three minutes to twelve.

The Ford had found a space. The engine died.

She lighted a cigarette, sat smoking it, watching the clock.

Ground-level office door opening. Black umbrella and white skirts, little white cap, white pantyhose, flat white rubber-soled shoes. Running off into the rain. Little red Toyota. Flurry of skirts, car door slamming behind her. Engine starting. Car moving off. Gone.

Leona put out her cigarette.

The clock read five minutes past noon.

She leaned over the backseat for her umbrella, opened the door and the umbrella almost simultaneously, and stepped out into the rain, skirt riding high on her thighs, long legs flashing.

As she walked rapidly toward the building, she could feel the black man’s eyes on her back.

“Mr. Hope?”

“Yes, Cindy?”

“It’s your wife… your former wife… on six.”

“Thank you. Any luck on those calls?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep trying.”

“I’m down to Magnolia.”

“What?”

“The Magnolia Hotel.”

“Oh. Good. Thank you.”

He stabbed at the 6-button in the base of his phone.

“Hello, Susan,” he said.

“Matthew, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks. And you?”

“Just fine. Will you be going to the Poseidon Ball this Saturday night?”

Good old Susan. Straight for the jugular.

“Why?” he said. “You want to tie my tie for me?”

“Thanks, I did that for too many years,” Susan said.

“Or fasten my cufflinks?”

“That, too,” she said.

“Why did you want to know, honey?”

“Did you just call me ‘honey’?”

“No, you just called me , honey.”

“Matthew…”

Warningly. No time for nonsense. Important matters on her mind.

“Yes, honey, I called you ‘honey,’ ” he said. “Force of habit. Forgive me.”

“Well, please don’t call me ‘honey’ at the ball, okay?”

“Wait, don’t tell me,” he said. “You’ll be there with a very old cockroach and you don’t want me to indicate by word or gesture that you and I ever shared the joys of…”

“Close but no cigar,” Susan said. “He’s twenty-three years old and he…”

“Susan, shame on you.”

“Matthew, please don’t let’s…”

“Twenty- three ?”

“Matthew…”

“Sorry. But twenty- three ?”

“Yes, and a linebacker for the Tampa Bucs.”

“Gee.”

“Yes. He’s six feet four inches tall, Matthew…”

“Golly.”

“And he weighs two hundred and forty pounds…”

“Well, sure, a linebacker.”

“And he’s very very jealous.”

“Ah.”

“Which is why I called. I don’t want any trouble Saturday night, Matthew…”

“Oh, neither do I !”

“So please don’t ask me to dance…”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Or chat with me…”

“Or sit with you, or even look at you. Got it, Susan.”

“Matthew, this is not a joke. I’m truly concerned for your well-being.”

“Then maybe I’ll just stay home.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to suggest…”

“Skip the ball entirely.”

“Matthew…”

“Stay home and sip martinis, stare out at the rain. Maybe you could join me. We could try out my new waterbed.”

“You didn’t really buy a waterbed, did you?”

“Come find out, Susan.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said, and hung up.

“I love you, too,” he said to the dead phone, and put it back on the cradle. It buzzed while his hand was still on the receiver. He picked up again.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Summerville on five,” Cynthia said.

“For me ?”

“That’s who she asked for.”

“All right, I’ll take it.”

He punched the 5-button.

“Hello, Leona.”

“Matthew, I’m sorry to bother you, I know you must be busy…”

“Not at all. What is it?”

“I was wondering if I could see you later today.”

There was a long silence on the line.

“Matthew?”

“Yes. What’s wrong, Leona?”

“I’d rather not discuss it on the phone. I don’t want to come to the office, either. I don’t want Frank to know about this.”

“What is it, Leona?”

He knew what it was. You don’t get a call from a woman you’ve known all these years, your partner’s wife, no less, asking to see you but not at the office because she didn’t want her husband to know about the meeting. Divorce was what it was.

“Can you meet me at Marina Lou’s?” she said.

“Sure.”

“Five o’clock?”

“Sure.”

“We’ll talk then.”

“All right, Leona.”

“Thank you, Matthew,” she said, and hung up.

He put the receiver back on the cradle.

He suddenly felt like crying.

The phone buzzed again.

He picked up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Hope, this is Andrew.”

“Yes, Andrew.”

“We’ve got him, Mr. Hope.”

The problem was manifold.

There was no way Matthew could go to the police with this. He could not call Morris Bloom to say he had a man in black staying at a motel here in Calusa, which was no crime, and this man in black had been watching the Parrish house most of the day Saturday, which was also no crime, and this man in black might be the man who’d run away from the Parrish house on the morning of the murder — which was also no crime unless this man in black had actually committed the murder before taking his little run up the beach.

Ho-ho-ho, Bloom would say.

So Matthew called Warren’s office instead, and got his answering machine, and told the machine they’d located Arthur Nelson Hurley, and asked Warren to get back to him as soon as possible, the idea being that he and Warren — an experienced law-enforcement officer — would together visit the motel, thereby lessening the risk inherent in a confrontation with a possible murderer. Warren carried a pistol and he knew how to use it, witness the dead raccoon.

By two-fifteen, Matthew began to get itchy.

He did not want to lose Hurley.

Well, the possibility still existed that he might try breaking into the Parrish house, and they’d get him that way, violation of Section 810.08, Trespass in Structure or Conveyance, a second-degree misdemeanor. In which case Bloom could ask him all sorts of questions, including where he’d been at SEVEN a.m. on the morning of January thirtieth.

But suppose Hurley never went back to that house again. Suppose he’d tipped to the fact that the house was under surveillance…

Well, they still had his address in St. Petersburg, the address supplied by Motor Vehicles. So they could track him down there, Matthew guessed, unless the man was a murderer who might be thinking of leaving the country the day after tomorrow.

Matthew did not want to go to that motel alone.

But he did.

The motel called itself the Calais Beach Castle, though it was twelve miles from the nearest beach.

Despite the continuing rain, the No Vacancy sign was on out front; snowbirds never looked at the weather reports for Florida, they only read them for Michigan or Indiana or Illinois or Ohio or Toronto. If it was snowing up there, they automatically figured the sun was shining down here. There were a dozen or so occupied units in the motel, all set back from the road, all with cars parked in front of them, all with window air-conditioners and little wooden front stoops. A tiny pool sat forlornly in the rain, an inflated rubber dragon floating in it.