Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

“Because if we can nail down these times, we’re home free regarding the burglary. Either that, or we have to find the burglar. Maybe if we find the burglar, we also find the killer.”

“We’re not obliged to find the killer,” Matthew said.

“But it sure wouldn’t hurt,” Warren said. “Let me ask around downtown. I’ve got a few friends in the police department who enjoy schmoozing with a former big-city cop. Maybe I can come up with some other unsolved burglaries, same MO, who knows? It’s worth a shot. Who’ll be talking to these two witnesses? You or me?”

“I planned to drop in on Mrs. Mason later this afternoon.”

“Maybe I’ll have something on what she could’ve seen or not seen by then. I’ll check the papers, find out what the weather was like, what kind of moon there was, anything that might have affected visibility. I may even run over to the house tonight, see if there’s a streetlamp, or floods in the backyard, or a light over that kitchen door. Be nice if we could knock out her identification that way, wouldn’t it?”

“There’s something you should ask Mrs. Markham’s crew when you talk to them,” Matthew said.

“What’s that?”

“What they were working on. And where she stored the film.”

“Okay, let me get started,” Warren said, and rose suddenly, unfolding the long length of his body from the chair. He extended his hand. “Let’s keep in touch, Mr. Hope,” he said, and smiled. “It’s gonna be nice working with you.”

They shook hands.

“Call me Matthew,” Matthew said.

“And you call me Warren,” Warren said.

Christmas in Florida never felt right to Matthew. They decked out Main Street in holly and pine, and hung a big Santa Claus in a sleigh over the three-way intersection at the Cow Crossing — which actually had been a cow crossing back when the town was incorporated — but without snow it didn’t mean a damn. He realized the very first Christmas was celebrated in a climate not too much different from Florida’s, but to his way of thinking Christ should have been born at the North Pole. Today was the fourth day of December, and Velma Mason’s house was already decorated for Christmas. Wreaths in the windows facing the street, lights strung in the Norfolk pine on the front lawn, little plastic Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer sitting alongside a small hibiscus bush. She answered the doorbell on his third ring, stood just inside the closed screen door, peering out at him.

“Mrs. Mason?” he said.

“Yes?”

Woman in her late sixties, he guessed, wearing eyeglasses, a flowered housedress, and sandals. She looked startled. Faded blue eyes opening wide behind the thick-lensed glasses, the better to see you, my dear. Behind her, a Christmas tree winked its lights near a screened lanai at the back of the house, and Matthew heard a television set blaring a game show at four in the afternoon.

“My name is Matthew Hope,” he said. “I’m the attorney defending your neighbor.”

“Yes?”

Still defensive. Screen door closed. Arms folded across her chest now. Keep the big bad lawyer out of the house.

“I’ve read the statement you made to the police—”

“Listen,” she said, “have you got some kind of identification?”

Matthew took out his wallet, opened it, and extended his card to the closed screen door. Mrs. Mason opened the door, took the card, and squinted at it. On the unseen television set inside the house, someone seemed to have won six thousand dollars.

“All right to come in and ask you a few questions?” he said.

“I guess,” she said, and opened the screen door wider. She did not give him back his card.

He followed her into the house. It smelled of Florida mildew, old age, and stale cigarette smoke. The Christmas tree near the lanai looked pathetically scrawny and severely underdressed. Rattan furniture. Soiled throw pillows. Beyond the lanai, another house in the development was scarcely hidden by bougainvillea. Mrs. Mason looked at the television screen, her back to him, and then turned off the set.

Silence.

“Well, have a seat,” she said, managing to sound reluctant, suspicious, and rude, all at the same time.

He sat.

“I want you to know right off,” she said, “that I think Carlton killed her. I also want you to know that what I told the police is the absolute truth.” She hesitated, and then said, “I liked Prue a lot.” She took a package of cigarettes from the pocket of her dress, shook one loose, lighted it — nicotine-stained fingers, Matthew noticed — and let out a stream of smoke. “So what do you want to know?” she said. “I’m not about to go back on anything I told the police, if that’s why you’re here. I can never understand why lawyers take on cases defending murderers, anyway,” she said, and shook her head.

“Well,” Matthew said, “everyone’s entitled to a fair trial with a proper defense. Which is why we have to ask these questions, even though you’ve already answered most of them.”

“Yes, well, let’s just get it over with,” she said, “I don’t want to miss any of my shows.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be as brief as possible,” Matthew said, and immediately opened his briefcase and took out his tape recorder. In what he felt was a seamless introduction, he said, “I know you’re familiar with these gadgets,” and smiled, and started the tape going, and immediately said, “Mrs. Mason, on the night of the burglary at the Markham house, did you—”

“There wasn’t any burglary,” she said.

“Well, a burglary was reported to the police,” Matthew said. “Did you happen to—”

“That doesn’t make it a burglary,” she said, “it being reported.”

“Did you talk to any policemen that night?”

“No, I did not.”

Defiantly. Aiming her words straight at the recorder, chin jutting. Good, he thought.

“A detective named Morris Bloom didn’t interview you that night, did he?”

“No, he did not.”

“So you didn’t have an opportunity to discuss what you’d seen until much later, is that right?”

“Not until the night of the murder.”

An assertive nod. Another puff on the cigarette.

“Were you questioned here at the house?”

“Well, first , yes. Then I went downtown with Detective Bloom, and he taped what I’d already told him here.”

“Did you volunteer information about what you’d seen on the night of the burglary?”

“No, Detective Bloom asked me about it. And it wasn’t a burglary.”

“He knew a burglary — or whatever you choose to call it — had taken place, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“And asked you if you’d seen or heard anything that night?”

“Yes.”

“Before that — before Mr. Bloom asked you about it — had you discussed what you’d seen with anyone else?”

“No. I knew there’d been some kind of fuss next door, but I supposed Carlton had straightened it out with the police who came around. I mean, explaining to them it was him breaking into his own house.”