Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

“You didn’t see clothes or a knife, did you?”

“No. I just saw him burying something. But when they came to dig it up—”

“But you didn’t actually see Mr. Markham burying clothes , did you? Or a knife?”

“I saw him digging a hole in the flower bed, and putting something in it, and shoveling dirt back over it, and then putting the flowers back in place on top. That’s what I saw.”

“Not bloody clothing or a bloody knife.”

“That’s what they found in that hole, isn’t it? So that’s what Carlton had to be burying.”

“Did you at any time clearly see what he was burying?”

“No sir.”

“Whatever he buried — where was it while he was digging the hole?”

“On the ground.”

“You saw it on the ground?”

“No sir, I didn’t see it. His back was to me, it must’ve been at his feet there on the ground. The clothes and the knife. He didn’t go back into the house for it, so it had to be on the ground.”

“You didn’t see him going back into the house?”

“Not specifically, no.”

“What do you mean by ‘specifically’?”

“I mean I didn’t see him actually going back into the house. But he was headed for the front door. Later on. When he was finished out there.”

“You said a moment ago that his back was to you while he was digging.”

“Yessir.”

“Then you didn’t see his face.”

“Not while he was digging.”

“What did he do when he finished digging?”

“Picked up this stuff on the ground and dropped it in the hole.”

“Was his back still to you? When he picked up the stuff on the ground?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And when he dropped it in the hole, was his back still to you?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Then you didn’t see what he dropped into the hole—”

“I already told you that.”

“And you didn’t see his face, either.”

“Not then.”

“Did you see his face when he was shoveling the earth back? Or when he was replacing the flowers?”

“No, not then neither.”

“When did you see his face, Mr. Raddison?”

“When he was leaving the yard.”

“You saw his face as he was leaving.”

“Yes. Turned toward me for a minute, and I saw his face.”

“For a minute?”

“Yessir.”

“Exactly a minute?”

“Well, a minute, more or less.”

“Which was it, would you say now? More or less?”

“I didn’t time it.”

“Could it have been less than a minute?”

“It could’ve, I really can’t say. He turned away from the flower bed and started walking toward the side of the house—”

“Going where?”

“Well, I don’t know where. I guess back to bed.”

“Walking toward the side of the house, you say?”

“Yes, the space between our two houses.”

“Leading toward the street?”

“Well, he could’ve got to the street that way. But he could’ve got to the front door of his house, too.”

“Did he have the shovel with him? Or the spade?”

“He did.”

“But you don’t know, do you, whether this man you saw — let me rephrase that. When this man finished digging, did you see him enter the Markham house?”

“No, I didn’t. He passed out of my line of vision. When he started walking between the houses.”

“Toward the street.”

“Or the front door.”

“Well, did you hear a door opening or closing?”

“No, I didn’t. I went back to bed.”

“Were you in bed when Detective Sears came to talk to you?”

“I was.”

“Asleep?”

“Asleep, yes. I pee, then I go right back to sleep.”

“Didn’t you find it strange, though? Mr. Markham digging in the flower bed at that hour?”

“I thought it was a little peculiar, yes. But they were peculiar people, anyway, you know. Man runs a clock shop, woman makes movies.” Raddison raised his eyebrows. “Besides, at the time, I didn’t know she’d been killed. I didn’t learn that till Detective Sears got here.”

“And you felt it important to tell him what you’d seen in the Markham backyard.”

“Well, sure. Wouldn’t you think it was important? Man’s wife is stabbed to death, and then you see him burying clothes and a knife? I mean, that’s—”

“But you didn’t see what he was burying.”

“Well, that’s what they dug up.”

“A few minutes ago, Mr. Raddison, you said you thought Mr. Markham might have gone back to bed after he finished whatever he was doing there in the backyard. Do you—”

“He wasn’t out there taking a leak, that’s for sure. He was burying the clothes and the knife.”

“But do you have any reason to believe he’d been in bed before he started the digging? He wasn’t wearing pajamas, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t wearing pajamas.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Dark clothes. Pants and some kind of windbreaker, blue or black, but dark anyway.”

“Was he wearing a hat?”

“No sir, no hat.”

“Did you see his hair?”

“Yessir.”

“What color was it?”

“Yellow as corn,” Raddison said, and Matthew’s heart sank.

He could not concentrate on what Susan was saying.

They were sitting out by the pool of what used to be the house he shared with her, the house he was in fact sharing with her more and more frequently these days, sipping martinis and watching the tail end of a glorious sunset, and she was telling him that Joanna would be coming home from school on the nineteenth, which was less than two weeks away, and they had to figure out what they were going to tell her about themselves because Joanna was a smart cookie who would realize in an instant that these weren’t the same two lively antagonists she’d left back in September when she’d gone off to school.

He was thinking there were too many things missing in this case.

He was wondering how the state attorney planned to account for all those missing things.

“The trouble, of course,” Susan was saying, “is that until we know what the hell we’re doing, how can we explain it to Joanna? Do you know what we’re doing, Matthew?”

“I know what I wish we were doing,” he said.

“That isn’t true,” she said, and looked him dead in the eye. Full pouting mouth that gave the impression of a sullen, spoiled beauty, brown hair worn sleek and long again after her experiment with a wedge cut, dark eyes somber in a pale oval face, studying him now. “You’re a million miles away, aren’t you?” she said. She put her hand on his arm. “Tell me.”

“No, no,” he said. “Let’s figure out the Joanna thing first, I know you—”

“We’ve got eleven days before she gets here. What’s bothering you, Matthew?”

“Too many things missing,” he said, and shook his head.

“Are you talking about the Markham case?”

“Yes.”

“What’s missing?”

“Do you ever go anyplace without a handbag?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Exercise class. I throw my wallet in the glove compartment.”

“Anyplace else?”

“Yes. The beach. Same thing.”

“But around town—”

“I carry a bag. Why?”

“Why isn’t the state attorney concerned about that missing handbag?”

“What missing—”

“They find a woman dead in the middle of nowhere, fourteen stab and slash wounds. Her car is parked twelve feet from where she’s lying dead on the gravel. The car is locked, the police have to break into it. Her handbag isn’t in the car. It isn’t in the studio, either. So where is it?”