Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

Warren looked down at the torn and mutilated body in the red leather boots, a garland of bloodred orchids around her neck. An instant of pain knifed his eyes, but that was all. It came, and it was gone, and he was once again a cop who had seen this before, had seen worse before.

Matthew had never seen anything like it in his life.

Matthew was bent over double, vomiting into the dirt road.

The Q and A took place in Burgess Diehl’s room at Good Samaritan Hospital. Present with the stenographer and Diehl were State Attorney Skye Bannister, Assistant State Attorney Arthur Haggerty, Detective Morris Bloom of the Calusa PD, Detective Ralph Sears of the Calusa Sheriff’s Department, and Attorney Matthew Hope.

“Roll it,” Haggerty said to the stenographer.

Date, time, place, people present, Haggerty read the routine information into the microphone. When he read Diehl the Miranda warnings, Diehl said, “I don’t need no lawyer.”

“And do you understand that even if you don’t have a lawyer present, you still have the right to stop answering questions at any time?”

“I do.”

“And you also have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to a lawyer, if you decide later on you want to talk to one. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Because this is America,” Skye Bannister said.

“Very well then,” Haggerty said. “Mr. Diehl, before I begin the questioning, is there anything you’d like to tell us about what happened? If you’d like to tell us in your own words... ”

And he told them.

I knew about the movie, of course, knew she was working on a movie. I just didn’t know what kind of movie.

A year and a half ago, must’ve been, she worked with this woman before. The woman was doing some kind of school movie about child abuse, and Meg was working at a day-care center at the time, she’s very good with children, Meg. The good Lord never saw fit for us to have our own children, but she gave her heart to these other children day in and day out. That’s where she met this woman for the first time. When they were doing scenes at the day-care center.

So she told me, Meg did, that this woman was doing another educational movie, and she wanted her to help out with the costumes on it, Meg’s good with a needle and thread, too. Said it would only be from the end of September till early in November sometime, be a good opportunity to earn a few extra pennies.

So I said yes.

I mean, she’d never lied to me ever, she’d never withheld things from me ever.

But then I found the checks.

Four checks. Each for fifteen hundred dollars. The first one dated October third, the last one dated October twenty-fourth. She hadn’t deposited them yet, I guess she was still trying to figure out where she could deposit them, how she could keep all this money from me. They were in the top drawer of her bureau, in back, under her panties. I forget what I was looking for in her drawer where she kept her panties.

Where are you getting this kind of money, I asked her, what are you doing to earn this kind of money? For Services, the checks read, what kind of services, I asked her, where’d you get these, I asked her, what’re these checks for? What does For Services mean?

And she said I shouldn’t be going through her drawers, anyway, she said her drawers were private. So I said why is this Prudent Company paying you fifteen hundred dollars a week for services? She said I knew she was working for this woman who was making an educational movie, I’ve been doing costumes for her, I told you all about it. I’m doing wardrobe for her. That’s why I’m gone five days a week, I’ve been doing wardrobe on this movie, you never listen when I tell you anything, you’re so busy with your orchids all the time.

I said that seems like a lot of money for stitching and sewing.

She said well, movies pay a lot of money, movies are a big business.

I said I wanted to see them making this movie she was working on, and she said no, you can’t do that, it’s a closed set. I didn’t know what that meant, a closed set. She told me the director of the movie, the woman who was paying her to make the costumes, was a very temperamental lady who didn’t like anyone hanging around while she was working, that was what a closed set meant. She kissed me then and told me not to worry, they’d be finished shooting on the fifth of November, which was only a bit more than a week away, and then she’d be home every day, and we’d have all this extra spending money.

The night she kissed me, I didn’t know where her mouth had been.

On Halloween night — this was four days later, four days after we’d talked about her doing costumes — she told me that they had to shoot this scene at night, it was a big costume party scene, she had to be there at night. I said sure, fine. But I followed her. She drove the VW out to Fatback Key, me behind in the van, keeping a safe distance behind her, I wanted to see what she was doing to earn fifteen hundred dollars a week.

I could have killed them all that very minute, the things I spied that night. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, that ye not be partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” And I beheld another beast coming out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. I could have killed them all. Standing outside there in the dark, looking in at them, spying what they were doing, I could have killed them all, God forgive me.

And yet...

Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

But...

The false prophet knew.

The woman, you see. The blonde woman telling them what to do. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast. She knew.

I followed her home that night.

Didn’t even know her name at the time.

Prudence Ann Markham.

Didn’t even know her name.

That was the first time I followed her.

They finished the movie on the fifth day of November, same as Meg had told me they would. Nothing to worry about anymore, she said. She’d be home every day now, no more going out to stitch and sew her costumes , oh no, little Puss in Boots safe at home now.

I was still following Prudence Ann Markham.

Because I figured...

This is a movie .

This is something people will see , Meg naked and unashamed, doing vile things with the beast and the others, the three other women and the young boy. I didn’t know yet what I was going to do about Meg, had no plans for her yet, but I knew I had to get that movie, had to keep people from seeing that movie, had to make sure nobody saw what I didn’t want them to see, what it was wrong for them to see, what the good Lord had never intended anyone to see, had to get that movie, destroy that movie, burn that movie.

She was working on it at a studio out on Rancher Road. Drove to the storage bin each night, took cans of film out of it, carried them with her to the studio, drove back to the bin again when she was finished there each night. Had a key to the storage bin.

I figured I had to get that key.

Had to get that key to get the movie.

Destroy the movie.

Followed her each night from the storage place to her house on Pompano Way. Followed her. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power to the beast. Had to destroy the movie. Had to destroy the dragon responsible for the movie, responsible for what Meg had become.