Ed McBain - Goldilocks

I looked at her.

She was seventeen years old, another child of divorce, mother in Connecticut, father in New York — or was it the other way around? Her parents knew where she was, she’d said, and thrown her cigarette over the side as abruptly as her parents had thrown her over the side — or so she must have thought or felt. “They know where I am, yes,” the cigarette hissing into the water with the sibilance of the final “yes,” the silence echoing with the unspoken corollary, “And don’t give a damn.”

I wanted to ask her... I wanted to say... I wanted to talk about the divorce of her parents. I wanted to know how she’d reacted — when had it been, how old were you, Lisa, which of your parents asked for the divorce, was there another woman involved? Do you ever see your parents, Lisa, do you ever see your father ? What kind of person is he, do you love him and respect him, do you love him? Have you forgiven him for leaving? Will you ever? I looked into her eyes and into a future I could scarcely imagine, no less hope to comprehend. My future. My daughter’s.

“Is Michael allowed visitors?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

“Where is he now?”

“They’re holding him at the police station. He probably won’t be moved across the street till tomorrow morning.”

“But he’s in jail, you said.”

“Yes. At the police station. They have cells there.”

“I wonder...”

“Yes, Lisa?”

“What I should do now? I mean... where should I go?”

The dockmaster’s office at Pirate’s Cove was just adjacent to the motel office, the pair of white entrance doors set side by side in an otherwise red-shingled structure. I knocked on the door, got no answer, tried the knob, and found the door locked. I went into the motel office, and asked the woman behind the desk there where I could find the dockmaster. She said he was outside someplace. I went outside again, circled the building, and saw a grizzled old man bent over a bed of geraniums, turning the sandy earth around them with a trowel. He was wearing a battered, soiled yachting cap tilted low over one eye, a striped T-shirt, blue jeans, and scuffed topsiders.

“Excuse me, sir?” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he said, but did not look up from the flowerbed.

“I’m looking for the dockmaster,” I said.

“You’ve found him,” he said.

“I’m Matthew Hope.”

“Donald Wicherly,” he said, and rose abruptly. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to ask you some questions about a phone call you took last night.”

“Why?” he said. His eyes were the color of the sky behind him, squinched now and studying me suspiciously. The hand holding the trowel was on his hip, he stood in angular expectation, a tall, lean, weathered man wanting to know why I had questions, and probably wondering besides why he should answer them.

“I’m an attorney,” I told him. “I’m here about Michael Purchase.”

“You’re Michael’s attorney?”

“Yes. Well, actually, I’m his father’s attorney.”

“Which is it then? Michael’s attorney or his father’s?”

“His father’s. But I’m here on Michael’s behalf.”

“With Michael’s knowledge or without it?”

“He knows I’m here,” I said. I was lying, but I wanted information, and I was beginning to resent this examination before trial. “Michael got a phone call last night,” I said. “About eleven-thirty. You took the call.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Did you take the call?”

“I took it.”

“Where would that have been?”

“In the office.”

“Who called him?”

“I don’t know. The party didn’t identify herself.”

“It was a woman?”

“A woman, yes.”

“Could you make a guess at her age?”

“Well, no, sir, I don’t think I could.”

“Can you tell me what she said?”

“She asked if this was Pirate’s Cove, and I said it was. She said could she please speak to Michael Purchase? I told her he was down on the boat, and I’d have to go fetch him. She said would I do that please, and I went down to get him.”

“Then what?”

“He came up to the office with me, and talked to her on the phone.”

“Did you hear the conversation?”

“Only the tail end of it. I’d gone back to my apartment for something I wanted to staple on the bulletin board. He was still talking when I came into the office again.”

“What did you hear?”

“He said ‘I’ll be right there,’ then he said ‘Good-bye,’ and hung up.”

“You didn’t hear him mention anyone’s name?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

“Did he say anything to you after he hung up?”

“He said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Wicherly.’”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He didn’t say where he was going, did he?”

“No, but I’d guess he was going to where he told that woman he’d be going.” He paused. He looked into my eyes. “According to what I heard on the radio about what he’s supposed to have done, why then he’d have gone straight to the house on Jacaranda to kill the three of them. That’s where he’d have gone, and that’s what he’d have done.” He shook his head. “But I’ll tell you, Mr. Hope, I find that mighty hard to believe. I just don’t know any boy nicer than Michael Purchase, that’s the truth. His parents got divorced when he was just twelve, you know... well, I guess you know that, you’re his father’s attorney.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“That ain’t an easy thing for a young boy. We had a long talk about it one night. Told me he was finally coming through it, after all these years. So you see, when I hear on the radio he killed his father’s wife and his two sisters... those girls were his sisters , Mr. Hope, there was his father’s blood in them and in Michael both, the same blood. Whenever he talked about them, they were his sisters, never mind half sisters. His sisters this, his sisters that, he could have been talking about his full sister, that’s all a lot of crap, anyway, isn’t it? It’s how you feel about somebody that counts. He loved those little girls. And you don’t do what the radio says he done if you love somebody. You just don’t.”

But he said he did, I reminded myself.

From a phone booth in the marina restaurant, I called Ehrenberg and told him I’d like to talk to Michael Purchase as soon as possible. He said the boy was still being processed and asked if I could make it a little later in the afternoon.

“What do you mean by ‘processed’?” I said.

“Putting him through the booking facility. Photographing him, printing him, taking hair clippings, blood samples — we’re allowed to do that, counselor, he’s been charged with Murder One. We’ll be sending everything up to the state lab in Tallahassee. I don’t know how long it’ll take for them to compare the boy’s hair with what we vacuumed off the woman and the two girls. Might be nothing there at all, who knows? I’m betting the blood on his clothes is theirs, though.” He sounded glum. He paused, and then said, “What did you think of his statement?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Neither do I.”

“When can I see him?”

“Can you give us till four-thirty?”

“I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up. I took another dime from my pocket, inserted it into the coin slot, and dialed Aggie’s number. She was breathless when she answered the phone.

“I was on the beach,” she said. “I came running up to the house. Where are you, Matt?”

“The restaurant at Pirate’s Cove. Are you still alone?”