Ed McBain - Goldilocks

“You weren’t here, Betty. Your daughter tried to call you from New York. She got no answer. Where were you?”

“If the police have any further—”

“Never mind the police! Your son is sitting downtown in a goddamn jail cell, and he’s confessed to murder, and I want to know where you were Sunday night. Was it you who called Michael at the marina?”

“No. Called him? What are you talking about?”

“Did you ask him to meet you at Jamie’s house? Were you at Jamie’s house Sunday night? Where were you, Betty?”

“Here,” she said. Her lips were beginning to tremble. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. “Here,” she said again.

“Okay,” I said, “have it your way. I’m going to tell Ehrenberg you lied to him. I’m going to tell him your daughter tried to phone you Sunday night and got no answer. I’m going to ask him to find out just where the hell you were, because it might have been on Sabal Shores, killing—”

“She was with me .”

I turned abruptly. One of the doors at the far end of the room was open now. The woman who stood in the doorframe was perhaps forty years old, a tall, wide-shouldered redhead, her face sprinkled with freckles, her arms folded over ample breasts, thick legs showing beneath the hem of a baby doll nightgown.

Betty rose from where she was sitting, her hand outstretched as though to physically push the woman back beyond that open door fifteen feet across the room. “Jackie, please,” she said.

“Please, my ass,” Jackie said. “He’s trying to tie you to those fucking murders.”

“Please,” Betty said.

“She was with me , mister. She picked me up in a bar on Lucy’s Key, and we went to my place afterwards. That’s where she was Sunday night.”

I remembered what Jamie had told me about the first frigid years of his marriage. I remembered what Betty had told me only yesterday about the difficulties of finding available men in this town full of divorcées and widows. I remembered what she’d said about protecting her reputation here, about not wanting anyone snooping into her private life. And it suddenly seemed entirely plausible that she would have lied to the police about where she actually was Sunday night, rather than admit she’d been with a woman she’d picked up in a bar.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“So fuck off,” Jackie said.

Michael was sitting in his cell at the end of the corridor. It was ten-thirty A.M., he had eaten breakfast at seven, and was waiting to be transferred to the jail across the street. I’d called Ehrenberg ten minutes earlier, and he’d told me to get over there right away if I wanted to talk to him before he was moved. Michael did not seem overjoyed to see me.

“Your sister’s in town,” I said. “I talked to her last night.”

“Good,” he said, and nodded.

“She gave me the letter you wrote her. I’ll be showing it to the police.”

“Why’d she do that?”

“She was trying to help you.”

“She can help me by keeping her nose out of this.”

“I have some questions for you, Michael.”

“I don’t want to answer any questions. Why’d they let you in here, anyway? Don’t I have any say about who’s—”

“In your letter, you—”

“Jesus!”

“In your letter, you didn’t sound like someone even remotely considering murder. In fact, you even reminded your—”

“I don’t care what I sounded like in a letter.”

“You reminded your sister that Maureen’s birthday was coming. You asked her to send a card. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“If you were planning to kill Maureen—”

“I wasn’t planning anything!”

“Then it was a spur of the moment thing, is that it?”

“Yes, that’s what it was. I told you what it was. Why don’t you go listen to the tape? It’s all on the tape, what the hell more do you want?”

“I want to know why.”

“I don’t know why.”

“Tell me what Maureen said to you on the phone.”

“I told you what she said. She said she was afraid, and she wanted me to come to the house.”

“What was she afraid of?”

“She didn’t say.”

“She just said she was afraid.”

“Yes.”

“But not of what.”

“She said she didn’t know what to do.”

“About what ? Michael, you’re only repeating—”

“It’s what she said , damn it!”

“She said she didn’t know what to do.”

“That’s right.”

“And you didn’t ask her about what. A person says, ‘I don’t know what to do’—”

“That’s right, I didn’t ask her.”

“You weren’t even curious.”

“No.”

“But you went to the house.”

“You know I went to the house.”

“Why?”

“Because she was scared.”

“And she didn’t know what to do.”

“That’s right.”

“But she never told you what was frightening her, or what it was she—”

“Listen, you’re not going to trick me,” he said suddenly.

“Trick you?”

“You heard me.”

“Into what?”

“Nothing.”

“No one’s trying to trick you, Michael.”

“Okay.”

“Believe me.”

“Okay, then why don’t you just go home, okay? I don’t want to talk about Maureen anymore, okay?”

“Why’d you ask your sister to send her a card?”

“I just told you I don’t want to—”

“Did you plan to send a card, too?”

“No. I was going to buy her something.”

“What?”

“What difference does it make?” he said. “She’s dead.”

“Michael... when you got to the house that night, what did you talk about?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You went into the kitchen, you sat at the kitchen table. Isn’t that what you said?”

“That’s right.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you talk about going back to school?”

“Yes. That’s right, we talked about going back to school. And about the alimony, about Pop stopping the alimony.”

He had a way of seizing upon suggestions and turning them into his own responses. A moment before, he could not remember what he and Maureen had talked about. But now that I’d provided a possible subject matter, he accepted it at once and was ready to expand upon it. Had I asked that same question of my own client in a court of law, the opposing attorney would have leaped to his feet at once, to object that I was leading the witness. I decided to be more careful with him.

“Until what time did you talk, Michael?”

“Until... late. I don’t have a watch.”

“Then how do you know it was late?”

“Well... she said it was late.”

“Who said it was late?”

“Maureen.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know what.”

“When did you reach for the knife?”

“I don’t remember. I told you I don’t remember.”

“Michael, at some point in that conversation with Maureen, you got up from the table and reached for a knife. That’s what you told Ehrenberg in your statement. I want to know why. I want to know what was said that caused you to—”

“Nothing. Go to hell. Nothing was said.”

“You just reached up for the knife?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You just told me Maureen said it was late—”

“She said she was going to bed, it was late.”

“Is that what she said exactly? Can you remember?”

“She said she... she had a busy day tomorrow and... it was getting late and she was going to bed.”