Ed McBain - Goldilocks

There was a white patrol car parked at the curb outside the house. Its dome lights and headlights were out. The street at one A.M. was silent, the neighbors asleep. I pulled in behind the car, cut the engine, and started walking to where Jamie stood in the moonlight, talking to a uniformed policeman. The jacaranda tree behind him was leafless, blossomless. Out on the bayou behind the house, I could hear the chugging of the fishing boat I’d seen while crossing the bridge from Lucy’s Circle. There were only saltwater mullet in the shallow waters on this side of the bridge, and they would not strike a hook; the commercial fishermen were spreading their nets, circling, circling.

Jamie looked drawn and pale. He was forty-six years old — ten years older than I — but in the pale moonlight he seemed much younger, or perhaps only more vulnerable. He was wearing a faded blue T-shirt, white trousers, and blue sneakers. The patrolman was visibly perspiring. Sweat stained the armholes of his blue shirt, stood out in beads on his forehead. I did not know whether he had yet been inside the house. He watched me as I approached.

“I’m Matthew Hope,” I said. “Dr. Purchase’s attorney.” I don’t know why I immediately addressed myself to the patrolman, rather than to Jamie. I guess I was trying to protect Jamie from the very beginning, letting it be known to the Law that I myself was a lawyer who expected no hanky-panky with a client’s rights.

“He call you then?” the patrolman asked.

“Yes, he did.”

“When was that, sir?”

“At about a quarter to one. Ten minutes ago.”

“I didn’t get the radio dispatch till five minutes ago,” the patrolman said. He made it sound like an accusation.

“That’s right,” I said, “he called me first. I advised him to notify the police.”

“Would it be all right if I went inside the house now?” the patrolman asked.

“Yes,” Jamie said dully.

“You don’t have to come with me, you don’t want to.”

“I would... rather not,” Jamie said.

“That’s all right, sir,” the patrolman said, and touched Jamie’s shoulder briefly and surprisingly. He flashed his torch over the lawn then, and walked swiftly to the front door, weaving his way through the sprinkler heads like a broken-field runner. The circle of light illuminated the brass doorknob. He twisted it tentatively, as if expecting the door to be locked, and then he opened the door and went inside.

Alone with Jamie, I said, “I’m going to ask you again what I asked you on the phone...”

“I didn’t do it,” he said at once.

“Tell me the truth, Jamie.”

“That’s the truth.”

“Because if you did , I want to know right this minute.”

“I didn’t.”

“All right, do you have any idea who might have done it?”

“No, Matt, I don’t.”

“Why’d you call me instead of the police?”

“I don’t know why. I guess... you’re my lawyer, Matt, I guess I thought... something like this. I don’t know.”

Another patrol car was pulling in toward the curb. No siren, no dome lights. The man inside cut the engine and got out. Hitching up his trousers, he walked to where Jamie and I were standing near the naked jacaranda. He was a huge man. I’m six feet two inches tall and weigh a hundred and ninety pounds, but I felt dwarfed beside him. There were sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve of his blue uniform. He was perspiring even more profusely than the patrolman — the temperature that day had hit ninety-nine degrees, and it was now eighty-six and oppressively humid. This was weather more suited to August than the last day of February.

“Sergeant Hascomb,” he said, and politely touched the peak of his hat. “I’m looking for whoever called the police.”

“I did,” Jamie said.

“Could you tell me your name, sir?”

“James Purchase.”

“I ran over the minute I caught it on the radio,” Hascomb said. “I knew Furley’d be calling me, anyway — this is a signal five. I’m his supervisor.” I had the impression his size made him feel awkward with men smaller than himself. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket, removed the hat from his head, and wiped his brow. “Is he inside now, is that it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m sorry, sir, you’re...?”

“Matthew Hope. I’m Dr. Purchase’s attorney.”

“I see,” he said. “Well, excuse me,” he said, and walked toward the front door. Before he went into the house, he wiped the sweatband of the hat with his handkerchief. He came out again a few moments later and walked swiftly past us to the car. Black batwing blots of perspiration covered the back of his shirt. I saw him reaching for the car radio. His face was ashen.

I am not a criminal lawyer.

I’d practiced law for seven years in Illinois before moving to Calusa, and I’d been practicing law here in the state of Florida for the past three years, but I’d never represented anyone involved in a crime. The first thing I’d asked Jamie on the telephone was whether or not he wanted me to contact a criminal lawyer. Wait, that’s not quite true. I first asked him if he’d committed the murders. When he assured me he hadn’t, I then reminded him that I was not a criminal lawyer and asked if he wanted me to call a good one. Jamie replied, “If I didn’t kill them, why do I need a criminal lawyer?” I had no answer for him at the time. I’d simply advised him to call the police at once, and told him I’d be there as soon as I was dressed. Now, at one-thirty in the morning, with law enforcement officers and related personnel swarming all over the house and the grounds, I felt completely out of my element and wished I had insisted on expert help.

There were three marked patrol cars at the curb, and the patrolmen from those cars had set up barricades at either end of Jacaranda Drive. Inside the barricades, there were four vehicles belonging to the captain in command of the Detective Bureau, the two plainclothes detectives he’d assigned to the case, and the assistant medical examiner. The man from the State’s Attorney’s office had parked his car across the street, behind the Ford Econoline van from the Criminalistics Unit. The ambulance from Southern Medical was backed into the driveway, its rear doors open. The activity had wakened neighbors all up and down the street. They stood just outside the barricades, whispering, speculating, stopping one or another of the patrolmen to ask what had happened. Most of the neighbors were still in pajamas and robes. The moonlight illuminated the lawn and the street and the house.

“Who’s in charge here?” the medical examiner asked.

“I am.”

The detective’s name was George Ehrenberg. He looked to be about my age, maybe a year or so younger, thirty-four or — five. He had red hair that fell onto his forehead like a rust stain. His beetling brows were red, too, and his eyes were a brown so dark as to be almost black. There were freckles on the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. He was wearing a loud plaid summer-weight jacket and dark blue trousers, blue socks and brown loafers. Under the jacket, a wine-colored polo shirt was open at the throat. He was a big man, like most of the other policemen who were now at the house.

“I’m finished in there, you can have them now,” the ME said. He was referring to the corpses of Jamie’s wife and children. “Your cause of death is multiple stab wounds,” he said. “Hard to say which of them was the fatal cut. Whoever done it...”