Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

Raoul grinned ruefully. “So all right. My mistake. What do you want to know?”

Scheff gestured toward the main house. “Word has it here and there the boss lady is prime gash, and it was old Fer Fontaine set her up here before he died. Bert and me have a thing about bothering anybody who has real good friends in politics. Anybody we might know subbing for the Senator?”

“No.”

“So then if we happen to be trying to locate somebody by the name of Staniker, and if we leaned on her some, like saying we know Staniker kept on using her as a shack job after she sold the boat he operated for her, she wouldn’t phone anybody in the court house or in Tallahassee.”

“It’s not very likely.”

“Would she say it wasn’t like that with Staniker?” Kindler asked.

“I don’t know. She might deny it. She might admit it.”

“Then Staniker wasn’t just making a brag to his marina pals?” Scheff asked.

“No. But whether she admits it or denies it, I imagine she’d tell you the same thing she told Francisca, that she and Staniker had a quarrel before he took the job aboard the Muñeca, and she told him to stay away from her. And she’d tell you that since Staniker came back from the Bahamas last Friday he’s been bothering her by calling her up and asking to see her.”

“So,” Scheff said idly, “last night she went to see him to tell him to stop bugging her?”

Raoul explained that Crissy Harkinson hadn’t been off her property since Saturday afternoon, and explained about the car and the locked gate.

“But she didn’t know you were right here all the time with your girl, Kelly?”

“No. I’ve never stayed here before. But it seemed like a good idea to talk Francisca into it. That locked gate wouldn’t keep out anybody who wanted to get in. Staniker used to thump Crissy Harkinson around sometimes. I thought he might get loaded and come around and Francisca might try to keep him from bothering Mrs. Harkinson. And there was another unknown factor too, a kid Mrs. Harkinson just broke up with because he was acting strange. The locked gate was to keep both of them out.”

Scheff and Kindler both began to speak at once, then Scheff let Kindler take it. He said, “Was the kid getting any?”

“I know she would deny that. But he was. She hired him to teach her how to sail, and it went on from there.”

“Name?”

“Oliver something. Nineteen, twenty. A big, husky kid. Kept his sailboat in her boat basin. Flying Dutchman. I looked it over once when Mrs. Harkinson was out. You could probably trace him through the name of his boat. The Skatter, with a k.”

Raoul saw the two men glance at each other with identical expressions of bland satisfaction. “And,” said Scheff, “I guess the reason the kid began acting weird and getting on her nerves was because he knew she used to be Staniker’s piece, and he knew Staniker was back and he knew Staniker was bothering her.”

“She told Francisca the kid knew Staniker was bothering her.”

“So she gave Oliver the old heave? Like take your sailboat and go, Sonny.”

“He came and got the boat in the early evening last night. She’d taken a pill and gone to bed early. She asked Francisca to take a look later on and be sure the boat was gone and the kid wasn’t hanging around the area or bothering Mrs. Harkinson. I went with Francisca when she took a look.”

“What time was that?”

“A little after nine last night. Then Francisca went and looked into the bedroom and Mrs. Harkinson was there asleep.”

“Good-looking woman?” Kindler asked.

“I’ve seen her at a distance. Well built. I would guess about thirty, but Francisca is certain she is close to forty.”

“And fooling around with young kids,” Scheff said. “I got a boy nineteen. My old lady is thirty-eight. Look, why is your girl working for a bum like the Harkinson woman?”

“Until day after tomorrow.”

“How long has she been working for her?”

“A year. A little more than a year.”

“What’s the Harkinson woman’s background?”

“I wouldn’t know. Francisca wouldn’t know either.”

“Where’s she from?”

“She said something to Francisca once about living in Atlanta.”

“She’s in the house now?” Kindler asked. Raoul nodded.

“Look her over?” Scheff asked Kindler.

“She’ll keep, Barney. The kid might not.”

“Can I ask a question?” Raoul said.

“Sure, Kelly.”

“Why are you looking for Staniker?”

“Routine. Just routine,” Kindler said.

As they walked toward the car, Francisca came timidly out to the railing of the shallow porch and looked down. They all looked up at her. Her eyes were huge and her mouth was sucked into a small bloodless button.

Kindler called up, in wretched but understandable Spanish, “Señorita, you are a very beautiful lady. We do not take you away. This man of yours is a good man.”

She looked startled and then beamed down upon them happily. “Kaylee is beauty-ful fella!” she cried.

Raoul felt heat in his cheeks. Both officers laughed and ’Cisca waved busily to them as they drove off. “Sotch nice!” she said to Kelly.

Ten minutes north of the Harkinson turnoff, Scheff and Kindler stopped at a shopping center and phoned Lobwohl’s outside-line number.

“This is Bert,” Kindler said. “Did Harv get...”

“Better come on in,” Lobwohl said. “A flippy kid did it and then shot himself. Had a note on him saying he was afraid he was going to do some crazy thing. Had a map and a floor plan of number ten. Even had the wrappings off the blade in his pocket. Coast Guard spotted him dead in a sailboat grounded off Eliott Key.”

“Named Oliver maybe?” Kindler said.

After a long silence Lobwohl said wearily, “All right. All right. Come on in and show off, you smart-ass.”

“Is it all going to break now? The ID on Staniker?”

“Yes. Why?”

“When it breaks wide open and the news people get a look at the motive, we’re going to get swarmed worse than anything since the Mossler thing. Look, the broad that Staniker and the kid got to is a Mrs. Cristen Harkinson, late thirties, blonde, a swinger. The late Senator Ferris Fontaine had her stashed in a very lush bay house down here a little southeast of Goulds, all very private. He probably built it for her and deeded it to her. And she had a cruiser...”

“And up to the time she sold it, Staniker worked for her, running the boat. I’ve been reading the clippings, Bert.”

“She broke off with Staniker. He gets the job running the Kayd boat. She lines up the kid to give her sailing lessons. So she takes one kind of lessons and gives another kind. Staniker comes back from the islands. He wants to start making it again with Harkinson. This bugs the kid. He gets so hairy about it she tosses him out too. What I’d guess, the kid thinks he gets cut loose because she’s going to pick up with Staniker again. A green kid would be way out of his league with a live one like that. So how did the kid know where Staniker was? You see what kind of can of worms that opens up?”

“They’d both become nuisances. She could aim one at the other and either way it came out, Bert, she’d be rid of both of them. Two rejected suitors taking it out on each other. But she would have to be pretty cold to set them up like that, wouldn’t she?”

“She was home in bed, and I think that will check out. And I think that even if she conned the kid into killing Staniker, she’ll deny it up down and sideways, and nothing we can do. I am just saying that the hints in the papers are going to stop just short of actionable, and it is going to be dirty laundry week, and a mob scene at her house, guys in trees with telephoto lenses, the whole treatment.”