Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

Scheff nodded. He reached and picked up the ID sheet which had been transmitted over the wire from Atlanta and looked at it again. Cristen Harkinson, ten years younger. Smudged pictures, indistinct in outline, flawed by wire-relay technique. But in both the full face and profile the look of surly defiance was quite obvious. Also known as Crissy Harker, Chris Harkins, Christy Harvey. Five arrests. Soliciting, public prostitution, conspiracy to defraud. Two convictions, with each time, a hundred dollar fine and a suspended sentence.

“Between the lines,” Kindler said, “you read pretty good protection. Not a free-lance situation. What it was, there’s always pressure on the operation. League of decency, PTA and so forth. So they run like a roster on the hookers, an arrest once in a while. It takes the civilian pressure off the department, and it’s a good way to keep the broads in line. A high-price call circuit, they get uppity, and give each of them a record of convictions, it locks them into the circuit and keeps them from getting ideas, or leaving the business.”

“But she left,” Lobwohl said. “From the only rumor I could pick up, she was one of a pack they brought down to stock a party at Key West around eight years ago, and that’s where she met Fontaine and he took her over.”

“So what was she then?” Kindler said. “Twenty-seven maybe? Twenty-eight. You could guess special enough to be a good earner, but easier to pry her loose than if she was twenty. I’d say what Fontaine did was maybe ask a favor of a friend in a political way in Georgia, and maybe he had to sweeten it with cash to make them let go, and maybe he didn’t. Anyway, as the name was the same here as there, we didn’t have to work through a print classification for the ID on her.”

Lobwohl, frowning, tugging at his nose, said, “All these nice prints on record, and Harv can’t pick up a partial down there of any one of them, but we have that palm print on the rim of the tub, nice and fresh and clear, and Harv says the size could indicate a woman, but you know and I know what will happen if Lab asks her to please press her little patties against the Stockis block and then against the pretty white paper. She has to be tough and smart. The longer we can keep this absolutely voluntary, the better chance we have of catching her in contradiction. I’d sure God like to prove she was there, egging the kid on.”

“How about this?” Scheff said. “Let me be dumb guy. It won’t be too hard to act like she gives me some ideas. I let on you’ve got a good reason to believe she was at number ten, and you’re going to try to trick her, and maybe she should yell for a lawyer. Then we see how she jumps. If she yells for the lawyer, we could take a chance on booking her and taking the palm print for Harv.”

“Give it a try,” Lobwohl said.

When Scheff sent the matron out to wait in the hall, Crissy Harkinson jumped up and threw her cigarette on the floor, stepped on it and said, “I am getting damned sick of being stuck here all day long, Sergeant.”

“Scheff. Barney Scheff. Just be a little patient, Mrs. Harkinson.”

“Patient!”

He winked at her, held his fingers to his lips, then pointed at the ventilation grill. All the interrogation rooms were wired, and he guessed she would realize that also. But she looked astonished and indignant. He went up to her and put his mouth close to her ear and in an almost soundless whisper said, “I want to do you a little favor, Crissy. Maybe sometime I can drop around your place and explain why I’m doing it. Okay?”

She gave an abrupt little nod.

“What I think you better do, you better shut your mouth until you get a lawyer in here.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“I don’t know what they got, but they got something that makes them think you could have been in that number ten cottage. It makes the whole thing look different, and Lobwohl is tricky. He could fake you out and maybe put you in real trouble.”

He turned away from her and said loudly, “These things take a little time. We appreciate your cooperation, Mrs. Harkinson.”

“I just want to get it over and get out of here, Barney. I wish they were all as nice as you.”

“I say live and let live,” Scheff said, and winked at her again. She was staring at him and though she was smiling he was aware of cold speculation, of that kind of suspicion which will never accept a cop at face value. “I’ll go see if I can hurry it up some.”

A few minutes later they came back in, Lobwohl, Scheff, Kindler, the clerk with the tape recorder, and the clerk with the stenotype. They seated themselves around the oblong table as before, and Lobwohl smiled disarmingly at her, and read the identifications and date and time into the record before saying, “Once again, Mrs. Harkinson, I wish to establish for the record that you are here voluntarily, that there are no charges against you, that you are here out of a willingness to help us in our investigation of the death of Garry Staniker. You have been apprised of your right to have your attorney present if you so choose. Am I correct in saying that this is your understanding?”

“Yes sir.”

“And do you wish to have an attorney present at this time?”

“No sir.”

“Then I would like to get back to your recollection of what Staniker told you over the phone.”

“Some of it was over the phone, and some of it was in person.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“When a person does a dumb stupid thing, you kind of hate to admit it to anybody, right? I told you I was frightened of Garry and what he might do. But I decided I could maybe — run a bluff. I guess that when you don’t tell the police the whole story, it just gets you in trouble. So I guess I better tell you now to clear the air. Friday night I went to that grubby cottage. I had a horrible time even finding it. I thought that the more I refused to see him, the more he’d keep bothering me. I didn’t want him coming to my home, so I thought that if I went to him and told him right out that I didn’t ever want to see him again, it might put an end to it. I guess I was thinking that he was like a mean dog. If you don’t look or act scared, they’ll leave you alone — you hope.”

“Did it work?”

“God, no! It was a vile experience. It was suffocatingly hot in that crummy little cottage. He was half tight. If his burns hadn’t still been hurting him, I know I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off. He said ugly things to me. He showed me a check he had gotten from Banner something or other, to tell his story of the accident in the Bahamas. He told me how important he was going to be. He said they were going to make a movie and he was going to play the lead. I begged him to stop bothering me. He said he’d think about it. He said no woman had ever walked out on him and no woman ever would. He said he always did the walking out. On the way home I decided I’d better go away for a while, just pack a bag and get in my car and go. I thought I’d go Saturday afternoon, but I had to get the car fixed and it wasn’t done in time, so I had my maid lock the gates and I told her that if he came around, she should tell him I’d gone away. As a matter of fact, when you two men came to talk to me, I had no idea Garry was dead, and I was going out to do some errands, and then I was going to leave today in the late afternoon, or at least by tomorrow morning.”

“Were you at that cottage long?”

“I got there at midnight. I think I was home by three in the morning. It was sort of spur of the moment. I’ve had better ideas, believe me. But I really think going away for a while would have solved the problem. He would have had to get busy on that contract he signed.”

“Did he give you any idea why he registered under a false name?”