Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

“I think he was worried about somebody close to the Kayds or the Boylston girl thinking he had lost the yacht because of carelessness or incompetence, and coming after him to beat him up.”

“And that was the only time you were ever in that cottage?”

“Being there once wouldn’t give you any reasons to want to go back.”

“What rooms were you in?”

“The bedroom and the bathroom. Oh, and I sat in the living room a while. Why are you asking me that? Oh, I see! Wow, even though it so happens I can prove I never left the house Sunday night, it would look pretty strange if you found evidence I was in the cottage. I guess I had a good motive, too. But I couldn’t do anything like that. I really couldn’t. Blood. I’m the kind who can prick a finger with a needle and faint dead away.”

“A lab unit has collected every scrap of possible evidence from that cottage, Mrs. Harkinson. There is a fresh palm print which was dusted and photographed. From the size and characteristics, it seems to be a female hand. It was on the rim of the tub. How could your palm print, if it is yours, have gotten there?”

She looked puzzled. “On the bathtub? I don’t see how that could be mine. Oh! Just a minute. On the far side of the tub, next to the wall? If that’s where it is, I know how it happened. He made me cry. I went into the bathroom to repair the damage. I was standing at the sink. He came to the doorway and gave me one hell of a shove.” She stood up and backed away from the table and showed them a bruise on the outside of her right knee. “I went staggering back and hit my leg against the tub and I would have tumbled right in if I hadn’t sort of turned in time and stuck my hand back and caught that far edge.” She sat down again. “Is that where the print was?”

“Would you voluntarily let us take a palm print, Mrs. Harkinson.”

“I don’t think so.”

“We wouldn’t require fingerprints also.”

“I think that if the police are asking you to give them prints and all, then there ought to be charges or something, and I ought to have a lawyer. I mean you seem to be asking a hell of a lot, and I’m getting sick of this place.”

“I believe we’re through now.”

“And I can go?”

“Any minute, just as soon as we bring in the statement from the first series of questions for you to read over and sign. They might be ready now, in fact. Why don’t you all wait here and I’ll go check on it right now.”

“I’ll go see,” Scheff said and hurried out. He found Tuck working at a desk in the bull pen. Tuck, a slight, sallow man with heavy bags under his eyes, was pecking out a report.

“We’re about to hit her with phase three,” Scheff said.

“How are you making it?”

“Like nowhere. By now she is probably the only person in Dade County who doesn’t know about the dead kid. What did you get?”

“We didn’t get a thing until we split the Akards up. Then after a lot of hemming and hawing, she told me that she hadn’t dared tell the kid’s old man, but a week or so ago when she had fought with the kid about his attitude, he admitted he was getting it from an older woman. He said she was twenty-eight. He wouldn’t tell his old lady who it was. Some girl saw the Akard kid in his sailboat with the Harkinson woman, evidently, and told the girlfriend the kid had dropped when he got tangled up with Harkinson, and the girlfriend told his old lady. It gave her enough to pry it out of him, but she didn’t dare tell his old man.” He shook his head. “It’s days like this, Barney baby. Those are good people. Their life from today on is lousy. There better be a special corner of hell reserved for kids who kill themselves, and for the Crissy Harkinsons. Is she getting edgy at all?”

“If she is, she could have been a great actress, Tommy.”

“Remember Ackles, retired two three years back? He used to say the top-dollar whores are the best actresses around. Whatever act the mark wants, shy, scared, bold, college girl, spooky, cold, take charge, exotic, comedian, athlete — whatever he seems to want, that’s what he gets, because that’s where the bonuses and the repeats are.”

Scheff went back to the interrogation room and, as planned ahead, gave the Harkinson woman a bleak look, and took Lobwohl over to a far corner and whispered to him. All he had to tell him was what Tuck had turned up, but they kept it going longer to match the amount of information he was supposed to be imparting.

Lobwohl went back to his chair. He regarded her for a few very long moments. “A boy died today, Mrs. Harkinson. He was a suicide. He had a serious head wound. They couldn’t save him. There were a few moments of semi-consciousness toward the end. He said he did it for you. He said he had to protect you from Staniker. We have all the proof we need that he did it. It was curious you did not mention your visit to Staniker on Friday night until a little while ago. It is more curious that you have not mentioned the boy. It makes me wonder just how much — suggestion was involved, Mrs. Harkinson.”

Scheff, watching her closely, saw an expression of wild astonishment. She put her fingers to her throat. In a hoarse whisper she said, “Olly? Olly Akard? Dead? Oh God, oh dear God!” She lowered her head, hands hiding her face. “But it was just talk! Just brave kid-talk! That’s all.”

“But he had to get Staniker’s address from you.”

She looked up sharply. Her tears were flowing. “No! I swear he didn’t. I don’t know how he could have found that place...” she frowned. “Unless — unless he followed me. When I got back, he was waiting at my place for me.”

“What was your relationship with the boy?”

“He... He was a very wonderful boy. I was really fond of him. I wanted to learn to sail. At Dinner Key they said he taught people. And while he was teaching me, he — got a sort of a crush on me. I guess it was sort of flattering for a while. But then I realized it wasn’t a good thing for him, to feel like that about a woman practically old enough to be his mother. I made a very bad mistake. I told him about the relationship I had with Garry. And one of the times Garry phoned last Friday, Oliver was there. He made such a scene I told him if he kept it up, I wouldn’t let him see me any more. He kept it up. Saturday I told him to go away and stay away. You can ask my maid, Francisca. She knows the locked gate was to keep him away too. He came early Sunday evening and got his boat and took it away. He had somebody bring him by boat, I guess. I didn’t see him. I went to bed very early. I was exhausted, emotionally. I told him that his ideas about me were childish and foolish and absolutely impossible. I told him to go back to his nice little girl. Betty I think her name is. You must believe me! I had no idea Olly would do such a crazy thing. Even if he thought of something silly, like beating Garry up, how could he find him? No, this is a terrible terrible thing.”

“You imply that the relationship was innocent?”

“If you mean did I have intercourse with that nineteen-year-old boy, I certainly did not!”

“But that boy was apparently willing to stage a clumsy murder for your sake and then sacrifice himself, Mrs. Harkinson.”

“Oliver was — a very romantic and idealistic boy. I guess that when I saw how he was beginning to feel toward me I should have laughed at him and called him a silly kid. Okay, I let him kiss me. I let him dream a little. I let him talk about life, the way kids do. It’s like — being young again. He made crazy plans about us. Impossible, of course. Maybe I was being as silly as he was. The difference was he could believe it and I knew it was nonsense. I’m a woman alone. If I’d ever told that poor kid the kind of life I’ve really had, it could have driven him out of his mind I guess. It was just — sweet. A game. I stopped playing that game when he got so worked up about Garry being back and phoning me and demanding to see me. Saturday I told him to stay away from me. I told him — in a pretty ugly way, I guess. I felt responsible for letting him get such nutty ideas and not stopping him sooner. I tried to jolt him, shake him up.”