Джон Макдональд - The Last One Left

Lobwohl said, “As this crush, as you call it, developed, Mrs. Harkinson, the boy became sullen and difficult and withdrawn. It worried his parents. The girl he used to go with told his mother about someone seeing an older woman in the sailboat with Oliver, a blonde woman in a bikini. She could not make Oliver tell her who the woman was, but he admitted he was physically intimate with the woman.”

Her eyes went wide, and her voice was thin as she said, “Told his mother that? But it wasn’t so! Why would he want to hurt her like that? It doesn’t make any sense at all. I guess he was trying to — break loose.”

“In what sense?”

“His mother wanted him to become a minister. His girl, Betty something, was going to become a nurse. Then they were going to be missionaries. It was all planned, and he said that he hadn’t been able to tell them that he was losing his faith. Maybe he thought that if he told her — that lie, she would stop trying to push him into the ministry.” She shrugged, sighed, wiped her eyes with a tissue. “It’s the only thing I can think of. Can I go now? Can I please go? He was such a fine boy. And I’m to blame. It makes me feel sick.”

Lobwohl opened the folder in front of him and took out the wire copy of the Atlanta ID card and with a long reach, he put it in front of her. “We’re all deeply touched by your sensitivity, Crissy.”

She looked at the card without expression. She looked at Kindler, Scheff and Lobwohl in turn, a measured three seconds for each one. “Very cute,” she said. “Real fancy nifty cute, you sick-minded bastards. Real careful timing. Let me ask you something. Do you think for one minute that if this is all I am, or all I could be, a man like Ferris Fontaine could have endured me for the last seven years of his life? I never conned him. He knew the score about me. You know what a hustler learns first of all? Don’t trust anybody. And I learned to trust that wonderful old man. You know what he gave me back? Some dignity. Some self respect.” She rapped the wire copy with her knuckles. “I remember this kid pretty well. She had a lot of hate in her. She kidded herself. She drifted into the trade telling herself it was just for a while. She thought she was better than the others she worked with, in New York and Savannah and Atlanta. Then she found out she was just another hooker. Then Fer came along, and after a long time she got her pride back. Every cell in your body is supposed to change every seven years, right? So don’t get me mixed up with some rental playmate in Atlanta a long, long time ago.”

“I will remind you again that we can suspend this until you are represented by counsel, Mrs. Harkinson.”

“Where can you go from here? You don’t need any more from me!”

“Your attorney will advise you that you are providing essential evidence regarding motive in a homicide investigation. He will tell you that even though we have sufficient proof as to who committed the crime, and even though that person is now deceased, Florida law requires that evidence be presented to the Grand Jury for preparing an indictment, and that the subsequent suicide must be handled as a separate matter. He will inform you that we can hold you in interrogation for twenty-four hours, or until early afternoon tomorrow, and at that time we can bring charges against you, if we find sufficient basis therefore, or, if we feel it is in the best interests of the proper investigation of the case, we can ask for a court order which will empower us to hold you in protective custody until such time as the Grand Jury decides whether or not you should be asked to give direct testimony during their deliberations.”

“Hold me for the best interests of what, damn you?”

“You are news, Mrs. Harkinson. Big, gaudy, melodramatic news. You are bright enough to figure it out. What’s their approach? Infatuated youth slays only survivor of the Muñeca disaster to protect blonde mystery woman from unwanted attentions. Future minister a suicide after slaying rival for favors of ex-mistress of deceased State Senator. Heartbroken mother says Akard boy was a model boy until blonde twice his age started taking sailing lessons.”

“Do you characters peddle that crap to the reporters?”

“Mrs. Harkinson, when we identified Staniker, it took these two men an hour and a half to follow the trail right to you. There are perhaps a hundred people from the papers, television, radio and the wires services jamming up the place downstairs, dreaming up cute tricks to be the first ones to get to you. It’s even too late now to have someone drive you back to your house to pick up what you’d need in the way of clothes and toilet articles. You can make a list and explain to a matron where she can find things, and we’ll send her to your place to pick them up.”

“My maid knows where my things...”

“She has been advised to leave the premises after locking the place up. We have men posted there now to keep people from breaking in.”

“What are you trying to do to me?”

“Protect your constitutional rights, Mrs. Harkinson, and protect your person not only from the news media but also from what is usually referred to as an aroused populace.”

She pressed her fists against her eyes, shuddered and said, “I think I’ll take that free phone call, mister.”

Just as Lobwohl got up and turned on the lights in his office, Tuck came to the doorway and said, “They got the kid’s car finally. Coast Guard chopper spotted it. Deserted spot on the bay shore maybe two miles below the Harkinson place.”

“News out yet?”

“No, sir.”

“I want the top lab team on it. Harv and his people, and I want them to comb the area. Keep it sealed until they’ve got daylight, and then they can impound the car when they’re done.”

“They’re still on the Harkinson place.”

“Move them off it. They can go back to it. And where the hell is that maid?”

“Bert and Barney are on it. They’ll find her and bring her in.”

“I know, but when?”

“Who did Lady Harkinson get hold of?”

“Palmer Haas.”

Tuck whistled. “She went to the right place. Feisty little bastard. Miserable as he is, you got to give him credit.”

“He’s making all the motions, but he knows damn well the worst thing we could do for her right now is release her.”

Tuck grinned. “He listening to what we got?”

“Avidly.”

“Funny, isn’t it. A very cagey broad like that being half smart. She should have screamed for Palmy before she was brought in.”

“It’s the big myth. Innocent people don’t need counsel, they think. Asking for one makes a bad impression, they think.”

“But we still came up empty. Remember that.”

Raoul Kelly’s car was parked beside Sam Boylston’s rental car at the motel. Sam walked the couple through the soft night to the car. Raoul unlocked it and held the door for ’Cisca. The trunk was full, the back seat stacked with luggage.

Raoul came around the car and opened the door on the driver’s side. “Around Biloxi or a little ways this side of it we’ll hole up,” Raoul said. He moved away from the car, drawing Sam with him. “How are you going to handle it?”

“I’ll wait and see if they unravel it without help. When I lost her Friday night, it’s obvious she was going to meet Staniker. He told her where the money is. Once she knew that, she could sick the kid on him. That poor damned kid. If he hadn’t been rocked so bad he killed himself afterwards, and if he’d been charged with murder, I think he was too infatuated to tell them it was in any way her idea. And even if he did break, I don’t believe she would have left him with any kind of direct specific quote he could remember. It’s obvious she expected it to happen Sunday night. That’s why she wanted verification she was home.”