Ed McBain - Three Blind Mice

Matthew wondered if there were any good ways to die.

“My wife loved them two dogs,” Stubbs said.

The way he said it, the forlorn sound of his voice, the way he kept working the dog’s ear, caused Matthew to believe that Stubbs himself had loved those dogs more than his wife had.

“Mr. Stubbs,” he said, “I’m sorry to bother you this way…”

“No bother at all.”

“But there are just a few more things I’d like to go over.”

“Sure.”

“First, can you tell me… those are boat keys, aren’t they? Hanging on the rack there inside the office door?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Identified by slip number, isn’t that right?”

“Twenty-one of them, that’s right.”

“Mr. Stubbs, was the office locked…”

“It was.”

“… on the night you saw Stephen Leeds take his boat out?”

“It’s locked every night. Owners have their own keys, all we keep in there’s the spares, for when we have to move the boats, one reason or another.”

“Then Stephen Leeds would’ve had his own key when he took the boat out that night?”

“ Had to’ve had his own key. The spare was right there in the office, and the office was locked.”

“Mr. Stubbs, would you mind if I sent someone around to check the office doors and windows?”

“For what?”

“For signs of forced entry.”

“Be my guest,” Stubbs said, and shrugged. “Wasn’t anyone broke in there, though, I’d’ve noticed. What is it, boy?” he said to the dog. “You gettin’ hungry again? Your mama just fed you this morning, didn’t she? Old Shad here’d eat us out of house and home, we’d let him,” he said to Matthew, and then turned to the dog again and said, “Come on then, ’fore you die of starvation.”

He walked into the marina office, Matthew and the dog following. From a shelf in one of the wall cupboards, he took down a big bag of dog food and poured generously into a plastic cup bigger than the dog’s head.

“There you go, boy,” he said, and patted him on the head and watched appreciatively as the dog began eating. Outside, a fifty-foot Sea Ray with a sedan bridge was pulling into one of the slips. Stubbs turned his attention from the dog.

“Man there’s learning how to drive a boat, bangs my dock up every time he comes in. Watch him now.”

Matthew watched. There was on the captain’s face a look of panic Matthew had seen a hundred times before, a look that had been on his own face all too often. The look said that an irresistible force was about to strike an immovable object and there was nothing that could be done about it. Absolutely nothing. Twist the wheel, tug at the gearshift levers, pull back on the throttle, nothing could stop this damn boat from—

“There she goes,” Stubbs said, and winced.

The starboard side of the boat slammed into the slip piling, bounced off it with a thudding lurch. The captain threw his gears into reverse, panicked again, twisted the wheel in the wrong direction, and whapped into the piling yet another time. A young blond girl in a black bikini — either the captain’s daughter or his girlfriend, you never could tell down here in southwest Florida — stood on the bow trying to keep her balance as the boat whacked the piling once again. There was an astonished look on her face, as if she were trying to understand whether this was the way you were supposed to dock a boat. The captain finally got the boat alongside and yelled for the girl to jump ashore. She hesitated a moment, and then leaped the two feet to the dock, popping one of her breasts out of the scant bikini top, recovering it quickly and without embarrassment, and then bracing herself to catch the line the captain tossed to her.

“Better go help him,” Stubbs said, “before that nitwit falls in the water.”

He stamped out of the office and walked swiftly to the dock. Gently, he said, “I’ll take that, miss,” and accepted the line from her and then swiftly and automatically looped it around the piling in a series of half-hitches. “Let me have the other one,” he called to the captain, and then went through the same routine on the port side of the boat.

“Think I’ll need lines aft?” the captain asked.

“ ’Less you want her banging around all day,” Stubbs said.

It took him some ten minutes to make the boat secure. The girl watched him all the while, trying to learn something. Matthew figured she was in her early twenties. Seven or eight years younger than Mai Chim. He wondered why Mai Chim had suddenly popped into his mind. Perhaps because the girl on the dock looked so indigenous to Florida, and Mai Chim looked like a total stranger.

Stubbs came stamping back up the dock. He looked at the captain and the girl as they walked off toward where their car was parked, and then he came back into the office again.

“He’d spend less time screwing that little girl and more time learning how to park, he’d be a better seaman all around,” Stubbs said. “First thing you learn when you come down from the north is there’s only two things to do here in Florida. Screw and drink. He’s from Michigan and he’s learned how to do both real well.”

Stubbs shook his head.

“When’s this door-and-window man gonna show up?” he asked.

“I’ll talk to him when I get back to the office,” Matthew said. “His name’s Warren Chambers, he was here…”

“Right, last week,” Stubbs said. “Nice young feller. Smart as a whip, too. Anybody gonna find anything here, it’ll be him. Look at that dog go, will you? Think he hadn’t been fed in a month.” He shook his head again and watched the dog in silent amazement. Then he looked up at Matthew and said, “Well, if that’s it, I got work to do.”

“Just one other thing,” Matthew said. “I wonder if you could listen to something for me.”

“Listen?”

“Yes, sir,” Matthew said, and took from his pocket the small Sony tape recorder he’d carried to the office yesterday.

“What is it?” Stubbs asked.

“A tape I made.”

He pressed the rewind button to make sure the tape was fully rewound, said, “Listen,” and then hit the play button. The tape began unreeling.

“Hello, this is Stephen Leeds,” a man’s voice said. “I just wanted to tell you I’ll be taking the boat out again for a little moonlight spin, around ten, ten-thirty, and I don’t want you to be alarmed if you hear me out there on the dock.”

Stubbs looked at the recorder.

There was silence now.

The reel kept unreeling.

“Was that the man who called you last Monday night?” Matthew asked.

“Can you play it back for me?” Stubbs said.

“Happy to.”

Matthew rewound the tape. He hit the play button again.

“Hello, this is Stephen Leeds. I just wanted…”

“Sure as hell sounds like Mr. Leeds.”

“… to tell you I’ll be taking the boat out again for a little moonlight spin, around ten, ten-thirty, and I don’t want you to be alarmed if you hear me out there on the dock .”

Stubbs was nodding now. “Yep,” he said, “that’s Mr. Leeds, all right.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” Matthew said. “I asked if that was the man who called you last Monday night.”

“Oh,” Stubbs said. “Play it again, willya?”

Matthew played it again.

“Hello, this is Stephen Leeds. I just wanted to tell you…”

“No,” Stubbs said.

Matthew stabbed at the stop button.

“That’s Mr. Leeds, all right,” Stubbs said, “but that ain’t the man who called me last Monday.”

At last , Matthew thought. One for our side.

More damn doors here than you could find in a Broadway farce. Windows, too. Everyplace you looked. A burglar’s paradise. You told your average junkie burglar there was a farm out here on Timucuan with no burglar alarm system and all these windows, he’d wet his pants in glee. Even your sophisticated burglar would appreciate a vacation from having to work so hard getting into a place.