Ed McBain - Three Blind Mice

Matthew nodded. “Let me hear the rest,” he said.

“The rest is the brother-in-law. Weaver. Who’s done hard time and who knows a trick or two about hurting people. He’s never gone the distance, true, but that’s an easy step to take, isn’t it? If you’ve already tried to kill someone, then actually killing someone is a breeze.”

“Maybe.”

“Trust me on that.”

“Okay.”

“So Leeds has an angry wife and a violent brother-in-law. And if he can get them to…”

“You’re saying…”

“I’m saying he could have engineered those murders from his jail cell.”

“But he didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“Have you asked him?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know for sure.”

“He’s innocent of the first murders. Why would he…?”

“Because the state doesn’t believe he’s innocent, Matthew, the state has him behind bars, the state’s going to try him for three counts of murder!”

“The state’s wrong.”

“Yes, Matthew, the state’s wrong, I’m wrong, you’re the only one who’s right. But you’re not listening.”

“Oh, I’m listening, all right.”

“Isn’t it at least conceivable ?”

“No, damn it!”

“Then convince me.”

“One,” Matthew said, “there’s no love lost between Leeds and his brother-in-law. The very notion of Weaver doing a favor for him is ridiculous. No less a favor like murdering two people.”

“How about the wife?”

“She weighs what? A hundred and twenty pounds, max? Can you imagine her and Bannion…?”

“Okay,” Patricia said.

“Which is the second thing. I guess you noticed that Bannion wasn’t killed with a knife.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Counselor.”

“If your theory’s going to hold…”

“Yes, yes, I see where you’re going. In fact, it’s a good point.”

“Thank you.”

“In fact… maybe more than just good.”

She was nibbling her Hp again. He had to remember this habit for when the case eventually came to trial, if it ever came to trial. Whenever she started nibbling her lip, she was searching for something. And when she found it…

“Bannion had to’ve surprised him,” she said.

Her eyes met Matthew’s.

“The killer,” she said.

Their eyes held. Blue locked into brown.

“Because otherwise…,” she said.

“He’d have used a knife,” Matthew said.

Charlie Stubbs was working on a boat engine when Warren got to the marina at a little before noon that day.

“Just about to take my lunch break,” he said. “You’da missed me again.”

The parts of the engine were scattered all about him on the concrete floor of the tin-roofed shed adjacent to the office. Rods, pistons, valves, roller tappets, rocker arms, camshaft, crank — Warren wondered how he’d ever put all those pieces together again. He himself had never been good at assembling jigsaw puzzles.

“Had to go to a funeral up in Brandentown yesterday,” Stubbs said. “Which is why I wasn’t here when you stopped by.”

“Your son told me,” Warren said.

“All that rain yesterday, perfect day for a funeral, wasn’t it?”

“If you’ve got to have one, I suppose you ought to have rain to go with it,” Warren said.

“Seems like more and more of my friends are having them all the time,” Stubbs said. “With or without rain. Seems like the current thing to do, have yourself a little funeral.”

He was wiping his grease-stained hands on what looked like a pair of torn lady’s bloomers. Not panties. Bloomers. Very large bloomers. Warren had never met Stubbs’s wife, but if the bloomers were any indication…

“Man who got buried yesterday moved down here to Florida ’cause he was afraid he’d catch pneumonia and die up there in Cleveland, easy to get a bronchial disease where the climate’s so harsh. Either that, or he’d slip on the ice and land on his spine, be an invalid for life, something like that. He was scared to death of all the terrible things can happen to you up north. Get mugged by a street gang, something like that. Get shot by accident in a dope war, something like that. It’s terrible, the things that can happen to you up north. But you know how he died down here?”

Warren shook his head.

“He drowned,” Stubbs said.

He tossed the soiled bloomers into a gasoline drum, said, “Guess this engine’ll keep for a while,” and walked Warren down toward the docks. “There’s Mr. Leeds’s boat right there,” he said. “ Felicity . Slip number twelve. Ain’t been a soul on her since that night he took her out.”

“You’re still pretty sure it was him, huh?” Warren said.

“Well, no, I’m not at all sure anymore,” Stubbs said. “Not after Mr. Hope played that tape for me. Because it sure as hell wasn’t that voice I heard on the telephone. So I got to figuring maybe it wasn’t Mr. Leeds going out on the boat neither. Sure looked like him, though. I got to tell you, it’s puzzling.”

“Maybe this’ll help,” Warren said, and took a tiny tape cassette out of his pocket and held it up between his thumb and forefinger.

“Not another one,” Stubbs said.

“If it’s no trouble,” Warren said, and took a microcassette recorder from his other pocket. He was wearing a floppy sports jacket made out of handkerchief-weight Irish linen, guaranteed to wrinkle under even the best of conditions. The jacket was pink. His Miami Vice look. It had wide lapels and deep pockets. He had ordered it from a store in New York, and it had just arrived yesterday. He could not wait for Fiona to see it. The recorder was a Realistic Micro-27, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, capable of playing tapes recorded on his answering machine. He opened the load panel and snapped in the tape.

“Few key words I want you to listen for,” he said. “ Little moonlight spin , and alarmed , and thirty . All those words were used by the man who called you, do you remember?”

“Sort of,” Stubbs said.

“Well, what he said was, ‘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.’ Do you remember that?”

“I guess,” Stubbs said.

“What you’re going to hear won’t be that whole thing,” Warren said, “so just listen for the key words, all right? Little moonlight spin, alarmed , and thirty . This’II be a bit more difficult than what Mr. Hope played for you.”

“Sounds that way,” Stubbs said, and looked at the recorder suspiciously.

“But if you want to hear anything again, I can stop the tape whenever you say. Let me know when you’re ready, okay?”

“I’m ready now,” Stubbs said.

Warren hit the play button.

The telephone conversation with Ned Weaver had been a stop-and-go, fits-and-starts, tooth-pulling battle to get him to say some of the words the caller had used on the night of the murders. Warren wasn’t too sure about the word thirty , but he was hoping that at least the words alarmed and little moonlight spin were distinctive enough to allow for positive identification.

Weaver did not say the words little moonlight spin until thirty-two seconds of tape had elapsed.

“Play that back,” Stubbs said.

Warren rewound the tape and then played the conversation again:

Mr. Weaver, had you ever known Mr. Leeds to take his boat out for a little moonlight spin?

A what?