Ed McBain - Three Blind Mice

Matthew hit him while the racket was still back.

Threw his shoulder into Howell while his weight was still on the back foot. Surprised, Howell staggered for an instant, trying to keep his balance, the racket still back, the weight on that right foot, the proper form for the shot, his full body weight working against him now, fighting against gravity and losing as he went crashing to the floor. He landed solidly on his right hip and was rolling over when Matthew stomped on his groin. He did not kick him in the groin, he stomped him. He did not use the point of his shoe, he used the heel. Stomped his balls flat into the carpet, the way Bloom had taught him.

Breathing hard, Matthew went to the telephone.

Howell was still writhing on the floor.

It was a little after two in the morning when he got to the farm on Timucuan Point Road. Not a light showing in any of the buildings. Not in the main house, not in the guest cottage at the far end of the road, where Ned Weaver lived. Matthew rang the doorbell. He kept ringing it. A light went on at the other end of the house. The bedroom. He kept ringing the doorbell.

“Who is it?”

Jessica’s voice. Just inside the door.

“Matthew Hope.”

“What?”

“Please open the door.”

“What? What? ”

Incredulously. This was two o’clock in the morning.

“Please open the door, Mrs. Leeds.”

Silence.

Then: “Just a minute.”

He waited. It took almost five minutes for her to open the door. She had undoubtedly gone back to the bedroom to put on the robe she now wore over her nightgown. Green nylon. Over white nylon. Barefooted. The way Howell had been barefooted when he’d opened the door to his place.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” Matthew said. “May I come in?”

“Why?”

“Because the police have just arrested Christopher Howell and charged him with five counts of homicide. There are some questions I’d like to ask you, Mrs. Leeds.”

“What questions?” she said.

“We both want your husband cleared,” he said. “I just want to make sure Howell doesn’t try to implicate him.”

He was lying.

“Howell?” she said. “ Kit , do you mean? The tennis pro at the club?”

She was lying, too.

“May I come in, please?” he said.

“Yes, certainly. Forgive me, I… I was asleep… all that ringing… I didn’t mean to be rude. Kit , did you say? What does he have to do with any of this?”

From the switch panel just outside the entrance to the living room, she turned on the lights and then led him in. She sat on the leather sofa. He sat in a leather easy chair opposite her. There was a large green pillow behind her, the color of her eyes, the color of her robe. He remembered that the lady favored green.

“I just drove out from the police station,” he said. “They’re trying to locate Skye Bannister so he’ll be there for the formal Q,and A. He’s down in Sanibel for the weekend, they’re not sure where.”

“Skye…?”

“Bannister. The State Attorney. His office is going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

“I still don’t understand…”

“Howell confessed to the murders.”

“Kit?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Such a quiet, unassuming person,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Why would he have… are you saying he killed all of them?”

“Yes.”

“He’s admitted that?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing,” she said again.

The room went silent. The house was still. She sat in the center of the sofa, looking at him, her hands clasped in her lap. He sat opposite her, watching her.

“And you think he may try to implicate Stephen?” she said.

“Yes.”

Lying again.

“How?”

“He might claim Stephen put him up to it.”

“ Has he done that?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Well… what has he said?”

“I told you. He’s confessed to killing the three men who raped you…”

“Yes, I understand that part of it.”

“ And the old man who saw the license plate on the rented car…”

“One of the Vietnamese witnesses.”

“Yes. And also the investigator who learned what the number on that plate really was. He killed all five of them. He’s already made a statement to that effect.”

“I see. I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with… which investigator do you mean?”

“You didn’t see this morning’s newspaper?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“This was an investigator from the State Attorney’s office. A man named Frank Bannion.”

“And he learned… what was it he’d learned?”

“He figured out what the license plate was.”

“I see.”

“Which led him to Howell.”

“I see.”

“The same way it led me to Howell.”

“I see,” she said, and hesitated. “Did…?”

And hesitated again. Wondering quite how to put this.

“Did Kit say… why he’d committed these murders?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

“For you,” he said.

“For me?”

She seemed almost amused.

“For me ? I hardly know the man!”

“Mrs. Leeds…”

“That’s perfectly ridiculous,” she said. “For me ? Is the man crazy?”

“Mrs. Leeds, outside of the…”

“He said he did it for me ?”

“… various lawyers and law-enforcement people working on this case…”

“I can’t believe he…”

“… only two other people knew that license-plate number.”

She looked at him.

“The number Trinh thought he saw.”

She kept looking at him.

“You and your husband,” Matthew said.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” Matthew said. “I told your husband, and he told you.”

“I don’t remember hearing…”

“You and I talked about it later, Mrs. Leeds. You knew the number, and you…”

“I did not !”

“… gave it to Howell.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t even know the man, except as…”

“He’s admitted it.”

She looked at him again.

“He said you gave it to him.”

She kept looking at him.

“He said he killed Trinh because of that number.”

And suddenly she was crying.

Tonight, she cannot get enough of him.

This is four days before Christmas, the twenty-first day of December, a Thursday. In the motel room, she is insatiable. She knows she will not be seeing him over the holidays; she and her husband are going up to New York on the twenty-sixth and will not return until the second of January. And so tonight’s lovemaking must hold her until then, a junkie’s last desperate fix before an anticipated shortage of supply, she cannot get enough of him.

She is dressed provocatively for him. She always dresses provocatively for him. Black bikini panties, lace-edged. A black garter belt. Black, seamed nylon stockings. No brassiere. Black, high-heeled patent-leather pumps. He tells her she looks like a hooker in the Combat Zone. That’s an area in Boston, he explains. Where all the hookers parade. She asks if he’s ever been to bed with a hooker. Only in Nam, he says. He tells her he killed seven people in Nam. This excites her. The idea that he has killed people. Her husband has killed people, too, in the same war, in the same place. But when Kit describes cutting off cocks, it excites her.

She has been seeing him for almost a year now, ever since he took the job at the club. A sun god. Walking out onto the court, his head bent, blond hair glowing, looking up suddenly, blue eyes flashing. Good morning, Mrs. Leeds, I’m Christopher Howell. They call me Kit.