Ed McBain - Three Blind Mice

“They were starting to move away from the restaurant,” she said, “when they saw me. And they… stopped and… and… one of them… the leader. Ho… smiled at me and… and said in his singsong English, ‘Oh, good evening, boys,’ imitating me, mocking me! And then they…”

She fell silent.

She took a tissue from a box on the coffee table, dabbed at her eyes and her cheeks.

Matthew waited.

“You know the rest,” she said, “I told you the rest. I had to lie about the time, but the rest was all true.”

“So you risked a conviction…”

“Yes.”

“… to protect your he.”

“To protect my life !”

“You let three rapists go free…”

“They were my alibi.”

“Your what ?”

“Stephen believed it, that’s all that mattered. He believed I left the mall at ten and was raped fifteen minutes later. He believed it.”

“The jury didn’t.”

“That was a chance I had to take. Otherwise, I’d have lost everything.”

“You’ve still lost everything.”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “Stephen will still believe me.”

“The State Attorney won’t. Kit told the police you planned it together.”

“Oh? Planned what together?”

There was a faint smile on her face now. He had seen this smile before. On the faces of people who had decided to bluff it through because there was nothing worse that could possibly happen. Kit Howell had told them everything; Jessica Leeds would tell them nothing.

“They have his sworn statement,” Matthew said.

“He’s lying. Besides, he’s a tennis bum.”

“Whatever he is, he signed…”

“Tell me,” Jessica said. “If an infatuated tennis bum goes out on his own to redeem the honor of a farmer’s wife… how is the lady to blame?”

“Where’s the lady?” Matthew asked, and walked out.

The Q and A took place in Captain Rushville Decker’s office in the Public Safety Building at 6:25 A.M. that Sunday morning, August 26. Present were the captain himself, in cleanly pressed blues and looking wide awake at this early hour; Christopher Howell in jeans and a blue T-shirt; Skye Bannister, who’d finally been located at his sister’s house in Sanibel, and who looked tall and blond and suntanned and elegant in a dark-blue tropical suit and silk rep tie; Patricia Demming, who was dressed now in a grey pin-striped business suit and low heels, looking extremely beautiful but also very grave; Matthew Hope, who had not slept at all the night before and who needed a shave and who was still wearing the clothes he’d lived in all day yesterday; and a uniformed police stenographer, who was operating the recording machine and taking backup shorthand notes and looking essentially bored. Bannister read Howell his rights, confirmed that he understood them, further confirmed that he did not, repeat not , wish a lawyer present, and then began the questioning:

Q: Can you tell me your full name, please?

A: Christopher Leslie Howell.

Q: Where do you live, Mr. Howell?

A: At 2115 Ocean Drive, Whisper Key.

Q: Any apartment number?

A: 2A.

Q: Mr. Howell, earlier today you made a voluntary statement to a Detective Howard Saphier of the Calusa Police Department, is that true?

A: That’s true.

Q: I show you this, and ask if it is a true representation of the statement you made?

A: It is.

Q: Is this your signature at the bottom of the statement?

A: It is.

Q: And is the date alongside your signature the correct date?

A: It is.

Q: Mr. Howell, with your permission, I’d like to go over some of the things you told Detective Saphier. To make sure we’ve got them right.

A: Sure.

Q: You told Detective Saphier, did you not, that on the night of August thirteenth, you drove a rented automobile to so-called Little Asia and ambushed and murdered three Vietnamese men named… Pat, have you got those names, please?

A: (from Ms. Demming) Yes, Mr. Bannister, right here.

Q: Let’s see now. that would be… Ho Dao Bat… and Ngo Long Khai… I’m not sure I’m pronouncing these correctly… and Dang Van Con? Are those the men you say you murdered?

A: Not in that order.

Q: Pardon?

A: Ho was last.

Q: Mr. Howell, perhaps it would be helpful to go over the events of that night chronologically. I’m still talking about August thirteenth, the night these three men were murdered.

A: Where do you want me to start?

Q: You told Detective Saphier that you called the Riverview Marina…

A: Yes.

Q: And identified yourself as Stephen Leeds…

A: Yes.

Q: And spoke to a man named Charles Stubbs…

A: Yes.

Q: At approximately nine o’clock that night.

A: Yes. To tell him I’d be taking the boat out.

Q: Where’d you make this call from?

A: My apartment.

Q: What’d you do then?

A: I waited for Jessie’s call.

Q: By Jessie, do you mean Jessica Leeds?

A: Yes.

Q: What was the nature of her call?

A: She told me it was okay to come on over.

Q: Come on over where?

A: The farm.

Q: Do you mean the Leeds farm?

A: Yes.

Q: What did you do after you received her call?

A: I drove out there.

Q: Why did you go there?

A: To pick up some things.

Q: What things?

A: Jessie’s car, for one. The Maserati.

Q: What else did you pick up?

A: Her husband’s jacket and hat.

Q: Stephen Leeds?

A: Yes.

Q: Anything else?

A: The boat keys. And his wallet.

Q: Whose wallet?

A: Her husband’s.

Q: Did you go into the Leeds house to pick up all these items?

A: Not the car. The car was parked outside.

Q: Why are you smiling, Mr. Howell?

A: Well, the car couldn’t be in the house, could it?

Q: You find that amusing, do you?

A: Yes. That you asked if I had to go in the house for the car.

Q: How about the other items? The jacket and hat, the wallet, the…

A: Yes.

Q: You went into the house to gather those, did you?

A: Yes.

Q: Where were Mr. and Mrs. Leeds while you were doing all this?

A: Jessie was helping me. Her husband was asleep in the bedroom.

Q: Asleep all the while you were in the house?

A: Asleep till sometime the next morning.

Q: Mr. Howell, did you tell Detective Saphier that you knew Mr. Leeds would be asleep because his wife had administered sleeping pills to him?

A: Two pills. In his drink. They were having an after-dinner drink when the movie started. She called me the minute he went off.

Q: Would you know what kind of pills these were? The name of the drug?

A: They were prescription pills. That’s all I know about them.

Q: Which movie are you referring to?

A: A rented movie. They were watching it after dinner.

Q: So Mr. Leeds was asleep when you got there…

A: Yes.

Q: What time was that?

A: About ten o’clock.

Q: Was he asleep when you left the farm?