Stuart Woods - Choke

“I don’t know. When I came back here yesterday, she had sailed.” “The boat or the girl?”

“Both. She and her brother, Dan, lived aboard.”

“I’d sure like to talk to Meg,” Tommy said.

“So would I.”

“Chuck, that night up at Little Palm Island, did you ask Clare to leave Harry for you?”

“I did not; that never crossed my mind. The thing with Clare was just…”

“Recreational?”

“I guess you could say that,” Chuck replied. “It was for the sex; nothing else.”

“That’s not the way Clare saw it,” Tommy said.

“How did she see it? Tell me.”

“Clare says she was in love with you, that you had manipulated her into talking about her leaving Harry.”

“Tommy, that’s just nuts. Harry was a rich man; I’m a teaching tennis pro, for God’s sake. In a great year I might make seventy-five grand. That wouldn’t keep Clare in earrings.”

Tommy sat back again. “I guess not,” he said. “Not without Harry’s money, anyway.”

All three men were quiet for a moment.

“Tommy,” Chuck said finally, “do I need a lawyer?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Tommy replied.

Daryl was quiet until they were in the car. “So why didn’t you bust him?” he asked Tommy. “This is a quiz, Daryl,” Tommy replied, exasperated. “Why didn’t I bust him?”

“Because you don’t have enough evidence?”

“You get an A.”

“You’ve got motive and opportunity,” Daryl said.

“Motive, maybe; opportunity, maybe. If you buy Clare Carras’s end of what happened.”

“What do you mean, maybe? He wanted Clare and Harry’s money-that’s motive; he spent forty-five minutes down in that engine room doing a ten-minute job, that’s opportunity. Or maybe he fixed the tanks at night, like you suggested.”

“You’re buying Clare’s story, then?”

“It makes more sense than Chuck’s.”

“I’ll give you that much,” Tommy said. “But he might have an alibi, if the girlfriend turned up.”

“Even if we found her today, that wouldn’t stand up for an alibi.”

“Why not, Daryl?”

“He could say to-what’s her name?”

“Meg.”

“Meg. He could say to her that he’s breaking up with Clare, right? That doesn’t mean he actually does it; he could just be covering his ass.”

“Look at it this way, Daryl,” Tommy said patiently. “Let me give you three possible scenarios, just for a start: One, Chuck wants Clare and her husband’s money, so he knocks off Harry; two, Clare wants Harry’s money, so she sets up Chuck for the murder; three, Chuck and Clare are in it together.”

“And which one do you buy?”

“At the moment, I’m leaning a little bit toward they’re in it together.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ve both got something to gain.”

“But they’ve forgotten something,” Daryl said.

“What’s that?”

“In order to make this thing with the tanks work, they’ve got to give us somebody else who’d look good for the murderer, somebody else who’d want Harry dead.”

“Daryl, try to think back as far as the exploding yacht, which was just like Harry’s; try to remember the punctured brake line in the Mercedes, which was actually Harry’s. Does your memory go back that far?”

“Oh, yeah,” Daryl said.

“Here’s a fourth scenario: Somebody hates Harry. Maybe Harry stole from him; maybe he came out on the short end of a business deal with Harry. Whatever. Anyway, he decides he’d be a much happier person if Harry stopped living. He tries twice and fails, then he gets lucky, and Harry is fish food.”

“A possibility, I guess,” Daryl admitted. “And a pretty good one.”

“Let me give you another possibility, a fifth scenario: Clare is having it off with a third, no, a fourth party, Mister X. She and Mister X want Harry unbreathing, so they knock him off and set up Chuck for the deed.”

“I guess that’s a pretty good possibility.”

“Damn right it is; that’s what’s driving me crazy.”

“Why?”

“We’ve got five pretty good possibilities; that’s too many. Murder is usually simpler than that; you don’t usually get multiple choices, not sensible ones, anyway.”

“I never thought of murder being simple, I guess.”

“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is. Fred loves Sally, kills Sally’s husband-or swap the genders; wife hates husband who made her life miserable, puts butcher knife in throat while he’s sleeping; jerk owes shark money, won’t pay, shark kills him as an example to his other debtors; kid hates dad, wants to inherit his money. Or, most common of all, Joe and Al have a few too many and remember how much they hate each other, so they slug it out in the alley, and one of them forgets to mention he has a knife. Those are your typical murder scenarios, and there are a lot more, but for the most part, they’re simple.”

“And this one’s complicated.”

“Very.”

“So what do you do when it’s complicated?”

“You run down all the possibilities, or at least you keep all of ‘em in mind while you’re working on the most promising.”

“And the most promising is that Chuck and Clare are in it together?”

“Technically, yes. But my gut is having trouble with that one.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I’m letting my feelings get in the way.”

“What feelings?”

“I like Chuck; I think he’s a nice guy.”

“And nice guys never murder anybody?”

“It’s not just that. When I listen to Chuck talk I think I hear the truth.”

“Because you like him?”

“Maybe. Or maybe because he’s telling the truth. I don’t know, I may be letting what I think of him get in the way of what I think of his story.”

“Something bothers me about the two of them being in it together,” Daryl said.

“Tell me.”

“If they’re in it together, why is Clare’s story different from Chuck’s? I mean, if it’s their plan together, then Clare must have had second thoughts and is trying to nail Chuck. Problem with that is, she’s bound to know that if she tries to nail him, he sucks her into it, right?”

“Daryl, I have hopes for you,” Tommy said.

Daryl beamed. “I mean, we’re talking human nature here, right?”

“Right, Daryl. If Chuck is after Clare and Harry’s money, he wouldn’t try to suck in Clare, unless she started it.”

“I think I like the Clare option, that Clare has engineered it and is setting up Chuck.”

“Tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind seeing it come out that way. Of course, the world would be poorer for the loss of the Clare Carras body.”

“Yeah, I would have liked to have a crack at that body,” Daryl said.

Tommy burst out laughing. “Daryl, I like your ambition, but the odds are, you are never going to have a crack at something like Clare Carras, not in your whole life.”

“And why the hell not?” Daryl demanded, sounding hurt.

“Because it is a universal truth that women who look like Clare Carras always end up with men like Harry-older, rich, and very, very generous. A cop could never in his whole life put together enough money to get a sideways glance from something like Clare Carras. So save your fantasies of Clare Carras for nights alone between the sheets and a bottle of hand lotion at your side.”

“I guess you’re right,” Daryl sighed.

“That much, I’m right about. And before this is over, I’m going to be right about who killed Harry Carras.”

“I believe you, Tommy.”

“You’re a smart kid, Daryl. You keep thinking that way, and someday you’ll make a great detective.”