Stuart Woods - Choke

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly.

Tommy produced the paper. “In that case, ma’am, I’m serving you with a search warrant.” He opened the screen door and handed it to her, and he did not let the door close again.

She unfolded the document and read it carefully while Tommy waited. “Well,” she said, finally, “when do you want to do this?”

“Immediately,” Tommy replied.

“Do you mean right now?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s what immediately means.”

She reached for the screen door as if to close it. “If you’ll allow me a few minutes to get dressed.”

Tommy held on to the door and stepped into the hallway, closely followed by Daryl. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t wait. Of course, you can get a robe if you like.”

She turned and padded down the hall in her bare feet. “Do whatever you want,” she said. “I’ll be out by the pool.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tommy called after her. He turned to Daryl. “Her bedroom seems to be on this floor, straight ahead. You get to go through her underwear; I’ll be upstairs.”

“Right,” Daryl replied. He went into the bedroom.

Upstairs, Tommy went straight for the desk where he had previously looked at Harry Carras’s checkbook. He opened the middle drawer, extracted the checkbook, and began examining it. The balance, which had been over eighty thousand dollars at his last inspection, was now down to around thirty thousand. He flipped backward through the ledger, looking for anything unusual. There were steady weekly deposits ranging from ten to twenty thousand dollars, probably income from investments, Tommy thought. There were also a number of large checks written to cash, and that interested him.

He examined the drawer carefully for anything else, then began methodically going through the other drawers. He found a stack of statements from the Miami office of a well-known brokerage firm, and he went through them. During the past twelve months, he saw, the balance had risen from a little more than nine million dollars to just under twelve million, and there had been no fresh infusions of cash. Harry had done very well for himself in the market.

In another drawer he found a contract with a Fort Lauderdale yacht broker, giving him the exclusive right to sell Fugitive. There were rubber-banded stacks of household bills, but none from credit card companies or department stores. It seemed the only credit Harry had wanted was the kind that could be secured with a cash deposit. No wonder the guy didn’t have a credit record to speak of.

In the bottom drawer he found a legal document titled “Revocable Trust.” He read quickly through the list of assets, which included Carras’s house, yacht, airplane, and brokerage account. He returned it to the drawer.

He finished with the desk and turned his attention to the rest of the room. He took down every book in the bookcase, flipping through it before replacing it, then moved all the furniture, looking under it before returning it to its original position. He felt in the crevice under the cushions, then unzipped each cushion and probed it for concealed objects. He rolled back the rug and looked for hidden compartments, then he went to the kitchen and began work there.

He opened every cabinet and took out the contents, inspecting each item before replacing it. He opened the refrigerator and freezer and checked each item carefully, then he looked inside the ovens, the dishwasher, and the trash compactor. He opened each spice bottle on the rack and probed its contents with a pen. He then went to the powder room off the living room and looked inside the toilet tank.

He went up another floor and found an attic space that had been finished, but seemed unused. A ladder ran up to the roof; he climbed it and found himself on a widow’s walk. He looked down toward the pool and saw Clare Carras lying on her back, her legs slightly spread, her bikini top gone. Transfixed, he took all of her in for a full minute before he forced himself to return to the living room.

“Tommy, you want to come down here a minute?” Daryl called from downstairs.

“Right with you,” Tommy called back. He walked downstairs and into Clare Carras’s bedroom. “How’s it coming?”

“I’ve been through everything,” Daryl said, “and all I found was this.” He pulled back a group of hanging dresses and on the floor under them was an expensive-looking safe.

“Oh, boy,” Tommy said. “Daryl, would you mind going out to the pool and asking Mrs. Carras to come in here? Don’t yell at the lady, that wouldn’t be polite; go to her.” Grinning, he watched Daryl disappear through the side door. A minute later, Clare Carras came into the room, fastening the tiny top to her bikini. Daryl was close behind her, blushing.

“Mrs. Carras, would you please open this safe?” Tommy asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she replied.

“Mrs. Carras, I have to warn you that to impede this search in any way is contempt of court, and Judge Potter is harsh with people who don’t obey his court’s orders.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the combination,” she said. “Harry never gave it to me.”

“What’s inside it?”

“Some of my jewelry, but he always got it out and put it away for me. I doubt if there’s much else.”

“Daryl,” Tommy said, “do you know a good locksmith?”

“Yeah,” Daryl said. “There’s one just down the block.”

“Go down there and see if they got anybody who can crack a safe.”

“Right.”

“Mrs. Carras, you can go back to your sun-bathing, if you like. We’ll make this as fast as we can.”

Clare Carras headed out the door to the pool, untying her bra as she went.

Tommy and Daryl had been waiting for more than an hour while the locksmith repeatedly attacked the safe and failed. He was on the phone with the manufacturer now, taking notes. Finally, he hung up.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ve got the combination.”

“Thank you,” Tommy said. “Let’s see what’s inside.”

The man expertly twirled the knob, and the safe came open.

“Stand back,” Tommy said. He knelt before the safe and examined the interior. On the top shelf was a velvet box. There was nothing else in the safe. He opened the box and found a dozen pieces of gold and diamond jewelry. “Here you are,” he said, handing Clare the box.

“And here’s the combination,” the locksmith said, addressing her breasts.

“Thank you,” she said, beaming at him. “And thank you, Detective.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tommy said.

She put the box back into the safe, closed the door, twirled the knob, and went back to the pool.

“She knew the combination all along, didn’t she?” Daryl asked.

“You bet your ass she did,” Tommy replied. “Let’s have a look around outside.”

They walked around the house, looking under shrubs and inspecting a shed full of gardening tools. Before they rounded the house on the pool side, Tommy called out, “Mrs. Carras, could I have just one more moment of your time?”

“Come ahead,” she called back. She was sitting up and had her bra on again when they arrived. “What is it, Detective?”

“In going over your checkbook I saw that someone had made a number of large cash withdrawals over the last few weeks, usually ten to twenty-five thousand dollars at a time. Can you tell me what the money was for?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said. “Harry liked having cash on hand; he wouldn’t use credit cards.”

Tommy nodded. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “And thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be going now.”

“Bye-bye,” she said, and reached behind her to untie her bra.