Stuart Woods - Choke

“Except when I went to the bank, late in the morning.”

“How long were you gone?”

“Oh, half an hour, forty-five minutes, I guess. I had to cash a CD to pay Merk. You hear anything from him?”

“What time did you finish last night?”

“At six.”

“What did you do then?”

“I went home, showered and changed clothes, then I met Chuck and Meg at Louie’s for dinner. We were celebrating our buying the club.”

“How late were you there?”

“Well, now, that’s where things get a little fuzzy,” Victor said ruefully. “We sort of tied one on.”

“You don’t know what time you left Louie’s?” Victor shook his head. “Meg was sober enough to drive; ask her.”

“You went home, then?”

“No, we went to Chuck’s boat.”

“How long were you there?”

“All night.”

“Drinking? All night?”

“No, I slept there, in the saloon. Second night in a row.”

Tommy stared at the man. If his story held up, then the list of suspects was at an end. “How long have you known Clare Carras, Victor?”

“Since they came to town, late last year, I guess. I think they started playing here almost as soon as they arrived.”

“Did you know Clare before that?”

“No. You asked me all this before, Tommy.”

“Ever been to Las Vegas, Victor?”

“Yeah, a couple of times.”

“How long ago?”

“Let’s see, it was a convention of a tennis association, two years ago. I was there a couple of years before that, too, at a tournament.”

“Is that where you met Merk?”

“Right. On the second trip.”

“You became buddies then?”

“Not exactly; we had a few drinks, had dinner once in a group of people.”

“Did you meet his wife at that time?”

Victor shook his head. “He told me he was going through a divorce, though.”

“Do you know who his wife was?”

“Yep. But not until just recently.”

“How recently?”

“Night before last. I had dinner aboard Choke and Chuck told me.”

“And it came as a surprise that Merk and Clare had been married once?”

“Did it ever! Knocked me right off my stool, I can tell you. I mean, Merk never let on, never said a word to me about her.”

“Give me your background since college, Victor.”

“I didn’t go to college.”

“All right, since high school.”

“I taught at a tennis camp the summers of my junior and senior years, and again the summer after high school, then I went into the marines.”

“How long did you serve?”

“Two three-year hitches.”

“Where?”

“Parris Island, Camp Pendleton, a tour of Vietnam, then to Quantico, where I joined a service tennis team. After that, all I did was play tennis.”

“After the marines?”

“I taught at half a dozen clubs up and down the eastern seaboard, mostly in Florida.”

“How did you happen to come to Key West?”

“Merk called me. He remembered me from our meeting in Vegas and he offered me the job, winters in Key West, summers in Santa Fe.”

Tommy leaned forward. “Tell me about Vietnam.”

“I was in a rifle company; we got shot at from time to time.”

“Were you ever in Saigon?”

“Yeah, a dozen times, I guess.”

“Did you ever meet Merk in Saigon?”

Victor shook his head. “Nah, Merk was an officer, running a program at an officers’ club. I never rose above corporal, so we didn’t move in the same circles. I knew he was there, though; he told me the first time we met.”

“Victor, did the Marine Corps teach you how to use a knife?”

“Sure, they taught everybody.”

“Did you ever kill anybody with a knife?”

Victor shook his head. “I never got that close to anybody I wanted to kill. Mostly I fired an M-16 at jungle. The only Vietcong I ever saw were at a distance or dead. Tommy, what’s this all about?”

“Merk’s dead.”

Victor looked absolutely flabbergasted. “When? How?”

“Late last night, drowning.”

“Drowning? He was swimming late last night?”

“Boating,” Tommy said. “He didn’t do any swimming.”

Back in the car, Tommy and Daryl compared notes.

“The three of them seem to have spent most of the last forty-eight hours together,” Daryl said. “But Victor was sleeping in the saloon on the boat. He could have sneaked out in the night.”

Tommy nodded. “But if he did, he’s got Meg, who was pretty sober, to testify as to how drunk he was. It would take a lot of doing to leave Choke and, without a car, get to a marina on Stock Island, slug Merk, dump him out on the reef, get back to the marina, then back to Choke.”

“Maybe he didn’t go back to the marina,” Daryl said. “Maybe he brought his boat into Key West Bight, then boarded Choke again.”

“Or,” Tommy said, “maybe he left Key West Bight in a boat and drove around to Stock Island. How long would that take?”

“Well, I’d say no more than an hour, even at night, if he knew what he was doing.”

“So he could have done it,” Tommy said.

“It’s not impossible, but what’s his motive? He and Chuck just bought the tennis club from Merk yesterday, and the money was already in the bank.”

“You’ve got a point. By the way, he knew about Merk and Clare.”

“Yeah, Chuck told me he told him.”

“I wish he hadn’t told him,” Tommy said.

“Why?”

“Because Merk might still be alive.”

“That’s pretty far-fetched, Tommy.”

Tommy nodded. “I know.”

“Tommy, not to criticize your surveillance work, but Clare might have gotten past you last night, just like Merk got past me.”

“How would she get to the marina and back?”

“Merk had a scooter; maybe she has some transportation we don’t know about. It’s possible.”

“Anything’s possible,” Tommy replied. “That’s the trouble with this case.”

“Tommy, you predicted this; you said she had a man who was helping her; you said she’d waste him as soon as we nailed Chuck. Well, we nailed Chuck, she thinks, and she wasted him. It’s obvious to me.”

Tommy sighed. “I wish it were as obvious to me, kid.”

Tommy was awakened by the telephone before dawn, but Rosie got to it first.

“Hello?” she said sleepily. Rosie was used to answering the phone for Tommy in the middle of the night. She listened for a moment, then nudged Tommy with an elbow. “It’s for you,” she said.

“Who is it?”

“It’s a woman,” she said venomously.

Tommy sat up in bed and took the phone. “Tommy Sculley,” he said.

“Tommy, it’s Rita,” a small female voice said.

“Who?” Tommy replied, although he knew very well who it was.”

“Rita Cortez, in L.A.”

“Oh, yeah, how are you? What is it, the middle of the night out there?”

“It’s a little after two,” she said.

“What’s up, Rita?”

“You’re going to be very angry with me.”

“Why should I be angry with you?”

“I told them.”

“Told who, and what?”

“About Key West. I told them.”

“Start at the beginning, Rita, and tell me everything.”

“These two guys showed up at my house, and they said they wanted to know everything about Barry’s time in Florida.”

“Whatshisname, the lawyer sent them?”

“They didn’t mention his name, but who else?”

“What, exactly, did they ask you?”

“They knew Barry had been to Florida, because he was killed there, and they knew you were from Key West. What they didn’t know was the tip that Barry got about Key West. But they know it now.”