by Ed McBain
I told him Dale and I had ended our relationship.
“You’re a born loser with women,” Frank said. “It’s written all over your face. You have a Second City mentality when it comes to women. I happen to have liked Susan very much,” he said. Susan was my former wife. “Why you took off after that coozy blonde is beyond me,” he said. He was referring to a lady named Agatha Hemmings, who had been the cause of the breakup between Susan and me, and who had since divorced her former husband, remarried, and moved to Tampa. “Not that I don’t like Dale, too,” Frank said. “Very smart lady, Dale, very pretty. But I could see this coming, Matthew, you do not know how to relate to women. One of the things I learned very early on in New York was how to relate to women. You see how beautifully I get along with Leona? That’s because when I was seventeen I wrote down these ten rules on how to get along with women. I still follow those rules, Matthew, they outline how a man is supposed to treat a woman if he expects to enjoy a good relationship with her. How did you treat Dale, Matthew?”
“That’s none of your business,” I said.
“Is it my business that you come to work looking like somebody ran you through a meat grinder? Because you got into a fight over a woman you didn’t know how to treat properly?”
“No, that’s not your business, either.”
“I thought we were partners,” Frank said.
“Not in everything,” I said.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“I feel terrible.”
“Why don’t you go home?”
“I have work to do.”
“You’ll scare away all our clients. Would you like me to write down my rules for you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I realize the horse is already gone, and there’s no sense locking the barn door,” Frank said, “but there’ll be other women, I’m sure, and it wouldn’t hurt if you knew how to treat them.”
“I don’t want to see your rules,” I said.
“I’ll write them down for you,” Frank said. “Leona and I have a perfect marriage because of those rules. We’ve been married for fifteen years, you think all it takes is luck?”
“I don’t know what it takes. That’s your business, Frank.”
“I’ll write them down,” Frank said. “I’ll have Cynthia type them up for you.”
“No, don’t bother,” I said.
“It won’t be any trouble,” Frank said, and that was when Cynthia buzzed to say a Mr. Burrill was calling on six. As I picked up the phone, Frank mouthed the words, “I’ll write them down,” and then left my office.
“Matthew Hope,” I said into the phone.
“Mr. Hope?” he said. “This here is Avery Burrill.”
Redneck farmer voice, Southern accent you could cut with a machete.
“Yes, Mr. Burrill,” I said.
“I’m the man sellin’ that farm to your client.”
“Yes, sir, I know.”
“I just heard it on the radio,” he said. I assumed he was talking about the death of Jack McKinney. “My lawyer’s up in Maine fishing, out on a goddamn lake someplace, can’t be reached. What do we do now?”
“About the closing, do you mean?”
“Damn right, about the closing. Your client’s dead, somebody killed him. I got a signed piece of paper sayin’ he’s buyin’ my farm. I coulda had a dozen other buyers for that property, turned them all away ’cause Jack had his heart set on snapbean farming. I want to know who’s responsible, now, Mr. Hope. Who’s gonna be there at that closin’?”
“I have no idea.”
“I thought you was Jack’s lawyer.”
“I am. But I have no idea whether or not he left a will, or who—”
“Well, you damn well better find out, Mr. Hope. The way I look at it, he owes me thirty-six thousand dollars. I made plans of my own, you know. Punctuated on this deal going through. It ain’t my fault he went and got hisself stabbed. I want my money.”
“Mr. Burrill,” I said, “I suggest that you contact your own lawyer regarding—”
“I jus’ tole you he’s out on a boat. How’m I supposed to get to him?”
“I’m sure someone in his office—”
“I already called his office, how you think I know about him bein’ on a boat? Ain’t nobody there but the girl answers the phone. Us farmers can’t afford big-shot lawyers with assistants runnin’ aroun’ all over the place. Harry Loomis runs a one-man operation, just him an’ the girl answers the phone. An’ he’s out on a boat till the end of the week, won’t be back in his office till the fifteenth.”
“I suggest you wait till he gets back,” I said. “The closing wouldn’t have taken place before the beginning of next month, anyway.”
“I was plannin’ on bein’ out of here by the second.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“All of it punctuated on this deal goin’ through. See what you can find out for me, would you, please? I really would appreciate it. And seein’ as Harry’s away, I wouldn’t mind throwin’ a few dollars in your direction if you can help speed this thing along.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Burrill.”
I didn’t mention that it would also be unethical.
“Have you got my number there?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Well, you ought to have it. Have you got a pencil?”
I wrote down the number he gave me. He advised me to keep trying if the line was busy, since it was a party line and the lady who shared it with him was a big talker.
“Call me, Mr. Hope. Soon as you fine out anythin’,” he said, and hung up.
I had no intention of calling him.
2
* * *
IT DID not seem likely to me that Jack McKinney had drawn a will. To begin with, the farthest thing from the minds of most twenty-year-olds is death. When you’re twenty, you’re immortal. But even assuming he had considered the possibility—he had, after all, been in apparent possession of at least forty thousand dollars—which attorney had he gone to? If another attorney had indeed drawn a will for him, then why hadn’t he gone to that same attorney on the real-estate transaction? Why come to me instead? He could have drawn the will himself, of course; anyone can. But he’d still have needed witnesses, and no person with any knowledge of a will had yet come forward.
In the state of Florida, anyone having custody of a will is required to deposit it with the clerk of the court within ten days after receiving information of a death. The murder of Jack McKinney had made newspaper headlines and had been reported on every radio and television station in the area, but my call to Probate on the nineteenth of August revealed that no will had yet been deposited. I got this information at nine-thirty in the morning, and immediately called Harry Loomis, who had come back from his fishing trip in Maine the preceding Sunday, and who had been calling me daily since his return to the office on the fifteenth. I told him I was fairly certain now that McKinney hadn’t left a will, and that I would be checking with any close surviving relatives to see if they knew anything about what sort of estate he’d left. Loomis told me there had to be an estate of at least $36,000 because that’s what McKinney had agreed to pay in cash at the closing. I told him I would have to discuss that with McKinney’s heirs. Loomis told me his client expected to close the deal, and if he had to sue the estate to get the balance due, he would damn well do it. I promised I’d get back to him and hung up thinking I had needed Jack McKinney like a hole in the head.
The real hole in my head had healed. There was still a scab, but I considered it healed nonetheless; at least there was no longer an adhesive patch back there. My eyes looked okay, too, if you like lingering sunsets. It had been eleven days since Charlie and Jeff had waltzed me to near oblivion, and I had not heard a word from Dale. I had tried to call her once, but when a man answered the phone at her Whisper Key house, I told him I had the wrong number, and hung up. I had not spoken to Bloom, either, s
ince the morning after the beating (and the murder, of course; the beating had left a more indelible impression on me), but I figured he might now be able to tell me what I needed to know about next of kin. I dialed the number at Calusa Public Safety, as the police department is formally known here in genteel Calusa, asked for Detective Bloom, and was put through to his office at once.
“How’s it going?” he said. “When’re we getting together for that lesson in street fighting?”
“Anytime you say,” I told him.
“You’re really serious, huh? How about sometime next week?”
“Just let me know when,” I said.
“Bring a sweat suit and sneakers to the office, I’ll keep in touch. We can walk from here to the gym, it’s right next door, in the basement of the jailhouse. Maybe we can get some of the cons in there to give us a few pointers, huh? They know all about gouging out eyes. What can I do for you, Matthew?”
“I just called Probate again to check on whether or not they’ve received a will for McKinney. They’ve got nothing yet, Morrie, and yesterday was the deadline for deposit. I know you’ve been investigating the case—”
“Cold as a mackerel,” Bloom said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But we’re still working on it. Also on those punks who did the boiler-room number on you. They’ll turn up sooner or later, don’t worry, how many Charlies and Jeffs can there be in Calusa County? By the way, we still haven’t found that big chunk of money McKinney was supposed to have for the closing. Went through his apartment with a fine comb—nothing. Checked every bank here in Calusa and also in Bradenton and Sarasota to see if he had a savings account, checking account, or safety deposit box—nothing. You think he buried the money on the beach someplace? Like a pirate or something? Who knows?” Bloom said. “So what do you want to know? Who his next of kin are?”
“Exactly.”
“His father died two years ago, right after the Fourth of July. Man named Drew McKinney. Incidentally, he didn’t leave a cent to the kid, so that rules out inheritance as a source of the forty K. McKinney’s mother is still alive—lady named Veronica, has a cattle ranch on the road to Ananburg, lives there with the kid’s sister, twenty-three years old, a real beauty. Well, both of them, in fact. I forget the sister’s name—Patty or something. I can look it up, if you like.”
“No, the mother would most likely be appointed personal representative of the estate.”
“We talked both her and the sister blue in the face. They’ve got alibis a mile long. We look for family, you know. Never mind what you read in mystery novels, the way they make all these murders look like things planned a hundred years in advance and pulled off with the skill of a hit man. Bullshit. Most of your murders, it’s a family situation. Kid kills his father or vice versa. Guy takes a hatchet to his wife. Or her lover. Or the wife kills the old man’s girlfriend, like that. Anyway, they both seem clean. The mother—does this sort of stuff interest you?”
“You know it does,” I said.
“Yeah, well, you never know. The mother was home watching television with a veterinarian who’d come to dinner that night. He was out there looking at a sick cow, and she asked him to stay to dinner, and they sat around later watching television. The vet says he was with her at nine o’clock—that’s about when McKinney was getting himself stabbed. So that lets out the old lady.”
“Where was the sister?”
“In the sack with her boyfriend. We got this out of her after a lot of hemming and hawing. Nobody likes to admit something like that until they realize we’re really talking about murder here. Her boyfriend’s name is Jackie Crowell—another Jack, common name. Except in my family. In my family, the common names are Sidney, Bernie, Marvin, Irving, and Abe. Anyway, Crowell confirmed he was with her that night, in his apartment. Took her to dinner at McDonald’s—”
“Big spender,” I said.
“Yeah, well, he’s only eighteen years old. The sister is twenty-three, and positively gorgeous. So she’s making it with an eighteen-year-old twerp who’s got pimples all over his face. Anyway, they went right back to his place—you should see it, it’s a regular dump, the kid works stacking oranges in a supermarket here in town. Got back there around eight, he said, spent the rest of the night together. So that lets out Patty or Sally or whatever the hell her name is. It’s never easy, is it, Matthew?”
“Never,” I said. “Have you got an address for that ranch?”
“It’s called the M.K. Ranch, I guess that stands for McKinney, don’t you think? Anyway, you go south on Forty-One and then east on Timucuan Point, it’s about midway between here and Manakawa. Big sign on the right-hand side of the road, you can’t miss it.”
“Would you have Mrs. McKinney’s phone number?”
“Yeah, just a second, let me get the file.”
I waited. He was back on the line almost immediately. I wrote down the number he gave me, and was about to thank him when he said, “Yeah, here’s the sister’s name, too. Where’d I get Patty from? It’s Sunny, with a u, like in sunshine. Sunny McKinney. I didn’t ask her whether that’s a nickname or not. Let me know how it goes, huh?” he said, and hung up abruptly.
I did not particularly wish to talk to my former wife, Susan, but today was Friday, and it had been two weeks since I’d seen my daughter, and Joanna was scheduled to spend this weekend with me, as specified in the divorce agreement. I simply wanted to know what time she’d be ready for pickup. I don’t know why so many divorced women drift into selling real estate, but it seems to be an immutable fact of nature, and that was what Susan was doing these days, so I called her at Ridley and Nelson, and asked for Susan Hope, please, the name sticking in my throat as it always did; her maiden name had been Susan Fitch, a perfectly respectable Midwestern WASP name; I could not understand why she hadn’t gone back to it after the divorce. Neither could I understand why I never called her “Sue” anymore. It was always “Susan” now. “Sue” did not seem an inappropriate familiarity for someone who’d lived with a woman for fourteen years—and yet I could never get the diminutive past my lips.
The reason I did not enjoy talking to Susan Fitch Hope on the telephone was that I never knew who might be greeting me on any given day. I certainly would never accuse my former wife of being schizophrenic, a contention I’m sure she could successfully refute in any court of law in the land—maybe. She did, however, assume many different roles in her conversations with me, and two of these were clearly—if not clinically—identifiable as personalities at opposite ends of the psychological spectrum. As I waited for her to come to the phone, I wondered whether I’d be talking to Susan the Witch or Susan the Waif this morning.
“Matthew!” she said, as though delighted by the very sound of my biblical name. “I’m so glad you called!” The Waif. “How are you, Matthew?”
“Fine, thanks,” I said, which was more or less true. “And you?”
“Oh, you know,” she said.
This last, delivered with the self-pitying tone of someone for whom the travails of the world are simply too much to bear, meant she was going to tell me about one of her various allergies. Susan had discovered, almost the moment we’d moved to Florida, that she was allergic to virtually everything that grew down here. Whenever Susan started talking about her allergies—and she often did when she assumed the role of the Waif—she sounded like someone who was terminally ill. I did not want to hear about her allergies. Or her sex life, which I didn’t think I’d be hearing about today; usually, only the Witch talked about her sex life.
“Matthew, I know you must be very busy,” she said, “and I promise I won’t take up a minute more of your time than I have to.”
The old Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt Waif. But at least she wasn’t telling me about the way punk trees made her sneeze. Not yet, anyway.
“That’s okay, Susan,” I said, “take all the time you need.” I had learned over the years since the divorce that the only way to deal with Litt
le Orphan Annie was to assume the role of a tolerant Daddy Warbucks. Better the Waif than the Witch. The Witch was impossible to talk to on any human level.
“I have a serious problem,” she said.
I waited.
“It has to do with Joanna,” she said.
“What’s the matter?” I said, instantly alarmed. Both the Waif and the Witch knew exactly which buttons to push to get a paternal rise out of me.
“Nothing, nothing, she’s fine,” Susan said. “But she’s supposed to see you this weekend—”
“In fact, that’s why I’m call—”
“It’s been two weeks, I know,” Susan said sweetly, “and the agreement calls for every other weekend.”
“Yes, it does,” I said, becoming vaguely suspicious.
“Matthew,” she said, “do you remember my brother?”
“Of course I remember your brother,” I said.
Susan seemed to think that divorce, as it affected the male of the species, brought on premature senility and the subsequent loss of memory. She was always asking me if I knew people we’d known together for years. I expected her to ask me one day if I remembered my own daughter. I did indeed remember Jerry Fitch. Jerry Fitch was the son of a bitch who’d refused to tell my mother-in-law that she was dying of cancer. I had loved that woman a great deal. She’d never known she was dying, because all the doctors, on Jerry’s instructions, kept the information from her and therefore robbed her of whatever dignity she might have mustered at the end. Instead, she died in agonized surprise. I kept thinking of her that way—as dying in surprise. I had not liked Jerry then, and I did not like him now, and I was enormously grateful that he was no longer a part of my life.
“He’s here,” Susan said. “In Calusa.”
“That’s nice,” I said. I was hoping he’d get eaten by an alligator.
“He always loved Joanna so much,” Susan said sweetly.