Jack and the Beanstalk (Matthew Hope)

by Ed McBain

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You talk to Burrill recently?”

  “He called me the day after McKinney was murdered,” I said.

  “What’d he want?”

  “He’d heard about the murder, and he wanted to know what would happen next.”

  “How’d he seem to you?”

  “Eager to close the deal.”

  “You talk to him since?”

  “Just his attorney.”

  “How’d you get here?” Hopper asked suddenly.

  “I walked,” I said.

  “All the way from Calusa?”

  “My car’s up the road. The battery went dead.”

  “Convenient,” Hopper said, and walked over to look at the chalked outline on the floor.

  “Schmuck,” Bloom whispered under his breath. Aloud, he said, “Okay if Mr. Hope goes now?”

  “Who’s Mr. Hope?” Hopper asked, without turning to look at us.

  “I am,” I said.

  “Sure, go ahead,” he said.

  Bloom shook his head, and then walked me outside.

  “You want a lift back to town?” he asked. “I’ll be here awhile yet, but as soon as His Royal Schmuck is gone, I’ll get one of the blues to drive you back.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I said.

  I did not get back to the office until a quarter past six. I called the service station I usually dealt with, told them what had happened and where the car was, and asked if someone could stop by to pick up the keys. They promised that someone would be there within the next half hour. There were several pink message slips on my desk, but it was too late to return any calls.

  There was also a handwritten note from Frank. It read:

  The tow truck arrived some ten minutes later. I gave the mechanic the keys and asked him when he thought I could have the car back. He shrugged. Mechanics, I’ve discovered, shrug almost as often as doctors do. It must have been about seven-fifteen when I left the office. I was just locking the door when the telephone rang. I debated going in again to answer it, and decided against it. I had dinner alone at an Italian restaurant within walking distance of the office—there is not a single good Italian restaurant in all Calusa; most of them are owned and operated by Greeks from Tarpon Springs—and then took a taxi home. It was almost nine o’clock when I got to the house.

  A red Porsche was parked in my driveway.

  I paid and tipped the cabbie, walked around to the kitchen door, unlocked it, stepped into the house, and immediately heard the sound of someone splashing around in my pool. This time I did not turn on any lights. I went directly to the sliding glass doors, unlocked them, pulled them open, and stepped out onto the terrace.

  I had a distinct feeling of déjà vu.

  Sunny McKinney was in my pool again.

  Sunny McKinney was swimming underwater.

  Sunny McKinney was naked.

  Her body, tanned and long and supple, moved effortlessly and gracefully beneath the moonstruck surface, a triangle of white flesh showing where the sun had not touched her, arms pushing water in a strong breast stroke, legs frog-kicking behind her, blonde hair reflecting glints of whatever pale light there was. Underwater, she touched the tiles at the far end of the pool, executed a swift turn, still submerged, and started back for the shallow end. Midway between the far end of the pool and where I was standing, she came up for air. I caught only a glimpse of her blonde hair before she went under again, but it was enough to tell me that the lady in my pool wasn’t who I’d thought she was.

  Still unaware of my presence, she surfaced near the pool steps, touched the bottom step for support, stood up, and began climbing the steps. She was not, as I had earlier surmised, entirely naked. What I’d taken for an untanned triangle of flesh was in reality a pair of white bikini panties, soaked through now and showing a darker triangular patch above the joining of her legs. Her hair was cut in a short wedge, but her body could have been Sunny’s exactly, long and tan and supple and firm. Veronica McKinney still didn’t know I was standing there. The moment, for her at least, was a private one. She shook out her short hair. She put a finger in her left ear, jumped up and down on her left foot, did the same to her right ear and on her right foot, ran her hands over her breasts to stroke water from them, and did the same with her belly and thighs. She went to the lounge chair where her clothes were neatly folded, reached into her bag for a tissue, and blew her nose.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She turned, startled.

  “Hi,” she said. “You’re home, huh?”

  “I’m home.”

  We looked at each other. She smiled.

  “Caught me trespassing, huh?” she said. “Will you prosecute?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  We kept looking at each other.

  “You want a towel, right?” I said.

  “Wrong,” she said.

  She rummaged around in her handbag again, found a package of cigarettes, shook one free, and lit it. “Mm, good,” she said, exhaling, and sat on the edge of the lounge next to the one with her clothes folded on it. There was a faint chill on the air; her nipples were puckering.

  “I tried you at the office,” she said, “but I got no answer.”

  “When was this?”

  “Seven, seven-thirty? I was at a very dull cocktail party in that new condo on the Gulf—what’s it called?”

  “Bayview?”

  “Bayview, yes. Stuffy and boring. I also called you here. No answer. I figured you had to come home sooner or later, so I drove on over. Your address is in the phone book, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Well,” she said, “aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”

  The feeling of déjà vu persisted.

  “Sure,” I said. “What would you like?”

  “Sour mash on the rocks, if you’ve got any.”

  “I think so,” I said, and paused before going back into the house. “Would you like a robe or something?” I asked.

  “No, thanks, I’m fine,” she said.

  I went to the bar and poured a generous splash of bourbon into a short glass. I mixed myself a Dewar’s and soda. I picked up an ashtray and carried that out to the terrace as well, a drink in each hand, the ashtray pressed against my ribs with my right elbow.

  “Oh, good,” she said, “I was wondering what to do with this.”

  She stubbed out the cigarette and accepted the drink. “Thanks,” she said. “Your pool was delightful, I hope you don’t mind my using it. It got so hot.”

  I was wondering why she was here. Had she heard about Burrill’s murder on the six o’clock news? It didn’t seem likely that someone had turned on a television set at a cocktail party.

  “Cheers,” she said.

  “Cheers,” I said.

  We drank.

  “Why don’t you take a swim?” she said.

  “Maybe later,” I said.

  “At least take off your jacket and tie,” she said. “Aren’t you suffocating?”

  I took off my jacket and draped it over the back of the lounge chair behind her clothes. She’d been wearing white tonight. A silky-looking white dress neatly folded on the seat of the chair, a pair of high-heeled white patent slippers side by side on the tiles. No bra, I noticed. And she was wearing the panties that completed the outfit. I yanked down the knot of my tie, and unfastened the top button of my shirt.

  “There,” she said, “isn’t that better?”

  “Much,” I said.

  “Always listen to Mama,” she said. “Does it embarrass you, my sitting here like this?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You keep averting your eyes,” she said. “You needn’t.”

  I felt as if I’d been reincarnated by mistake into the same life I’d already lived last Friday night. Remembering Sunny, I suddenly wondered how far from the tree the acorn ever really fell, and I wondered again why Veronica had come here. Perhaps I was avoiding the obvious. I was certa
inly old enough and experienced enough to accept without question a partially clad woman sipping a poolside bourbon and telling me I didn’t have to worry about where my eyes wandered. But I had never flattered myself into believing I was irresistible to women; I had, in fact, spent the better part of my life convincing myself that I could be even slightly attractive to any member of the opposite sex, despite the knowledge that many of the women I’d known in my adult life were, at the very least, pretty. Perhaps unfulfilled teenage yearnings died hard. I know only that I felt as if I were back in Chicago again, scrawny and acne-ridden and steaming with adolescent passion. Here and now was Calusa, Florida, on a sweltering night in August. Here and now was Veronica McKinney sitting casually, albeit half naked, in the moonlight while I sat fully clothed, looking at all the beautiful foliage, and the sky, and the moon, and the pool, and anything but her. Maybe it had something to do with her age. Maybe, by comparison, I was a teenager.

  “Cat got your tongue?” she asked.

  “Just thinking,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “About why you came here.”

  “I was bored. Also, I remembered you had a pool.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I don’t know why I’m making you so nervous,” she said. “But I’ll dress if you like.”

  She looked at me questioningly. I said nothing. She rose suddenly.

  “Turn your back,” she said.

  I did not turn my back.

  “Naughty boy,” she said, and rolled the wet panties down over her thighs and ankles and stepped out of them. She picked up the white dress, pulled it over her head, and smoothed it over her hips and thighs. “There,” she said, “is that better? Don’t look so stern and disapproving, Matthew.”

  “Is that how I look?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Actually, I’m glad you’re here.”

  “You seem positively overjoyed.”

  “I planned to call you in the morning, anyway.”

  “Ah? What about?”

  “I went to see Loomis again this afternoon.”

  She raised her eyebrows expectantly. I did not know how much I should actually tell her. She seemed not to know that Burrill had been murdered, and I didn’t think I should be the one to inform her. At the same time, Loomis had made his counteroffer on behalf of a client who was now dead. Would Burrill’s heirs, if there were any, insist on the same terms for settlement? I decided to tread very cautiously.

  “He made a counteroffer,” I said. “He wants you to pay five thousand dollars in damages.”

  “What damages?”

  “He claims his client lost potential buyers.”

  “Yes, I’m sure the woods are just full of aspiring snapbean farmers. I hope you told him to go to hell.”

  “In effect. I wanted to check with you first.”

  “Then why didn’t you call me?”

  “Something came up.”

  “Like what?”

  “Busy afternoon at the office,” I said.

  “Would you mind if I freshened this?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, she started for the house. Here we go again, I thought. Like mother, like daughter. Same magnificent bodies, same blonde hair, same blue eyes, same thirst. She stopped just outside the sliding glass doors.

  “Where’s the light switch?” she asked.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, and went into the house ahead of her. I turned on the living room lights and then the pool lights. She followed me into the house and looked around, appraising it. “Nice,” she said. “Did you do it yourself?”

  “Must be an echo in here,” I said.

  “What?” she said.

  “It came furnished.”

  “Very nice,” she said, padding over to the bar. “How big is it?”

  “Two bedrooms,” I said. “My daughter comes to visit every other weekend.”

  “You’re divorced?” she asked, and found the bourbon bottle.

  “Yes.”

  “Would I know your ex?” She put two ice cubes into her glass, and poured liberally over them.

  “Her name’s Susan.”

  “Does she still keep the Hope?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t know her,” Veronica said, and turned from the bar. “Cheers,” she said, and drank. The white dress clung to her. I was unashamedly aware that she was wearing nothing at all under it. “Are you otherwise attached?” she asked, and looked at me.

  “Not at the moment.”

  She nodded.

  She was silent for what seemed a very long time then, sipping at her drink, looking out over the bayou whenever a mullet jumped, apparently gathering her thoughts before she spoke again.

  At last she said, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Jack these past few days.”

  I said nothing.

  “About how it could have happened,” she said. “How someone could have got in there and stabbed him.”

  I still said nothing.

  “My son had a gun. A .38 Smith & Wesson that Drew gave him on his eighteenth birthday. The twenty-seventh of June. Two years ago,” she said. “Just before Drew died. I find that ironic, don’t you? Macho Drew giving un-macho Jack a great big symbol of masculinity when he reaches manhood, maybe because he himself—ravaged by cancer—was feeling intimations of mortality. He was right, as it turned out. He died a week after Jack’s birthday. On the Fourth of July, went out in a blaze of fireworks. Here’s to you, Drew,” she said, and drank. “I hope there are lots of fat cows wherever you are, all of them barbecued, you son of a bitch.” She drank again. “Jack actually learned to use it,” she said. “Amazing. He never was worth a damn when it came to practical matters.”

  I remembered what she’d told me about her son’s never having learned to brand a calf or ride a horse, and I assumed that on a ranch, learning to use a gun was just another one of those “practical matters.”

  “He took it with him when he moved out to Stone Crab,” she said. “Have the police mentioned a gun to you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Me neither. They gave me a list of everything in the apartment, right down to a pair of sweaty tennis socks. I guess they do that to protect themselves, wouldn’t you say? Against later charges of theft?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Because it’s not unheard of, you know. The police taking whatever isn’t nailed down. The firemen too.”

  “In New York, they call them the Forty Thieves.”

  “The police?”

  “The firemen. My partner Frank told me that. He’s a New Yorker.”

  “And you?”

  “Chicago.”

  “I love that city,” she said. “Hog butcher to the world. Sandburg, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Yes, of course you would. But if the gun wasn’t in his apartment, where was it?”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t—”

  “Not according to the list they gave me. They would have listed a gun, wouldn’t they?”

  “I’d guess so.”

  “A weapon? Well, certainly. And another question. Wouldn’t Jack have tried to use the gun? On a man intending serious damage with a knife?”

  “Assuming the gun was there.”

  “Yes, but that’s exactly my point, don’t you see?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Was the gun there?”

  “You seem to think it should have been.”

  “Well, he took it with him when he moved, didn’t he?”

  “Which was back in June.”

  “Yes. So where was the gun on the night of the murder? And where is it now?”

  “Maybe the police confiscated it.”

  “Without listing it?”

  “Maybe they didn’t want the killer to know about it.”

  “Do they think I’m the killer?”

  “I’m sure they don’t.”

  “The list was prepared for me, Matthew.
As next of kin. If they found Jack’s gun, it would’ve been on that list.”

  “Maybe the killer took it with him.”

  “Maybe,” she said. She sipped at her drink thoughtfully. “Which brings up yet another question. How’d the killer get in? Jack normally kept his door locked. There’s a peephole in the door. He would have seen whoever was out there in the hall before he unlocked the door. Yet he unlocked it. And let his own murderer in. And didn’t even try to use the gun to protect himself.”

  “What does that indicate to you?” I said.

  “First, that he knew whoever killed him. Knew him well enough to let him into the apartment. And second, that the gun wasn’t in Jack’s possession on the night of the murder. He’d have gone for it otherwise. To protect himself.”

  “Well,” I said, “no one really knows what happened in that apartment. Except the killer, of course...”

  “And Jack. Who’s dead.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  There was another silence.

  “Could I have a smidgin more of this?” she asked.

  I took her glass and carried it to the bar.

  “Bloom asked me a lot of questions that night,” she said.

  “What night?”

  “The night Jack was killed. I think he considered me a suspect.”

  “They have to ask a lot of questions,” I said, and carried the drink back to her. “Especially of the family.”

  “Is that why he wanted to know whether Dr. Jeffries and I had a thing going? Thanks,” she said, and took the glass.

  “Dr. Jeffries?”

  “My veterinarian. And Bloom’s word exactly. A thing. I guess he meant an affair. Wouldn’t you think he meant an affair?”

  “I would suppose so.”

  “With a man who’s seventy-five years old?”

  “Well...”

  “I realize I look mummified, but really—”

  “You look nothing of the sort,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said, “you’re very kind. But Dr. Jeffries is considerably older than I am, and the idea of Bloom suggesting a thing with him...” She shook her head.

  “He was undoubtedly checking your alibi,” I said.

  “Because we were together, do you mean? On the night of the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if we were lovers, of course, we would most certainly lie for each other.”