by Ed McBain
“What about her?” I said.
“She and Joanna are such good friends,” Susan said.
This was news to me. I had not heard Joanna so much as mention Daisy in the past several months. I suddenly remembered what we used to call The Great Gatsby back when I was an undergraduate at Northwestern. The Light on Daisy’s Dock. This was supposed to have sexual connotations. When I was an undergraduate, everything had sexual connotations. “Daisy’s dock” referred to Daisy’s vagina. The possibility that it had a light on it was enough to send all of us pink-cheeked sophomores into gales of hysterical laughter. We also used to enjoy singing a song called “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” the “now” being synonymous with the “dock” Daisy had a light on. Oh my, we were such great wits back then.
“It would be a shame,” Susan said morosely, “if Joanna couldn’t be there.”
“Be where?” I said.
“The wedding,” Susan said. “She virtually grew up with Daisy, you know, and her mother is getting remarried, after all, and I know she—”
“No,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
“What?” Susan said.
“I won’t forfeit another weekend.”
“I haven’t even asked yet,” Susan said.
“You’ve asked. And the answer is no.”
“The wedding’s on Saturday. I thought I might bring Joanna over to your place on Sunday morning—”
“No.”
“This means a lot to her, Matthew!”
“I doubt it. But if she really wants to go see Rhett Robinson marry—who’s she marrying, anyway? Some guy named Heathcliff? Ahab? Beowulf?”
“His name happens to be Joshua Rosen,” Susan said coldly. “He happens to be Jewish.”
“That’s very nice,” I said, “but I don’t care if the Pope is marrying Bo Derek. The last time I saw Joanna was on—”
“Do you know what you are?” Susan asked, and suddenly the Witch rode into view on a broomstick trailing brimstone and fire and eyes of newt. “You are an unmitigated son of a bitch. Your daughter’s best girl friend in the entire world—”
“Daisy Robinson is not Joanna’s best friend. Susan, I really don’t want to get into an argument, okay? If Joanna really wants to go to the wedding—”
“She does want to go!”
“Then have her call me. If she honestly wants to go, I’ll—”
“You’ll pressure her, right?”
“No, I won’t pressure her. All she has to do is say, ‘Dad—’”
“Dad!” Susan sneered, as if the word, coming from my lips, were sheer blasphemy.
“I am her father,” I said with some dignity.
“Some father,” Susan said. “Denying her the opportunity to—”
“Not if she wants to go,” I said. “All she has to do is tell me so herself.”
“I sometimes wonder why God made you so fucking mean,” Susan said.
“Just ask her to call me, okay?” I said, and hung up. My hands were trembling. I truly hated these bouts with Susan. I was still shaking when Cynthia knocked on the door and came into my office.
If a person didn’t know that Cynthia Heullen had a mind like a switchblade knife, he would automatically assume she was a beach bum. This was because she spent every weekend outdoors—swimming, boating, shelling, gardening, walking, whatever—and as a result had become the tannest, blondest young woman in all Calusa. I think she even spent rainy weekends outdoors. Cynthia was twenty-five years old and blessed with a grasp of the law that sometimes caused envy in our modest offices. Frank or I would often be fumbling around for a pertinent section in the Florida Statutes, fitfully leafing through pages, and Cynthia would pop up out of the blue with “Child Abuse, Section 827.03,” even though she had never studied law in her life, and had come to us as a receptionist directly after she’d earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at USF. Frank and I kept begging her to go to law school, promising to take her into the firm the moment she passed the Florida bar exams. But Cynthia was happy with being exactly what she was. I knew very little about her private life; Karl Jennings, the youngest lawyer in our firm, told me in confidence that she was living with an itinerant folksinger out on Sabal Key. I told him I didn’t want to hear anything more about it. Whatever Cynthia did on her own time, in the sun or out of it, was her own business. In the office, she was resourceful, hardworking, even-tempered, quick-witted, and good-humored. And that was more than enough.
She looked at my face.
“I’m never going to put her through again,” she said. “Never.”
“We occasionally have to talk,” I said.
“I don’t even know her, and I hate her,” Cynthia said, shaking her head. “Your car’s here. The mechanic’s outside, wants to know if you’ll pay for it now, or should they bill you?”
“Ask them to bill me. What’d he do to it?”
“Put in a new battery and a new fan belt.”
“Why a new fan belt?”
“He said the old one was shot.”
“Did he fix the windshield wipers?”
“He didn’t say anything about windshield wipers.”
“I guess I forgot to tell him about them.”
“Do you want him to take the car back? To fix the—”
“No, no. Don’t forget to get the keys from him.”
“I won’t. Also, there’s a lady outside to see you. A Miss McKinney.”
“Mrs. McKinney, do you mean?”
“Miss McKinney,” Cynthia said. “About my age, I’d guess, long and lovely and almost as blonde as I am. She says it’s personal.”
“Ask her to come in,” I said.
“She’s dressed for the beach,” Cynthia said, and surprised me with a wink.
Sunny McKinney wasn’t quite dressed for the beach, but neither was she dressed appropriately for a visit to a law office. You get to know a person’s colors; her mother’s were white, hers were purple. She was wearing very short purple shorts and purple sandals, and a braless purple T-shirt. She was carrying the same purple leather shoulder bag she’d had with her last Friday night at my house. Her tanned legs looked very long indeed, and her long blonde hair was swept to the back of her head and clasped there with a silver barrette. She seemed very nervous. I did not think it was because she felt underdressed.
“Hi,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind my breaking in on you this way.”
“Not at all,” I said.
“I was doing a little shopping, thought I’d drop in.”
“Sit down, won’t you?”
“Sure,” she said, and took the chair opposite my desk and crossed her long legs.
“So,” I said, “what’s on your mind?”
“Well, first off, I wanted to apologize for Friday night. For using your pool, you know. And for trying to turn you on and all. I realize it was a mean trick. You’re old enough to be my father.”
Her apology made me feel ancient, which I was sure hadn’t been her intention. I told myself I couldn’t possibly be old enough to be her father, not unless she’d been born when I was fifteen. But I made no comment.
“So that’s the first thing,” she said. “I really am sorry for the way I behaved that night.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You mind if I smoke?” she asked.
“Go right ahead.”
She reached into her bag, found her cigarettes, shook one free from the pack, and held a purple disposable lighter to it. Everything color-coordinated. The hand holding the lighter was shaking as badly as my own hands had after my little chat with Susan. She blew out a cloud of smoke. I pushed an ashtray across the desk to her.
“I do hope I’m forgiven,” she said, and smiled suddenly—and a trifle wickedly, I thought—as if absolution were the furthest thing from her mind. The smile dropped from her face almost instantly. It had been a smile generated by habit; Sunny McKinney was a natural flirt. She could not help being seductive even while she was apologizing for ha
ving been seductive. I waited. I remembered Cynthia’s wink just before she’d left the office. Sunny uncrossed her legs, and then recrossed them in the opposite direction. I kept waiting.
“I suppose you told Bloom everything I said that night, huh?” she asked at last.
“I did.”
“What’d he think?”
“He thought it was interesting.”
“About Jack stealing my mother’s cows, I mean.”
“Yes, I know.”
“That’s all he found it, huh? Interesting?”
“He’s still toying with the idea that your brother may have been trafficking in dope.”
“No, no,” Sunny said. “You tell him he’s wrong.”
She was silent for several seconds, puffing on her cigarette, reaching over to flick the ash into the ashtray. She was jiggling one foot now. I wondered why she was so nervous.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh yeah, sure.”
“You seem worried about something.”
“No, no,” she said, and shook her head, and stubbed out the cigarette.
“Well, yes,” she said, “I guess I am. Worried, I mean.”
“About what?”
“You remember I told you I was listening in on this conversation? With Jack and the Spanish guy? Last October, remember?”
“Yes?”
“The guy he was selling the cows to, remember?”
“If that’s what he was doing.”
“Oh sure,” she said, “that was it, all right. So...I’ve been thinking...suppose it was this Spanish guy who stabbed Jack? I mean, suppose he was afraid Jack would tell on him or something? And he went there to...well...to make sure he wouldn’t tell. ’Cause this is rustling, you know, this is serious. I mean, it didn’t even have to be the Spanish guy himself. He could’ve sent somebody else to kill Jack, you know what I mean?”
“Your mother thinks Jack knew whoever killed him,” I said.
“She does?” Sunny looked suddenly nervous again. She reached into her bag for another cigarette. “How does she...I mean, how does she figure that?” She held the purple lighter to the cigarette. Her hand was shaking again.
“The door has a peephole in it,” I said. “He wouldn’t have let in anyone he didn’t know.”
“Maybe the guy had a key,” Sunny said.
“The police are considering that possibility.”
“They are?” she said, and puffed on the cigarette. “Well, sure, it’s a good possibility. Jack used to all the time tell the resident manager it was okay to let me in. Whenever I was supposed to meet him there, he told the lady in the office to let me in. With her passkey, you know? Maybe whoever killed him knew somebody in the office. Who gave him a key to get in.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Sure, that’s a possibility,” she said, and nodded.
“Did you go there often?” I asked. “To visit your brother?”
“Oh, every now and then.” Her eyes widened. “You don’t think I’m the one who was there that night, do you?”
“No, I simply—”
“I mean, is that what Bloom thinks? That I’m the one Jack let into his apartment?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t think that. And neither do I.”
“Then why’d you ask me if I went there a lot?”
“I was only wondering how close you and your brother were.”
“Close as most brothers and sisters,” she said. “If that’s what Bloom thinks, that I killed him, he ought to be put away, I mean it. In a hospital for the mentally deranged, I mean it. Jesus, would I even be here if I had anything to do with—”
“I still don’t know why you’re here,” I said.
“I told you why. I’m worried. I’m scared, all right?”
“Why?”
“Because whoever killed my brother might decide to kill me next.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I heard them talking on the phone, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but they didn’t know you were listening, did they?”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, I don’t actually know it for a—”
“Neither do I. Suppose they heard a click or something? Suppose they heard me breathing?”
“They still wouldn’t have known who it was.”
“Who else could it have been? There’re only two people living in that house, my mother and me. It had to’ve been either one of us, am I right?”
“Assuming they did know someone was listening in—”
“It’s a possibility,” Sunny said.
“Then your mother would be in danger as well.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not worried about my mother, she’s old enough to take care of herself. I’m worried about me, Mr. Hope. About somebody coming at me with a knife or a gun, the same way—”
“What makes you mention a gun?”
“What?” she said.
“Your brother was stabbed.”
“I’m just saying. Any weapon. A club, a hatchet, whatever.”
“But you specifically mentioned a gun.”
“It was the first thing that popped into my mind. What is this?” she said sharply, her pale eyes flaring.
“I’m only trying to—”
“Trap me,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come here. I thought if I told you—” She stopped abruptly. She shook her head.
“Told me what?”
“How worried I am, how scared I am...”
“Your brother was killed on the eighth of August,” I said. “Today’s the twenty-third, that was more than two weeks ago. When did you start getting scared?”
“I was scared when I came to your house Friday night.”
“You didn’t seem scared.”
“I told you what Jack was into, didn’t I? I told you he was stealing my mother’s cows.”
“But you didn’t seem scared.”
“I was scared, believe it. I wouldn’t have come on with you the way I did if I wasn’t scared.”
“But you’re even more scared now. Why?”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “Forget it,” she said. “This was a mistake.”
“Does your fear have anything to do with Avery Burrill’s murder?”
“I don’t know anybody named Avery Burrill,” she said.
“He’s the man who was selling your brother a bean farm.”
“I don’t know him. I never heard his name before this minute.”
“He was shot to death,” I said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yesterday,” I said.
“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“It’s in the newspaper this morning.”
“I never look at the Mickey Mouse papers down here.”
“It was on the radio too. And on television.”
“I don’t know the goddamn man!”
“He was shot with a .38 Smith & Wesson.”
“All right, I believe you.”
“Your brother owned a .38 Smith & Wesson, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know what kind of gun it was.”
“But you know he owned a gun?”
“Yes. He used to keep it in his dresser drawer.”
“You saw the gun?”
“I saw it.”
“Where?”
“In his dresser drawer, I just told you. Out at the ranch. Before he moved.”
“What were you doing in his dresser drawer?”
“I was looking for something.”
“Looking for what?”
“Nail clippers.”
“And you found your brother’s gun.”
“Yeah. He was mad as hell. He really smacked me around good that day. For fiddling with the gun. I think he was afraid I could’ve hurt myself with it.”
“Sounds like that was a regular thing with him,” I said. “Smacking you around.”
“He had big hands, my brother.”
“That day when I was looking in his dresser. Four, five months ago.”
“Do you know if he took it with him when he moved into the condo?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Did you ever see it in his apartment? At the condo?”
“I just told you the last time I saw it was four, five months ago. In his dresser drawer.”
“And not after that?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know whether it was in his apartment on the night he was killed.”
“No, I don’t. You’re really terrific, Mr. Hope, you know that? I come here because I’m scared out of my wits, and you turn it all around—”
“I haven’t turned anything around, Sunny.”
“Yes, you have,” she said. “You think just what Bloom thinks, don’t you? You think I had something to do with—”
“I didn’t say—”
“—my brother’s death. Well, I didn’t! So long, Mr. Hope,” she said and rose suddenly. “Thanks a lot for nothing.” She went immediately to the door, opened it, said, “See you around,” and then walked out, slamming the door behind her.
I had the distinct impression that I’d blown it.
She had come there to tell me something, but I’d bludgeoned her with questions before she could get it out. A frightened young girl had run from my office because I’d been too damn impatient to listen. A good lawyer, like a good actor, is supposed to listen. I had behaved like a bad lawyer and an inexperienced cop, sticking my nose into business that was rightfully Bloom’s, and causing Sunny McKinney to panic and run. My partner Frank kept telling me that I was entirely too guilty for a WASP. He said only Jews and Italians were supposed to feel as much guilt as I did. Maybe I had Jewish or Italian ancestors. All I know is that I was still feeling guilty when I left the office at a quarter to five for my scheduled meeting with Bloom. In fact, I was wishing he’d beat my brains out and leave me bleeding and unconscious on the gymnasium floor.