If she told me one more time that she didn’t kill him, I would scream.
“Believe me, Matthew,” she said.
Toots had slid open the bathroom window just a crack. She could hear the two of them topside, talking in Spanish. One of them driving the boat, the other one standing alongside him, both of them yelling over the sound of the boat’s motor. She guessed Warren was still trussed on the lounge down here, but she didn’t hear a word from him. All she heard was the sound of the motor and the two men yelling. What they were yelling about was cocaine. Getting the cocaine down to Miami on the east coast.
They could yell as loud as they wanted out here in the middle of the Gulf, nobody was going to hear them. Except Toots, who was all ears, Spanish coming back to her in a welcome rush, courtesy of all those Hispanic dealers past and present, near and far. Mother is the necessity of invention, dears, and when you are hooked, the dealer is Mother, and don’t you ever forget it. Enough cocaine on this boat to keep her high for a year and a half, from what she could gather. Problem was their people in Miami were expecting some other boat, their own boat, the one they’d had to ditch because of something wrong with the carburetor, whatever, she couldn’t make out all the technical language, fumes in the engine compartment, a flash fire, burned wiring—the Spanish she heard was “carburador defectuoso” and “gases dentro del motor” and “auto combustionón” and “cables quemados.” Transferred the shit to Warren’s boat when they realized they weren’t going to make it to Miami in their own vessel. But now they were afraid their people wouldn’t recognize this boat coming in, so they were trying to figure how they could make contact so they could get the stuff ashore. Eight kilos, she was hearing. Ochos kilos. Worth a hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars, she was hearing. Ciento treinta y dos mil dólares.
Tengo que orinar, she was hearing.
Which in English meant “I have to take a piss.”
At lunch earlier today, Bobby Diaz told me that on the night of the murder he was in bed with a woman in her condo on Whisper Key.
—She’s free, white, and twenty-one, and she has nothing to hide. We were together all night long, ask her. I left the condo at eight the next morning.
It was now precisely four o’clock on Thursday afternoon, some eight days, sixteen hours and twenty minutes after the Bannermans heard someone firing three shots aboard the Toland boat. I was driving over the Whisper Key bridge on my way to see a woman named Sheila Lockhart because a long-ago law professor once told me, “Matthew, an alibi isn’t an alibi till a second party swears to it.”
Whisper is a bad marriage between Florida as it used to be and Florida as the big real estate interests would wish it to be. It is less developed than Sabal Key, for example, which has been thoroughly exploited to its legal and environmental limits—albeit tastefully, to be sure. Taste is the middle name of SunShore Development, which bought up most of this northernmost barrier island when it was worth less than two cents and a collar button and turned it into a vast overlapping retirement theme park of high-rise condos, golf courses, swimming pools, cluster homes, tennis courts, white sand beaches, and private homes in gated enclaves. Flamingo Key is fully developed as well, but only with private homes, some of them quite luxurious, most of them looking pink and Floridian on the outside and brown and Middle Western on the inside, meaning that all that heavy dark furniture inherited from Grandma Hattie in Lansing or Indianapolis or Grand Rapids has been bodily transported down here where it wages staid and stuffy battle with clear blue skies and bright green water.
There’s a lot of old Florida still extant on Whisper Key, but it’s inexorably losing the battle against the developers. You’ll drive past a long stretch of impenetrable vegetation behind which you know is a low, rambling house on shallow brackish water leading nowhere, a ramshackle dock jutting out to where a flaking rowboat sits in mottled sunshine, and suddenly the wall of green is gone and there is a white tower jutting up into the sky, a fountain splashing water in the center of a landscaped oasis, parking sheds over shaded spaces, the sound of children shouting and giggling in a cool blue swimming pool hidden somewhere behind the building’s steep facade, voices rising and falling on the sullen hot September air. And several hundred yards beyond that, the road will amble past half a mile of lopsided overgrown wooden fence, and you know that behind this fence there is yet another residential relic of what this area used to be. And your heart breaks.
Sheila Lockhart lived in a new sixteen-story condo called Sandalwind, at the southern end of Whisper Key, adjacent to the public beach. The day was humid and hot, the Gulf surging in restlessly against the shore, whitecaps cresting on the dark waters beyond. I would not have liked to be on a boat in a chop like today’s.
I parked the Acura in a row of spaces reserved for VISITORS and then found my way to a building called the Sundowner, and took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. Sheila lived in apartment 14C. I had called ahead, and she was expecting me. I rang the doorbell and waited. I rang again. Waited. The door opened at last.
She was not twenty-one, as Diaz had claimed, nor was she even any longer close to that age, but perhaps he’d merely meant she was over twenty-one. But he’d also said she was free and white, and whereas I had no quarrel with her apparent liberty, she could not have been considered white under any circumstances. Then again, Diaz merely may have been using a figure of speech. Nonetheless, Sheila Lockhart appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, a very good-looking barefooted black woman wearing white cutoff shorts and a white halter top, her long black dreadlocks strung with tiny bright-colored beads. A rush of cold air swept out of the apartment.
“Come in,” she said, “before the heat does.”
White she wasn’t, but neither was black a proper classification. Her skin was the color of dark amber, her eyes the sort of grayish-green one finds a lot in the Caribbean, the end result of centuries-old admixtures of black, white and Indian Indian. I followed her into a longish living room that ran from the entrance door to a screened terrace overlooking the Gulf. Sliding glass doors closed now because the air-conditioning was on. Kitchen off to one side of the room. Closed door adjacent to it. The bedroom, I supposed. A choice apartment in that it was on an upper floor and facing the water.
“So what kind of trouble is Bobby in now?” she asked.
“None that I know of,” I said.
“Then why’s he looking for an alibi?”
She had gone briefly into the kitchen as she spoke, and now she returned with a tray bearing a pitcher of iced tea and two tall glasses brimming with ice cubes. Our eyes met. I hadn’t mentioned anything on the phone about wanting to verify Bobby’s story of where he’d been on the night of the twelfth. I could only assume that she’d called him to say I’d be visiting her, and that he’d asked her to confirm his whereabouts that night.
“Tea?” she asked.
“Please,” I said.
She broke eye contact.
Poured over the ice in each glass. Cubes crackled and popped. She put down the pitcher. Sat opposite me in a white leather sling chair. I was sitting on a platform sofa with a foam rubber cushion covered in pale blue linen. We lifted our glasses. Drank.
“What makes you think he needs an alibi?” I asked.
“I got the feeling,” she said, and smiled.
“Would you alibi him?”
“Depends on what for?”
“How about murder?”
“I wouldn’t alibi anybody for murder. No matter how well I knew him.”
“How well do you know Bobby?”
She shrugged.
“Meaning?”
“We’ve been seeing each other on and off for four, five months now.”
“On and off?”
“He comes here, I go to his place. Like that. We’re not living together, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“He told me he was here with you on the night Brett Toland was killed. Was he?”
“Ye
s, he was.”
“Do you remember what he was wearing?”
“When he arrived, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Something black. Or very dark blue. Slacks and a shirt. Long-sleeved shirt. Silk, from the feel of it.”
“Was he wearing a hat?”
“No.”
“Or a cape?”
“A cape? No.”
“What time did he get here?”
“Seven. We went out to dinner, then came back.”
“How long did he stay?”
“All night.”
“Left the next morning?”
“Yes.”
“Wearing the same clothes?”
“Well, yes. He doesn’t keep anything here.”
“What time was this? When he left?”
“About eight-thirty. We both had to get to work.”
“What sort of work do you do, Ms. Lockhart?”
“I’m an R.N.”
“Oh? Where?”
“Good Sam.”
“My alma mater.”
“I know. “You were a celebrity there. We all wanted to carry in your bedpan. Big hero lawyer got himself shot.”
“Not a hero, I’m afraid.”
“We all thought so. All that fan mail! Like a movie star.”
“Sure,” I said.
The room was silent except for the hum of the air conditioner. Out on the water, lightning flashed.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t suppose there’s anything else I have to know. If Mr. Diaz really was here that night…”
“He was.”
“Then that’s that.”
I put down my glass. More lightning flashed over the Gulf. There was the sense of a tight, enclosed space, cool and dry and protected, while outside a storm was gathering.
“Did you really think he killed that man?” she asked.
“I was wondering why he volunteered an alibi, that’s all. Then again, he’d been talking to Brett earlier, so perhaps he felt…”
“Yes,” she said, and nodded.
I looked at her.
Lightning flashed again.
“He called from here,” she said.
I kept looking at her. Now there was the sound of thunder, close by, on the left.
“Isn’t that what you meant?” she asked. “About talking to Mr. Toland earlier?”
“No,” I said. “That’s not what I meant.”
From where Warren lay bound hand and foot on the lounge, he first saw the door to the head fly open and then Toots coming out with a fiercely determined look on her face. He almost said something to her but the warning look in her eyes shut him up at once. She moved swiftly and silently across the cabin to the starboard side opposite the head, into the small recessed cooking area, partially hidden from above by a bulkhead adjacent to the ladder. She was reaching down to take the high-heeled pump from her left foot when Warren saw a man’s shoes and trouser legs moving down the ladder. He almost yelled a warning this time, but he realized at once that Toots knew the man would be coming down those steps, which was why she was backing away against the sink, squeezing herself into the tiny galley, trying to flatten herself out of his sight line as he came below, the shoe gripped in her right hand like a hammer now—she had done this before, she knew how to do this, he was confident she knew how to do this.
The man moved directly toward the bathroom door on his left, Toots’s right hand coming up alongside her head as he reached for the doorknob, still unaware of her presence. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the shoe, her eyes focused on the back of his head as he opened the door. She stepped into the swing, her right arm uncoiling, the heel of the shoe moving out and sideward to catch him just behind the right ear. Stunned, he fell against the opening door, and she hit him again as he turned toward her, catching his breath when the narrow end of the heel went deep into his forehead, opening a hole, spurting blood. He reached for the knife sheathed at his belt, yanked it free, and took a stumbling step toward her.
Take him out! Warren thought but dared not yell.
Toots brought her arm back again like a pitcher about to hurl a fastball, unleashed it with a snap, the heel of the shoe colliding with his right temple this time, opening another deep wound there, staggering him. She hit him yet another time because this wasn’t fun and games here, girls, this wasn’t a coy maiden with an ardent suitor, this was a man with a knife, and a woman who would kill him if she had to. Her next blow did almost that, ripping into his face and tearing his right eyeball from its socket. The knife clattered to the deck. He fell unconscious beside it.
There’s still the other one, Warren thought.
With a gun.
Toots tried to catch her breath.
Far out on the water, there was sudden lightning.
The storm had swept out to sea.
Sunshine was breaking through in patches.
We sat in Sheila’s living room, the clouds tearing away in tatters beyond the sliding glass doors. She was telling me they’d got back to the apartment at about eight-thirty on the night of the murder. She was saying that Bobby seemed anxious and upset, constantly checking his watch, finally going to the phone to call Brett Toland.
“What time was this?”
“About nine.”
“Did you overhear the conversation?”
“Bobby’s end of it.”
“What did he say? Can you tell me?”
“I don’t want to get him in trouble.”
“You told me you wouldn’t alibi anybody for murder. No matter how well you knew him.”
“I don’t think he killed anyone.”
“Then he has nothing to worry about.”
She nibbled at her lower lip. Her hands were clasped in her lap. Blue sky was beginning to show close to shore now. Dark angry clouds were racing out over the water.
She took a deep breath.
I waited.
“He asked Mr. Toland if he’d looked at the tape.”
“And?”
“Then he said, ‘So? Do we have a deal?’”
I nodded.
“He got angry then. ‘What do you mean, no? You’re telling me no?’ Like that. Very angry. ‘It’s of no use to you? It’s only your whole fucking case! You’re sorry? Oh, you don’t know sorry, Brett! “You’ll find out sorry!’ And he hung up.”
“Then what?”
“He began pacing, back and forth, like a wild animal, cursing, telling me he’d offered the man something that would solve all his problems and he turned it down, ‘I should have made my deal first, I was stupid, stupid, I thought I was dealing with a gentleman. But I’ll show him, oh, he’ll be sorry, all right, he’ll be sorrier than he’s ever been in his whole fucking life!’”
The room went silent.
“Were those his exact words?”
“No, not exactly. But that was the gist. Mr. Toland would be sorry for turning down Bobby’s deal, whatever it was.”
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t mean he killed him.”
“Not if he was here all night,” I said.
Something flitted across her eyes.
“He was here all night, wasn’t he?” I asked.
She shook her head.
In a very small voice, she said, “Well, no. Not exactly.”
Toots put on her shoes, picked up the knife, and went immediately to where Warren sat tied up. Neither of them said a word. Over her shoulder, Warren was watching the ladder behind her. The blade was exceedingly sharp. She cut through the lines in an instant. Warren massaged his wrists. Still, they said nothing. He nodded toward the ladder. She nodded back. He made a pistol with his hand, cocked it with his thumb. She nodded again.
And suddenly, there was the sound of rain sweeping across the topside decks.
It was a good half-hour drive from Sheila’s condo on the end of Whisper to Diaz’s condo on Sabal. Sandalwind to Evensong II, door to door. Well, to be precise, thirty-two minutes by m
y car clock. I got there at a little past six that evening. Rain from the swift recent storm lay in huge black puddles on the parking lot asphalt, reflecting a clear blue sky and fast-moving puffy white clouds. I parked the car and walked to unit 21. The same white heron picked its way along the path’s border of Blue Daze. This time, he did not take wing at my approach. The same teenyboppers in thong bikinis were splashing in the pool behind the condo. The same old man in red boxer trunks was sitting watching them, his legs dangling in the water. There is sometimes, in Florida, the feeling that nothing ever changes, everything remains ever and always the same, smothered by sunshine.
Diaz had just got home from work. He was still dressed for the office except for his bare feet. His shoes and socks were on the living room floor in front of the couch, where he’d left them when he took them off. He’d been at the bar mixing a vodka-tonic when I arrived. He finished doing that now, asked me if I wanted one…
“No, thanks,” I said, though I was exceptionally thirsty.
…dropped a wedge of lime into the glass, and then stood with drink in hand, waiting.
“This won’t take a minute,” I said, and smiled.
He did not smile back.
“Bobby,” I said, “I hate to assume these confrontational stances with you, but…”
“Then don’t,” he snapped. “Because I find them frankly irritating.”
“Me, too.”
“Good. We agree on something.”
“But,” I said, “there are some…”
“No buts,” he said. “You said a minute. You’ve already had thirty seconds.”
“Then I’ll make it fast. Where’d you go when you left Sheila Lockhart at a little past nine on the night Brett Toland was killed?”
“You’re already wrong,” he said. “I was with Sheila all night long. I didn’t leave her till eight the next morning.”
“No, I’m sorry. You made a call to Brett Toland at nine…”
“No, I didn’t make any call to…”
“I can subpoena Ms. Lockhart’s phone bills.”
Diaz sipped at his drink.
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