by Ed McBain
"Then why is that none of my business?"
"Because it isn't," he said.
"And also, why didn't you tell me on the phone when I talked to you earlier today that you'd seen Mom over the weekend? And how come you're saying there was a mix-up and you didn't know I was in Palm Beach when on the phone you didn't seem too surprised when I was talking about her calling you and telling you all about Palm Beach? So what's going on, Dad?"
"Nothing's going on," he said.
"Okay, fine," Joanna said, and took her napkin off her lap and put it on the table. "Could you get the check, please, Dad? I want to go home. I'm really very tired."
"Joanna…" he said.
"Get the check, okay?"
They rode out to Stone Crab Key in silence. The house was dark when they got there.
"Have you got your key?" he asked.
"Yeah, I've got it. You want your tie?"
"There's no hurry, I'll-"
"Maybe you can pick it up some other time," she said, "when I'm not home again," and got out of the Ghia and ran to the front door.
He watched as she put her key into the latch.
She unlocked the door, opened it, and went into the house.
The lights came on.
He realized all at once that she'd told him she'd bought him a nice present.
Apparently she'd decided not to give it to him.
He waited another moment, and then pulled the car away from the curb, trying to remember what Susan had said about Electra.
10
Andrew Hacker was a detective who probably stood six feet two inches in his stockinged feet and maybe weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, but standing alongside Cooper Rawles he looked stunted. Hacker hadn't said a word since they'd entered the office. Matthew wouldn't even have known his name if Cynthia Huellen hadn't announced them both on the phone before she led them down the hall and showed them in.
Rawles in person was a mountain of a man, intimidating by his very presence, more intimidating because Matthew knew he was a good cop and a tough cop, and he was here now laying down all kinds of law. Hacker just stood beside him, looking small and being silent, shock of red hair hanging on his forehead, freckles all over his face, all he needed was a piece of hay in his teeth to look like a shit-kicking redneck. This was Rawles's show, and Hacker knew it. He just kept listening to his partner, his face expressionless. It was raining outside. Really raining. What they called a frog-strangler here in Calusa. Outside Matthew's window, the pavements were sending up steam. Rawles was doing a little steaming of his own.
"What I understand," he said, "is she called you first."
"I guess she did," Matthew said.
"There was a burglary, so the first person she calls is you, not the police. That's the first thing pisses me off, Mr. Hope," he said, and poked a thick forefinger toward Matthew's desk. "The second thing pisses me off is there was a tape stolen from that office and the first time I heard about it was when the Chinese lady told me it was gone."
"I don't know which tape you mean. A lot of tapes were stolen, Detective Rawles. As well as file folders and uncashed checks and petty cash and-"
"I'm talking about the Nettington tape," Rawles said. "Did you know this tape existed?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me about this tape?"
"The last time I told you anything…"
"Never mind the last time, which by the way we located that Toronado."
"Oh?" Matthew said, and waited for more. Nothing more came.
"I'm talking about this time," Rawles said, "where we're concerned here with a tape that may have had something to do with Samalson's murder, and you knew about this tape, and you didn't see fit to tell the police about it. Did you hear this tape, Mr. Hope?"
"Yes."
"We listened to it a half-hour ago," Rawles said. "The original of it, which was in the safe. Whoever busted in there stole a copy the Chinese lady made."
"Plus a lot of other things. Including a tape deck and two typewriters."
"That's a very interesting tape, Mr. Hope. It's also a tape that makes your Mr. Nettington-"
"My Mr. Nettington?"
"His wife is your client, isn't she?"
"Yes?"
"Well, this tape nails him to the wall where it concerns adultery, which by the way is a crime in the state of Florida, I refer you to Chapters 798.01, 02, and 03. Living in Open Adultery, Lewd and Lascivious Behavior, and Fornication, all second-degree misdemeanors punishable by terms of imprisonment not to exceed sixty days. Did your Mr. Nettington know that tape could send him to jail?"
"He's not my Mr. Nettington," Matthew said.
"Admittedly on a bullshit violation, but sixty days ain't hay when you're an attorney and not a professional burglar, huh? Did Nettington know this tape existed?"
"Yes."
"How did he know?"
"His wife told him."
"She informed you of this?"
"No. He did."
"What?" Rawles said.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Yesterday morning."
"Said his wife had told him about the tape?"
"Yes."
"You went to see him? I goddamn well told you to-"
"He came here," Matthew said.
"For what purpose?"
"He wanted the tape."
"So now Samalson's office is busted into and the tape is gone."
"Yes."
"What time did she call you?"
"Who?"
"The Chinese lady."
"Oh. Nine this morning, a little after nine."
"To tell you somebody'd busted in, huh?"
"Words to that effect, yes."
"So she called you."
"Yes. She called me."
"Why?"
"I think she didn't like the condition of the files you returned."
"What?"
"I think she feels you messed up her files."
"We didn't mess up any files," Hacker said.
It was the first time he'd said anything. Matthew looked at him, surprised.
"All we done was Xerox 'em," he said. "And bring 'em back to her. That's all we done with her files."
"She should've called us," Rawles said. "That was her obligation. Not a lawyer. There's a burglary, you call the police."
"That's what I advised her to do. As soon as I got there."
"No, not as soon as you got there," Rawles said. "As soon as you found out the tape was gone."
"As soon as I recognized the extent of the burglary. On the telephone, it didn't sound-"
"Whatever it sounded like, you should've called us immediately," Rawles said. "This is just another example of your running around us, doing things your own way, sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Maybe you're not much impressed with homicide, but we are."
"I can assure you-"
"You can assure me this is the end of your butting in, okay? That's what you can assure me. Keep your fucking nose out of this fucking case from now on, okay?"
"Which is also a misdemeanor," Matthew said.
"What?"
"I refer you to Chapter 847.04. Open Profanity. Whoever-having arrived at the age of discretion-uses profane, vulgar, and indecent language in any public place or upon the private premises of another is guilty of a second-degree misdemeanor. Punishable, as you mentioned earlier, by sixty days in jail."
Rawles blinked.
"Yes," Matthew said.
"I think you heard me," Rawles said, recovering at once.
"Yes, I heard you," Matthew said.
"Let's go," Rawles said to Hacker, and both men went off in a huff.
***
There was no question in May Hennessy's mind that whoever had broken into the office was a pro. Whatever else Daniel Nettington could do well-and he seemed to be an ace in the sack-he did not seem to be the kind of man who could pick a lock without leaving a scratch anywhere on it. Moreover, and May had
told this to the police, she wasn't at all sure the Nettington tape was what the burglar was really after. May had worked too many cases with Otto not to recognize a possible smokescreen when she saw one. She had told this to Rawles and his freckle-faced partner. The Larkin file was missing, too, wasn't it? Plus a dozen other files, some of them on cases only recently closed out. Not to mention seven or eight other tapes that could've got a lot of people in trouble with their spouses if somebody was looking to make trouble. So she had suggested to Rawles that he shouldn't jump to conclusions when he heard the tape-which she was lucky to have the original of, and which was pretty hot and incriminating stuff-but should instead keep an open mind.
She had reported all this on the phone to Matthew not twenty minutes before Rawles and Hacker came barging in. Matthew doubted that Rawles was keeping an open mind. Rawles was smelling real meat, and Rawles was eager to close in. That was what Matthew sensed. That was why Rawles wanted him to keep out of the way. He didn't want his case screwed up on any technicality. Rawles was going to find Nettington, sit him down, have him listen to the tape, and then ask a hundred questions about the burglary of Samalson's office and incidentally the murder of Samalson himself.
Hacker and Rawles-both of whom had been cops for a good many years, Rawles in both Cleveland and Calusa- should have realized that honest people and thieves do things in different ways. If an honest person, for example, knew that I there was something he needed or wanted in Otto Samalson's office, he would simply go to the office and ask for it. A thief, on the other hand, doesn't think that way. A thief thinks There is us and there is them, and they are the ones who are on our backs and keeping us from getting what we want and need, that is the way a thief thinks, so we will steal it from them. Even if it's possible to get the thing by asking for it politely, the thief will steal it anyway. That is his nature. That is why honest people go around shaking their heads in bafflement over what thieves do. They can no more understand the psychology of the thief than they can the theory of relativity. Cops, however, are supposed to understand the psychology of the thief.
It was surprising, therefore, that it never once occurred to Hacker or Rawles-though it did occur to May-that perhaps they were dealing with a bona fide thief here and not an amateur like Nettington.
It never occurred to Matthew, either.
Matthew had a good excuse; he himself was an amateur.
Rawles and Hacker had no excuse at all, unless eagerness to close out a case could be considered an excuse.
Not understanding the way a thief's mind works, Matthew concluded that an amateur like himself had broken into Otto's office. But Nettington seemed too obvious a choice- the man wasn't that stupid, was he?-and so Matthew, still thinking like an amateur, tried to think of any other amateur who might have wanted that tape desperately enough to have stolen it.
The only other amateur who came to mind was Carla Nettington.
You mean the police will be listening to that tape?
And…
When can I hear it?
And…
I wish the goddamn police weren't in this.
And…
Thank you very much, Mr. Hope, please send me your man's report, and the tape, and of course your bill.
Carta's words.
Eager to get that tape.
Worried about the police hearing it.
He went out to see her that afternoon.
It was still raining when he got to the old house on Sabal Key. He made a forty-yard broken-field run-skirting puddles and fallen palm fronds-from the Ghia to the front door, and then stood under an ineffective shingled portico that dripped gallons of water down the back of his neck while he rang the doorbell.
"Yes, just a minute!" Carla called from somewhere in the house.
He waited.
He was going to drown.
The door opened.
So did her eyes. Wide in surprise.
"May I come in?" he said.
"Yes, certainly," she said. She was not happy to see him. Her voice and her body language told him that. Voice chilly and distant. The words saying "Yes, certainly," the tone saying "Who the hell invited you?" Her body half-turned away from him as she stepped aside to let him in, her posture suggesting that she would have preferred showing him her back but was too polite for such blatant rudeness.
The house had the musty smell of all Florida houses. Mildew and dust and fetid growing things. Air plants hanging near the windows. Orchids with their gnarled roots. Silvery slashes of rain hit the louvered windows, rattled on the roof. There was an enclosed feeling, almost claustrophobic, moist and dim. He remembered hiding in closets when he was a boy, overcoats covering his face, boots and galoshes underfoot. The smell of a closet on a rainy day.
She was wearing black. Black designer jeans and a black crew-neck sweater. Pale oval face and dark lipstick. Eyes as green as the plants in every corner of the room. Black enameled earrings. Barefooted. Her feet very white in contrast to the black. Fingernails and toenails painted the same color as her lips.
"What is it you want?" she asked. Facing him now. But her posture still denying him, excluding him. "The police have already been here," she said.
"Looking for your husband?"
"Yes. I told them I didn't know where he was. I'm telling you the same thing. Now if you'll forgive me, Mr. Hope…"
"That's not why I'm here," Matthew said.
"Then why are you? I thought I told you your services were no longer-"
"Otto Samalson's office was broken into last night."
"So?"
"Someone stole the tape he made of your husband and Rita Kirkman."
She looked at him in puzzlement for a moment, seeming not to understand the innuendo. And then her green eyes widened in recognition and surprise, and the corners of her mouth turned up in faint amusement.
"Please," she said. "Don't be absurd."
"The tape was stolen, Mrs. Nettington."
"And you think I stole it, or had it stolen?" She still looked amused. "You really don't understand, do you?" she said.
"I'm sorry, I don't," Matthew said.
"Mr. Hope," she said, as slowly and as patiently as if she were instructing a backward child, "the moment Otto Samalson was killed… the moment that tape became virtually public knowledge… it was no longer of any possible use to me."
"I assumed, Mrs. Nettington-"
"Yes, I know what you assumed. You made that clear the last time I saw you. You assumed I was looking for a divorce."
"That's what you led me to believe."
"Yes." The amused look still on her face, annoying now because it seemed to be mocking him. "But you see, Mr. Hope, things are not always what they appear to be, are they?"
"Apparently not," he said.
"What I told you when I first came to see you," she said, "was that I wanted my husband followed because-"
"Yes."
"-I suspected he was having an affair. And I further said-"
"Yes."
"-that if indeed we could prove this, I would initiate divorce proceedings."
"Yes."
"Yes. But I was sort of lying, you see."
"Lying?" Matthew said.
"Yes. About divorcing him."
"You didn't plan to divorce him?"
"That's right."
"Then why did you ask me to hire a private detective?"
"To follow him."
"Yes, why?"
"To get the goods on him."
"Yes, why?"
"Mr. Hope, you're an attorney," Carla said, "so I know you're familiar with Chapter 61.08 of the Florida Statutes. Regarding alimony?"
"Yes, I'm familiar with it," Matthew said.
"The part about determining a proper award? That would be Section One, do you know it?"
"Yes, what about it?"
"Where it says, The court may consider the adultery of a spouse and the circumstances thereof in determining whether alimony should be awarde
d to such spouse and the amount of the alimony, if any, to be awarded? Do you know the section I mean?"
"Yes, I know the section."
"Well?" she said.
"Well what?"
"Well, that's why I wanted to get the goods on Daniel."
"I think you read the section wrong," Matthew said, shaking his head.
"No, I read it correctly. I once had a friend who was a lawyer."
"If you were thinking… well, I don't know what you were thinking, actually, since you just told me you weren't planning on a divorce at all. But if you had been planning one, and you were thinking your husband's adultery would increase the amount of alimony…"
"No, I wasn't thinking that."
"Good, because you'd have been mistaken. The section was designed to protect a husband with an adulterous wife. The chapter says the court may grant alimony to either party, but very few men ever ask for alimony. In practice, it's the wife who normally gets alimony, and if a husband can prove his wife was playing around, alimony will often be cut substantially and in some instances even denied."
"Yes," Carla said. "That's my understanding of the chapter."
"So you see-"
"I am," she said.
"You are what?" he said.
"Playing around," she said.
Behind her, rain lashed the windows, and the palms and pines outside tossed fitfully in the wind.
"I have been playing around for a long, long time," she said.
Matthew looked at her. Green eyes still amused. Mouth turned up in a smile.
"And I figured if my husband ever decided to divorce me, I wouldn't get a cent in alimony unless I could show that he was also playing around, which would sort of balance the scales of justice, don't you think?"
You lift a rock, Matthew thought, and there are all sorts of fat, white-bellied slugs twisting and squirming under it.
"Which is why I decided to protect myself," she said. "Get the goods on him before he got the goods on me. Make sure I had insurance if he ever told me he wanted a divorce. Show him the pictures, here you go, Charlie, here's you going down on the fat lady in the circus."
She was smiling broadly now. Her amusement had turned to absolute glee.
"You see," she said, "I never want to get divorced, not ever. I like things just the way they are. Daniel paying the bills and never bothering me about where I go or what I do. That's where I was the night your man was killed, Mr. Hope. Not out with a girlfriend but in bed with a boyfriend." Her smile was wider now. "That's what I call having your cake and eating it, too, Mr. Hope. That's what I call a real good life."