“Took her two weeks to find him, is that right?”
“Almost.”
“I don’t understand that. Mr. Davis told me he’d given her your son’s address in Calusa.”
“Well, I don’t know. I juss know it wasn’t till two weeks later he called me an’ tole me Michelle was there with him, an’ he’d ast her to marry him, an’ she’d said yes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nice weddin it was, too. Pretty as a picture, she was, a beautiful June bride. White satin gown, I remember. I can tell you, Mr. Hope, I wun’t too keen on the idea of my son marryin a white woman, I knew whut kind of trouble that was askin for. But I guess it turned out all right, leastways I never heard nothin from him to the contrary. Until now, it was all right. Now someone’s gone an’ killed her, an’ they’ve blamed my boy for it, an’ that ain’t right. He couldn’ta killed her, Mr. Hope. He loved her too much.”
I barely caught the 2:30 plane back to Calusa.
I had gone directly from Mrs. Harper’s house to the address she’d given me for her neighbor, Mrs. Booth, and had confirmed there that George Harper had indeed stopped by to see his mother on the Sunday he was supposed to have been there. Since Mrs. Booth was blind, I carefully questioned her about how she had known this was Harper, and elicited the information that she’d known him since he was a tad, and would recognize his voice and his scent anywhere. I had not until that moment known that other humans give off distinct scents to blind people. I thanked her for her time, and left secure in the knowledge that she would make a good witness when it came time to pinpoint Harper’s whereabouts in Miami.
The problem, of course, was not where he had spent the morning hours on Sunday the fifteenth, but rather where he was at eleven forty-five that night, while Michelle was being brutally beaten, and where he’d been on Monday night while she was being murdered in Calusa. I did not get to the county jail until a little before four o’clock. The jailer was not happy to see me; he kept telling me as he led the way to Harper’s cell that I should have called first, this wasn’t a hotel they were running here.
Harper was wearing jailhouse clothing not dissimilar to what he’d been wearing the first time I met him: dark blue trousers, pale blue denim shirt, black socks. In place of the brown, high-topped workman’s shoes, the county had supplied him with black shoes that looked oddly formal in contrast to the rest of his clothing, the kind of highly polished footwear one might have worn to Calusa’s annual Snowflake Ball. He got to his feet the moment the jailer unlocked the cell and let me in. The ceiling seemed too low for him, the walls too confining. I felt again this aura of menace emanating from him, and experienced a chilling sense of fear as I heard the jailer twist the key in the lock behind me. His footfalls retreated down the corridor, clicking on the asphalt-tiled floor. Harper and I were alone together.
“I ast that sum’bitch jailer to call your office for me,” he said angrily. “Three times he called, three times they tole him you was still out of town. Where in hell you been, man? I thought you was spose to be my lawyer.”
“I’ve been in Miami,” I said. “Interviewing people we’ll need as witnesses when this thing comes to trial.”
“Whut people?”
“Lloyd Davis and his wife. Your mother and the woman who lives next door to her, Mrs. Booth.”
“Why’d you go botherin them?”
“To find out if you actually were in Miami when you said you were.”
“I was.”
“I know that now. At least I know where you were for an hour or so. It’s the rest of the time that troubles me.”
“I tole you where I was the ress of the time. Pompano, Vero Beach, an’ then back to—”
“With no witnesses.”
“I dinn know my wife was bein murdered. If I’d known that, I’da made sure I got the names and addresses of anybody I passed on the goddamn street.”
“Where’d you have lunch that Sunday?”
“Pompano.”
“Remember the name of the place?”
“No. Fust time I’d even been to Pompano.”
“How about dinner?”
“Miami.”
“Where?”
“Little diner.”
“Do you remember the name of it?”
“No.”
“How about the location?”
“Downtown someplace.”
“Would you recognize it if you saw it again?”
“Looked just like any other diner.”
“Would you remember what the person who served you looked like?”
“I ate at the counter.”
“What did the counterman look like?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was he a man?”
“I think so.”
“White or black?”
“I don’t remember. I had me a hamburger an’ some fries an’ a Coke. Then I paid the man, an’ left.”
“And went to the beach?”
“Thass right.”
“To sleep.”
“Thass right.”
“And slept on the beach all night long.”
“Thass whut I did.”
“And stayed in Miami all day Monday.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I tole you. I thought Lloyd might come back.”
“Lloyd told me you have other people you do business with in the Miami area.”
“Coupla other people, yes.”
“Did you try to see any of them on Monday?”
“No.”
“Even though you had a truckload of stuff you couldn’t sell to Lloyd?”
“Lloyd wun’t there.”
“I know that. But you didn’t try any of your other customers?”
“Stuff woulda been juss right for Lloyd.”
“Do you normally conduct business on a Sunday?”
“I was sure I’d catch Lloyd there on a Sunday. Weekends are the biggest time for Lloyd.”
“But he wasn’t there.”
“No, he wun’t.”
“You didn’t call him first...”
“No need to. Usually catch him there on a Sunday.”
“You filled your truck with gas on the Saturday before you left, is that right?”
“Thass right.”
“At A&M Exxon, at seven, seven-thirty Saturday morning.”
“Yeah.”
“And you also bought an empty five-gallon gasoline can, and had it filled with gas.”
“I did.”
“By a man named Harry Loomis.”
“Harry sold me the can and filled it for me, right.”
“Was he wearing gloves?”
“Whut?”
“Gloves. Was Mr. Loomis wearing gloves when he handled that can?”
“Why’d a man be wearing gloves here in Calusa?”
“Garage attendants sometimes—”
“I don’t recall as he was wearin any gloves, nossir.”
“Did he wipe off the can before he gave it to you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What’d you do with that can, Mr. Harper?”
“Put it in the back of my truck.”
“Did you take it with you to Miami?”
“Nossir.”
“What’d you do with it?”
“Put it in my garage.”
“Why?”
“Needed it there.”
“For what?”
“My lawn mower.”
“Are you saying that’s why you bought the gas? For your lawn mower?”
“Yessir.”
“What was so urgent about buying gas for your lawn mower on the morning before you were about to leave for Miami?”
“Wun’t nothin urgent, but I was there buyin gas, so I picked me up a new can and had it filled.”
“What happened to the old can?”
“Sprung a leak, had to throw it away.”