“Well,” I said, “their stories seem contradictory.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re lying,” Willoughby said. “Besides, Matthew, I want you to remember something very important. The neophyte criminal lawyer will often fall into the trap of seeking a true murderer to replace his client, whom he believes has been wrongfully accused. That’s not our job. Our job is to show that our man is innocent of the crime, period. We don’t care who actually did it, Matthew. That’s a job for the cops once we get our man acquitted — let them find the maniac loose in the streets, do you see?”
“I don’t see that the two are mutually exclusive,” I said.
“Don’t go looking for a murderer,” Willoughby said more firmly. “Instead, go looking for people we can put on that witness stand to rebut the prosecution’s contention that our man is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s what we’re looking for — a parade of witnesses who’ll raise the question of reasonable doubt. That’s all we’re looking for. We want to know where Harper was and what he was doing while his wife was getting herself killed. I don’t know why you bothered going into all that shit about how he met her and when and where they got married, I really don’t see how that’s any concern of ours, Matthew. If you’ll stick to—”
“I thought if we could show how much he loved her—”
“A man can adore his wife in the morning and slit her throat in the afternoon. That’s a sad fact of life.”
“Why are these people lying to me, Jim?”
“If they’re lying, which of course you don’t know for a fact. Perhaps their memories are faulty — as well they might be if you’re asking questions about events that occurred a year ago, two years ago, which you shouldn’t be asking in the first place. Or perhaps they’ve got their own skeletons in the closet and they’re—”
“That’s just what I’m beginning to think,” I said.
“It’s not our job to rattle anybody else’s bones,” Willoughby said. “I don’t care if Andrew Bowen—”
“Owen.”
“Owen, was fucking Kitty Foyle and—”
“Reynolds.”
“And a dozen Chinese girls in Calusa’s only opium den, which to my knowledge does not exist. I’m interested in where the hell George Harper spent all day Sunday and Monday while his wife was first getting her brains beat out and then getting put to the torch. That’s what I’m interested in learning. If you can find me one person, male or female, who can testify that he or she actually saw George Harper in Miami at eleven forty-five on Sunday night, then he couldn’t have been here in Calusa beating his wife black and blue. And that’ll take care of the first part of the prosecution’s case, the alleged beating which they’ll attempt to tie in to the subsequent murder. And if we can find somebody who’ll say he was with George Harper on Monday night, why then the prosecution can shove its case, Matthew, and I don’t care how many of Harper’s gasoline cans they found at the scene, or how many of his fingerprints were all over them. A man can’t be in two places at the same time, that’s Newton’s Law or somebody’s. If we can prove where Harper was — and I hope to God it wasn’t here in Calusa — then we’re home free. So, Matthew, please concentrate on what we’re trying to prove here, and stop looking for skeletons in the closet, okay?”
“If there are skeletons, we should know about them,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because the state’s attorney is going to have a crack at any witness we put on the stand, and if those skeletons have something to do with George Harper, I sure as hell don’t want to be surprised by them.”
“Let me handle that when the time comes, okay?”
“No, Jim,” I said, “not okay. I don’t want any surprises.”
“What kind of surprises are you expecting?”
“I don’t know. But when people start lying to me—”
“I’ve already told you, that may only be—”
“And it may not.”
“Matthew, this is Thanksgiving Day, my brother and his wife are coming down from Tampa for the big turkey dinner, and that’s enough trouble for one day without you starting to sound like amateur night in Dixie.”
“I am amateur night in Dixie,” I said.
“Then change your act,” Willoughby said. “Unless you want our man to be the next turkey who gets roasted.”
“You know I don’t want that.”
“So trust me. I’ve had a lot of experience in such matters.”
Whenever anyone asks me to “trust” him, I usually run to hide the family silver. I listened now while Willoughby emphasized once again the sole matter that should concern me upon my return from Mexico — namely where and how George Harper had spent his time on the Sunday and Monday he claimed to have been in Miami.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You’re doing a good job so far, Matthew,” he said. “Just don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees.”
“To coin a phrase,” I said.
“Huh?” he said.
“Nada,” I said. “I’ll talk to you when I get back.”
“Yes, do that,” he said. “Have a nice time, Matthew.”
One of the things I like most about Dale is her unpredictability.
Another is her spontaneity.
We had made love the night before (lengthily and satisfactorily, I’d thought) and had finally fallen asleep at two in the morning after promising ourselves similar and frequent passionate excursions during our nine days in Mexico. It was now 4:00 P.M. on Thanksgiving Day, scarcely fourteen hours later. We had consumed a meal that surely could have fed the entire population of Kansas. I had washed and dried all the pots and pans, stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, bagged and carried out the garbage, and taken Joanna to her mother’s house, where I’d exacted from Susan the promise that she would have her back to me by nine. I was still feeling logy and a bit drowsy as I pulled the car into my driveway, wanting nothing more than a little nap before I started packing. The sun had broken through at noon, and the temperature had reluctantly climbed to a shade above sixty-five, not quite warm enough to be lounging by the side of a pool in a string bikini — but that’s where Dale was, and that’s what she was wearing.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Get her home okay?”
“Yep.”
“When will she be coming back?”
“Nine.”
“Nine,” Dale repeated.
I should have detected a warning, or perhaps a promise, in the way she echoed that single word. Instead, I remained blithely unaware.
“What would you like to do now?” she asked.
“Take a nap,” I said. “How about you?”
“I’d like to practice,” she said.
“Practice?”
“For the beach in Mexico.”
She was wearing her hair tied at the back of her head with a green ribbon. I could not see her eyes behind the prescription sunglasses that shielded them from the sun. She lay quite still on her back, her body entirely relaxed and superbly tanned, a smooth even bronze against the white of the bikini. A pair of white, high-heeled sandals were on the terrace floor beside the chair.
“What’s there to practice for the beach in Mexico?” I asked, puzzled.
“What the ladies do here on North Sabal,” she said. I still could not see her eyes. There was a faint smile on her mouth.