“Yes. She was a very beautiful woman, Morrie.”
“Yeah,” he said, and shook his head. “That’s the shit of it, ain’t it? From what I get from the complaint, she was beaten up real bad. So now she turns up on the beach, burned to death. Does that seem like a coincidence to you?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Which is why I’m anxious to find this wonderful husband of hers. Guy disappears from the face of the earth, there’s got to be a good reason, am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Murder’s a very good reason,” Bloom said. He was thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, “What I’m going to do, Matthew, when I release this to the papers and the radio and television stations, I’m not going to mention that Sunday-night beating, okay? I’d appreciate it if you kept it quiet, too. Whoever killed her — the husband or whoever — he won’t know anything about the beating unless he’s the one who did it. And we don’t want him working up an alibi because he knows we know, okay? For the murder, he’ll have an alibi. But for the beating, maybe not — unless we tip him off. So let’s keep it our little secret, okay? Not a breath about that beating Sunday night.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
He did not call me again until four that afternoon, while I was in conference with my partner Frank. There are people who say that Frank and I look alike. These are undoubtedly the same people who insist that married couples begin looking like twins after they’ve been together for any substantial period of time. I do not believe I look at all like my former wife, to whom I’d been married for fourteen years, nor do I believe there is the slightest bit of resemblance between Frank and me.
I’m an even six feet tall, and I weigh 190 pounds. Frank is two and a half inches shorter than I am, and 30 pounds lighter. True enough, we both have dark hair and brown eyes, but Frank’s face is rounder than mine. Frank maintains that there are only two types of faces in the entire world — pig faces and fox faces. He classifies himself as a pig face and me as a fox face. The designations have nothing to do with character or personality; they are only intended to be descriptive. But it seemed to me that Frank was behaving in a decidedly pigheaded way that afternoon as he paced the office, telling me that it was one thing to take a young lady to the police to file a complaint, but it was quite another matter to get involved in a homicide case, which Frank felt I was doing with alarming frequency these days.
“Why did Bloom find it necessary to call you this morning?” he asked, pacing. “Why did he want you to see the body? We handle a routine matter for somebody who walks in off the street, and the next thing I know you’re at Calusa General looking at a corpse!”
“Do you think I wanted to look at a corpse?”
“Then why’d you go look at it?”
“Because Michelle Harper was a client...”
“Some client,” Frank said, rolling his eyes. “Two more clients like Michelle Harper, and we can retire. Popular belief to the contrary, Matthew, this is a business we’re trying to run here, and your time is very valuable. If you choose to fritter it away by running around town looking at dead—”
That was when Cynthia buzzed from outside.
Cynthia Huellen is a native Floridian with long blonde hair and a glorious tan that she works at almost fanatically; never a weekend goes by that does not find Cynthia on a beach or a boat. She is easily the most beautiful person in the law offices of Summerville and Hope, twenty-five years old, and employed by us as a receptionist. Frank and I keep telling her to quit the job and go to law school instead. She already has a BA from the University of South Florida, and we would take her into the firm the minute she passed her bar exams. But each time we raise the possibility, Cynthia grins and says she doesn’t want the hassle of school again. She is one of the nicest young people I know, and she is blessed besides with a keen mind, an even-tempered disposition, and a fine sense of humor. She told me now that Detective Morris Bloom was on six. I pressed the button in the base of the phone and said, “Hello, Morrie.”
“Matthew, hi,” he said. “We got him.”
“Good,” I said, and glanced across the room. Frank had begun scowling the moment he heard me mention Bloom’s name. He stood now with his hands on his hips, staring at me. “Where’d you find him?”
“He walked right in off the street. Said he’d been in Miami for a few days, heard the news on the radio while driving back. I’m just about to ask him some questions here, but there’s a slight problem.”
“What’s the problem?”
“He doesn’t have an attorney, and he wants one here during the Q and A. I told him we could have one appointed for him, but he thinks there might be something fishy about that. So I was wondering... if you have the time... maybe you could come down and talk to him, maybe he’d find you acceptable. Just for the Q and A, Matthew. What you do later, if we charge him with anything, is entirely your own business. What do you say?”
“When did you want me?”
“Soon as you can get here.”
I looked at Frank again.
“Give me ten minutes,” I said.
“Good, see you,” Bloom said, and hung up.
I put the receiver back on the cradle. Frank was still staring and scowling at me.
“What’d he want?” he asked.
“They’ve got George Harper. Morrie asked me to represent him during the Q and A.”
“Shit,” Frank said.
It had never occurred to me that George N. Harper might be a black man. Sally Owen, the woman for whom our firm had handled a divorce a year ago, the woman Michelle had called for advice before coming to see me, was black — but even in Calusa, there are white people who have black friends. Nor had Michelle’s address, 1124 Wingdale Way, triggered any immediate insights. Wingdale Way was in the heart of the city’s black section, still called the “colored” section by many of the older white residents here, and referred to as “New Town” by Calusa’s polite society. I simply never made a connection.
I have always felt uncomfortable with the descriptive label blacks have chosen for themselves. I suppose it is no less accurate than the “white” label, or the “yellow” label, or the “red” label, but I had never before that Tuesday afternoon met any so-called black man who was anything but one or another shade of brown. George N. Harper was the color of coal, the color of midnight, the color of mourning. George N. Harper was the blackest black man I had ever seen in my life. And the biggest. And the ugliest.
He was pacing the floor of the captain’s office at the Public Safety Building when I opened the door and entered. He turned to face me at once, a startled hulk of a man some six feet four inches tall and weighing 350 pounds if he weighed an ounce. He was wearing blue overalls with shoulder straps, a blue denim shirt, and high-topped brown leather workman’s shoes. He had huge shoulders and a barrel chest, a pockmarked face with flaring nostrils and thick purple lips, an Afro haircut and rheumy brown eyes that peered at me from beneath a wide brow, huge hands clenching as he turned, Neanderthal surprised.
“Mr. Harper?” I said.
“You the lawyer?” he said.
“I’m Matthew Hope,” I said, and extended my hand. He did not take it.
“Whut I need a lawyer for?” he said. His eyes kept searching my face.
“Mr. Bloom said you’d requested—”
“I dinn kill her.”
“Nobody says you did.”
“Then why I need a lawyer?”
“You’re entitled to one if you want one. Didn’t Mr. Bloom explain your rights to you?”