“Not entirely,” I said.
“Well, here’s what I think. I think we’re smarter than he is, and I think we can work out a Mutt-and-Jeff routine that’ll get him to open up. Can you be here tomorrow morning at ten? To work it all out, I mean.”
Davis greeted me warmly, and even apologized in advance for what he was about to confirm to the police, the fact that he had not seen his friend George Harper in Miami on the Sunday he’d claimed to have been there. I told him he had to speak the truth as he saw it, and I thanked him for coming to Calusa at Bloom’s request. If Harper was indeed guilty, I said (lying like a professional Mutt), a guilty plea was often better advised than a stubborn claim of innocence. Bloom and I had worked out our strategy in detail, but I still felt we were about to perform a daring trapeze act without a net. One slip, and Davis would bound out of the tent.
“Well, why don’t we begin then?” Bloom asked in the genial guise of Jeff.
“I think you should first read Mr. Davis his rights,” I said.
“What for?” Bloom said.
“If you’re going to use any of this at the trial—”
“Any of what? We’re not even taping him, Matthew. All we’re trying to find out is whether he can substantiate Harper’s alibi.”
“I still think he should be protected.”
“Against what?” Bloom asked.
“Against the police later claiming Mr. Davis said something he might not have said. Look, it’s up to Mr. Davis. If I were in his position, though, I’d ask you to read me my rights.”
“Look, I’ll read them, I know them by heart,” Bloom said. “But I think it’s a waste of time.”
“Are you going to be taping what he says?”
“I just told you no.”
I looked at him skeptically.
“Why?” Bloom said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“There won’t be any record, that’s all.”
“I don’t need a record,” Bloom said. “I just want to ask the man a few questions.”
“What about his record?” I said.
“His record?”
“Doesn’t he need a record of what he says here? In case he’s later misquoted.”
“We’re not taking a deposition here,” Bloom said. “The man’s not under oath. Save all this crap for later, will you?”
“Look, do what you want to,” I said. “I just thought I’d mention it, that’s all.”
Davis looked at me, and then he looked at Bloom.
“Maybe I ought to have a record of what I say here,” he said.
“If you want us to tape it, we’ll tape it,” Bloom said, and sighed, and went to the door. “Charlie,” he yelled, “bring in the Sony, will you?”
“And I think maybe you ought to read me my rights, too,” Davis said.
“Whatever you say,” Bloom said. “You know, Matthew, I did you a favor asking you here, I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of a few lousy questions.”
“I just don’t like to see anyone’s rights violated,” I said.
“Let’s just get it over with, okay?” Bloom said, and shook his head.
Charlie — a cherubic-faced uniformed cop — brought in the tape recorder and put it on the desk. Bloom turned it on, tested it, read Davis his rights from top to bottom, got his confirmation that he was willing to answer questions without an attorney present on his behalf, and then said to me, “Okay, counselor?”
“Fine,” I said.
The trap was set.
“Mr. Davis,” Bloom said, “George Harper claims he went to your home on Sunday morning, November fifteenth, looking for you. He further states that you were not there when he arrived, and that your wife told him you were off with the army reserve.”
“That’s what I understand she told him,” Davis said.
“It’s important that we pinpoint his whereabouts on that weekend because, as you know, his wife was murdered on Monday, the sixteenth.”
“Yes.”
“But you say you didn’t see him that Sunday, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Where were you, Mr. Davis?”
“With the army. At Vero Beach.”
“All day Sunday?”
“No, sir, not all day. I wasn’t feeling good, so I asked if I could be excused for the rest of the weekend.”
He had just made his first mistake. According to Palmer, the sergeant at Miami recruiting, Davis had taken a phone call at 9:00 A.M. that Sunday, and had asked to be excused because of “an emergency at home.”
“What time would that have been, Mr. Davis?” Bloom asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Nine, ten in the morning?”
“Is that when you left Vero Beach?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How?”
“I had my car there.”
“Where did you go from Vero Beach?”
“Home.”
“To Miami?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And got there at what time?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Eleven? Eleven-thirty? I’m really not sure.”
“Was your wife there when you got home?”
“Yes, she was.”
“Did she tell you that Mr. Harper had been there?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Did you see Mr. Harper at any time that Sunday?”
“No, sir.”
“Mr. Harper claims he went looking for you in Pompano and later at Vero Beach. Did you see him at either of those places?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you in Miami on Monday as well?”
“I was.”
“Did you see Mr. Harper at any time Monday?”
“No, I did not.”
“Because, you see, Mr. Harper says he was eager to see you, and that he spent all day Sunday and Monday looking for you. Claims he didn’t come back to Calusa until Tuesday morning, after he’d heard news of his wife’s murder.”
“Well,” Davis said, “if I’d beaten up my wife on Sunday and then killed her on Monday, I’d say I was nowhere near Calusa, too.”
He had just made his second mistake. Not anywhere — not in the newspaper reports, not in the television or radio broadcasts — had there been the slightest mention of Michelle having been brutally beaten on the night before her murder. I caught the mistake, and I knew at once that Bloom had caught it as well; a slight lifting of just one eyebrow transmitted the intelligence to me.
“Where were you on Thanksgiving Day, Mr. Davis?” Bloom asked gently.
“Miami.”
“That’s the day Harper broke jail, you know.”