“All right. License number what?”
I gave it to him and said, “A white Lincoln convertible with the top down, this year’s maybe. The other two cars, I figure they belong there, see?”
“Belong where?”
“At this house I’m telling you about. The Lincoln was on the lawn over to the side. Listen, I’m just passing through and I don’t want to get involved in anything. When I get a little buzz on, I got to walk to clear my head, okay? So I went over and found some damn back street. I looked at the street sign later. Clematis Street, or Drive, I think. Yeah, it was Drive. I parked and started walking. You know, you walk around a couple of blocks, you feel better in the morning. Right?”
“Mister, will you get to it?”
“What do you think I’m doing? It was hours ago. Maybe around three sometime. I didn’t check close. Okay from this house comes this sound of a broad screaming. Honest to God, my blood runs cold. I’m right in front of the house. Then I hear a kind of sharp crack, not like a shot but sort of like a shot, and the scream stopped like her throat got cut. Maybe the crack was her old man giving it to her across the chops. What I did, I turned around and headed back to my car, and I made a mental note of the license number. You can tell the house because of the other two cars, one is a little light color Mercedes and the other is a tan Plymouth. Tan or gray. So maybe you should check it, I don’t know. I just got a feeling about it somehow.‘’
‘’And can you give me your name?“
“John Doe, Joe Citizen, Jesus, Sergeant, I just don’t want to get mixed up in anything. I don’t know the house number. I couldn’t see it. But it’s not what you’d call a mile long, that street.”
I hung up and got back into the sedan.
“Now can we go back?”
“Yes. Keep the speed down.”
Fourteen
CHOOK WOKE me at twenty minutes before noon, as I had asked. She sat on the side of the bed. I hitched myself up, flexed my right hand. Arthur appeared in the doorway, stood there watching me.
“How is it now?” Arthur asked.
“Better. It just feels asleep. The leg too. The hand feels weak.”
“She’s been coming in every half hour at least to see if you looked all right,” Arthur said.
“And you don’t look so great,” she said.
“I feel as if I’d been hung up by the heels and beaten with ball bats.”
“Head ache?” she asked.
I fingered the dressing, lightly. “It’s not an ache. It’s a one inch drill bit. It makes a quarter turn every time my heart beats. How about the gun?”
“It was too rough to go outside in the dinghy,” Arthur said earnestly. “I got as far as the middle of the pass and dropped it there. Okay?”
“That’s just fine, Arthur.”
Chook said, “I guess… you didn’t know you were going to walk into anything so rough.” I interpreted the appeal in her eyes.
“Damned glad I took you with me, Arthur. Chook, between us we managed.”
“I was nearly out of my mind! Trav, I’m still scared. I mean now there’s no way to prove she did it, is there?”
“Waxwell killed them both. He didn’t pull the trigger. He killed them. And if his slug had hit a sixteenth of an inch lower… Wish I could have seen the bastard when he looked into the back end of that car. Nothing will go wrong, Chook. They’ll find enough to prove he was in the house. There’s a busted screen to show how he got in. And he isn’t a pillar of any community. How has the news been?”
“Like you thought, so far.”
I shooed them out, got into my robe and joined them in the lounge. I found I could manage an inconspicuous gait, if I kept it slow and stately. I put the big set on AM and cut the volume when a noontime used-car commercial over the Palm City station blasted on.
Their local news announcer had the usual airedale yap and the usual difficulty with long words. “This morning state, county and other law enforcement officials are cooperating in a massive manhunt for Boone Waxwell of Goodland on Marco Island, wanted for questioning in connection with the rape murder of housewife Vivian Watts of Naples and the murder of Crane Watts, her husband, a young Naples attorney. Based on an anonymous tip from a passerby who heard screams and what could have been a shot emanating from the thirty thousand dollar home on a quiet residential street in Naples in the small hours of the morning, city police investigated at dawn and found Mr. Watts in the living room, dead of a small caliber bullet wound in the head, and Mrs. Watts in the bedroom, the scene of a violent struggle, shot through the heart. The anonymous tipster gave police the tag number and description of a car he saw parked in the side yard at the time of the shot he heard, and the car has been identified as belonging to Boone Waxwell, Everglades fishing guide, who for some years has been living alone in a cottage over a mile west of the village of Goodland.
“When County police arrived at the Waxwell cottage this morning, they found the car reported as having been at the scene of the crime. Goodland residents state that Waxwell had another vehicle, an English Land Rover, as well as an inboard launch on a trailer. The truck and boat trailer are missing, and a thorough search of all waterfront areas is now under way. Goodland residents say Waxwell kept to himself and did not welcome visitors. They said he seemed to have ample funds, but could not account for how he had acquired them. Waxwell is about thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, five foot eleven, about a hundred and ninety pounds; blue eyes, black curly hair, very powerful, and believed to be armed and dangerous. On forcing entrance to his cottage, police found quantities of arms and ammunition. He has been in difficulty before for minor acts of violence, and successfully fled on two other occasions to avoid prosecution, returning after those who filed the charges had dropped them.
“The preliminary medical opinion, pending a more detailed examination, is that Mrs. Watts, an attractive twenty-eight year old brunette, was criminally assaulted prior to her death. Waxwell apparently gained entry by forcing a screened door which opened onto the patio in the rear of the house. Time of death is estimated for both husband and wife as occurring between two and four A.M. today. Mrs. Watts will be remembered as one of the finer amateur tennis players on the lower west coast. A close friend of the family, not identified by police yet, hearing of the double murder, reported that on Monday Mrs. Watts had complained about her husband being annoyed by Boone Waxwell over some business matter. It is reported that Crane Watts was the attorney for a land syndicate operation in which Waxwell had a minor interest.
“Authorities, fearing that Waxwell may have gone back into the wilderness areas of the Ten Thousand Islands, plan to organize an air search using the facilities of the Coast Guard, the National Park Service and the Civil Air Patrol. It is believed that… Here is a flash which has just come in. The English truck and the boat trailer have just been found pulled off into deep brush near Caxambas, adjacent to a shelving beach often used by local fisherman for the launching of trailered boats. The effort to hide the vehicle and trailer seems to indicate that Waxwell sought to conceal his avenue of escape. This station will issue further bulletins as received.
“And now to other local news. The Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce today issued a statement regarding…”
I snapped it off. “I wish they’d got him,” Chook said.
“They will,” I said. “And he won’t have the money with him. He’s not that much of a damn fool.”
They both looked puzzled. “But it would take him only five minutes to dig it up and take it along,” Arthur said.
“Think of the timing. He thought I was dead. He risked stashing me in the car while he spent three hours with the woman. My guess is he tricked or scared her into saying I was coming by at eleven. Then he tied her up or locked her up while he played games with me. If she heard those sounds, she wouldn’t have recognized them as shots. He wouldn’t have told her he killed me. His style would have been to tell her he’d scared me off, probably. Okay, so he found the body gone. Either I woke up and got the hell out of there, or somebody took the body away. Whoever took it away hadn’t called the police. Or at least hadn’t had time. I think he would want to clear out until he could figure out what was going on. If I was dead, who could prove he did it? I think he was too sure of himself with the woman to think for a moment she’d charge him with assault. In fact, she’d be more likely to swear he was never there at all. If he got back to his cottage by three o’clock, which I think is a good guess-good enough for our purposes-he would be feeling easier in his mind every minute. After all, the woman had obviously enjoyed it. The husband had slept through it. He would have checked the three o’clock radio news. All quiet. So why would he complicate his life by carting all that money around with him? If he was picked up, how would he explain it? He thought then he would be coming back to his shack. It was better off in the ground. He’d take some with him, not enough to be awkward. By first light he could be way back in Big Lostman’s Bend country, setting up camp on some hammock back there. I saw the radio rig on that boat. It’s a big one, including an AM band. So what does he find out when it’s too late to go back for the money? Boone Maxwell is wanted for rape and murder. So we get to the money first. They’ll have the area sealed and staked out. So we run a bluff. If we find fresh holes in the ground I will be one very astonished McGee.”