It was real at last.
Cynthia Huellen was a native Floridian with long blonde hair and a glorious tan that she worked at almost fanatically; never a weekend went by that did not find Cynthia on a beach or a boat. She was easily the most beautiful person in the law offices of Summerville & Hope, twenty-three years old, and employed by us as a receptionist. We kept telling her to quit the job and go to law school instead. She already had a B.A. from the University of South Florida, and we were ready to take her into the firm the minute she passed her bar exams. Cynthia just grinned and said, “No, I don’t want the hassle of school again.”
She looked up as I came into the office.
“Frank would like to see you right away,” she said.
“Okay. Any calls?”
“Mr. Galatier.”
“What’d he want?”
“Said to remind you of his appointment at twelve.”
“How could I forget? Anybody else?”
“Your wife. Said it wasn’t important.”
“Okay. Buzz Frank and tell him I’m going to shower and change. I’ll be with him in five minutes. Tell him Jamie’s coming in at ten-thirty.”
“What an awful, awful thing,” Cynthia said.
“Yes. And Cyn, I think maybe you’d better call Galatier and tell him I can’t see him after all. It’s liable to get hectic around here, and I won’t need a goddamn lunatic underfoot.”
“Did you win?” Cynthia asked.
“No,” I answered.
The one luxury I’d insisted on in our offices was a shower stall. The architect wanted to put it on the wall between my office and Frank’s, next door to the bathroom, where the plumbing was going to be. But he couldn’t do this without cutting down on the interior size of Frank’s office. Frank said he did not mind people taking showers in the office when they should have been taking them at home. He did, however, mind his office being trimmed to the size of a broom closet simply to accommodate a sweaty athlete. Our architect had opted for the other side of the corridor instead, putting the shower stall between the conference room and Karl Jennings’s office — Karl was just out of law school and enjoyed no executive privileges. I went into my own office, picked up my change of clothes, and was starting toward the door again when the telephone rang. I put everything down on the leather couch opposite the desk and picked up the phone.
“Yes?” I said.
“Mr. Hope, it’s your wife again,” Cynthia said. “Can you talk to her now?”
“All right, put her on,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was almost ten past ten; Jamie would be here in twenty minutes and I still hadn’t talked to Frank.
“Hello?” Susan said.
“Yes, Susan, what is it?”
“Are you still angry?” she asked.
“No, just in a hurry.”
“I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Susan, I really can’t talk right now. We’ll discuss it when I get home, okay?”
“You haven’t forgotten tonight, have you?”
“What’s tonight?”
“The gallery opening, and then dinner at—”
“Yes, right. It’s here on my calendar. Susan, I’ve got to say good-bye now.”
“All right, we’ll talk when you get home.”
“Fine.”
“Do you have any idea what time that’ll be?”
“Susan, I just got here this minute, I haven’t even—”
“All right, darling, go ahead,” she said.
“We’ll talk later,” I said.
“Yes, good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I said and put down the receiver and collected my clothes again. I was carrying them across the corridor when Frank stepped out of his office next door.
There are people who say that Frank and I look alike. I cannot see any resemblance. I’m six feet two inches tall and weigh a hundred and ninety pounds. Frank’s a half-inch under six feet, and he weighs a hundred and seventy, which he watches like a hawk. We both have dark hair and brown eyes, but Frank’s face is rounder than mine. Frank says there are only two types of faces in the world — pig faces and fox faces. He classifies himself as a pig face and me as a fox face. There is nothing derogatory about either label; they are only intended to be descriptive. Frank first told me about his designation system last October. Ever since, I’ve been unable to look at anyone without automatically categorizing him as either pig or fox.
“Why’s Jamie coming here?” he said at once.
“I asked him to. He was lying about that poker game, Frank. He was winning when he left.”
“Who says?”
“Mark Goldman was in the same game.”
“Then why’d Jamie say he was losing?”
“That’s what I want to ask him. That’s why he’s coming here.”
Jamie came into the office fifteen minutes later. He looked well rested, well scrubbed, and cleanly shaved. He was wearing a white linen leisure suit, dark blue sports shirt open at the throat. Frank took his hand and expressed sincere condolences. I asked Jamie if he wanted a drink, and he looked at his watch, and then shook his head. I looked at Frank. Frank nodded.
“Jamie,” I said, “we’re your lawyers, and we’ve got to ask you the same questions the police are going to ask. And we need the answers before they get them.”
“Okay,” Jamie said. There was the same puzzled tone in his voice that had been there earlier on the telephone.
“I’ll give it to you straight,” I said. “I’m not trying to trick you into anything, I’m asking only for the truth. A man named Mark Goldman was in that poker game with you last night. You’d met him before, I’d introduced you one day when we were having lunch at Marina Blue. I guess you’d forgotten him, you didn’t seem to recognize him last night. Man with a mustache, about your height...”
“What about him?” Jamie said.
“I played tennis with him this morning. He told me you were winning when you left the game. Is that true?”
“No, I was losing,” Jamie said.
“How much were you losing?” Frank asked.
“Thirty, forty dollars.”
“So you decided to go home.”
“Yes.”
“But instead you went to The Innside Out for a drink. How come?”
“I was feeling low. About losing.”
“About losing,” Frank repeated.
“Yes.”
“Jamie,” I said, “Detective Ehrenberg is going to talk to all the players who were in that game last night. That’s why he took their names from you. He’ll eventually get to Mark Goldman, even though he was one of the players whose names you didn’t know. Mark’s going to tell him exactly what he told me. You were winning when you quit. You were tired. You were going home to sleep. Now unless you can prove you were at The Innside Out, Ehrenberg’s going to think you did go home. He’s going to think you got there a lot earlier than a quarter to one, when you called me. He’s going to think you were maybe there in time to murder Maureen and the kids. Now Jamie...”
“I didn’t murder them.”
“Did you go directly home from that poker game?”
“No. I told you where I went. I went to The Innside Out.”
“Jamie, we’re talking about first-degree murder here,” Frank said. “We’re talking about the death penalty.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“Were you winning when you left the game?”
“What difference does it make?”
“If you were winning, the other players’ll tell that to the police. And the police’ll wonder why you later said you were losing. So which was it, Jamie? Were you winning, or were—”