“What does that mean, Mr. Hope?”
“It means your brother doesn’t seem to want representation.”
“I love my brother dearly, but he’s a fool—”
“I’ve tried to indicate as much to him.”
“He didn’t commit those murders.”
“He says he did. I was there when he made his statement to the police.”
“I don’t care what he told the police,” Karin said. “I know otherwise.”
“You sound very certain.”
“I am,” she said, and went to where a leather pouch-bag was sitting on a chair near the windows. Behind her, the sky stretched wide and black across Calusa Bay. She reached into the bag and took from it a white, legal-sized envelope. “I got this from Michael last week,” she said. “I think you ought to read it.”
The envelope was addressed in typescript to Miss Karin Purchase at her address on Central Park West. Michael’s return address was in the upper left-hand corner. I opened the already torn flap, and removed from the envelope four typewritten pages folded around another squarish, oatmeal-colored envelope that had in turn been folded to fit inside the letter. This second envelope was addressed by hand to Michael at Pirate’s Cove. The monogram on the torn flap was BJP.
“My mother,” Karin said.
“Which should I read first?”
“Michael’s letter. It makes reference to hers.”
I took Karin’s bag from the seat of the chair, put it on the floor, sat, and was starting to read the letter when a knock sounded on the door. Karin went to open it. A bellman came in with a tray on which were two snifters, two glasses of water, and a check.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Good evening,” Karin said. “Just put it there, please, on the dresser.”
He put down the tray. Karin scarcely glanced at the check. She scrawled a tip and her signature onto it, and then said, “Thank you.”
“Thank you, miss,” the bellman said. His eyes avoided mine. This was five minutes past midnight, the lady was casually dressed, she had ordered drinks in her room for two. The bellman knew an assignation when he saw one. Not for nothing was he nineteen years old and growing a mustache. He backed his way discreetly out of the room. Karin closed and locked the door behind him. She brought me my cognac, went back to the dresser for her own snifter, and then sat on the arm of the chair.
“May I read over your shoulder?” she asked.
“Yes, certainly.”
The letter was dated Wednesday, February 25.
Dear Sis,
I don’t know what to do about this latest letter from Mom. As you can see, what she’s trying to do again is get me involved in her problems with Pop. This time it’s because he’s cut off alimony payments. I don’t know what the hell she expects me to do, I really don’t. I’m living on Pop’s boat, does she want me to go to him and tell him he should start paying her the alimony again? He’d kick me off the boat for sure, and I can’t afford that right now, especially when I’m saving money for tuition in the fall. Anyway, Kar, I’m not even sure I agree with Mom this time.
He’s been married to Maureen for eight years now, he’s got a new family and a new life. His only ties to Mom were those checks he sent each month. I had a long talk with Maureen last night. Mostly about going back to school, but we also talked about the alimony. Kar, it really was a terrific burden on Pop. He was working harder than he ever had before, going to the office every Wednesday, for example, which used to be his day off, turning off the phone and catching up on paperwork he doesn’t have a chance to get to during the week because he’s increased his case load so much.
Maureen told me they took only one vacation last year, to Montreal for a week. You know Pop, he really likes his vacations. But here he is taking just a week, and you know as well as I that Mom spent six weeks in Italy last summer and two weeks skiing in Austria this Christmas. She got a two-hundred-thousand-dollar cash settlement, and the interest on that, if she invested it in anything but buggy whips, would have to bring a conservative eight percent a year. I wish I could get that kind of money for doing nothing but being alive. Somebody’s suffering for sure, Kar, but I don’t think it’s Mom, and I really think Pop had every right to tell her to go to hell. He’s got a life of his own to lead and he wants to lead it without any ties to a woman he never even thinks about anymore.
My point, Sis, is that Mom has been doing the same number for ten years now, and she does it all over again in the letter I’m enclosing. I love her to death, and I’d do anything in the world for her, I mean it. But that’s partly because she’s made me feel so goddamn sorry for her, playing the widowed old lady when she’s only forty-two! I don’t know what to do, Karin, I really don’t. I think I’m going to call her and tell her to give it up, let Pop go, for Christ’s sake! But then I’m afraid she’ll start bawling, and I never know what to do when she cries. Sis, please read her letter and let me know what you think I should tell her. I may call her before I hear from you, because you know Mom, she gets frantic if she thinks she’s being neglected.
P.S. Maureen’s birthday is the twelfth of March, it would be nice if you dropped her a card.
“Well?” Karin said, and moved swiftly off the arm of the chair.
“I’d like to read your mother’s letter, too.”
“The important letter is Michael’s,” she said. She was already at the dresser, taking a fresh cigarette from the package there, lighting it. “Does that sound like someone about to commit murder?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Across the room, Karin sat now in the chair near the television set. She seemed content she’d made her point. There was on her face a look bordering smugness; the trip to Calusa had not been wasted, she had placed into the hands of her brother’s attorney a document that would surely save his life. I took her mother’s letter from the oatmeal-colored envelope, and unfolded it. The BJP monogram was on the center of the page. There was a brown border running around the entire sheet of stationery. Betty Purchase had written her letter in darker brown ink. It was dated Saturday, February 21. Michael had undoubtedly received it early last week, and had immediately written to his sister on Wednesday, the twenty-fifth, four days before the murders.
Dear Michael,
As I told you on the phone, this will now be the second month your father has defaulted on his alimony payments. He is supposed to send me my check by the fifteenth, it is supposed to be here in my hands by the fifteenth of each month. A check for $2,500 each month. Today is the 21st, I waited till this morning to call you because I wanted to make sure the check wasn’t in the mail. Well, it wasn’t.
In a conversation I had with your father last month when the January check didn’t arrive, he told me he was never going to pay me again. I am certain of that now, Michael. Which means I will have to take him to court and spend a lot of money trying to get what is rightfully mine, while he and Goldilocks live in luxury. I want you to go to him, Michael, he won’t listen to me, and tell him it’s his legal obligation to make those payments each month. He wanted his freedom, and I gave it to him, but he also signed an agreement that I expect him to honor. I was once his wife, Michael. He seems to have forgotten that.
He seems to have forgotten, too, that I was the one who had the paying job that put him through medical school. So I believe I’m entitled to a small share of his income now. I’m not a demanding woman, Michael, I didn’t make punitive demands. I wish you would go see him, and take him aside where Goldilocks can’t hear you, and ask him to please send me my money. I would appreciate it, son. Please call me when you receive this, as I want to know whether you plan to help me or not.