"I can promise you protection," I told her.
"No, you can't," she said. "Not total. I don't mind getting hurt occasionally; that comes with the territory. But I don't want to end up like Shirl, with my brains splattered."
"You won't. If you're willing to tell what you know, the cops will pick him up and shove him behind bars. You have nothing to fear."
"What are you talking about?" she said. "Who is him?"
I decided I might as well go for broke. "Reuben Hagler," I said. "The man who just gave you that black eye. Drives a Cadillac with Michigan plates. You knew he was tailing Shirley. And you know or suspect he was the one who put her down."
"You're nuts," she said, affectedly bored.
"How did he get to you?" I went on. "Threats of what might happen if you talked? Or a payoff?"
She suddenly stood up. "You get out of here," she screamed at me. "Right now!"
"But then again," I said thoughtfully, "maybe you weren't just an innocent witness. Maybe you were in on it from the start, an accomplice who helped that creep knock off your best friend."
She collapsed back onto the couch. The glass fell from her hand and shattered on the tile floor. Gin and diet cream soda made an ugly pool, the color of old blood. She began wailing, her face muffled in the cushions.
"Leave me alone," I heard her say. "Just leave me alone. I can't take anymore. Please, just leave me alone."
I rose, finished my gin, and departed. I left her sobbing on the couch. It was not one of my proudest moments. But you comprehend the reason for my cruelty, do you not? I reckoned she would report my visit to Reuben Hagler. And he would be forced to react. If he was guiltless, he would seek me out and denounce me for vile slander. And if he was involved in the murder of Shirley Feebling, he would seek me out and… I didn't want to envision what he might do.
I don't wish to imply that I was acting heroically, offering myself as a sacrificial lamb in order to snag an assassin. But Shirl's death continued to haunt me, and my personal safety seemed of minor import compared to finding and bringing her murderer to justice. Lofty, huh? Well, I do have a moral code. A bit skewed, I admit, but it's mine.
Look, at that point all I had was a suspicion that Reuben Hagler had stalked her. I had no proof and couldn't conceive what his motive might have been. So I had no choice but to force events. I thought of my actions as a lighted fuse. If I was correct, there would be a stupendous KABOOM! If I was mistaken, there would be a mild sizzle as the fuse burned out.
I was engaged in this mental nattering on the drive back to Palm Beach. I believe I was just leaving Boca Raton on A1A when my cellular phone sounded. It was lying on the passenger seat and its harsh ring startled me because I rarely get calls when I'm on the road. I suspected it would be a wrong number but it wasn't; Sgt. Al Rogoff was calling.
"Where are you now, Archy?" he asked in that sepulchral voice he uses when he's about to announce the world is coming to an end in fourteen minutes.
"North of Boca," I reported. "Heading home. What's up, doc?"
"Did you tell me Marcia Hawkin was driving a black Jeep Cherokee when you saw her yesterday?"
"That's right."
"Uh-huh," he said. "Well, right now there's a black Cherokee in the lake. It's upside down and the divers say there's a woman inside."
I was silent.
"You there?" he said.
"I'm here. Where is it, Al?"
"Off Banyan Road. You know it?"
"Yes."
"We're trying to get a cable on the car to haul it out. You want to stop by?"
I didn't. "Yes," I said, "I'll stop by."
By the time I arrived there was a crowd of spectators, perhaps twenty or thirty, many in bathing suits. Two gendarmes were herding them back from the scene of operations.
There was a short wooden pier extending out into Lake Worth. It looked relatively new and mounted on one side was a steel gantry with canvas slings for lifting small boats out of the water. The police tow truck had backed up alongside the pier, the cable from its winch stretched taut into the lake.
I joined the rubbernecks, spotted Rogoff, and yelled to him. He waved and came over to escort me past the guards. He was wearing khaki slacks and scuffed loafers. His shield was clipped to the shoulder of his white T-shirt.
"I was on a forty-eight," he explained. "Then they called me to come in to honcho this mess."
"Who found the car?"
"Some kid who was snorkeling. Just chance. It could have laid there for days, weeks, or months without being spotted. We got a hook on it, but like I told you, it's upside down and it's a tough haul."
We walked down to the shoreline. The winch was whining and the cable was retracting very, very slowly. We stood silently and watched the Jeep come skidding out of the lake. The winch stopped when the car was in the shallows. Then four huskies, two uniformed cops, and two wet-suited divers began turning it over. It was a muscle job, and it took five tries before they got the Cherokee onto its wheels.
"Rather them than me," Al said. "Instant hernia."
The winch started up again, not straining now, and the car was pulled up onto the beach. Water streamed from it and strands of seaweed were clinging to the windshield. We moved forward for a closer look. The door on the driver's side was open and the window was shattered.
"Take a look," Rogoff said.
I peered within. Marcia Hawkin was lying face up in the back. Her eyes were wide. She stared at nothing. She was still wearing the middy blouse and silk skirt but one shoe was off. That single bare foot-small, pale, limp-affected me most.
"Squirrel," I said softly.
"What?" Al said.
"Squirrel," I repeated. "Her nickname. Her father called her that."
"Then he knew," Al said roughly. "She was a real wacko."
Thomas Bunion, the Assistant ME, was there and directed the removal of the body after photographs and a video had been taken of the car's interior.
"What's that?" I asked Rogoff, pointing through a back window.
He shielded his eyes from the rays of the lowering sun. "Looks like a sheet," he said. "All wadded up. Stained. Could be blood. Or maybe stuff in the water. I'll leave it to the wonks."
"Al," I said, "did you drive your pickup here?"
"Sure," he said. "It's parked up near the road. Why?"
"Want to follow me back to my place?"
He looked at me. "Now why should I do that?"
"Because," I said, "I have something I think you better see."
And I told him how Marcia Hawkin had given me a letter to be opened only in the event of her death. The sergeant listened intently.
"You haven't opened it, Archy?" he asked when I had finished.
"Of course not. I promised her."
"I wish you had told me this morning when we talked about her."
"Why should I have done that, Al? She had just been reported missing. And you told me yourself that the Department would take no action for forty-eight hours."
"Yeah, but if I had known she left you a letter it might have changed things."
"How so?"
"Because it meant she figured she could die-and soon. Most young kids think they're going to live forever. Where is the letter now?"
"In my desk at home."
"Let's go," he said.
We were at the Chez McNally in less than an hour. I stopped in the kitchen to pluck a bottle of Sterling vodka from the freezer and fill a plastic bowl with cubes from the ice tray. Then we tramped upstairs to my barrack.
Al likes to claim he's inured to the sight of violent death. He's lying, of course, because he's a sensitive man. I don't even try to pretend. That bare foot of the dead Marcia Hawkin had spooked me. The sergeant made no objection when I poured us heavy vodka-rocks. We both gulped and sighed.