“Ain’t much of a note, is it?” Lester asked.
“Shore ain’t,” Charlie agreed. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“That’s all there is,” Lester told him. “There were some ashes in an ashtray we’re checking that looked like she might have burned the parts she cut off. But why she’d do a crazy thing like that, I’m damned if I know.” Lester shifted the soggy cigar butt in his mouth and said wearily “Come on, Charlie. Let’s walk up to the house.”
The two men strolled up the dock and across the thick green lawn, one young, short, stocky and rumpled, the other old, tall, lean and rumpled.
“You ain’t mentioned the husband yet,” Charlie said thoughtfully. “Arid I know there is one. Bart Anderson told me he was renting his place to some newlyweds ’fore he and Beth left for Europe.”
“Oh yeah.” Lester nodded, “there’s a husband all right.”
“Where was he when the shootin’ went on?”
“In a motel. With a girl friend.”
“You’re kiddin’ me.”
“Not a bit,” Lester assured him. “He’s up at the house now.”
“Will he talk about it?”
“Talk! God, that’s all he does. That’s why I was down on the dock. I got sick’a listenin’ to him. You wonder how a woman ever gets mixed up with a man like that. He don’t even pretend to be sorry she shot herself. Says he feels bad, but they was gettin’ a divorce anyway.”
“Did he say how much alimony she wanted?”
Lester laughed. “Alimony! Hell, he ain’t got two nickels of his own. If there was any alimony gonna be given out, she’d sure as hell be the one to give it.”
“She had money?” Charlie asked interestedly.
“The man says three million. He can’t even sit still when he talks about it, he gits so excited.”
“So yesterday he’s broke and today he’s a. millionaire. Lester, that is a convenient suicide.”
“Charlie,” Lester said firmly, “I couldn’t agree with you more. But unless you got any better ideas than me, that’s exactly what it’s got to be!”
“Now, suppose you jus’ explain that remark.” Charlie snorted.
“ ’Cause nobody could git in the house to kill ’er. That’s why!” Lester insisted. “It was locked up tight from the inside.”
“Look, Lester,” Charlie said patiently. “With a key, you can get in any house. And if you don’t have a key, you can pick the lock. If you don’t like those ways, you can climb through windows. Don’t tell me nobody could get in.”
“Well, that’s what I am telling you,” Lester said firmly. “Every window and door in that house was bolted from the inside.”
Charlie paused and said thoughtfully to Lester, “That sounds pretty interestin’. Maybe we better sit down and you tell me what you know about this thing right from the beginnin’.”
Lester nodded and led Charlie over to a round white lawn table with a brightly colored umbrella in the center. It was on the edge of a large patio. Off to one side, a big outdoor barbecue pit was under construction. They sat down in uncomfortable white metal chairs and Lester pulled out a small notebook.
He scanned it for a minute, then said, “The dead woman’s name is Vera Platt. Two ’t’s’. She was thirty-eight years old, five feet six inches tall and weighed one hundred thirty-five. Brown hair, brown eyes, sallow skin. Rather a plain woman from her pictures. But she had a lot’a money.
“Her husband is a man named Willard Platt. He’s twenty-nine years old, six feet one inch tall and goes about one hundred ninety. Nice build, blond hair, grey eyes and a beach-boy tan. In fact, that’s what he was — a beach boy. Vera met him in Miami about six months ago. He was a life guard at one of the big hotels on the beach.
“After she got him dressed properly and hung enough gold on his wrists and neck to get his attention, she married him. Seems to be a case of her seeing something she wanted and buying it.
“She was a little greedy, I guess, and Miami had too many distractions for him. So she rented this place where she could have him to herself for a while. Or at least, that’s what Willard says.
“Problem was, he couldn’t stand the quiet and imported a little blonde to fill in the loose hours. He kept her in town in that new motel. About two weeks ago, Vera found out about his sideline and laid down some new laws. Willard says she needed him a lot more than he needed her, so he jus’ told her what she could do with her new rules and gave her his ultimatum. She could share, but she couldn’t own.
“He was so darlin’ and sweet, however, she couldn’t stand the thought of only sharing him and last night they had a big fight about it. Willard says she threatened to kill herself, but he didn’t believe her and walked out. Went to town and kept warm with his girl. She backs up Willard’s story and swears they were together from nine o’clock last night ’til they left the motel together this morning at five-thirty to come out and pick up his clothes.”
Lester chewed on his cigar and checked his notebook again.
“The two ’a them got here before six and couldn’t get in. The doors were all bolted from the inside. Willard says he poked around a bit and finally, through the front window, saw his wife lying on the floor in the living room. They drove back to that filling station over on the county road and called us. I got here at six-twenty.”
Lester closed the notebook and stuck it in his pocket. “I couldn’t git in either. There are three solid doors on the house and they were all bolted from the inside. All the windows — they’re those jalousie things that are too narrow to crawl through anyway — were also locked from, inside. I had to bust in the front door.
“Vera Platt was dead, shot once in the chest. She had a thirty-two revolver in her right hand that had been fired one time.”
“Was she dressed?” Charlie interrupted.
“Yes and no,” Lester told him. “She had on a full-length dressing gown, but nothing under it.”
Charlie nodded and Lester continued, “I found the note on a coffee table beside her. And now you know everything I do.”
“Which is all conflictin’!”
“Un-huh.” Lester nodded. “Everything about this mess points to a murder but the killing itself. Hell, if anybody got arrested for Vera Platt’s murder, I’d be the best defense witness they could get. That house was shut up tight and it’s the only way I could testify. In the short time I’ve known him, I’ve developed a real dislike for Willard, but I’m afraid it’s gotta come out suicide whether I like it or not.”
Charlie stood up and flexed his bare toes in the dry grass. “You mind if I look around some?” he asked Lester.
“No, you go right ahead. I’m jus’ gonna sit here and be discouraged.”
“By the way, Lester, who’s building the barbecue pit?”
“Willard says he was doing it, ’cause Vera wanted one. Says he’s damn glad he won’t have to finish it.”
Charlie nodded. “He sure is an honest one, ain’t he,” he told Lester as he walked away from the table.
For the next half hour Charlie wandered through and around the low, rambling home. It was a typical Florida lake house. Cinder block construction — three bedrooms and an attached garage. The windows were small and high with glass jalousies set in aluminum. The securing bolts were inside the house. None of them could have been removed and replaced from the outside.
There were only three ways into the house. Charlie was convinced no one could have entered there. The second way was through two huge sliding glass doors that faced on the lake. According to Lester, they had been locked and chained and a long metal rod inserted into the sliding groove as a blocking bolt.