“Harvey, keep your mouth shut,” Lizzie said.
“How’s it gonna harm us I tell ’em what I seen?” Wallenbach asked.
“‘Cause this’s a murder here, is what it is,” Lizzie said. “You wanna get involved in a hooker got murdered, you asshole?”
“She wasn’t dead when I seen her get in that car!” Wallenbach said.
“Now you done it,” Lizzie said, and went back into the trailer.
“Then you did see her get in a car,” Bloom said.
“I seen her.”
“What kind of car?”
“A Cadillac.”
“What color?”
“Black.”
“Did you see the license plate?”
“I seen it.”
“Would you remember the number?”
“Nope.”
“Was it a Florida plate?”
“Yep.”
“But you don’t remember the number.”
“I didn’t know when she got in that car she was gonna get murdered,” Wallenbach said. “Otherwise I’da looked harder.”
“It was chauffeur-driven, is that right?” Rawles asked.
“That’s right.”
“Was the chauffeur white or black?”
“Black,” Wallenbach said. “Like you.”
“Did you hear her mention his name or anything?”
“Nope.”
“What’d he look like?”
“I told you he was black,” Wallenbach said.
Rawles sighed.
“How tall was he?” he asked.
“ ’Bout five-ten, something like that.”
“Any idea what he weighed?”
“He was sort of husky, ’way he was throwing around them trunks and valises. I got no idea what he weighed, though. I ain’t so good at judgin’ weight.”
“What color hair did he have?”
“Sort of salt-and-pepper. More white than black.”
“Eyes?”
“Brown.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Chauffeur’s uniform. Gray. Peaked cap. You know.”
“But you didn’t hear his name, huh?”
“Girl didn’t say his name.”
“Did she seem to know him?”
“Let him take all her stuff outta the house, I guess she hadda know him,” Wallenbach said.
“Carried the stuff down for her, did he?” Bloom asked.
“The heavy stuff. She carried some valises down herself.”
“And put them in the trunk of the car?”
“Some in the trunk, some in the front seat.”
“She say anything to you before they left?”
“Nope. Didn’t know the girl ’cept to see her.”
“Didn’t say where she was going or anything?”
“I just told you I didn’t know her. Why would she tell me where she was going? Didn’t know a thing about her, in fact, ’cept she lived next door and was always sittin’ on her deck without no top on. Was she a hooker?”
“She was a hooker, all right,” Lizzie said from inside the trailer.
“Did you see which way the car went? When it left?” Bloom asked.
“Made a left turn at the end of the driveway,” Wallenbach said.
“Heading farther out on the key then, is that right?” Rawles said.
“Looked that way to me.”
“you’re sure the car was a Cadillac?”
“Positive. Cars, I know.”
“Ain’t nothing you know but your twinkie,” Lizzie said from inside the trailer.
“This was a big black Cadillac limo,” Wallenbach yelled to the open trailer door.
“Anything else you may have noticed about it?” Bloom asked. “Any bumper stickers? Any—”
“Bumper stickers?” Wallenbach said, appalled. “On a stretch limo?”
“Anything on the windshield? Any monogrammed initials on the doors?”
“Didn’t see anything like that,” Wallenbach said.
“And this was in July sometime, is that right?” Bloom said.
“Around the Fourth,” Wallenbach said.
“What day?” Rawles asked, looking at the calendar in his notebook. “The Fourth last year fell on a Wednesday.”
“The day after, I think it was. I remember we was sittin’ lookin’ at the fireworks the night before. So this hadda be the next day.”
“The fifth of July.”
“Right.”
“What time?” Bloom asked.
“In the morning.”
“Early morning?”
“Around ten o’clock or so.”
“What was the girl wearing, do you remember?”
“Cut-off blue jeans and a white T-shirt. No bra.”
“She never wore a bra,” Lizzie said from inside the trailer.
“Anything else you can remember about that morning?” Rawles asked.
“She looked happy,” Wallenbach said.
The detectives weren’t too very happy.
They had learned from Wallenbach substantially what they had learned from Sylvia Kazenski: that an expensive automobile driven by a black chauffeur had picked up Tracy Kilbourne and her luggage one morning in July last year, presumably to take her somewhere on Whisper Key. Well, yes, they now had an exact date: July 5. And an approximate time: 10:00 a.m. And the car was a black Cadillac.
But that was all.
So they hit the telephone book for Whisper Key.
There were six Kilbournes listed for the key. None of the first names was Tracy. They phoned each of the Kilbournes nonetheless, and asked if any of the answering parties knew a girl named Tracy Kilbourne.
One of the ladies they called was a little hard of hearing. She said, “Yes, my granddaughter’s name is Casey Kilbourne.”
“No,” Rawles said. “Tracy Kilbourne.”
“That’s right,” the woman said.
“Your granddaughter’s name is Tracy Kilbourne?”
“Casey Kilbourne, right,” the woman said.
“Well, thank you very much,” Rawles said.
“Did you want to speak to her?” the woman asked.
“No, thank you,” Rawles said.
“Just a second, then, I’ll get her.”
Rawles hung up.
None of the Kilbournes knew a Tracy Kilbourne.
Rawles immediately put in a call to General Telephone of Calusa, identified himself to one of the supervisors there, and told her what he was looking for: a telephone number and an address for a girl named Tracy Kilbourne, for whom service may have begun in July of last year. The supervisor checked her computerized records and reported that they had no listing whatever for a Tracy Kilbourne anywhere in the city of Calusa. Rawles asked her to check back through January of last year, when — according to Corrinne Haley at Pizza Pleasure — Tracy first came to Calusa. The supervisor reported that the records she was consulting went back three years, and she had nothing for a Tracy Kilbourne. Rawles looked at Corrinne Haley’s WIF form, zeroed in on the names of the girls Tracy had shared a room with, and asked the supervisor if she had anything for either Abigail Sweeney or Geraldine Lorner. The supervisor had an old listing for Abigail Sweeney at 3610 South Webster, which Corrinne Haley had given as Tracy’s old address. Service there had been discontinued in February of this year. There were no new listings for either Abigail Sweeney or Geraldine Lorner. Rawles gave the supervisor the address at Heron Lagoon, where Tracy had rented the house on stilts, and was told that telephone service there was listed to a Mr. Harold Weinberger and that billing for that number was made to him at his address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rawles thanked the woman and hung up, and immediately dialed Mr. Weinberger in Pittsburgh. Weinberger told him he kept the Heron Lagoon property as an investment and that a real-estate agent down there handled the rentals for him. He had no idea who came in or out of the apartment or where they went when they left the apartment. They passed through like trains in the night, and the only thing he insisted on was that they make any long-distance calls collect.