“If she is, she could have been a great actress, Tommy.”
“Remember Ackles, retired two three years back? He used to say the top-dollar whores are the best actresses around. Whatever act the mark wants, shy, scared, bold, college girl, spooky, cold, take charge, exotic, comedian, athlete — whatever he seems to want, that’s what he gets, because that’s where the bonuses and the repeats are.”
Scheff went back to the interrogation room and, as planned ahead, gave the Harkinson woman a bleak look, and took Lobwohl over to a far corner and whispered to him. All he had to tell him was what Tuck had turned up, but they kept it going longer to match the amount of information he was supposed to be imparting.
Lobwohl went back to his chair. He regarded her for a few very long moments. “A boy died today, Mrs. Harkinson. He was a suicide. He had a serious head wound. They couldn’t save him. There were a few moments of semi-consciousness toward the end. He said he did it for you. He said he had to protect you from Staniker. We have all the proof we need that he did it. It was curious you did not mention your visit to Staniker on Friday night until a little while ago. It is more curious that you have not mentioned the boy. It makes me wonder just how much — suggestion was involved, Mrs. Harkinson.”
Scheff, watching her closely, saw an expression of wild astonishment. She put her fingers to her throat. In a hoarse whisper she said, “Olly? Olly Akard? Dead? Oh God, oh dear God!” She lowered her head, hands hiding her face. “But it was just talk! Just brave kid-talk! That’s all.”
“But he had to get Staniker’s address from you.”
She looked up sharply. Her tears were flowing. “No! I swear he didn’t. I don’t know how he could have found that place...” she frowned. “Unless — unless he followed me. When I got back, he was waiting at my place for me.”
“What was your relationship with the boy?”
“He... He was a very wonderful boy. I was really fond of him. I wanted to learn to sail. At Dinner Key they said he taught people. And while he was teaching me, he — got a sort of a crush on me. I guess it was sort of flattering for a while. But then I realized it wasn’t a good thing for him, to feel like that about a woman practically old enough to be his mother. I made a very bad mistake. I told him about the relationship I had with Garry. And one of the times Garry phoned last Friday, Oliver was there. He made such a scene I told him if he kept it up, I wouldn’t let him see me any more. He kept it up. Saturday I told him to go away and stay away. You can ask my maid, Francisca. She knows the locked gate was to keep him away too. He came early Sunday evening and got his boat and took it away. He had somebody bring him by boat, I guess. I didn’t see him. I went to bed very early. I was exhausted, emotionally. I told him that his ideas about me were childish and foolish and absolutely impossible. I told him to go back to his nice little girl. Betty I think her name is. You must believe me! I had no idea Olly would do such a crazy thing. Even if he thought of something silly, like beating Garry up, how could he find him? No, this is a terrible terrible thing.”
“You imply that the relationship was innocent?”
“If you mean did I have intercourse with that nineteen-year-old boy, I certainly did not!”
“But that boy was apparently willing to stage a clumsy murder for your sake and then sacrifice himself, Mrs. Harkinson.”
“Oliver was — a very romantic and idealistic boy. I guess that when I saw how he was beginning to feel toward me I should have laughed at him and called him a silly kid. Okay, I let him kiss me. I let him dream a little. I let him talk about life, the way kids do. It’s like — being young again. He made crazy plans about us. Impossible, of course. Maybe I was being as silly as he was. The difference was he could believe it and I knew it was nonsense. I’m a woman alone. If I’d ever told that poor kid the kind of life I’ve really had, it could have driven him out of his mind I guess. It was just — sweet. A game. I stopped playing that game when he got so worked up about Garry being back and phoning me and demanding to see me. Saturday I told him to stay away from me. I told him — in a pretty ugly way, I guess. I felt responsible for letting him get such nutty ideas and not stopping him sooner. I tried to jolt him, shake him up.”
Lobwohl said, “As this crush, as you call it, developed, Mrs. Harkinson, the boy became sullen and difficult and withdrawn. It worried his parents. The girl he used to go with told his mother about someone seeing an older woman in the sailboat with Oliver, a blonde woman in a bikini. She could not make Oliver tell her who the woman was, but he admitted he was physically intimate with the woman.”
Her eyes went wide, and her voice was thin as she said, “Told his mother that? But it wasn’t so! Why would he want to hurt her like that? It doesn’t make any sense at all. I guess he was trying to — break loose.”
“In what sense?”
“His mother wanted him to become a minister. His girl, Betty something, was going to become a nurse. Then they were going to be missionaries. It was all planned, and he said that he hadn’t been able to tell them that he was losing his faith. Maybe he thought that if he told her — that lie, she would stop trying to push him into the ministry.” She shrugged, sighed, wiped her eyes with a tissue. “It’s the only thing I can think of. Can I go now? Can I please go? He was such a fine boy. And I’m to blame. It makes me feel sick.”
Lobwohl opened the folder in front of him and took out the wire copy of the Atlanta ID card and with a long reach, he put it in front of her. “We’re all deeply touched by your sensitivity, Crissy.”
She looked at the card without expression. She looked at Kindler, Scheff and Lobwohl in turn, a measured three seconds for each one. “Very cute,” she said. “Real fancy nifty cute, you sick-minded bastards. Real careful timing. Let me ask you something. Do you think for one minute that if this is all I am, or all I could be, a man like Ferris Fontaine could have endured me for the last seven years of his life? I never conned him. He knew the score about me. You know what a hustler learns first of all? Don’t trust anybody. And I learned to trust that wonderful old man. You know what he gave me back? Some dignity. Some self respect.” She rapped the wire copy with her knuckles. “I remember this kid pretty well. She had a lot of hate in her. She kidded herself. She drifted into the trade telling herself it was just for a while. She thought she was better than the others she worked with, in New York and Savannah and Atlanta. Then she found out she was just another hooker. Then Fer came along, and after a long time she got her pride back. Every cell in your body is supposed to change every seven years, right? So don’t get me mixed up with some rental playmate in Atlanta a long, long time ago.”
“I will remind you again that we can suspend this until you are represented by counsel, Mrs. Harkinson.”
“Where can you go from here? You don’t need any more from me!”
“Your attorney will advise you that you are providing essential evidence regarding motive in a homicide investigation. He will tell you that even though we have sufficient proof as to who committed the crime, and even though that person is now deceased, Florida law requires that evidence be presented to the Grand Jury for preparing an indictment, and that the subsequent suicide must be handled as a separate matter. He will inform you that we can hold you in interrogation for twenty-four hours, or until early afternoon tomorrow, and at that time we can bring charges against you, if we find sufficient basis therefore, or, if we feel it is in the best interests of the proper investigation of the case, we can ask for a court order which will empower us to hold you in protective custody until such time as the Grand Jury decides whether or not you should be asked to give direct testimony during their deliberations.”