“I told you, he’s mistaken. Or lying, either one. Jessie and I had an after-dinner drink, and then we got into bed and turned on the video. I must’ve fallen asleep watching it because the next thing I knew…”
There is a loud knocking at the door. And the bell is ringing. The knocking and the ringing overlap. Leeds struggles up out of sleep, opens his eyes to see Jessie putting on a robe. Sunlight is streaming through the bedroom window. The ringing and the knocking suddenly stop. As Jessie rushes out of the room, he hears voices from below. And then Allie calling up the steps, “Missus? It’s the police.”
Two of them, one bigger than the other.
A black cop and a white cop.
Is this your wallet? Is this your wallet? Is this your wallet? Is this your wallet?
It is his wallet.
It is indeed his wallet.
God has stopped being good to Stephen Leeds.
The detective’s name was Frank Bannion, and he’d been working out of the State Attorney’s office for the past three years now. Prior to that he’d worked for the Calusa P.D., and before that he’d been a uniformed cop and then a detective-sergeant in Detroit. He told all the other detectives on the S.A.’s squad that he had once done research for Elmore Leonard back in Detroit. What happened, actually, was that Leonard was hanging around the station house asking questions, soaking up atmosphere for one of his books, and he asked Bannion a few questions, and Bannion gave him a few answers. So now Bannion walked around as if he’d co-authored the damn thing with his good old buddy Dutch.
Bannion was also proud of the fact that he still had his own teeth and his own hair. He told anyone who would listen that all the men in his family — his father, his brothers, his cousins on his father’s side — had lost their hair and their teeth by the time they were forty. Bannion was forty-two years old and he still had his own teeth and his own hair. He attributed this to the fact that he had once bit a burglar on the ass. The burglar was going out the window when Bannion grabbed him and bit him. He had pictures of his teeth marks on the burglar’s ass as proof because the defense attorney had tried to get the case kicked out by showing Bannion had used unnecessary force.
Bannion was telling Patricia Demming what he had learned out at the Riverview Marina. Patricia had sent him there because Stephen Leeds had suggested to arresting detectives Bloom and Rawles that perhaps he’d left his wallet on the boat when he’d taken it out on the afternoon of the murders. Patricia wanted to find out if Leeds had truly been out on the boat. Because (A) if he hadn’t, then he couldn’t possibly have dropped his wallet there, and (B) if he hadn’t, then he was lying, and if he was lying about one thing then he could be lying about everything. Or so she would try to convince a jury.
She was now hearing that he had taken the boat out twice that day.
“This is what Stubbs told me,” Bannion said. “Charlie Stubbs, he owns the marina, sixty-two years old, a grizzled guy looks like Jonah and the whale.”
“Told you Leeds took the boat out twice?”
“Twice,” Bannion said. “First time in the afternoon, around four-thirty, tide was still good, second time at night around ten-thirty, tide coming back in, Leeds could’ve got the boat in and out easy.”
“Did Stubbs see him both times?”
“Saw him both times,” Bannion said. “Talked to him the first time, but not the time at night.”
“Does he seem like a reliable witness?”
“Is my mother reliable?”
“I’m sure she is,” Patricia said, “but how about Stubbs?”
“Very, you ask me. Sober, sharp, a very good witness, you want my opinion.”
“What’d they talk about?”
“They talked twice actually.”
“I thought you said…”
“Three times, in fact.”
Patricia looked at him.
“He drives over in the afternoon, he parks the car, stops by the marina office to tell Stubbs he’s taking the boat out, they chat about how hot it’s been, Leeds takes off. Stubbs watches him go up the creek into the Intercoastal, he hangs a right, which means he’s heading north toward Calusa Bay. He comes back in around six, talks to Stubbs again, tells him how beautiful it was out there on the water with God, and so on. That was the second time.”
“And when was the third time?”
“Nine o’clock that night. Stubbs is still in the marina office, catching up on his paperwork, the phone rings, it’s Leeds on the other end. He tells Stubbs it’s such a beautiful night, he’s thinking of taking the boat out for a moonlight spin, doesn’t want…”
“Were those his exact words?”
“Exact. There was a moon the night of the murders, by the way.”
“Okay.”
“Tells Stubbs he doesn’t want him to be alarmed if he hears the boat going out…”
“Was that the word Leeds used? Alarmed?”
“Yeah,” Bannion said, and looked at her, puzzled. “Why is that important?”
“I like to know exactly what people say,” Patricia said.
“That’s exactly what he said. Alarmed. Or at least that’s exactly what Stubbs said he said.”
“Okay.”
“True to his word, Leeds shows up around ten-thirty. Stubbs is home by then, he lives in this little house behind the sheds where they’ve got boats up on trailers for storage. He sees the car pulling in…”
“What kind of car?”
“A Maserati. Stubbs told me it’s the wife’s car. It’s got her name on the license plate. A red Maserati.”
“What does the plate say exactly?”
“Her name, Jessie, and then the number one.”
“Spelled out? The number?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“Ask him. And then check the plate with Motor Vehicles.”
“Okay. So Leeds gets out of the car and goes straight to where his boat is tied up…”
“What’s the name of the boat?”
“Felicity.”
“What a pissy name,” Patricia said.
“Yeah.”
“Was it backed into the slip?”
“No. Not when I was there.”
“Then Stubbs couldn’t have seen the name on the transom, right?”
“From his house, do you mean? I don’t think so. He was in the kitchen getting himself a bottle of beer when Leeds backed out. The kitchen windows face the dock area, but I don’t think he could’ve seen the name.”
“What I’m looking for…”
“I’m with you. You want to know did Stubbs see Leeds get on a boat named Felicity instead of some other guy getting on a boat named Lucky Lady or Serendipity.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I’ll go back later, check out the sight lines, talk to him again.”
“Also, if Stubbs didn’t speak to Leeds…”
“Yeah, how did he know it was Leeds and not some other dude?”
“Did he say?”
“He said it was Leeds.”
“But how did he know it was Leeds?”
“The hat. And the jacket.”
“What hat? What jacket?”
“A hat Leeds always wears on the boat. This yellow billed cap some beer company was giving out a few years back. He wears it all the time.”
“And the jacket?”
“A yellow windbreaker. One of these with snaps up the front and at the cuffs. Leeds was wearing it the night of the murder.”
“Get a search warrant this afternoon…”
“Can’t do that till Monday when the courts…”
“No, do it today. Find yourself a circuit court judge…”
“They don’t like being disturbed on Saturday, Miss Demming.”