“I spoke to her right here,” Warren said.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m a private investigator,” Warren said. “Let me show you my license.”
“I’d sure like to see it,” the man said.
He watched Warren as he fished into his side pocket. His look said. You’d better not pull a knife or anything. All Warren pulled was a wallet. He opened it, found his plastic-encased ID card, and showed it to the guy in the overalls. The card, together with a class-A license to operate a private investigative agency in the state of Florida, had cost him a hundred bucks and was renewable each year at midnight on the thirtieth day of June. He had also posted a five-thousand-dollar bond for the privilege of being allowed to investigate and to gather information on a wide range of matters, public or private. The guy in the overalls seemed singularly unimpressed.
“Why were you going in the house?” he asked evenly.
A field nigger’s supposed to stay in the fields, his look said. Only a house nigger’s allowed to go in the house.
“I wasn’t going in the house,” Warren said. “I was trying the door. May I have that back, please?”
The guy in the overalls handed the card back.
“Why were you trying the door if you weren’t going in the house?” he asked reasonably. His reasonable grin was back, too. Warren was already figuring out his defense. With somebody this size, you went immediately for the balls.
“I’m checking for forced entry,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re trying to find out if someone got in here on the night of the murders.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, get Mrs. Leeds, will you? She’ll straighten this out in a…”
“Oh, I’m sure she will. But I think maybe I ought to get the cops instead, don’t you?”
“Sure, do that,” Warren said, and sighed heavily.
“Ned?”
Her voice. Our Lady of Redemption. Calling from inside the house.
“What’s the trouble, Ned?”
“No trouble at all,” he called over his shoulder.
Ned. Perfect name for an asshole in bib overalls. What’s the trouble, Ned? No trouble at all. Just going to break this man’s arm, is all.
“Mrs. Leeds?” Warren called. “Can you please come out here a minute?”
Silence from within.
Had she forgotten the private investigator was here?
Had she mistaken him for someone here to cut back the palms? Do your trees, lady? Ten bucks a tree? Well, okay then, my second price is six-fifty.
“Just a moment,” she said.
They waited.
Ned grinning.
Warren looking out over the fields.
It did not take a moment, it took more like ten moments. When finally she appeared, she was wearing tailored jeans and an emerald-green T-shirt that echoed the color of her eyes. Green was the lady’s color, Warren guessed. He also figured that the reason she’d taken so long was that she’d been dressing. But she was still barefooted. And there was no bra under the thin cotton shirt.
“Did you need some help?” she asked him.
Paraphrasing what young Ned here had asked not ten minutes ago.
“Ned thinks I’m a burglar,” Warren said.
“Oh?”
She seemed amused.
Green eyes twinkling, smile forming on her lips.
“Saw him trying the side door,” Ned said.
“I knew he was here, Ned.”
“Well, just thought I’d make sure,” he said, and shrugged. “Strange man trying a door to the house.”
Strange black man was what he meant.
“This is Warren Chambers,” Jessica said. “Ned Weaver.”
“Delighted to meet you,” Warren said, but did not offer his hand. Neither did Weaver.
“Warren’s trying to find out if anyone broke into the house,” Jessica explained.
“Tell me, Mrs. Leeds,” Warren said, “do you ever lock any doors around here?”
“We’re safe here in the country,” she said. “Aren’t we, Ned?”
Something passed between them.
A look?
No, nothing quite that blatant.
Something, though.
“Very safe,” Weaver said.
The something again.
Ineffable.
But there.
All at once, Warren wondered if young Ned here was diddling the farmer’s wife.
The eye contact — or whatever it had been — between Jessica and Weaver broke like delicate crystal. Weaver brushed the lock of hair from his eyes, the mermaid on his forearm catching the sun as if she were breaking the surface of shining water. Warren glanced at the tattoo. Weaver caught the glance.
“Nice tattoo,” Warren said.
“Thanks,” Weaver said.
The eyes grazed again, his and hers, green brushing green, touching, veering away.
Press it, Warren thought.
“Navy?” he asked.
“Nope,” Weaver said.
“I’ve always wanted a tattoo,” Warren said. “Did you get that here in Calusa?”
“San Diego,” Weaver said.
But not Navy, Warren thought.
“Big Marine base there, right?” he said. “San Diego?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Weaver said. “I’ve never been in the service.”
Which left only one other thing Warren could think of.
“You’ll excuse me, won’t you?” Jessica said, and turned and went back into the house.
“I just want to check a few more doors,” Warren said to her green-shirted back.
“I got work, too,” Weaver said, and left him standing there in the sun, still wondering.
Patricia Demming was sitting in Matthew’s outer office when he got back at three that afternoon. She was wearing a dark-blue tropical suit with a white silk blouse and medium-heeled blue leather pumps. She was thumbing through what looked like the Calusa telephone directory but which was only Vogue’s Fall Preview issue. The window behind her was running with rainsnakes. The rains had returned, and with them the Assistant State Attorney. She put down the oversized magazine.
“Hi,” she said, and smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Matthew remembered how Andrew Holmes had described her courtroom style: flamboyant, seductive, aggressive, unrelenting, and unforgiving. He wondered what she was doing here.
“Come on in,” he said.
“Sure.”
She rose, smoothed her skirt, followed him past Cynthia Huellen’s desk — Cynthia giving her the once-over as she went by — and then down the corridor to Matthew’s office.
“Have a seat,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Coffee?” he asked. “Soft drink? Anything?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
“So,” he said.
“So,” she said.
“To what do I owe the honor?”
Patricia crossed her legs. Blue pantyhose. Sleek legs. Long blond hair, electric blue eyes. A beautiful woman altogether.
“I thought you might be ready to talk a deal,” she said.
Matthew looked at her.
“Am I wrong?”
“You are wrong,” he said.
“That’s not the impression I got.”
“From whom?”
“I won’t play games, okay? Morris Bloom told me you’d discussed the case with him…”