“Well, yes, I…”
“… and then driven away in your wife’s Maserati.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“How many people knew you’d taken your car in for service?”
“I really don’t know. I spoke about it, I guess…”
“To friends?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“I really do want that list, Mr. Leeds. Who else would have known?”
“Well, everyone on the farm. The people who work for me. They’d have known the Caddy was gone. But I don’t think they’d have known where it was. The garage I took it to. They couldn’t have known that.”
“Your boat key wasn’t on that key ring, was it?”
“No, no.”
“I didn’t think it’d be. What have you got? One of these little flotation key chains…?”
“Yes, shaped like a buoy…”
“The kind that comes apart?”
“Yes.”
“So you can put your registration inside it.”
“Yes. Red and white.”
“Mine’s green and white. Where do you keep that key, Mr. Leeds?”
“In my study. At the farm.”
“Where is that? The study?”
“Just to the left of the entrance door. You take two steps down, and you’re in the study.”
“And the key would be where?”
“On a brass key holder fastened to the wall. Alongside the door leading out to the garage. We keep the car keys on it and also the boat keys.”
“Any spares to that boat key?”
“One.”
“Where?”
“At the marina. In case they have to move the boat.”
“And those are the only boat keys? The one on the wall in your study and the one at the marina?”
“Yes.”
“After you took the boat out on the afternoon of the murders… did you put that key back in your study?”
“Yes.”
“Would you know if it’s still there?”
“How could I? I was arrested the next morning.”
“Would Jessica know where to find that key if I asked her?”
“I’m sure she would. It’s right on the wall.”
“Who else knows where you keep that key?”
“You have to understand…”
“Yes?”
“Whenever we invited friends on the boat, they’d come to the farm first. We’d gather there, do you see?”
“Yes?”
“And the last thing I’d do before we left for the marina was take that key off the wall. I’m sure any number of people saw where I kept it. It wasn’t a secret. It was just the key to the boat.” Leeds shrugged. “I mean… you don’t expect something like this to happen.”
“No, you don’t,” Matthew said.
You don’t expect murder to happen, he thought. Only when it happens do the keys to a boat and a house and a red Maserati become important. Only when it happens do you realize that any number of people could have gained entrance to a house as accessible as the Gulf of Mexico. And taken a boat key and a car key from that house. And driven off to the Riverview Marina in the red Maserati Stubbs later saw. Any number of people. Which was the same thing as saying anybody. And when you had anybody, you had nobody.
Matthew sighed heavily.
“Mr. Leeds,” he said, “Patricia Demming came to…”
“Patricia Demming?”
“The State Attorney who’s…”
“Oh, yes.”
“She offered a deal,” Matthew said. “I’m obliged to tell you what the offer was.”
Leeds nodded, said nothing.
“You plead guilty to three counts of murder one…”
“I didn’t kill those men,” Leeds said.
“You plead guilty and the state will consolidate the three indictments and ask for a waiver of the penalty proceeding.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’ll agree to life imprisonment. If the judge goes for it.”
“I didn’t kill those men.”
“You’d be eligible for parole in twenty-five years.”
“I’d be sixty-six years old.”
“You’d be alive.”
“But I didn’t kill those men.”
“What shall I tell her?”
“Tell her to go to hell.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Matthew said. “Thank you.”
From a phone booth outside the Calusa Safety Building, Matthew dialed the State Attorney’s office number from memory and asked for Patricia Demming. It was several moments before her voice came on the line.
“Hi,” she said pleasantly.
“Hello, Patricia,” he said. “I just talked to my client.”
“And?”
“He says to tell you he didn’t kill those men. He doesn’t want your deal.”
“I’m sorry he feels that way,” she said.
She did sound genuinely sorry.
“It’s not what he feels,” Matthew said, “it’s what he knows. He did not kill those men.”
“We think otherwise,” Patricia said.
“Yes, that’s why there are courts of law,” Matthew said.
“Well, fine,” she said, her voice going suddenly harsh. “You prove it in a court of law, okay?”
“You’ve got it backward, Patricia. You’re the one who has to prove…”
“Which I will,” she said. “Goodbye, Matthew.”
There was a click on the line. Matthew looked at his watch. He opened the telephone directory hanging from a plastic-shielded metal cord — miraculously still here in this day and age of pointless vandalism — found the number for Silvercrest Shell, deposited a quarter, and dialed it. The young kid who answered the phone told him that Jimmy Farrell was gone for the day and wouldn’t be back till tomorrow morning. Matthew left his name and said he’d call again.
He looked through the directory again.
He dug into his pocket for another quarter.
He hesitated.
What the hell, he thought, and dialed.
The old man was in the habit of taking a little stroll after dinner. Tradition. Gobble your rice, vegetables, and fish, and then take a little stroll along the levee. Look off to the mountains beyond Saigon. Except that this was Calusa, Florida, and the nearest mountains were in North Carolina. Plenty of water, though. If you walked the block and a half from Little Asia to the Tamiami Trail, and then took a left and followed U.S. 41 where it curved northward past the Memorial Gardens, you suddenly caught a view of Calusa Bay that was enough to make your heart stop dead. Sailboats out there on the water or in the slips at Marina Lou’s, the Sabal Key Causeway stretching out toward the barrier islands and the Gulf, the setting sun staining the sky and the burgeoning massed clouds — breathtaking.
The old man had to die.
Tonight.
“Actually, I was glad you called,” Mai Chim said.
“I’m glad you weren’t busy,” Matthew said.
“Oh, I’m never busy,” she said.
They were sitting at a window table in Marina Lou’s, not four or five blocks from where Trinh Mang Due was walking northward on U.S. 41, his hands behind his back, his head turned to the left as he looked out over the bay, a wistful smile on his face. Matthew and Mai Chim were looking out over this same vista, the short peninsula of the city park in the near distance, the bay beyond festooned with the colors of sunset and busy with evening boat traffic. The sun was just dipping behind the nearest barrier island, man-made Flamingo Key. Within the half hour, darkness would claim the bay and the night.
Matthew was wearing one of his Third World Outfits, the label his partner Frank gave to the assorted cotton trousers and shirts he bought in a shop not far from the house he was renting. Made in Guatemala, or Korea, or Malaysia, or Taiwan, the clothes were casual and lightweight, perfect for the summer heat. They were also loose-fitting and therefore perfect for a man who’d gained ten pounds stuffing his face with pasta in Venice, Florence, and Rome. This morning the scale showed that Matthew had lost two of those excess pounds. He hoped to get down to his fighting weight within the next two weeks. Tonight he had ordered a simple grilled fish. Low in cholesterol, fat, and calories.