“Not another one,” Stubbs said.
“If it’s no trouble,” Warren said, and took a microcassette recorder from his other pocket. He was wearing a floppy sports jacket made out of handkerchief-weight Irish linen, guaranteed to wrinkle under even the best of conditions. The jacket was pink. His Miami Vice look. It had wide lapels and deep pockets. He had ordered it from a store in New York, and it had just arrived yesterday. He could not wait for Fiona to see it. The recorder was a Realistic Micro-27, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, capable of playing tapes recorded on his answering machine. He opened the load panel and snapped in the tape.
“Few key words I want you to listen for,” he said. “Little moonlight spin, and alarmed, and thirty. All those words were used by the man who called you, do you remember?”
“Sort of,” Stubbs said.
“Well, what he said was, ‘I just wanted to tell you I’ll be taking the boat out again for a little moonlight spin, around ten, ten-thirty, and I don’t want you to be alarmed if you hear me out there on the dock.’ Do you remember that?”
“I guess,” Stubbs said.
“What you’re going to hear won’t be that whole thing,” Warren said, “so just listen for the key words, all right? Little moonlight spin, alarmed, and thirty. This’II be a bit more difficult than what Mr. Hope played for you.”
“Sounds that way,” Stubbs said, and looked at the recorder suspiciously.
“But if you want to hear anything again, I can stop the tape whenever you say. Let me know when you’re ready, okay?”
“I’m ready now,” Stubbs said.
Warren hit the play button.
The telephone conversation with Ned Weaver had been a stop-and-go, fits-and-starts, tooth-pulling battle to get him to say some of the words the caller had used on the night of the murders. Warren wasn’t too sure about the word thirty, but he was hoping that at least the words alarmed and little moonlight spin were distinctive enough to allow for positive identification.
Weaver did not say the words little moonlight spin until thirty-two seconds of tape had elapsed.
“Play that back,” Stubbs said.
Warren rewound the tape and then played the conversation again:
Mr. Weaver, had you ever known Mr. Leeds to take his boat out for a little moonlight spin?
A what?
A little moonlight spin.
Sure. All the time.
You understand what I mean, don’t you?
Sure. A little moonlight spin.
Warren hit the stop button.
“Recognize the voice?” he asked.
“I can’t say for sure. Let me hear some more.”
Warren started the tape again. It was not until twenty-seven seconds later that Weaver said the word alarmed.
Stubbs squinted at the tape recorder.
Six seconds later, Weaver said the word again,
“Play that section back for me,” Stubbs said.
Warren played it back:
But when there wasn’t a moon, if he took the boat out for a little moonlight spin when there wasn’t a moon — would that have alarmed you?
Alarmed me?
Yes. Would that have alarmed you?
Nope.
How come? You know what I’m saying, don’t you?
Sure. Would I be alarmed.
Yes. Him being out in the dark and all.
Man knows how to —
Warren stopped the tape.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“That’s not the man who called,” Stubbs said.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. The man who called had a funny way of saying that word. Alarmed. I didn’t think of it at the time, maybe because he told me he was Mr. Leeds, but listening to that tape… this man just doesn’t say that word the same way. Alarmed. I can’t do it the way the man on the phone did, but…”
“Well, was it some kind of accent? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, no.”
“Like a Spanish accent?”
“No.”
“Or an English accent?”
“No, nothing like…”
“French?”
“No, nothing foreign at all. I wish I could do it for you, but I’m no good at that sort of thing. It just sounded… different. The way he said that word. Alarmed.”
“Not the way this man on the tape said it, huh?”
“No, not at all like that.”
Wonderful, Warren thought.
“He sounded like somebody famous,” Stubbs said, “I wish I could remember who.”
“Yours is the rental car, right, sir?” the valet said.
“Yes,” Matthew said.
The kid’s a mind reader, he thought. There was nothing on the Ford to identify it as a rental, not a bumper sticker, not a windshield decal, not anything.
“They all know it’s a rental,” he said to Mai Chim. “It’s the mystery of the ages.”
“Maybe there’s something on the keys,” she said.
“Must be.”
But the man at the body shop this past Monday hadn’t seen the keys.
Who’s driving the rental?
Was what the man had said.
Could you please move it? I gotta get a car out.
Mai Chim was wearing a short beige skirt and a cream-colored, long-sleeved silk blouse buttoned up the front, the top two buttons undone to show a pearl necklace. High-heeled shoes, long legs bare; this was summertime in old Calusa and the formality of pantyhose or stockings seemed foolish in such withering heat. She had been chatty and relaxed all through dinner, perhaps because she’d drunk two tropical-looking, fruity confections laced liberally with rum, and had also shared with Matthew a bottle of Pinot Grigio. Dreamily, she looked out over the water now, her arm looped through his, her head on his shoulder, watching the lights of the boats cruising past on Calusa Bay.
The valet pulled the rented Ford up, hopped out, ran around to the passenger side, and opened the door for her.
“Thank you,” she said, and got into the car. Her skirt rode up onto her thighs. She made no motion to lower it.
Matthew gave the valet a dollar and came around to the driver’s side.
“Thank you, sir,” the valet said, and turned to a grey-haired man coming out of the restaurant. “Yours is the Lincoln, right, sir?” he said, doing his mind-reader act again.
Matthew closed the car door and immediately snapped on the overhead light. Reaching down for the keys, he looked at the plastic tag attached to them. Sure enough, the name of the rental company was on it. Which still didn’t explain the man at the body shop.
Who’s driving the rental?
“I hate mysteries,” he said to Mai Chim, and turned off the light.
“I hate raccoons,” she said mysteriously.
He wondered if she was slightly drunk.
“We didn’t have raccoons in Vietnam. We had a lot of animals, but not raccoons.”
Matthew drove the car around the circle in front of the restaurant entrance and then headed out toward the main road. One of the valets had switched the radio to another station. He hated when they did that. It conjured images of strangers sitting in his car listening to the radio and wearing out the battery while he was having dinner. He hit the button for the jazz station he normally listened to, the only jazz station in Calusa.