Murder by the Book (18 page)

It was then that the Deputy Sheriff's lunch was interrupted.

Jefferson told William Howard Alexander that he, along with everybody else, was sorry as hell. Alexander said he, and everybody else, damned well should be, and what had they thought he brought the boat back for, if he'd stolen it? It was, Jefferson agreed, a point which certainly should have occurred to somebody. He knew it was an imposition, but would Mr. Alexander mind going over it again? Alexander spluttered, and said he damned well would mind. But after a time he did go over it again.

He had come down to do a week's fishing and decided to “pick up a boat.” He spoke of this, Jefferson thought, as another man might speak of picking up a handkerchief. He had mentioned his purpose aloud—and what William Howard Alexander said aloud could be widely heard—while he was having a drink somewhere, and this man said his name was Worthington had come over and said he couldn't help overhearing, and that he had a boat he'd sell cheap. This had been Saturday afternoon some time.

“Looked all right,” Alexander said. “Had a yachting cap on.”

The man had driven him over to Stock Island and showed him the
Amy Lou
, and it wasn't much, but looked all right, and the man didn't want much for it. The man who said his name was Worthington said he'd take Mr. Alexander out for a run in her, only she wasn't gassed up. He said he'd have her ready the next morning and that Mr. Alexander could then, if he wanted, take her out for the day and try her. He didn't want Mr. Alexander to feel he was buying a pig in a poke. All he'd ask down would be what you could call an option payment. Maybe five hundred.

“Couldn't quarrel with that,” Alexander said. “He said he couldn't go himself and show me, because he had a charter in his other boat, and that if I didn't like the boat he'd return the five hundred, less what the gas cost. So I met him yesterday morning—”

“What time?” Jefferson asked, and was afraid he knew.

“Seven o'clock.”

Jefferson had known, all right.

“You paid him cash?”

Alexander looked slightly surprised, and said, “Sure.” The implication was, Ronald Jefferson thought, that a man didn't use a check to pay so trivial a sum—hardly more than bus fare, really.

Alexander had got a receipt and chugged off in the
Amy Lou
.

“Keys?”

“Sure he gave me the keys.”

“They fitted?”

Jefferson knew the question was silly; Mr. William Howard Alexander had spent the day chugging around the Gulf in the boat. Alexander answered with what Jefferson took to be an affirmative snort. Alexander was still very sore about the whole business, and couldn't be blamed for that. He was probably, Jefferson thought, as sore at himself as at any one else, and he had cause for that, too. He'd been a prize sucker.

“He's a plausible bastard,” Alexander said, giving himself that much. Asked, he showed Jefferson the receipt—a receipt for five hundred dollars ($500) accepted as option payment on the boat
Amy Lou
, to be refunded, less cost of gas and of any repairs which might be necessary, if William Howard Alexander was not satisfied after a one-day trial run. The receipt, which Jefferson had to admit sounded fine, sounded businesslike, was signed “James Worthington.”

Jefferson had Worthington-Bradley brought in then. The narrow-shouldered man looked at Alexander blankly. Alexander did not look blank at all. He said, “That's the son of bitch.” At this, Bradley looked pained; looked with pain from the florid and corpulent man to Deputy Sheriff Jefferson. He sighed. The little so-and-so was a great one for sighing.

“I'm afraid I don't know this gentleman,” Bradley said.

“You're a lying bastard,” Alexander said. “You got five hundred of my money.”

Bradley looked at Jefferson and raised his eyebrows.

“This gentleman,” Jefferson said, and kept his voice even, although it was an effort, “charges that you accepted five hundred dollars from him as a down payment on a boat you didn't own.”

“Does he?” Bradley said. “When was this—er—fraudulent transaction supposed to have taken place?”

“Seven o'clock yesterday morning,” Alexander said. “As you know damn well.”

Bradley sighed again—sighed his patient, tolerant sigh. Briefly, Jefferson thought of wiping up the floor with him.

“I was in Marathon at that hour,” Bradley said, and his voice was patient. “I'm afraid it's mistaken identity, sir.”

He was going to stick to it. Jefferson wasn't surprised. He and Ashley, or whatever the sidekick's name really was, had gone to a spot of trouble, and some expense, to set up an alibi for a minor swindle. It would be Bradley's word against that of a fluffy little waitress. His word, his fingerprints and, of course, Lem Hunter's identification. Still, he'd probably lose in the end, and Monroe County probably would get a bite at him, if Dade County left anything unbitten.

The alibi might have been good enough for a minor swindle. Murder is a different matter; it wasn't good enough for murder.

The little so-and-so didn't need it for that. Not any more. For that Mr. William Howard Alexander had just given him all the alibi any man could need.

Jefferson arranged for Alexander to file his complaint, and for Bradley to be put back in his cell. He returned to his desk and sat at it glumly.

The bottom had fallen out. Jefferson felt that he had fallen out with it. He sighed. He would have to start the way the Norths had pointed, which probably would be up another blind alley. The Upton angle—that had been a blind alley. The Bradley angle—that had been another, although it had seemed to open up like Roosevelt Boulevard:

Deputy Sheriff Jefferson got his car and drove on Simonton Street until he was almost at its end. He parked and went into the motel—the new and glossy resort motel known as “The Bougainvillia.” He said, “Afternoon, Norma,” to the glossy young woman behind the desk.

“If,” she said, “it isn't the sheriff.”

He said there was, anyway had been, a Mrs. Coleman, Mrs. Peter Coleman.

“Left Sunday morning, Jeff,” Norma Still said, promptly. “Reason I know, somebody else was asking. Just a couple of hours ago, What's about this Mrs. Coleman?”

Jefferson had got himself ready for that.

“Seems her daughter's worrying about her,” he said. “Seems she's in bad health. And sort of—well, eccentric's the word for it, I guess. Her daughter's worried about her. Asked us to check up, see if she was all right. Asked the city police first, but they turned it over to us. Like always.”

“The woman who asked earlier,” Norma Still said, “said Mrs. Coleman was a friend of hers. Knew she was in Key West, but had lost the letter Mrs. Coleman wrote saying where. Younger than Mrs. Coleman, but not that much younger. I mean not to be her daughter.”

“Just a coincidence, I guess,” Jefferson said. “What I wonder whether you can tell me—”

Checked in Friday, expecting to stay about a week. Checked out Sunday, at about nine in the morning. She had not telephoned anybody Sunday morning before she left. There would have been a record of that. Whether anybody had called her she couldn't say. No record of incoming calls. Of course, Doris might happen to remember—

She went; she returned. Doris, at the switchboard, did happen to remember. If it hadn't been so early, particularly on Sunday morning, she wouldn't have. But at that hour there weren't many calls. She was pretty sure somebody had called Mrs. Coleman. She thought at about eight.

Ronald Jefferson felt, then, less like a man merely going through motions.

Doris thought, further, that it was a woman who had called. She was, however, much less certain about this.

Norma Still had been on the desk when Mrs. Coleman arrived on Friday. It had been at about the time she would have got there if she had flown in to Miami on the morning plane. She wore the dark, wintry clothing fliers from New York to Florida have no time to change. And—Norma interrupted herself to snap her fingers. She had come by taxi. The taxi man had carried her bags into the office, and waited until he was sure there was a room available.

“But if she'd gone by taxi, Jeff, she'd have had to call one. And there'd have been a record.”

Jefferson had long considered Norma Still a bright girl, as well as a pretty one. He felt his judgment confirmed.

“And,” Norma said, proving it further, “she had a room on the second floor so—” She looked toward the standup desk at which a youth in walking shorts and white stockings, and a white uniform jacket with green facings, waited for something to happen. She said, “Joady!”

Joady came. Joady said, let's see, that would be Jimmy and Jimmy was just showing No. 135 where to park and ought—“Here he is now.”

Jimmy, a redheaded young man in walking shorts and white stockings and white jacket faced with green, did remember. He had helped No. 117 down with her bags and put them in her car for her. Well, he supposed it was her car. It was in 117's slot. Yes—wait a minute.

Jefferson waited less than a minute. Jimmy snapped his fingers.

There had already been a woman in the car, behind the wheel. A young woman, with black hair—sort of lanky black hair, if the sheriff knew what he meant. He hadn't noticed what she'd been wearing. Maybe a suit of some sort. No, not white shorts and a blue jacket. He'd have noticed if she'd been wearing shorts. Suit of some sort, or maybe a dress. The car? The car was a Chevy Bel Air, two-tone green. It was a rental. From the Key West office. “They put numbers on the license plates,” Jimmy said. “There's a key digit shows the office.”

Jefferson thanked everybody and drove to the Hertz rental office.

A Chevrolet Bel Air, two-tone green, had been checked out at 8:35 Sunday morning to Mrs. Rebecca Payne, local address The Coral Isles, New York driver's license, American Express credit card. The car had been returned at 6:47 Sunday evening, and Mrs. Payne had been driven to The Coral Isles. The car had been driven three hundred and forty-one miles. Mrs. Payne had expended, and been reimbursed, six dollars and forty-seven cents for gasoline.

The alley might still be blind. It was beginning to look a little wider than it had at first.

14

Pam was, she said, a little put out with Chief Deputy Sheriff Jefferson. He might at least have come back and told them that it was over; that Jasper Bradley had decided to tell all. He owed them that much, after the trouble he had put them to.

It was, Jerry pointed out, rather the other way round. “If you,” he said, “hadn't got so pally with those damn birds.”

“Somebody else would have,” Pam said. “He—he wouldn't just have lain there. And we made several suggestions.” She paused then. “Of course,” she said, “they maybe weren't very good. Still …”

They were driving back to the hotel, then. They had somewhat dawdled over lunch, waiting for Jefferson to come back or, at the least, send a message back.

“And,” Pam said, as they walked from parking lot to hotel entrance, “I don't like coincidences. Let's go look at the ocean.”

Jerry had thought of a nap, but Pam is very fond of looking at oceans. They went through the hotel and, on the porch on the ocean side, Jerry said, “There's two,” and nodded toward chairs. The ocean was in plain view from either. The Atlantic, at Key West, makes itself visible.

Pam was, by then, going down the steps, out into the sun. Jerry followed her; when Pam wishes to look at an ocean she prefers a front seat. They walked down the pathway which led to a tall evergreen hedge, with a gap in it, and the ocean beyond. They went through the gap, past comfortable chaises in its shade, and sat side by side on a bench (which was not especially comfortable) in the sun. The ocean was still some yards away, across a lumpy coral beach. The Atlantic was not particularly restless; the ocean murmured, did not roar. But the Atlantic, at its most reserved, murmurs loudly.

Ships moved on it, and seemed to be heading away, but were not—were rounding the island toward the naval base. A cruiser and two destroyers, Jerry thought. And—yes, ahead of them the submarine they had spent most of the day chasing. Almost every day surface ships and submarines play hide and seek off Key West.

“I wish we wouldn't,” Pam said. “I wish nobody would. I feel the same way about the moon, as a matter of fact. Somebody's cow flies over it first, and so what? Lands on it, and so what?”

“Man's instinct to explore,” Jerry said. He did not say it with any special conviction. One uses worn phrases in lieu of something better. It was warm in the sun; one grew drowsy in the sun. They could start worrying again in a brisker—

“In the almost hurricane last fall,” Pam said, “that—” she gestured toward the Atlantic—“washed away hundreds of houses and things, and killed a lot of people. Where we live, or almost. South Jersey and Long Island and—why don't we use all that moon money to build a wall, or something?”

“I don't know.”

“It must be simpler than flying to the moon,” Pam said. “And back.”

“Much,” Jerry said. “We can't solve it, Pam. Not here. Not now.”

There was a considerable pause.

“It isn't one of our better days, is it?” Pam said. “We can't solve the moon business. We find Mrs. Coleman and it is only a coincidence.”

Jerry said, “What?” He flicked his hand toward the ocean. “Makes a noise,” he said.

“Mrs. Coleman,” Pam said, more loudly. “Her having a grudge against poor Dr. Piersal and being here and its not meaning—”

“How did you know that?” Rebecca Payne said, behind them. They turned. She was standing in the gap of the hedge—a slim, dark girl in white shorts and a blue shirt. Jerry stood up. “She was—all right, she was. She had as much right to be here as—”