Night Game (17 page)

I put on the kettle when I got home and called Karin. She sounded harried when she answered the phone, and there was the sound of a baby screaming in the background.

“I’m babysitting,” she explained. “I’ve got Justin and Ashley. He just bopped her on the head with a ninja stick. Let me just go try and straighten it out.”

I held, listening to the sound of Karin simultaneously soothing the little girl and laying down the law to her brother. The crying stopped, but the whining didn’t. Then I heard the sound of the television playing cartoons.

“I don’t let my kids watch in the afternoon, but that’s what these two are used to,” she said, a little defensively, once she came back to the phone.

“Where is their mother?”

“She’s at some church thing, then getting her hair done.”

“So you got to be the lucky one.”

“Yeah, but now she owes me.”

“Big, from the sound of it.”

“She doesn’t know how big.”

“Gloves said you’d been asking some questions around the complex,” I said. “Did you find out anything that might help Dommy at all?”

“Not really. I’ve been trying to figure out how that gun got switched, but I can’t find out who was alone in Alex and Dommy’s place that night. The super was in on Saturday, but that was legitimate. He was repairing a cupboard door that got broken Friday night.”

“A legitimate reason, maybe, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do something else while he was there.”

“No, except that someone would have seen him carrying the gun.”

“Not necessarily. Doesn’t he carry a toolbox?”

“Well, yeah. But how would he know on Friday night that he would be able to make the switch?”

“True.”

“And I found someone else who was awake when Goober was throwing up in the garden.”

“Who?”

“Clarice Carter. And she remembers the time. It was quarter of two.”

“So that’s about half an hour before the murder. Did Clarice see anything else?”

“She says Goober went into his place then. She also says there was a light on at Alex and Dommy’s place when she looked out and saw Goober. When she looked again five minutes later it was off.”

“Did she see anybody leaving the apartment?”

“No, just the light going out.”

“Do you have her number?”

“She’s just outside. Do you want me to get her?”

“Thanks.”

A few minutes later, Clarice was on the line with her breathless, little-girl voice. She couldn’t add anything to what Karin had already told me.

“I didn’t see anything else. Just the light go off. What do you think it means?”

“If Lucy was with Dommy that night, it could be that’s when she left. But you’re sure you didn’t see anyone else, or hear anything? A car or something?”

“No. There was nothing.”

“Was it quiet?”

“Yes. I heard a baby crying, but that was later.”

“How much later?”

“I was almost asleep again. I didn’t see the time. But it was maybe fifteen minutes?”

“Could you tell where it was coming from?”

“No, but there are only a few families with babies in the complex. The Ashers, the Sloanes, and the Swains.”

“How long did the crying go on?”

“A long time, it seemed like. I wondered about that. But I guess I fell asleep.”

“That’s interesting.”

“What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know yet, but it might be important.”

“I hope it helps.”

“Me too,” I said. “I’ve got to go now. Thanks a lot.”

The kettle was boiling ferociously. I made a pot of tea, poured a mug, and took it back to my desk. I plugged in my tape recorder and began to transcribe the relevant parts of my interview with June Hoving.

It took a couple of hours. It’s the most tedious part of my job, and I hate it. Some reporters use tape recorders all the time, but I avoid them except for difficult interviews like the one I did with June, when scribbling notes can be threatening and destroy rapport. Athletes are used to talking to people who are looking at their notepads, but normal people need to feel like they are having a conversation.

Anyway, as usual, I winced listening to my stupid questions, and transcribed more than I could possibly use in my story. The part of my mind that wasn’t engaged in the boring process was working over the information I’d learned in the past few days.

I thought I had known Lucy before she was killed. I was wrong. I didn’t know anything of her talent, her aspirations, or the battles she had fought and won. I hadn’t liked her or given her any of the respect she was due. I had been as blinded as any sexist jerk by the Lucy on the surface; her clothes, her hair, her fingernails.

I wished I had been nicer to her. I wished I’d even taken the time to read something she had written. I probably would have liked it. I should have listened to her when she was talking about helping each other. I should have heard that she was asking for my help.

I listened to her mother’s voice on the tape, and to her tears. With a little less luck, I could have been her. I could have had a daughter Lucy’s age. The child I decided not to have when I was in my final year at university would have been grown up by now.

I pushed the maudlin thoughts away and concentrated on the tape, transcribing the pain into careful notations in my lined steno-pad while questions marched around my brain.

Did Hank Cartwright know he wasn’t Lucy’s father? Did Lucy know? Was it Lucy turning out the light at Dommy’s place that night? Where had she gone? Who had she met? Was she followed? What went wrong? Why did she die? Who hated her enough to kill her?

I hadn’t found any answers by the time I had finished working, and the questions continued while I showered and changed to go to Esther’s.

I had just closed the door when I heard the phone ring. I considered for a moment just ignoring it, but then unlocked the door and went back in.

At first, I thought the caller had hung up. I said hello a couple of times, irritated. Then I heard a muffled voice.

“Shut up and listen,” he said. “I’m only going to warn you once. Back off or you’re going to end up like Lucy. I know where you live. I know what kind of car you drive.”

Then the line went dead.

“Oh, my God,” Esther said. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just got out of there.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Who? Troy Barwell?”

“God, this is awful,” Esther said. “You’re sure you didn’t recognize the voice?”

“It sounded like he was disguising it. Or he had a towel over the receiver or something. It was just a whisper. It could even have been a woman. I checked with the desk and she said the call came from outside the hotel. The person had asked for me by room number, not by name.”

“So he does know where you live.”

“I guess so.”

“Not anymore,” Esther said, taking charge. “As of tonight, you’re staying here until this thing is over. And you’re going to ditch that car.”

“I came over in a cab,” I said.

“Good thinking. We’ll rent you another one tomorrow. Different kind, different colour. Even better, you can use mine. I’ll borrow my parents’ second car.”

“I can rent, don’t be silly.”

“Kate, my parents have three cars.”

“Why?”

“Because they keep one for my sister to use when she comes to town for the holidays. Makes sense to them!”

We both laughed. It cut the tension. We were sitting on the balcony of Esther’s place, on the eighth floor of an upscale waterfront condo a couple of towns up the coast from Sunland. The place was as formal as she was casual. The living room was large and tidy, with sea-green leather furniture and glass and brass tables. The art on the walls was modern and bold. There were potted plants by the sliding doors out to the balcony. We sat in pretty white wicker chairs, drinking a nice California Chardonnay and waiting for Cal. Her tortoiseshell cat sat on the ledge, watching the gulls, longingly.

“Doesn’t that make you nervous?” I asked, indicating her precariously poised pet.

“She hasn’t fallen yet. She’s a climber. Always has been, always will, I suspect. I don’t think she really likes it on the ground.”

As if aware that she was the centre of conversation, the cat looked at us, yawned, and began licking her bum.

“That’s disgusting, Darrow,” Esther said. “Where are your manners?”

“Cats have no manners,” I said. “Besides, this is her house. She can do what she wants.”

“Yes, I’m surprised she even tolerates us being here.”

Having found common ground, we happily told stories about our respective felines for fifteen minutes until Cal arrived.

“Sorry to be late,” he said. “Small family crisis.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“No. Sean was late back from school with the car. He needed a little fatherly lecture.”

“Teenagers, gag,” Esther said. “You’ll never catch me with one of those around.”

“Yes, but the little adorable ones you are so fond of have a bad habit of growing up,” Cal said.

“Well, if I ever do find someone to father my children, I’ll send them off to military academy from age twelve on.”

“What about the girls?”

“What’s wrong with military academy for girls? You a sexist or what?”

“Sean’s a good kid,” Cal said. “He just happens to be sixteen. He’s better behaved than I was.”

“From what I hear, a lot better behaved,” Esther said. “And look how boring you grew up to be. So don’t worry.”

“Yes, counsellor,” he said. “Got any beer?”

“Help yourself. You know where to find it.”

He went to the kitchen, came back with a beer can, and pulled up another chair.

“I hope you didn’t start without me,” he said.

“We wouldn’t dare,” Esther said.

“Anyone know who did it yet?” he asked. “Any smoking guns or mysterious brown-paper envelopes?”

Esther told him about my threatening phone call. He was as alarmed as she had been. I tried to play it down, for my own sake as much as for theirs.

“The one thing is, maybe this means we’re getting close,” I said. “Or else he thinks we are. I wish I knew why. Every time I think I’m starting to see the solution, something else comes along to confuse me.”

“Well, let’s see what we’ve got, then,” Cal said. “Maybe we know more than we think.”

“First I want to hear about Dommy,” I said. “Did you see him today, Esther?”

“Yeah, he’s getting really depressed. And paranoid. He thinks he’s never going to get out because he’s a Dominican. That he’s being framed because of it.”

“That’s not paranoid,” Cal said. “It’s probably true.”

“When you talk with Dommy, do you speak in English or through an interpreter?” I asked.

“No, Spanish.”

“Which she speaks fluently,” Cal said.

“It’s practically a prerequisite for practising criminal law in the state of Florida,” she said.

“Did he have anything to say about the night of the murder?”

“He was embarrassed, but he says he was with Lucy. They had sex. That was at one or a little after, he said. He went to sleep and didn’t wake up until the next morning.”

“That fits with something I heard today,” I said, and told them about the light in Dommy’s apartment.

“He also was with her when Stinger flipped out,” Esther said, “but he didn’t know what it was about.”

“I think maybe I do,” I said, and told them Tiny’s theory about Stinger and the present he had given Tracy after his liaison with Lucy.

“I guess that would be enough to do it,” Cal said.

“Dommy also said that Axel Bonder, the super, was nosing around the apartment, his and Jones’s, on Sunday afternoon,” Esther said.

“What was he doing there?”

“Dommy doesn’t know. He came back from the ballpark late and found Bonder on the patio, at the door. He said he was checking to make sure it was locked.”

“Had Bonder been inside?”

“Dommy doesn’t know. He felt like things were out of place, but he wasn’t sure. Alex had been there earlier, but he’d gone out for dinner. And it was only a sense that things had been messed up.”

“Karin told me that he was in there on Saturday, doing repairs to something.” I said. “Maybe she got the day wrong.”

“But we should ask Bonder about it, for sure,” Cal said.

“There’s more,” Esther said. “Dommy also told me that his gun wasn’t loaded. He didn’t have any bullets for it yet. He can’t understand how it could have been the murder weapon.”

“Which makes sense of the theory that the murder gun was planted,” Cal said.

“And he got it from Lucy?” I asked.

“Just before the party.”

“Does he know where she got it?”

“No. He said she told him she could get him one if he wanted. He said sure. A couple of days later, she showed up at the condo with it. The afternoon of the party.”

“Damn. I forgot to ask her mother if she knew about the gun when I was there this morning,” I said.

“Did you get anything interesting from her?” Esther asked.

“I’m not sure if it’s significant,” I said. “I liked her, though. Did she tell you anything, Cal? I saw you arrive as I was leaving.”

“No, she mainly talked about Lucy, and we chewed over some old times.”

“Well, she told me something. It’s juicy, but not necessarily relevant. It seems that Hank Cartwright wasn’t Lucy’s real father.”

Cal looked uncomfortable.

“Did she tell you, too?” I asked.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, she did,” he said.

He took a drink. I waited, watching the sun sinking suddenly into the ocean. The cat jumped onto my lap.

“Well, what do you think?” Esther asked. “Do you think it has any bearing on the murder?”

“What the hell,” Cal said. “I told Beth about it this afternoon. I was Lucy’s father.”

Esther and I looked at Cal, then at each other. He looked at the can of beer in his hands.

“Your family crisis wasn’t about Sean and the car, then,” she said, finally.

“No that was last week’s. I substituted it. I’m not much of a liar, I guess.”

He stopped and drank some beer.

“It was all so long ago,” he said. “I was just a kid. And she never told me until today. I was shocked. I should have known. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out before.”

“You showed up at a very vulnerable time,” I said.

“There’s been nothing between us since then,” he said, looking at Esther, his wife’s friend, who was looking coldly at him. “There wasn’t much even then, just a brief time when Hank was out west.”

“How do you feel about it?” I asked.

“Shocked, like I said. It’s too much. To discover I had a daughter, and she’s dead.”

“Do you think she knew?”

“June says she never told her. But that’s why she sent Lucy to get a job at the
Sentinel
with me. She wanted us to get to know each other.”

“How is Beth?” Esther asked.

“She’s all right, a bit shaken, but fine,” he said. “Even though we were dating at the time it happened, she realizes that it had nothing to do with her, or that if it was a betrayal, it was another man betraying another woman in very different times. She is an extraordinary woman. I am very lucky that I came back and found her again.”

“You bet your ass you are,” Esther said, then got up, walked over to Cal, and gave him a fierce hug. That done, she stood, pushed up the sleeves of her sweater, and laughed a bit.

“All this drama makes me hungry,” she said. “As what doesn’t? I’m going to fix dinner.”

“Can we help?” I asked.

“No, but you can come into the kitchen and talk to me while I work,” she said.