Choke (22 page)

T
ommy rang the bell. When Clare Carras came to the door, she no longer looked the grieving widow. She was dressed, if one could call it that, in the smallest excuse for a bikini he had ever seen. It was composed mostly of string, and it concealed so little as to be very nearly invisible. Her skin was rubbed with oil, and she positively glowed from the sun.

“Good morning, Mrs. Carras,” Tommy said, trying not to gulp.

“Good morning, Detective,” she replied. “What can I do for you?” She did not move to let him into the house.

“Mrs. Carras, it might be very useful to our investigation if you would give us permission to search your house.”

“Search my
house?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are you out of your
mind?”

“I don’t believe so, ma’am. As I said, it would be helpful to our investigation if you would consent to a search.”

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly.

Tommy produced the paper. “In that case, ma’am, I’m serving you with a search warrant.” He opened the screen door and handed it to her, and he did not let the door close again.

She unfolded the document and read it carefully while Tommy waited. “Well,” she said, finally, “when do you want to do this?”

“Immediately,” Tommy replied.

“Do you mean
right now?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s what immediately means.”

She reached for the screen door as if to close it. “If you’ll allow me a few minutes to get dressed.”

Tommy held on to the door and stepped into the hallway, closely followed by Daryl. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t wait. Of course, you can get a robe if you like.”

She turned and padded down the hall in her bare feet. “Do whatever you want,” she said. “I’ll be out by the pool.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tommy called after her. He turned to Daryl. “Her bedroom seems to be on this floor, straight ahead. You get to go through her underwear; I’ll be upstairs.”

“Right,” Daryl replied. He went into the bedroom.

Upstairs, Tommy went straight for the desk where he had previously looked at Harry Carras’s checkbook. He opened the middle drawer, extracted the checkbook, and began examining it. The balance, which had been over eighty thousand dollars at his last inspection, was now down to around thirty thousand. He flipped backward through the ledger, looking for anything unusual. There were steady weekly deposits ranging from ten to twenty thousand dollars, probably income from investments, Tommy thought. There were also a number of large checks written to cash, and that interested him.

He examined the drawer carefully for anything else, then began methodically going through the other drawers. He found a stack of statements from the Miami office of a well-known brokerage firm, and he went through them. During the past twelve months, he saw, the balance had risen from a little more than nine million dollars to just under twelve million, and there had been no fresh infusions of cash. Harry had done very well for himself in the market.

In another drawer he found a contract with a Fort Lauderdale yacht broker, giving him the exclusive right to sell
Fugitive.
There were rubber-banded stacks of household bills, but none from credit card companies or department stores. It seemed the only credit Harry had wanted was the kind that could be secured with a cash deposit. No wonder the guy didn’t have a credit record to speak of.

In the bottom drawer he found a legal document titled “Revocable Trust.” He read quickly through the list of assets, which included Carras’s house, yacht, airplane, and brokerage account. He returned it to the drawer.

He finished with the desk and turned his attention to the rest of the room. He took down every book in the bookcase, flipping through it before replacing it, then moved all the furniture, looking under it before returning it to its original position. He felt in the crevice under the cushions, then unzipped each cushion and probed it for concealed objects. He rolled back the rug and looked for hidden compartments, then he went to the kitchen and began work there.

He opened every cabinet and took out the contents, inspecting each item before replacing it. He opened the refrigerator and freezer and checked each item carefully, then he looked inside the ovens, the dishwasher, and the trash compactor. He opened each spice bottle on the rack and probed its contents with a pen. He then went to the powder room off the living room and looked inside the toilet tank.

He went up another floor and found an attic space that had been finished, but seemed unused. A ladder ran up to the roof; he climbed it and found himself on a widow’s walk. He looked down toward the pool and saw Clare Carras lying on her back, her legs slightly spread, her bikini top gone. Transfixed, he took all of her in for a full minute before he forced himself to return to the living room.

“Tommy, you want to come down here a minute?” Daryl called from downstairs.

“Right with you,” Tommy called back. He walked downstairs and into Clare Carras’s bedroom. “How’s it coming?”

“I’ve been through everything,” Daryl said, “and all I found was this.” He pulled back a group of hanging dresses and on the floor under them was an expensive-looking safe.

“Oh, boy,” Tommy said. “Daryl, would you mind going out to the pool and asking Mrs. Carras to come in here? Don’t yell at the lady, that wouldn’t be polite; go to her.” Grinning, he watched Daryl disappear through the side door. A minute later, Clare Carras came into the room, fastening the tiny top to her bikini. Daryl was close behind her, blushing.

“Mrs. Carras, would you please open this safe?” Tommy asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she replied.

“Mrs. Carras, I have to warn you that to impede this search in any way is contempt of court, and Judge Potter is harsh with people who don’t obey his court’s orders.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the combination,” she said. “Harry never gave it to me.”

“What’s inside it?”

“Some of my jewelry, but he always got it out and put it away for me. I doubt if there’s much else.”

“Daryl,” Tommy said, “do you know a good locksmith?”

“Yeah,” Daryl said. “There’s one just down the block.”

“Go down there and see if they got anybody who can crack a safe.”

“Right.”

“Mrs. Carras, you can go back to your sun-bathing, if you like. We’ll make this as fast as we can.”

Clare Carras headed out the door to the pool, untying her bra as she went.

Tommy and Daryl had been waiting for more than an hour while the locksmith repeatedly attacked the safe and failed. He was on the phone with the manufacturer now, taking notes. Finally, he hung up.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ve got the combination.”

“Thank you,” Tommy said. “Let’s see what’s inside.”

The man expertly twirled the knob, and the safe came open.

“Stand back,” Tommy said. He knelt before the safe and examined the interior. On the top shelf was a velvet box. There was nothing else in the safe. He opened the box and found a dozen pieces of gold and diamond jewelry. “Here you are,” he said, handing Clare the box.

“And here’s the combination,” the locksmith said, addressing her breasts.

“Thank you,” she said, beaming at him. “And thank you, Detective.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tommy said.

She put the box back into the safe, closed the door, twirled the knob, and went back to the pool.

“She knew the combination all along, didn’t she?” Daryl asked.

“You bet your ass she did,” Tommy replied. “Let’s have a look around outside.”

They walked around the house, looking under shrubs and inspecting a shed full of gardening tools. Before they rounded the house on the pool side, Tommy called out, “Mrs. Carras, could I have just one more moment of your time?”

“Come ahead,” she called back. She was sitting up and had her bra on again when they arrived. “What is it, Detective?”

“In going over your checkbook I saw that someone had made a number of large cash withdrawals over the last few weeks, usually ten to twenty-five thousand dollars at a time. Can you tell me what the money was for?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said. “Harry liked having cash on hand; he wouldn’t use credit cards.”

Tommy nodded. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “And thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be going now.”

“Bye-bye,” she said, and reached behind her to untie her bra.

Tommy and Daryl beat a hasty retreat.

“Jesus Christ!” Daryl said when they were in the car again. “You should have warned me.”

Tommy grinned. “I thought I’d let you enjoy yourself.”

Daryl took a deep breath and let it out. “Did you find anything at all?”

“Not much,” Tommy replied. “Just the record of withdrawals and a trust document signed by Harry Carras.”

“What kind of trust?”

“It means that Clare Carras doesn’t have to go through probate; Harry’s estate is hers right now.”

“Which means she could take off at any time?”

“Right. Any time at all.”

“Then why hasn’t she already?”

“Like I told you before, she’s waiting for us to convict Chuck Chandler, the designated putz, of her husband’s murder. Then she can sail away, leaving no loose ends behind her for us to follow up.”

“Swell,” Daryl said.

“Except for the secret lover. She’ll have to tie up that loose end, and it’ll be interesting to see how she does it.”

“And who she does it to,” Daryl said.

C
huck pulled to a stop at the marina that served Little Palm Island. He went around to the marina office and, after a brief negotiation, rented a small Boston Whaler, and in a few minutes he was headed down the little canal toward open water.

He kept his speed down, so as not to cause a wake, until he was past the houses on the beach; then he opened the throttle and felt the breeze in his face. A couple of miles down the little bay were half a dozen yachts at anchor, and soon he could make out the outline of the Haileys’ catamaran. As he approached he slowed to idle, not wishing to disturb those on board the boats, then cut the engine and drifted alongside the yellow cat. There was no one in the cockpit, but the hatch was open.

“Meg!” he called out.

There was a muffled sound of someone moving below, and a female head emerged from the hatch. It was not Meg.

“Yeah, what is it?” the woman asked. She was a thirty ish brunette.

“I’m looking for Meg Hailey,” he said. “Is she aboard?”

“Who wants to know?” the woman asked.

“Chuck Chandler.”

The woman looked below. “Chuck Chandler,” she said to somebody.

There was a muffled cry from below. “Tell him to go to hell!”

“Meg!” Chuck shouted. “Please come up here and talk to me! It’s very important!”

“Get out of here, Chuck!”

“Meg, the police want to talk to you!”

A short silence. “What?”

“Haven’t you heard what’s happened?”

“Is this some kind of trick?”

“Meg, please come up here, I’ve got to talk to you!”

The brunette’s head vanished and was replaced by Meg’s. She looked sleepy and tousled. “All right,
what?”
she groused.

“Haven’t you heard what’s happened?”

“We’ve been in the Bahamas, and we haven’t heard about anything. What are you talking about?”

“Can I come aboard?”

She picked up a heavy winch handle. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Meg, Harry Carras has been murdered.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then the penny dropped. “You mean the witch’s husband?”

“That’s the one.”

“Who killed him?”

“There’s a fairly large body of opinion that holds that I did.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Chuck, if this is some kind of trick to get next to me again I …” She raised the winch handle.

“It’s not a trick, it’s what happened. It happened the day I went out on the boat with them, the day you packed up and left.”

“I told you not to go, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and that’s what you’ve got to tell the police.”

She looked around. “Where are the police?”

“In Key West. I’ll take you to the detective in charge right now, if you’ll let me.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Chuck, if you’re just trying to get ‘round me, I swear …”

“Come on, Meg; get some clothes on, and I’ll drive you to Key West. I’ll have you back here by sunset.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, what the hell.” She disappeared below.

Chuck sat in the boat, holding on to the gunwale of the cat, and waited. Ten minutes later she came up, dressed in jeans and a cotton sweater. It was the most clothing he had ever seen her wear. She handed him a large handbag and got into the Whaler. He started the engine and headed back to the marina.

“Who’s the girl?” he asked.

“Dan picked her up in Eleuthera; she was stranded. And that’s all I’ve got to say to you.” She set her jaw and refused to look at him.

Ashore, Chuck went to a pay phone and called his lawyer.

“I’ve found Meg Hailey,” he said.

“That’s good news,” the lawyer replied.

“What should I do with her?”

“I’ll meet you at police headquarters, in … wait a minute. It would look better if you just showed up there and handed her over.”

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

“Have you discussed with her anything she’s going to tell the police?”

“No. She’s not speaking to me.”

“Just as well. Don’t rehearse anything, just let her tell her story. Call me later if there’s anything I can do.”

“Okay.” Chuck hung up and went to the car. Meg, having produced a large straw hat from somewhere, was sitting in the passenger seat. He got in, started the car, and drove onto the highway.

“What am I supposed to tell the police?” Meg asked sullenly.

“Just answer their questions truthfully.”

“What
questions?”

“I’m not supposed to rehearse you.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to. When the police are through questioning you, I’ll explain everything.” He drove on toward Key West. He wanted in the worst way to touch her, kiss her, but he restrained himself.