Only Make Believe (18 page)

“Nordeen—Mrs. Nordeen Simms.”

“That’s it. Widow woman. And an Italian Mama Mia in full fig—long gown, gloves, pearls. Didn’t anyone ever tell her that real ladies and gentlemen don’t dress on Sunday night?” He glanced at the whiskey bottle. “Or maybe they do in Palermo.”

Bud nodded. “The Diva. Right. Yes.”

“The Diva, of course. She sang. We all applauded her, ah, determination. I complimented her.”

“So how long did you did talk to her? When was that?”

“What does it matter? I’d forgotten all about her.”

“Answer my questions, sir. You remembered what she was wearing right enough. Did you spend any time with the Diva alone?”

“God, no. Get out of here.”

“Witnesses say different.”

“Oh, that. I was feeling no pain, you understand? I asked her to dance. She said she didn’t dance—except on the opera stage, when called for by the script.”

“And what else?”

“I bought her a drink. Hell, I bought all the ladies a drink. Or, actually, my brother-in-law did. I mean, you want to know the truth, officer. Doc’s tab was running.
You
know that, don’t you, Dan?”

I nodded.

Bud turned, peered out the window at a pine-and-palmetto-scrub thicket, suddenly swung back around like a rattlesnake and moved in close. “Did you go upstairs? Follow the Diva to the room? Show a room key to the elevator operator? Looking to get a little hubba hubba? And not pay for it?”

“I don’t care who you are. I have a lawyer in Philadelphia and—”

“The Diva was a man,” I said as quietly as I could. “He’s dead. Did you go to his room with him? Or did you see anyone else go with him, see anything like that—suspicious, out of line?”

Doolittle turned pale beneath his winter tan. “A man? Christ, a man?”

He grasped the whiskey bottle by the neck, tipped it to his lips and sucked down five or six swallows. He came up coughing but quickly recovered. “Christ, I’ve gone after rough snatch in my day. Real rough snatch. But this takes the friggin’ cake.” He dropped into a chair. “Get out of my sight. Get out now.”

Bud dropped down beside him, one knee on the pine floor. “Your sister didn’t tell you nothing about this?”

“We’ve hardly spoken. Blew a tire outside Naples last night. Got back late. I’m not talking to you anymore. Out.”

“What did you do after you left the club Sunday night, sir? I’m assuming you’re going to deny going upstairs with Mr. DiGennaro.”

“DiGennaro? Yeah, I thought she was Italian—he, whatever you say.”

“It’s for you to tell me, sir. Explain your whereabouts from midnight to three a.m. Monday.”

“I don’t have to do that—don’t have to explain anything like that.”

“It could be bad for you, sir, if you don’t.”

Doolittle glanced at the screen door, cocking his head as if listening for something. And then he shook his head and laughed, as if ruefully. “Hmm, well, okey-dokey, Mister Officer. How’s this? We came back here together. Doc drove the Chrysler. Well—yes, I’m sure he did. And that kerosene heater under the window there was turned up high. Cottage had been shut up for hours. Smelled like a gas station. So I slept outside—on one of the chaise lounges. I remember waking up. I was freezing my balls off. Took a piss on a rose bush, fetched a blanket and went back to sleep on the chaise.”

He was obviously making up a story based on hazy memory bolstered by tipsy fantasy.

“The sun came up and I was wet all through. Either there was heavy dew or it rained, I don’t know. I came inside and took a shower. Bertha brought coffee when she saw the light come on. I dressed and packed and the boys picked me up right on time. We headed out for Naples. I haven’t even seen a paper since Sunday morning.”

Bud leaned closer, put his face right in Doolittle’s way. “Any witnesses?”

Doolittle tried to stand, wavered, pushed the arms of the chair with both hands and got to his feet. “To what?”

“Any witnesses who can swear you was out there sleeping it off from whatever time it was you got home.”

Doolittle curled his lips. “Thank God this burg isn’t home. I’ve got a ticket on this morning’s train and you won’t see me in Myers again, ever.”

Bud stood up. “Sir, until you can account for your time a little better, I’ll have to ask you to remain in Lee County. Just until we can clear this up.”

Doolittle’s shoulders fell “Are you going to arrest me? God is my witness, you’ll regret it if you do. I’m due back in the office.”

“My boss the sheriff runs a nice, convenient little jail house, sir. All the comforts of home. Except no whiskey provided. We got a state regulation on that.”

The screen door slammed on its hinges. Lucille Shepherd strode into the room. Her hair was in rollers, her unmade face lined and wrinkled, her lips set. “Bud, I’m surprised at you. Coming onto our property without permission. Lem won’t like it. I’m sure you know this is out of line.”

The maid stood behind her in the door, taking it all in.

Bud explained his dawn-patrol mission. Mrs. Shepherd hardly bothered to listen. Bud asked to speak to her husband, said they’d better discuss the matter right then and there.

“Impossible,” she said. “Lem is out of town, on his way to a meeting of the Southern Association of Postmortem Examiners in New Orleans.”

“Then I’ll have to ask you to put your brother up for a few more days, ma’am, until we can do more checking on his whereabouts.”

“My brother’s whereabouts? You’re beginning to sound like a detective in a dime novel, Bud. Larry was here. He slept”—she indicated the bed—“right there.”

“Well, ma’am, he says he didn’t. And we don’t know his actual location when the Diva was attacked. See, your brother was one of the last people to talk with the deceased when he was alive. He could of drove your car back to the hotel. So it looks bad.”

“I have the car keys,” Lucille snapped.

Doolittle sank back in the chair. “You know I have the other set, sister. There, on the dresser. Look, I’ll stay. Just let me think. Think this through. Hand me that bottle, will you?”

“That bottle’s killing you,” Mrs. Shepherd yelled. “Just like it killed Uncle Reuben.”

I handed him the bottle. It contained only an inch or two more whiskey anyway. He drained it. This time he didn’t cough.

Mrs. Shepherd snatched up the second set of keys and paused at the door. “I’m going to put in a long distance call to Lemuel’s hotel. We’ll see about this, Detective Wright. We’ll just see about this.”

Then she turned to me. “You two fellows are quite a little team.” Her voice was shaking. “I believe I’d better start by telephoning Sheriff Hollipaugh. And Bruce Asdeck, I’ll call him, too. I wonder what they’ll say when I tell him the Hardy Boys are threatening my poor little baby brother? Why the sun’s hardly up and you two bust into Larry’s bedroom before he’s even dressed. You come here implying nasty things about him—making perverted, libelous suggestions. I think Gene Hollipaugh won’t like this at all. I certainly don’t.”

Bud double-clutched the Jeep and we lurched forward. “Might of been a mistake heading out to Miz Shepherd’s so early. Without clearance from the boss? Lady’s got her Irish going. I better head straight back to the office. Hardy Boys, my ass.”

“You think? You might have missed him.”

An intersection came up fast. The stop sign was half-hidden behind a tangle of hibiscus bushes and morning glory vines. The sun was in Bud’s eyes. A red Ford coupe flashed in front of us. Bud stood on the brake. I braced for a crash. The Ford swerved at the last possible moment.

We skidded to a stop on the far side of the intersection. The Jeep’s engine hacked, wheezed and died. Bud leaned forward and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. “Fucking shit-for-brains numb-nuts, I’m gonna get us both killed. Then where’ll we be?”

My heart was pumping like pistons on a battleship. I took a breath and rubbed Bud’s shoulder. “Settle down, Sarge. It’s OK. We’re OK. But Jesus, watch it. I want more time with you. Sure don’t want to die with you. Not for a while, anyway.”

He pushed himself upright, threw me a wry glance, reached down and restarted the engine. “Who the fuck are the Hardy Boys exactly? I know the name.”

I rearranged myself on the hard bucket seat. “Hardy Boys—they’re adventure books for kids. Two brothers who help their dad solve petty crimes.”

Bud wiped his mouth with an open hand. “Boys, huh? The bitch. Throwing an insult right in my face. A threat.”

“They’re brothers, like I said. They don’t sleep together.”

“That’s what she meant, though.”

“You could be right.”

“Fuck. She might tell the boss anything.”

“Nothing he doesn’t already know or suspect.” I checked my watch. “And is paid to ignore. Why don’t we stop by Albert Fletcher’s on the way? It’s still early. We might catch him.”

“You said you could handle Fletcher yourself, Lieutenant. That’d give me time to start checking on the McGraw woman after I see the boss. I got the DiGennaro funeral tomorrow. He lives in the garage behind his brother’s house on Marlyn Road. I can drop you off.”

“Interview a gardener? Piece of cake. I’ll walk back. Do me good.”

Robert Fletcher’s house, a split-level casita with Cuban-tile trim, yellow stucco walls, arched windows and unscreened loggia, was set close to the sidewalk. Shapely shrubs, neatly mown St. Augustine grass and well-tended citrus trees flanked a paved drive that led to a large backyard. A basketball hoop and what looked to be a well-used jungle gym—slide, trapeze and two swings—were hidden behind the house. At the far end of the double lot, a ground-floor apartment and attached garage lay half unseen behind thick Surinam cherry hedges. Two morning papers on the driveway apron suggested that neither of the Fletcher brothers had left for work.

I picked up one of the newspapers and followed a flagstone path around the side of the building. A barbecue pit—used brick, coral rock and mortar topped by a metal grille—was jerry-built into the stucco wall just beyond the apartment door. Firewood was stacked beside it. Louvered glass panes on the door and windows were wide open. Inside, a child fussed and cried. I knocked, waited and was about to knock again when the tall, muscular man I’d seen at the bar Sunday night opened the door. He was holding a diapered baby. The baby took one look at me, coughed and began to shriek.

Carmen had remarked on Albert Fletcher’s appearance the previous day. “Shoulders out to here, tan as a Seminole wrestler, scar on his chin, regular outdoor jock-strapper—just your type, boss, except for that wedding ring he’s got on him.”

He fit Carmen’s naughty description perfectly. Assuming he knew who I was, I said merely that I hoped he wouldn’t mind answering a few questions about what happened Sunday night.

Fletcher nodded, said, “At the Caloosa, right? Sure. Come on in.”

He was dressed in khaki pants, scuffed boots and a pressed blue shirt with “Al” and “Edison Estate” embroidered over the left pocket. Although he looked to be two or three years older than Bud and me, his bulging neck and biceps suggested he was in much better shape.

The baby on his arm began bringing up a steady stream of drool. Fletcher held the infant away from his clean shirt, tried to mop up the mess with mud-stained fingers, then turned and called out, “Carabelle.”

A younger woman emerged from the kitchen. She was hugely pregnant under a cotton wash dress, barefoot with painted toenails and sun-bleached dark hair cut short. What looked to be a six- or seven-year-old daughter trailed behind her. The woman nodded a greeting, cradled the baby on an elbow, said, “Colic. Can’t feed her or quiet her,” and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Fletcher tossed the folded
News-Press
on top of a week’s worth of unread papers. He pointed me toward a rattan sofa and settled himself on a kitchenette chair. “Brother Rob got us this two-for-one deal. Paper boy’s the son of his old buddy. Carabelle and me, we didn’t use to get it. But the wife likes the recipes and patterns—you know, on the women’s page? And I check sports for the scores—when I got the time.”

It seemed likely he hadn’t seen Ralph Nype’s nasty exposé on yesterday’s front page, so I came right to the point.

He listened to my description of Diva carefully, nodding several times. “Yes sir, yes sir, I believe I know who you mean. Big lady, crown on her head, sang real pretty. She was sitting with this other lady—not Miss Betty, the older one.”

I threw him a manly smile. “Mrs. Simms. She’s a few years older than you or me.”

Nick DiGennaro was 37, no spring chicken but decades younger than the widow Simms.

Fletcher nodded again, serious and respectful. It crossed my mind he might be bit short in the brains department.

“You talked to all those ladies?”

He leaned forward, glanced toward the kitchen and dropped his voice. “Yes sir, I did. None of ’em had much to say to me. They was polite and all. But nothing like Miz Shepherd. Miz Shepherd, she danced with me.”

I knew that was true. Brian and Carmen had also said he’d mostly kept to himself at the far end of the bar, nursing his one beer.