The Long Lavender Look Part 2

The big deputy sighed and belched. Hyzer opened his pocket notebook. "First interrogation of Travis McGee. Fourteen-forty hours. April 24. Pritchard monitoring tape. Sturnevan witnessing interrogation. Now then. From whom did you hear that Frank Baither had been, or was about to be, released from Raiford State Prison, and, to the best of your recollection, tell me the date on which you received this information?"

"The only previous time in my life I ever heard the name Frank Baither was when you said that name this morning in front of Al's service station, Hyzer."

"Was there a third man with you last night?"

"You're playing your game, Hyzer. The officer of the law. The professional. If you were a professional instead of a swamp county ham actor, you'd find out who we are, where we were yesterday, and where we were heading. You'd verify the girl running across the road. You'd make a couple of phone calls. Not you. No, sir. Don't confuse yourself with logic. Net result is you aren't going to play sheriff much longer."

"An unidentified woman ran across the road. We found the place where she crouched in the ditch. Bare footprints in the mud. A place where she braced herself, making an imprint of the knuckles of her right hand. We used the skid marks to locate the area. Sooner or later we'll locate her body."

"She's dead?"

"She almost got across, but you swerved and probably hit her."

"Now why did I do that, Sheriff?"

"Because she was with Baither and saw you and got away from you and you people had to hunt her down."

"With an old Rolls, for G.o.d's sake?"

"And you lost control when a tire blew."

"Hyzer, you are having dreams and visions and fantasies. I will tell you who to phone at Lake Pa.s.skokee. I will pay for the call. He is an old friend. We went to the wedding of his eldest daughter. He has a fish camp. We went ba.s.s fishing. There were rods in that car of mine. And three fresh-cleaned ba.s.s on ice."

"Deputy Billy Cable says they were fresh enough."

"Will you phone?"

"This is a small county, McGee. And I am in a small job at small pay. But I am not a fool. Four years ago you people, along with Frank Baither, planned that job down to the last small detail. And there was just as much at stake now as then. More, because this time you had to kill one you knew of, and one you didn't. First things first. When the time comes to dismantle your alibi, it will fall apart. You know it and I know it. Please stop making speeches. Answer my questions. Was there a third man with you last night?"

"Meyer and I were alone."

"Did Meyer finish him off with the ice pick or did you?"

"Hyzer, the car went into the ditch, and we got out of it by great good fortune, and we walked all the way down to the Tamiami Trail to that station where you found us."

"That is most unlikely, McGee. We had an anonymous call at one in the morning. A man, whispering to disguise his voice. He said Frank Baither phoned him every night at midnight, and if some night there was no call, and no one answered at the Baither place, he was to call the law. He went out there and found Baither still taped to that chair. From that time on I had cars on the road all night. You would have been stopped and questioned."

"There is very d.a.m.ned little traffic on that Route 112 after dark. And when we saw lights coming, we got out of sight."

"Now why would you do that?" He smiled for the first time. I think it was a smile. The corners of his mouth went up about a sixteenth of an inch.

So I told him about the nut in the old truck who'd tried to pot us from the truck window, and thought he'd gotten one of us, thought he'd scragged somebody named Hutch, then tried to d.i.c.ker with the survivor, somebody named Orville. I said it happened about one hour and four miles south of where I had put Miss Agnes into the ca.n.a.l.

"Describe the truck."

"An old Ford pickup, rough, noisy, and beat. I think it was red. A junker. Not worth licensing."

He slowly turned the pages of his pocket notebook. "So, being the innocent law-abiding citizens you people claim to be, you made no attempt to report somebody trying to kill you, either at the time or this morning to either Officer Nagle or to me."

"Sheriff, neither of us saw the man. The plate was too dirty and the light too weak to read the number. You know your own county better than I do. There are probably a lot of fine citizens living back in the boonies off that road. And there are some very rough ones too, native-born swamp rats and poachers, and people that came a long way to find a place where they're not likely to be found. A long time ago I spent one weekend here in Cypress City, and after I saw how Sat.u.r.day night was shaping up, I went back to the motel room and put my cash money in the Gideon and went back out with one ten-dollar bill and had what you could call a memorable evening. I don't really much care if your people kill each other, Hyzer. We were just making certain they didn't kill us and then feel apologetic because the dead bodies didn't turn out to be Hutch and Orville. There wasn't any phone booth handy after that clown drove off in his junk truck. I thought of a way I could attract official attention. We could have walked back four miles and I could have dived down and gotten my tow chain out of the tool compartment and heaved it up over the power lines. Then pretcy soon we would have had the use of the CB radio in the Florida Power and Light truck that would show up. I thought of it, and I thought of making a neighborly call at the next house we came to. But I didn't like either of those ideas, Sheriff."

"McGee, you had bad luck, didn't you? When you lost that car in the ca.n.a.l, you went back to Frank Baither's place and tried to use his old Ford truck, but the battery was too far gone and you couldn't get it started: Then, while you were walking, you did some thinking. Somebody was going to spot that car sooner or later, and it could be traced to you, and that was a risk you couldn't accept. So you had to put something together that sounded good, and get Al Storey to hoist it out of the ca.n.a.l and tow it in."

"Hyzer, you are one dumb, blind, stubborn man."

"You have a good act, McGee. So does your partner. Aren't you wondering, a little, why you can't sell it to me?"

"More than a little."

"Then there must be a little more bad luck along with what you already know about. Bad luck or judgment. What could you have forgotten? Think about it."

I thought. "You must have something you like. I don't know what it could be. I will tell you one thing. Don't depend on it. Because whatever it is, it isn't going to prove what you think it proves, no matter how good it looks."

"You never saw or heard of Frank Baither in your life?"

"No."

"You were never inside his house?"

"Never."

"I am going to describe an exhibit to you. It will be a part of the file I am going to turn over to the State's attorney. It is an empty envelope addressed to you, at Bahia Mar, date-stamped a week ago, April 17. On the back of it, possibly in your hand, are some notes about highway numbers and street names. It had been folded twice, and had been immersed in water. Do you recognize it from the description?"

"I think so. Yes. I don't know where you're going with it, though. Jimmy Ames phoned me last Sat.u.r.day and invited us to Betsy's wedding. He said that the road I'd normally take was closed, that a bridge was out. He gave me directions. I reached down into the wastebasket near the phone and took an envelope out and wrote down the directions. Get hold of him at Jimmy's Fish Camp. He'll verify it."

"When the call came in about the Baither murder, Deputy Cable phoned me at my home. I got dressed and drove to the Baither place. I supervised the investigation. After the county medical examiner had authorized the removal of the body I posted Deputy Arnstead there to make certain n.o.body entered the premises before a more thorough daylight search could be made. I was on my way to partic.i.p.ate in that search when the call came from Officer Nagle. After he described you and told me about where your car was, and said you had walked all the way to the Trail, I had no choice but to bring you in for questioning. I returned at eleven-fifteen to the Baither place and, with Deputy Arnstead, completed the search of the house and the area. The envelope was found on the floor of the room where Baither died."

So what do you do? The big soft sleepy deputy shifted in his chair, creaking it. One thing you do is stop thrashing and flapping. You back up a couple of steps, tuck the elbows in, get the jaw out of range.

"Question?" I asked.

"Can you change your mind about your rights? Yes. At any time."

"That wasn't what I was going to ask."

"What then?"

"I can tell you exactly what I did with that envelope, where, and when. But I don't know you, Hyzer. It's planted evidence. You had somebody dance Meyer around. I don't like the way you think. I don't like the way you do your job. If I don't want to answer any more questions, and if you have nothing to do with the plant, then you are going to be that much more convinced you've got the right people to make your case. But if I tell you about the envelope, and you are in on building the case against us any way you can, then you can listen to the truth and go plug the holes in your evidence. I don't even know if this is going onto tape and, if it is, whether you erase the ones you don't like. I'm boxed because I can't figure out what you are, so I don't know which way to go. You talk about some action four years ago, something we are supposed to have planned with this Baither. Check us out. There's no record of any convictions."

"Which means only that up until now you haven't made any serious mistakes, McGee."

"So why, Sheriff, would I go to all the trouble of faking up this wedding story and having the fishing gear and the ba.s.s in the car, just to come sneaking into your county after dark to knock off a recent graduate of Raiford? Where's the sense to it?"

"About nine hundred thousand dollars worth of sense, which you are quite aware of. And the chance you might have to go through a roadblock on your way out of the area with it. Misdirection, McGee. A car so conspicuous no fool would use it for this kind of purpose. Fresh ba.s.s packed in ice. It should have worked, McGee."

So another shaft of light in the murk. That much money is worth a lot of care and attention. And it could maybe buy a matched set of Hyzers.

"I think I'd better stop right now, Sheriff. I'd like to phone an attorney."

"A particular attorney?"

"Yes. In Miami. He'll accept a collect call."

"May I have his name?"

"Leonard Sibelius."

I looked for a change of expression. Nothing. He said, "You can make your call at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, McGee."

"Why not now? Isn't that a violation of my civil rights?"

"It would be if you'd been booked, and I'd turned your file over to the State's attorney for indictment by the grand jury. You chose to answer questions. You've been in custody for interrogation since eight-forty hours this morning."

"Tomorrow is Sat.u.r.day Sheriff."

"The twenty-fifth. King, have Priskitt put him in a single twelve or fourteen, and move somebody if he has to. I want no contact between McGee and Meyer."

I fitted the two parts of the big deputy's name together. King Sturnevan. I looked at him again and made sure. I'd seen him fight years ago at Miami Beach, at about two hundred then. Maybe sixty pounds heavier now. A spoiler, a mawler. Looked slow, but surprisingly hard to hit. Clever on the ropes and in the clinches, ripping those hooks up into the body, snuffing and grunting with the effort. Would have done better in the division except he had a tendency to cut, which put too many TKO's on his record. So the smart way they took him was to put the little twist of the wrist on the end of the jab, hoping to open up his brows before he bombed their innards to pulp.

"Sheriff, would you please tell this fat, sloppy, old pug not to try to do me the way he did Meyer? Lennie Sibelius can give you enough trouble without that, too."

"There were three witnesses to your partner's accident, McGee. He had taken his shower. He was stepping into the issue coveralls when he lost his balance and fell, striking his face on the wooden bench in the shower room."

"Then I guess if the same thing happened to me, it would look like a strange coincidence."

He didn't answer. He picked up the phone. Sturnevan beckoned to me and held the door open. As we went along the corridor he said, "Hey, you knew me, huh? You seen me in there, ever?" His voice was soft, husky, high-pitched.

"Miami Beach, just once. Eight or nine years ago."

"That must have been close to the last. Who was I going with?"

"I can't remember the name. A great big Cuban boy."

"Sure! That was a ten-round main. Tigre something. Tigre means 'tiger,' and he had a big long last name, and I knocked him out in the ninth, right? You know what? That was the last one. Honest to Christ, that boy was, I mean, conditioned! Like an oak tree, the whole middle of him. He kept moving the wrong way and giving me perfect shots, and I couldn't even take the grin off his face. Then like twenty seconds into the ninth, he cut me. See this one? He popped it just right by dumb luck and opened it up, and I knew it was bad. All I could do, see, was keep turning to keep the ref from getting too good a look at it and hoping before he did, that boy would tangle his feet and move the wrong way again, so when he did I had to put the right hand right on the shelf. I knew it would bust and it did. But he stayed down. All the time I was in there, what I had was bad managers and bad hands. I had to go for the middle because my hands bust too easy. So you saw that one, hey! I was going to go again, all lined up with I forget who, and I bust the hand in the same place on the heavy bag, working out."

As we went down the stairs, I said, "But you didn't chop Meyer bad enough to hurt your hands?"

"He fell on the bench, like Mister Norm said."

"And his head bounced up and down on that bench like a big rubber ball. Must have been interesting to watch."

"What I can tell you is I didn't work him over. Mister Norm got on me about that, and I swore on my baby daughter's grave I never touched him and didn't see anybody else touch him. I told Mister Norm it didn't make sense after all the times I worked a little on some of the people without marking them, all of a sudden I forget how and start hitting a man in the head? Not me. Not the King. Right through here. Hey, Priskie? Fresh fish. Mister Norm says single twelve or fourteen."

"We can give you twelve, sir. A very nice room. I'm sure you'll be very happy with it. Anything you want, just ring." Priskitt was somewhere between fifty and ninety, spry, bald, and shrunken by the heat of time and fortune. He dug into a bin, selected a tagged bundle, put it in a wire gym basket. "All our guests wear costumes," he said. "Gets you in the spirit of the thing."

"Priskie, this here fellow saw my last fight, where I chilled the big Cuban kid and busted my hand. I told you about that one, right?"

"Not over forty times."

I said, "I don't want to spoil your comical routine, Priskitt, but how is Professor Meyer making it?"

"I got him some aspirin and some ice to suck on. I wouldn't say he feels great. But maybe not as bad as he did."

"I got to look in Nat's book and find out what the last name was on that Cuban kid," King said. "I'll get him showered. Come on, McGee. Tote that basket."

The cement shower room smelled of mildew, ammonia, and Lysol. There was a sliver of green soap and a drizzle of tepid water from a corroded shower head, and a thin gray towel.

What you need on the inside of any inst.i.tution whatsoever are friends. "King, I'm a little ashamed of thinking you busted my friend up. I should have known you've got more cla.s.s than that."

"Aw, what the h.e.l.l. I mean I can see why."

"No, really. I saw you fight. You could have been one of the great ones. You know that? A few breaks here and there."

"Breaks, sure. They woulda helped. But I coulda stood better equipment. I cut too easy and my hands were brittle. But I could always move good, and I could take a punch off anybody."

"Where are you from originally?"

"New Jersey. Nutley. Fourteen years old, I was in the Golden Gloves. Fleet champion in the Navy, coming in light heavy. Had fourteen years pro, two in the amateurs. Ninety-one bouts. I win sixty-eight, lose seventeen, draw six. It's all in the record. McGee, what do you go? Maybe around two-oelght?"

"Very close."

"The clothes on, I would have said one ninety, maybe less. You fooled me. You holding pretty good shape, fella. You ever do any fighting when you were a kid?"

"Nothing serious. Just horsing around."

"You can keep your own underwear. And put the coveralls and these here straw scuffs on and put your other stuff in the basket."

I did as directed. The twill coveralls had been washed threadbare, and they were soft as the finest lightweight wool.

"Come at me a little, McGee. I want to see if you know how to move. Good Christ, don't look at me like that! I'm not making up some kind of way to bust you up."

So I shrugged and went at him, doing my standard imitation of a big puppet badly manipulated from above, jounce and flap, keeping an a.s.sortment of elbows and shoulders and wrists in front of the places I don't like to have thumped, keeping a wide-focus stare aimed at his broad gut, because that is the only way you can see what the head and hands and feet are doing, all at the same time.

I don't know how many years older he was. He moved in a slow, skilled, light-footed prance, and the slabbed fat on his body jounced and shook like the pork fat on a circus bear. He held his big paws low and stayed pretty much in the same place. Had it been for real, I would have had as much chance against him as a little kid with a piece of lathe against a member of the Olympic fencing team. Pro is pro. I slapped empty s.p.a.ce, sometimes a shoulder. Each effort of mine resulted in a quick little stinging whack of fingertips against jaw, cheekbone, rib cage. Then I decided to try to protect myself. But here is how it is with a pro: You duck under a high left jab, and you see the feet, body, shoulder, head, all moving into the logical right hook, and when you move to defend from that, you are suddenly open for two more quick jabs. You shift to handle that, and there is the right hook you were going to block earlier, so you rush him to get inside, and he isn't there because he has twisted, tipped you off balance, and stands braced and ready for you to bounce back off the wall. Explosive snort. Grin. Hands raised in signal of peace.

So I gratefully emerged from my ineffective sh.e.l.l and said, "You are real quick, King."

"h.e.l.l, I'm slowed down to nothing. Reflexes all shot. Seems quick to you because I know where you're going to be by the time I tap you. Listen to me huff and puff. McGee, you would have made it pretty good if you started soon enough. It would be hard to take a good shot at you. I'd have to bomb you downstairs until you couldn't get your arms up. Then drop you."

He led me to the single cell, telling me, on the way, of the time he had come the closest to top ranking, when Floyd Patterson had nailed him as they came out for the second, and he had faked rubber legs well enough to bring Patterson in, too eager and careless, and he had pivoted and stuffed his big hand and glove deep into Floyd's tough middle, just above the belt, turning him gray and sweaty and very tired. Chased him for seven rounds, while Floyd had slowly regained his strength and health despite all King Sturnevan could do in the way of wearing him down. And then Floyd stabbed and chopped and split his way to the technical knockout.

He dogged the door shut, big face still rueful with the memory of not being able to nail down the disabled Patterson. I said, "What's with this sheriff of yours, King?"

"How do you mean?"

"What kind of an act is it?"

He shifted the wire basket to his other arm. "It's no act. Mister Norm upholds the law, and the County Commission backs him a hundred percent. We got modern stuff here, McGee. We got a teletype tied into FLEX, and one of the first things he did was see if there was any package on you with the R.C.LC. and then the N.C.LC., and it puzzled him some, maybe, to come up empty on both of you."