“You may well ask why.
Because if I myself tried Lainie’s case and called the Apostle Bartholomew to the stand and started questioning him about what he’d said on the tape, he might very well answer, “I never said that.” In which case, I would play the tape to refresh his memory. But suppose he then said, “That’s not my voice on that there tape” — who would be able to testify to the contrary? Under the Disciplinary Rules — what we refer to in the trade as DR 5-101 — an advocate cannot be called as a witness. So Folger would need no prompting to ask, as the Constable of France had once asked a lowly messenger, “Who hath measured the ground?”
Hence the presence of Andrew Holmes.
Whichever one of us ended up actually trying the case, the other could be called as a witness to the whys, whens, hows and wherefores of the taping.
The tape recorder sat in the center of the coffee table.
The three of us sat around the table in uncomfortable director’s chairs with faded green canvas backs and seats. We were in the backyard, such as it was, of Harrod’s mobile home in a park thronged with similar homes just off Timucuan Point Road.
In the state of Florida, people who own so-called mobile homes pay no state, city, county, or school taxes. All they have to do is buy a license under Article VII — titled “Finance and Taxation” — of the Constitution of the State of Florida, wherein “Motor vehicles, boats, airplanes, trailers, trailer coaches and mobile homes, as defined by law, shall be subject to a license tax for their operation in the amounts and for the purposes prescribed by law, but shall not be subject to ad valorem taxes.”
The license, under Chapter 320.08 of the Motor Vehicle Licenses section, costs twenty dollars flat for a mobile home not exceeding thirty-five feet in length, twenty-five dollars flat for a mobile home over thirty-five feet in length but not exceeding forty feet, and escalating on up to fifty dollars flat for a mobile home over sixty-five feet in length. Even if the tires have been removed from the vehicles, even if the vehicles are sitting on concrete pads, even if water and electricity have been connected to the vehicles, they are still considered “mobile” homes so long as they are not “permanently affixed” to the land.
What annoys many residents of Calusa is that people who own mobile homes are permitted to vote, even though they pay no taxes. To many residents of Calusa, these frankly ugly aluminum monsters are a blight on the land, especially when the land happens to be choice river-front property purchased long before anyone knew it would one day become valuable.
Harrod clearly appreciated his protected status as a mobile home owner. He clearly appreciated his tiny fenced backyard and the distant glimpses it afforded of the Cottonmouth River, which meandered through the metallic maze like the snake after which it had been named, sunlight glinting off its scaly waters. He seemed to appreciate as well all the attention being lavished on him this afternoon, two lawyers in suits and ties, tape recorder ready to preserve his precious words for posterity.
He was a blue-eyed, white-haired, somewhat grizzled man in his late sixties, who — like so many other senior citizens down here on the white sand shores of the Gulf — had retired some ten years ago, only to realize that doing nothing was the equivalent of being dead. I had read somewhere that George Burns’s nephew had once told him he was thinking of retiring, and Burns had said, “What will you do with yourself?” His nephew had responded, “I’ll play golf all the time.” Burns thought about this for a moment, and then said, “Lou, playing golf is good only if you’ve got something else to do.”
Harrod had taken a job as a security guard.
Which is how he happened to be there this past Tuesday night when Lainie Commins drove into the parking lot of the Silver Creek Yacht Club at a little before ten P.M.
“How did you know the time?” I asked.
“Just let me see if we’re getting this,” Andrew said, and pressed the STOP button and then the REW button, and played back Harrod’s opening words. Andrew’s suit was the color of wheat. His tie was a green that matched the faded backs and seats of the director’s chairs upon which we were sitting. He was twenty-nine years old, and he had dark curly hair and brown eyes and an aquiline nose, which meant it was curving like an eagle’s beak, and an androgynous mouth, which meant it had both male and female characteristics, with a thin upper lip and a pouting lower one. Black-rimmed eyeglasses gave him a scholarly look, which was entirely appropriate in that he’d been editor of the Law Review at U Mich, and had graduated third in his class.
“...little before ten,” Harrod’s voice said.
“How did you know the time?” my voice asked.
“Okay,” Andrew said, and simultaneously pressed the PLAY and REC buttons.
“I looked at my watch,” Harrod said.
“How come?”
“Dining room quits serving at eleven-thirty. I wondered who might be coming in so late.”
“Tell me where you were,” I said.
“Little booth at the entrance to the club. I sit in there checking the cars as they come in. People on foot, too, some of the time.”
“Is there a barrier?”
“No, I just stop them and either wave them on or tell them to back on up and turn around.”
“Is there a light in the booth?”
“There is.”
“Was the light on this past Tuesday night?”
“It was.”
“Tell me what you saw at a little before ten that night, Mr. Harrod.”
“White Geo driving up to the booth, woman behind the wheel.”
“Can you describe this woman?”
“She was Lainie Commins.”
“Did you know Lainie Commins at the time?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then how...?”
“I asked her what her name was and she told me it was Lainie Commins and said she was there to see Mr. Toland. Brett Toland, that is. Who was killed that night.”
“She gave you her name and also Mr. Toland’s name?”
“Yes. That’s what they usually do. If they’re here to join somebody for dinner, or to go on one of the boats. The boats sometimes give cocktail parties, fifty, sixty people invited to them, it gets hard keeping track. I’ll tell you the truth, there’s no way I can really double-check with the person who’s the member. I just keep my eye on a guest, make sure they’re going where they said they were going, the dining room, or one of the boats.”
“What did this woman who said she was Lainie Commins...?”
“Oh, she was Lainie Commins, all right. I seen her since, identified her picture at the hearing, in fact. She was Lainie Commins, no question.”
“What’d she look like?”
“Blond hair, eyeglasses, wearing a white shirt with a blue scarf had some kind of anchor design on it.”
“What color?”
“I told you. Blue.”
“The anchors, I mean.”
“Oh. Red.”
“Was she wearing slacks or a skirt?”
“Couldn’t see. She was inside the car.”
“Where’d she park the car?”
“Near the lamppost at the far end of the lot.”
“Did you see her when she got out of the car?”
“Yes, but I don’t remember whether she had on slacks or a skirt.”
“But you were watching her.”
“Yes. Wanted to make sure she was going to the Toland boat, like she said.”
“How was she wearing her hair?”
“What do you mean?”
“Loose? Up? Tied back?”
“Oh. Loose.”
“But you didn’t notice whether she was wearing slacks or a skirt.”
“No, I didn’t.”