“May I see the list?”
“Certainly,” Guthrie said, and took several stapled and folded sheets of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “I highlighted the one we’re interested in.”
I looked down the first page of typewritten names and addresses. Some twenty or so. None of them highlighted.
“It’s on the third page,” Guthrie said.
I flipped to the third page.
“Near the top,” he said.
The name was highlighted in yellow.
“Some Spanish guy,” Guthrie said.
Robert Ernesto Diaz.
Evensong II was one of the older low-rise condominiums on Sabal Key, built some twenty years ago when restrictions were still in force and before builders began reaching for the sky. Clustered around a man-made cove and canals that afforded entrance to the Intercoastal, the shingled two-story buildings in their wooded setting looked cloistered and serene, an image reinforced by the boats bobbing beside the canal docks and in the cove. A breeze was blowing in off the water. A white heron delicately picked its way along the border of the walk leading to unit 21. It took sudden startled flight as I approached. I had called ahead. Bobby Diaz was expecting me.
He told me at once that he had an early dinner date and he hoped we could make this fast. His urgency gained credibility by the fact that one side of his face was covered with lather, and he was wearing only a towel. He showed me into the living room, told me to make myself a drink if I cared for one, and then said he wouldn’t be long.
His apartment overlooked the condo swimming pool. Young girls in thong bikinis lay on poolside lounges or splashed in the water. An old man wearing red boxer trunks sat on the edge of the pool, his legs dangling in the water, watching the girls. I watched them, too. Diaz was back in ten minutes, buttoning a cream-colored sports shirt, tucking it into trousers the color of bran. He had trimmed his black mustache and neatly shaved the rest of his face. His long black hair, still wet from the shower, was combed straight back from his forehead. His dark eyes looked suspicious, but the wary look fled before his welcoming smile.
“No drink?” he said. “Can I make you one?”
“Well, this won’t take a minute,” I said. “I know you’re in a hurry.”
“Always time for a drink,” he said.
“Are you having one?”
“Sure. What’ll it be?”
“Little Scotch on the rocks would be fine,” I said.
I would have preferred a Beefeater martini with a couple of olives, but Diaz had a dinner date and I had questions to ask. He poured Johnnie Black over a handful of ice cubes, handed the glass to me, and then mixed himself a gin and tonic.
“Cheers,” he said.
“Cheers.”
We drank. Outside at the pool, one of the girls trilled a laugh that sounded like a kingfisher running a river. Diaz sat opposite me on a blue sofa against a white wall. The condo was furnished sparingly in severe modern upholstered in varying tones of blue and green. Throw pillows and paintings echoed splashes of complementary colors. Even the wedge of lime floating in his drink seemed part of the overall design.
“What’s this all about?” he asked.
“Lainie,” I said.
“So you told me on the phone. But what now?”
“A video,” I said, and watched him.
Nothing showed on his face.
“Something titled Idle Hands.
Still no sign of recognition.
I opened my briefcase. I removed from it a glossy black-and-white photograph I’d had made by a commercial photographer three blocks from my office. It showed the cover art for the video. Lainie’s hands caressing the crotch of the white panties, the Victorian ring, the title.
“Recognize this?” I asked, and handed the photograph to him.
He took it in his right hand.
Studied it.
“Forgive the photo,” I said, “but at some point I may have to introduce the actual video in evidence.”
Which was bullshit.
“Am I supposed to know something about this?” Diaz asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
“You’re supposed to have ordered it from a company named Video Trends.”
“Ordered what?”
“The video.”
“I ordered a video?”
“Titled Idle Hands and starring four women performing respectively as Lori Doone, Candi Lane, Vicki Held, and Dierdre Starr.”
“I thought you said this was about Lainie.”
“It is. She used the name Lori Doone. It’s a porn flick, Mr. Diaz.”
“A porn flick, I see.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re saying I ordered this video from...”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Well, I never heard of this video.”
“The man who did the photography...”
“I’m sorry, but I never heard of it. That’s that.”
“Then how’d your name get on the list of people who’d ordered the video from him?”
“I have no idea. Anyway, I didn’t know it was against the law to buy a pornographic video.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then what the hell... excuse me, Mr. Hope, but I still don’t know what you’re doing here.”
“If we can get past...”
“There’s nothing to get past. You’ve got the wrong person. I didn’t order a video from any magazine, and I don’t know how...”
“Who mentioned a magazine?”
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything about a magazine.”
“Well, I... I just assumed that someone advertising a pornographic video would...”
“I didn’t say anything about anyone advertising it, either.”
We looked at each other.
“Okay?” I said. “Can we at least get past this part of it?”
“Depends on which part we go to next.”
“Did you at any time own a video titled Idle Hands?”
“I did.”
“Okay.”
“So?”
“Did you ever watch it?”
“I did.”
“Did you recognize Lainie Commins as one of the performers in that video?”
“I did.”
“When was this?”
“When I first received it. A week or so ago.”
“Would you remember the exact date?”
“Well, yes. But only because it got here on my birthday.”
“Nice present.”
“Better than a tie.”
“When was that, Mr. Diaz? Your birthday?”
“The eleventh.”
“Of September?”
“Yes. September eleventh.”
“The day before Brett Toland got killed.”
“Well... yes. I suppose it was. I recognized the ring the minute I looked at the cover. Lainie wore it all the time. I thought, Hey, what’s this?”
“So you knew it was Lainie even before...”
“Well, let’s say I suspected it. Then when I watched it, of course...”
“When was that?”
“That night.”
“The night of the eleventh.”
“Yes. UPS delivered it that afternoon, it was waiting in the manager’s office when I got home from work.”
“So you watched it that night.”
“Yes.”
“The eleventh of September...”
“I’m sure it was.”
“And recognized Lainie Commins that same night.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went to sleep.”
“What I mean, Mr. Diaz, is when did you tell Brett Toland you’d seen Lainie Commins performing in a porn flick?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“I never told Brett about it.”
“Then how’d the tape get in his possession?”
“I have no idea.”