I wished she hadn’t posed for a pornographic tape.
But she had.
I wished Brett Toland hadn’t tried to use that tape in a blatant blackmail attempt.
But according to my client, he had.
Two bullets in the head.
But she kept insisting she wasn’t the one who’d killed him.
I kept staring at the boat, perhaps willing it to yield its secrets. As I listened to the high clinking sound of halyards striking metal masts, the lines came to me. “And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.” Progress.
“Help you, sir?”
The voice startled me. I wheeled away from the dock, my fists clenched, the hair at the back of my neck bristling. I was expecting my cowboys, the twin horrors that come in the dead of night and strike terror to the heart, my nightmare apparitions. But I was looking instead at a rotund little man wearing gray polyester slacks and a blue T-shirt bearing a logo, in white, that read SILVER CREEK YACHT CLUB. He was carrying a flashlight in his left hand, its beam casting a small circle at his feet. In the moonlight, I could make out a round face and a white mustache. Blue cap with a long bill. Nothing menacing about the face. Nothing even mildly challenging.
“I’m the defense attorney on the Toland murder case,” I said. “I just wanted to see the boat again.”
“We get lots of sightseers,” he said.
“Matthew Hope,” I said, and extended my hand.
“Henry Karp,” he said.
We shook hands.
A cloud scudded past the moon, darkening the dockside area. It passed in an instant. We stood looking out over the water. A Florida night. Silver wavelets dancing in the moonlight. Boat sounds all around us. Insects in the tall grass. September sounds.
“Almost didn’t see you,” Karp said. “The black.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Quiet night, ain’t it?”
“Very.”
“Almost always like this. I don’t mind it. Quiet like now, you can hear the sounds. I like nighttime sounds.”
“So do I.”
“You think she done it?”
“No,” I said.
“Me, neither,” he said. “Did they ever find The Shadow?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The man I told them about.”
“What man?”
“The one I saw going aboard the boat here. I told them all about it.”
“Told who?”
“The detectives from the State Attorney’s Office.”
There is nothing that compels a state attorney to follow a lead that will not support his version of events and take his case where he does not wish it to go. On the other hand, it is his constitutional obligation to disclose any evidence that might support the innocence of the accused. If what Henry Karp was telling me was true, I could very well argue during trial that the police had been sitting on exculpatory evidence that was not turned over to me during disclosure and that this, Your Honor, warranted immediate dismissal of the case. The judge would undoubtedly give a variation of the “Now, now, counselor” speech, advising me that he would admonish the prosecutor for his oversight, and if I needed further time to find a witness, he would give me, oh, “What would you say is fair, Mr. Hope? Two weeks? Three weeks? Would that be a sufficient amount of time?”
I would not, of course, argue for dismissal unless I had already attempted, and failed, to find the man Henry Karp was now describing to me, in which case an additional two or three weeks would be redundant. I intended to put Guthrie Lamb on this immediately, or at least as soon as Karp finished his description, which was turning out to be sketchy at best.
What he saw was a man who looked like the pulp magazine hero called The Shadow, wearing black trousers and a black cape and a black slouch hat pulled down over his eyes, moving out of the shadows and onto the Toland boat.
“That’s why I call him The Shadow,” Karp said. “Cause he looked like The Shadow and he came out of the shadows.”
“From where?”
“The parking lot. Moved across the lot and went straight to the boat. Cape flying behind him. Hat pulled low.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No, I was down the other end of the lot. He went up the gangway, was out of sight by the time I came abreast of the boat.”
“What time was this?”
“Around a quarter past eleven. I’m supposed to relieve at eleven-thirty, but I got there a little early that night.”
A quarter past eleven. Twenty-five minutes before the Bannermans heard shots coming from the Toland boat.
“Before you spotted him, did you happen to see a car pulling into the parking lot?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you hear a car door opening and closing?”
“No.”
“You just saw this man...”
“The Shadow.”
“On foot, coming across the parking lot...”
“And going on the boat, yes.”
“Did you see him leaving the boat at any time?”
“No, I didn’t. I move all over the grounds, you see. I don’t cover just the marina. I have regular rounds I make all around the club.”
“Were you still in the parking lot at eleven-forty?”
“No, I wasn’t. I was back behind the main clubhouse by then.”
“Did you hear any shots coming from the marina?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you say you told all this to some detectives from the State Attorney’s Office?”
“Yes, I did.”
“When was this? When they talked to you?”
“Day after the murder. I figured I was giving them a good lead, you know? Seeing a man go aboard the boat.”
“Did they think so?”
“They said they’d look into it.”
“Ever get back to you?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t happen to remember their names, would you?”
“No, I’m sorry. But one of them had a knife scar on his right cheek.”
The lights were on in Lainie’s studio when I got there at ten minutes to one that morning. I had called ahead from the car phone, and I knew she was expecting me, and so I was surprised to find her in a robe and slippers. She told me she’d been getting ready for bed when I called, and apologized for looking so “casual.” We went into the main section of the house, where she turned on a living room lamp, offered me a drink, which I declined, and then poured herself a glass of white wine. I sat on a sofa upholstered in a nubby white fabric. She sat opposite me in a matching armchair. When she crossed her legs, the lacy hem of a short blue nightgown showed momentarily.
“Lainie,” I said, “when you left the parking lot at ten-thirty that night...”
“Or thereabouts,” she said.
“You saw a car parked just outside the entrance pillars, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t see anyone in the car.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t see anyone walking around in the parking lot?”
“Positive. Well, just the people coming out of the restaurant.”
“Yes, but aside from them.”
“No one.”
“No one lurking in the shadows? Someone who might have been watching the boat? Waiting for you to leave?”
“I wish I could tell you I had.”
“Someone who looked like The Shadow?”
“Who’s The Shadow?”
“A magazine character. And radio. And a bad movie.”