Choke (21 page)

“Which conversation is that?”

“The one where you told her that we didn’t have enough physical evidence to arrest Chandler.”

“Oh, that one.”

“Yeah, that one. Why didn’t you bring it up?”

“Daryl, do you ever get the feeling that the chief has a limited capacity to digest information?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“Well, I got the distinct feeling that he was full up to the gills with theories and that he couldn’t absorb another one without exploding.”

“You could have a point,” Daryl said.

The two detectives sat on the dock next to
Choke,
waiting.

“What time do you think he’ll be home?” Daryl asked.

“Soon. I don’t want to embarrass him at the tennis club; it wouldn’t do his prospects of staying employed much good.”

“Yeah,” Daryl replied, nodding. “I guess that’s so.”

The yellow Porsche Speedster pulled into the parking lot, and Chuck Chandler got out of the car, locked it, and walked toward the boat.

Daryl reached into his pocket for the warrant.

“Put that away,” Tommy said.

“Tommy, you remember what the chief said?”

“Yeah, I remember. I just want to give Chuck the opportunity. It’ll look better in court for him.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Evening, gentlemen,” Chuck said.

“Evening, Chuck,” Tommy replied. “I need to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Would you have any objection to our searching your boat, your car, and your locker at the tennis club?”

“For what?”

“For evidence.”

Chuck thought for a minute. “Maybe I should ask my lawyer about that.”

“That’s your right, pal, but it’s not what I would do in your shoes.”

“Oh, what the hell, all right; I don’t have anything to hide.”

“Let’s go to it, then. If you’ll unlock the boat and stay on the afterdeck, we’ll make this as quick as possible.”

Chuck unlocked the hatch and sat down in a deck chair. “Go to it.”

The two detectives started in the forepeak of the boat and worked aft. They had only been at it for a few minutes when Daryl opened a locker and pulled out a twelve-gauge shotgun with a short barrel.

“Looks like a police weapon,” Tommy asked. He took the shotgun and went back to the afterdeck. “What’s this for, Chuck?”

“Pirates.”

“Come on.”

“I kid you not: pirates. There are people around who’ll come aboard your boat, kill you, and take everything you own. Most of the boat owners carry something. That one’s legal; it’s an eighteen-and-a-quarter-inch barrel.”

Tommy handed the weapon to Daryl. “Put it back, and let’s get to work.”

They began again, paying particular attention to the engine room and the bilges. When they’d finished they’d found nothing in the least suspicious. They went back on deck.

“You got a key to the tennis club?” Tommy asked Chuck.

“Yep.”

“Let’s take a drive over there.”

“Right.”

Chuck let them inside the clubhouse and opened his locker for them. “I’m afraid it’s mostly dirty laundry,” he said. “The hotel does it for us once a week.”

“That’s what’s here,” Daryl said.

“Okay,” Tommy agreed. “Let’s take a look at the car.”

They walked back to the parking lot to where the Porsche was parked under a lamp. Chuck unlocked both doors, and the detectives went to work. They found nothing inside the car or in the engine bay at the rear.

“Want to open the trunk for us, Chuck?” Tommy asked.

“Sure.” Chuck walked to the front of the rear-engine car and started looking for the right key, then stopped. “That’s funny,” he said.

“What’s funny?”

“It’s not locked, and I
always
keep it locked. The day I arrived in Key West some vandal broke off the antenna, so I haven’t been taking any chances on getting my spare stolen.”

“Let’s have a look,” Tommy said.

Chuck opened the trunk and stepped back.

Tommy and Daryl went to work.

“This is a pretty elaborate tool kit to have in a car, isn’t it?” Daryl asked, handing it to Chuck.

“When you drive a restored car, you have to be ready for anything. I wouldn’t trust it to just any mechanic; I’d rather fix it myself if it breaks.”

“Uh-oh,” Tommy said.

“What?” Daryl responded.

Tommy took a Kleenex from his pocket, reached under the spare tire, and came back with a piece of clear plastic hose around eighteen inches long.

“I’ve never seen that before in my life,” Chuck said.

“When was the last time you went into the trunk?” Tommy asked.

“I don’t know, a few days ago, maybe a week.”

Tommy held the hose up to the light and looked at it carefully. “Let’s all go down to the station house,” he said. “Chuck, you can follow us.”

“All right,” Chuck said.

It was quiet in the squad room when the three men walked in. “Daryl, you want to get a fingerprint kit?” he said.

“Sure, Tommy.” He came back a moment later with a briefcase.

“Dust it for me, will you? I don’t think you’re going to find anything, but dust it anyway.”

Daryl did as he was told. A couple of minutes later he said, “Nothing.”

“Nothing, right,” Tommy said. He handed Daryl a key. “Open our evidence locker and bring me the piece of tubing the Coast Guard found on the Carras boat.”

Daryl returned after a moment with the hose, still in a plastic bag.

Tommy wiped the fingerprint powder from the tubing found in Chuck’s car and laid the two pieces on his desk end to end. “Look what we got here,” he said. He pushed the two hoses together. “The original piece was cut in two, and the edges are jagged. They fit together perfectly.”

“Tommy,” Chuck said, “I swear to God, that hose is not mine. I don’t even have any on the boat right now.”

“Have a seat, Chuck,” Tommy said.

Chuck sat down. He looked frightened.

“You see how bad this looks,” Tommy said.

Chuck nodded. “The hose isn’t mine; I never saw it before.”

Tommy held up the two pieces. “Chuck, I’m telling you the truth, now; this could get you the death penalty if you’re not telling me the truth.”

“I swear to you, Tommy.”

“Chuck, this is the last chance you’re going to have to tell me anything you might have forgotten, anything you might have fudged on. The very last chance. Do you understand me?”

“I understand, Tommy, but I haven’t told you any lies.”

“You lied about the affair with Clare Carras.”

“Except that. I guess I thought I was protecting her.”

Tommy nodded. “Last chance, Chuck; I can ignore anything you might have been wrong on so far, but now I’ve got to have the truth.”

“You’ve already got the truth, Tommy.”

“I hope you’re right, Chuck,” Tommy said.

C
huck sat in the saloon of
Choke
and tried to figure out what was happening. He went to the little bar and poured himself a stiff bourbon, then sat down again and tossed back the drink. When his hands had stopped trembling he picked up the phone and dialed the number written on the card.

“Hello?” the lawyer said.

“It’s Chuck Chandler. You said I could call you at home.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“Tell me what’s happened, and I’ll see if I can help you understand it.”

Chuck told him about the search, about the matching length of hose found in his car.

“And it matched the piece from Carras’s boat?”

“Yes, exactly. I watched him put the two together. They fit.”

“Why didn’t Sculley arrest you?”

“That’s what I don’t understand. I asked Tommy, but he didn’t say anything. He just told me to go home and not to leave town.”

“That’s good advice, the part about not leaving town,” the lawyer said. “I think Sculley believes you, and that’s why you weren’t arrested. I think that’s a very encouraging sign.”

“You really think so?”

“I can’t think of any other reason why you’re not in jail right now,” the lawyer said. “They’ve got motive, opportunity, and physical evidence. That could put you away, unless they have some other evidence that’s exculpatory. Are you aware of any evidence like that?”

“No,” Chuck replied.

“Then Sculley must believe you instead of Mrs. Carras. I just hope Sculley’s boss believes him.”

“Me, too.”

“You ever hear anything from that girlfriend of yours? What’s her name? …”

“Meg. No, I haven’t heard from her.”

“It sure wouldn’t hurt to have her back here telling what passed between you before you went out on the Carras boat.”

“I’ve no idea where she is; she’s been gone long enough to be almost anywhere by now.”

“Well, let’s hope she turns up soon. Chuck, you have a drink and get some rest. We’ll just handle this as it comes, okay?”

“Okay, and thanks.” Chuck hung up the phone and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He sat for a while, sipping his drink, staring into space, then he had an idea. He picked up the phone and dialed Billy Tubbs’s number.

“Hello?” his star student said.

“Hi, Billy, it’s Chuck; can I speak to your dad?”

“Sure, hang on.”

Chuck drummed his fingers on the saloon table, not wanting to do this, but unable to think of anything else.

“Hi, Chuck, it’s Norman Tubbs.”

“Norman, I wonder if I can ask a very large favor of you?”

“Chuck, after Billy’s performance in the Naples tournament, you can ask just about anything of me.”

Chuck took a deep breath and asked.

The following morning Chuck and Norman Tubbs sat in the Tubbs airplane at the end of the runway and waited for a clearance from the tower to take off.

“Where you want to go?” Norman asked.

“I want to fly, as low as you legally can, up one side of the Keys and down the other. I want to look at every anchorage between here and Key Largo.”

“You got it, Chuck,” Norman said.

“Nine, two, three, five, Delta, cleared for takeoff,” the tower controller said. “Say direction of flight.”

“Three, five, Delta,” Norman responded, “I’ll be doing some low-level sightseeing, once we’re past the naval air base.”

“Roger,” the tower said.

Norman pushed the throttles forward, and the little twin Cessna roared down the runway. He switched frequencies to ask the naval air station for clearance to cross their air space, and when he had, he pulled back on the throttle and descended to five hundred feet, then he put ten degrees of flaps in and dropped the landing gear. “That’ll get some drag out, keep us slow,” he said. “I don’t think we should get any lower than five hundred feet, unless there’s something specific you want to look at. What are we looking for, anyway?”

“A catamaran of about fifty feet, yellow hull, sloop rigged.”

“At anchor?”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“This have anything to do with a girl?”

“Of course it does, Norman.”

They started up the east side of the Keys, and each time they came to an anchorage they circled, looking for the catamaran. It took them nearly two hours to reach Key Largo, and, after circling the marina there, they headed down the western side of the island chain. It went faster, now, because there were fewer boats on the western side, because the water was shallower, which wouldn’t matter much to a shallow-draft yacht such as a multihull.

They were nearly back to the naval air station on Boca Chica, having had no luck, when Chuck pointed east. “There, in the distance.”

“Way over yonder, under sail?”

“Can we take a look at her?”

Norman banked the airplane into a steep left turn and after he cleared the eastern shore, started a descent. “I’ll get you down good and low,” he said. A minute later he said, “There, we’re at about fifty feet. That do?”

“That’ll do fine,” Chuck said, keeping his eyes glued to the yacht. “Can you go any slower?”

“I’ll bring her back to ninety knots; that’s the best I can do without risking a stall, and I don’t want that at this altitude.”

The airplane’s flight became mushy, now, and Norman seemed to be making very large movements with the yoke to keep the airplane steady on course.

“Go astern of her,” Chuck said.

Norman made a correction.

Chuck watched as they neared the yacht. Her color was yellow, and she was sloop-rigged. In a moment he was sure it was the Haileys’ catamaran. “That’s the boat, Norman! Can you circle her?”

“Sure, but I’m going to put the gear up and gain some speed; I don’t want to dump us into the drink.” Norman banked the airplane to the right, and Chuck strained to see who was at the wheel. There was no one.

“She’s under self-steering,” Chuck said. “Can you make a low pass right over her cockpit? Let’s see if we can scare up somebody.”

Norman did as he was asked, and as they passed over the yacht, a woman’s head popped up through the hatch.

“There she is! It’s Meg!” Chuck shouted.

“Looks like she’s headed toward Little Palm Island,” Norman said. He maneuvered the airplane astern of the yacht and checked his heading. “Yeah, she’ll make it on this tack. There are always a few boats anchored inside Little Palm.”

Chuck winced as he remembered his night on Little Palm with Clare. He would never feel the same about the place again. “Okay, that’s it,” he said to Norman. “We can go home now.”

“Home it is,” Norman said. He switched to the Boca Chica frequency and announced his intentions.

Back on the ground, Chuck ran for a pay phone and called the club.

“Olde Island Racquet Club,” Merk’s voice said.

“Merk, it’s Chuck. I know I was supposed to be there in ten minutes, but something important’s come up. Can Victor take my lessons this morning—maybe this afternoon, too?”

“I’ll check,” Merk said, and there was the sound of rustling pages. “I’ll have to cancel at least two,” Merk said.

“Can you put somebody on the ball machine instead of a lesson?”

“Okay, I can put one of them on the machine. Maybe I’ll take the other one myself.”

“You’re a good guy, Merk; I’ll make it up to you.” Chuck hung up the phone and ran for his car.

He was nearly to the bridge to Stock Island and U.S. 1 before he remembered he’d been told not to leave town.