“That’s—”

  “But then you killed her.”

  He did not answer.

  “Michael?”

  He still did not answer.

  “Michael, who called you on Sunday night?”

  “Maureen. I told you it was Maureen.”

  “Michael, I don’t think Maureen called you. I think Maureen was dead when you got there.”

  He shook his head.

  “Who killed her, Michael? Do you know who killed her?”

  At the far end of the corridor, there was the sound of the door clanging open, and then hurried footsteps. I turned at once. Ehrenberg was approaching the cell.

  “You’d better come upstairs,” he said. “We’ve got another confession in this damn case.”

  14

  * * *

  “SHE CAME in five minutes ago,” Ehrenberg said, “told the girl downstairs she wanted to talk to whoever was in charge of the Purchase murder case. Girl sent her right up. I introduced myself, and the first thing she said was, ‘I killed them.’ She started filling me in, and I stopped her cold, put in a call to the captain. He told me to call the State’s Attorney’s office, we want them here doing the interview. We can’t afford any foul-ups on this. If we have two confessions kicking around, we may end up with nobody getting blamed for the crime. I’ll tell you, I never did buy that boy’s story all the way, too many loose ends that kept unraveling.”

  We had come down the corridor and into the reception area. The orange letter-elevator still dominated the room, the girl was still behind her desk typing. Ehrenberg asked her if the captain had arrived yet, and she told him he hadn’t.

  “She’s in there waiting to talk to you,” he said, and indicated the door to the captain’s office.

  She was sitting in the same chair Michael had sat in yesterday morning. She was wearing a dark blue linen suit and blue patent leather pumps. Her blonde hair was pulled into a severe bun at the back of her head. She looked up as I came into the room.

  “I wanted you here when I exonerated my brother,” she said. “Detective Ehrenberg told me you were right downstairs.”

  “Yes. Talking to Michael, in fact.”

  “How is he?” Her eyes searched my face—her father’s eyes, Jamie’s eyes.

  “He seems all right,” I said. “Miss Purchase, you told Detective Ehrenberg you killed Maureen and her daughters. Is that—”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “Because if it isn’t, you won’t be doing Michael a damn bit of good by confessing to a crime you didn’t commit.”

  “Mr. Hope, I killed them,” she said. The pale blue eyes fastened on mine. “Believe me, I killed them.”

  By eleven-fifteen, they had all gathered and were ready to discuss it. They were experts, all of them, and they knew that the progress of an interview, as they insisted on calling it, could be seriously impeded by the presence of too many “authority figures,” as the man from the State’s Attorney’s office labeled us. I was one of the authority figures; Karin Purchase had stated plainly that she would not make a statement unless her brother’s attorney were there to hear every word. The captain in charge of the Detective Bureau wisely offered to stay out of the questioning session, offering the opinion that Miss Purchase now knew Ehrenberg was the man in charge of the investigation, and might feel more comfortable in his presence.

  The man from the State’s Attorney’s office was a stout and perspiring gentleman named Roger Bensell. He was wearing a winter-weight brown pin-striped suit, with a yellow shirt and a maroon tie. His shoes were brown, with perforated pointed tips that made him look like a fat ballroom dancer. He kept mopping his brow and telling the captain that this was an important case. I had no doubt that both the captain and Ehrenberg were well aware of this; the very fact that the State’s Attorney was here seemed to prove that contention. It was decided that Ehrenberg and I would both be in attendance while Bensell conducted the interview. The captain informed Karin of this, and she was entirely agreeable.

  He further suggested that since the rooms customarily used for interviewing were somewhat smaller than might allow for the comfort of four people, Karin might prefer being interviewed there in his own office. Karin accepted his offer. The captain introduced her to Mr. Bensell of the State’s Attorney’s office, and left the room. Mr. Bensell asked if she was ready to begin. She said she was. He pushed the RECORD button on the tape recorder and, just as Ehrenberg had done yesterday, told the microphone what day it was, and what time—eleven-twenty A.M.—and where we were, and who was present. He then laboriously read her rights to her, and Karin acknowledged that she understood each and every one of them, and said that the only attorney she wished present during the interview was Mr. Matthew Hope.

  Bensell then began the question-and-answer session.

  Q: What is your name, please?

  A: Karin Purchase.

  Q: Can you tell me where you live, Miss Purchase?

  A: In New York City.

  Q: Where in New York?

  A: Central Park West. 322 Central Park West.

  Q: Do you have an address here in Calusa?

  A: Right now, I’m staying at the Calusa Bay Hotel.

  Q: By right now…

  A: I moved there last night. When I first arrived in Calusa, I checked into a motel near the airport.

  Q: When was that?

  A: Sunday night.

  Q: By Sunday night, do you mean Sunday, February twenty-ninth?

  A: Yes. I know what Mr. Hope is thinking. He’s thinking I told him I’d arrived in Calusa only last night. But I was lying to him. I got here on Sunday.

  Q: What time Sunday?

  A: I took a flight from Newark at five-forty-five, I arrived in Calusa at a little past ten. I called my mother from the airport, I was planning to stay with her, but she was out. So I rented a car and looked for a motel.

  Q: Why did you come to Calusa, Miss Purchase?

  A: To talk to my mother.

  Q: About what?

  A: About the alimony payments. My father stopped the alimony payments. When I spoke to her on the phone Saturday, she was very upset. I decided to come down and talk to her personally. To try to comfort her. To figure out what we should do next. But she wasn’t home.

  Q: So you checked into a motel instead.

  A: Yes.

  Q: Can you tell me the name of the motel?

  A: Twin Ridges? Something like that. I don’t remember.

  Q: What time did you check in?

  A: It must’ve been close to ten-thirty.

  Q: What did you do then?

  A: I tried to reach my mother again. She was still out.

  Q: Yes, go on.

  A: I watched television for a little while. Then I tried her again, and there was still no answer. I was very eager to talk to her. It was my idea to confront my father. To go there together with my mother and demand…you see, my brother had already told her he wouldn’t help. I was the only one who could help her. But she wasn’t home.

  Q: This was what time, Miss Purchase?

  A: I’m not sure. A quarter to eleven, I would guess.

  Q: What did you do then? When you couldn’t get your mother on the telephone.

  A: I decided I’d go see my father alone. Without her. I knew just what I wanted to tell him, I didn’t need her with me.

  Q: What did you want to tell him?

  A: What do you think? That he had to pay the alimony. It was hers. They’d agreed to it. She deserved it.

  Q: Did you, in fact, go to see your father?

  A: Yes.

  Q: You went to your father’s house on Jacaranda Drive?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Did you go there unannounced?

  A: Yes. I didn’t want to call him because this was something that couldn’t be discussed on the telephone.

  Q: What time did you get to the house on Jacaranda Drive?

  A: Eleven-fifteen or so. I got lost. I don’t know Calusa too well.

  Q: What did you do when you got there?

  A: I parked the car in the driveway, and went to the front door, and rang the bell. There were lights on, I knew they were still up.

  Q: They?

  A: My father and Goldi—my father and his present wife.

  Q: Maureen Purchase?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Were they both in fact there?

  A: No. Only Maureen. She was the one who answered the door. She didn’t recognize me at first. I had to tell her who I was.

  Q: What happened after you identified yourself?

  A: She asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted to talk to my father, and she told me he wasn’t there.

  Q: Then what?

  A: I asked her if I could come in. To see for myself that he wasn’t there. She said she was just about to go to bed, and I’d have to take her word for it. So I…she was starting to close the door. I shoved it open and went inside. She told me to get out, she tried to grab my arm, but I pushed her away and walked into the living room. My father wasn’t there, I looked in the bedroom, I looked in the kitchen, he wasn’t there. I was coming out of the kitchen when I heard her dialing the phone. I guess she was calling the police. Calling the police to evict me from my own…my own father’s house….There was a knife in the sink, I picked it up, I guess I had the idea of cutting the telephone cord. The phone was on a drop-leaf desk against the wall, she was sitting in a chair at the desk. She’d just finished dialing, she hadn’t yet said anything into the phone. She saw the knife in my hand and hung up right away, and shoved back the chair. The chair fell over, she sort of tripped on it, she was wearing a long pink nightgown, the skirt got tangled in one of the chair legs.

  Q: Can you describe the nightgown, please?

  A: It was pink nylon, a long flowing gown with a scoop neck and a rosette above the bosom.

  Q: What else was she wearing?

  A: Just the nightgown.

  Q: Any jewelry?

  A: A wedding band.

  Q: Anything else?

  A: Nothing.

  Q: What happened after she hung up the phone?

  A: She began screaming. I told her to shut up, was she crazy? But she kept screaming. I couldn’t stand her screaming like that. I threatened her with the knife—

  Q: How?

  A: I pushed it at her. I made a threatening gesture. To shut her up.

  Q: Then what?

  A: She ran past me, for the bedroom. I was afraid there might be an extension phone in there, so I ran after her. I didn’t want her calling the police and making false charges. She was trying to lock the door when I got to it, but I was stronger than she was, I simply pushed it open and went into the room. She kept backing away from me, she was really frightened by then, I think she thought I was going to hurt her. There was a walk-in closet opposite the door, at the far end of the bedroom. She ran into it and tried to keep me out, holding that door closed, too, but I pushed it open, and went in after her. There were clothes…you should have seen the clothes! He’d stopped sending my mother money, but Goldilocks had a closetful of clothes that must’ve cost a fortune. That’s what infuriated me. The clothes.

  Q: Go on, Miss Purchase.

  A: I stabbed her, that’s all.

  Q: Go on.

  A: She screamed, and I stabbed her again. She got by me somehow, she got into the bedroom again. I went after her, I chased her around the room, cutting her, she was, she kept grabbing for the walls, she got blood all over the walls. Then she ran back into the closet again, and tried to close the door, but I pushed it open, she was bleeding very badly by then. I grabbed her hair and pulled back her head, and cut her throat. She fell to the floor and I just kept stabbing her. And then, yes, I tried to take off her wedding band, but it wouldn’t come off. So I began cutting her finger, to get the wedding band off. It wouldn’t…I couldn’t cut through the bone.

  Q: Why did you try to take off the wedding band?

  A: It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t rightfully hers. It was my…my mother’s. It should have been my mother’s.

  Q: Go on.

  A: I heard something behind me, and I turned, and one of the little girls was standing in the door to the room. She’d heard her mother screaming, I guess, she was standing there in a blue nightgown, a baby-doll nightgown, with matching panties. I got up, I’d been on my knees trying to get the wedding band off. The little girl turned and ran, and I went after her. I didn’t want her…I didn’t want her telling what she’d seen. She’d seen me. I didn’t want her telling. I caught her just inside the door to her room. I stabbed her, and she fell to the floor, and then I stabbed her again to make sure she was dead. I kept stabbing her. The other little girl was still asleep, she’d slept through all the screaming, I couldn’t believe it. I went to her bed and stabbed her through the bedclothes. I forget how many times I stabbed her. Three or four times. Until she was dead.

  Q: Why did you stab the second child? The first child saw you, but the second child…

  A: Sleeping there in my bed.

  Q: Your bed?

  A: So I stabbed her. That was it. I stabbed her. Then…then I went out to the living room, and picked up the chair Goldilocks had knocked over, and sat in it and decided I’d better call my brother for help. But there was blood all over my hands, I didn’t want to get blood on the telephone, it was a white telephone. So I went back into the bedroom, her bedroom, and washed my hands in the bathroom there, and dried them on a towel, a green towel. Then I went out to the living room again. There was a phone book on the desk. Two numbers were listed for Pirate’s Cove, one for the restaurant and the other for the marina. I called the marina number and whoever answered the phone said he would get Michael for me. When Michael came to the phone, I told him I was alone there with Goldilocks and the little girls. I told him they were dead, I told him I’d killed them. He told me to wait there, he’d be right there.

  Q: Did you wait for him?

  A: I waited for ten minutes.

  Q: Then what?

  A: I got frightened. First I thought I heard one of the little girls moaning in the bedroom, and I went in there to make sure they were dead, and they were. But I kept hearing the moaning. So I went in to look at her again—it seemed like the sounds were coming from her bedroom now—but she was lying there on the floor of the closet, dead, staring up at me, her mouth open…it frightened me. Later, when I had a chance to think about it, I decided that…that the sounds were probably some animal outside. But it sounded like moaning. I thought one of them was moaning. So I ran out of the house.

  Q: Weren’t you worried that your brother might later enter the house and be found there by the police?

  A: I didn’t think he’d go in. Why would he go in?

  Q: Because you told him you’d be waiting there.

  A: Yes, but he wouldn’t go in. If he saw my car was gone…if he saw there weren’t any cars in the driveway…well, he’d have to know I didn’t walk there. So he’d know I was gone. He wouldn’t go in. Anyway, it never entered my mind. I figured he’d just come there and see I was gone…it never entered my mind. I was frightened. I didn’t want to stay in that house another moment.

  Q: What time was it when you left?

  A: Twenty to twelve. I looked at the kitchen clock.

  Q: Did you leave by the front door?

  A: No. I was afraid someone might see me. I left by the kitchen door.

  Q: Did you lock the door behind you?

  A: No. How could I lock it?

  Q: There are locks you can just twist…

  A: Yes, that’s right, I had to…I tried the knob, and it wouldn’t turn, so I twisted the little button on the knob, just as you say. But I didn’t lock it again, I simply went out.

  Q: Did you close the door behind you?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Did you wipe off the doorknob?

  A: What?

  Q: The doorknob. Did you wipe it clean?

  A: No.

  Q: Did you wipe off the telephone?

  A: No.

  Q: Or anything in the house?

  A: No, I just…I didn’t think of that. Are you talking about fingerprints?

  Q: Yes.

  A: I didn’t think of that.

  Q: What did you do when you left the house?

  A: I backed the car out of the driveway, and made a wrong turn. I was very frightened, I turned in the wrong direction. Instead of the way I’d come. Through the circle there, whatever it’s called. I wanted to go back to the circle. But I was heading in the opposite direction. I made a U-turn at the end of the block, and got myself straightened out. Then I drove back to the motel.

  Q: What time did you get back there?

  A: At a little past midnight.

  Q: What did you do then?

  A: I took a shower and went to sleep.

  Q: What time did you wake up yesterday?

  A: Around noon. I went for breakfast, and then I went back to the motel to pack. I had a reservation on the four-thirty flight.

  Q: To New York?

  A: Yes.

  Q: You were planning to go back to New York?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Did you try to contact your mother again?

  A: No.

  Q: Or your brother?

  A: No.

  Q: Were you aware that he had confessed to the murders?

  A: Not until later that afternoon. I didn’t call him because I was afraid the police might be there on the boat questioning him, and they’d want to know who was calling him and all that. I thought…I still had no idea anyone had been arrested for what happened. I thought I could go back to New York and that would be the end of it.

  Q: When did you learn he’d confessed?

  A: On the way to the airport I heard it on the car radio.

  Q: What time was that?

  A: It was on the three o’clock news.

  Q: So at three o’clock yesterday, you learned that your brother had confessed to the murders?

  A: Yes.

  Q: What was your reaction?

  A: Well, I knew he was doing it to protect me, but I didn’t think he was in serious trouble because I figured he wouldn’t know what to tell them.