“Where was she?”

  “In the closet.”

  “What was she doing in the closet?”

  “I didn’t see her at first. I was looking.”

  “But you didn’t see her.”

  “Not at first.”

  “And when you did see her…?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened after you saw her?”

  “I…stabbed her.”

  “How many times did you stab her?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Were you angry?”

  “Sad.”

  “Why were you sad?”

  “She was dead.”

  “You were sad that you’d killed her?”

  “It was true.”

  “What was true?”

  “She was dead.”

  “Had you thought it wasn’t true?”

  “I was wishing…I kept wishing it was a mistake.”

  “I don’t understand. You kept wishing what was a mistake?”

  “That she was dead.”

  “When did you realize it wasn’t a mistake?”

  “Well, I saw her…she…when I saw her on the floor…with…the gown all torn…all slashed…and…her…her throat cut, I…I knew she was dead, I knew it was true, and I…I took her in my arms. I held her, I rocked her…”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I was crying.”

  “Was this after you realized she was dead?”

  “Yes, after I realized.”

  “Is that how you got the blood on your clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you held your stepmother in your arms?”

  “Yes. And my sister Emily. I held Emily in my arms, too.”

  “Did you also embrace Eve?”

  “No, Eve was…under the covers. I…just Emily. I just held Emily.”

  “When was this?”

  “I…I lifted her…she was on the floor inside the door.”

  “Are we talking about Emily now?”

  “Yes, Emily.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “A short nightgown and…panties.”

  “What color was the nightgown?”

  “A pale blue.”

  “Did it have sleeves?”

  “No.”

  “What color were the panties?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was Eve wearing?”

  “I don’t know. She was under the covers.”

  “But Emily wasn’t in bed?”

  “No.”

  “When did you go into the girls’ room?”

  “Afterward.”

  “After what?”

  “After Maureen.”

  “Why did you go into the girls’ room?”

  “Maureen was dead, I wanted to…”

  “Yes?”

  “I went in to see the girls.”

  “Were you still carrying the knife?”

  “What?”

  “The knife. Was it—”

  “Yes.”

  “Still in your hand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You still had the knife in your hand.”

  “Yes, I…still had it.”

  “So you went into the girls’ room with the knife in your hand.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I stabbed the girls, too.”

  “Which of the girls did you stab first?”

  “Emily. She was just inside the door.”

  “She was out of bed, and was standing just inside the door, is that it?”

  “She was…yes. Yes, that’s it.”

  “Did you say anything to her?”

  “No.”

  “How many times did you stab her?”

  “A lot. It had to be a lot.”

  “Did she scream?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went to the bed where Eve was. Against the wall. And I…ah…I stabbed her, too.”

  “Through the covers?”

  “Through the covers.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I left the house.”

  “You said you embraced your sister—”

  “What?”

  “Emily. You said you embraced—”

  “Yes, that must have…that was…I guess after I stabbed Eve, I…on the way out of the room, I…Emily was on the floor just inside the door, I…held her, too, I…knelt down beside her and just…held her in my arms, and I suppose I was crying, I suppose I was still crying. Because it was all so goddamn sad, it was all so sad.”

  “What did you do then? After you embraced Emily.”

  “I put her gently…I lowered her gently to the…the floor again, and I left the house.”

  “Through the front door?”

  “No.”

  “You did not leave the way you came in?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I had blood on my clothes.”

  “How did you leave?”

  “Through the door at the side of the house. I locked it behind me.”

  “How?”

  “I twisted the button on the doorknob.”

  “All right, you went out through the side door and then where did you go? Can you describe your route?”

  “I began walking west toward the beach.”

  “Were you still carrying the knife?”

  “I…don’t remember.”

  “Where is that knife, can you tell me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what happened to the knife?”

  “No.”

  “Did you leave it in the house?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Or throw it away someplace on the grounds?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Did you walk toward the bayou when you came out of the house?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t go anywhere near the bayou?”

  “No.”

  “So you couldn’t have thrown the knife in the water there at the back of the house.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “But you do remember that you didn’t go toward the bayou?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You left the house—”

  “Yes. And came around the side of it, and began walking west on Jacaranda, toward the beach.”

  “Did you still have the knife in your hand?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “There’s this property that belongs…it’s an access road to the beach, it belongs to the people who live in the development, a private access road. There’s a chain across the entrance to it, I climbed over the chain, and walked down through the pine forest—”

  “Still carrying the knife?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Go on.”

  “I came out on the beach, the access road leads directly to the beach…”

  “Yes?”

  “And I walked on the beach for a while.”

  “Still carrying the knife?”

  “Let me think.”

  “Take your time.”

  “I must have thrown it in the water.”

  “In the Gulf?”

  “Yes. While I was walking along, I threw it in the Gulf.”

  “Then what?”

  “I sat down and began crying. In a little while, I got up and walked back toward the pine forest. There’s a small gazebo just off the beach—the association had it built, there’s a table there and benches on either side of it. I climbed up on the table and stretched out with my hands behind my head. I was planning to sleep there, I guess. I hadn’t figured things out yet. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

  “About what, do you mean?”

  “About…Maureen being dead. And the girls. I didn’t know whether to…to go to the police and tell them I’d done it, or…just see what happened. I didn’t want to go to the police, I was afraid they’d beat me up or…”

  “But no one here has abused you physically or—”

  “No, no.”

  “Mentally.”

  “No, everyone’s been…it’s just that you hear stories about the police. And this was…I thought they might have…you know…thought I’d…you know…done something to…Maureen.”

  “What do you mean by ‘done something’?”

  “Well, you know.”

  “Could you explain what you mean?”

  “You know.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You know, her being in a nightgown and all.”

  “Yes, what about that?”

  “The police might have got the idea I’d done something to her. Like, you know, molested her or something.”

  “Did you molest her?”

  “No, sir. No, I didn’t.”

  “You held her in your arms, though. You embraced her.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t…you know…I didn’t do…I didn’t do what the police might think I’d done if I…if I went to them and told them…told them…what I’d done.”

  “You embraced Emily, too, isn’t that so?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t…”

  “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “Didn’t do anything to her.”

  “But you were afraid the police would think you’d done something to her.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Something sexual?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, sir, I did not.”

  “Not to Emily or to Maureen.”

  “She was…you know…the nightgown was all torn.”

  “Maureen’s nightgown.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t do anything to her, I swear to God.”

  “And the reason you didn’t go to the police at first—”

  “They might think I’d done something.”

  “You were afraid they’d think you had sexually abused her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maureen.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that they’d beat you up if they found out.”

  “If they found out, yes. If they thought I’d done it, do you understand?”

  “Mr. Purchase, why did you kill Maureen?”

  “I don’t know why.”

  “Why did you kill Emily?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or Eve?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Mr. Purchase, I’m going to turn off the tape recorder now, and have this interview typed up in transcript form for you to read before you sign it. At that time, if you want to change anything or add anything to it, you can do so. In the meantime, before I turn off the machine, is there anything you’d like to add to your statement?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then that’s everything,” Ehrenberg said.

  8

  * * *

  JAMIE AND I got back to my office at a little before one-thirty. I was ravenously hungry, but I didn’t want to have lunch with him, and so I said nothing about it. His personal tragedy had lurched into the realm of genuine horror. I was numb and wanted no more of him or his son for a little while at least. I got out of the Ghia, and walked to where he was parking his car. Immediately, he began talking about Michael. Listening, I had the same feeling I’d had in that two A.M. bar last night—that he was talking to himself, soliciting my nods or my grunts only as punctuation to what was essentially a monologue.

  “I thought he was over it by now,” he said. “He was at the house only last Tuesday, he and Maureen sat at the kitchen table half the night, just talking. A real heart-to-heart talk. About my having stopped the alimony payments, about his going back to school—they’d have gone on forever if I hadn’t told them I was going to bed, I had a busy day tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow would have been Wednesday. And Jamie would most certainly have had a busy day in the cottage at the beach. On Tuesday night, nonetheless, his son Michael sat at the kitchen table and had a long heart-to-heart talk with Maureen. This did not sound like someone who five days later would sit at that same table and abruptly reach for a knife.

  “He was the one it hit hardest, you know,” Jamie said. “He was only ten when I left his mother, it took me a full year and a half to reach an agreement with her, she made things miserable for all of us.” He opened the door, climbed in behind the wheel. “But you know,” he said, “I really thought he was over it. Came down here to live in September, started at U.S.F….well, all right, he dropped out again in January, but I honestly think he was planning to start again in the fall. I honestly think he was beginning to…respect me again. Love me again.”

  Jamie shook his head. He was not looking at me. His hands were on the steering wheel, he was staring through the windshield at the bright white wall that surrounded the office complex.

  “Then this afternoon, alone in the office with him, I said, ‘Michael, why’d you do this? Michael, for the love of God, why’d you do this?’ And he looked at me, and he said, ‘It’s your fault, Pop, you caused it,’ and that was when I called him a son of a bitch, a little son of a bitch, and grabbed him by the throat. Because he was…he was right back where we’d been, don’t you see? He was ten years old again, and blaming me again, only this time he was blaming me for the terrible thing he himself had done—it was my fault, he told me, I was the one who’d caused it. Matt, I…wanted to kill him. I was ready to kill him. If Ehrenberg hadn’t come in…I’d have done it. God forgive me, I’d have done it.”

  The moment I stepped into the office, Cynthia said, “Galatier was here.”

  “I thought I asked you to cancel.”

  “I did. He came anyway.”

  “All right, get him for me. No, just a second, order me a sandwich and a bottle of beer first. Then call Galatier.”

  “What kind of sandwich?”

  “Ham on rye, I don’t care, anything.”

  “There’s a list of calls on your desk.”

  “Fine, where’s Frank?”

  “At First Federal. The Kellerman closing.”

  “Hurry with the sandwich, I’m dying.”

  I went into my office, took off my jacket, and loosened my tie. There had been a dozen calls while I was gone, only one of them urgent. I assumed Frank had dealt with that one, since it had to do with the closing at First Federal. The bank had called to say that the interest rate had just been reduced by a quarter of a percent, and they were willing to permit the lower rate if we could change the papers before closing. The call had been clocked in at twelve-thirty, and the closing had been set for one-thirty. I picked up the phone and buzzed Cynthia.

  “I ordered it already,” she said. “They were all out of rye, I settled for white.”

  “Good. Cynthia, on this call from First Federal about the interest rate…”

  “Frank dictated the changes, and I typed them for him before he left. Promissory note, mortgage, and closing statement. That was nice of the bank, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. When the sandwich arrives—”

  “I’ll bring it right in.”

  “Who saw Galatier when he was here?”

  “Karl offered to talk to him, but he refused. Said he wouldn’t deal with an office boy.”

  “All right, get him for me, please.”

  Cynthia came in ten minutes later with my ham sandwich and beer. Eating the sandwich, sipping beer from the bottle, I gave her a list of calls I wanted her to make, starting with Mrs. Joan Raal to tell her we’d be free of the lunatic Galatier come morning, and ending with Luis Camargo who was buying an apartment building we’d had examined for him by an engineer. The engineer had called while I was out, to say he’d found both the boiler and the electrical system deficient. I wanted Cynthia to ask Luis whether he still wanted to buy, or would he insist that the seller repair at his own expense.

  “Is that it?” Cynthia asked.

  “Yes. I’ll be leaving here in a few minutes. I may be back later, but I’m not sure.”

  “Where can we reach you?”

  “You won’t be able to,” I said. “I’ll be on a boat.”

  Afternoon sunlight slanted on the water, reflected glaringly from white-painted pilings and slips. A pelican preened itself on one of the pilings, and then squinched down into the shape of a saucer. I came around the back of the restaurant, and walked past the row of docked boats jutting out into the lagoon. The Broadhorn was the fourth in line, her stern in against the dock, her name lettered on the transom in gold. I estimated her to be a forty-five-footer, maybe fifteen years old, a solid offshore cruiser with a blue wooden hull and white superstructure. I walked halfway up the slip, stopped just short of the wheelhouse and tentatively called, “Miss Schellmann?”

  “Who is it?” a girl’s voice answered.

  “Matthew Hope,” I said. Silence. Water slapped against the boat’s sides. “I’d like to talk to you about Michael Purchase.” More silence. Out across the lagoon, in the mangroves, a tern shrieked and another answered, and then both were still. I could see down the dock to where a man in bright red pants was fishing, a bait knife hanging from his belt. I thought of the knife that had killed Maureen and the two children, the knife Michael later threw into the Gulf of Mexico. I waited.

  “Who’s Matthew Hope?” the girl said.

  “Dr. Purchase’s attorney.”

  Another silence.

  “Come aboard,” she said at last. “I’m on the foredeck.”

  I climbed onto the boat and eased down the narrow passage past the wheelhouse. Lisa Schellmann was lying prone on an inflated blue mat, her face turned to the left, her eyes closed. I saw her only in profile, slender nose faintly tip-tilted, wide upper lip beaded with perspiration, pronounced cheekbone slanting away cleanly into her blonde hairline. She was wearing a white bra top, the straps untied to show a wide expanse of brown back glistening with suntan oil. The swift line of her jaw curved into a flowing neck and shoulder, expanded into the smooth shining back, tapered to a narrow waist. Blue denim cutoffs began just in time to rescue the cleft of her behind.

  “Miss Schellmann?” I said.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. Her eyes were still closed, her face still in profile on the blue mat. “Dr. Purchase wants the boat back, right?”

  “No. Michael’s in trouble.”

  The single eye opened. Pale blue against the deeper blue of the mat. “What do you mean, trouble?” she said.