Jack and the Beanstalk (Matthew Hope) (5 page)

“I saw him last Friday at two o’clock.”

“Okay, tell me about it,” Bloom said. “You won’t mind if I make a few notes, will you?”

I told him about it.

Jack McKinney had come into my office sometime in July, recommended by a friend for whom we’d handled a disability claim. McKinney was twenty years old; I’d specifically asked him because he looked much younger, and I wanted to make certain he was legally of age to make a binding contract. In the state of Florida, you’re considered legally capable of making an enforceable contract once you reach the age of eighteen. McKinney showed me his driver’s license to prove that he was indeed twenty, and then he explained that he’d made a handshake deal with a farmer out on Timucuan Point Road to purchase fifteen acres of land midway between Calusa and Ananburg. The farmer’s name was Avery Burrill, and his crop was snapbeans; young Jack McKinney wanted to become a snapbean farmer.

He told me what the purchase price was—forty thousand dollars—and said he wanted to close the deal as soon as possible, before Burrill changed his mind. Because of the boy’s extreme youth, and because I’d never heard of snapbean farming in this part of the state, I called a man named John Porter, the county extension agent, to get his opinion. Porter informed
me that snapbeans were grown mostly on the east coast, in Palm Beach County, and also in South Dade County, in the Homestead area. On the central west coast, here in Calusa, the truck crops were tomatoes, strawberries, escarole, chicory, beets, and some Chinese cabbage—but
not
snapbeans. He then surprised me by asking if this had anything to do with a man named Avery Burrill.

It seemed that Burrill had come to him some three years back, asking pretty much the same questions I was asking now. Burrill’s idea had been to start small, planting his fifteen acres in snapbean bushes, and then selling his product only to local markets. Porter had told him that snapbeans
could
be grown here, but that they did better in organic soil. Moreover, the reason they were grown primarily on the East Coast was that the technology for harvesting and marketing was there, and here in Calusa he’d have no access to machines and his harvesting costs would double because he’d have to hand-harvest.

He’d gone on to break down for Burrill what the actual pre-harvesting costs—feed, fertilizer, spraying and dusting, repairs and maintenance, licenses and insurance, and so on—would be, and these came to something like $450 per acre per year. Added to these would be his harvesting and marketing costs—picking and packing, containers, handling, brokerage fees, and so on—which would come to $228 per acre per year, for a total operating cost of $678 a year. Burrill could expect a yield of eighty-five bushels per acre, and he could expect to realize gross receipts of $804 per acre. When he deducted his operating costs of $678 per acre, this would leave only $126 per acre, from which he would have to subtract return to capital, management fees, interest, and whatnot. In short, a snapbean farm in this part of Florida would be a losing proposition, and Porter had told that to Burrill as clearly and succinctly as he knew how. Burrill had gone ahead anyway, and—as predicted—had gone under. And now he was
trying to sell his losing proposition to a twenty-year-old kid who didn’t know snapbeans from snapdragons.

I called McKinney as soon as I had this information.

I told him exactly what I’d learned, and I advised him against making the purchase. McKinney told me the same thing Burrill had told Porter three years ago: he knew how to make snapbean farming profitable in this part of the country. I gave him the facts and figures. I told him there was no way he could make it work. But he insisted that I call Burrill’s lawyer to confirm the details of the deal, and there was nothing I could do to persuade him otherwise. McKinney had come to my office to sign the contract last Friday. At that time, he brought with him four thousand dollars in cash, the ten-percent deposit required by Burrill. I asked him at that time if he would need a mortgage or other financial assistance to meet the balance due on the closing date. He told me he had the $36,000 in cash and that he would bring it with him to the closing. I suggested that he bring instead either a certified check or a cashier’s check. When I told him we should insist on a week or ten days to inspect the plumbing, heating, and electrical systems in the farmhouse, he told me he would waive such inspection. I’d insisted, however, on an exterminator’s inspection for termites and other pests. Pending the customary title examination and tax search, the closing had been set for the second day of September.

That was it.

“Four thousand in cash, huh?” Bloom said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Against a forty-thousand-dollar purchase price.”

“Yes.”

“And he said he was going to pay the
balance
in cash, too?”

“That’s what he said.”

“On my block, that’s a lot of money, Matthew.”

“On my block, too.”

“Where’d a twenty-year-old kid get forty thousand dollars to spend on a farm?”

“I have no idea.”

“Big money,” Bloom said thoughtfully. “What’s the first thing that comes to your mind, Matthew?”

“Inheritance,” I said.

“That’s the difference between a lawyer and a cop,” Bloom said. “First thing comes to
my
mind is narcotics.”

“Well,” I said.

“Only because this is Florida, and the kid was murdered. He didn’t say where he got that kind of money, huh?”

“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

“Twenty years old,” Bloom said, “he’s got forty thousand dollars in cash. You know what
I
had when
I
was twenty? A suit with two pair of pants, and one pair had a hole in them. Who knows nowadays? How’d he strike you, this kid? What was your impression of him?”

“He was well dressed, both times I saw him. Jacket and tie, looked very preppy, in fact. Dark hair, brown eyes, well built—looked like an athlete. Or at least someone who used his body a lot and took good care of it.”

“What address did he give you? Did he give you a home address?”

“I don’t remember it offhand. It was out on Stone Crab Key. He said he was living in a condo out on Stone Crab.”

“You know how much that condo was costing him, Matthew? The one where we found him dead last night? He was renting it for twelve hundred clams a—God forgive me, I’ll never mention clams again as long as I live. Twelve hundred a month. The resident manager said he’d been living there since the beginning of June, renting from a guy up in Pittsburgh. That’s already thirty-six
hundred he’s laid out since June, not to mention the security deposit. He was pretty rich, this kid, huh?”

“I would guess so.”

“I wonder how he got so rich,” Bloom said. “Maybe that’s what the killer was after. The apartment was a shambles, clothes thrown all over the floor, upholstery slashed, bed tossed—looks to me like somebody was searching for something. Maybe it was the thirty-six K, huh? And maybe he found it. The cash McKinney would have needed at the closing. You said it was set for next month sometime, didn’t you?”

“Yes. September second.”

“Mm,” Bloom said, and nodded. “Well, I’ll be going out to talk to his mother in just a little while, her name was in his address book. I’ll let you know if the kid came into any big money recently.” He smiled and said, “You think he won the sweepstakes, maybe?”

My partner Frank said it served me right. My partner Frank said it did not pay to get into fights over women. My partner Frank also said Dale was probably asking for it, the way she was dressed, which almost got my partner Frank into a fight with
me
, and over a woman at that.

I told him Dale and I had ended our relationship.

“You’re a born loser with women,” Frank said. “It’s written all over your face. You have a Second City mentality when it comes to women. I happen to have liked Susan very much,” he said. Susan was my former wife. “Why you took off after that coozy blonde is beyond me,” he said. He was referring to a lady named Agatha Hemmings, who had been the cause of the breakup between Susan and me, and who had since divorced her former husband, remarried, and moved to Tampa. “Not that I don’t like Dale, too,” Frank said. “Very smart
lady, Dale, very pretty. But I could see this coming, Matthew, you do not know how to relate to women. One of the things I learned very early on in New York was how to relate to women. You see how beautifully I get along with Leona? That’s because when I was seventeen I wrote down these ten rules on how to get along with women. I still follow those rules, Matthew, they outline how a man is supposed to treat a woman if he expects to enjoy a good relationship with her. How did you treat Dale, Matthew?”

“That’s none of your business,” I said.

“Is it my business that you come to work looking like somebody ran you through a meat grinder? Because you got into a fight over a woman you didn’t know how to treat properly?”

“No, that’s not your business, either.”

“I thought we were partners,” Frank said.

“Not in everything,” I said.

“You look terrible,” he said.

“I
feel
terrible.”

“Why don’t you go home?”

“I have work to do.”

“You’ll scare away all our clients. Would you like me to write down my rules for you?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I realize the horse is already gone, and there’s no sense locking the barn door,” Frank said, “but there’ll be other women, I’m sure, and it wouldn’t hurt if you knew how to treat them.”

“I don’t want to see your rules,” I said.

“I’ll write them down for you,” Frank said. “Leona and I have a perfect marriage because of those rules. We’ve been married for fifteen years, you think all it takes is luck?”

“I don’t know what it takes. That’s your business, Frank.”

“I’ll write them down,” Frank said. “I’ll have Cynthia type them up for you.”

“No, don’t bother,” I said.

“It won’t be any trouble,” Frank said, and that was when Cynthia buzzed to say a Mr. Burrill was calling on six. As I picked up the phone, Frank mouthed the words, “I’ll write them down,” and then left my office.

“Matthew Hope,” I said into the phone.

“Mr. Hope?” he said. “This here is Avery Burrill.”

Redneck farmer voice, Southern accent you could cut with a machete.

“Yes, Mr. Burrill,” I said.

“I’m the man sellin’ that farm to your client.”

“Yes, sir, I know.”

“I just heard it on the radio,” he said. I assumed he was talking about the death of Jack McKinney. “My lawyer’s up in Maine fishing, out on a goddamn lake someplace, can’t be reached. What do we do now?”

“About the closing, do you mean?”

“Damn right, about the closing. Your client’s dead, somebody killed him. I got a signed piece of paper sayin’ he’s buyin’ my farm. I coulda had a dozen other buyers for that property, turned them all away ’cause Jack had his heart set on snapbean farming. I want to know who’s responsible, now, Mr. Hope. Who’s gonna be there at that closin’?”

“I have no idea.”

“I thought you was Jack’s lawyer.”

“I am. But I have no idea whether or not he left a will, or who—”

“Well, you damn well better find
out
, Mr. Hope. The way I look at it, he owes me thirty-six thousand dollars. I made plans of my own, you know. Punctuated on this deal going
through
. It ain’t my fault he went and got hisself stabbed. I want my money.”

“Mr. Burrill,” I said, “I suggest that you contact your own lawyer regarding—”

“I jus’ tole you he’s out on a boat. How’m I supposed to get to him?”

“I’m sure someone in his office—”

“I already
called
his office, how you think I know about him bein’ on a boat? Ain’t nobody there but the girl answers the phone. Us farmers can’t afford big-shot lawyers with assistants runnin’ aroun’ all over the place. Harry Loomis runs a one-man operation, just him an’ the girl answers the phone. An’
he’s
out on a boat till the end of the week, won’t be back in his office till the fifteenth.”

“I suggest you wait till he gets back,” I said. “The closing wouldn’t have taken place before the beginning of next month, anyway.”

“I was plannin’ on bein’ out of here by the second.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“All of it punctuated on this deal goin’ through. See what you can find out for me, would you, please? I really would appreciate it. And seein’ as Harry’s away, I wouldn’t mind throwin’ a few dollars in your direction if you can help speed this thing along.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Burrill.”

I didn’t mention that it would also be unethical.

“Have you got my number there?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Well, you ought to have it. Have you got a pencil?”

I wrote down the number he gave me. He advised me to keep trying if the line was busy, since it was a party line and the lady who shared it with him was a big talker.

“Call me, Mr. Hope. Soon as you fine out anythin’,” he said, and hung up.

I had no intention of calling him.