Read Online And 47 Miles of Rope (Trace 2) by Warren Murphy - Free Book Online

you were in the kitchen and the phone rang,” Trace said.
    “Yeah. So I reached up and grabbed it and said ‘hello.’”
    “Did you say ‘hello’ or ‘Countess Fallaci’s residence’ or something like that?”
    “No. I just said ‘hello’ ’cause this isn’t the only house phone. The countess’s other number, she has a tape machine on it, but if I answered that one, I’d say ‘Fallaci residence,’ but the phone in the kitchen’s like my work phone so I just said ‘hello.’”
    “Okay. And what then?”
    “It was Jarvis and he said—”
    “Be exact,” Trace said. “Word for word. Try to remember. You said ‘hello.’
    “Okay. I said ‘hello’ and let’s see, he said, ‘This is Jarvis. Come and get me at the airport. I’m waiting at the middle door of the terminal.’”
    “Yeah?” Trace said.
    “And that’s it?”
    “What’d you say?”
    “I said, ‘Okay, I’ll come right now.’”
    “And what’d he say?” Trace asked.
    “He said, ‘And wait for me if I’m in the men’s room or something,’ and then he said thank you and that was funny ’cause he never said thank you. He didn’t have any manners, that man,” Spiro said, shaking his head.
    “Okay. You left right away?”
    “Right away. I went right away.”
    “Did you lock the front gate when you left?”
    “It locks automatically. You open it with a key or a beeper thing, but it’s got springs and it closes automatically unless you tie it open. Like now, I got it tied open. I keep it open during the day.”
    “So you went to the airport. What, then?”
    “Jarvis wasn’t there. I waited for him and he wasn’t there. So I parked and went inside and looked for him, but I didn’t see him, so I had him paged.”
    “Who paged him?”
    “I asked at the American Airlines desk. They paged him but he didn’t come, but I was afraid to leave, so I waited a long time before I came back here.”
    “How long?”
    “A couple of hours it must’ve been, because when I got home Mildred Pierce was off.”
    Trace had thought all the while that Spiro was shifty-eyed, unable to look at him, because the young man’s eyes seemed to dart left and right. Now he realized that they darted more to the right than to the left, and he glanced out toward the pool and saw why. National Anthem was lying on her back on a kapok mat, with her legs up above her head, pedaling an imaginary bicycle.
    “That girl can pedal it all over town,” Trace said. “So when you came back, was the gate still closed?”
    “Yeah. Like I said, it closes automatic. So I came in and I didn’t see anybody or hear anything and I went over to the kitchen and turned on the television. I missed Mildred Pierce .”
    “Then what?”
    “Then, later, I decided to go to bed, so I started to walk around the house, just to check, you know, like I always do, and I came in here and I tripped over Jarvis’ bag.”
    “Where was it?”
    Spiro turned around and pointed to the steps leading down into the room. “Over there. I nearly broke my neck falling down the stairs. And then I saw the doors was open to the patio and I walked over there, by that switch, and turned on the patio lights and then I seen Jarvis laying over there by the fish pond.”
    “What’d you do then?”
    “I looked at him and touched him, but he didn’t move. And I felt for a pulse in his neck but he didn’t have one and there was blood all over, it was like a lake, and then I looked real close and I saw his eyes was open and it scared the shit out of me ’cause I knew he was dead. So I came back in here and called the cops.”
    “When’d you notice the safe was open?”
    “I didn’t even notice. I went down to the gate to open it for the cops. They came right away and they saw the safe was unlocked. And they asked me all these same questions and that’s all I know.”
    “Okay,” Trace said. He turned to Hubbaker. “I forget anything?”
    “Aren’t you supposed to ask him if he did