Bobby Joe Waldo started to sweat before Harry finished his first sentence. By the third sentence his floral Tommy Bahama shirt was clinging to his back.
“Look, you got this all wrong.” Bobby Joe stood up from his desk, went to a wall-mounted thermostat, and lowered the air-conditioning by several more degrees. It was a beautiful Florida morning, warm and sultry with cloudless blue skies overhead. None of it found its way into Bobby Joe’s box of an office. The room was already cold; soon it would be freezing.
“Alright, so why don’t you just tell me how wrong I’ve got it,” Harry said.
Returning to his chair, Bobby Joe propped his elbows on his desk, formed a steeple with his fingers, and began speaking through it. “I don’t care what those women say, detective. They were just plain mistaken. I wasn’t in that bar and I sure wasn’t in there with Darlene Beckett.” He gave his head a solemn shake to emphasize the point. “For God’s sake, I’m a minister in a respected church.”
The self-righteous pose forced Harry to fight back a smile. “You don’t look like you slept very well,” he said, smoothly changing tact. “Are you having problems here at the church?”
Bobby Joe gave him as hard a stare as he could manage. “I slept fine. And I don’t have any problems at the church.”
Harry lowered his voice, making the conversation more intimate. “Look, Bobby Joe. We know somebody from the church was at that bar. We can prove that one of your cars was in a minor accident in the parking lot. We can also prove that you resolved that problem for the church. Now, that doesn’t mean you were the person involved in the accident, but it’s sure a possibility.”
“My daddy told you how that probably happened… somebody from the congregation complaining that her husband was going to that bar, and an assistant minister going out to see what he could do to help a sinner.”
Harry smiled. “Yeah, I know what your daddy said, Bobby Joe. The funny thing is that you’re the one guy who keeps popping up. First it’s you paying off the accident in the parking lot-and paying off without telling anybody here at the church what you were doing-and now again with these dancers telling me they saw you in the bar, and not only in the bar, but in the bar with Darlene Beckett. And they’re also telling me that you’re sitting there with her and that she’s coming on to you pretty strong. How did they put it?” Harry stared off as if trying to recall the dancer’s exact words. “Oh, yeah, that she was ‘usin’ all her best moves’ on you.” Now Harry shook his head and put an extra good-ol’-boy twang to his words. “My Lord, Bobby Joe, a woman who looked like Darlene did, who had a reputation like Darlene did, and she’s just sittin’ there in that titty bar, puttin’ her best moves on the guy sittin’ next to her. Now that surely would be a temptation, wouldn’t it, Bobby Joe?” He dropped the twang and let his eyes harden. “And all that’s a big contradiction from what you’re telling me, Bobby Joe. And it makes it real hard for me to believe you.”
The door to Bobby Joe’s office swung open and his father wielded his great bulk through the door. A step behind him was a tall, slender, balding man with a solemn expression spread across his face. He was dressed like someone who had just been dragged off a golf course.
The Reverend Waldo stretched his lips in a closed-mouth smile. “Sorry to interrupt you, detective, but you seem to keep comin’ back to visit us, so I thought it was time to bring in the church’s lawyer. This here’s Walter Middlebrooks. From here on he’s gonna sit in and advise anyone you need to question.”
Harry glanced at Bobby Joe. He seemed confused, his eyes showing relief, then fear, and then relief again. Harry decided it was time to wipe away that sense of relief. He looked up at the older minister and slowly nodded. “Then I guess we’ll have to change our procedures a bit.” He turned his gaze to Middlebrooks. “I was trying to keep everything informal for now, but that seems not to be working for you folks. So I’m going to make a call for some deputies to take Bobby Joe down to headquarters and we’ll continue down there.”
“Are you charging him?” Middlebrooks snapped.
“Not for now. Right now he’s a material witness. We have other witnesses-please note the plural there, counselor-who have placed Bobby Joe at a certain topless bar in Tampa in the company of our murder victim, shortly before her death.”
Middlebrooks ground his teeth. “And I suppose this will involve flashing red lights, handcuffs, and perhaps a leaked story to the media,” he snapped.
Harry inclined his head to one side. “Well, as you know, counselor, cruisers have to leave their red lights flashing when they enter a building on a call, and handcuffs, are department procedure when transporting a suspect. For a material witness, it’s kind of up to the deputies doing the transporting.” He ended the line with a false smile. “As far as leaks to the media go, that is definitely not department procedure. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen.” Harry closed it off with a faint smile.
Reverend Waldo swelled up like an angry toad. “What does all this mean, Walter?”
Middlebrooks put a calming hand on his arm. “It means that if we want a lawyer present during questioning, he intends to name Bobby Joe as a material witness and take him in for formal questioning, rather than do it quietly here. It also means that other deputies will arrive here at the church with the red lights on their cars flashing, and they’ll put Bobby Joe in handcuffs and take him away with them. Informally, it’s known as a perp walk, a form of embarrassment the police like to inflict on people.” He turned toward Harry. “Does that sum it up, detective?”
“That’s pretty much right, counselor, except for the embarrassment part.”
“Well, I don’t want that,” Reverend Waldo snapped. “I don’t want that at all.” He glared at his son. “I won’t have the church put in this position.”
Middlebrooks patted his arm again. “Let me talk to the detective a moment, John.”
The lawyer walked across the small office and took a seat next to Harry. “Now exactly how reputable are these witnesses who placed Bobby Joe with this murdered woman? I mean it is a minister we’re talking about here.”
Harry nodded, fighting off a smile. “I know that, counselor. But the witnesses both identified Bobby Joe from his old mug shots.” He watched the lawyer wince at the words. “But, of course, we’ll do a formal lineup at headquarters and let them identify him in the flesh.”
The Reverend John Waldo began to sputter, but Middlebrooks raised a hand asking him to hold off any comment. “And who exactly are these witnesses?” the lawyer asked.
“They’re both topless dancers at the Peek-a-Boo Lounge,” Harry said. Middlebrooks began to object, but now Harry raised a hand and continued speaking in a slow, methodical voice. “And… they were both close acquaintances of Darlene Beckett. And… they also both say that shortly before Darlene’s murder, they saw her sitting at the bar engaged in some rather heavy flirting with Bobby Joe, and that after a time… Bobby Joe and Darlene appeared to leave together.” Harry let his words sink in before going on. “In my book, counselor, that’s enough to make him a material witness.”
“Well, we shall have to see about that,” Middlebrooks intoned in his best lawyerly voice.
At that point Reverend Waldo stepped forward and smiled down on Harry. “Now look here, son. What’s say we take a step back and decide not to get our lawyer involved, maybe just go on like before? We do that, can we maybe do away with the need for the flashing red lights and the handcuff business?”
Harry took a moment to feign consideration. He glanced over at Bobby Joe, who seemed suddenly hopeful. He looked at Middlebrooks, who now seemed annoyed at having his golf game interrupted. Then he looked up at the Reverend John Waldo, his plump cheeks again spread into a cherubic smile.
Slowly, Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry, reverend. I’d like to help you out here, but I think we’ve gone a bit too far.”
Harry watched the reverend’s smile turn into quick, red-faced rage, before he turned to his son. “Bobby Joe, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to take a ride down to headquarters.”
Harry took out his cell phone and called for transport.