"Broussard, John A - Kay Yoshinobu - Saturday Night Special" - читать интересную книгу автора (Broussard John A)

"Exactly. He has a couple of motives -- money, a girlfriend, and if it looked like the wife was catching on to his philandering, he had a lot to gain by killing her. And Collin's guess about the husband's gun was right. It's unregistered. The police would never have connected it to the husband if the scenario had worked out the way Collin thinks the husband had it planned. All that's a lot of support for Collin's story."

"Enough for a jury?"

Kay looked glum. "Nowhere near enough."

"So what's next?"

"I really have no idea. I suppose I could check out the evidence the police have: the guns, the contents of Collin's pockets when he was booked, and I guess the contents of the victim's pockets, if they haven't turned them over to the widow yet. Not that I expect any of that to prove much."

Kay's knowledge of guns was minimal, but the storeroom sergeant was helpful. The husband's gun was an M52 automatic. An import. Fancier and far more deadly than the usual Saturday night special. "If it had gone off at that distance it would have taken that crook's head clean off at the neck," was the information offered by the sergeant. Collin's gun was a .22, favored in the crime world for its effectiveness at close range, its relative quietness and its small, handy size.

The clothes told her little more, except that it was an inexpensive suit, obviously from the rack of a local department store -- somewhat surprising for the husband of a rich wife.

The pockets had contained a set of keys, a handkerchief, a wallet and no change.

The wallets' contents were more revealing. Collin's had the expected. The Sergeant confirmed that it had contained twenty-two dollars at the time of the arrest. It had held a false ID, a credit card in the same name, along with most of the usual miscellany to be found in a man's wallet. Kay reminded herself to ask Collin what he'd done with the initial five thousand dollars. Stashed away in some safe place, she guessed, or perhaps spent already.

Again, the Sergeant confirmed the amount in the husband's wallet. Fifty-one dollars. The absence of Collin's expected final payment didn't surprise her. The total lack of credit cards did. "She kept him on a really short leash," Kay mused, picking up the watch.

Even to her inexperienced eye, this was an expensive timepiece. The name of an outrageously costly international brand wasn't the only indication of its value. It was quite obviously a custom job, oversized, with every imaginable option, probably including the tides on Jupiter. The Sergeant answered her unasked question. "I'll bet that thing ran to five figures."

The watch seemed added confirmation of Collin's story. After all, what assurance did the husband have that the newfound acquaintance wouldn't just walk away with the initial five thousand? That expensive timepiece could have virtually assured the agreed completion of the deal, Kay decided. And the husband would surely have been aware that Collin was eyeing it when they were plotting away in the Prince Kuhio. Fake pearls are worth something, a wallet containing five grand even more, and this superb bit of jewelry would have made the risk seem very worthwhile.

A mystery remained, however. Why would a wealthy wife, who obviously didn't squander her wealth on her young partner, give him such a fantastic timepiece? Kay was convinced that she had given him the watch and couldn't help but wonder why. For lack of any other options, she decided to follow this slender lead, after filing a note to the prosecuting attorney to hold the victim's belongings.

"Oh, for God's sake!" Sid made no effort to hide his exasperation. "Instead of going off to Oahu to talk to some high-class watchmaker, you should be flooding the court with motions for your client. A smokescreen is all he has going for him, and here you're wasting your time on a wild goose chase."

Kay grinned as she stuffed papers into her briefcase. "I'll do the motions on the flight over. That's what laptops are for."

The watchmaker quickly disabused her of her original notion about a fancy watch-manufacturing establishment. The shop had disabused her of it even more. A cubbyhole in one of the high rise office buildings neighboring Chinatown, the company obviously was not into mass production.

The only occupant of the office/workshop didn't bother to remove the jeweler's loupe from his eyeglasses, as he viewed his visitor with a mixture of surprise and impatience. Kay's identification as an attorney seemed to mollify him. In a few moments he had relaxed and seemed willing to share information about the watch industry, of which he was obviously enamoured and well informed.

"As you can see," he said, "we're not set up to do any manufacturing here. We're strictly customizers. Someone wants a watch engraved or a different kind of case, we'll do it. We can set stones, too, though we'd usually farm that out. Our specialty is the inner workings. We had someone in here just the other day -- businessman who spends one week here and then the next in New York on a regular basis. He has a beautiful Seiko and wanted it modified to show both times. That's the kind of work we do, and do well, I might add."

It took only the sketchiest of descriptions to make the watchmaker's eyes light up with recognition.

"Sure. I put that together for a woman from one of the neighbor islands. Elima, I believe. Beautiful, beautiful watches. Both of them."

"Both of them?" Kay's astonishment was impossible to hide.

The watchmaker probably never noticed, so engrossed was he in his own description.

"Beautiful, beautiful. For a man's watch, that is. She said she wanted one for her husband and the other for herself. But I couldn't really see her with one on her wrist. She had on one of those dime-sized Patek Philippes that was probably worth more than the two she was ordering put together. Nope. I just couldn't picture her wearing either of those oversize watches. But she wanted them to be absolutely identical, so who was I to argue? And she had the wildest ideas about the insides."

Kay didn't have to prompt for further descriptions.

"She wanted an oversize case, with enough room for a picture inside and with an easy-to-remove back. She said she was going to put her husband's picture inside hers and her picture inside his. I thought that was kind of sweet, even if it was pretty crazy. They must have been big pictures, too, because she made me leave space enough inside to park a truck. In this business you get the damnedest requests.