“The gun was his?” I asked.
Jonah wiped his mouth and then crumpled the paper napkin in his hand. “He bought it before he and Fiona split. Crystal wouldn’t let him keep it in the house on account of the kid. She thinks he either kept it in his desk drawer at work or in the glove compartment of his car.”
Odessa said, “We’re trying to figure out how he got up to the reservoir in the first place.”
I raised my hand. “He was supposed to go see Fiona. She says he never showed, but she could be lying.”
Odessa nodded happily, his mouth full. “Don’t think it’s escaped our attention that the guy turns up dead practically in her front yard.”
“And catch this. She’s the sole beneficiary on a life insurance policy. Part of the divorce settlement. We checked it out,” Jonah said.
“How much?”
“A million.”
“That would do it for me,” Odessa said.
“Risky to kill the guy so close to home,” I remarked.
“Maybe that’s the beauty of it,” Jonah said. “Could have been someone else. Lure him up there on some pretext and put a bullet in his head.”
Odessa made a face. “How’re you going to get him up there?”
Jonah said, “Ride in the same car. You call and arrange a meeting, say you want to go some place quiet and talk about a situation, but you need a lift.”
“What’s the pretext?”
I said, “Who needs a pretext? You hide in the backseat and pull the gun on him.”
“Then what? How do you get back down the road in the dark?”
Jonah said, “You hike. It’s not that far.”
I said, “What if you’re seen? Now you’ve got someone who can place you at the scene.”
Odessa said, “Could have been two of them. One meets him up there and does the job while the other one waits in a car parked somewhere down the road.”
“But doesn’t adding a coconspirator increase the risk?”
“Depends on who it is.”
Jonah sipped his Coke. He offered me the cup and I took a sip as well. We were silent for a moment, contemplating the images before us.
I said, “On the other hand, Purcell was in trouble with the feds and facing social disgrace. He must have considered suicide. Wouldn’t you in his shoes?”
Jonah said, “I guess.” He sounded glum at the prospect. “The guys are still working on the Mercedes. He had this mohair blanket over his lap, empty whiskey bottle on the floor of the passenger side. Headlights off. Key in the ignition, which was turned to the On position. Radio’s off. ID, his wallet, all of that was on the body, including his watch, which is still running by the way. Damn thing didn’t lose a second after all those weeks.”
Odessa perked up at that. “What make? Hell of an endorsement. We should get in touch with the company.”
“Breitling, watertight down to four hundred feet.”
Odessa said, “Remember that ad with the fountain pen?”
“That was a ballpoint.”
“It was? I’m talking about the one that writes underwater. What was it called?”
“Who the hell cares?”
Odessa smiled sheepishly and said, “Sorry. What else?”
“Not much. The tempered glass in the driver’s-side window was crazed-some glass missing, but most of it intact-where the bullet exited. I sent two guys back over there with a metal detector, hoping they can pick it up. The passenger-side window and the two in the backseat were opened, ostensibly to speed the water pouring in.”
Odessa wadded up his paper napkin and made an overhead shot, aiming at the wastebin where it bounced on the rim and tumbled out. “I’m not sold on suicide. It makes no sense.”
Jonah said, “I’m eighty-twenty against based on a couple of things.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Jonah crossed his arms. “Let’s assume he shot himself, just for the sake of argument. How did he manage to sink the car? But why even bother?”
“Maybe he was embarrassed,” Odessa said. “Ashamed to kill himself so he hopes he can disappear.”
“To spare his family the mess,” Jonah said.
“Sure, why not?”
“Maybe the insurance policy has a suicide exclusion,” Odessa said.
“So what? Fiona can’t collect anyway until the body’s been found. The minute that happens, the cause of death is going to be obvious. Bullet to the head and the gun’s sitting there on the seat?”
“Might have a point there. Nobody’s going to believe the guy shot himself in the temple by accident.”
Jonah made a face. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but there isn’t any suicide clause in the policy. I checked.”
“Let’s get back to the window on the driver’s side. Why leave that up when all the others are open?”
“To muffle the sound of the shot,” I said.
“Yeah, but why does he care? I mean, what’s it to him if someone hears the gun go off? He’s knows he’s a dead man, so what difference does it make?”
“Wouldn’t muffle much anyway if the other three windows were wide open,” Odessa pointed out.
Jonah said, “Exactly. Something about it doesn’t sit right. I don’t like the redundancy. Shoot yourself before you drown? Seems like a bit much.”
Odessa said, “Most suicides don’t go in for drowning. It’s too tough. Even if you want to die, your overwhelming impulse is to come up for air. Too hard to control.”
“Virginia Woolf did it that way,” I said. “She put stones in her pockets and walked into the water.”
“But why double up the effort? That’s what bugs me.” Odessa said, “People do it all the time. Take an overdose of pills and put your head in a plastic bag. Mix vodka and Valium before you slit your wrists. One doesn’t work, you have the other to fall back on.” Jonah shook his head. “I’m just trying to picture it. What’s the order of business here? He opens three windows, puts a blanket over his lap, takes out his gun, puts it to his temple, and pulls the trigger. Meanwhile, the engine’s running, he’s got the car in gear, and his foot on the brake. Blam. Foot slides off the brake pedal, car rolls down the hill and into the lake. It’s too elaborate. Seems like overkill.”
“As it were,” Odessa said.
“Another thing. I don’t like the whiskey bottle. It’s melodramatic. Guy wants to off himself, why’s he need to take a drink?”
“To calm his nerves?” I suggested.
“Nah, you don’t need an excuse to drink,” Odessa said. “You drink because you love it and what better occasion? Toast yourself before you go. Bon voyage and all that.”
“Yeah, but everything I heard about him, he’s a straight-ahead kind of guy. Doesn’t seem like his style, this whole complicated setup.”
I said, “He did drink. A friend of his told me when he disappeared before, he was off at rehab getting dried out. I guess he fell off the wagon the last six months or so.”
Odessa said, “I’d been him, I’d have put together a nice little cocktail of really fine drugs. He must’ve had access to anything he wanted. Vicodin, Codeine, Percocet, Halcion . . .”
“I’d be worried about constipation,” I said to no one in particular. Jonah was still feeling argumentative. “Drugs take too long. He knows enough about human anatomy to do the job right. Path the bullet took, I’m telling you that was the end of that.”
“Pretty messy, though, for a guy that conservative,” I said. “The quick glimpse I got, he died in his suit, wearing a dress shirt and tie.”
“And his seat belt,” Jonah added.
“Nothing conservative about his marriage. A Las Vegas show tart? That’s a walk on the wild side,” Odessa said.
“Maybe that’s not as much of a stretch as you think. Fiona claims he was having problems with impotency, getting into sex toys and pornography, that sort of thing. She thought it was disgusting. She says she refused to have anything to do with him and that’s when he went out and found Crystal.” I popped the rest of the sandwich in my mouth and reached for one of Odessa’s fries.
Jonah said, “It bugs me there’s no note. The guy might’ve been desperate, but he’s not mean-spirited. Suppose the car’s never found. Why leave everyone hanging? Guy wants to kill himself, all he has to say, ‘Sorry, folks, but that’s it. I can’t take any more and I’m out of here.’ And why put the car at the bottom of the lake? What’s the point of that move?”
“Right,” Jonah said. “What if we take the opposite tack. Let’s say somebody did it for him. You shoot him with the windows up to muffle the sound. Then you open three of ’em to make sure the car sinks fast. You don’t want an air bubble caught against the roof because the whole thing might float. The deal wouldn’t be that hard to pull off. You do the guy, get out, release the emergency brake, give the car a quick shove, and send it on its merry way.”