Killing Mister Watson

'Cox don't need a motive. Not to kill.'

'You knew that, but you kept him there with your wife and children?'

'Needs a motive to work, maybe, but not to kill.' When I don't smile, he says, 'The family mostly stayed in Chokoloskee. Also, I owed Les a favor.'

'You owed Les a favor,' I repeated. 'Want to tell me about that?'

'Nosir I don't!' Watson drinks and gasps and frowns hard at his flask, to clear his flash of anger. 'Looks like some dumb sonofabitch distilled my syrup.'

'Why did you come hunting me if you won't talk straight?' His eyes go flat again, and I say in a more careful tone, 'You warned me twice not to try any arrest. That's resisting arrest. So is pointing a gun at the Lee County sheriff. You want my help, you better stop breaking the law.' I am talking much too much, and cannot stop. 'Next time I get the drop on you, I'll take you in.'

'You threatening Carrie Langford's dad?' Watson nods a little. 'No sense us two quarreling, Frank.' Then he says tiredly, 'You get the drop on me, you'd better shoot, cause you're not taking me in.' He shakes his head. 'No threat intended, Sheriff, I am just informing you.'

'Let's start again. Who's Leslie Cox?'

'Shit!' Watson snarls, as if I am just wasting his good time. He bangs his palm down on the mess table. 'I went to Fort Myers in a damn hurricane to report a dreadful crime, tell my side of the story, before someone gets a rope around my neck! You think I don't know my reputation? If I was guilty, would I go chasing the sheriff?'

'Lee County sheriff. The murders took place in Monroe.' I pause. 'You're gambling you'll get better treatment in Fort Myers.' I pause again. 'You think maybe your daughter's friends will help you.'

'Am I wrong?' Watson sticks the flask out. I shake my head. 'Why don't I run? Is that it? Well, I thought about it. Could have kept right on going when I hit Fort Myers, took the railroad to New York.' He drinks. 'Well, I got sick of running. I decided to stand up to my own life.'

We sit silent for a time, listening to the schooner creak against the pilings, the dying wind still wandering the rigging. Over by the store, metal is banging, in the star wind sucked down from the north in the storm's wake.

'Look. I want someone to hear my side, that's all. Just hear my side. Then you make up your own mind, all right?' He cocks his head, squinting at me over his glass. 'I never told Cox to kill those people. You ask about Cox's motive-how about mine? I have the best plantation in the Islands, the best house. Every kitchen from Tampa to Key West uses my syrup. I have grown children and two granddaughters you've seen yourself, there in Fort Myers. I have a young wife and three pretty little kids. I have a good strong land claim pending, and a plan to develop this whole coast! And I have the goodwill of the governor's office. Why would I invite more trouble? And for what? Hell, I knew Broward at Key West way back in the days he was running guns to Cuba on the Three Brothers.'

The ship lifts and bangs.

'Governor Broward died. Two weeks ago.'

Watson shrugs. 'You know John Roach? Bought Deep Lake with my son-in-law for growing citrus? Those two are counting on a new cross-Florida road to get their produce out, but the way the politicians work, that could take years. They're growing citrus, all right, but it's rotting.' Watson leans forward. 'Henry Ford came to Fort Myers a few years ago to visit Edison, and those boys met him. I said to Roach, How about you lay twelve miles of small- gauge rail from Deep Lake down to Everglade, use a Ford motor on a freight car, take that citrus out by sea, Key West or Tampa?'

Watson sits back, expansive, blue eyes bright. 'John Roach was tickled pink. Those men have as much as told me that if I can stay out of trouble a few years, I'll take over at Deep Lake as manager, because Deep Lake has problems and I have ideas. Even Cole admits Ed Watson has a head for business. And now that Broward got those canals started, it's going to be just one big farm out there, right across the state. That's progress! And I aim to be in on it!'

I keep my face closed, not knowing what to say.

'A man who can prosper on forty acres of hard shell mound way down there to hell and gone in the damn mangrove-what do you think that man could do with three hundred acres of black loam at Deep Lake?' Watson drinks again. 'That was the question Roach asked Langford!' He clears his throat, then speaks more quietly. 'Think I don't want Carrie proud instead of always nervous and ashamed?'

I feel tired of Watson, why is that? And tired of Frank Tippins, come to think of it. With Watson's references to Carrie, a kind of dog-eared sadness has come over me, I feel indifferent. My two boys bring more headaches than pleasure, much like the former Fannie Yates of Georgia, their dear mother.

'If I was the killer some folks say, do you think my own people, who know me best, would still be loyal? Does that make sense? The only man against me is Jim Cole, and Cole himself is the biggest crook in your damned county. Backs temperance laws to raise his bootleg liquor prices, uses the law to break the law, that's what it is!'

'That is a serious accusation-'

'And that's bullshit! You can't catch him, or you won't catch him is more like it. You are in his debt, the same as I am, but you don't like that big-mouth bastard either. Buys and sells but don't produce a thing. Bought the Royal Palm Hotel, had it sold again within the year. Bought the first home automobile, too, that damn red Reo he ran up and down the streets last year, scaring the horses. He's sold her off already, got a Cadillac.'

'Weren't for Cole, you might been strung up two years back, from what I hear.'

Watson has a fit of coughing. 'Rigged the Madison County jury, that what you heard? Well, he did his part. Spared the Langfords a scandal, and he'll get himself well paid, you wait and see.' He nods drunkenly. 'You'll have to pay him, too, one of these days.' He cocks his head. 'Deep Lake? County road-gang labor fees?' He shrugs. 'Don't know what I'm talking about, Sheriff?'

Sending county road-gang labor to Deep Lake to help Walt Langford-that was Jim Cole's sneaky suggestion, but the original idea, Cole told me once, came from this man here.

'Your idea, right?' I shrug.

'Look,' he says, 'I have great plans, I'm not waiting for Deep Lake. Know what these plans for Everglades drainage mean? Progress up and down this coast! That's going to happen in our lifetime!'

At the stubborn hope in him my spirit sinks.

'Not in Ed Watson's lifetime-that what you're thinking?'

The wind carries sand from the bare yard against the window.

'Why would I want those people dead? Hell, they were friends of mine! Miss Hannah? Green? Some days I even liked young Dutchy!' His voice is rising. 'Think I don't know the rumors going around? Sure, I'm in debt! Those lawyers ruined me. But a few paydays saved- that's not going to help!'

I wait.

'Look, I'm a businessman! I keep my credit up! Ask Ted Smallwood, ask C.G. McKinney. I've had no trouble since I came back to the Islands! My wife warned me I shouldn't let Cox stay, but I owed him something, that's what it was, a man has to repay an obligation. 'Honor is the highest good'-ever heard that? Plato said that. Never read Plato?' When I shake my head, Watson shakes his, too. 'Well, I paid Cox back that obligation, and he'll pay me this one. If you deputize me.'

'Deputize a man pointing a gun at me?'

Watson opens his hand, lets my cartridges roll across the table, then returns my revolver, barrel first. 'Take it,' he says. When I take the barrel, which is pointed at my chest, he grips it, holding my eye before releasing it. 'Don't load up,' he says.

Putting the gun away, I lay both hands flat on the table in sign that our talk is over, but he raises his hand abruptly when I start to rise.

'All I want-'

'If Cox is taken alive, then it's your word against his, and due to your past reputation, his word might get you hung even if you're innocent. So either you kill him or you make sure he escapes.' I'm feeling out of breath. 'You want to go down there and kill Cox, because killing Cox would destroy a witness, maybe tend to show Ed Watson's heart is on the side of justice. And you want the sheriff alongside of you, to make it legal.'