"You've got to have really excellent binoculars to be a serious bird-watcher. With mine, I can see the crest on a tufted titmouse from fifty yards away." A tit is a very small bird, as Franklin made sure to point out to the jury. Much tinier, by far, than a boat on a canal, or the man steering it.
As for her notes, Mrs. Noble kept a tape recorder and a journal by her side on the porch, where she spent most of her time. She started keeping the journal for medical reasons ("You wouldn't believe what those doctors want you to keep track of!"), but it turned into a sort of hobby in which she jotted down practically everything she did, said, or thought. When writing all that down became too burdensome, she switched to a little tape recorder that her son gave her.
From then on, Mrs. Noble talked into it just as if she were talking to another person, or to herself. Everything was there, on stacks of tiny tapes. Until the prosecutor subpoenaed them, none of the tapes had ever been transcribed, but each was dated, in Mrs. Noble's tiny script. (She did continue to keep the written journal, but only for notations related to her medical affairs.)
The tape player became a place for recording both the past and the present. There were thoughtful passages on the tapes, philosophical pieces derived from her many decades of life; some clever, rhyming poetry; memories to leave for her descendants, and, of course, a constant log of her activities, from brushing her teeth in the morning to watching the moon rise at night.
"I think I hear a boat. At this hour? My watch says it's eleven-fifty-four p.m. I'll use my binocs to look. It's a motor-boat. Small. It's got some kind of ugly black-and-white design on it, like a checkerboard square. And there's writing on the side, but I can't . . . the number six, it's got the number six on it. I've seen it before, or one like it. I only see one person in it, looks like a boy, but surely not at this hour. If it is, what can his parents be thinking? He's got on a yellow shirt, pink pants, green baseball cap. Crazy outfit. He looks like a parrot.
"Eleven-fifty-five P.M. Called 911. I reported young man in boat. Got no business going up and down our canal at this hour. They said they'd send someone to check. They'd better just do that!
"Twelve-oh-five A.M. When I looked through my binocs again, I saw that same boat moving back down the canal. I mean, I heard it again, I didn't see it, because my view is blocked by that roof on my neighbor's boat dock, which they ought to knock down. I've told them and told them.
'Twelve-thirty-five a.m. Good grief, there are lights being flashed through our yards. Police? Well, they're just too late, if it's them. That boat is long gone."
It was, in fact, a patrol car checking the neighborhood from the street. A few minutes later, Mrs. Noble wrote down that she heard a helicopter overhead and then saw the canal cast into high relief in its searchlight. It was so bright that she saw a fish jump out in the water, as if it were rising to a bait of false sunrise. The Bahia Beach police had not sent the 'copter over especially to check out the 911 call; it just happened to be over the neighborhood and took a look.
Two and a half hours later, Sergeant Broyle Crouse, the forty-one-year-old pilot, reported seeing a small black and white boat five canals to the west. He recognized it as a Checker Crab water taxi, not a waterway prowler. Sensing no problem with that, he banked steeply toward the ocean, and whirred away. He reported seeing only one person in the boat, which was pulled up to a much larger boat docked next to the bridge.
Crouse had spotted the number six Checker Crab at the bridge where Natalie's body would be found the next morning. Most likely, she was already dead by then.
Unfortunately, due to a shift change in the police dispatcher's office, there occurred one of those communications bollixes that curse even the best of police departments. There had been
As for her notes, Mrs. Noble kept a tape recorder and a journal by her side on the porch, where she spent most of her time. She started keeping the journal for medical reasons ("You wouldn't believe what those doctors want you to keep track of!"), but it turned into a sort of hobby in which she jotted down practically everything she did, said, or thought. When writing all that down became too burdensome, she switched to a little tape recorder that her son gave her.
From then on, Mrs. Noble talked into it just as if she were talking to another person, or to herself. Everything was there, on stacks of tiny tapes. Until the prosecutor subpoenaed them, none of the tapes had ever been transcribed, but each was dated, in Mrs. Noble's tiny script. (She did continue to keep the written journal, but only for notations related to her medical affairs.)
The tape player became a place for recording both the past and the present. There were thoughtful passages on the tapes, philosophical pieces derived from her many decades of life; some clever, rhyming poetry; memories to leave for her descendants, and, of course, a constant log of her activities, from brushing her teeth in the morning to watching the moon rise at night.
"I think I hear a boat. At this hour? My watch says it's eleven-fifty-four p.m. I'll use my binocs to look. It's a motor-boat. Small. It's got some kind of ugly black-and-white design on it, like a checkerboard square. And there's writing on the side, but I can't . . . the number six, it's got the number six on it. I've seen it before, or one like it. I only see one person in it, looks like a boy, but surely not at this hour. If it is, what can his parents be thinking? He's got on a yellow shirt, pink pants, green baseball cap. Crazy outfit. He looks like a parrot.
"Eleven-fifty-five P.M. Called 911. I reported young man in boat. Got no business going up and down our canal at this hour. They said they'd send someone to check. They'd better just do that!
"Twelve-oh-five A.M. When I looked through my binocs again, I saw that same boat moving back down the canal. I mean, I heard it again, I didn't see it, because my view is blocked by that roof on my neighbor's boat dock, which they ought to knock down. I've told them and told them.
'Twelve-thirty-five a.m. Good grief, there are lights being flashed through our yards. Police? Well, they're just too late, if it's them. That boat is long gone."
It was, in fact, a patrol car checking the neighborhood from the street. A few minutes later, Mrs. Noble wrote down that she heard a helicopter overhead and then saw the canal cast into high relief in its searchlight. It was so bright that she saw a fish jump out in the water, as if it were rising to a bait of false sunrise. The Bahia Beach police had not sent the 'copter over especially to check out the 911 call; it just happened to be over the neighborhood and took a look.
Two and a half hours later, Sergeant Broyle Crouse, the forty-one-year-old pilot, reported seeing a small black and white boat five canals to the west. He recognized it as a Checker Crab water taxi, not a waterway prowler. Sensing no problem with that, he banked steeply toward the ocean, and whirred away. He reported seeing only one person in the boat, which was pulled up to a much larger boat docked next to the bridge.
Crouse had spotted the number six Checker Crab at the bridge where Natalie's body would be found the next morning. Most likely, she was already dead by then.
Unfortunately, due to a shift change in the police dispatcher's office, there occurred one of those communications bollixes that curse even the best of police departments. There had been
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