by Diane Capri
Olivia was right that George would continue to believe his duty was to protect my office and me from scandal. But judges have been involved in all sorts of behavior that was much worse than being married to a man accused of murder.
One of my colleagues on the state court bench had defeated an impeachment attempt after being accused of pointing a gun at a law clerk and threatening to blow his head off.
And while I was practicing law in Detroit, a judge was accused of taking bribes for fixing traffic tickets, an offense clearly depicted on a video tape “sting.” He was tried and acquitted and returned to the bench.
While we judges aspire to the heights of human potential, the fact is that judges are people, too. Like military generals. We are far from perfect.
So George was being overly protective. As usual. His desire to take care of me was something I often appreciated, but right now, his self-defined honor code was a block depriving our investigative team of some of its best potential strategic thinking.
We needed him. It was that simple and I planned to make him see that tonight.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Tampa, Florida
Saturday 7:00 p.m.
January 29, 2000
GEORGE ARRIVED CARRYING A small box beautifully wrapped with a big pink bow. He was casually dressed in his usual Florida uniform of well-pressed khaki slacks, a teal golf shirt and highly polished, brown woven loafers. No socks.
When he held and kissed me, he smelled wonderfully like the combination of Irish Spring soap and Old Spice deodorant he uses. I held him a little too close, a little too long. I really missed him and I was very glad he had come home tonight, at least for a while. I couldn’t even think about the possibility that he might go to prison and be gone from me forever. The idea was impossible.
We both laughed when Harry and Bess jumped up between us, breaking us apart, as if to say, “Hey, what about us?”
They jumped, wagged their tails, ran in circles, acted like they hadn’t seen him in years. I watched as George rolled around on the floor with them while I mixed drinks and opened my gift.
The present was a retired Herend wild goose in purple fishnet to add to Aunt Minnie’s zoo. The goose looked angry. He had his head extended and his mouth open, as if he was chasing away a fierce enemy.
The purple color is only available for special trunk shows and there hadn’t been one in Tampa for a couple of years. When I asked him where he got it, he just winked and said, “I’ve got my sources.”
Over the years, George has learned that the smaller the box, the more successful the present.
Remember Pavlov: reward behavior you want repeated.
I put the goose up on the mantel out of the reach of wagging tails and thanked him properly.
That took about twenty minutes and really messed up my lipstick.
We spent the evening the way we would have before all this craziness began. We dined on food from George’s restaurant, consumed a bottle of red wine, and discussed affairs of the day.
After dinner, over liqueur and coffee in the den, I said, “Olivia has uncovered suspects who had stronger motives to kill Andrews than the one Drake thinks you have. We need to analyze the evidence and figure out what to do.”
George sat his drink down on Aunt Minnie’s highly polished mahogany table. On a coaster, of course. “Honey, listen to me. I have been talking with Olivia pretty regularly. I know what she’s found.”
He seemed amused. George simply refused to deal with anything he didn’t want to deal with. His arrest fell into that category.
He said, “I don’t want to spend the limited time we have together talking about this. I know it will all get resolved and it will be fine. Have a little faith.”
In a cartoon, steam would have been coming out of my ears.
I tamped down my annoyance, knowing another argument would get us nowhere.
“Well at least tell me what Peter did with your gun. Do you know how the gun ended up at the Andrews’s house?”
Apparently, I’d pushed too hard. His tone was no longer gentle. “Peter didn’t do anything with the gun, Willa. He didn’t give it to anyone and he didn’t kill Andy with it. Let it go.”
Then, he got up and walked out the door, just that fast.
“When this is over,” I fumed to the empty room, “I will kill George myself.”
I jumped up and paced around the flat, waving the glass of liqueur. “What is wrong with him? Doesn’t he understand how serious this is?”
I wasn’t over-reacting. That had been made only too plain to me today during my conversations with Olivia.
George was smarter than the average criminal. Whatever he’d done, George was engaged in a battle of wits now with Michael Drake. George thought he was smarter than Drake, and I could only hope he was right.
I continued ranting in this fashion for quite a while until I ran out of steam.
After that, I was left alone with another night of furious journaling, unanswered questions and too much room in our bed.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Tampa, Florida
Sunday 7:00 a.m.
January 30, 2000
THE MORNING PROMISED TO be another Chamber of Commerce day, the kind that we used on all the promotional videos. High, light clouds decorated a clear blue sky while a gentle breeze rustled the palm trees. The kind of day when the locals wore long pants and long sleeves, and the tourists went to the beach and turned blue from the chill. The forecast called for a high of seventy-six, and a twenty percent chance of rain. In contrast, the high in Detroit was to be twenty-seven degrees.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love living in Florida?
Trying to restore some normalcy to my days through sheer routine, while at the same time seeking an epiphany in the case, I ran along the Bayshore today instead of around the island. Perhaps the methodical pounding, in slightly different scenery, would jar my brain and produce some fabulous insight that would end the insanity that had become our lives. I could hope.
The days of an endorphin-producing run on the Bayshore were limited by threatening progress, the kind that was filling the land with high-rise condominiums and traffic. As I ran, the weather changed. The wind became stronger and managed to whip up a few choppy waves on the shallow water. The water now looked gray and stormy, but there were no raindrops imminent. I saw the Big Bend Power Station in the distance and was reminded of how long it had been since I’d gone to see the manatees that gathered there.
I wanted a long run to clear my head and the mindless repetition of putting one foot in front of the other soon allowed me to notice my surroundings.
Two men passed each other, running in different directions. Each raised a high five to the other.
“What’s up, stud?” The westbound runner shouted.
“How ya doin’, cool?” The eastbound one cried back.
Neither looked stud-like nor cool to me.
Bodies of every shape, size, and description populated the sidewalk, clothed in outfits similarly interesting. Handkerchiefs around shaved heads, striped shirts with plaid shorts on males; females in full war paint, dressed as if they were making a glamorous workout video. The number of infants sleeping in jogging strollers being pushed by adults on roller blades was surpassed only by middle-aged men jogging with headphones.
In short, I saw a typical day on the Bayshore, and felt a little better knowing that the world was still operating normally, at least in some spheres.
By the time I completed my morning routine, my plan was formed and I got to work.
Jason was staying with his mother, Kate, while he was in town. I called Kate’s house and he answered the phone. Luck was on my side.
“Hello, Jason. How are you today?”
Almost as if the feeling traveled through the phone line, I could sense his wariness. After the recent revelations he’d made concerning his work for Senator Warwick on Andrews’s confirmation hearings, I’d wondered more than onc
e how well we understood each other anymore.
When I was growing up in his household, Jason was already off to college. He came home on weekends, but he had little time for a younger sister.
Still, the bond had always been there, and I thought I still felt it; did he?
“I’m fine, Willa,” He said, impatience evident in his tone. Maybe busy with something he considered essential; resented my interruption. “Kate’s not here right now. Can I tell her you called?”
So I skipped the pleasantries. “I need about thirty minutes of your time.”
Confirming my hunch, he said, “Can’t do it today, unfortunately. How about tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I told him, and hung up the phone.
He might not stick around to talk to me, but I’d cross that bridge when and if we came to it.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Tampa, Florida
Sunday 10:30 a.m.
January 30, 2000
IN LESS THAN TEN minutes, I pulled around the corner of Kate’s house on Oregon Avenue. The driveway faces Watrous Avenue and provides a straight shot into the double garage. As I had at Robbie Andrews’s house, I blocked both exits.
I hurried up, opened the unlocked screen door, and walked in. Unlike Kate, Jason the city boy, would have locked the door if he’d ducked out.
I walked through the small house and found him sitting at the desk in the television room that Kate uses to do her household bookkeeping. He looked a little foolish sitting there, I thought, among Kate’s New Age paraphernalia. Surrounded by the moon and stars mobile and the Tarot chart, he held the telephone receiver up to his ear, listening. I could hear Sheldon Warwick’s voice through the receiver from where I was standing across the room.
Jason gestured me to sit down and turned back to his call. “I know, Sheldon. There isn’t much I can do about it right now. The local police are investigating, they’ve made an arrest, the ball’s in their court.”
He waited for Senator Warwick to finish talking, then said, “It’s not an army matter. The general was retired and the murder was not on army property. This is a civilian investigation.”
More silence on his end, as Jason shook his head and held up his hand, cupped so that the four fingers were on the top and his thumb on the bottom. He opened and closed his top and bottom phalanges, a gesture meant to explain that Warwick was simply yakking on and on. Instead, it reminded me of yesterday’s bull gator.
“You have a lot more influence in the civilian world than I do. Why don’t you use some of it if you want to know what’s going on?” Jason didn’t sound too deferential to his boss, now. Maybe their nerves were fraying just a little under pressure, too.
Jason signed off shortly after that by promising to meet with Warwick later today.
Then, he turned to me and said, in the same exasperated tone, “Now what can I do for you?”
Resisting the urge to snap back, I counted to twenty, while he continued to look at me and I studied him, trying to figure out a better conversation starter.
Jason had his shoes off. He’d donned well-worn jeans and a faded, once red T-shirt with I Survived The Honolulu Marathon emblazoned on the front in now-cracked purple letters.
“Did you?” I asked him.
“Did I what?”
“Survive the Honolulu marathon?”
He smiled and gave up his pout. “No. But I survived the girl I was dating at the time who did. She gave me the shirt and I refused to give it back when she left me.”
“Sort of like the one who gets dumped keeps the ring?”
He laughed. “Something like that.”
And the ice was broken. I, for one, was glad.
I hate personal conflict in my life. I deal with conflict in my professional capacity every day of the year. I didn’t want it anywhere near my personal life. To avoid conflict, I usually tried to stay above the fray, ignoring my base emotions.
But I’d been plunged directly into this cauldron of intrigue and when George left home, I felt adrift without my anchor. This was totally new territory for me.
I’d been floundering around, trying to figure out how to keep my marriage together and rescue my husband, too. All I’d accomplished so far was allowing the time for bold action to pass, as the clock marched inexorably toward Drake’s deadline.
I needed help, and I was finally ready to ask for it.
“Ok,” he said, “what is it?”
This question was one I’d carefully rehearsed. “I need to know why the President appointed Andrews to the Supreme Court. It doesn’t make any sense to me. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of qualified jurists he could have chosen. Andrews never even practiced law. He was a hothead who was used to giving orders that other people followed. I doubt he could even write a well-reasoned legal opinion. President Benson had to know that. So, what gives?”
“Everybody on the hill is asking the same question and has been ever since this all started,” he said, deflecting.
Sheldon Warwick had been Jason’s boss for ten years. They were friends. Warwick is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the reigning Democrat on the hill and a personal friend of both the president and the general. Common sense said Jason knew the answer to my question. I was sure of it.
“You’re more of a politician than I gave you credit for.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me Warwick doesn’t know and don’t tell me he didn’t discuss it with you.”
“Assuming that’s true, I can’t breach Warwick’s confidence.” Taking a little pity on me, I guess, he said, “If you want to know, you’ll have to ask Warwick yourself.”
“So, he does know.”
Jason laughed ruefully, shaking his head in defeat. “Look, Willa, I love you. I love George. But I can’t tell you anything.”
“Come on, Jason. We’re talking about George’s life here.” I was pleading now, and he knew it.
He considered for a long time. How much loyalty did he have, and to whom? Hard facts make hard choices.
He said, “I can’t tell you what I know without permission from Warwick, which I’ll ask him for.” I’d already started to object, but he talked right over me. “In the meantime, I’ll give you a hint that will point you in the right direction if you won’t tell anyone where you got it.”
He was asking me now to trust him. Did I? What choice did I have? But, not knowing the full picture, I couldn’t put on such a tight straightjacket.
“If I have to disclose what you say, I’ll tell you first,” I counter-offered.
After thinking about it some more, he finally nodded. “Fair enough, I guess, if you don’t get me fired. If this thing blows up, I’ll be without a job anyway.”
He waited a couple of beats, as if he might change his mind, then he said, “So, here’s your hint. Ask George’s lawyer what happened to her brother.”
Now, I was totally confused. What could Olivia’s brother have to do with Andrews’s appointment? She’d told me she believed Andrews killed her brother. At the time, I thought she was being overly dramatic. She obviously had no proof of her claim. If she had, she’d have had Andrews prosecuted when her brother died. And anyway, all of that happened years ago.
I couldn’t see the connection. “Are you trying to jerk me around here? Because I really don’t have the time to go off chasing wild theories. George is less than two weeks away from being indicted for murder.”
My voice caught a little. “You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”
He seemed to step back in the face of my outrage. “Just ask Olivia,” he said.
“Olivia already told me. She took George’s case because she thinks Andrews killed her brother and she wants revenge. So what?”
“No, Willa,” Jason said softly, taking my hand and looking me squarely in the eye. “So why?”
He got up and walked into the bedroom. When he came out, he was holding a slim file folder. He handed it to me w
ithout another word.
Thomas Edward Holmes, deceased, it said on the label.
“What’s this?”
“The final report on his death.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Tampa, Florida
Sunday 1:30 p.m.
January 30, 2000
GRETA AND I HEADED toward downtown where the Andrews twins, David and Donald, were staying at the Harbour Island Hotel. Greta’s top was down when we drove over the Harbour Island Bridge. The sweet perfume of jasmine filled the air. Paradise definitely smells better than the rust belt.
I parked Greta myself in the underground garage and walked up the stairs to the entrance to the hotel. Florida water front hotels locate the lobby and registration desk on the second floor. You had to go up an escalator to get your bags to the front desk.
The system was so inconvenient that it must have increased tips to porters by at least fifty percent. But that’s not the reason for it. The real reason is hurricanes.
If Tampa experienced a hurricane, something that hadn’t happened here since the 1920s, Harbour Island would be underwater. The Hotel’s second-floor reception desk, where all the computer equipment was located, was an attempt to prevent flood damage from the tidal surge that follows the big blow.
I’m not afraid of hurricanes. As natural disasters go, hurricanes are best because modern weather equipment detects them long before they hit land. Tornadoes and earthquakes are unexpected; floods last longer and do more damage; and snow storms are simply unacceptable. Hurricanes have killed fewer people than any other type of major weather disaster.
If a hurricane hit Tampa, we’d be in the first level of evacuation because, like Harbour Island, Plant Key lies below sea level.
But then, we might get a new house out of the insurance company.
At the front desk, I asked for David or Donald Andrews. David said he’d meet me in the lounge on the outside deck in ten minutes. Shortly after the waitress delivered my Perrier with lime, David had reached my table.
