Twisted Justice

by Diane Capri

  I thought, too, about Olivia and Thomas and his parents and the sad tale of their lives. Thomas’s premature death that had destroyed his parents’ world. Whether Thomas’s death had truly been accidental or not, he’d been shipped over to Korea because of his drug use and having crossed the son of the President, if Sheldon Warwick was telling me the truth. Would knowing any of that make their lives easier? I thought not.

  I’d tried to fit the puzzle pieces of the Andrews murder together and figure out how and why he’d died. George, for the first time since the day Craig Hamilton was shot, was not uppermost in my mind. Before I caught myself, I almost asked Dottie: George who?

  The shock made me realize that the whole sordid story needed a fresh eye. Maybe Dottie wasn’t the best sounding board, but she couldn’t have been any worse than the pounding surf.

  I made up some hypothetical reason for bringing it up. And I didn’t tell her the real names of the players. I tried to sound like I needed help with one of my cases.

  But I’d long ago lost my objectivity. I felt I was looking too hard, and in the wrong places.

  Dottie listened politely to my rambling account as we strolled together along the beach, the breaking waves a gentle accompaniment to our words. She nodded and glanced my way occasionally, but it seemed as if most of what I told her sailed right over her head.

  Then she said something that, maybe because I was so close to it, just had never occurred to me before.

  “So you mean the father was gay?”

  I stopped in my tracks, but Dottie kept walking. After a few steps, she must have realized I wasn’t next to her anymore. She turned around and looked at me. Clearly, she thought I’d lost my mind.

  “What did you say?”

  “I just asked if the father was gay. We get a lot of gays here on the beach you know. There’s a large gay community in Tampa. They’re all so nice to us. In fact, you know that general who was killed a few weeks ago? He was gay. He came here once with his boyfriend. He tried to disguise himself in some pretty crazy outfits,” she smiled at the memory. “Of course, we didn’t recognize him at the time. Not until later when we saw him on TV.”

  I reached out and grabbed Dottie by the arm, turning her to face me. “General Andrews came here with men?”

  It was hard to believe anyone who knew anything about Tampa would assume he could flaunt an affair so close to home going unrecognized.

  Of course, out of uniform, before he was in the national spotlight as the Supreme Court nominee, maybe he could have gotten away with it. Once.

  “Not men, sweetie. A boyfriend. Cute one, too. My neighbor across the hall, he’d sometimes let men use his place.”

  “Dottie, what did the general’s boyfriend look like?”

  “Tall, dark and handsome, of course. Rugged looking. But he had this cute little widow’s peak in the front,” she gestured with her thumb and forefinger near her hairline. “You just never know,” she said sweetly, patting my arm.

  “How many times did they come here together?”

  “Goodness, Willa, I don’t know. I don’t spy on my neighbors.” Spying on her neighbors was exactly what she did.

  “Of course not. I thought you might have heard something, that’s all.”

  “Why, Willa! I’m surprised at you. With all your troubles, I wouldn’t think you’d want to be gossiping about someone else.” She scolded me.

  I remained silent and a few seconds later, she relented. “Well, maybe this will just take your mind off your troubles for today.”

  She patted my arm again. “Now let’s see. I guess I saw them here together a couple of times or so since my neighbor went back to New York for the summer. He’s a snowbird, you know. A decorator. He decorated one of the Kennedy’s apartments. Actually, I think it was that sweet Caroline and her husband.”

  I thought I might scream if she didn’t get to the point. At least, the point I was interested in. But I didn’t want to frighten her or underline the level of my interest, so I simply asked, “Is that right?”

  “Um hm. Anyway, I think the general first came to stay when Jeffrey left. And it seems to me that he was here, on and off, for most of the summer. In and out, I mean. Actually, I was about to report him to the condo board because we’re not supposed to sublease. I wanted to sublease last year when I went on that Hong Kong cruise? The one I took Eunice on?” She was looking at me as if I was supposed to remember this.

  “Sure,” I said. “They wouldn’t let you sublease.”

  Dottie didn’t need much encouragement to rattle on forever about the vacation and never get back to the issue.

  She cast a very annoyed glance at me for interrupting her again.

  “Right. So, I was just a little peeved about the general being in Jeffrey’s place and bringing that young man with him. And I was discussing it with Eunice. We were both about to complain. But that young guy, Jack? He was such a charmer. He talked us out of it. He said they weren’t really subleasing from Jeffrey, they were just using his place occasionally. Of course, I didn’t know the other man was the general then. I didn’t recognize him. Eunice said she knew who he was all along, but I don’t think she did. She’s always claiming to know more than she does. You know people like that, don’t you?”

  I tried counting to ten while smiling and nodding.

  I was so preoccupied by Dottie’s message that General Andrews had at least one gay lover that I nearly missed Dottie’s final bombshell.

  But she hadn’t recognized it as a bombshell. Dottie could have been hit on the head with an anvil without realizing what had happened.

  I tuned in at the very end of the story.

  “ . . . So Eunice said maybe they’d had a fight or something. But I just didn’t think that could be true because we would have known about it with them being right across the hall and all. There had to be some other reason they stopped coming here. Maybe just because Jeffrey got home.”

  “What?”

  “Haven’t you been listening?”

  I rushed in so she wouldn’t repeat the whole thing again. “Sure, but what does Jeffrey being home have to do with it?”

  “Well, Jeffrey’s place only has one bedroom. If he was back home for the winter, they wouldn’t have had anywhere to sleep. So they must have had to use some other place. It didn’t necessarily mean they broke up, does it?”

  I missed the next few words because I was focused on General Andrews and his lover having terminated their relationship.

  What caused that breakup?

  Could the lover have killed him?

  When I tuned back into Dottie’s rambling, she was saying, “Eunice always jumps to conclusions like that. Just because she’s divorced, she thinks everyone else has to be miserable. For instance, she can’t stand the fact that my Arthur and I were so happy until he died. She believes I’ve been making that up.”

  Dottie was wounded by this idea, but I couldn’t deal with one more story from her.

  Besides, she’d already given me so much to think about that I had to go.

  I pried myself from her grasp as quickly as I could. Dottie hadn’t reported what she knew to the police or the media. I could only hope she’d remain in happy oblivion for a while longer.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Tampa, Florida

  Sunday 9:30 p.m.

  January 30, 2000

  ALL THE WAY HOME, I kept the facts in my head. I noticed nothing as I raced toward my study. General Andrews was bisexual and he’d had an affair that ended just before his appointment. These facts, innocently supplied by Dottie, thrust a hole big enough to drive a truck through my theory of Thomas Holmes’s death.

  And supplied at least one other potential suspect.

  The solitary nature of legal work usually suited me, but I’d rather have discussed the evidence and my conclusions with someone else. Unfortunately, there was no one I thought I could be completely honest with besides myself. George, Kate, Jason and Olivia were all inapp
ropriate. Certainly, I wouldn’t talk to Ben Hathaway or Michael Drake or, God forbid, CJ.

  So I got to work. I sat at my desk with my journal and wrote down everything I’d learned today.

  I had given each of the local suspects a page in my journal and listed what I learned about them as I learned it. I reviewed my notes now with the benefit of a strong drink to lubricate and elucidate my thinking.

  First, I listed everyone whom I knew had a motive and opportunity to commit the murder, including some nut from one of the fringe groups opposed to General Andrews’s nomination.

  I still thought that would be the strongest and first choice simply because one of them had tried to kill Andrews on the final day of the confirmation hearings, but at the same time, I recognized that view as the wishful thinking it was.

  My list included General Andrew’s three children: Robbie, David and Donald. For completeness, I added Robbie’s husband. In good conscience, I had to include the general’s wife, Deborah, although I didn’t really think she’d shot him. I also had to include Olivia because the same motives that made her want to defend Andrews’s killer gave her a strong reason to kill Andrews herself. And I’d never been able to rule her out.

  Lovers Andrews had had over the years should have been at the top of the list, but I didn’t know who they were. Or at least, if I knew them personally, I couldn’t identify them. I wrote Lovers? And more specifically, I wrote jilted lovers?

  President Benson, Senator Warwick, his wife Tory and, to show myself how scrupulously fair I was, Jason Austin, were all included. I wouldn’t explore whether I would let Jason be tried for murder if it meant I could have my husband back. The potential losses there were just more than I was willing to examine.

  I refused to write George’s name down at all.

  But I had to accept, in my less impaired moments, that State Attorney Drake had enough evidence to authorize George’s arrest and was working furiously toward an indictment. I wrote faster, as if mere speed would propel me to victory over Drake’s ambition.

  Next, I listed all the motives and opportunities for each of the suspects. Enough reasonable doubt to convince Drake not to indict George was all I needed. After that, someone else could find the killer. All I wanted to do was to save our lives as we knew them. Which meant George had to be exonerated. Fully.

  I made my lists, refilled my drink twice, and got lost in the minutiae of the investigation thus far. I read the report of Thomas Holmes’s accident again, and the death certificate. There was no mention of drugs. If a toxicology screen had been done, it wasn’t mentioned here. Had he stopped using before he died? Or was he high at the time?

  There were three other issues that I still had to resolve. How did George’s gun get to the crime scene and where did that grey jacket fiber found on the bullet that killed Andrews come from? And where the hell was George when all this was happening, anyway?

  Quite honestly, I was more than a little looped when I tugged at some memory in the back of my brain and it started to work its way out. The gin had relaxed me enough that I knew there was something stored on the hard drive of my brain that could help me. I just couldn’t quite get at it.

  When I’d finished, I was so exhausted, and it was so late, that I collapsed on my bed. Sleep claimed me in less than five minutes.

  While I slept, my dreams were full of cats, beach houses, crashing waves, military uniforms, young boys and good-looking men.

  Okay. That last may have been a reflection on the emptiness of my bed.

  I tossed and turned and woke up several times with heart palpitations, sweating. What was my subconscious mind trying to tell me? I promised myself I’d think about it in the morning as I turned over and fell back into a deep sleep. I woke up with a jerk at three o’clock in the morning.

  My head ached, my eyes were puffy, and my tongue felt like a furry animal had lain on it. But there would be no more sleep.

  Stepping over a comatose Harry and Bess, I padded out to the kitchen in my yellow nightshirt. It was more than a little indecent, even thought it covered my arms and everything else to just above the knee. It was cotton, just not very thick cotton. Not that it mattered. Harry and Bess were oblivious and there wasn’t anyone else here to appreciate the view.

  While I scalded the milk, the kitchen filled with that heavenly aroma only fresh brewed coffee produces. It’s too bad they haven’t figured out how to get that smell into television commercials. Watching someone else supposedly enjoying the aroma isn’t nearly as powerful as actually experiencing it. And it’s no wonder Saudi Arabian women are allowed to divorce their husbands if he refuses to provide coffee. That should be the law in all civilized countries.

  The coffee and the milk finished about the same time. I pulled down a large mug that George had given me a couple of years ago, poured the milk through a strainer and then added coffee to create the right color. I poured four Ibuprofen tablets into my palm and swallowed them without water. Acetaminophen worked better for headaches, but with the amount I drink, my liver can’t take the risk.

  The flat was chilly. I’d left the windows open and allowed the night air to come in. I indulged myself further with a small fire in the den’s gas log fireplace.

  Then I selected quiet piano nocturnes and turned on the stereo with the volume down, to avoid waking Harry and Bess. I wasn’t worried about them having bags under their eyes or anything; I sought total peace and quiet. Unlike me, they are bundles of energy when they wake up. Of course, I didn’t usually wake them at this hour, so who knew?

  During fitful sleep, I had worked around a scenario that answered all the questions surrounding Andrews’s murder, but two very big pieces of the puzzle were wrong.

  I began to pace and talk to myself, trying to resolve the problems, as I’d done countless times before.

  “George’s fingerprints were found in Andrews’s den. He had been there. But when? The night Andrews died? Or some other time?”

  Then, I answered, “Without an alibi for the time of the murder, Drake could easily convince a jury that George was there the night Andrews died. You know juries. You work with them every day. They will believe hard evidence, like fingerprints and murder weapons and jacket fibers. Many a defendant has been convicted on less.”

  Turn. Sip. Walk.

  “There must have been other fingerprints in Andrews’s den, too. You need to see that fingerprint report.”

  Answer: “It’s too early in the morning to call Ben Hathaway to get it. Besides, the mere presence of fingerprints by the other suspects won’t exonerate George if he won’t explain when and why he was there.”

  I paced a while longer, but I got nowhere so turned to the second problem.

  “How did George’s gun become a murder weapon? George loaned the gun to Peter, who brought it home from the gun club. How did the killer steal the gun from where Peter put it in Aunt Minnie’s sideboard?”

  Think it through, think it through.

  “George loaned the gun to Peter a week before the murder. Peter put the gun in the sideboard two days before and forgot about it. He didn’t check the gun at any time after that and then it turned up at the scene of the murder.”

  Turn. Sip. Walk.

  “Right. So the question is, in those two days, who had access to the gun?”

  The answer included George, me, and Peter. It also included everyone who worked at the restaurant and everyone who’d been a guest at the restaurant or visited us at home in that time frame.

  “But most of those people had no motive to kill Andrews,” I reminded myself aloud.

  So I returned to all the names on my list of people who had been in the restaurant in those two days and had at least one motive to kill Andrews.

  Everyone on the list had been in the restaurant the night Andrews was killed.

  Except Olivia. Or was she there, too, and I just hadn’t noticed because I didn’t care about her then?

  “Which one of the suspects with motive and op
portunity had taken the gun? It could have been taken the very night of the murder,” I reminded myself.

  I went over each suspect carefully; none could be easily eliminated.

  Exhausted from lack of sleep and pacing, I returned to the chair, allowed my heavy eyelids to close and visualized everyone at the restaurant that night. It was easy to do. The night was indelibly imprinted on my brain forever, even if the purple lump on my forehead had disappeared.

  I imagined the guests as they sat at tables in George’s dining room; I recreated the argument between the Warwicks and Andy; saw Tory Warwick hurling the glass toward me and even felt its solid weight against my forehead. I raised my hand to the place where the lump had come up the next day. All traces gone.

  What a shame internal wounds don’t heal as quickly as visible ones.

  Okay. Just for starters, I considered that the gun was taken sometime before the night Andrews died. Then, the possibilities were endless and I got nowhere.

  So, consider whether someone in the room took it that very night. I looked at each of them closely in my mind’s eye.

  What were they wearing?

  The gun was too big to conceal in a pants pocket, but it could have been tucked into a man’s waistband or jacket pocket.

  I visualized each of the men who were on the suspect list and present that night. All the men were wearing jackets. No one ever came to George’s without a jacket. Any one of them could have slipped the gun into his pocket. No help there.

  Or it could have easily been slipped into a handbag. Which one of the women had a handbag big enough to hold a .38 caliber revolver?

  I was so startled when it hit me that I nearly spilled my coffee.

  Of course! Now I remembered it.

  One of those large, open feedbag types. The kind you could fit the kitchen sink in.

  But, had I seen it that night? Did she have it then?

  Despite what I had promised Ben Hathaway when he gave me the police file, I knew that nothing but a confession would do. Considering my previous failures with confessions, I should have learned my lesson. Hubris, thy name is lack of sleep. But how could I make her confess?