Bum Deal

by Paul Levine

  Barrios in full Sergeant Joe Friday mode. The facts. Most people think the television character from Dragnet said, “Just the facts, ma’am.” But he never did. Often, however, he said, “All we know are the facts, ma’am.”

  “Did anyone at the airport see Dr. Calvert carry a body into the aircraft?”

  “No one I spoke to.”

  “Or see him with a large duffel bag or other luggage that could contain a body?”

  “No one actually saw him enter the cockpit.”

  “What about video?”

  “There are no cameras in the area where the Citabria was parked.”

  “Pity. Now, the body of water you’re talking about, Detective. What’s it called?”

  “The Atlantic Ocean,” he ventured.

  “And more specifically, the body of water running parallel to the coastline?”

  “The Florida Straits.”

  “Detective, do you have any idea how many sailboats and powerboats are in those waters on a Saturday afternoon in June?”

  “No idea whatsoever.”

  “Would it surprise you to know that more than fifteen hundred boats would be in the Straits on any given Saturday?”

  Barrios shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it, Counselor.”

  “Would that be a smart way to dispose of a body, dropping it from a plane in broad daylight with boats in every direction?”

  “In my thirty years investigating homicides, I’ve found criminals don’t always do the smart thing.”

  Touché. But if she was wounded, Victoria didn’t bleed. Without skipping a beat or mussing her silk blouse, she said, “Detective, let’s get back to that assumption of yours that Dr. Calvert flew east over the ocean.”

  Barrios waited. There was no question, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything. Victoria continued, “In addition to their home on Miami Beach, do the Calverts own any other properties?”

  “They have a vacation home in Frostproof.”

  “A little town between Tampa and Orlando?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you know the name of the development in Frostproof where their vacation home is located?”

  Barrios scrunched his lips and squinted, as if trying to scratch out a memory. “I saw the name on a Polk County real-property list, but honestly, Ms. Lord, I can’t remember.”

  “Aerofrost? Does that ring a bell, Detective?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  Aerofrost!

  Barrios didn’t see where she was going, but I did, and I wouldn’t know Frostproof, Florida, from Bark, Arkansas.

  “Why do you suppose the development is called Aerofrost?”

  “No idea, Counselor.”

  “Are you unaware that it’s a fly-in community, ninety homes adjacent to a thirty-five-hundred-foot paved runway?”

  Oh, shit.

  Barrios’s mouth twitched. Just a slight involuntary motion. The detective sensed what was coming.

  “Would you be surprised to learn that Dr. Calvert flew from Pompano Beach to his home at Aerofrost on June 3 to see if that’s where Sofia had gone?”

  “Objection! Argumentative and irrelevant,” I sang out, mostly to buy Barrios some time. I was counting on the old fox to get his bearings and recover.

  “Overruled,” Judge Gridley declared. “The witness may answer.”

  “Pretty much nothing surprises me anymore, Counselor.”

  “And if the defense introduces security video showing Dr. Calvert entering the Aerofrost home that afternoon and going room to room, calling out Sofia’s name, would that change your theory about flying east and dumping her body from a plane?”

  One question too many, I thought. That’s the problem with younger lawyers, always giving the nail an extra whack with the hammer. Victoria would have plenty of time on her half of the case to introduce her videos. No need to let my savvy witness opine about the weight of that evidence before she even had it stamped by the clerk.

  “Not necessarily, Counselor. I’d conclude that your client flew up the coast, where he dumped the body offshore, then turned northwest and headed to his vacation home, where he could establish an alibi using those security cameras. He had time to do all of that and still get back to Pompano Beach a little before six o’clock.”

  Bravo, George! One old lion to another.

  The ship of state, which is to say, the prosecution, may have sprung a leak, but my old pal Barrios plugged the hole with all the greasy rags he could find.

  Still, the day closed with the score tied, not good for the state, which has the burden of proof. Though we had caught Calvert in a lie, we’d lost the motivation behind that lie. Our case was premised on Calvert hiding the plane flight from our view. Solomon and Lord would doubtless argue he was simply hiding the trip to the strip club out of embarrassment.

  A little white lie, they would say. But the larger truth was that he had really searched for Sofia. No way he would do that, they’d argue, if he knew she was dead.

  We were forced to argue that, as Barrios suggested, the flight trip to Frostproof was a charade. But suggesting it is one thing, proving it another.

  The defense, of course, didn’t have to prove a thing. It only had to cast the shadow of reasonable doubt over our case. My task was to continue tossing mud at Calvert, which meant spending a little more time talking about the Titty Trap.

  -58-

  Stab Me Again, Corky

  When I was a young lawyer in the public defender’s office, I once stood in front of the jury box and said, “Let me take you now to the scene of the crime.”

  Two jurors stood up, thinking we were about to board a bus.

  So today, when I put Kirk “Corky” Corcoran on the stand, I did not begin by saying, “Let me take you now to the Titty Trap.”

  Instead, I asked direct questions, and he gave straight answers. Yes, he was the day manager of the strip club in Pompano Beach. He assured the jury that the Titty Trap was a legitimate business with no underage drinking, gambling, or prostitution. Fine. I like a man who takes pride in his work.

  It took a few minutes to set the scene. I’d been fighting off a headache since breakfast, and now Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony had taken up residence inside my skull, the kettledrums particularly prominent.

  Corcoran seemed comfortable on the witness stand. He wore a black suit with a white shirt, open at the neck. The shirt could never have been buttoned, anyway. Corcoran had the neck of a water buffalo. Wiry, black hair curled out of his open collar. He leaned forward, overflowing the chair, his forearms leaning on the front rail of the witness stand, home to countless sweaty palms.

  Yes, he knew both Clark Calvert and Sofia Calvert. Most men didn’t bring their significant others to the club, so couples were memorable. Sofia had become pals with some of the dancers, paid for a couple to attend classes, maybe get their cosmetology licenses. Calvert was the quiet type. An observer. Didn’t sit in the first row near the stage, even when all the seats were empty. Liked a table in the back of the room. Paid the two-drink minimum but drank only club soda.

  “Did the defendant ever pay for lap dances?” I asked.

  “He did. Sometimes Ms. Calvert would accompany him to the VIP room, and sometimes she stayed in the bar.”

  “And sometimes she didn’t accompany him to the club, correct?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Let me take you now to June 3 of this year,” I said, and no one looked around the courtroom for a time machine. “Did the defendant visit the Titty Trap?”

  “He did.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “At your request, I looked up security videos from the parking lot. He got to the club in early afternoon, stayed a short while, and left.”

  “Was Ms. Calvert with him?”

  He shook his head, his massive shoulders and the rest of him staying in place. “No. If she’d been with him, Dr. Calvert wouldn’t have asked the question.”

 
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. My tinnitus had its own timpani section and had just switched from Beethoven to Max Weinberg hammering his drums in “Born to Run.” Outside, the daily thunderstorm raged, wind gusts driving the rain horizontally against the courtroom windows.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Could the court reporter please read back Mr. Corcoran’s answer.”

  The court reporter, a woman in her fifties with a pen jammed through her platinum beehive, lifted the folded pages from the stenograph machine and read aloud: “No. If she’d been with him, Dr. Calvert wouldn’t have asked the question.”

  Everyone in the courtroom wanted to know, What question? And nobody wanted to know more than the big guy in the 46 XL, off-the-rack blue suit, standing there with his mouth open. Me.

  But every schoolboy knows a lawyer risks being skinned alive by asking something without knowing the answer. That old saw assumes you’re cross-examining an unfriendly witness. But Corcoran was my witness, called for the limited purpose of establishing Calvert’s presence at the strip club instead of searching for his wife.

  To take the risk or not?

  In the large scheme of things, when a man is facing a slow, torturous death by brain disease, why the hell not roll the dice?

  “What question did the defendant ask you, Mr. Corcoran?”

  “Not just me. He asked Trouble and a couple other dancers.”

  Okay, spit it out already!

  “Dr. Calvert said, ‘Have you seen my wife? Has she been here today?’”

  I stood still, my face locked in poker-playing mode. The jury would never be able to tell if I was holding four aces or a busted flush. I shot a look toward the defense table. Victoria was taking notes. Solomon was studying the jury. Calvert looked at me. He suppressed his snake’s smile but raised one eyebrow just the tiniest bit.

  I turned back to the witness. “And what was your answer, Mr. Corcoran?”

  “I told him. We all told him no. We hadn’t seen his wife since the last time she was at the Trap with him.”

  “Did you find it odd that the defendant would ask you about his wife’s whereabouts?”

  “I manage a strip club, Mr. Lassiter. I don’t find anything odd. But Dr. Calvert told me they’d had a spat, and she’d left the house, as she sometimes does when they quarrel. So he was out looking for her.”

  Like Julius Caesar, my stab wounds seemed to be multiplying by the second. It was as if I had just said, Et tu, Brute? or rather, “Stab me again, Corky.” I could sit down now, but I might as well ask one more question. If I didn’t, Victoria would.

  “Did the defendant say anything else to you before leaving the club?”

  “He said he was going upstate and check out their vacation home. His wife loved it there, so maybe that’s where she went for some peace and quiet. I think he mentioned he could get there in an hour or so by flying a private plane.”

  I could feel the blood gushing from all the wounds, the knife making a slushing sound with every entrance would, a plopping with every exit.

  “Mr. Corcoran, you remember my visit to the strip club?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you ever mention your conversation with the defendant to me?”

  “No, sir.”

  I was going to leave it at that. I wasn’t going to ask the dangerous why question a second time, but Corky Corcoran went there without being asked.

  “I would have told you, Mr. Lassiter, but you never asked me. I don’t know why, but you never asked whether I spoke to Dr. Calvert.”

  Outside the windows, lightning crackled, and a thunderclap was so loud that the courtroom seemed to shudder. The lights flickered but stayed on. In a just world, the lightning would crash through a window and strike the witness, God smiting the heathen who bore false witness.

  But is he lying?

  I didn’t know. Crazy as it sounds, I couldn’t remember if I’d asked him the question. My mind was too fuzzy.

  Are my brain cells dying at an alarming rate?

  I had called Corcoran to bolster our case that Calvert had lied. But instead of being the concrete for the foundation of the house I was trying to build, the big guy became the sinkhole under the footings. A thought occurred to me. That Calvert intended us to catch him in the lie, wanted us to follow him to the strip club and the airpark and reach our conclusions that he could then destroy with his alibi.

  Is he that smart? Did he bait the trap that I blundered into? Are my synapses so out of sync that I’ve lost my treasured ability to sense the other side’s maneuvers before they do?

  With those grim thoughts, I decided to live and fight another day. Or at least try to. “No further questions,” I said.

  -59-

  Cloudy with a Chance of Shit Storms

  Sweet jasmine filled the evening air. The afternoon thunderstorms had moved from the Everglades eastward over the city and then out to sea. They left behind a surprisingly cool evening, the pink bougainvillea glistening with moisture, the thorns of the twisted vines hidden in shadows. A pretty good metaphor for my philosophy that life is a gorgeous path through the woods, with unseen rattlesnakes waiting to sink their fangs into your flesh.

  I sat on my back porch with Detective Barrios. We were in the Adirondack chairs, taking turns consoling each other and dulling our senses with alcohol and weed. I was using a vape pen, smoking the classic hybrid Blue Dream, heavy on the indica for relaxation and peacefulness. Maybe it would heal my brain cells, too. Who knows? Who cares? At the moment, I was swimming underwater in a warm, clear sea.

  Barrios was drinking my best bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle. Aged twenty-three years, the elixir was a deep amber red, and you don’t dilute it with ice. No, I don’t spend twelve hundred bucks for a bottle of booze. This was a gift from a happy client.

  Two words—happy client—that don’t often fit together in my world.

  “Damn sorry I screwed up, Jake.”

  “Could have happened to anyone, George.”

  “Not to me. Not ten years ago. Hell, not five.”

  “Forget it, George. The earth will keep spinning until some giant asteroid hits it and ushers in a new Ice Age. All the dinosaurs will die. That’s you and me, pal.”

  “You’re stoned, Jake.”

  “Nah, just reflective.”

  “A month ago, I checked property records statewide and found Calvert’s house up in Frostproof.” Barrios was unable to let it go. “But I didn’t go far enough, or I would have seen it was a fly-in community. I wouldn’t have stepped into quicksand.”

  “Hey, you came back, and you were right. Calvert’s trip upstate doesn’t rule out dumping the body first.”

  “Doesn’t rule out . . . ?”

  “I know. I know, George. That’s not enough. We gotta prove it happened, not that it might have happened.”

  He took a sip of the Pappy, let it roll around his tongue, and swallowed. “Did you really not ask Corcoran if he talked to Calvert?”

  “I’ll tell you the sad truth.” I rapped my knuckles on the side of my head. “I can’t remember.”

  “Did you take notes?”

  “I seldom do during the interview. If you write some things down and not others, the witness wonders why and double-thinks everything before saying it.”

  All evening my out-of-focus mind had been trying to call up the memory of my trip to the Titty Trap. Corcoran had answered my questions freely. Seemed forthcoming. Nothing devious. Volunteered that Sofia visited the club with Calvert. But did I ask him whether Calvert said anything to him that day? I still had no idea.

  “You think Corcoran told the truth today?” Barrios said.

  I sucked at the tip of my vape pen. A placidity had overtaken me, and I was in a state of drooping eyelids. “Dunno,” I said sleepily.

  “Even if he was telling the truth, why’d he sandbag you like that? Why no heads-up?”

  “Hmm.” I was letting Barrios carry both ends of the conversation.

  I was
vaguely aware of a cell phone chirping. Mine plays the Penn State fight song, but this was the iPhone’s marimba ringtone.

  After a moment, Barrios shook me by the shoulder.

  “Lemme alone, George.”

  “Jake, did you hear my end of the conversation?”

  “What? No. Are you hungry? How ’bout some chips and onion dip?”

  “Listen up, Jake. I just had a call. A friend from the sheriff’s department. They’ve been sitting on Billy Burnside’s apartment ever since he failed to show up at work.”

  “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

  “He quit his job, or more precisely, just stopped showing up. And I told you that.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry about it. You’ve been focused on the trial.”

  “For all the good it’s doing.”

  “Burnside’s missing. A deputy just had the apartment-building manager open his unit. Cleaned out. Burnside’s gone. No forwarding address.”

  My dulled senses crackled to life. “He’s my first witness tomorrow.”

  “Not anymore, Jake.”

  While I was still processing that information, my cell phone chimed and sang, “We’re always true to you, dear old white and blue.” Caller ID told me it was Samuel Merrick Buchanan. Divorce lawyer to the stars.

  “Sam, I’m glad it’s you. We’ll need you in the courtroom at nine a.m. tomorrow, not eleven. A witness fell through.”

  “That’s why I called. I’ve been hired to defend Calvert in the wrongful-death action Pepe Suarez filed today.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Suarez filed papers to name himself administrator of Sofia’s estate. Plus, he retained Stuart Grossman to sue Calvert for millions.”

  “And of all the lawyers in Miami . . .”

  “Yeah, Calvert’s retained me to defend the lawsuit. So obviously, I can’t testify for you in the criminal case.”

  “It’s not for me, Sam. It’s for Sofia. It’s for the people of the state of Florida. You have a moral obligation here.”

  “I don’t see it that way. It would be clearly unethical for me to assist you. Good night, Jake.”

  The line clicked dead, and I looked at Barrios. He’d picked up the gist of the conversation and poured himself another three fingers of Pappy, then gestured with the bottle, asking me to join him. Yeah, I would like to add some whiskey to the weed. If ever I needed that combo, tonight was the night.