Yancey's voice was shaking with tension. "I know what this lady wants. She wants to stick me with a thousand dollars in attorney's fees. For what? And five hundred bucks in costs. She ought to be investigated."
The court clerk sympathetically rolled her eyes at Gail. Another nut. What can you do?
Judge Cooper reached for his pen. "I understand how you feel, Mr. Yancey, but the plain fact of the matter is, you have to pay attention to legal documents. You ignore them at your peril. Now you have twenty days to redeem the property, or it will be sold at public auction. I'm sorry, but that's the law." Judge Cooper lifted papers until he found the order of foreclosure.
Yancey turned around, breathing sharply. He kicked the chair at the end of the counsel table nearer him. It spun, tipped, and thudded to the floor. Yancey's eyes narrowed into slits. He headed toward Gail, his voice trembling.
"Bitch. You better watch yourself, you cunt."
Gail stumbled backward. The judge leaped out of his chair, poised as if he might vault over his desk. He yelled, "Bailiff!"
Yancey grabbed his papers off the table, pushed past the swinging door and up the aisle. The door clattered on its hinges. Two attorneys by the courtroom entrance moved out of his way.
After a few seconds, Judge Cooper sat back down, smoothing his mustache. "I wouldn't worry about it, Ms. Connor. People get upset. They calm down."
Gail dropped her hand from her heart. "Any other line of work wouldn't be half as exciting."
There was nervous laughter among the other attorneys in the courtroom.
The bailiff appeared at the door. "Judge? Everything okay?" The court clerk put the overturned chair back beside the table.
Judge Cooper picked up his pen. "Please make sure Ms. Connor isn't disturbed on her way out of the courtroom." He finished signing the order.
Gail found Edith Newell in the reading room of the museum, yellowed newspaper clippings spread out around her at one of the long tables. Edith looked up, her gray eyes huge behind her glasses.
"Hello, dear. My, you look exhausted. Sit down here, just move that stuff over a bit. I'm finding out oodles of things about Dan Hardie. Our Prohibition sheriff, don't you know?" She smiled. "Well, never mind that. You came for another reason, didn't you?"
Except for the two of them, the reading room was deserted, the air chilly and dry, suited to old books and crumbling papers. Gail shivered. "Is the professor sure it's genuine?"
"Oh my, yes. No doubt at all. Tequesta, about twenty-five hundred years old." Edith laughed. "He begged me for it. Begged me. But he was a good boy, sent it right back, not a scratch."
"And no idea where it came from?"
"No, I'm sorry to say." Edith pushed her sweater sleeve up her arm. Its cuff was loose, the fuzz turned to little balls. "You didn't get any information out of Jimmy Panther?"
"He says his grandmother kept it in a wooden box under her bed. A family heirloom, was the impression I got."
Edith hooted. "For two thousand years?"
"Her name was Annie Osceola," Gail said. "Does that sound familiar?"
"Well, not precisely, but Osceola is a common name among both the Seminoles and Miccosukees."
"He also said the Tequestas migrated to Cuba."
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Some of them. They went with the Spanish. About 1720. We could look it up, you want to?"
Gail studied the rows of shelves. "I wish I had the afternoon free. Edith, do you think one of the volunteers would like to earn a little extra money?"
"Oh, don't ask them." Edith began to stack the newspaper clippings. "I'll do it for free, if you promise to give the museum a shot at that clay deer mask."
"It isn't mine, Miss Newell."
"Maybe not. But if we prove it isn't his, either—" She dropped the clippings into a box and closed the lid. "There's something fishy going on, don't think there isn't. What do you want me to find out?"
Gail squeezed Edith's hand, then took a legal pad out of her briefcase. "Anything on Jimmy Panther. Check the public records. Birth certificate, school records, military, employment. . ." Gail's pen flew over the paper. "And general information on the Miccosukees and Tequestas would be helpful." She looked at Edith. "Did you ever see him with Renee, when she worked here?"
"Oh, yes." Edith thought for a minute. "They were quite friendly." She caught Gail's expression. "Not like that, dear. You know. Friends. The way men and women used to be friends, before sex got so prevalent. Although I can't imagine what they saw in each other." She smiled. "Nothing against Renee, of course. She was a charming girl, in her way."
Gail sat quietly for a moment. "When did Renee begin working at the museum?"
"Well, Renee was hired about a year and a half ago, I believe. Part-time." Edith lowered her voice, although there was still no one else in the room. "It doesn't matter if I tell you this now. Your mother made a contribution to cover her wages. Renee was having problems finding a job, apparently. At first she was utterly unreliable. I had to speak to her. I said, Renee, this will not do. She began to come around." Edith was silent for a moment, her eyes on the ceiling. "Starting early last year—February, March—Renee worked part-time here at the museum and part-time for some kind of insurance company."
"Vista Title Insurance," Gail said.
"Yes. By last fall, I believe, she was working full-time for them, although she would still come see us now and then."
"When was Jimmy Panther hired?"
"He was never an employee. Jimmy only came in to use the reading room. He would do a lecture whenever he wanted to. He became quite a hit. Upped our contributions considerably. One has to give him credit for that."
"So they met about eighteen months ago?"
"More like a year ago, perhaps less." Edith nodded toward the next table. "It was right over there. Renee and I were indexing catalogs and in he walked, with his beads and long black hair over his shoulders. He looked straight at Renee. Oh, the expression on her face. She whispered, 'Edith, look at that Indian coming in the door.' Well, he walked right over and I introduced them. I'd met him at a Miccosukee festival, so I knew who he was."
Through the glass door Gail could see the lobby and the stairs leading to the second floor. "You said he came to the museum to use the reading room. Do you know what for? I mean, if he wanted to sit and read he could use the library across the plaza."
Edith gave a wide smile. She had teeth too perfect to be anything but purchased. "Aren't you clever. Let me think." She turned around in her chair. "Jimmy would use the card catalog, then he'd go to the shelves and get whatever it was. Then he'd sit down at the last table. He had a zippered briefcase, I remember that now, with a notebook in it."
"Was he reading about Indian artifacts? Tequesta history?"
Tiny lines appeared around Edith's mouth as she pursed her lips. "I don't know. He sat with his back to the wall and wouldn't say a word about it. If he went to the men's room he'd reshelve the books and take all his papers with him." She lightly touched Gail's wrist. "And sometimes Renee would sit with him, but that was more recently."
"More recently when?"
"A few months ago? After the first of the year?" The last table was bare, three chairs on either side, neatly aligned. Gail got up, looked at the chair where Jimmy Panther had probably sat. "He never checked anything out?"
"Oh, no. We don't allow that."
"But they do at the library," Gail said.
"Indeed," Edith said. "And the records are on computer. I have a friend over there. Shall we ask her to look him up?"
Gail nodded. "Let's say running back at least a year." "Maybe some of the staff at the museum know what he was working on."
"Try not to be obvious."
"Oooh, isn't this fun?" Edith unfolded her long legs from under the table and picked up Gail's legal pad, tearing off the list of things to do. She hesitated. "What are we looking for?"
Gail shrugged, smiling a little. "I suppose we'll know when w
e find it."
Sixteen
It was nearly six o'clock when Gail pulled into the parking lot at Metro-Dade Police Headquarters. The ultramodern building, curves and glass and bright color, sat on several acres of landscaped lawn. Keys in her hand, and caught between dread and curiosity, she stared through the windshield of her car. If Frank Britton had any evidence to arrest her, he would have done it already.
In the lobby she told the duty officer—a woman in a tan uniform—why she had come: to pick up papers belonging to Renee Connor. The woman looked over her shoulder at another officer writing on a clipboard. A row of black-and-white TV monitors flickered behind him. She asked, "Britton. That's Homicide, right?" He nodded.
Gail said, "When I called, he told me he might be working late. If not, he said I could pick them up from anyone."
"Okay, let's see." The woman dialed a number on the phone. "You can sit down if you want to."
She didn't, only wandered from the reception counter to the middle of the lobby. Glass walls on either side, a profusion of philodendrons hanging from second-floor planters. Along the wall, trophies from the last Pig Bowl. A memorial to policemen killed in the line of duty. T-shirts for sale. Say No to Drugs. The place was as upbeat as a high school guidance office.
Gail rubbed the taut muscles in the back of her neck. Her head ached deep behind her eye sockets. Irene had said she would pick Karen up from dance class and make dinner, not to worry. Gail would go home—assuming they didn't drag her off in leg irons—as soon as she pushed her notes through the slot at Ferrer & Quintana.
"Ms. Connor!" Britton had come through a side door, tie loosened, ID badge clipped to his shirt pocket. He smiled at her, shook her hand. "Nice to see you." He lightly rapped on the counter. "Betty, give me a second-floor badge."
Gail said, "You want me to go upstairs with you?" She could see a long, carpeted hallway through the glass.
"Sure, I'll give you the twenty-five-cent tour."
"Thanks, but I have to get home. My daughter's waiting for me."
"Some other time, then. Come on up and get the papers." He handed Gail the plastic-coated badge. She clipped it to her lapel. "You ever bring your little girl to an open house?'' They went down the hall, around a partition of glass bricks, then to the elevator. "Kids like the weapons collection. We've got everything from an antitank gun to a pistol made to look like a ballpoint pen, all seized right here in Dade County."
As Britton described the technological wonders of the toxicology lab, Gail wondered if Anthony Quintana had heard correctly from his friend at the State Attorney's Office. A suspect didn't mean a prosecutable case. Or maybe Ben had worked some magic with the State Attorney since Saturday.
Britton finally led her through a door marked Homicide Bureau, then past gray upholstered dividers. She heard laughter over one of them, someone telling a joke. A man walked past wearing a black T-shirt. On the front: Metro-Dade Homicide. On the back, a skull and the words: When your day ends, ours begins.
Britton stopped to speak to a young woman behind a desk. "Hey, hon. Where'd the Connor file go?"
She barely glanced up from the computer screen. "Still in room two, unless somebody moved it."
When Britton closed the door, background noises disappeared. Gail looked around. It was a small room, perhaps eight by eight. Off-white walls. Light gray table, molded chairs on tubular chrome legs. A fat accordion file lay on its side on the table.
Britton unwound the cord that held it shut. "Have a seat for a minute. I want to make sure it's all here." He sat in one of the chairs. After a few seconds, Gail took the other.
She said, "What's this, an interrogation room?"
"It's where we bring anybody when we need a quiet place to talk. I ought to put in a couch and a TV." He walked his fingers through the folders inside the file. "I haven't spoken to your mother in a while. Next time you see her, give her my regards."
Gail put her purse on the table and crossed her arms.
Britton said, "Are you okay? You look a little tense."
"I'm fine."
"I could get you some coffee. A cup of tea?" She gave him a smile. "No, thanks." He went back to the file. "How long have you been a lawyer?' '
"Seven years."
"I went to law school, lasted a whole semester." He smiled at her, pulled a folder out, pushed the accordion file to one side. "I'm sorry all this happened to you, Ms. Connor. I spoke to your husband at the marina not long ago. I gather you two have split up."
Gail nodded. "It's an amicable separation."
"Well, that's good." Britton lay his hands flat on the folder. "I'm going to show you a letter. We didn't find this among your sister's papers. We got it from Barnett Bank last week. But before I talk about that, let me tell you what I think happened to Renee.
"We found her at Ibis Park about ten-thirty in the morning, Monday, March 8. She had been floating in a foot of water off the end of the nature walk since about midnight Saturday night, give or take. Her wrists had been cut. She bled out before she hit the water. We didn't find any traces of fabric in her lungs or nose to indicate suffocation. We also didn't find any bruises on her neck to show she'd been choked unconscious, but light bruises could have disappeared, given the length of time she was in the water and the damage done by the animals out there. They go after soft tissue. A test of the vitreous humor—the fluid in her eyeball—showed an alcohol content of point one-six. Alcohol in vitreous humor doesn't dissipate after death. Before she died, Renee was drunk enough to have passed out, given her size. If that's what happened, she wouldn't have felt a thing.
"We went back and found marks on the nature walk that match scuff marks on her Reeboks. She was a little woman, five-one, a hundred and five pounds. It wouldn't have been hard to put her in the car unconscious, drive her to the park, then get her to the end of the nature walk. We didn't find any fingerprints on the door handles, steering wheel, gearshift, or rearview mirror. None, not even hers. Somebody wiped off the prints, locked her purse in her car, walked to the main road, hitchhiked back to town.
"We found the razor blade about eight feet away in the water. We found a pack of the same kind of razor blades in her kitchen drawer, two missing. Whoever did this had been in her house. And that person knew she had attempted suicide with a razor blade once before."
The room seemed to shift, grow smaller. Britton continued to speak, that soft cracker drawl, his blue eyes showing a kind of regret behind the glasses.
"Ms. Connor, what I've found—and I've been in homicide about as long as you've been a lawyer, if that means anything—I've found that most people don't mean this to happen. They get mad, they lose their temper, then they're afraid to admit it. But it's a human weakness. We all have a dark side, I really believe that. Push anybody too far and it comes out."
His eyes were fixed on her—gentle, concerned. "Dave and Renee were pretty close. He gave her money. He sent her cards. And she was pregnant. Could have been his baby. If they weren't having an affair, it sure looked that way, didn't it? And your mother was giving her money, too. Mrs. Connor told me about that, said you didn't like it."
Gail pulled herself to her feet as if her body were weighted, catching her heel on the leg of the chair, stumbling. "I would like to have my sister's papers, Sergeant. And then I would like to leave."
He remained seated. "You're not a bad person, Gail. You had a little too much on your mind. Money problems, marriage problems. You thought about Renee's trust fund. Dave's business was in trouble, the money would help."
"I didn't even know about that until after she was dead! I didn't kill her. How could you think that?" Gail grabbed her purse off the table and turned the doorknob. The door was locked. She whirled around. "Let me out."
Britton stood up. "Gail, I wish to hell I could stick this on somebody else, but I can't. We thought of Dave because he took her home, but he went to a bar afterwards. We found his charge card records. Everybody who could possibly have had a reason to
kill Renee can explain where they were. Can you?"
"Open this door."
He picked up the file, came around the table. "Renee's neighbor saw your car in her driveway about eleven. You went by to see if your husband was with her, I can understand that."
"I didn't go in!"
"We found your fingerprints on the kitchen counter over the drawer we took the razor blades out of."
"You never took my fingerprints."
"They're on file with your bar application, Gail."
"This is bullshit! The only time I was in her apartment was to get a dress for her to wear in her casket. I told you that!"
"Yes, but you also told me you went straight upstairs. And a couple other odd things. Your mother was going to handle the estate, but you talked her into letting you take over. When she wanted us to investigate Renee's death, you asked Ben Strickland, the former judge, to get us to leave it alone."
"That's a lie."
Britton waited, then said, "Gail? It's better if we get this straightened out now. You've got a daughter. A good job. What if we have to come pick you up at work, all those people around, do you want that to happen?"
Gail spoke through a wave of dizziness. "I'm not going to talk to you."
"Why not?" he asked softly. "There's nothing wrong with the truth, is there? Don't make it worse on yourself."
"My attorney told me not to talk to the police."
He shifted the file in his arms, frowning a little. "An attorney already? That's kind of a surprise."
"His name is Anthony Quintana."
Britton nodded. "I know him. You've got yourself mighty high-powered counsel for someone who says she didn't do anything."
"Open this door or I will sue you for false imprisonment."
He looked at her for a long moment, then held out the file. "You want to take this with you? I'm keeping the cards from Dave. Plus her financial records and a few other things, but we've made you copies."
Suspicion of Innocence Page 23
