Offside Trap

by A. J. Stewart

  Eventually my tears stopped, but we stayed holding each other for the longest time. When we separated she wiped her thumb under my eyes, then kissed me gently and led me to the sofa. I kicked off my wet shoes and sat. Danielle made tea with milk and brought me a mug. I wasn’t even aware I had tea in the house. I’m not a hot tea drinker. Florida is too warm for it. But I held onto it because it was solid and comforting. Danielle brought her mug over, and we sat at opposite ends of the sofa, backs against the armrests, feet touching. I sipped tea, and looked from Danielle to the blue sky outside, the breeze picking up, the tink-tink of rigging against masts on the air. I was at the end of my mug before Danielle spoke.

  “It wasn’t your fault MJ, you know.” It was a sweet thing to say, but the lack of conviction betrayed her.

  “It wasn’t my doing, but I’m not sure I can be absolved of fault.” We fell into silence again, and Danielle went and poured more tea. This time I held the mug but didn’t drink it.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked, across her steaming tea.

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  “Burke’s a good investigator. Let him work.”

  “I will.”

  “And don’t go off reservation yourself.”

  I looked at her. Her eyes were focused on mine. “You don’t think this guy lives off reservation?”

  “You said you’d let Burke handle it.”

  “No, I said I’d let Burke investigate it.”

  She dropped her mug down on the coffee table. “What do you think is going on here? This isn’t the Wild West. We have laws, ways of doing things.”

  “People like Montgomery laugh at your ways of doing things.”

  “And your methods are working so well.”

  I had nothing to say to that. I looked at the tan liquid in my cup.

  “I’m sorry,” said Danielle. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, you did. Because you’re right. I knew I couldn’t take on Montgomery on his turf, and I’ve been proven right. But my mistake was thinking if I beat the bushes with a stick he’d come flying out like a flock of grouse. What I didn’t think of was that these grouse have guns, and they could stay in their bushes and shoot.” I looked at Danielle. Her eyebrows were down and her forehead crinkled.

  “What I should’ve done is blow the whole damn bush apart.”

  “You can’t do that,” she cried.

  “Why? Because of your laws?”

  “No. Because you’re all I’ve got.” She flipped her feet onto the floor and marched out the back door. I watched her standing on the patio, arms wrapped around herself, holding on tight. She was staring at the water, or the houses on the mainland, or maybe the horizon. I watched her for a good few minutes, this woman who had come to me at my lowest point, shone her life light on me and then for reasons I still didn’t comprehend, decided to stay. And bit by bit, ever so slowly, right under my keen eye, we had become two halves of one whole. Such observations were never my strong point, but watching Danielle hold herself, the realization crashed upon me like the waves breaking on the eastern side of Singer Island. Here I was at a new low, and the one person who would save me was herself in need of saving.

  I flopped off the sofa and padded out to the patio. Afternoon clouds were drifting in off the Atlantic, but it was still bright. I slipped in behind Danielle and wrapped my arms around hers. Holding on to her holding herself. She intertwined her fingers with mine and pressed her head into my shoulder. A Catalina yacht drifted by under motor, and we watched it for longer than was necessary.

  “We’ll see what Burke says,” I said.

  She tightened her grip on my hands, and we stood in place, watching the pelicans dive, from great heights, into the water, time and time again, until they got the fish they were after.

  Chapter Forty-One

  THE FOLLOWING DAY was one of those wishy-washy days where it’s not bright but not dark, not sunny but not cloudy, and not warm but not cold. Wisps of foam threaded across the sky like fake spiderwebs from Halloween, and I couldn’t decide on chinos or shorts. One thing I knew was that hanging around in my house was going to drive me stir-crazy. Danielle left for her shift with a kiss and the words be safe. I decided on shorts, threw a satchel over my shoulder and I headed out for the office on foot. My car was a wreck, and my motorbike seemed to prefer the company of a mechanic.

  Two hours later I arrived at my office, sweating like I just consumed a handful of habanero peppers. Lizzy, handed me a towel with a smile that disarmed me. It wasn’t that she never smiled, but she rarely did it to me. Our working relationship was cordial and professional, but we differed on one major point. Namely, that she was convinced my soul was going to burn in hell. It wasn’t personal. It was just she thought my life choices, drinking habits and occasional taking of her Lord’s name in vain had me destined for an eternity in purgatory. I was starting to wonder if my stint had started early. But Lizzy had her best Christian charity on. She ushered me, ushered me, to my desk, then disappeared and returned with a cup of real espresso from one of the bars down on Clematis Street.

  “Real coffee?” I asked.

  She nodded and I detected a modicum of a smile on her vermilion-painted lips.

  “You not having one?” I asked, putting the thick rich coffee to my mouth.

  “I don’t get paid enough that I can go splurging on fancy coffee. I’ll just have from our coffee machine.” That dented the impact a little, but it was still good coffee.

  “So calls,” she said, licking her finger and turning a page on her notepad, and then another page, like there had been so much note taking done in my absence.

  “Kimberly Rose, asking how the case was going and had you heard about Angela Cassidy. I told her that you had. Then State Attorney Edwards called—he always has such pleasant manners.”

  “He’s elected.”

  “Still.”

  “And he slept with his secretary while he was married to Danielle.”

  “I would’ve thought you’d be happy about that,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “I’m ecstatic about that, but I’m just saying let’s not go all overboard with the good manners thing.”

  “I’m just saying that he has a pleasant phone manner, that’s all. I’ll leave judgment to our Lord.”

  “Awesome. What did he want?”

  “He said he was waiting to hear from you. Didn’t say about what.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “Detective Ronzoni.” She looked at me as if she were peering over invisible glasses. “His phone manner could do with some work.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “He wanted to let you know that Rinti was declining to take the matter further. And that you were lucky for that.”

  “I’m feeling very lucky right now.”

  “He also said you should keep your head.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “And that’s it for now. Can I get you anything?”

  I thought about a smart remark but figured her charity deserved some in return. She closed the door gently and returned to her desk, and I kicked my shoes off, and put my feet up onto my desk and leaned back into thinking mode.

  I had promised Danielle, more or less, that I would let Burke do some digging on Montgomery, and I intended to keep that promise. So short of his guys turning up with knuckle dusters in my office, that situation was in a holding pattern. So I thought about Rinti. Two points stuck out for me. One, that having his guys come to beat me up and smash my Mustang into my favorite royal palm, he had shown his hand somewhat. All I had done was talk with President Millet, but the comeback had been swift and savage. That meant the deal was worth a great deal of money, but it also meant it was being put together in a less than kosher fashion. The second point was that I needed to handle the Rinti situation in a much more discreet manner than the Montgomery incident. For Danielle’s sake, if not my own. While publicity was a good thing, my business depended on a level of discr
etion. The boring cases that law firms and insurance companies fed us, which were Ron’s specialty and our bread and butter, might dry up if we became just that little too notorious. So subtle pressure was what was called for. On President Millet, on Senator Lawry, the politician pushing the deal through the state house and county commissions, and on Rinti himself.

  Each had their own unique pressure points. Millet was in the deal for prestige, to build his dream campus and give the bird to some supposed competitor in New England, who probably never gave him a second thought. So his soft spot was losing that prestige, or worse, getting shamed. And there would be no greater shame than being investigated by the state attorney’s office and facing jail time. I picked up my phone and dialed Eric’s office. Truth was I could have leaned out my window and yelled to him in the courthouse complex across the parking lot. It wouldn’t have done any good as he was in court and unavailable, so I left a message that I’d returned his call and went back to my thinking position to ponder soft spot number two.

  State Senator Lawry. He’d lived with the moniker Boondoggle for two decades, and that told me two things. He could be bought, but he was careful. Payola, nepotism and fast-tracked deals were all in a day’s work for Boondoggle. But he had a nemesis. The media. And one reporter in particular. Maggie Nettles of the Palm Beach Post. Maggie had recently exposed Lawry’s role in a deal to bring a movie studio to Palm Beach County. Lawry had fast-tracked the deal, thrown a hundred million in taxpayers’ money at the project, convinced another fifty million out of county and city coffers, then stood back with a who me? look on his face as the whole thing was mismanaged into a giant flame ball of broken promises, bad debts and unemployed staff within a year of opening. Maggie Nettles had questioned the fast-tracking and use of public money from the start but was shouted down by the mantra of jobs and progress. Her post-debacle reporting was decried by Lawry as a personal vendetta by a small-minded staff writer. But the fact was he had put himself on the line and was smarting from the whole episode. I was hoping that some appropriately applied pressure from the media might bring out Boondoggle Lawry’s pragmatic side and see him pass over this project. I dialed the Palm Beach Post and asked for Maggie Nettles. I was put through and the phone rang for close on a minute. I waited for a voicemail that never came. Just as I was about to hang up someone picked up the phone.

  “Maggie Nettles.” There was a hint of New England in her voice, like she’d grown up in Eastern Connecticut or maybe Rhode Island.

  “Maggie, this is Miami Jones.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “I’m a private investigator here in Palm Beach County.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “And if you prefer, I’ll take what I know about Senator Lawry to the Miami Herald.”

  Silence, then: “Alright, I’ll play.” Not exactly an apology, but I was just thankful I hadn’t asked Lizzy to put the call through for me. She would have torn Ms. Nettles and her phone manner a new one.

  “First, I don’t want to be quoted. I’ll give you info, but you’ll have to get your quotes elsewhere.”

  “If the info is good enough.”

  “Oh, it’s good enough. So no quotes.”

  “Because quotes from the local private Joe always spice up a story. Fine. No quotes. You are sources unnamed.”

  “And one more thing.”

  “Would you like me to send over a courier to collect your list of demands?”

  “Drop the attitude. I don’t have time for it.”

  Silence, then: “Alright. Tell me your story.”

  So I did. Everything about the college and President Millet and the super campus and Rinti Developments and Senator Lawry. I even added in the bit about his nephew getting an internship with Rinti. The Post’s readers love a good nepotism angle as much as anyone. I didn’t tell her anything about Kim Rose, the late Jake Turner, the late Angela Cassidy or Alexander Montgomery, aka Pistachio. These were irrelevant details to her story, and I had no desire to have poor Angel’s lasting memory be a news story about corrupt Florida politics. There was every chance Maggie Nettles would come across the deaths, if she hadn’t already, and she might use them to color her story, as the journos liked to say, but they would not be central to it if I could help it. When I was done she asked no questions.

  “I’ll check all this out. If it’s kosher, I’ll want to get more detail from you. Off the record, of course.”

  “I would expect nothing less.” I gave her my number and hung up. I felt pretty good. I was removed from the fray, so to speak, but could help engineer a result that would get some element of revenge on Rinti, help Kim Rose out of her pickle, do a public service for the good people of Florida and save them some more misspent cash, and stick Doctor Millet and his tweed pretensions back down the ivy-crusted hole he came out of. I was still basking in my cleverness when Lizzy beeped on the intercom.

  “Sorry to disturb,” she said, which was a first. “Ron is on the line. Says it’s most urgent.”

  “Thanks, Lizzy.” I punched the flashing button on my phone.

  “Ron.”

  “Miami. Something’s happened. It’s Cassandra. When can you get to Palm Beach?”

  “I’ll get a cab right now. Be there in twenty.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  LADY CASSANDRA WAS doing hard time in a penthouse apartment on South Ocean Boulevard, just a decent four iron away from Worth Avenue. The doorman looked have been joined by an armed security guard, neither of whom was keen to let me up until Ron came down to collect me. They searched my daypack regardless, found no weapons but gave no smiles. They were going to do just fine.

  “Tell me,” I said as we got into the elevator.

  “She was shopping at 150 Worth,” said Ron, swiping a card and hitting the button for the top floor.

  “So not stocking up on canned goods then.” 150 Worth Avenue was one of the ritziest shopping precincts in the country.

  Ron looked at me with bloodshot eyes. He didn’t frown, but he didn’t laugh either. He just looked tired and stressed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked scared.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “The guy had a knife. He grabbed her in Neiman Marcus. Told her she’d end up like the college girl. Gator bait.”

  The elevator dinged, and the door opened into a bright foyer of Italian tile. Beyond was an open living room that was the work of a high-cost designer, and beyond that a bank of windows that looked out onto the boiling gray of the Atlantic Ocean. I grabbed Ron’s arm before stepping out of the elevator.

  “Where is she?” I said.

  “Laying down.”

  We stepped out into the apartment. It was filled with light even on a gray day. The kitchen was hidden through another door. It was the kind of place one didn’t have an open plan kitchen because one didn’t want the party disturbed by the caterers. We sat on stools at a stone island the size of a pool table. Ron didn’t offer drinks, which told me everything, but I asked how he was anyway.

  “Don’t worry about me—I’m not the one who was attacked.”

  “She okay?”

  “Shaken, mostly. She’s a tough old duck. She’s got a small cut on her neck, more from pressure than intention, I think.”

  “Did she get a description?”

  “The usual. You know how it goes when people are under stress.”

  “Sure.”

  “This guy’s the real deal, isn’t he?” said Ron.

  I nodded.

  “Who’s the real deal?” came the voice from behind us. We spun in our seats to see Cassandra standing in a bathrobe that looked like it had been stolen from the Four Seasons. Her hair was only marginally tousled for someone who had been taking a nap, but then it occurred to me that she probably hadn’t done too much sleeping.

  “Just the new backup quarterback for the Dolphins,” said Ron.

  Cassandra glided into the room with a soft smile and put her hand on Ron’s shoulder.

&nbs
p; “You’re a terrible liar, Ronnie.” She moved to the fridge and took out some Perrier.

  “Would you care for something, Mr. Jones?” she said.

  “No, thank you. Are you up to telling me what happened?”

  “Not much to tell. I had just crossed over from 150 Worth to the Neiman Marcus building. I hadn’t been in there for more than a few minutes. I’d gone to purchase a new scarf to take up north for Thanksgiving.” She paused and took a sip of water. “He grabbed me from behind. I should have been more aware.” She shook her head, disappointment writ across her face. “He pulled me down into a rack of garments. Ponchos, capes, I’m not quite sure.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He held a knife to my throat. He smelled of cigar smoke. He said that my boyfriend . . . Really, boyfriend?” She looked at Ron. “I prefer consort, but nevertheless . . . He said Ron should drop it. No, leave it, he said. Leave it, in an English accent, like it was one word. Leavit. Then he said he’d be watching, said I’d lose a finger for every day Ron kept on the case.”

  “And then?”

  “Then he dropped me. I fell back into the apparel and he dashed away, and I just lay there until one of the floor staff found me. It wasn’t long—they are very good at Neiman Marcus, you know.” She fingered a white gauze that was taped to the side of her throat.

  “I’m sure,” I said and turned to Ron. “Any security video?”

  Ron nodded. “Tall, well built, ball cap, sunglasses. Needle in a haystack. The store has already beefed up security, but the Palm Beach PD doesn’t think there’ll be another victim, given the circumstances.”

  “I’ll call Ronzoni, get him to put some extra patrols around the building, just in case.” I looked at Cassandra. I wasn’t sure if she really was a lady, in the nobility sense of the word, but right now she looked like I imagined those noble types look in these situations. Tired, confused as to how such a thing could happen in their world, but at the same time resolute.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m damned annoyed, if you’ll pardon my French. These people think they can do anything. Now I’m afraid to go out my own front door without Ron.” She began to weep, and Ron slipped off his stool to comfort her. He suggested she lay down, and headed back toward her bedroom. As she got to the door I spoke.