Flesh and bones jl-7

by Paul Levine

  The whole crew moved from the pool deck down to the beach, where the photographer took some footage of the models building sand castles, running into the water, frolicking in the miniature surf, snorkeling, knee boarding, Jet Skiing, playing kadima and Frisbee, and smacking a volleyball with two male models who mysteriously showed up, pecs glistening, pearly teeth grinning.

  Generic stuff. It could have been one of those beer commercials with such impossibly beautiful people you hope somebody tears an anterior cruciate ligament diving for a ball or a brew. But this wasn't an ad for one of those piss-weak American beers. It was, pardon me, an advertorial for Pineapple Pete's suntan oil.

  I waited a while, then moseyed over to Coconut Willie's for a Grolsch and a six-dollar burger. I had no choice but to chill while Chrissy earned her five-thousand-dollar daily fee, which was precisely five thousand more than I was making today.

  By the time I got back to the beach, they were shooting the last segment, which the stopwatch woman told me was called "hanging out." Indeed, Chrissy and Sofia simply chatted as they strolled leisurely along the waterline. A few octogenarians toddied by, including one gent wearing a yarmulke and baggy boxer trunks that hung to his knees. He stopped and stared at the two women, a cute shot-the contrast of age and youth, and all that artistic stuff-until he ruined it by scratching himself in a place you'd never use suntan oil.

  I hoped Don Shula didn't come walking along the beach. Or Joe Paterno. Or my granny.

  I was wearing a fluorescent orange thong that was barely large enough to hold a roll of quarters much less… well, a linebacker's gear. Chrissy had asked one of the male models for a spare so I could get out of my charcoal pinstripes and black wing tips. Usually, on the beach, I wear cutoff jeans or boxer trunks of the Lloyd Bridges/ Sea Hunt era. But here I was, awkward, uncomfortable, exposed.

  "Who does your casual attire?" the male model had asked, serious as could be. "Calvin would seem right for you, though cut perhaps too small in the shoulders."

  "My attire is early locker room," I'd told him. "Old jerseys, faded warm-up gear. If I need something new, I call I-8OO-PRO-TEAM."

  Now, as Chrissy and I walked down the beach at the end of the day, I said, "I listened to the tapes."

  "Do we have to talk about it?" she asked. Her head was down, and she seemed to be watching her toes squishing into the wet sand.

  "We do, and then you do. You're going to have to tell the judge and jury."

  "It's very hard for me."

  "I know, but you have to. It's all we've got."

  "It brings back the anger."

  "Prior to the hypnosis, did you have any idea?"

  "No. But afterward, it made so much sense."

  "Did you ever confront your father, accuse him of raping you?"

  "No. I couldn't face him."

  "Did he ever threaten you as an adult? Were you in fear of him?" Hoping for something, some shred of evidence that could move us closer to the battered-women cases.

  "No. Once I learned what really happened, all I had was hate for him. It burned inside me. I wanted to kill him. That's all I thought about."

  Just great. Premeditation and malice all wrapped up together.

  "And now, how do you feel? Any regrets, any remorse?"

  "No!" Her face reddened. "I still hate him! He deserved to die. People will understand it." She raised both hands in front of her, as if holding the little Beretta, and aimed at a tern hovering over our heads. "Bang!"

  The tern took off, and Chrissy turned to me, the imaginary gun still in her hands. "It wasn't hard to do, Jake. Isn't that eerie?"

  Yeah, but not the way she meant. Just now, I wondered about the lack of remorse, the apparent inability to relate to anyone's pain except her own.

  "Did Dr. Schein tell you to shoot your father?"

  "No. Why would he do that?"

  "I don't know. Tell me more about Guy and Schein."

  "Like what?"

  "What's their agenda? What's in it for Guy if you get off?"

  It was still hot, even though the sun had moved over the city and was headed toward the Everglades. An easterly breeze blew Chrissy's hair across her face. She smoothed it back with a hand and said, "Nothing, except I'm his sister."

  "No. You're his half sister. You killed his father, and he's busting a gut to help you."

  A dozen ring-billed gulls hovered over the wave crests, dipping down to feed on small fish near the surface. Chickenhearted, they don't dive like the smaller terns.

  After a moment, Chrissy said, "I don't know what you're looking for."

  "Neither do I. This case is so screwy. When someone's been killed and you don't know who did it, Doc Charlie Riggs always asks, Cui bono? Who stands to gain? Here, you did the killing, but what does Guy have to gain from your getting off?"

  "If he's helping, what difference does it make?"

  "Because if I don't know, I can't tell if he's really helping. I have to know his stake in all of this. Schein's, too."

  We walked another few minutes in silence, leaving two sets of footprints in the wet sand. Sea oats waved in the breeze on the restored dunes. Joggers plodded along the boardwalk. Finally, Chrissy said, "There's something I didn't tell you."

  Isn't there always?

  "What?"

  "Larry Schein was in love with my mother."

  "You mean she had an affair with him."

  "I think so. Daddy thought so, too."

  "Did he accuse her?"

  "Not exactly. More like, he ridiculed her." Chrissy let her voice go husky: " 'Is the good doctor coming over to rub your psyche or your back today, Emily?' That sort of thing."

  "Did Guy know?"

  "I think everybody knew."

  "Did Schein ever talk about it?"

  "Not in so many words. But I remember at the funeral, he cried as much as I did. Daddy didn't cry at all, but he was dead drunk most of the week."

  We kept walking, passing a family picnic on the beach. The aroma of grilled chicken floated on the sea breeze. "Jake, I'm famished," Chrissy said. "We worked right through lunch."

  "All right. Dinner's on me. Let's head back."

  I looked at her in the pink glow of the setting sun, the makeup scrubbed off, her hair flying free. She had picked up some color during the day. For the first time, I noticed a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. A young and innocent look. Beauty takes so many forms. The beauty of nature, the beauty of the spirit, and, just now, the utter physical beauty of this woman.

  But I was looking at the superficial, and as Doc Riggs says, things are seldom what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream. What was there below the surface? I already had seen Chrissy with a gun in her hand. Twice, if you count here on the beach with the make-believe pistol.

  And now, so icy. Cold-blooded revenge is not a defense to murder. If it was revenge at all. She sounded so convincing on the tapes. The tears, the wrenching sobs. I remembered going over Chrissy's card and one-sheet at Rusty's modeling agency. Three years of acting lessons. Okay, I heard an imaginary teacher tell the class, you've just learned that you were sexually abused by your father as a child. What emotions can you bring up from your gut?

  It would not be the first time I had confused beauty with innocence. Now I wondered if I could be the pawn in an elaborate conspiracy. Murder and cover-up by Guy Bernhardt, Larry Schein, and Chrissy. Could that be it? Arranged from the start, with fabricated tales of abuse. But why?

  I looked back at Chrissy and chased the ugly thought.

  "I respect you, Jake," she said, suddenly.

  "What?"

  "You're really trying to help me, aren't you?"

  "Of course; it's my job."

  "Uh-huh. You're a very attractive man, Jake."

  "I'm your lawyer," I said stiffly.

  "Are the two mutually exclusive?"

  I watched a tiny four-eyed horseshoe crab scuttle along the shore break, then burrow into the sand. "Actually, they are. At least whi
le the case is pending. Afterward…"

  I let it hang there. Afterward, barring a miracle, she'd be in prison.

  "So you're just doing your job?"

  Teasing me.

  "Okay, it's more than that. I like you. A lot. I'm not going to stand here and tell you how beautiful you are, because every man you've ever met has told you that. I'm not going to make a pass at you, because that would only foul me up and it wouldn't help the case any."

  "Are you going to win for me?"

  "I'm going to try to win."

  Don't ask me how, I thought. I don't know.

  "Do you believe me, Jake?"

  "I believe you think your father abused you, and I'm going to use it because it's all I've got. But it's more complicated than that. Life always is. I've got to pick up some rocks and look underneath."

  "What do you expect to find?"

  "Same as always. Snakes."

  "Snakes," she repeated.

  I thought about the therapy sessions and her nightmares. Perhaps she did, too.

  We walked several more minutes before the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau came back into view. Chrissy turned to me, leaned over, and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  "What's that for?" I asked.

  "For being a man I can look up to without lying on my back."

  "It's a deal," I said. "For now."

  "Good. Now, feed me before I starve to death."

  She took off running, her heels kicking up sand. I watched a second, then headed after her. Her motion was smooth, her calf muscles undulating at every step, her bottom rolling with each stride. I was never the fastest linebacker in the AFC East, but I could still catch a beach bunny model.

  If I wanted to.

  At the moment, I was happy to be right where I was. Okay, okay, I know. The modern man is not supposed to react like he's just descended from tree apes. I try, I really do. But I'm a throwback in lots of ways. Obsolete by today's standards. I still hold the elevator door for women, say "Thank you, ma'am" to waitresses, and pick up the check when I take a lady (yeah, I still use the term) to lunch. I prefer Tony Bennett to Tupac Shakur, Norman Rockwell to Andy Warhol, and Gene Kelly to Michael Jackson. I wasn't around at the time, but I am plagued by the notion that the 1940s, war and all, were somehow better than the 1990s.

  We were no more than fifty yards from the rows of hooded chaise lounges that marked the Fontainebleau property when Chrissy seemed to stumble. I caught up with her as she stopped and turned, her body going limp.

  Deja vu. Only this time, she hadn't shot anybody.

  I caught her just as I had before, sweeping her up in my arms. She breathed my name as I held her against me. Then, for a long moment, the only sound was the familiar slap of waves against the shore.

  Chrissy came to, tired, disoriented, and hungry. We were in my Olds 442, headed toward Coconut Grove. She dozed off, and I made a call on the cellular, one of my few concessions to modern technology. My friend, legendary trial lawyer Stuart Z. Grossman, once said the cellular is the greatest advance of the twentieth century. No way, I told him. Not greater than the Wonderbra.

  By the time we got to my little coral-rock house, my brain trust was there. I carried Chrissy inside, banging open the humidity-swollen door with my good shoulder. Waiting in the kitchen was everyone in the world I loved: my granny, my nephew, and my mentor.

  Granny took a look and said, "That gal needs some meat on her bones."

  Doc Riggs measured Chrissy's pulse, temperature, and blood pressure and pronounced her vital signs strong.

  Kip sauntered by, sneaked a peak at Chrissy, then winked at me, guy to guy.

  Granny had shown up with a wicker basket filled with food and home remedies, from essence of cherry plum flowers to essence of rye whiskey. In the next fifteen minutes, Chrissy downed three bowls of conch chowder, half a loaf of Bimini bread slathered with smoked swordfish, and a pot of chicken and dumplings, all washed down with a half jar of Granny's moonshine.

  "A week of my cookin', and you'll be fit as a fiddle," Granny told Chrissy as she ate.

  "I have a gargantuan appetite," Chrissy said between bites, "but I have to watch it. The camera puts on five pounds."

  "And I'll put on another ten," Granny promised. "You like country ham with biscuits and sausage gravy, maybe some corn chowder with heavy cream, bread pudding for dessert?"

  "Sounds great. Usually I eat bean sprouts and tofu with black coffee."

  "Ye gods! No wonder I can see your hip bones."

  I cleared my throat. "Granny, I think the fainting is due to stress, not malnutrition."

  "Stress! You been listening to them shrinks again? You didn't hear anything about stress when I was a girl."

  "When you were a girl, Freud wasn't old enough to masturbate."

  "Don't sass me, Jacob, or I'll put you across my knee. And don't talk dirty around Kip."

  "Kip? When I asked if he was ready for my lecture on the birds and the bees, he told me-"

  "I'd seen the director's cut of Basic Instinct," Kip interrupted. "Plus a double feature of Showgirls and Kids. Next question."

  "Jacob, what kind of a uncle are you?" Granny asked, grilling me with her black-eyed glare.

  "A totally awesome one," Kip said, in my defense.

  "A child shouldn't learn about sex from the movies," Granny said in a stern Dr. Joyce Brothers tone.

  "I didn't," Kip said. "When Uncle Jake was dating that stripper from the Organ Grinder, I used to listen to them."

  "Kip!" I shouted, trying to shut him up. "She was an exotic dancer, not a stripper. And you shouldn't eavesdrop. It's an invasion of privacy."

  "Jeez, Uncle Jake. You two were so loud, I had to sleep on the back porch."

  "She was teaching me Spanish," I said.

  "I'll bet," Granny fumed.

  "Uncle Jake's telling the truth," Kip said defending his Tio Jacobo. "I kept hearing her yell, ' Ay, Dios! Ay, Jesus, Maria, y Jose! ' Then, after a few minutes, she'd get real quiet and sing 'Ave Maria.' "

  "Criminy!" Granny stomped around the living room for a few moments, getting her ornery look. "We'll talk about this later, Jacob." Then she turned to Charlie. "What do you think. Doc? Why's this sweet young girl always fainting?"

  "How would Charlie know?" I asked in my smart-ass tone. "He's never had a patient who lived."

  "Jacob Lassiter!" Granny was fuming now. "You didn't get that smart mouth from my side of the family."

  "No, ma'am. I get my law-abiding nature from those moonshining, tax-evading, cousin-marrying kin of yours."

  "That does it! One more word, and I'll brain you with a rolling pin!"

  I retreated from the kitchen, taking Chrissy with me to the living room. Fifteen minutes later, she was asleep on the sofa, an old quilt pulled up under her chin. I sat on my haunches against the wall, just below an aerial photograph of South Dade, torn apart by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Kip sank into a beanbag chair, circa 1971. Charlie Riggs paced in front of the sofa, puffing on his pipe, waves of sweet cherry smoke drifting toward me.

  "She's real pretty, Uncle Jake," Kip said. "Kind of like Elle Macpherson in Sirens."

  "What in tarnation is that?" Granny demanded, carrying some coconut cake from the kitchen.

  "The Sirens sang songs that lured ancient sailors to their deaths on the rocks," I said.

  "Sounds like the women you're usually involved with," Granny replied. "There was that Gina Florio, who married rich and fooled around poor. There was that English psychiatrist who was crazier than her patients, then there was that Baroso persecutor woman."

  " Prosecutor, Granny. She was an assistant state attorney."

  "Same difference. Sirens all of them."

  "We could fill Jake's ears with wax," Charlie Riggs suggested.

  Granny gave him a sideways glance.

  "Odysseus had his men fill their ears with wax so they couldn't hear the Sirens' song," he explained.

  "Better blindfold him, too," Granny said. "You watch yourself,
Jake. Every time you get involved with these birds with the broken wings, you find trouble with a capital T."

  "And that rhymes with P, and that stands for 'pool,' " Kip sang out.

  "Indeed," Doc Charlie Riggs said. " Ubi mel ibi apes. Where there is honey, there will be bees."

  "I asked you folks over here to help me, not trash me," I said.

  "I'll order a blood work-up on her," Charlie said, looking down at the sleeping Chrissy. "It may be as simple as hypoglycemia, and Granny's advice would be right. A better-balanced diet would help. But, while you're at it, get a drug screen done."

  "Why?"

  "No reason. No reason at all. But if you ask for my advice, follow it!"

  "Okay, okay. Why is everybody on my case today?"

  "Because we love you, Uncle Jake," Kip said.

  "Good. I feel like a hug."

  Kip came over and jumped into my arms. He was tall and gangly, and I hoisted him up so he could wrap his legs around me. "I love you, too."

  Charlie harrumphed his displeasure at the display of emotion and said, "I already have the hospital records and I've talked to the doctors and nurses."

  "Yeah?"

  "Nothing special. They had Harry Bernhardt hooked up to an EKG. The ventricular fibrillations are clearly visible in the squiggles. Looks like a nine on the Richter scale. No doubt about the cause of death. Lethal dysrhythmia."

  "Maybe we ought to have a cardiologist take a look," I said.

  "Sure, if you want. I've double-checked everything in the autopsy report. Harry Bernhardt's heart was soft and flabby, four hundred five grams. Microscopically, there was some separation of myocardial fibers. His grossly fatty liver weighed three thousand one hundred twenty-five grams, suggesting excessive alcohol consumption. His blood alcohol at death was point nine. He had a four point five percent carbon monoxide hemoglobin saturation, which could be expected in a cigarette smoker."

  "The son of a bitch would still be alive if he took better care of himself," I said. "He would have survived the shooting."

  "Don't start whining about that again," Charlie said. "The cause of death may have been a heart attack, but the heart attack was caused by your client shooting him."