by Paul Levine
“Somewhere in the world, it's got to be dark.” Katrina's voice swirled like wine in crystal.
“In that case, a single-malt Scotch, if you've got it.”
“How's a twenty-year-old Glenmorangie?”
“Like a Sunday stroll through the heather,” he purred. “Three fingers neat ought to do me.”
Katrina smiled coquettishly and called for the housekeeper. Victoria gave Steve a look that could leave second-degree burns, then asked: “So what have I missed?”
“Stephen was telling me about your new partnership,” Katrina said.
“Was he now?”
“Solomon and Lord,” Katrina said. “It has cachet, no?”
“Cachet, yes,” Steve said, and Katrina giggled like a schoolgirl.
“And what have you told Stephen?” Victoria asked her, trying not to exhale the steam she felt rising from deep inside.
“Everything. What happened that night. And other nights. He'll fill you in.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Believe me,” Katrina said, “some of the details make me blush.”
How could we tell through all that Deep Cover Number Nine?
“For a guy his age, Charlie had some appetite.” Katrina's laugh jangled like a pocketful of coins.
The widow Barksdale seemed to be handling her bereavement quite well, Victoria thought.
“The night it happened,” Katrina continued, “Charlie had this stomach virus, and I thought no way he'd want to fool around. But he hauled out the latex and leather and popped a hundred milligrams of Viagra. I mean, there was no stopping the guy.”
“I wonder if I could talk to my partner for a moment,” Victoria said, resting her hand on Steve's, then digging her fingernails deep into the underside of his wrist.
“Don't be long,” Katrina said, winking at Steve.
Victoria dragged Steve to his feet and led him to the dock. They stopped in the shadow cast by the flying bridge of the Kat's Meow.
“What do you think you're doing?” Victoria meant to whisper but it came out like a hiss from a punctured tire.
“Interviewing our client.”
“My client.”
“I think she likes me.”
“She'd like a Great Dane if it had balls.”
“This is for your own good, Victoria. You need me on this.”
“You lied to me! Last night you said, ‘It's all yours.'”
“I semi-lied. It's half yours.”
“Just when I was starting to think you were almost human.”
“Really? Thanks.”
He seemed genuinely moved, like the nicest thing anyone ever said to him was that he wasn't just a lump of useless protoplasm.
“I'm sure we'll work great together,” he said.
“Forget it. I'm reporting you to the Bar.”
“Be sure to tell them you misled Katrina about your trial experience. Naughty. Very naughty.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I'm trying to get you to redirect your anger. Think how good it would feel to beat Pincher in court.”
“Almost as good as it would feel to see you disbarred.”
“When I said you had the makings of a great lawyer—”
“It was a con, a pickup line.”
“It was the truth.”
“Forget it. I can't work with you.”
“Too late. Katrina already wrote a check. Payable to Solomon and Lord.”
“There's no such firm. Never will be.”
Steve looked back toward the courtyard and gave Katrina a little wave. “Okay. We're a one-case firm. Win, lose, or draw, we split up. But for now . . .”
“No way. I'll tell Kat you're an impostor and a shyster.”
“We'll look like clowns. Neither of us will get the case.”
“You bastard. You low-life, bullshit-slinging bastard!”
“Go ahead. Get it out of your system.”
They were at the edge of the dock, the huge yacht looming over them. A three-foot metal gaff was mounted on hooks attached to a piling. She could grab it, bash his skull, and push him into the water. When he tried to crawl out, she'd clobber him. Again and again. Watch him slip under in a mess of splintered bone and bubbling blood. Justifiable homicide. No jury would convict her.
“Trust me,” he said. “Someday you'll thank me.”
“Someday I'll kill you.”
“Like it or not, we're attached at the hip.”
Furious, she spun around so she wouldn't have to look at him. She needed a plan. She could torpedo him, no doubt about it. But what would Katrina think? That she didn't have her shit together. Solomon was right, damn him. If she opened her mouth, they'd both lose the case.
She wheeled back and faced him. “Katrina really wrote a check?”
Smiling like a lizard on a sunny rock, Steve patted his jacket pocket. “It's right here. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thousand? For a murder case? Are you kidding? It's got to be six figures.”
“Sure, it should be. But Barksdale's kids have filed suit against Katrina for wrongful death, tied up all the money. She's got hardly anything in her own name.”
“She's got more than ten thousand.”
“Jeez, one day in private practice, you're greedy already. Look, we'll get a million dollars' worth of publicity, and if we win, the money gets freed up and we get paid.”
“I can't buy groceries with publicity.”
“Why do you rich people worry so much about money?”
“I'm not rich, you jerk.”
“But your clothes.”
“Consignment shops.”
“And jewelry?”
“My mother's castoffs.”
“Princeton? Yale?”
“Scholarships and loans.”
“Oh,” he said, downcast. “And I was hoping you could front the expenses for expert witnesses, lab tests, consultant fees.”
“You are so totally dim. I'm broke.”
“All the more reason for you to tag along.”
“I don't tag along.”
“Okay, you take the law, I take the facts.”
“I'll consider it if we split fees, sixty-forty my way,” she said.
“Sixty-forty, my way. I'm providing you with free space in my penthouse office.”
“You have a penthouse?”
“Top floor. Of a two-story building.”
“I'll bet it's a real showplace,” she said. “Fifty-five, forty-five, my way.”
“Fifty-fifty. You can use my secretary. She types a hundred words a minute. In Spanish. In English, she spells everything phonetically, so you gotta really proof it.”
“She won't mind the extra work?”
“Doesn't matter. It's a term of her parole that she have a job.”
“Great,” she said, feeling her temples beginning to throb. “Just great.”
“So, we have a deal?”
She thought a moment before saying: “Not until you agree to some ground rules.”
“Whatever you say.”
“None of your macho bullshit. You treat me as an equal.”
“You got it.”
“We don't do anything unethical.”
“Of course not.”
“And none of your sophomoric cracks about my sex life.”
“Or lack thereof?”
“That's what I'm talking about,” she said.
“Just testing the boundaries. So—partners?”
“For one case.”
“Fine. Let's shake.”
She extended a hand, but he didn't shake. Instead, he fanned out his fingers, just as Bobby had done. She paused another moment—dammit, this sucked, but what choice did she have?—raised her hand, and pressed it against his.
Steve looked into her eyes as their hands pressed together, wondering just how long she would hold the position. First time they'd ever touched, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to break away.
She c
aught the look in his eyes and pulled her hand back.
Suddenly, a churning noise in the water startled them both. The engines on the Kat's Meow were firing up, and water churned at the stern.
“Hey there!” a voice came from above. “Sorry if I spooked you.”
On the flying bridge, a sun-baked man in a white shirt with epaulets stood at the wheel. In his mid-thirties, he sported a mustache and wore aviator sunglasses and a blue ball cap. “Wanna give me a hand with the lines?”
“No problem,” Steve said. He walked to the front cleat, unwrapped the bow line, and tossed it aboard.
Katrina called from the courtyard: “Where you going, Chet?”
“The marina. Carbon monoxide gauge is on the fritz. Be back before sundown.” He looked down at Steve, who was untying the stern line. “She's a beauty, huh?”
For a second, Steve thought he was talking about Katrina.
“Sixty-four feet with a hull draft of only twenty-three inches,” the man said.
Oh.
“Sleeps eight. Or twelve if you're real good friends.” The man laughed, and Steve tossed the stern line onto the deck.
“You live aboard?” Victoria asked, and Steve smiled. He was about to ask the same thing.
“Captain's quarters,” Chet said.
“Were you here the night Charles died?” she asked. That was Steve's next question, too. He'd been right about Victoria. She had great instincts. “Mr. . . . ?”
“Manko. Call me Chet. I was sleeping in my stateroom. Mrs. B called me right away. I got there even before the paramedics, but Mr. B was already dead.”
“We're going to need to talk to you, Mr. Manko,” Victoria said.
Steve smiled, liking the sound of the “we.”
“Not a problem,” Manko said. “I'm always around.” Then he waved to Katrina, gave the throttle some juice, expertly pulled away from the dock, and headed toward the open bay.
“You're thinking he's a corroborating witness?” Steve asked.
“I'm hoping,” she said.
“Me, too. Because the other choice is accomplice.”
On the loggia, the Honduran housekeeper was back with their drinks and three uninvited guests. Two plainclothes detectives and Ray Pincher.
“Already,” Victoria said.
“Let's go to work, partner,” Steve said.
They hurried back just as Pincher was telling Katrina that the Grand Jury had indicted her for first- degree murder, and she had the right to remain silent.
“Our client invokes all her rights,” Steve called out.
“Solomon and Lord. On the same side?” Pincher said, a twinkle in his eye. “This is going to be fun.”
“What does he mean by that?” Katrina asked.
“Shh,” Steve said. “You're remaining silent.”
“We'll want a private entrance to the jail for booking,” Victoria said to Pincher.
“Not necessary,” Steve said.
“No advance word to the media,” Victoria said. “We don't want a circus.”
“Circus is fine,” Steve said. “Cirque du Soleil even better.”
“Mrs. Barksdale will need twenty minutes to get dressed,” Victoria said.
“Make it an hour,” Steve said.
Pincher beamed and turned to one of the detectives. “Del, I think we could charge admission to this one.”
Looking worried but retaining her composure, Katrina stood and started toward the house. “I'd excuse myself,” she said to Pincher, “but my lawyers instructed me to remain silent.”
Steve pulled Victoria aside and whispered, “Go help her. You know what clothes to pick out?”
“Something subdued,” Victoria said. “Maybe a Carolina Herrera pantsuit.”
“Wrong,” he said. “A slinky dress, maybe one of those leopard prints, something off the shoulder. Show some boobs. And those stockings with holes.”
“Fishnets?” Victoria was shocked.
“Yeah. And red lipstick, really red.”
“You want our client to look like a hooker?”
“I want her to look like a farm girl, an innocent naif from the Midwest who was corrupted by the dirty old man she married. He twisted her into his perverted sex slave.”
“You think we can sell that?”
Steve's tone of righteous indignation was a rehearsal for the jury. “How dare the state accuse this woman of murder when all she did was try to satisfy her husband's deviant demands? What is she guilty of, besides giving too much of herself, unaware of the dangers?”
“That's our defense?”
“For now, it's all we've got,” Steve said.
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA—FALL TERM, 2005
INDICTMENT
MURDER FIRST DEGREE
Fla. Stat 782.04(1) & 775.087
STATE OF FLORIDA
vs.
KATRINA BARKSDALE
IN THE NAME AND BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA:
The Grand Jurors of the State of Florida, duly called, impaneled and sworn to inquire and true presentment make in and for the body of the County of Miami-Dade, upon their oaths, present that on or about the 16th day of November 2005, within the County of Miami-Dade, State of Florida, KATRINA BARKSDALE did unlawfully and feloniously kill a human being, to wit: CHARLES BARKSDALE, from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed, by strangling the said CHARLES BARKSDALE with a weapon, to wit: a leather device, in violation of Fla. Stat. 782.04(1) and 775.087, to the evil example of all others in like cases, offending and against the peace and dignity of the State of Florida.
Mitchell Kaplan
Foreperson of the Grand Jury
4. I will never carry a pager, drive a Porsche, or flaunt a Phi Beta Kappa key . . . even if I had one.
Thirteen
DOODADS AND DILDOS
“You're saying Charles Barksdale forced Katrina to have kinky sex?” Victoria shouted above the wind.
“Not physical coercion,” Steve answered. “More like emotional pressure. ‘If you love me, you'll do this.' And financial pressure. ‘Look at everything I've given you.' Plus the trump card: ‘If you won't wear a strap-on, if you won't whip my ass, if you won't do bondage, I'll dump you and find someone who will.'”
Victoria was dubious. “Kat told you all that?”
“What?” Steve was dialing through the static, searching for a radio station. Top down on his ancient Cadillac, they were headed across the MacArthur Causeway from Miami to South Beach, the car spewing contrails of oily smoke. In the backseat, Bobby was speed-reading a coroner's textbook, Medicolegal Investigation of Death. Victoria had glanced at an autopsy photo and turned away.
The Solomon Boys, as she'd started thinking of them, had picked her up at her condo, Steve saying they could work on the drive to the office. Taking one look at the convertible, she knew her hair would be wrecked in two minutes. Always a good soldier, she didn't complain.
It was the day after they'd signed up Katrina, who was immediately booked, fingerprinted, and jailed for first-degree murder. There were a hundred things to do, starting with prepping for the bail hearing. Victoria had not had time to interview their new client, so she was forced to rely on Steve's recitation of what Katrina had told him. Naturally, he'd taken no notes. Had she been running the show, they'd have tape-recorded every syllable, and by now they'd have the transcripts indexed and color-coded. When she told Steve this, he smiled tolerantly and said that at the beginning of a case it was better to keep a client's memory flexible.
“Flexible,” she thought. A slippery lawyer's word.
She questioned whether this shotgun marriage was going to work. Sure, Solomon had all that experience. But he was so aggressive, so reckless, he would lead them into untold disasters. She was still furious at him for stealing her client, but she had vowed to put up with him. She needed this case to get on her feet, start building her practice. As far as learning trial
tactics from Solomon, she'd study his every move, then do the exact opposite.
He must have found the radio station he wanted, because he stopped fiddling with the dial, and Robert Palmer was singing that a woman was simply irresistible. Victoria yelled over the music and the wind: “Did Kat tell you Charles would dump her if she didn't do what he wanted?”
“Not in those words. I filled in a few gaps for her.”
“You coached her?”
“I amplified her responses.”
“You make fine distinctions.”
“That's what lawyers do, Victoria.”
Victoria, she thought. No more “Vickie.” At least he was starting to show her respect. Crossing the causeway, she looked enviously at a cruise ship steaming out Government Cut toward the Atlantic. The passengers were waving at a party fishing boat following in their wake. The air tasted of salt, and the wind whipped at her hair.
“You're saying Charles pressured Kat into choking him as part of their marital relations,” she said.
“Marital relations? Who talks like that?”
Victoria motioned toward the backseat. “I do, in front of a child.”
Bobby said: “So they had a freaky way of doing the bone dance. Big deal.”
The light turned red at the entrance to the Fisher Island ferry, and Steve pulled to a stop, the Eldo's brakes screeching like the call of a pelican. The morning sun was still low in the southeastern sky but warm as a mitten on their faces. Just across the channel rose hundreds of multimillion-dollar condos protected by a moat from the real world. Directly in front of them was a Metro bus, its rear billboard advertising free consultations with a smiling, mustachioed lawyer. Hablamos Español.
Victoria fanned away the diesel fumes. “Could you put the top up?”
“A/C doesn't work,” Steve said.
She made a face but didn't say a word.
“Sorry if I don't drive a Porsche like Bigby,” Steve said.
“Don't start.”
“I also don't carry a pager or wear a Phi Beta Kappa key like the Bigster.”
“You don't have a Phi Beta Kappa key,” Bobby piped up.
“Thanks for the support, kiddo,” Steve said.
He fooled with the radio again, picked up what sounded like a bugle playing reveille, and Bobby yelled happily: “Long Shot Kick De Bucket!”
