by Paul Levine
“Where you been keeping yourself, Judge?”
Zinkavich cleared his throat, the sound of a growling dog. “Your Honor, I object to your calling the witness ‘Judge.'”
“That so?” Judge Rolle said.
“The title is not appropriate for a jurist expelled from the bench. Further, I question the propriety of Ms. Lord even presenting Mister Solomon as a witness.”
“You do?”
“It's an obvious attempt to curry Your Honor's favor. There are two kinds of lawyers: those who know the law, and those who know the judge.”
“No, Z, there's a third kind. Those who don't know shit even when they've stepped in it. Judge Solomon is the most decent fellow ever to sit in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit and I'm gonna call him anything I want, and then I'm gonna listen to what he has to say.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Zinkavich said, meekly.
“And if I come down off the bench and give him a hug and a kiss, you're gonna keep that garbage dump of yours shut. Are we clear?”
“Crystal, ma'am,” Zinkavich said.
With a sweet smile, Judge Rolle turned to the witness. “Now, Judge Solomon, what have you been up to?”
“Some fishing, some reading, a lot of thinking,” Herbert said.
“Well, it agrees with you. Now, it would give me great pleasure to administer the oath to you myself.”
As Herbert Solomon swore to tell the truth, Victoria wondered who was more upset by his presence, Zinkavich or her pouting partner. Solomon had turned away from her in his chair, sitting corkscrew style, sulking. The big baby.
She was confident in her decision to call Herbert Solomon to testify. Strictly speaking, the ex-judge had little relevant information. But when she'd spoken to him on the phone, he'd revealed a deep respect for Steve and how he was nurturing Bobby. This was something worth conveying to the judge.
Hey, Solomon, I'm just following your instructions. “Know your audience.”
While thinking these thoughts, she forced herself to compartmentalize. She hadn't even looked at Bruce's seating charts, his musical selections . . . or his prenuptial agreement. What a nice little wedding surprise that was. All things considered, she would have preferred a heart-shaped, diamond-studded pendant.
“Ms. Lord,” the judge said.
“Yes, Your Honor?” Victoria responded.
“It's customary at this stage of the proceedings for the lawyer who calls a witness to ask a question or two.”
“Sorry, Judge.” Victoria got to her feet. “Please state your name and occupation for the record, sir.”
“Herbert Solomon. Recovering lawyer.” Re-koven loy-yuh.
That drew a chuckle from the judge, a scowl from Steve, and a little snort from Zinkavich.
Victoria needed the father to paint a portrait of his son. Who is this man? So she asked her questions, and Herbert told his stories, the mellifluous flow of his Savannah drawl as pleasant as a burbling brook.
Herbert talked about Steve and young Janice growing up in the old, rambling house on Pinetree Drive on Miami Beach. He credited Steve's mother, Eleanor, “God rest her soul,” for keeping the family together while he was busting his tail as a lawyer, making his name with pro bono work, then on to the bench, eventually becoming chief judge of the circuit, and the first name on the governor's short list for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court.
“That's when my troubles began,” Herbert said, “but we're not here to talk about me, except as it relates to Stephen.”
He said he regretted all the missed opportunities to spend time with both his children when they were young. Janice took some wrong turns early, running with a bad crowd, using drugs, while Stephen was a jock at Beach High.
“Ah was too in love with mah own ambitions to pay mah children much mind,” Herbert said. “Eleanor was sick for years, and there was only so much she could do. The kids grew up pretty much on their own. Ah remember one time ah rushed from court to Tropical Park for the state track meet. Got there too late, just missed Stephen winning the hundred meters. Ah hustled into the stands, and one of the bailiffs from downtown stopped me and said, ‘Judge, you must have some of them Negro Israelites in your blood, 'cause white boys don't run like that.' Later, ah told Stephen how ah watched him win, but he knew ah was fibbing.”
“Your Honor.” Zinkavich was on his feet. “This is heartwarming, but I object on grounds of relevance.”
“Sit down,” the judge ordered.
“When Stephen was in college, he started asking me questions about lawyering,” Herbert continued. “Just scratching and pecking, not saying what he meant. Eleanor was dying and ah was about to be indicted on false testimony. Ah didn't have the heart to fight, so ah quit the bench and resigned the Bar in return for them dropping the investigation. Stephen was tore up, maybe more than me. That boy never told me straight-out, but ah know the reason he went to law school was to clear mah name. He wanted to ride into court on a big ole white horse, prove ah was innocent. When ah wouldn't let him do it, he got angry at me, too.”
Steve squirmed in his chair, Victoria sneaking a peek at him. Painful memories were etched on his face.
“Stephen's got this deep resentment of injustice. Maybe he doesn't always follow every little rule the fat cats come up with, but on things that matter, mah son's got integrity. His principles are more important to him than money. And he's a fine role model for mah grandson.”
There was a catch in his throat as he continued. “A man can't help but compare himself to his own son. Me? Ah was caught up in mah own inflated self-importance. Lawyer of the Year? Like being the best rattlesnake in the Okefenokee.”
“Don't be so hard on yourself,” Judge Rolle said. “You were widely admired. Still are, in my circle.”
“Ah'd lost mah way, Althea,” Herbert confided, dropping the formalities. “Ah never missed a Bar convention or a Chamber luncheon, and ah'd hang out at the Judiciary receptions till the last shrimp was gone from the bowl. Lord, how ah loved the applause, the slaps on the back, even those damn fool plaques they give you with the little gavels. Stephen doesn't give a rat's tuchis about those things. He'd rather spend time with a boy who needs him.”
Herbert Solomon turned in the witness chair and looked at Steve head-on. “Mah point is simply this: Ah admire Stephen so much for the man he's become. He puts Bobby first. Before his social life, before his career, before everything. Maybe ah was the better lawyer, but Stephen's the better man.”
It was an involuntary movement, what Victoria did then. Placing her hand on top of Steve's, letting her fingers lace through his. He tightened his hand into a fist, pulling Victoria's fingers tight between his, and they remained that way a long moment, his hand warm and firm beneath hers, the two hands wound so closely together as to nearly be one.
Fifty
BASEBALL AND BRIBERY
Steve carried the sleeping Bobby to the car, Herbert walking alongside. Victoria hung back a few steps, giving father and son a moment of privacy.
“You could stay with us tonight, not drive so far,” Steve said.
Herbert shook his head. “Ah'm a creature of habit. Need mah hammock on the back porch, mah laughing gulls singing to me.”
“What are you doing this weekend?”
“Not a damn thing. You teach Bobby to fish yet?”
“Thought that was your department, Dad.”
“Y'all come down to Sugarloaf Saturday, we'll chase the wily bonefish.”
“We'd like that.”
Victoria listened, realizing this strange, coded conversation was the male dance around edges of emotion. Steve was saying thank you, and Herbert was saying he wanted a closer relationship. Underneath it all, she supposed, father and son were each saying: “I love you.”
Finally, Herbert reached over and tousled Steve's hair, just as Steve did so often with Bobby. Then Herbert got into his rusty Chrysler and pulled out of the parking lot.
Minutes later, Steve was guiding the old Caddy convertible off the
Miami Avenue exit of I-95. Bobby was asleep in the backseat. As they neared Victoria's condo, Steve said: “The way I acted when Dad came in . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I was a real horse's ass, to use one of his expressions.”
Which she took to mean he was sorry.
“You really turned the case around,” he continued.
A thank-you, she translated. “All I did was call your father. He's the one who turned it around.”
“It was good lawyering, Vic. Really good.”
They sat quietly another moment before she said: “I need your help with Thigpen and your sister.”
“Just wing it.”
She looked over at him. The lights from the Brickell Avenue condos shadowed his face. What was he thinking?
“You might be able to wing it,” she said, “but I need to prepare for cross.”
“You'll be fine.” He turned the Caddy into the driveway of her building, pulled to a stop under the portico. “See you tomorrow, Vic.”
“Hey, you.”
“What?”
“We won a murder trial today.” Wanting to talk. Not wanting the night to end.
“How's it feel?”
She shrugged. “I don't know. I'm exhausted, emotionally drained. And . . .”
“A little let down?”
“Yeah.”
“It's always that way. If you win, the high's not high enough. If you lose, the low is lower than you thought possible.”
“We should celebrate.” Even as she said it, something struck a dissonant note.
Celebrate how? Just the two of us? Invite Bruce? That didn't sound like much fun.
“Sure thing,” Steve said.
“Katrina says she'll have a check for us by Friday. A big one.”
“Great.”
But he didn't sound great, Victoria thought. “Just what you wanted, Steve. A case to put you in the big leagues.”
“Yep.”
Since when did he become Mr. Monosyllabic?
“And I almost forgot, Katrina's planning a victory party,” Victoria said. “Everyone's supposed to dress as cops and convicts.”
“You can be the cop.”
“Actually, I'll be away. On . . .”
“Your honeymoon.”
“Maui.”
“Nice.”
“Bruce says they have some avocado-growing techniques he'd like to study.”
“A tax-deductible honeymoon. The Bigster is one savvy fellow.”
That seemed to drain the juice from the conversation. She wanted to ask him to come up, share some tequila, relive their victories. But Bobby was snoozing in the backseat, and it was late, and—an ever bigger reason—this was not the man whose ring she was wearing. Not the man to whom she was betrothed, the man she'd soon promise to love and to cherish till death did them part . . . and the man whose prenuptial agreement she needed to read before morning.
Steve drove home wishing she had asked him to come in for a while. He could have carried Bobby upstairs and put him on the sofa—the kid could sleep in a bowling alley. Steve wanted to talk to Victoria. Not about the two of them. He'd come to accept the fact that she was gone. No, he wanted to talk about what was gnawing at him like rats in the basement. At first, he had vowed never to tell her that he had bribed Janice to flip her testimony in the guardianship case. Now, guilt-stricken, he felt a need to confess. But how could he?
She wouldn't understand. He barely did himself. Why had he paid off his sister? Did he have so little confidence in the system? Or in Victoria? Or in himself? They were winning Bobby's case without cheating. He should have just let it play out. He'd cut corners before, but never anything like this.
An hour ago, Steve had listened as his father spoke so proudly.
“My son's got integrity.”
What would his father say if he knew about the bribe? Steve would never be able to face him if the truth came out.
“He's a fine role model for my grandson.”
Right, I teach him baseball and bribery, Steve thought. And what about Bobby's testimony? So strange, seeing his life through his nephew's eyes. Models and mojitos. God, was he really that shallow and immature?
Dark thoughts were swirling in his mind. By the time he swung the car past the Cocowalk shops for the drive down Grand Avenue, the doubts had morphed into borderline paranoia.
What if Janice is setting me up?
She could have been wearing a wire when he gave her the money, their cars parked side by side on the Rickenbacker Causeway. Maybe Pincher and Zinkavich had him under surveillance. Had there been a white van with darkened windows pulled under the trees near the first bridge? He couldn't remember.
When Steve turned onto Kumquat Avenue just before midnight, with a mockingbird hooting in a neighbor's tree, he was certain that disaster would strike tomorrow. A phalanx of police officers would storm the courtroom. He would be led away in handcuffs as Zinkavich gobbled Krispy Kremes and Pincher cackled with laughter.
What was it Pincher had said to him in Judge Gridley's chambers the day of the bird trial? “I'll have the Florida Bar punch your ticket.”
Yes, of course, they'd set him up. Pincher and Zinkavich must have arranged to snatch Bobby off the street. The whole stinking thing was a setup to entrap him.
He would lose his license.
He'd go to jail.
But worst of all, he'd lose Bobby.
BARKSDALE WIDOW GOES FREE
Suicide, Not Murder, Pincher Declares
By Joan Fleischman
Herald Staff Writer
In a stunning courtroom reversal, murder charges were dismissed yesterday against Katrina Barksdale, the widow accused of strangling her husband, construction magnate Charles Barksdale.
Following a closed-door hearing, State Attorney Raymond Pincher announced in open court that he was dismissing all charges. “The due diligence of my office has uncovered irrefutable proof that Charles Barksdale's death resulted from suicide, not homicide,” Pincher said.
Posing for photos on the courthouse steps, Mrs. Barksdale, 33, said she might write a book about her ordeal, but not until she celebrated with a trip to the Bahamas. “That's the way my husband would have wanted it,” said the widow. “He was a good-time Charlie, not a gloomy Gus.”
At a posttrial press conference, Pincher shrugged off suggestions that his office acted too hastily in securing a murder indictment against Mrs. Barksdale. “Had defense counsel done their job, the case never would have gotten this far,” Pincher said. “Because of our tireless efforts, justice has been served.”
Defense lawyers Stephen Solomon and Victoria Lord rushed from the courtroom and could not be reached for comment.
Fifty-one
THE HUNDRED-THOUSAND-
DOLLAR QUESTION
His milky gray complexion tinged with pink spots like a poisoned oyster, Jack Zinkavich said: “We have a serious crisis, Judge.”
“Is there any other kind?” Judge Althea Rolle said.
Steve sat quietly at the Petitioner's table, letting the little drama play out. Next to him, Victoria watched, notepad in hand.
“What now?” the judge said. She wore baby blue robes, the collar of a white silk blouse visible at the neck. It was just after nine A.M. With the Barksdale case over, they were back on a normal schedule.
“Rufus Thigpen, our first witness, is missing,” Zinkavich said.
“Then call your second witness.”
“But, Judge, that interrupts my order of proof.”
“Don't be so anal, Z.”
“I am concerned there may be foul play afoot.”
Foul play afoot? Steve thought.
Like Sherlock-fucking-Holmes.
“How so?” the judge asked.
Zinkavich shot a look at Steve, who instantly put on his angelic Bar Mitzvah boy face. Victoria cast a sideways glance at him, too.
Does she suspect something? Or is it just my guilty conscience?
Vict
oria seemed tired, he thought, her eyes bloodshot, her hair not quite up to its usual standards. Sleepless night? Not sharing her bed, he didn't know. The fatigue—if that's what it was—softened her edges, made her more vulnerable, and, if possible, even more desirable. She was wearing a brown double-breasted pinstripe jacket with a wide collar and a matching below-the-knee skirt. To Steve, it had an expensive, handmade by nuns in the Swiss Alps look.
Zinkavich said: “I call upon the Petitioner to disclose if he knows the whereabouts of Mr. Rufus Thigpen.”
Steve kept quiet. He had a lawyer to take the heat.
“Judging from Mr. Thigpen's rap sheet,” Victoria said, “he's probably in jail somewhere.”
Yes! Exactly what he would have said, Steve thought, if he were counsel instead of a litigant. He was proud of Victoria. She'd come so far so quickly.
“Just call a witness, Z, so we can move this along,” the judge said.
Zinkavich frowned. “In that event, Your Honor, the state calls Janice Solomon.”
Hearing his sister's name sent creepy crawlies up Steve's spine. Thigpen's disappearance was part of the bargain, part of what he'd paid for. But Janice could still double-cross him on the witness stand.
His sister frumped her way into the courtroom, avoiding Steve's gaze. She wore a shapeless print dress that stopped just above her ankles and white socks with sandals. She carried a soft leather purse big enough to hold twenty kilos of hash. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and was held in place by a psychedelic orange scrunchy. Behind her granny glasses, her dark eyes seemed distant, as if focused on a place her body had left but her mind had lingered. The overall impression, Steve thought, was of a woman who ate too many Cheetos and drank too many Cokes, between bouts of inhaling, injecting, and smoking an array of exotic substances.
After Janice was sworn in, Zinkavich took her through the preliminaries. She was Steve Solomon's sister, two years older. Grew up on Miami Beach, expelled from high school for repeated drug use, attended a combination school-and-dairy-farm for troubled kids in rural Pennsylvania. Tossed out for growing marijuana in an alfalfa field and running a semipro brothel in the barn. Arrested a dozen times for drugs, larceny, and disorderly conduct, plus once for criminal mischief when she squatted on the roof of a police cruiser and peed on the windshield. She didn't really know who fathered Bobby. It could have been this crackhead in Ocala who used to beat the shit out of her. Or this trucker who gave her a lift to Pensacola in return for spreading her legs at a rest stop just off the Loxley exit of the I-10.
