by Paul Levine
Twenty-seven
OUT OF THE CLOSET
The rich are different, Steve decided. They have bigger closets.
Katrina Barksdale's wood-paneled two-story coliseum was larger than Steve's bedroom. Strike that. The shoe section was larger than his bedroom.
He heard the purr of a dehumidifier and smelled a lavish mixture of aromas. The tang of cedar, the richness of leathers… the scent of money. Katrina's closet was a cool and peaceful sanctuary, dripping with silks and linens, minks and wools. Every pair of shoes had its own Plexiglas drawer, tastefully lighted like a sculpture in a museum. Designer clothing hung on a motorized track that circled the room like a toy train. You punched in the key of a designer-Armani, Saint Laurent, de la Renta, Moschino-then a garment code, and the track hummed contentedly as it delivered to your manicured hands a suede jacket or lacy skirt or velvet blazer.
Steve had told Katrina Barksdale he needed to take photos, which was true, as far as it went. He'd left her downstairs with Victoria, sipping wine and preparing for trial. He spent the next twenty minutes in the master suite with a digital camera, creating a 360-degree view, from the four-poster, silk-canopied bed-where Charles had expired, breathless but erect-to the arched entryways of the mammoth his-and-her closets. Then he tackled his other mission, finding the Breitling dive watch.
In a vestibule that led to Charles' closet, Steve came across a teak chest with small drawers like a library's card catalog: Charles Barksdale's jewelry cabinet. Inside were cuff links, rings, and an assortment of watches. Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe, Cartier, Rolex, even a Casio G-Shock, named for Jeremy Shockey, the football player. Some were new and some antiques, some solid gold, others stainless steel, still others circled with diamonds.
But no Breitling dive watch.
So maybe Bobby was right. Maybe Katrina Barksdale didn't buy the watch for good old Charlie. But then again, there were other places to keep the watch. He'd have to check out the master stateroom on the Kat's Meow.
“What the hell?”
The growl came from behind him, and Steve whirled around, looking guilty as a purse snatcher. There was Chet Manko, the boat captain, wearing a mesh athletic shirt and paint-splattered cargo pants and holding a wood chisel.
“That's amazing,” Steve said. “I was just thinking about the boat, and boom, there you are.”
Manko raised the chisel. Muscles ripped on his bronzed arm. “What the hell you doing?”
“Taking photos.” Steve held up the camera as Exhibit A to his innocence. “Getting the lay of the land.”
“In Mr. B's jewelry box?”
There was some New England in Manko's voice, Steve thought. Working-class Boston, maybe. “Actually, I was looking for something. Evidence.”
“What evidence?” Manko didn't even try to mask his suspicion.
“Afraid that's privileged. What are you doing up here, Manko?”
“Digging dry rot out of the balcony overhang.” Again, the chisel came up. “Kat know you're in her bedroom?”
Kat. The hired help was on mighty friendly terms with the lady of the house, Steve thought.
He saw it then, gleaming on Manko's thick left wrist. A Breitling Superocean dive watch, extra-large face, good to three thousand feet.
“Aw, shit,” Steve said.
“Tell me in your own words when you noticed Charles was in distress,” Victoria said.
In your own words.
A lawyer's verbal tic, she knew. Whose words would Katrina use? Abraham Lincoln's?
“Like I told the cops, like I told Steve, like I told everybody, Charlie's tied up, just like always. I whip him with the cat-o'-nine-tails, then do my custom blow job with a mouthful of hot water. That always drove him nuts. After he shoots his load, I go over to the bar and pour myself a Stoli. I hear something, and when I look over at Charlie, he's flopping up and down, making noises like a goose squawking. Wait a second.” She paused, biting her lip. “Now that I think about it, I might have been drinking Grey Goose. Anyway, I run over there, and he's all blue. His face, not his balls. By the time I get the collar off, he's not flopping anymore.”
They were in the living room, seated on a beige sofa Katrina said was custom-made in Rome. She was wearing red silk pants and an embroidered blouse with a Chinese design and had polished off half a bottle of a crisp Chardonnay. Victoria was sticking to club soda as she took Katrina through her story, looking for inconsistencies.
“If you're asking me all these questions a zillion times, I must be testifying, huh?”
“We don't know that yet.” Victoria noticed how the grain of each limestone tile lined up with the grain of the adjacent one. “If our cross of the state's witnesses leaves reasonable doubt, we might keep you off the stand.”
“Isn't that risky?”
“Not half as risky as lying to your lawyer,” Steve said, hustling into the room, with Manko trailing. “Didn't I warn you? Dammit, Katrina, didn't I?”
“What's wrong, Steve?” Victoria asked.
“Our slutty client, for starters.”
“You can't talk to her that way,” Manko said.
“Fuck you, boat boy,” Steve exploded. Red-faced, he wagged a finger at Katrina. “You know what I hate more than a woman who kills her husband? A woman who lies to her lawyer.”
Katrina coolly placed her wineglass on the mahogany coffee table. A dainty gesture. “What have you been telling him, Chet?”
“Not a damn thing,” Manko said.
Katrina crossed one red silk pant leg over the other. “So what seems to be the problem, Stephen?”
He let his voice go high and mocking: “‘I've been faithful to Charlie since the day he proposed.'”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that. How long you been porking Manko here?”
“Does it matter? How long, I mean.”
“What matters is that you lied to us. And if you lied about one thing…”
“Everything else I told you was true.”
“Yeah? Who else you fucking?”
“Steve, must you be so crude?” Victoria said.
“Chet is my only extracurricular activity,” Katrina said.
“No golf pros?” Steve said. “Aerobics instructors? Sweaty gardeners you invite in for lemonade and a quick pop?”
“You got no right-” Manko took a step toward Steve.
“Shut up!” Steve jabbed a finger into Manko's chest, surprising the bigger man. “I haven't gotten to you yet.”
Victoria watched as Steve took over the room, planting himself like an oak in front of the coffee table, raising his voice, telling Katrina that in all his years of practice, he'd never encountered anyone as foolish, and he should withdraw from the case and let her lie to some other lawyer, and she'd be lucky if the jurors didn't lynch her before rendering a verdict. At first, Victoria thought it was an act, Steve trying to scare their client straight. Then, when he grabbed Manko's arm and ripped off the watch, she decided he was losing control.
Steve waved the watch in Katrina's face. “You let me make a fool of myself with that Katrina Loves Charles crap. But even worse, you led me into a trap. I put Manko on our witness list, but I can't put him on the stand because I can't subject him to cross. And any chance of your testifying is out because I can't let Pincher get at you, either.”
“All because I was screwing Chet?”
“What do you mean, ‘was'?” Manko asked.
“Didn't I tell you to shut up?” Steve snarled. “I don't have time for a lovers' spat.”
Katrina said: “Was screwing, is screwing, might screw again, what's the big deal?”
“Victoria, tell her,” Steve commanded. “Spell it out for her.”
“Pincher will use your affair to prove motive,” Victoria said.
Katrina laughed. “What motive? To be with Chet? To marry him? Please.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Manko said.
“Chet, you're adorable in yo
ur own way, but you're just a sport fuck and we both know it, so don't pull that shit.”
Katrina had dropped the mask of the Coral Gables socialite, Victoria thought. It hadn't fit very well, anyway. Now she wrinkled her forehead, proof that she was still a few years from her first Botox injection. “Okay, so I lied about being faithful to Charlie, but I didn't kill him.”
“Not by yourself,” Steve said.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
Steve's eyes blazed. There was something wild and dangerous about him, Victoria thought.
“When you were standing at the bar, Charles was doing just fine,” Steve said. “If he was making any noise, it was to say ‘Hey, untie me already.' You shot a look at him, then turned to the corridor, where Manko was plastered to the wall, out of camera range.”
“You're nuts,” Katrina said.
Manko shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You can't pin this on me.”
“Of course I can't, Einstein.” Steve clenched a handful of Manko's mesh shirt and shoved him backwards. “Naming you only implicates my client in a murder conspiracy. But Pincher can nail you, even if I can't.”
“The fuck he can,” Manko snorted.
“Wanna bet? There's a person's shadow on the security video. Pincher's already told me he's sent the tape to his high-tech forensics guys.”
No he hasn't, Victoria thought, but kept quiet.
“They'll be able to tell the height and weight of whoever's there,” Steve continued. “What do you want to bet it's a guy about six-three and two hundred pounds with a pea-size brain?”
“Fuck you,” Manko said.
“Katrina's glance is the signal to the guy. Now he slithers along the wall because he knows just what the camera sees and what it doesn't. He goes over to the bed, tightens Charles' collar, and strangles him.”
“This what you lawyers get paid for, making shit up?” Manko said.
“Just out of curiosity, Manko,” Steve said, “do you have a record? 'Cause I'm laying odds you've done time.”
“A couple of bullshit A-and-Bs,” Manko said. “Bar fights, is all.”
“So, welcome to the big time.”
Victoria drove and Steve leaned back in the passenger seat, one foot propped on the dashboard. They were headed north on Old Cutler Road under the banyan trees. Without asking for permission, Steve fiddled with the buttons on her radio. He stopped at a station where Loudon Wainwright III was proclaiming himself the last man on earth.
“Was that an act back there?” she asked. “When you looked like you might have a stroke.”
“I thought I'd get straighter answers if they were afraid I was going to break some glassware, so yeah, it was mostly Drama 101. But a part of me was really pissed.”
“Why'd you lie about Pincher?”
“I needed to gauge Manko's reaction. Katrina's, too.”
“And…?”
“Katrina's telling the truth. She didn't kill Charlie. Neither did Manko.”
“And you base this on what?” Victoria was astounded.
“They passed my human polygraph test.”
“Oh, please.”
“That first day, I thought she was lying when she denied killing Charles,” he said.
“What? You told me you believed her.”
“I fudged a little. I was afraid your heart wouldn't be in it if you thought she was a killer.”
“That's so insulting. I'm a professional.”
Steve leaned back, his eyes closed. On the radio, Pat Benatar was singing about crimes of passion. “Anyway, back then, she was lying, but only about being faithful. That's what screwed up my polygraph, made me think she was lying about the murder.”
“But like you said in the house, if she lied about one thing.. .”
“You gotta trust me on this. She didn't do it.”
“There's no such thing as a human polygraph.”
“Okay,” he said. “Call it a gut instinct. My gut tells me she doesn't have it in her.”
“You can't make decisions like this based on your gut.”
“That's how I make all the big ones,” Steve said. “You ought to try it sometime.”
Twenty-eight
A DEEP, DARK SEA
“Bigby doesn't mind us going out?” Steve asked.
“You think this was a date?” Victoria said.
“We had dinner.”
“A working dinner.”
“Some guys wouldn't want their fiancees even doing that.”
“Bruce isn't the jealous type. And he knows I'd never do anything stupid.”
Steve didn't like the way that sounded. Like the dumbest thing in the world would be falling for him. He pulled the old Eldo into his driveway, next to Victoria's car. “You want to come in for a drink?”
She shook her head. “I'm bushed.”
As they got out of the Eldo, he said: “With Bobby at Teresa's, we've got the place to ourselves.”
She flashed her prosecutorial look. “Are you putting the moves on me, Solomon?”
“Me? No. Absolutely not. I just thought…”
In a neighbor's tree, a mockingbird was singing an aria. What was it Bobby had told him about the mockers? Oh, yeah, only the bachelors sing at night. Looking for a mate from sundown until dawn. A song came into Steve's head: Jimmy Buffet's “Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw.”
“Just what did you think, Solomon?”
He wasn't sure. He knew she wasn't going to jump into his arms. In the office, she'd told him with finality, “Chapter closed.” The first kiss was a last kiss. So what the hell was he doing? In the tree, the mockingbird began trilling an octave higher. Was the bachelor bird laughing?
“What's that?” she said, looking past him toward the house.
“What?”
“Did you leave your door open?”
He walked along the chipped flagstones toward the house. The top hinge was smashed; the door was open and cockeyed.
“Oh, shit.” He gingerly pulled at the door, but the bottom scraped the flagstone step and stuck.
“Don't go in.” Victoria was reaching into her purse for a cell phone. “I'll call the police.”
“Whoever did this is long gone. I just hope they didn't get my autographed Barry Bonds ball.”
He jiggled the door. The bottom screeched and moved an inch. He thought he heard something-the squeak of rubber soles on tile-and a second later, the door flew off the remaining hinge, striking him across his forehead and the bridge of his nose. A searing pain flashed behind his eyes. As the door fell on top of him, he was vaguely aware of a figure running out of the house, past him.
He heard Victoria yell: “Hey!”
He heard the pounding of shoes on pavement.
He heard boulders bouncing off each other inside his skull.
A moment later, he was on his feet, wobbling in the direction of an invisible man. In the darkness, all Steve could see were the fluorescent stripes of the man's running shoes. The shoes turned the corner at Solana Road and headed south toward Poinciana. Steve followed.
“Steve! No, don't!” Victoria was shouting at him. The sounds echoed: he heard every word twice.
Steve was aware that he was not running in a straight line. He thought he was seeing bright flashes, realized they were thin beams of moonlight speckling the street through a canopy of willow trees. The air smelled of jasmine, and in a few moments, Steve began feeling stronger. The guy was not a great runner, or he would have pulled away by now. By the time Steve reached Malaga, he could see the guy was wearing a dark warm-up suit, and there was something covering his head. What the hell was it?
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren wailed. Steve was thirty yards behind when they crossed LeJeune, dodging between cars. Horns blared. His head throbbed, but his legs had regained their balance, and his lungs felt strong. It was only a matter of time.
“Hey, asshole!” Steve called out. “You can't outrun me.”
No response.
/>
They had crossed from Miami into Coral Gables and were on Gerona, in an expensive neighborhood of Mediterranean homes. Not exactly Steve's 'hood. They were headed for a dead end, the Gables Waterway just behind the homes on Riviera. If the guy knew where he was, he'd turn on Riviera. If not, he'd find himself with a channel to swim across.
“You got no chance, shithead!” Steve yelled out.
Again, no response, but now Steve was close enough to see that the guy wore a ski mask. He could hear the man's breathing. “You're dying up there, asshole!”
The man crossed Riviera and hopped the curb, running through the front yard of a sprawling Spanish-style house. He disappeared into a hibiscus hedge.
He doesn't know where he is. He's gonna be trapped at the water.
Steve followed.
Three steps into the darkened yard, he felt his foot catch on something. He flew forward, sliding face-first into the hibiscus hedge.
Dammit, a sprinkler head.
He scrambled to his feet, ducked alongside the house, and emerged in the backyard. Where was the guy?
Spotlights illuminated the tiled patio and cast a yellow glow on the dark water of the channel. A wooden dock extended from a concrete seawall. A thirty-foot sailboat was tied up at the dock. A fiberglass kayak lay near the stern of the sailboat.
But no guy in bright, shiny sneakers dressed for the ski slopes.
In the waterway, a Boston Whaler churned toward the bay. A man in a ball cap was at the wheel.
“Hey, you see anyone out here?” Steve yelled.
“Hoping to see some snapper,” the man called back.
At the dock, the Whaler's wake nudged at the sailboat, whose lines strained against the cleats on the dock. Steve studied the boat, partially lit by the spots. The guy could have climbed into the cockpit. He could be hiding there right now.
Steve reached into the kayak and picked up a paddle. Molded plastic, not much heft. He would have preferred a Louisville Slugger, smash the guy with an uppercut as if swinging for the fences. Wielding the paddle, he walked along the dock, the old wooden planks groaning beneath his feet. Somewhere across the waterway, a dog yipped. Unseen insects cricked and clacked and played their night music.
