by Paul Levine
Just who the hell was this guy, anyway? Steve didn't think it was your friendly neighborhood burglar. But he had a suspect. Just hours earlier, he'd told Manko a videotape would place him at the murder scene. Steve had been winging it. He didn't think Manko and Katrina had killed Barksdale. And he doubted anyone could turn the gray, shadowy video into a gotcha piece of evidence. Now Steve wondered if his human polygraph had blown a fuse.
Manko would only want the tape if he was guilty.
But why, Steve wondered, would Manko break into his home? Why not the office? Weirder still, Steve had taken the tape home to watch on a better VCR. But Manko couldn't have known that. It was all too confusing for Steve to decipher, especially with his head feeling like a bucket of wet cement.
Now, on the dock, with the water gently lapping against boat hull, Steve tried to see the running figure in his mind's eye. Was this guy as big as Manko? Chasing a man in the dark doesn't give you much chance for a description. Hell, people in broad daylight have a hard time describing their attackers.
With one hand on the stern rail and the paddle in the other hand, he squinted into the darkened cockpit.
“You in there, Manko?”
Nothing.
“C'mon out. Let's talk this over.”
Still nothing.
Then the faintest sensation of a plank yielding beneath his feet. Steve wheeled around, saw the glint of metal and ducked. Something whooshed over his head. The man in the ski mask was swinging a heavy chrome winch handle that nearly parted Steve's hair. The momentum of the swing threw the man off balance, and he stutter-stepped. Steve pivoted his hips and swung the paddle, aiming for the man's head, but from a crouch, he couldn't get the angle. The paddle caught the man's shoulder, knocking him back but not bringing him down.
“Fucker,” the man breathed. He regained his footing and feinted with the winch handle.
Steve brought up the paddle to block the swing that never came. The man laughed, feinted twice more, then swung at Steve's face. Steve blocked the handle with the paddle. Ouch. He'd jammed his wrist as if he'd broken his bat against a split-fingered fastball. The paddle flew from his hand.
Shit.
“I owe you, fucker,” the man said, the winch handle cocked in his right hand.
“Why don't you take off your mask and we'll resolve this amicably,” Steve said, as if they were in mediation on an insurance claim.
“Fuck you, fucker.”
Fuck you, fucker? With such a limited vocabulary, no wonder the guy turned to crime.
The man took a step toward Steve, who backpedaled. One foot slipped off the dock and dangled in space. His arms flailing, trying to regain his balance, he fell backward. He heard glass shatter as his head smashed the stern light of the sailboat, and he tumbled into the black water. He was sure he must have made a splash, but strangely, he never heard the sound and never felt himself go under.
For a moment, all went black, and Steve wondered: If I'm unconscious, how can I be conscious of it?
Sinking into the deep channel, enveloped by the cool water, he was in that grayish state between day and night, consciousness and unconsciousness. Woozy but still coherent enough to be in fear.
Fear of drowning.
Fear of alligators.
Fear that the guy would leap into the water and bash in his skull.
Steve opened his eyes and was surprised to find everything was still black.
Of course it's black. I'm at the bottom of a deep, dark sea.
He was suddenly aware of wanting to take a breath. Wanting it more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. He felt his feet touch bottom, flexed his knees, and shot upward.
It took an impossibly long time to break the surface. When he finally felt the cool air strike his head, he sucked in a long, sweet breath, then swam to a ladder at the dock. Holding on to a barnacle-encrusted rung, he paused a moment, listening. He didn't want to stick his head above the dock and have his brains splattered.
Silence.
He climbed one rung. Waited. Climbed another.
Peeked his head over the planks of the dock. No one was there.
No one calling him “fucker.”
Then a glass door slid open at the rear of the house and a man yelled: “Hey, there's no swimming out here, buddy.”
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA JUVENILE DIVISION
In re: R.A.S.,
A minor child Case No. 05-09375 (Dependency)
CHILD PROTECTION REPORT
1. This report is made in accordance with Chapter 39 of the Florida Statutes, by Doris Kranchick, MD, duly appointed by the Division of Family Services. 2. R.A.S., an eleven-year-old male, is a developmentally challenged child who manifests traits of both autism and profound savant syndrome. The child is in need of specialized testing, treatment, therapy, and an individually tailored educational program. 3. R.A.S. is currently in the temporary custody of his uncle, Stephen Solomon, who has failed to reveal the precise circumstances under which R.A.S. came to reside with him. 4. The boy's mother, Janice Solomon, was recently released from state custody, having been convicted of multiple drug and theft offenses. The identity and whereabouts of the boy's biological father are unknown. 5. Stephen Solomon has petitioned the court for long-term licensed custody of the minor child, pursuant to Section 39.623. The undersigned finds that:
(A) The homeschooling provided by Mr. Solomon consists mainly of unsupervised reading, including criminal court files and autopsy reports unsuitable for a child. (B) Mr. Solomon has denied the undersigned an opportunity to perform medical tests on the child, including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (RTMS). He further has prevented the child from taking part in therapy programs of the Pilot Autism Project at Rockland State Hospital. (C) Mr. Solomon maintains a professional life that can best be described as chaotic. An attorney, he has been jailed for contempt of court on numerous occasions and has earned a reputation for bizarre behavior in the courtroom. Additionally, although he demonstrates obvious affection for R.A.S., Mr. Solomon is ill-equipped to serve as custodian for a child of such special needs.
RECOMMENDATION
The undersigned recommends that Stephen Solomon's petition for custody be denied and that R.A.S. be adjudged a ward of the state and placed in a licensed shelter with mandatory testing and treatment under the auspices of the Division of Family Services. Respectfully submitted,
Doris Kranchick, MD
Twenty-nine
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
“What bullshit! What total bullshit!”
Clutching a copy of Kranchick's report in one hand, an ice bag pressed to his temple with the other, Steve paced his office. Tie at half-mast, face flushed, a doorknob-size lump on his forehead. Purplish bruises circled his eyes. He looked like an angry raccoon. Victoria sat at her desk, watching and worrying. Bobby crouched cross-legged in a chair, his head buried in a book.
“Just wait till I get Kranchick in court,” Steve said.
“I feel terrible,” Victoria said. “Maybe if I hadn't run from the table-”
“Nothing to do with it. She likes you. She says my life's ‘chaotic.' Unless you're in a coma, whose life isn't?”
“Maybe you should calm down before you start planning trial strategy.”
“I'm calm!”
“Shouldn't we talk about the burglary? Do you really think it was Manko?”
He tossed the ice bag onto his desk. “Who else would it be?”
They'd been over this for hours last night after a soggy and bruised Steve had squished back to the house. The intruder had been in the study. Steve's briefcase had been moved, but nothing was taken from the house. The security video was in the VCR, just where he'd left it. What had the burglar been after? So far, nothing made sense. What good would it do to steal the tape when Pincher had a copy?
“Are you going to confront Manko?” she asked.
“Not without proof.”
“Let's see what happens when the forensics guy goes over the tape.” A fly buzzed into the office from the window above the Dumpster, and Steve swung at it with the report. Strike one. He opened the report again and read aloud: “‘A reputation for bizarre behavior in the courtroom.' Kranchick's hated me from day one.”
“Because you wouldn't do her,” Bobby said, without looking up from his book. “You wouldn't stick your screwdriver in her tool shed.”
“Bobby, that's really inappropriate,” Victoria said.
“Yeah, stow that shit,” Steve said.
“No guy will ride her tunnel of love,” Bobby said. “I'm gonna tell the judge that.”
“The hell you are,” Steve said.
“Dive for a pearl in her bearded clam.”
“Bobby, chill!”
“Chomp her carpet burger.”
“Cut it out, kiddo. And what's that you're reading?”
Holding up a tattered book, Bobby spoke in perfect French: “La Pendaison, la Strangulation, la Suffocation, la Submersion.”
“If that's porno, get rid of it.”
“Coroner's textbook from the nineteenth century,” Bobby said.
“Put it away. It's not suitable for a child.”
“Yes it is.”
“Kranchick wouldn't agree. You want her to take you away?”
“No!” Bobby yelled, then fell into a chant, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no…”
“Aw, jeez, I'm sorry.”
The boy was rocking in his chair. Victoria remembered that first night at Steve's house. Bobby had blasted her with the squirt gun, then dashed inside, where he buried himself in the sofa and swayed back and forth, locked into some dark cellar of his mind.
“No, no, no, no, no, no…”
The boy was a wreck, she thought. If he acted this way in court, Steve wouldn't have a chance. “Bobby, do you want to play the anagram game?” she asked. Anything to calm him down.
“No, no, no, no, no, no…”
Steve walked over to Bobby and tousled his hair. The boy twisted his head so the palm of his uncle's hand caressed his cheek. After a moment Bobby rubbed his face against Steve's hand like a contented kitten. Then he picked up the old French coroner's book and, just like that, started calmly reading again.
Steve resumed pacing, swinging the rolled-up report at an imaginary baseball or an imaginary Kranchick, Victoria didn't know which. She was worried about both Solomon boys. Bobby was regressing, and Steve was far too hair-trigger. Bobby's case required logic and reason, strategy and finesse, but Steve was planning an artillery attack.
“I'll expose that quack,” he said. “What are her credentials, anyway? Does she have an ounce of compassion? Does she understand that love is more important than charts and tests?”
“Steve-”
“I took Bobby to her hospital. They tried to give him an IV drip of Valium for some tests, and I said, no fucking way.”
“Who are your experts? What's your strategy?”
“Do you know what it smells like in that hospital? Ammonia and laundry starch. If I could bring that stink into court, no judge would give Bobby to the state.”
Out of control, she thought. No sense of objectivity. No plan.
“If we lose,” Steve said, “I'm packing our bags.”
“Give up your Bar license, become a fugitive?”
“If that's what it takes.”
“Have you thought about retaining counsel?”
“Who can argue the case better than me?”
“Someone who's not emotionally involved.”
“You been talking to Marvin the Maven?” Steve put a little gravel in his voice. “‘The man who represents himself has a shmendrick for a client.'”
“Marvin's right.”
“Not this time. See, the theme of my case is love conquers all.”
“Didn't we just try that?” Victoria asked. “‘Katrina Loves Charles'?”
“That was courtroom blather. Love's not about buying watches and diamonds. It's about putting the other person first. What Bobby needs is someone who'll do anything for him, not doctors who want to publish papers about him. What he needs is me.”
“I wonder if that's enough,” she said. “To win the case, I mean.”
“Did you ever see that English movie Love Actually?” he asked.
“Yeah. It put me into glucose overload.”
“First scene, we see all these couples meeting at the airport. Lovers hugging, kissing, reuniting. And Hugh Grant's saying it's wrong to think we live in a world that's filled only with hatred and greed.”
“Yeah, sure. It's a world of milk and honey.”
“What he says is, if you look for it, love actually is all around.”
He had a distant and almost blissful look. In the right time and place, like a Barry Manilow concert or a freshman seminar on Kahlil Gibran, the look might be appropriate, Victoria thought. But in the grungy law office over the Dumpster, faced with the reality of losing his nephew, Solomon's spaciness was alarming.
He's losing it.
“I remember the scene,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘This is gonna be one sugar-glazed donut of a movie.'”
“That's what love is, too. Besides the sacrifice and the caring, I mean. It's a Sinatra song. Moonbeams on the bay. A puppy opening its eyes for the first time.”
“Where's the Solomon I know? The guy who teaches birds to shit on opposing counsel?”
“When I see Bobby sleeping, tears come to my eyes. I'm gonna tell the judge that. I'm gonna translate every emotion into admissible evidence.”
Okay, she thought. Turns out the courtroom shark was a hopeless romantic. And like another romantic, he was preparing to tilt at windmills, riding a spavined steed and carrying a rusty lance.
“I'm having a little trouble seeing how this is going to win your case.”
“That's the beauty of it. It's right in Chapter Thirty-nine of the statutes.” He grabbed a book from his desk. “Look. Section Eight-ten, Subsection Five. The court must consider the ‘love, affection, and other emotional ties between the child and the person seeking custody.' If the judge does that, I win.”
“What about Kranchick's report?”
“Not to worry. I'm gonna wax the floor with it.”
“What about all the other criteria in the statute?”
“I'll deal with them.”
Unwilling to budge, unable to see that he was hot asphalt and his opponents were riding the steamroller. She wondered how she could get through to him. He was always so much in control when handling other people's problems. Now he seemed so lost in his own.
“I just wonder if you should talk to a lawyer who specializes in dependency cases,” she said, diplomatically. “Maybe work together. Turn negatives into positives. Kranchick thinks you're exposing Bobby to improper influences. But you argue that taking Bobby to the office and court is great for his development.”
“I do it mostly because we like to hang together,” Steve said.
“That's good,” she said. “Most boys would love to spend more time with their fathers.”
Steve's face seemed to brighten. “You have a feel for this, Vic. You should represent me.”
“I've never handled a guardianship case.”
“You're a trial lawyer, an all-purpose utility player. You can play any position without being afraid of any case or any lawyer.”
“I'm not afraid,” she said. “It's just…”
“What?”
“Too much responsibility. I know how important this is to you.”
“That's why I need you. I wouldn't trust anyone else the way I trust you.”
“If I screwed it up…”
“You won't.”
“I'm sorry, Steve. I just can't.”
Ten minutes later, Steve was considering the puz
zling Ms. Victoria Lord. Most lawyers he knew had inflated egos. They weren't nearly as good as they thought they were. With Victoria, it was the opposite. She didn't know how good she could be. Her humility made her even more effective in the courtroom.
But why wouldn't she help him? That he couldn't figure out. He stole a glance across the room. On this chilly day, with gusts rattling the windowpane, Victoria wore a brown knit skirt fringed at the bottom. A matching hooded cardigan and fleece-lined, high-heeled suede boots completed the outfit, which Steve had never seen before. He wondered if he was starting to memorize her wardrobe, as he had done with her features, her every look. There was the furrowed brow with pursed lips when she studied a law book, the triumphant smile when she pounced on a winning point, the mysterious gaze when she stared into space. And another look, too.
He'd seen it once, and only because he opened his own eyes to find hers closed. When their lips had parted during their one and only kiss, she radiated total rapture.
Now he replayed their conversation of just a few minutes ago. He surely knew Victoria well enough to crack her codes. Suggesting he get counsel, she'd been overly polite, overly delicate. Then he said, Fine, you represent me. And she said no. Why?
There could be only one reason.
He felt his mood plummet. It's not that she lacked confidence in her own abilities.
She thinks I haven't got a chance. She thinks I'm going to lose.
Thirty
WEDDING BELL BLUES
An hour later, Steve was still stewing about Bobby's case, and Victoria was grinding away on the murder case, reading appellate cases, taking notes in neat lettering on her cards. The intercom buzzed and Cece said: “Yo, Vic. Hottie alert. Beefcake on final approach.”
Bruce Bigby, in a double-breasted charcoal suit with a thin chalk stripe, breezed through the doorway, kissed Victoria's cheek, and opened a briefcase, all in one motion.
“Hate to burst in like this, sweetie. Hey, Steve.” He did a double take. “Jeez, your face.”
