MIAMI ICED

by Susan Sussman

  “Could those kids have done this?” I ask. “Maybe they meant to slip it under another kid’s door – or even under a total stranger’s door. Like a gag or a warning or whatever today’s kids do for fun?”

  “Nothing that group does would surprise me.” Harry reaches under his desk and sets out the secret stash of chocolate he keeps for children and select adults. I take my time picking through, looking for Hershey’s kisses. “I’d like to lock those kids in a room with my father for just one hour,” says Harry. “Sick as that man is, he’d whup them into shape. None of us, and we were seven growing up, not one of us ever got in trouble, not to this day.”

  “Amen,” I say, bypassing Godivas for Kisses. “Thanks.”

  “You get yourself some sleep,” he says. “And let me know if you have any more trouble. I’ve called the police here for a whole lot less.”

  Bitsy sits at the kitchen table stirring honey into two steaming cups of green tea. While I was downstairs, she showered herself sober. I tell her about the pack of bored teens in the lobby, how the note was probably a prank they pulled to amuse themselves.

  She holds her face over the steam to open her pores.

  “Did you and Wendel have a good time?” I ask.

  “It was wonderful.”

  “How was the boat?”

  “We decided not to take it out, just sit on deck and enjoy our little picnic.” She details a list of menu items she ‘threw together’. I’ve been to restaurants with fewer selections. “Oh, and a man with SCUBA gear came around to check the bottom of your boat.”

  Sam. I totally forgot. “That’s the man who might buy my boat.”

  “He’s very handsome.”

  “You think?”

  “In a Sam Shepard sort of way.”

  My heart does a small flip. “I guess. Did you talk?”

  “Not really. He was very surprised to see us, asked who we were. He sounded, I don’t know, possessive, as if we were trespassing on his boat.”

  “That’s a good sign,” I say, unwrapping a Hershey’s Kiss. “It might mean he’s thinking of the boat as his property.”

  “It got Wendel’s hackles up, someone accusing him like that. Not that Wendel said anything. But he turned sullen until your friend left.”

  “Did Sam find anything wrong with the boat?”

  “We never really saw him again,” she says, unwrapping the other Kiss. Bitsy never eats chocolate.

  “How could you not see him?”

  “Well, I mean, he just checked out a few things on board then put on his gear and went in the water.”

  “And he didn’t stop to say goodbye?”

  “Wendel and I weren’t always on deck,” says Bitsy. “We had cleaning up to do in the galley and, well,” her cheeks flare red as she puts the candy in her mouth, “I can’t say that we were really paying all that much attention.”

  She doesn’t chew the chocolate. Rather she holds it on her tongue as she sips her tea. It reminds me of the way our immigrant grandmother clamped a sugar cube between her front teeth and sucked tea through the sweetness. Except, I don’t remember Grandma ever having Bitsy’s post-coital-esque smile.

  15

  Monday morning I’m juggling keys, purse, notepad, travel mug of Bitsy’s sugary coffee, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” jabbing the elevator button, trying to hurry the one working elevator that’s crawling down from the penthouse floor so I can get to the courthouse. The mirrored foyer wall – whose evil idea was that? – reflects a madwoman, burnt skin peeling, Brillo hair unraveling, cotton clothing wrinkled.

  The doors slide open. Inside, Caprice stands calm. Still. Perfectly groomed. Her olive complexion has a rosy glow from her day on the yacht. If you asked a stranger to pick which of us is on her way to watch her beloved father on trial for murder, I would win hands down. In this instant I know for absolute certain Caprice is sedated. Hers is the unnatural calm I’d felt from the Xanax or Valium or whatever the doctor gave me the day Michael died. I stopped after one pill, didn’t like the way it Zombied me from feeling pain.

  “Good morning,” I say.

  She smiles a small smile. “Good morning.”

  We ride down in silence. Bitsy’s suspicions elbow their way in. Did Caprice slip that threatening note under my door? If so, why? Maybe, she had overheard me talking with the Buffs at the Library Café and didn’t like me gossiping about her father’s trial. Or maybe she thinks I’m somehow involved with the prosecution’s case.

  We walk out together and a Valet goes for my car. “Can I give you a lift?” I ask.

  “Thank you, that’s so kind. But I have a ride.” She waves to a black town car in Guest Parking across the road and it pulls out. “May I ask you something?” she says.

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you come to my father’s trial?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes.”

  My mind races a thousand words a second. Because I was wallowing in depression and the drama of this trial is pulling me out. Too insensitive. Because you remind me of my daughter and it kills me to see you picked on by your cousins. Too personal. “I dock my boat at the Seaview,” I blurt out, wondering where I’m going with this, “which is a sister marina to the Tradewinds.”

  “I know the Seaview,” she says. “Uncle Mel always stopped there to pick up pizzas when we sailed to the Keys.” Her eyes sparkle. “Did you know my aunt and uncle?”

  “No. I mean, we weren’t close,” dancing as fast as I can. “Your aunt and uncle were such lovely people.” All true, all true. “So, when this happened, I felt I needed to come to court, to try to understand.”

  Her body relaxes. “I…I thought you might be a reporter.”

  “Me?” I laugh. “Oh, Lord no. I’m just a recent widow with too much time on her hands.”

  “Recent?”

  “My husband died a few months ago.”

  She reaches out and gently squeezes my arm. “I’m so sorry. It’s so painful to lose people you love.”

  The sedan pulls up and the stubby young man I saw going to the yacht with her yesterday hurries around. This time he’s in uniform and I recognize him as one of the guards who patrols the courtyard area. Except, at the courthouse, he’s always so very serious. Not now. Now he is puppy happy, a young man smitten. Caprice returns his smile as he opens the back door.

  And I wonder as she drives away if it is possible she left that warning note. In Miami, where every twit with a camera-phone hawks candid shots to the tabloids, it wasn’t so far-fetched for her to think I might sneak some photos and sell them to the highest bidder. Now that she knows I’m not out to hurt her, the notes should stop…if she sent it. If she didn’t… I shudder.

  Ten minutes later, I’m still waiting for my car. Evidently the valet stopped to read War and Peace.

  A stringy nervous woman is on the stand, testifying. Lucille waves a crochet hook at me from the far end of the back pew. She’s saved my space with a large bag crammed with odd-sized balls of yarn in a cacophony of colors. “For the babies,” she whispers. Babies?

  “When Brandy and Mel moved next door,” the witness is saying, “we decided to exchange keys.” She’s in constant motion, shoulders twitching, hands fluttering, legs crossing and uncrossing. “I’d bring in the Lucas’ mail and newspapers when they sailed off for a weekend. They do…did the same for me when I was away.” She looks toward the jury, explaining, “I summer in the Hampton’s,” lest they mistake her for a peon. Their blank stares tell me they have no idea what she’s talking about. Her body language cries out for a cigarette, a drink, a first-class ticket back to the Hampton’s. “…noticed mail crammed into their mailbox,” she’s saying, “newspapers piling up in their driveway. It was like an advertisement to crooks that no one was home.”

  “Did it occur to you something might be wrong?” asks the Prosecutor.

  “Of course not,” offended. “Our complex has very tight security.”

  Lucille bends my way, whisp
ers, “So who were these ‘crooks’ she was worried about?”

  “Brandy was a lovely person,” says the neighbor, “but – and this is not to speak ill of the dead -- she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I assumed she forgot to tell me they were going away. After a few days, I called their home, but there was no answer so I used my key to bring in their mail and newspapers.”

  The Prosecutor walks to his table and glances at his notes. “Do you remember if the Lucas alarm was on or off when you entered their home?”

  “It was off.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “Hardly. Ours is a gated community. We have our own security patrol. Before this terrible thing, we all felt very safe. Sometimes we didn’t even lock our doors.”

  “But you do have alarms.”

  “Of course. State of the art. We assign different codes to different people – neighbors, family, maids, exterminators. The codes give the alarm company a record of who enters our homes and when.”

  “If the alarm is set.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which the Lucas alarm wasn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Which means,” says the prosecutor, “Brandy Lucas may have turned off her alarm to let in someone she knew. Someone she trusted.”

  “Objection!” yells the Defense. “Calls for speculation.”

  “Sustained.”

  The Prosecutor glances at his notes. “Please tell the court what you did next.”

  The woman clasps and unclasps her hands. “I set the mail and newspapers on the foyer table, then took a quick look around the house. Just to be sure everything was all right.”

  “Was anything out of order?”

  “No. Brandy kept an immaculate home.”

  “You looked through the entire house and saw nothing out of place? Nothing unusual?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And did you continue to bring in the Lucas newspapers and mail?”

  “Yes, for five more days.”

  “Until?”

  The woman shudders. “Until the police found Brandy in the freezer.”

  At the break, Lucille and I stroll the courtyard, stretching our legs, defrosting. Farley falls in step, folding a marked-up racing form into his pocket.

  “Did you get a whiff of the lobby this morning?” he asks, wrinkling his nose. “Smells like my high school gym locker.”

  “Weezee down in records told me the whole basement flooded,” says Lucille, “again. Says this was the worst. Water got into hundreds of cardboard boxes, case records going back decades.”

  We pass the Lucas children huddled in a corner, their backs turned to the courtyard. I wait until they’re out of earshot. “Brandy and Mel were gone for days and their children didn’t call the police?” I say.

  “The kids were in Italy,” says Farley.

  “Still, if my children didn’t hear from me for ten days, they’d be crazed.”

  “Amen to that,” says Lucille.

  “If I called my kids they’d pass out,” says Farley.

  “Maybe they didn’t worry,” says Lucille, “because they already knew their parents were dead.”

  Farley frowns. “You mean the kids killed them?” Them. “Naw, those two are lightweights.”

  “They could have hired someone,” I say. Easy enough in this land of cocaine cowboys and BOGO specials.

  Lucille isn’t buying. “Those are spoiled children of doting parents. Why would they kill the geese laying all those lovely golden eggs?”

  “You may be right,” I say, telling them about my boat trip to Palm Beach, about the Dandy Brandy up for sale. “I think they’re hurting for cash. They wouldn’t sell that boat if they could still afford it.”

  “Do you think,” Lucille asks, “their entire inheritance could have been inside the missing safe?”

  “If I was them,” says Farley, “I’d hire someone to look for that money. There’s got to be a trail.”

  “The trick,” I say, “is finding a good bloodhound.”

  Caprice emerges from the courtroom, squinting as she pulls sunglasses from her purse. The cop who drove her to court this morning materializes out of the ether to accompany her around the courtyard.

  “What bothers me,” says Lucille, “is that the neighbor didn’t call someone when she saw all those newspapers and mail piling up.”

  “Call who?” asks Farley. “The Lucas kids were in Europe.”

  “She could have called the complex manager, security, the police.”

  “Never happen,” says Farley. “I sometimes play in a private poker game up there. A father and daughter run it out of their house. Those guys all know each other from back east, or – like me – know someone who knows someone.” He pulls a cigar from his pocket, runs it under his nose. “That group’s real tight, like family, they look out for each other. Not so quick to call the cops, if you know what I mean.” He bites off the tip, works the cigar around a corner of his mouth. “These are the kind of guys who don’t trust banks with their money. Don’t like leaving trails.”

  Another courtroom empties into the courtyard for its morning break. A frail woman leans heavily on a young man’s arm, crying, her head swaying side-to-side as if she’s seen something she can’t comprehend. Her pain is palpable, a woman being ripped apart from the inside out.

  The policeman and Caprice pass us walking in the other direction. He says something that makes her laugh which does something wonderful to her face. In that instant I glimpse the girl Deke Hawkins told me about. The harbormaster described a girl full of life, a girl who’d stop in his marina office with fresh baked cookies, a caring girl who made sure he took his medicine. Has this policeman been assigned to her for protection? Is that why she’s so relaxed? Has she received threats? From her cousins? Did she get a warning note under her apartment door, too? Maybe Bitsy’s right. Maybe that note does have something to do with this trial.

  A court worker props open the doors to our courtroom and sets up stanchions blocking access. Inside, a cleaning crew crawls around Judge Kossoff’s bench clearing away fallen ceiling tiles. More tiles dangle above. “We’re adjourned until tomorrow,” explains the worker. One of the dangling tiles breaks free and smashes onto the judge’s bench.

  Lucille clasps her hands to her chest. “It’s a miracle we were on break this time,” she says.

  “It’s happened before?” I ask.

  “Every now and again,” says Farley. “Sitting in a Broward courtroom is a little like ballet.”

  “How’s that?” I ask.

  “Keeps you on your toes.” He waggles his bushy eyebrows, grinning.

  “They really need to tear this place down,” says Lucille.

  “Looks like it’s coming down all on it own,” says Farley. “See you gals tomorrow.”

  16

  Lucille and I leave the building together, stepping aside to let a group of pubescent attorneys pass along the narrow sidewalk. One of the young women stops. “You know,” she says, loud enough for her friends to hear, “there are some who consider your doing needlework in the courtroom a sign of disrespect.”

  What? My mind races, frantically sorting through a jumble of words to defend Sweet Lucille against this rude girl-woman.

  Lucille beats me to it “Disrespect?” she says, softly. “Well, now, “those would be people who never did try it.”

  “Still,” the attorney ratchets her southern-crusted voice another decibel or two, “it can seem rude.” I know her type, an elitist twit who believes it’s all right to speak to some people in a way she might not speak to others. Her associates stand a little way off, listening.

  “Fact is,” says Lucille, her strong alto carrying on down the street, “a bit of handwork helps a body focus wonderfully well. I expect I can tell you, near word for word, what happened in your courtroom when I stopped by Friday afternoon. I believe you were assigned the case sort of last minute by Judge Rifkind.”

  “Word for wo
rd?” The woman’s high-glossed lips lift in amusement. “Certainly,” she says, “that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

  “I’m not given to adding more weight than a thing needs,” says Lucille.

  “Well, I just thought you should know how some attorneys feel…”

  “For example,” says Lucille, “when you asked the court reporter to read something back, she got it wrong.”

  “I don’t know what you’re…”

  “That witness who testified against your client?”

  “There were several,” says the woman.

  “The one who said he was standing inside the drugstore on the corner of Seventh and Biscayne, happened to look out, saw your client shoot the other man. Now, I know the witness’s accent was as strong as Cuban coffee, but the reporter read back ‘Second and Biscayne.’”

  “The witness said Second,” says the attorney.

  “All due respect, Counselor, my Caesar was from Cuba. Fifty years in this country and that man sounded like Rickey Riccardo right to the end. After forty-one years listening to Caesar tell his tall tales, I got an ear for Cuban English. The witness against your client said Seventh and Biscayne.”

  “Second, Seventh….” The woman shrugs off the difference, impatient now to rejoin her friends.

  “You see,” says Lucille, “there is no drugstore on that corner. You’ve got four corners -- a Vogue Fabrics, a Super Dawg, the Goldbetter Office Building, and a Starbucks that charges an hour’s honest wage for a cup of coffee. But there’s never been a drugstore on that corner as far back as I can remember. And that’s quite a ways.”

  “Obviously the witness confused the corners.”

  Lucille slides sunglasses from a needlepointed case and slips them on. “Now, on Second Street and Biscayne, you’ve got a Griller’s Cafe, Ye Olde Antique Shoppe, Sushi Room and a currency exchange.”

  The woman frowns, pulls an iPad from her briefcase. “No drugstore?”

  “Not a one. And that witness,” says Lucille, “made it a point to say he’d just happened to be standing at the drugstore picture window because he’d been looking at a battery display.”