by Paul Levine
On the screen, Junior reached over his head, flexed his knees. Then he did a perfect swan dive into the water, clearing the starboard side of the boat by inches and disappearing from view.
"Like I told you before, I went for a swim," Junior said, casually.
"Really?" Steve said. "I thought you were auditioning for La Quebrada."
"The Acapulco cliffs? I dived them when I was in college. Spring break. You?"
"I would have but I was getting arrested in Daytona Beach," Steve claimed. On the screen, the boat blocked any view of Junior. "Where'd you swim to?"
"Around the island. Five miles. I do it every day."
"So when you finished your swim, the cameras would have picked you up again, right?"
"They would, if I'd come back to the dock," Junior explained. "But I always finish at the beach, and there aren't any cameras there."
Meaning an incomplete alibi, Steve thought.
On the dock, Fowles tossed the stern line aboard, and water churned as the engines started up.
And then there were two. Just Hal Griffin and Ben Stubbs on the Force Majeure as it headed out of the cove.
Griffin steered the boat toward open water. Stubbs got out of the fighting chair and walked to the rail, smiling and waving to someone onshore. In a moment, the boat was out of camera range.
"So that's it," Junior said. "Everybody connected with Oceania was there."
"But everybody got off the boat, except your father," Victoria said.
"That doesn't rule out somebody finding a way to get back on," Steve said.
"Okay," Junior said. "Then you've got Clive Fowles, Leicester Robinson, and Delia Bustamante. Three suspects."
"Four, actually," Steve said, looking straight at Junior.
Thirteen
VENOMS TO LOSE
The old Caddy was just north of mile marker 106, headed toward Miami. Steve drove, Victoria alongside, with Bobby reading in the backseat. His grandfather had bought a Harry Potter book, but Bobby had left it behind and brought along a collection of John Updike's early stories. The little wizard—Bobby, not Harry— had already gone through his Philip Roth stage.
" 'He was robed in this certainty,' " Bobby read aloud, " 'that the God who had lavished such craft upon these worthless birds would not destroy His whole Creation by refusing to let David live forever.' "
"What the hell's that?" Steve demanded.
" 'Pigeon Feathers,' " Bobby said. "A boy shoots some pigeons in his family's barn. It's all about the inevitability of death."
"Jeez, Vic. Did you give that to him?" Steve said.
"Bobby wanted something challenging," Victoria said.
"How about cleaning his room?" Steve suggested. "That seems to be quite a challenge."
"Don't discourage Bobby from reading fine literature," Victoria said.
"Or how about doing your homework for once, kiddo?"
"Bor-ing," Bobby sang out.
"And what's with that note I got from your social studies teacher? Two demerits for insubordination?"
"All I did was ask: 'If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?' "
"Nobody likes a smart-ass, kiddo."
"Re-al-ly?" Bobby and Victoria shot back in unison.
One hand on the wheel, Steve grumbled something to himself, stewing over Bobby, or Junior, or even her, Victoria figured. As the tires hummed along the roadway, she thought about the man sitting next to her. Her feelings for Steve were so scrambled. They seldom talked about their relationship, never really defined it. They had drifted into monogamy with no plan for the future.
Where are we headed?
Marriage? Steve never brought it up. He had suggested living together, but she thought that had more to do with cutting driving time than a blossoming commitment. They had gotten together while defending Katrina Barksdale on a charge she killed her husband during kinky sex. At the time, Victoria was engaged to Bruce Bigby, avocado grower and grown-up Boy Scout. She had laughed off Steve's flirtations, rebuffed his advances. In truth, she hadn't much liked him. A shark in the courtroom, a wise guy everywhere else. The idea of getting together with him had seemed preposterous.
But something had happened. Steve burned with a joyous fire. He would burst through the courtroom door like a rodeo rider coming out of the chute. Combat juiced him; injustice angered him. Once he believed in his client, he would do anything to win. Sometimes he crossed the line of acceptable behavior, often even erasing it.
"If the law doesn't work, work the law."
At first, Solomon's Laws offended her. And even now Steve's tactics could shock her sense of gentility. But he was right about so many things. You didn't win cases by sticking to the rules carved in the marble pediments. You didn't win by citing precedent. "Your Honor, referring to the venerable case of Boring versus Snoring . . ."
You won by finding your opponent's soft spot and attacking. You won with showmanship and flair and, whenever possible, the truth. A trial lawyer is a warrior, a knight in rusty armor, who would often be bloodied but would never surrender. Steve taught her to conquer her fears.
Don't be afraid to lose.
Don't be afraid to look ridiculous.
Don't be afraid to steal home.
He sometimes won impossible cases. When a burglarious client was caught with his fingers lodged in the cash slot of an ATM machine, Steve not only beat the criminal charge, he successfully sued the bank for the man's mashed knuckles.
Steve had style. Prowling the well of the courtroom like a shark in the ocean, woe unto the fatter, slower fish. Where she was tense in trial and could even feel herself trembling during moments of stress, Steve was totally comfortable. It seemed he didn't just own the courtroom, he leased it out to the judge, the prosecutor, the jurors.
Not that the attraction was all intellectual. Steve was undeniably, if unconventionally, sexy. A thatch of dark hair a bit too long. Eyes a deep liquid brown, brightening with mischief. A sly smile, as if he were playing some joke on the world. A bad boy, a sleek male animal with an almost feral look. And an infectious enthusiasm. He had seemed so exciting compared to Bruce Bigby, the South Dade Avocado Growers Man of the Year.
Then there was the night it had snowed in Miami. Victoria and Steve had gone to Bruce's avocado grove to help the workers protect the trees from the frost. Smudge pots curled black smoke into the air; Christmas lights warmed the avocado trees; Benny Moré's love songs played with a bolero beat. It was a wholly surreal and bizarre night, which still did not explain what had happened.
I made love to Steve Solomon in a chickee hut ...on Bruce's farm. Wearing Bruce's engagement ring! What a slut!
She had lived a life of rigid propriety, had never even cheated on a boyfriend, much less her fiancé. But what a red-hot connection, her feelings crackling with electricity. Of course, the relationship couldn't sustain the heat of those first encounters. Every affaire d'amour has its peaks and valleys, she reminded herself.
And ditches and gulleys and sinkholes and deep, deep canyons.
She asked herself: When would she feel that sizzle with Steve again?
When it snows again in Miami?
Then, an even more depressing thought: Had her first impression of Steve been correct? That he was just wrong for her. That any relationship with him would be a ludicrous mistake. From the start Victoria knew she shared little in common with Steve. She was country club, Chardonnay, and paté. He was tavern, burgers, and beer. She had book smarts, winning awards, making law review. He had street smarts, passing the Bar after three tries. Maybe their different backgrounds and talents combined to make them better lawyers and more complete people. That was Steve's pitch, anyway. And true enough, they had a magnificent synergy, as long as they didn't exhaust each other sparring on the way to the courthouse.
Complicating her analysis, enter Junior Griffin, swimming back into her life. Whatever she now felt for Junior was surely wrapped in the mists of nostalgia, a dangerous and misleading e
motion. She vowed to keep the relationship with Junior strictly professional. She hadn't kissed another man since that first night with Steve, and she wasn't about to now. She would get through this case, then reevaluate everything. Her professional life. Her personal life. Hell, even her hairstyle.
She shot a look at Steve. He was on the cell phone with Cece Santiago, their assistant. Setting up a deposition in his father's Florida Bar lawsuit. So typical. Plunging ahead even though his father had ordered him to drop the case. Not listening, always thinking he knew more than anyone else.
She glanced out the windshield and said: "You missed the turn."
He clicked off the phone. "I'm taking Card Sound Road."
"It's longer that way," Bobby piped up from the backseat.
"Few minutes, is all."
"So why go that way?" Victoria asked.
"I want to stop at Alabama Jack's. Stretch my legs. Get a brewski."
Brewski, she thought. Like some college frat boy.
"You didn't even ask me," she scolded.
"You don't like beer."
He was either playing dumb or was truly clueless, she thought. "You just plowed ahead. Unilaterally changed the itinerary."
"What's the big deal? We're not visiting the great museums of Europe. We're driving home from the Keys."
"Just typical you," she said.
"Hold on, Vic. Listen to this." He turned up the volume. On the radio, a local talk-show host named Billy Wahoo was interviewing Willis Rask.
"Sheriff, what can you tell us about the homicide investigation of that fellow from Washington?"
"Unless you're on the Grand Jury, Billy, that's none of your beeswax."
"C'mon now, Sheriff. You can tell our listeners if that multimillionaire Harold Griffin is an interesting person."
"You mean a person of interest, Billy?"
"Whatever."
"Gotta go now. Couple deer stuck in traffic on the Seven Mile Bridge."
"That was enlightening." Steve punched a button on the radio, searching through the stations. "Now, where were we? What were you busting my chops about?"
"Nothing."
"I remember. You're upset because we're stopping for a beer. Or because I didn't ask if you wanted to stop. One of the two."
"I'm not upset." Thinking it wasn't the beer.
It's just you, Steve being Steve.
"Hey, Vic. You wanted the top up, I put the top up. You didn't want to listen to the Marlins game, I didn't put it on. Now, is it okay if I have one cool one before we hit the turnpike?"
"Are you two gonna fight all the way home?" Bobby said, putting down his book.
"We're not fighting," Steve said.
"We're working on our issues," Victoria said.
"What issues?" Steve said. Flummoxed.
He quit changing stations when the radio picked up Jimmy Buffett wailing "Coastal Confessions." Steve tried to sing along, just another tropical troubadour.
What was the point, she wondered, of glorifying beaches and bimbos and lazy days in an alcoholic haze? The Surgeon General ought to put out warning labels: "These songs could turn your children into slackers."
The tires were singing, too, buzzing across the bridge over Crocodile Lake when Steve turned to her and said: "Anyway, this road's more scenic."
Why did he always have to have the last word? "It's been a long weekend," she said. "Just take me home."
"Other than being thirsty, did I do something wrong here? Because if I did, tell me now instead of next month. I'd like to have a decent enough recollection to defend myself."
"You didn't do anything wrong. You were just you. Stephen Michael Solomon."
"Stephen Michael Solomon," Bobby said, wrinkling his forehead, unscrambling the words in his brain. "COMPLETE MANLINESS. HO. HO."
"Thanks, Bobby," Steve said, then shot a sideways look at Victoria. "Tell me the truth. What'd I do?"
On the berm, a turkey buzzard was hunched over the remains of a possum, picking at its bones. The buzzard, brazen as a trial lawyer, didn't even move as the Caddy blasted past, Jimmy Buffett confessing his misspent youth.
"I don't want to start anything," Victoria said, "but you acted unprofessionally with Junior."
"Did not."
"You practically accused him of murder."
"You guys are fighting," Bobby said.
"Pardon me, partner," Steve said, "but I thought a defense lawyer's job was to suggest to the jury that someone other than his client might have committed the crime."
"Not when the someone is the client's only son."
"Is that it? Or is the problem that the client's only son can't possibly be guilty because you get dreamy-eyed around him."
Dammit, she thought. I was giving off vibes. "I don't get dreamy-eyed around anybody."
"Ouch. Somebody pull the knife from my heart."
"Don't play the wounded lover, Steve. It doesn't become you."
"I'm just making an observation. The way you were gawking at Junior, you were practically secreting hormones."
"Estrogen or progesterone?" Bobby asked.
Just when you think Steve's not paying attention, Victoria thought, when he seems to be daydreaming about the Dolphins or a plate of stone crabs or some game where he stole a base—and maybe the petty cash, too—he surprises you.
She would not be defensive. Like a good trial lawyer, she would attack when challenged. "Face it, Steve. You're jealous of Junior."
"That's ridiculous. What's he have that I don't?"
Bobby leaned over the front seat. "He's rich. He's buff and ripped and totally jacked."
"Hey, Bobby," Steve said. "How'd you like to go back to the orphanage?"
"I was never in an orphanage."
"Never too late, kiddo," Steve said.
They rode in a silence a few minutes. Then, Bobby yelled: "Hey, look at that!"
Over the water, an osprey, its talons wrapped around a fish almost too big to handle, struggled to stay airborne. A second, larger osprey, hovering like a helicopter, tried to tear the fish away with its own talons.
"Put your money on the smaller, quicker bird," Steve said. "The one that grew up hungry."
"You have this preconception about people," Victoria told him as they passed the entrance to the Ocean Reef Club, home to rich snowbirds. "You think everyone who grew up with privilege is spoiled or lazy or degenerate. So it really bothers you that Junior is a good guy, that he cares about people and the environment."
"You can't be objective about him."
"And what about you and Delia-Big-Boobs Bustamante?" She dipped her voice into a pretty fair imitation of Steve's supercilious tone: " 'I don't see Delia killing anyone.' "
"I know Delia better than you know Junior. You haven't even seen the guy since he hurled chunks of chili dogs in his old man's Bentley."
"What difference does that make? You saw the video. Junior dived off the boat before it left the dock."
"Right. Then where'd he go?"
"For a swim."
"Did you see him doggy-paddling away from the boat?"
She shook her head. "Once he went over the side, he was out of camera range."
"Exactly. And we never saw him come back."
"Because he swam to the beach, not the dock."
"Convenient, wasn't it? Think about it, Vic. The others, Delia, Robinson, Fowles. We clearly see them leave the boat. No way they can get back on without the camera picking them up. But Junior, who knows he's being filmed, makes a big point of diving off and disappearing."
On the radio, the Monotones demanded to know,
"Who wrote the book of love?"
"What are you saying?" Victoria asked. "That he climbed back on board?"
"So far, it's the only scenario I know that clears our client. Junior's a champion swimmer. He free dives to four hundred feet. He's like that comic book character . . ."
"Aquaman," Bobby helped out.
"Right. How hard would it be for him to climb
up the swim ladder or hang on to the dive platform and hitch a ride?" Steve asked. "When Stubbs goes into the cabin to pee, Junior climbs into the cockpit and goes down the rear hatch into the engine room. He comes up through the salon hatch and shoots Stubbs."
"And I suppose Junior clobbered his father, too?"
"Don't know. He may have. Or he may have just figured his father would be arrested for the murder when they docked at Sunset Key. In which case, the story about Griffin falling down the ladder is true."
"And how did Junior get off the boat?"
"Easy. They were never more than a few miles offshore the whole trip down from Paradise Key. Junior swims to shore just like that stowaway in that Conrad book I never read. He picks up a car he's hidden and drives home."
"And his motive for all this? For framing his father for murder?"
Steve shrugged. "To take over the company, probably."
"Junior seem like a corporate type to you?"
"Okay, how's this? Junior's a 'coral kisser.' His term, not mine. He loves the reef. He's wondering if maybe Delia's right. Oceania will be a disaster. When Junior can't talk his father out of it, he goes radical, becomes an environmental terrorist."
"Conjecture piled on speculation and topped by guesswork."
"That's called lawyering, Vic. Which, I might remind you, requires an open mind. Creative thinking. Fresh ideas. Not being rigid."
"Who's rigid?" she fired back.
"No-o-o-o-body I know."
God, how she despised that sarcastic tone.
"I'm not going to let you do this," she announced, firmly. "You're not going to screw up Uncle Grif's case just because you're jealous of Junior."
"The beach boy drooling all over you has nothing to do with it. Your lighting up like a slot machine when he's around does piss me off, though."
"Steve, listen. The only interest I have in Junior is helping win the case."
"Really?"
"That and learning more about my own father. The reasons he committed suicide. The reasons my mother won't ever talk about it."
