Blood Relations (40 page)

Tommy said for her to go inside; they’d wait till she had unlocked the downstairs entry door. The engine throbbed softly on the quiet street, and the headlights pressed into the darkness. It had rained earlier, and the humidity was so thick any exertion would raise a sweat.

Caitlin stumbled into one of the aluminum porch chairs, righted it, then unlocked the door. She waved good-bye as she opened it, and the Jeep turned the corner.

A row of overhead lights, each in a frosted tulip shade, extended down the hallway, which was painted pale yellow and floored in terrazzo. There was a staircase at each end, and through the jalousie windows on the landings, left open for the cross breeze, came the faint rush of traffic on Washington Avenue, two blocks away.

She closed the front door quietly. It would automatically lock. Harold Perlstein slept at odd hours. If he were awake he would open his apartment door a crack to see who was coming in at this time of the night. In the momentary silence she heard a noise from upstairs. A shifting, a footfall. But not in one of the apartments. Caitlin looked up at the ceiling. There was a staircase to her right.

Nothing had ever happened in this building, she reminded herself. A few thefts, but only among people who knew each other or had a key. There had been no muggings, rapes, or murders. But her nerves were as tense as electric wires, her ears alert to the slightest sounds.

She slipped out of her shoes and moved noiselessly along the hall to the back door, intending to go out that way. Before she could reach it, she heard footsteps on the front stairs. She hurried up the rear staircase and stopped on the landing. Pressing close to the wall, she peered along the upper hall at floor level. Frank Tolin was rounding the landing on the other stairs, going down. She pulled her head back, her heart jumping wildly in her chest. She went up two more steps to stay out of his line of vision. He knew she was here. He must have seen Tommy dropping her off. He had a key to the building, but not to her apartment; she had changed it.

She forced her breathing to slow down. There were people here. If she screamed someone would come out to see what was the matter.

Bending to look into the lower hallway, she saw a pair of cowboy boots coming down the stairs on the other side.

She went farther up the back stairs. The upper hall was empty. If he came back up, he would see her clearly, exposed in the line of upstairs lights. She heard footsteps, then the front door opening. Closing. Then nothing. She waited for several minutes. Finally she fled toward her apartment at the front of the building, fumbling in her purse for her keys.

The key was turning in the deadbolt before she noticed what lay on her door mat. A pile of paper, tiny bits. It took her a few seconds to see what it was. Her photographs. Over four hundred dollars’ worth of paper, ripped into confetti.

When she opened the door her tabby cat poked his face through. She scooted him back inside and locked the door. “Hello, you sweet old thing. Are you glad to see me?” Suddenly in tears, Caitlin dropped her purse and shoes, picked up the cat, and hugged him till he squirmed out of her arms.

The phone rang on her desk. The voice mail would pick up after the second ring, but Caitlin grabbed the receiver.

“You think it’s funny, what you did?”

“Are you alone?” Frank was probably sitting in his car, watching her windows.

“No. I have four Miami Beach cops with me. Listen to me, Frank. Stop calling. I’m not going to talk to you. It’s over. For God’s sake, let it go with a little dignity. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I saw you come home with that Chinese boy. You left the gallery at eight forty-five. What have you been doing for over five hoursT’

“None of your goddamn business. Okay? Don’t call me again. Don’t come by, don’t write, don’t-”

“Did you fuck the Chinese boy tonight, Catie?”

“Don’t speak to me again. If I get phone calls or see your face or see any evidence that you were near my apartment, I’m going to the police for a restraining order.

I’ll mail a copy to your partners, the Florida Bar, every business in your building and every client of yours whose name I can possibly remember!”

For a second or two the phone was silent, then came Frank’s soft voice. “Be advised, Ms. Dom. Find other accommodations. Monday at eight A.M., a crew will arrive to clean and paint that apartment. Anything left on the premises will be disposed of.”

“Oh, go to hell. That’s not even legal!”

“Sue me.” He laughed. “You’re hot shit now. Sell a few photos to some faggots on South Beach, you don’t need Sugar Daddy anymore do you, bitch?”

She slammed down the receiver.

Shaking, she unhooked the telephone, then went into the kitchen and did the same with the extension even as it started to ring.

It was dawn before she fell asleep, fully dressed and curled up on the sofa with the cat. Heavy boxes were stacked in front of the locked door, with a pan of silverware balanced to fall crashing, at the slightest jostle.

The arraignment of Klaus Ruffini and Marquis Lamont was set for Tuesday at 8:30 A.M. in courtroom 4-3, half Tan hour before Sam Hagen was due to begin jury selection in a murder trial in another division. Sam had told his co-counsel to stall till he could get there. The owner of a small auto repair shop in Hialeah had been killed and a worker critically wounded by a gunman who had already taken the cash. Shot as an afterthought, like turning off the lights when he left the room.

The media, however, were more interested in a celebrity rape case. The unsolved murders of a drugdealing defendant and a male-model witness had fueled the hype. A TV camera was set up on the front row to feed three local and two network stations, and reporters clogged the spectator seats, waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom.

Sam could have come through the back, but he took the main corridor. As he’d expected, he was immediately surrounded by reporters. He made a statement, something about the state not being intimidated by defense references to selective prosecution. It’s ludicrous to imply an anti-immigrant, anti-minority plot. These men committed a crime, and they’ll be tried like anyone else. There was a question about the murders: Was either of the remaining defendants a suspect? We’re not ruling anybody out. Was it true that Fonseca had requested immunity to testify for the tate? I’m not going to comment on that.

Now Sam stood waiting for court to begin, talking to Juan Casares, deputy chief of the felony division. Casares was Cuban, but no fan of Eddie Mora. Sam had invited him to be present, get his face on the national news. The members of the prosecution team were already at the state’s counsel table: Lydia Hernandez and Joe McGee. A female presence was wanted to stand in for the victim, and McGee would counterbalance the African-American defendant.

Directly across the courtroom, Norman Singletary and Gerald Fine were conferring with their respective clients.

Marquis Lamont and Klaus Ruffini were here for show, not because their presence was required. Lamont stared down at his clasped hands or exchanged looks with his wife, seated in the first row. Klaus Ruffini leaned back in the wooden armchair with one foot propped on his knee, whispering into Fine’s ear. Someone had persuaded Ruffini to wear a conservative blue suit. Both lawyers had co-counsel, who sat behind them. As there were no more seats at the table, the assistant public defenders had taken chairs near the court clerk’s table. The dozen private lawyers whose cases were also scheduled for the 8:30 arraignment calendar stood along the walls. The jury box was filled with defendants who hadn’t made bond, an assembly of mostly young, mostly black or Hispanic men, some wearing shapeless blue shirts supplied by the county jail. One man kept waving at the camera, which as yet had not been turned on.

The bailiff was telling the spectators to leave if they didn’t have a seat. An argument broke out in the last row.

Sam pulled back his cuff. 8:40. The judge was late. Generally the arraignment calendar was called in numerical order, but State vs. Ruffini and Lamont would be called first.

Juan Casares turned his back on the reporters to speak -to Sam in a low voice. “Did you read the local section this morning?”

Sam nodded.

“What are you going to do?”

“Not a damn thing. What can I do?”

Victoria Duran, deputy chief of administration, had been asked for a reaction to news that Eddie Mora would resign to run for national office. After the usual brownnosing reference to his accomplishments as Dade state attorney, she had expressed hope that Mora’s successor, whoever it might be, would put more importance on fighting street crime than turning trials into media events. The allusion to the head of Major Crimes was obvious. Speaking to Juan Casares, Sam had kept his reaction neutral. An hour ago, reading the article in his office, Sam had hurled the paper into his trash can. He would return Beekie’s dig, but in his own time.

“All ris@.” Everyone stood while the judge entered. The videocamera panned across the courtroom.

The judge read the charges. Ruffini, then Lamont, entered a plea of not guilty. Their lawyers asked for a reduction in bond, which was denied. Gerald Fine made a pitch for getting Klaus Ruffini’s passport back, which was also denied. Singletary complained that the state was refusing access to evidence held at the MetroDade police lab. The judge granted the state’s motion to supervise defense examination of evidence taken at the scene. The clerk announced the trial date: Monday, August 6, at 9:00 A.M.

The arraignment was over, ten minutes after it had begun.

As the clerk called the next case, Ruffini and Lamont, surrounded by lawyers and reporters, pushed toward the exit. Sam talked to the other prosecutors for a moment, then went out the back way. He had already said what he wanted to say. He was expected upstairs ‘or a mu r trial.

The case upstairs pled out. As soon as Sam came into the courtroom, the public defender asked for a conference.

The prospective jurors were sent back downstairs. The judge took care of other business while the defendant slouched sullenly in his chair and the jailer sat by the door reading a newspaper. This courtroom was a small one, with a low ceiling and two short rows of spectators’ seats.

Sam and the P.D. went outside to talk. He was in his early thirties, a frazzled man, a month overdue for a haircut.

The defendant would take life, he said. Minimum twenty-five years.

Arms crossed, Sam leaned a shoulder against the wall.

“Not enough. I want two consecutive life sentences, no parole.”

“He’s nineteen fucking years old! You read the psychological report on this kid. Sexual abuse. Beatings. He’s got an IQ of eighty.”

“This kid, your scurnball client, also has a rap sheet six pages long. He shot a sixteen-year-old in the back last year and got sixty days on a piss-ass weapons violation because the victim wouldn’t testify. Now we’ve got one man dead and one who barely survived. Like I said. Two life sentences. No parole.”

“You’d never get the death penalty in this case.”

“Then let’s go to trial.”

Neither of them moved. Finally the P.D. said, “I know why you’re bustin’ his chops, man. You’re running for state attorney. It’s politics. All politics.”

Sam gave him a long look. “Have we got a deal or don’t we? I’m ready to pick a jury.”

The P.D. nodded wearily.

If Sam Hagen had been introducing himself to a panel of prospective jurors in the small courtroom on the fifth floor of the justice building, he would not have seen Dale Finley, the state attorney’s investigator, following delfonso Garcfa into an elevator. Sam had gone back across the street toward his office. Walking through the metal detectors, then around the corner to the elevators in the lobby, Sam first noticed Finley’s white crew cut, then Garcfa, with his sunburned, campesino face. Finley hesitated a split second, registering Sam’s presence just as the doors slid shut.

“What in hell?” Sam looked at the numbers. The elevator stopped at two, three, four, then finally five. People getting on and off. Or Dale Finley not wanting Sam to know where he was taking Adela Ramos’s brother. Sam waited a minute to see who might come down, then took another elevator to the fourth floor.

The deputy chief of administration had an office not far from Edward Mora’s. The state attorney himself had flown to Michigan for a meeting with Senator Kirkland’s people. Sam had seen the picture in the Miami Herald this morning. Eddie and his wife, Arnalia, smiling at the presidential hopeful on the porch of his country house.

Sam stood at the desk belonging to Beekie’s secretary.

The young woman’s hands paused on her keyboard. A second later, she looked up.

He said, “Would you like to tell Ms. Duran I’m out here, or should I just go in?”

She paled a little, which told him he’d found Dale Finley.

Not precisely. Finley had escorted Garcfa to Vicky Duran’s offite, then had left him in a chair facing her desk.

“How are you, Mr. Garcfa?” Sam beckoned. “Ms. Duran. May I see you outside?”

She was just hanging up the telephone. Her secretary must have made the call. delfonso Garcfa, whose thick hands rested on his knees, nodded at Sam. No guilt on that face. It hadn’t been his idea.

Bookie said, “Oh. Mr. Hagen. I was told you were unavailable in trial.”

“Ms. Duran? Outside, please.”

She apparently thought better of arguing in her office.

In a conference room two doors down, she let go. “This is outrageous! What do you think you are doing?” Her heavy auburn hair seemed to bristle.

Sam closed in on her. “The uncle of a murder victim on one of my cases is in your office, and I want to know why.

“He came to see you, and you were in court, so I agreed to speak to him.”

“That’s a lie. You had Dale Finley bring him here.”

Beekie pivoted away, spreading her hands in a shrug. “I was concerned about the relatives of the Ramos boy. The man who killed him was acquitted, and if this office was responsible in some way for that outcome, then I wanted to make sure-”