Knock 'em Dead (18 page)

It was a dual-purpose ledge. The same scuffed metal slot was used to deliver and collect food trays and it was the first stop on the road out of the holding cell.

Again I suffered the pinch of handcuffs shackling my wrists and winced as he clicked them as tight as possible.

“Clear!” he called to someone; then a piercing buzzer went off; then the cage door clicked as the lock released. “You ladies step back. Tanner, you’re with me.”

For a split second, I considered offering to bear his children if he’d march me out to the parking lot. Then I looked at him. He could file an additional charge of bribery against me; plus, I couldn’t get drunk enough to do him. He was medium height and had one of those “I’m in my third trimester” beer bellies. I suspected he spent his off-duty hours planted in front of a television in a grubby T-shirt eating chips from a bag on his chest. He wasn’t all bad. If you Photoshopped out the second and third chins, his face could be okay. He had decent eyes. And a tight grip on my arm.

“Where are we going?”

“Night court.”

Thank You, God.
“My shoes?”

“You’ll get them back once we get upstairs.”

Because the city of West Palm Beach had gotten some wild hair about preserving the original 1916 courthouse in the renovation and construction of its state-of-the-art replacement, a breezeway connected the old and the new.

A public breezeway. Lined with reporters. The bailiff commanded his way through the crowd while I was blinded by bright white camera flashes and trapped in the tractor beams of videographers.

They were screaming at me. “Finley, where exactly did you keep the evidence?”

“Finley, was Dane-Lieberman aware of your role in the murder?”

“Finley, if you aren’t involved, why didn’t you turn over the evidence sooner?”

And my personal favorite, “Finley, what is your relationship to Jane Spencer? Are you lovers?”

I couldn’t decide which would horrify my mother more—that I stood accused of complicity in Paolo’s murder, or that a reporter had just announced I was a lesbian. Neither was true nor substantiated, but that wouldn’t matter. Not to her. And not, judging by her glare, to the property clerk who handed me my shoes when we reached Faulkner’s courtroom. I didn’t know if she was homophobic, but it was a safe assumption that she was criminal-phobic.

My body was a tight ball of tension as the bailiff opened the side door to the courtroom. I expected to see Becky at the counsel table. Feared it might be Taggert. Stunned when I saw it was Ellen.

As the bailiff escorted me to the table, I saw Becky and Liv seated next to Liam in the gallery full of reporters. My girlfriends offered diminished attempts at smiles. Liam was, well, Liam. He was relaxed, with one elbow resting atop the chair adjacent to him. For all intents and purposes, he seemed at ease, like he was at a Marlins game. I had neither the time nor the inclination to delve into his body language. Not when I was facing the very real possibility of going to jail. And the legendary wrath of Ellen Lieberman.

Still handcuffed, I was positioned next to Ellen. Her anger felt palpable as she slapped her brown leather backpack on the table. It doubled as an unattractive purse and a briefcase.

“I owe Victor fifty bucks,” she said curtly as she pulled a thin folder from the center compartment. “He told me you’d screw up before the end of the week. Obviously my faith in you was misplaced.”

Ow
. Warranted, but a direct hit. “I appreciate you coming.” Which, God only knows, I did. “But
why
did you?”

“PR, mostly.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “PR?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, you will,” she said.

Her tone only added to my swelling anxiety.

Faulkner’s arrival was announced along with a command for everyone to rise.

The judge looked more pissed than usual. Why wouldn’t he? Normally the newbie judges sat night court, but since this was a matter directly connected to Jane’s case, Faulkner must have been called in.

Glancing across the narrow aisle, I noted Allison Brent was present on behalf of the state. All the heavy hitters were teed up and ready to swing. Unfortunately, I was the one with the target painted squarely on her forehead.

The clerk of court instructed the gallery attendees to sit. Then the case was called. There is something scary hearing your name in a sentence that begins, “State of Florida versus…”

“Ellen Lieberman, counsel for the defendant.”

“Ms. Lieberman,” Faulkner acknowledged, obviously surprised.

Made sense, Ellen hadn’t been involved in a criminal proceeding since her admission to the bar. Even I didn’t know why she was there.

“You’re waiving the reading of the charges, I assume?” Faulkner asked.

Ellen nodded her head. “Yes, Your Honor. Defense moves for an immediate dismissal of all charges based on insufficient evidence.”

Brent leaned forward, her fingertips tented on the table top. “Your Honor, defense isn’t seriously suggesting any insuffiency given that the victim’s penis and one of the weapons used in the commission of this heinous crime were found in the possession of the defendant, is she?”

Ellen pulled several neatly and individually stapled papers from her folder. “Defense offers six sworn statements from neighbors of the defendant stating they witnessed the delivery of the box containing the evidence as well as affidavits from myself and Victor Dane attesting to the fact that Ms. Tanner was in her office at the time specified by the witnesses.”

“The medical examiner placed the time of death at approximately two
AM
on Sunday. The police were not notified until six
AM
, giving Ms. Tanner plenty of time to assist Ms. Spencer in tampering with and/or concealing evidence,” Brent argued.

“Based on the sworn statements of the eyewitness, we identified and verified the company hired to make the delivery. Accordingly, we were able to obtain an additional affidavit from the employee working the register of the courier service, who clearly recalls the date and time the package was dropped off as well as the gender and a general description of the person who shipped the items to Ms. Tanner.”

The clerk delivered the stack of affidavits to the judge. The courtroom sat in hushed silence as he read them. You could hear the proverbial pin drop. Or more likely, the thudding of my racing heart against my ribs.

When he was finished, he passed them on to the prosecutor. Angrily, she flipped through them. A deep stain seeped up from her neck, finally painting her cheeks a bright red. I expected steam would shoot from her ears at any moment.

“Ms. Brent?” the judge prompted, seeming none too pleased.

The pendulum was swinging my way, taking some of my apprehension along with it.

“The state requests this matter be held over until it has an opportunity to review this information and interview the witnesses.”

“The defense opposes any such request,” Ellen said. “The state has failed to establish a prima facie case and the suspect nature of the probable cause is a clear violation of my client’s Fourth Amendment rights.”

The judge raised his gavel, allowing it to linger, along with my fate, in midair. “In light of Ms. Lieberman’s compelling arguments, I’m dismissing this matter with prejudice, Ms. Brent. You are free to refile charges following a complete and thorough investigation.”

Legalese meaning I was free to go but Brent was equally free to come after me at any time. At least until the real killer was found.

Immediately, the bailiff removed my handcuffs, and I was so relieved I started to hug Ellen. She reared back and gave me a silent warning. Right, not the touchy-feely type.

Didn’t matter. Becky and Liv rushed me, leaning over the railing to embrace me.

“I’m so relieved,” Liv said, her violet eyes moist. “Let’s get you home.”

Ellen parked herself next to us. “She has some forms to fill out first.”

“We’ll wait for you out front,” Becky promised.

Ellen pointed a finger at Liv. “You can wait out front.” She turned to Becky. “You and I need to talk.”

I looked up in time to see Liam about to exit the courtroom. He winked and flashed an incredibly sexy grin, then disappeared. All things considered, it was probably just as well. I didn’t need any distractions.

I had to find out who killed Paolo. It was that or spend every moment wondering when the police would haul me off again. Not to mention Jane’s uncertain future. The only way we could put this behind us was to find out what really happened in Jane’s apartment. With the knife. In the bedroom. Without the penis.

Okay, so I was giddy enough to be playing a silly version of Clue in my head while the police had me sign things in triplicate just to reclaim my purse. So what? I’d earned it. I’d also earned a martini. Or two.

If it was practical to skip in stacked heels, that’s how I’d have left the courthouse. I breathed in the fresh, slightly salty scent of the ocean breeze and happily welcomed the warmth of the night air. Becky and Liv were across North Dixie Highway, standing on the sidewalk next to the parking complex.

The temperature dropped about thirty degrees when I found Ellen waiting for me. She was leaning sideways to accommodate the weight of her backpack. A bright white envelope was in her left hand. Oh, and she looked pissed.

I didn’t care. She could ream me, lecture me, whatever. Nothing she could say or do was going to ruin this moment for me.

“Thank you,” I said again, truly grateful for what she’d done inside the courthouse.

“Here,” she said, holding the sealed envelope out in my general direction.

Okay, so maybe she could ruin my moment of jubilee. “What’s this?”

“Your termination letter. Thirty days’ severance pay and a prorated amount for the sixteen hours of vacation time you didn’t use.”

My eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. “Excuse me?”

“You’re fired.”

“You defended me and now you’re firing me?”

“You were warned, Finley. You missed another important detail, by the way.”

Screw you and your details.
“Really?”

“Yes. I wasn’t defending you, I was defending the reputation of the firm. I’m done and now so are you.”

I
t was day two of lime-green and pale-pink-striped cotton drawstring pants, and a white baby T. My hair was in a ponytail. My arms were crossed behind my head. I was lying on the floor, staring at the circular motion of the ceiling fan with my feet resting atop one of two boxes representing the sum total of the last seven years of my professional life. “I’m fired.”

“I’m suspended,” Becky sighed from her prone position on my sofa.

Liv was in the kitchen, making herself an omelet. “I’ve got to make sure the bounce house is inflated and the little princess arrives in her glass carriage by two.”

“At least you’re busy,” Becky said as she unwrapped another Hershey’s Kiss. My coffee table was littered with small silver foil balls. “Ellen keeps sending me work at home but not enough to fill up a whole day.”

One empty, family-sized box of Lucky Charms was lying next to me. No amount of protein, sugar, or caffeine had managed to jump-start us out of our group funk. “At least you’re still getting paid.”

“There is that,” Becky agreed. “Think positively, Finley. They could decide to rehire you once all this goes away.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, though I wasn’t exactly bubbling over with hope.

“You could work for me,” Liv suggested as she joined us. She pushed some of the scrunched-up wrappers off to a corner of the table, then scooted one of my armchairs closer.

Unlike me, who was dressed dangerously like a bag lady, Becky was at least presentable in jeans and a casual shirt. Liv was decked out in a periwinkle print Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and flawlessly made-up.

“Doing what?”

“Party stuff.”

“Busywork?” Not that I was above typing menus, faxing proposals, or anything else. The severance pay wasn’t going to last very long. I just didn’t think working for a friend was a great idea. Case in point, I was directly responsible for Becky’s two-week suspension.

“You can light a fire under Taggert,” Becky said. “We need to get Jane out of jail.”

“I saw her last night.” Liv pushed the plate away, leaving more than half her omelet untouched. “The motion Taggert filed was supposed to be heard today, but he faxed over a request for a postponement. Why would he do that?”

“He’s an ass,” I answered. He was more than an ass, but I figured, A—they both knew that, and B—The more I thought about the doddering old coot, the more afraid I became that Jane would end up in jail forever. Or worse. I shuddered. “Maybe we should hire Ellen. She was totally prepared when I went before Judge Faulkner.”

“That was your hot P.I.’s doing, not Ellen,” Becky said.

That got my full attention. I sat up. “What?”

“Liam got all those affidavits and tracked down the delivery service. Just showed up and dropped them in Ellen’s lap.”

“Why didn’t he say anything?”

Becky finished chewing her zillionth chocolate Kiss. “I’m supposed to be a mind reader? Not that I’d be opposed to getting into his head. Or his pants.”

“He really is hot,” Liv said. “Seriously hot. So hot that I would happily go—”

“Point taken,” I interrupted. I didn’t know where her “go” was going and I didn’t want to know. “We need to do something.”

Becky tossed a foil ball at me. It missed. “You need to stop moping and take a shower. We need to be proactive. We need a plan.”

“I’m going to take a shower in a few minutes. That’s the start of a plan.” I turned and gave Becky a “screw you” look. “I’m unemployed, under a cloud of suspicion, and yet I’ve maintained my positive outlook on life.”

“Bullshit,” Becky scoffed. “So I got you a little gift.”

“Since the penis thing, I’ve developed gift phobia.”

“Bullshit times two. You’ll like this, promise.”

“What is it?”

“The Fantasy Dates files. They should be here any minute along with the discs from the geekazoids.”

“Did they crack the password encryption?”

“Yep, worked day and night. Well, unless one of them found a date to inflate.”

Liv laughed, caught herself, and donned a chastising frown. “That’s harsh.”

“You haven’t seen our techies,” I said. “They’re talented, but not exactly chick magnets. They tend to spend more time with
Halo 2
than humanoid women.”

“It would help if I could talk to Zack and Shaylyn,” I told Liv. “Any idea why they aren’t returning my calls?”

She shook her head. “Fantasy Dates has gotten a lot of bad press. I suspect they might have slipped out of town to get away from the reporters. They aren’t returning my calls either.”

About an hour later, Liv went off to supervise the Pretty Princess party and Becky went back to her place to work. Me? I dragged myself into the bathroom and started the shower.

As the room filled with steam, I glanced disgustedly at the pile of dry cleaning that had long ago outgrown its wicker bin. I was looking at a minimum of two hundred dollars, and that was only if I drove all the way up to Hobe Sound and used the budget cleaner at the corner of Route 1 and Cove Road. My laundry situation wasn’t much better. Five, possibly six loads were stuffed into the hamper. I added chores to my list of things to do later, stripped, and stepped under the stream of hot water.

Worth Avenue was one of my eventual destinations, so I dressed the part. The trendy, spendy chic shopping district on the island didn’t welcome casually attired mortals. Tourists who wandered in with cameras hanging around their necks were treated much like invading aliens. If I had a hope of getting Payton or Jace or the Hadley guy to talk to me, I had to at least look the part.

Inland temperatures lingered in the mid-nineties, but Palm Beach ran five to ten degrees cooler thanks to the on-shore breeze off the Atlantic. With any luck, I wouldn’t melt in the ivory and black wrap dress. A pair of Steve Madden peekaboo-toe fabric and rope wedges dangled from my fingers when I heard a knock at my door.

Finger-fluffing my not-quite-dry-yet hair, I checked the peephole, then slipped the dead bolt out of the locked position. I recognized the man and the box he had tucked beneath one beefy arm. Opening the door, I was slapped in the face with a rush of hot air, thick with the scent of Darin’s inexpensive cologne. “Hi, Darin.”

“Finley,” he said pleasantly as he held out the Fantasy Dates box. “Courtesy of Ms. Spencer. I thought you got canned?”

I imagined Margaret taking great pleasure in placing a banner smack in the middle of the firm’s lobby announcing my untimely and sudden departure. She and her file room flunkies were probably dancing around like the Munchkins after Dorothy’s house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East.

I smiled at my firm’s—correction,
former
firm’s—messenger.
Ah!
“Just finishing up a few things. Thanks.”

“Take it easy,” he called, jogging back to the Dane-Lieberman-leased SUV he’d left idling in the parking lot.

Dropping my shoes near the door after shoving it closed with my toe, I carried the box to the sofa and set it down. Retrieving my laptop from my bedroom, I set myself up in the living room. Normally I work at the counter, perched on one of the mismatched bar stools, but I’d sprayed half a bottle of Clorox Hard Surface cleaner and was letting it sit. I planned on repeating the process later. That should kill any creepies and cooties left by box-o-severed-penis.

While my agonizingly slow computer booted, I finished drying my hair and applied my makeup. I actually felt better. I was still unemployed, but at least I now looked good doing it.

Rummaging under the bathroom sink, I grabbed the box of tampons and pulled out the special one. It wasn’t really a tampon, it was a cost-effective version of a safe-deposit box. I kept the diamond stud earrings Patrick had given me on our one-year anniversary inside one of the empty plastic applicators. I figured it was a good hiding place, unless I happened to be robbed by the first menstruating thief in recorded history.

They were a half carat each, appropriate daytime bling for a jaunt across the bridge. As I was going back to the living room, I happened to glance at the gift bag on my dresser. Liam’s cryptic comment about Patrick and me played in my mind. Going over to the bag, I peeled back the tissue and peeked inside at the Christmas ornament. “How does Liam know you’re gone a lot?” I asked the Brazilian beach girl as if the blown glass thing was some sort of surrogate Patrick. “He was probably just being snotty,” I decided as I refolded the tissue and pinched the gold foil sticker back in place.

Running the pad of my finger over the sticker, I felt the faint embossing of a letter. No, two. No, three. Three letters too indistinct for me to decipher. “Screw you, Liam,” I grumbled, setting aside the gift and refusing to allow his sibyline cynicism to get to me.

Well, trying to at least. What made him think he knew anything about my relationship? So what if Patrick was gone a lot? I liked that. Maybe too much.

Crap.

Everything about Liam was wrong. He was aloof and arrogant, not to mention he was still Ashley’s plaything. Yep. He didn’t have a single redeeming quality. Except that he made my blood sing.

Damn.

“Enough!” I said, physically shaking myself, hoping that would help. It did.

Turning my attention to the box, I discovered one of the techies had written me a brief note.
Password: Snowy Owl.

Strange password. I didn’t really care so long as it opened the CDs. It did.

“Hello, Jace,” I said as I began digesting the actual life and secret longings of the real estate magnate. He was a nice-looking man. Forty with dark hair and sexy dimples. No wonder he’d made a fortune in sales. With a smile like that, I’d sign on the bottom line and thank him for the privilege. He was hot, he was rich, so why the hell did he need an introduction service?

The doughnut theory skipped through my mind. Said theory supports the reality that when it comes to dating, men are lazy. They might crave a meal from a great restaurant across town, but instead of putting forth the effort to go there, they grab the closest doughnut. Apparently, Jace was a doughnut dater.

I scrolled through the information, pretty standard stuff. The main thing of value was his home address and telephone number. I made a note. Next came his likes and dislikes, blah, blah, blah. On page three, it finally got interesting. Fantasy Dates had hooked him up with three different women in the past six months. Barbie Baker, Alexandria “Lexi” Haig and Alisa Williams. “For five grand, I’d expect more,” I said as I continued to tap the Down arrow on the keyboard.

The last few pages were invoices. In addition to the membership fee and the actual costs associated with each date, he’d also been paying something coded as “Special Assessment.” Whatever it was, it had better be special; the monthly payments were two thousand dollars each. I made another note. I needed to ask Shaylyn and Zack about the fee. Assuming they returned one of my twenty or so urgent messages some time before I started collecting Social Security.

Snapping my fingers, I grabbed my cell from its charging base and called Estella Chavez. After accepting her condolences on my “unfortunate termination,” I asked her to see if the information on Paolo’s Social Security number had come back from the credit bureau. She agreed and promised to call me back in a few minutes.

Lucky for me, Barbie Baker was alphabetically next in the Fantasy Dates filing system. Thirty-one-year-old divorcée. According to her credit report, her former husband was some sort of businessman from the Midwest who was paying her seven hundred grand a year in alimony. That was on top of the thirty-million-dollar oceanfront mansion she’d gotten in the settlement. Not bad considering she’d only been married to the guy for three years. Hell, for that kind of pension, I’d consider moving to St. Louis to see if the guy was interested in a second short-term money-hemorrhaging marriage.

If I didn’t clear my friend and my name and find another job, being the potential next Mrs. Baker might have to be an option. “When did I become my mother’s clone?”

The one glaring difference between the Barbie Baker CD and the Jace Andrews one was Barbie had stopped paying the special assessment. But she’d gotten a lot more bang—no pun intended—for her buck. She’d averaged a date every two weeks until about three months ago. Some were repeats; apparently she was quite fond of Jace and—Ding. Ding. Ding. She’d been out with Paolo three times. Maybe significant, maybe not. Worth noting.

By the time I’d worked my way up to the letter
G
, I had a stiff neck and eyestrain. Two things kept me going. I was waiting around for Estella to call me back, and I started to see a pattern.

Well, kinda. Special Assessment clients were paying the additional monthly fee, and almost all were actively dating. In fact—I paused, loading and ejecting CD after CD—they were doing much better than the average Fantasy Dates client. The two-grand assessment was starting to look like a date bribe. I made a list of their names. Harrison Hadley, Matthew Gibson, Kresley Pierpont—they stood out—Payton McComber, and Renee Sabato.

I didn’t know anything about Hadley, McComber, and Sabato, but Matthew Gibson and Kresley Pierpont were weeks away from a multimillion-dollar wedding.

“So, why are you still paying a dating service?” I asked the photograph of Matthew.

Needless to say, the two-dimensional photograph didn’t answer. But my phone rang. The caller ID readout told me it was Fantasy Dates. I grumbled a whispered “About freaking time” before flipping it open and saying, “Hello.”

Nothing.

“Hello?” I said louder. Cell phones were convenient but not always reliable. Now was
so
not the time for a dropped call. “Hello? Shaylyn? Zack?”

Nothing.

I disconnected, then immediately hit the
REDIAL
button and listened as the phone rang six times, and then went to voice mail. “C’mon,” I bitched, then tried again. Same result.

Poised, I was ready to try again when Estella called. “Hi.”

“Sorry it took so long,” she said, sounding slightly out of breath.