Suspicion of Guilt (16 page)

He took a swallow of coffee. "Ramsay. A lawyer for the Nineties. This is what we get, hiring graduates whose main qualifications are on paper. Maybe you can turn him around."

Gail said, "He says Paul has him on probation. Is that true?"

"Yes. I heard it from Jack Warner. Paul didn't tell
me
about it."

"Larry ... How serious is this rift between you and Paul? Is the firm in trouble?"

"Don't worry. What you witnessed the other day was only a clash of egos." He gave a suggestion of a smile. "We've lived through it before. The ship hasn't foundered yet."

Lawrence Black, the weight of five generations of lawyers on his narrow shoulders, had seemed middle-aged to Gail as long as she had known him. Not a brilliant legal mind, his great talent lay in snatching wealthy clients from firms with no snob appeal. He let his staff deal with the computers, investment managers, and pricey advertising campaigns.

Larry studied the circle of pastries before choosing a tiny cheese tart with fluted edges. "I want you to meet with the P.R. people. Would you do that?"

Like other major firms, Hartwell Black and Robineau had a public relations consultant to deal with touchy issues. He said, "We can't let anyone believe we're against widows and orphans. We're taking the case for the principle involved: exposing a forgery. I'm particularly concerned that Sanford Ehringer see it this way. Not only is he the personal representative of this will, he's chairman of the board of the Easton Trust, and they stand to lose a great deal if it's overturned. Ehringer will be doubly interested in what we're doing."

Larry turned on the divan to face Gail directly, his expression as serious as she had ever seen it. "We want to persuade Ehringer that our aim is to win justice for our client, not to make a fat fee for ourselves. That's important, Gail. Will you take my advice on this?"

After a moment, she said, "All right. God knows we don't want to tarnish the image. Larry, have you ever met Sanford Ehringer?"

"A few times. He's something of a recluse these days. He comes across as a jolly old great-uncle who likes a good glass of port and the occasional off-color joke, but he's devious and powerful. He could cause us serious trouble with many of our established clients."

She asked, "How do you know the Easton Trust's director, Howard Odell? You and he had lunch upstairs last week."

"Oh, Howard. He's always trolling for investors for his own deals. I wasn't interested."

"What do you know about him?" Gail wondered if Larry knew of Odell's connection to an alleged pornographer who operated out of the back of a dry cleaning shop.

"Nothing, really. We don't socialize."

Gail poured herself more coffee. "It's odd that I haven't heard of the Easton Trust. I was bom in Miami."

Larry said, "Not so odd. They keep a very low profile—so I've heard. The board members are from old families who have known each other for years. They're picky about who they give money to, and they avoid publicity."

"Now that is odd. Most donors to charity like the applause."

Larry finished his pastry before he spoke, then wiped his fingers on a comer of his napkin. "An anonymous giver is more blessed."

"Uh-huh."

His lips twitched into a smile. She noticed how the light from the window made a halo of his thinning hair. Gail asked, "What do they do, Larry? Arrange no-interest loans from money donated to the trust? Take tax deductions on the repayments?"

"No, no. Nothing illegal, I should think. These are your quintessential pillars of society. They might try to influence what happens in Miami, though, and if they can use the weight of the trust to do it—Well, why not? Their opinions count as much as anybody's."

It was clear to Gail how influence might be applied. If one were a member of the Easton Trust, and wanted a certain ordinance passed, one could promise a donation to a certain city commissioner's favorite project, and he—the commissioner— could take the credit when the community center opened, or the hospital wing, or neighborhood police substation. Business as usual in local politics.

And a man like Howard Odell—whose morals were not so prissy—could be useful, arranging such favors. The pillars of society would be spared the embarrassment.

She asked, "Howard Odell manages the Trust. Who else is involved?"

"I don't know precisely," Larry said.

"Althea Tillett? With what she left to Easton—"

"That's logical." He shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised if she'd been a member of Easton."

"There's something you ought to be aware of," Gail said. "Yesterday Patrick Norris told me that the Miami Beach Police are investigating her death. They don't believe it was an accident."

His mouth opened and shut, then opened, but no sound came out.

"They think someone may have broken her neck before she went down the stairs."

"My God." He went white. "Who? Do they know? What are they basing this on?"

"The autopsy, I assume. And no signs of a break-in. They've questioned Patrick three times at his apartment."

He braced his hands on his knees and sucked in a breath.

"Larry?" Gail went to him.

"I'm fine." He smiled. Sweat shone on his forehead. "Bit of a shock, that's all. Have you told anyone else in the firm?"

"No."

"Don't. Let's decide what to do, shall we? How to handle it... We should have known this before the meeting. Before we decided to take this damned case."

"Larry, you can't be thinking ... not Patrick. That's the last thing I would suspect him of."

"We should find out what the police are doing. How does one accomplish that?"

"I suppose," Gail said, "that we could begin by asking them."

She tried Anthony Quintana's office: He was in trial. She left a message for him to call. Not urgent, just some advice on a matter involving the Miami Beach police.

"Damn." For a minute or two she looked at her telephone, wondering whether to call them now, and what she would say.
Hello, this is Patrick Norris's attorney. Is he a suspect in the death of Althea Tillett?

She would think of something.

Gail looked up the number, dialed it, and asked for records. A man's voice told her that yes, police reports are public records, and she could get duplicates for a few dollars.

She checked her watch—4:15—then found Miriam typing at her keyboard, humming to herself as she worked.

"Where's
Senor
Ramsay?" Gail asked.

Miriam turned. "Oh, there you are! I've got something to tell you."

"Okay, but where's Eric?"

"Getting an insurance estimate on his car," Miriam said. She punched a button to save what she had done and the monitor chirped. "He just called and said he was on his way back."

The passenger window on his Lexus had been shattered, his cellular phone and stereo gone like teeth yanked out of a jaw.

Gail said, "I'm going over to the Beach. Tell Eric to do a final version of the Tillett petition. Plus a summons for everyone involved. Help him out. I don't think he knows a summons from a subpoena."

"But I'm only a secretary. He'd be insulted." Miriam got up from her chair, and it spun around. "Guess what. I found Carta Napolitano."

"Where?"

"I called Tallahassee, the office that keeps track of notaries." She held up a piece of paper so Gail could see it. Carla Napolitano. Home on Collins Avenue. Office on Alton Road, Miami Beach. Phone numbers.

"Good girl." Gail read it. "Why don't you call that work number and see what it is."

"I did already."

"And?"

Her large brown eyes opened wide. "A man answered. He said, 'Gateway Travel,' so I said, 'Who am I speaking to, please?' And he said 'Who do you want?' Like that. So I said, 'Does Carla work here?' He said, 'Carla stepped out for a minute.' Then he asked me who I was, and what did I want? It was so weird. I didn't know what to say, so I told him my name was Patty and I was calling about the job, and never mind, I'd call back."

Miriam tugged Gail farther back into her cubicle. "Then he asked me did I mean the dancing job or what? So I say, 'Yes, dancing.' He goes, 'Do you have any experience?' And I say no. 'That's okay, we'll train you if you get hired. How old are you?' I say twenty-one. And then he says, 'Do you have implants?' "

"You're kidding."

"No!
Te juro!
He said that. So I said—
Ay, Dios mio
—I said, 'No, I don't need implants.' So he goes, 'Oh, you sound really cute, why don't you come over right now?'"

Miriam bounced up and down, her head bobbing at the level of Gail's shoulder. "Oh my God,
yo no lo creo que
I actually did this!
Entonces, le digo,
'I can't get off work now.' He says, 'How about later, is seven o'clock okay?' He gives me an address on North Dixie Highway, next door to Wild Cherry."

"What's that?"

"That's what I said. 'What's that?'
Y me dice,
'It's the club where you'll be dancing, sweet cheeks.' He called me that! He goes, 'Bring a bikini and some high heels so I can take some photos.'
Fijate!
He says, 'My name's Frankie, ask for me when you come.' "

Gail glanced into the empty corridor, then back at Miriam. "You're telling me that the notary on Althea Tillett's will is connected to an X-rated nightclub?"

"What else can it be, with a name like that?"

"I think you ought to go see Frankie tonight, Miriam. Supplement your income."

"Alaba'o!
Danny would kill me."

Gail studied Carla Napolitano's work address again. "Look at this. The travel agency is in the same block as Alan Weissman's office. That explains where Weissman found her."

"I bet she's a stripper."

"I'd love to get that into evidence. The jury would eat it up."

"So do you want me to see what I can find out?" It was hardly a question. Miriam's face glowed with enthusiasm.

"God, yes. This is getting interesting." Gail checked her watch. "I have to go. See if you can find out who owns Gateway Travel. And give Eric the address of Wild Cherry. That should make him happy. He'll have something to do this weekend besides read IRS regulations."

Half an hour later, Gail walked into Miami Beach Police headquarters, a
white-and-turquoise, terrazzo-floored lobby with a mural of fishes and the beach on the back wall. Add some tables and chairs, and put the cops into waiters' vests, and it would look like one of the trendy restaurants on Ocean Drive. The lobby was built on the quarter round, with an atrium to the ceiling and four turquoise metal railings marking the floors. The reception desk seemed suspended on lighted glass blocks.

A muscled Adonis on skates glided around Gail and darted into an alcove to take a sip at the water fountain. Tight green shorts, hair tied back in a
ponytail, the rest of him tanned and shiny with sweat. He wiped his mouth, spun around, and glided out again through the automatic doors.

"He comes in here a
lot," noted the girl at the desk. She was a pudgy blond in a
blue Public Service Aide uniform.

"Must be nice." Gail asked the girl where records might be. She twisted around in her chair and pointed toward the muraled wall just off the lobby.

At the records counter a young man asked if she had a case number.

"No, sorry, I don't. Just the name." She wrote it down.

"Hang on." He ruffled through some papers below Gail's line of vision, then looked back at her. "I have to call upstairs on this one."

"For public records?"

"I can't let you have nothing without an okay. Take a seat in the lobby and I'll see what I can do. What's your name?"

Gail told him, then wandered over to see the poster of Miami Beach's Ten Most Wanted. They were pathetic-looking men, most of them needing a shave.

A minute later one of two silver-doored elevators opened on the lobby and a man got out and walked in her direction. Gail stood up. He was black, heavyset, a couple of inches shorter than Gail. Graying hair was trimmed close to his head. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and a tie. His belt carried a badge and a holstered pistol.

"Detective Gary Davis," he said, keeping his hands on his hips. "Can I help you?"

"My name is Gail Connor. I'm an attorney." She gave him her card.

After he read it, he slid it into his shirt pocket. "What did you want from the records desk, Ms. Connor?"

"I asked for copies of police reports on Althea Tillett. She died last month at her home on North Bay Road."

"Mind if I ask what your interest is?"

"I represent her nephew in a civil matter."

"Her nephew being ... ?"

"Patrick Norris. He told me your department is investigating. Is that true?"

Davis looked at her for a while, then extended an arm toward the elevators. "Do me a favor, come upstairs, we'll talk about it."

Gail glanced up into the atrium. "Detective, at this point all I want to know is what's going on."

"You have questions, I have questions. Please."

After a moment, Gail nodded and followed him, her heels echoing on the terrazzo. Inside the elevator Detective Davis pushed the button for the third floor. "I haven't heard anything in the news about a murder investigation," she said.

"We haven't released the pink." Davis leaned wearily against the rear wall of the elevator. "Excuse me, the press copy of the Incident Report. They're in a box down there at the desk, which is open to the news media. They sit there and go through them. Every purse-snatching, every stabbing, every shoplifting. Everything. And if they see something interesting, they ask about it. If it's not in the box, it doesn't exist."

"But Mrs. Tillett was fairly well known."

The door opened and Davis let her go out first. "Lot of well-known people on the Beach, Ms. Connor."

"Are you in charge of the case?" Gail asked.

"That's right. What's Patrick Norris doing with a lawyer?"

"I'm not a criminal lawyer," she said.

"I noticed that. Gail A. Connor, Attorney at Law, civil trial practice," Davis said, repeating what was printed on her card. "Law firm on Flagler Street."