Suspicion of Guilt (3 page)

Gail sat for a while with her hands on her knees, then pushed herself up, taking a breath. "All right. We'll talk about it later. Go on and finish your homework." She lifted the math book to find the issue of
Cracked
"You won't need this."

"Daddy said maybe I could go to school in the Virgin Islands someday."

"Did he?"

Karen looked up at her with blue eyes surrounded by blond lashes. Like Dave's. "Not all the time, I mean. I could live here too. My friend Marisol lives in Bogota' and Miami, and she goes to school here and also to her school down there. Her parents aren't even divorced."

"Well. Lucky girl. When did your dad call?"

"Labor Day, remember?"

"That was three weeks ago."

Karen shrugged.

Gail bent to kiss her. "I'm going to see what Phyllis left in the microwave. You want to bring your homework out to the kitchen?"

She shook her head.

"Come see me when you're finished then."

Gail closed the door behind her as she left Karen's room. Damn him. Dave rarely called, but he would send Karen postcards—beaches and sleek hotels and whitewashed little towns close to the sea. What fun.
Can't wait till you can come see me. You're my best girl.
Such sweet lies.

You think you know someone. Married twelve years and not a clue.

Lying on the sofa in the family room, Gail heard a telephone ringing somewhere. Groggily she opened her eyes, reached toward the noise. A file slid from her lap, papers ruffling to the floor. It would be Anthony.

She brought the phone to her mouth, said hello. But the voice was unfamiliar. She struggled up. "I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"Patrick Norris." There was a pause. "Gail? It's me. Patrick."

She blinked, disoriented, past and present clashing in her mind. "Patrick?"

"Don't you remember me? Now I'm embarrassed. I was sure you would."

Finally she said that yes, of course she remembered. It was just such a surprise. A long time. Since law school, at least.

"Your mother very kindly gave me your number at home. I called before and left a message with your daughter. I guess she didn't tell you."

"No." Gail tried to make out her watch. "What time is it?"

"About nine-thirty. Were you asleep?"

"Not exactly."

"I'd like to see you tomorrow morning, if that's at all possible."

She couldn't recall her schedule. "What about?"

"It has to do with my aunt, Althea Tillett. She passed away two weeks ago last Wednesday."

"Oh, yes. I'm so sorry, Patrick. She was one of my mother's best friends." Gail had thought of Patrick when she had heard about Mrs. Tillett's death, remembering he was her nephew. Her mother had told her what had happened. Irene Connor had been playing bridge at Althea Tillett's house that night. Irene had heard it from her friend Edith, who had heard it from Jessica. The police had found Mrs. Tillett at the bottom of the stairs in her living room. She had been drinking

heavily, and must have caught one of the wooden clogs she was wearing on the hem of her robe.

"I need to talk to you about her estate," Patrick said.

Gail told him she had an early meeting, but to come around ten o'clock.

"It'll be good to see you again, Gail."

"You too."

She hung up and sat staring at the telephone. Patrick Norris. After all this time. The memories came rushing back.

Chapter Two

Slipping out of a litigation department meeting that threatened to drag on, Gail glanced into the lobby to see if Patrick was there. He was. He stood in a square of sunlight, staring out at Biscayne Bay. His image reflected like a ghost in the window: beard and wire-rimmed glasses, light brown hair falling past his ears.

Clients liked to wait where Patrick stood now. They liked to watch the traffic fourteen floors below, or the boats skimming across the bay between the city and the Port of Miami. Patrick was probably contemplating the quirks of economics that gave one man a suite on the Emerald Seas and another a flattened cardboard box under the expressway.

Two months into their senior year in law school at the University of Florida, Patrick had walked out of a class on corporate taxation. The students had sat at long, curving tables, rows of them that ascended from the podium in the center. When the professor suddenly stopped speaking, Gail looked up from her notes. Patrick was out of his chair, gathering his books under his arm. Without a word he walked down the steps of the aisle and dropped the books on the floor in a neat stack at the professor's feet. He let his gaze sweep over the faces of the students in wordless judgment. Then he was gone, the side door clicking shut behind him. The professor rapped with his pen to still the murmurs. "Anybody else care to throw in the towel? No? Then let's continue. Under the Revised Code of 1976 ..."

Gail begged him not to quit, but it didn't do any good. He had been born in Miami, but headed his car in the opposite direction, winding up somewhere in the Southwest. An Indian reservation. He called her a few times. He was working at a hospice, a construction site, a diner in Gallup. He drifted to California. Gail was hired as an associate by Hartwell Black. A year or so later Patrick sent a letter from Mexico, then a string of postcards from South America, none with a return address. Then nothing. Patrick Norris gradually receded into memory, becoming another face in the photos from law school, buried with others in a drawer.

"Patrick?" When he only turned and looked blankly at her, she laughed. "It's me."

His sharply boned face softened in a broad smile. "Gail." He gave her a hug, leaving his arm around her shoulders. "It is you. All sleek and prosperous. I should have known." He ruffled her perm. "You've cut your hair. But I like it. It's nice."

She patted his chest. "Are you home for good and didn't tell me?"

"Since last winter."

"Last winter!"

"I know, I'm such a dog." He grimaced as if expecting a blow. "I moved back to Florida a couple of years ago to help on a lawsuit for the migrant workers up in Belle Glade. Now I'm counseling at a drug rehab center in Miami. Plus odd jobs here and there. Carpentry, whatnot. I'm one hell of a framer." He smiled again. "We'll trade stories sometime."

"Mine won't be as interesting as yours, I'm afraid." Gail nodded toward a walnut-paneled door past the reception desk. "Come on, I'll show you my office."

Patrick picked up a heavy mailing envelope from a chair and followed her inside. Carpeted corridors ran left and right, winding past glassed-in secretarial areas, long metal cabinets, framed lithographs, and murmured conversations. One of the partners' doors was open. Patrick slowed as he walked by, taking in a glimpse of beveled glass bookcases and thick carpet.

Gail waited until he caught up.

His voice dropped to a conspiratorial level. "We are now making our way into the belly of the legal beast."

"God. You haven't changed." She slipped an arm around his waist. Patrick was thin as a hermit. She could feel his ribs through the plain blue shirt he wore. In law school he would buy his clothes at thrift stores.

She led him into her office and closed the door. The office was full of furniture she herself had purchased, white oak with softly upholstered chairs. Pink bromeUads flowered from clay pots on the windowsills. Patrick glanced around, running his hand along the practice manuals on the bookcase. He checked the labels on the heavy accordion folders and with his knuckles lightly tapped the computer monitor on her desk. He flipped the cover of a
Southern Reporter
open, shut. "Looks like you've done well for yourself," he said. He focused on the framed diplomas and certificates on the wall. "Very well."

"Did you ever think of going back?" she asked.

Still reading, he shook his head. "No. I didn't belong in law school. I could never learn to argue convincingly for either side. They're so good at turning out moral ciphers." He smiled at her. "Not everybody. Not you." He came around one of the client chairs and sat down, pushing his hair off his forehead. It fell loosely from a center part.

Patrick looked at Gail a minute, then said, "I read about your sister in the paper. Damn. I should have called."

She gave a slight shrug.

"And then Dave. I thought you two would make it"

"Who told you?"

"Your mother. I saw her at my aunt's funeral. She said you were all right" Patrick's expression said he wanted to be sure. "I'm fine. Really. The divorce was overdue." He nodded. "Irene showed me some photos of Karen."

"You remember Karen?"

"Sure. She's a great-looking girl. Tough like Mom, I bet."

"Well, she has her moments. What about you? Married?"

"No. With the kind of life I've led the past few years, it would have been impossible. Wife, kids, all that. I don't think so." His crooked smile was half hidden by the beard.

With a funny little twist in the pit of her stomach, Gail remembered how Patrick's beard had felt under her lips. Springy, soft. The first time smelling faintly of woodsmoke from a fire in his backyard. He was the only man with a beard she had ever made love to. An impulse, acted upon. A guilty-sweet little affair, like seducing a seminary student. It had happened, then it was over. She had never told Dave.

"Well." She laughed softly. "Here you are. I don't know why I didn't phone your aunt and ask about you. I could have."

"Hey, half the time she didn't know where I was." "You weren't close?" Gail thought back. "You never talked about her."

"No, we didn't have a whole lot to do with each other then. It got better. We both mellowed out, you could say." He propped one foot on his knee. He wore heavy brown sandals, and the skin of his ankle was pale and delicate, blue veins beneath. He concentrated on straightening his pant leg. "I keep imagining that if I go over to her house, Aunt Althie will still be there, telling dirty jokes and playing her stereo too loud. Whatever else you say about Aunt Althie, you've got to give her that. The woman didn't hold back."

"You wanted to talk to me about her estate. How can I help?"

Patrick handed her the heavy envelope he had brought with him. "Start with this."

Gail unbent the prongs holding the flap. She reached inside. There were several documents, each consisting of copies of typewritten pages stapled together. The words at the top of the first one read "Last Will and Testament of Althea Norris Tillett."

"A copy of your aunt's will." She shuffled through them. "What are these, prior versions?"

"Yes. These copies go back to 1981." Patrick pulled his chair closer. "That one on top. I got that last week in the mail from Monica, after a lot of whining."

"Monica?" Gail looked up.

"My cousin. Rudy's sister. You know Rudy and Monica. You went to the same prep school."

Rudy and Monica Tillett. Brother and sister. Wavy black hair. Fraternal twins. She said, "I think they were two or three years ahead of me at Ransom-Everglades."

"Where the rich white kids go to avoid the dregs in the Dade County public school system. Present company excepted, naturally."

"Didn't you all live together?" Gail asked.

"Correct. After my parents died, Aunt Althie took me in."

His parents had run a church in El Salvador, a tiny mission in the backcountry. Gail had thought, when Patrick told her the story, that the manner of their death embarrassed him. They had not been martyrs to the death squads. They had not even been good missionaries. Their car had hit a cow and spun off the road in a rainstorm. At age eleven, Patrick had been sent back to Miami.

He took off his glasses and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to clean the lenses. "Have you ever been to Aunt Althie's house?'

"Probably," Gail said slowly. Althea Tillett had been a
friend of Gail's mother, but Gail had not known the woman well. She had never met Patrick until they both wound up in the same class at law school.

Patrick prodded. "North Bay Road? Mediterranean? Fountain in the driveway?"

"Oh, yes." One of the older waterfront neighborhoods on the bay side of Miami Beach. She and her mother had picked up Mrs. Tillett one evening to go to the opera. "It's been years, though."

Patrick squinted at his glasses and rubbed another spot. "I went over there after the funeral. Rudy and Monica were throwing a sort of bon voyage party with the guest of honor already departed. They had champagne and male-model types from South Beach serving hors d'oeuvres. I practically had to show my ID at the door,"

He put his glasses back on, tucking the earpieces carefully over his ears, moving strands of hair out of the way. Gail rocked in her chair, waiting.

"Rudy and I got into a disagreement. I told him it wasn't his house. He said it was. He said Aunt Althie left it to him in her will. To him and Monica. Then he and a couple of his buddies kicked me out."

"You're referring to this will?" Gail held up the copy. "Signed August third."

"I don't know when it was signed," he said quietly. "I do know it's a forgery."

"Why do you say that?"

Patrick got out of his chair. "First of all, the signature." He ruffled forward through the pages. "Close, but not good enough." Gail barely had a chance to see it before he thumbed backward. "Now read this. 'Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to my beloved nephew Patrick Norris.' No way."

"No way?"

Patrick pulled another will from near the bottom. "You want real? How's this? 'To my commie nephew Patrick, a one-way flight to Havana so he can visit his hero Fidel.' "

Gail's eyes shifted to look up at him.

"That was when I marched on Calle Ocho to protest the U.S. embargo. The Miami Cubans beat the shit out of us. And way before that, when I said I didn't want to go to college, Aunt Althie left me a million dollars in trust, to be released upon my graduation. I've got a copy of that one too. She revoked the trust when she got pissed off at me again. I've forgotten why."

Patrick dug through the stack. "Look. 'To my darling nephew, the joy of my life, three million dollars.' Now what was ... ? Oh, yeah. That's when she had the flu and I came back from California to stay with her. And this: 'To my dear nephew Patrick, five million dollars.' That's earlier, when I enrolled in law school. That sent her into raptures. But the codicil—'To my idiot nephew who is throwing away the education I paid good money to give him, five thousand dollars in his name to the United Negro College Fund,' And here's the one before the one Monica gave me. 'Fifty dollars for membership in the ACLU.' "