Suspicion of Guilt (31 page)

Once over the causeway Patrick turned right at North Bay Road, a narrow street that curved along the western side of Miami Beach. The faded asphalt was crumbling at the edges. Banyans arched overhead. No particular architectural style unified the neighborhood, except that all of the houses were well-kept. There was a Rolls-Royce parked in one driveway, a minivan in another. The grander homes were on the bay side. Several hid behind fences or walls with security cameras at the gates.

Althea Tillett's house was set back from the street behind an arched entryway with carriage lamps on either side. It had the look of the Twenties, a rambling two-story Mediterranean with a red tile roof and blue striped awnings. Flowering vines climbed the columns along the portico. A triple garage ran east-west, forming an L-shape with the main house. The brick driveway curved through thick grass then looped around a fountain where a round-tummied, high-breasted concrete nude held a water jug on her shoulder. No water came out.

There were two cars in the driveway already, a shiny Japanese model of indeterminate make and an old vinyl-roofed green Plymouth with a bumper sticker:
Jesucristo es el senor.

Patrick said, "Emilio's here. He's the gardener. The other car is probably Rosa's." He parked in the shade of a banyan tree. The drone of a lawnmower seemed to come from behind the house. At the front door Patrick searched through his keys, then fit one of them into the lock.

"Should we just go in like this?" Gail asked.

"Sure. This is home. I used to live here, remember?"

The air inside the dimly lit foyer was cool. Gail's eyes adjusted. A thick Oriental carpet lay on the parquet floor; gold silk shimmered on the walls. On either side of a carved mahogany screen two Chinese porcelain lions stood guard, red tongues curling past bared teeth.

Gail patted one of them between its ears.

"R.W. and Aunt Althie bought them in Hong Kong," Patrick said. "Does this look like the entrance to a Parisian brothel, or what?"

The foyer opened onto a vast living room—yellow brocade sofas, tasseled swags of floral fabric at the high windows, a pair of cubist paintings on one wall, modern abstracts on another. Under a chandelier, a round Art Deco table held a bronze statue: goat-footed Pan playing his pipes. Greek columns extended along one side of the room, stairs curved up the other. A replica of the headless, toga-clad
Winged Victory
stood on a pedestal beside the grand piano.

"Maison
Tillett," Patrick said, walking slowly through the room with his hands in his pockets. "A bourgeois wet dream."

Gail brushed her fingertips over the back of a carved and gilded Italian chair with a red velvet cushion. "Who bought all this stuff, your aunt?"

"Most of it. R.W. would raise hell with her, but he never made her stop. I think he liked arguing about it. You ever meet R.W?"

"Not that I remember."

Patrick laughed. "Visualize a Presbyterian minister with a black three-piece suit and a bad attitude. I mostly stayed out of his way. But he and Aunt Althie were okay together. They clicked, strange as it seems. After he died, she kept on buying things. Trying to replace him, I guess. Every time I'd come to visit, she'd have something else to show me."

He wandered around for a bit then looked at the stairs curving to the second floor. His gaze traveled up the red-carpeted steps then down to the marble at the bottom.

Gail went to stand beside him. "This is where they found her?"

After a while he nodded. "Yes. I don't know where she— where it happened. I hope it was fast. But if it wasn't ... Well, they say you see a white light or something." He glanced at Gail, smiling a little. "Aunt Althie believed in that sort of thing."

He tapped his open palm on the end of the balustrade, then stuck his hands back into his pockets. His eyes focused on something across the room. "What the hell?" He went to peer closely at the empty space over one of the sofas. "It's gone."

"What is?"

He pointed at the pale, vacant rectangle. "Aunt Althie's Gauguin. It was a Tahitian woman lying in the grass. A nude, with a fox beside her."

"A genuine Gauguin?" Gail stepped closer as if it might reappear.

"Well ... no. It was a copy. They bought it in Amsterdam. It looked like an original, though."

Then from above them came a voice. "Excuse me, but— who are you?" Gail and Patrick turned. A woman was halfway down the stairs, a thin woman in glasses, about thirty, with a buzz cut that left a fringe of blond hair over her forehead. There was dust on the knees of her jeans.

Patrick said, "Who are
you!"

"I asked you first," she said.

Gail walked back across the room. "This is Patrick Norris, Mrs. Tillett's nephew. I'm his attorney, Gail Connor. We're trying to locate the housekeeper. Is she upstairs with you?"

The woman hesitated as if not sure she could trust them to know she was alone in the house. "No," she said. Her eyes went back to Patrick. "How did you get in?"

He said, "I have a key. Your turn. Who are you?"

"Susan Stone. I work for Stone Art and Antiques. We're doing an appraisal for the estate."

"So the vultures are circling already. Who hired you, Alan Weissman?"

"No, Monica Tillett. Listen, she didn't tell me to let anybody in. Maybe I should call her."

Gail said, "Just tell us if you've seen Rosa Portales. She was Mrs. Tillett's housekeeper."

"This is my third day and I haven't seen any of the help, except for the gardener." She nodded toward the backyard, visible through the wide windows. By the sea wall, a man in a straw hat was pouring grass from the mower bag into a wheelbarrow.

Patrick said, "Emilio might know where she is."

Gail said to Susan Stone, "We're going to go ask him. All right with you?"

"I suppose."

But Patrick had noticed something else, three cardboard boxes stacked by the entrance to the foyer. "What's that?" His tone sharpened. "What are you people doing in here? You have no right to take any of this. It isn't yours."

She glared back at him. "I think you'd better leave."

"My attorneys are preparing a restraining order."

Gail said, "Patrick, I'll deal with this later. Let's talk to Emilio." She smiled at Susan Stone as Patrick went to unlatch the sliding glass door. The appraiser turned and walked between two of the Greek columns, vanishing deeper into the house.

By the time Gail and Patrick had crossed the terrace, Emilio was coming across the yard with the wheelbarrow. The scent of new-mown grass filled Gail's nose.

Patrick waved.
"Oye, viejo, ¿qué pasa?"

Squinting, the gardener put down the handles of the wheelbarrow. His face brightened.
"Senor Norris , ¿es usted?"

"In the flesh,
amigo.
How've you been?"

"I been good."

"You're still workin' here, man?"

Emilio laughed, deep creases in a browned face. "The grass don' stop growing."

"This is my attorney, Gail Connor."

Emilio bobbed his head, then took a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and wiped the sweat off his neck. He had thick hands. The nails were cracked, the edges black with dirt. "Is a terrible thin', Mrs. Tillett. I am so sorry. She was a nice lady." He took off his hat and lowered his voice. "She give me money in the ... ¿
Cómo se dice? El testamento"

"Will," Gail said. "She left you money in her will." Ten thousand dollars, she recalled.

"Si"

Patrick said, "Emilio, have you seen Rosa? Is she still around?"

He shook his head. "She is gone. Gone for—" He made a dismissive motion with his hand. "Oof. Long time. After Mrs. Tillett die, I don' see Rosa no more."

Gail asked, "Do you know where she went?"

Emilio shrugged. "She go to Hialeah, I think. Maybe you ask the lady inside. Or
el señor
Tillett." He picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow.

'Take it easy, man," Patrick said, patting him on the back.

"Que Diós te bendiga."
Emilio smiled, nodded at Gail, then continued his way around the house.

"Hialeah," Gail said. "Where in Hialeah?"

Patrick was still looking after Emilio. "You remind me. If we go to trial on this case, and I win it, he gets his money."

"I'll remind you," she said.

He pointed toward the house. "Look at that." Gail saw the woman watching through the sliding door. Patrick cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Have a nice day!"

"Let's go," Gail said.

"See those little round windows under the gables in the roof?" Patrick asked. "That's the attic. I used to sit up there and read for hours, trying to stay sane around this nuthouse."

The west side of the old house seemed to glow in the late afternoon light, in the beginning of that season when the sun slips south and the days become pastel and gold. Gail let her eyes drift along the red tile roof, the arched windows, the blue-and-white striped awnings, the expanse of green grass, flowers, and hedges, and overhanging trees. Birds sang. The water lapped at the tiled perimeter of the long turquoise swimming pool. A lattice gazebo shaded a white metal table and chairs with bright cushions. From somewhere farther down the sea wall a motor yacht cranked up, a muffled throb.

"It's a beautiful place," Gail said. "I'd live here in a minute."

He pointed toward the second floor. "Monica's room was on the end there, with the balcony, and Rudy's was next to it. Very chummy. My room was down the hall. Six rooms upstairs, eight down, maid's quarters over the garage. God, the parties they used to have! Live music out on the terrace. Jazz, a string quartet, a salsa band, whatever. Dancing, drinking. People in gowns and tuxes. Somebody would always make a scene, or get caught with somebody else's wife in one of the bedrooms. Reminded me of those descriptions of Jay Gatsby's parties. You ever read Fitzgerald?"

"Not since I was in high school," Gail admitted.

Patrick was staring at the low outline of trees and buildings a mile across Biscayne Bay and the little islands between, dense with feathery pines. Lauren Sontag had hinted to Gail, that night they had talked, that Patrick hated his stepcousins for reasons that went beyond jealousy.
I could tell you things,
Lauren had said. Stories of a childhood from which none of them had escaped unharmed.

He said, "Look at Miami from here. What do you see?"

"I don't know. Nothing in particular."

"No. It's a mirage. You don't see the dirt or the violence or the kids on crack. You stand here and you imagine that life in America is pretty damn good, after all. What is everybody whining about?"

Suddenly Gail felt very tired of all this. "Let's go," she said again.

He looked at her for a while, frowning. "Every time I see you lately, you've got this look on your face, like you just found out the planet is run by alien beings."

"Everything is weird lately."

He draped an arm over her shoulder. "Why don't you leave that factory you're working in and do something meaningful?"

"Working on your case isn't meaningful?"

"You could come on board as our legal counsel, when we get this thing up and running. We wouldn't make you work eighty hours a week, like you do for Hartwell Black and Robineau. How do you have time for a life?"

"Anthony said the same thing."

"Don't tell me. He wants you to work for him." Patrick laughed. "So he can keep an eye on you."

"No. He didn't suggest that," Gail said. "And I wouldn't, even if he asked." Then she added, "I don't expect him to ask."

The sun flashed from the terrace. One of the glass doors was sliding open.

Monica Tillett strode past the pool, hands clenched, face gathered into a scowl. The wind tossed her black hair around her face. She wore a skin-tight zebra-print jumpsuit that came to her knees and floppy white socks over black oxfords.

"What are you doing on this property, Patrick?" she yelled.

"Monica, how nice to see you."

Gail said quietly, "Don't get started, Patrick. Let's just leave."

Monica looked at Gail. "And you. You ought to know better."

"Lighten up," Gail said. "We're only looking for Rosa Portales."

"Who's that?"

Patrick said, "Don't you remember, Monica? Rosa Portales worked for Aunt Althie for the last fifteen years. Cleaned the toilets? Waxed the floors? Brought your drink on a tray, when you bothered to come visit."

Gail gave him a hard look, then said, "Apparently Rosa quit after Mrs. Tillett's death. Do you know how we can reach her?"

Monica's eyes were slits. "No. I don't."

The glass door slid open again and Rudy came out on a puff of refrigerated air. Black jeans, black T-shirt, little round sunglasses with shimmery blue lenses.

"You're trespassing, Patrick. You and your attorney. I've already instructed Ms. Stone to phone 911, so you should vacate the premises immediately."

Patrick smiled. "Vacate the premises? How original."

Susan Stone was peering through the sliding door, her hands clasped nervously at her waist.

Gail said, "Rudy, do you know where Rosa Portales has gone?" The blue sunglasses swung slowly in her direction. "Rosa Portales. She worked for your stepmother as a housekeeper."

"I haven't the least idea."

"What do you want with her?" Monica asked.

Gail didn't answer. "Mrs. Tillett probably had Rosa's phone number in her address book. If it isn't a bother—"

"Check with Alan Weissman, why don't you?" Rudy said.

Gail could feel the anger building. "Just so you won't be surprised. If there's no settlement of this case by noon on Monday, then on Monday afternoon, along with the petition for revocation of probate and emergency motion for a restraining order, I'm filing a motion for appointment of a curator."

One of Rudy's eyebrows shot over the top of the lenses. "Pardon?"

"A curator. A neutral party to oversee the property of this estate until the court makes a judgment as to its disposition. Discuss it with Alan Weissman, why don't you?"

"Is it because we hired an appraiser? Is that what's making you so antsy? We have to appraise it, don't we?"