Suspicion of Guilt (39 page)

There was that feeling again. The same calm a person must feel when the airplane is plunging toward the ground, and there is nothing, nothing you can do.

She said, "I'm so sorry. Please try to understand."

"Understand? You want me to
understand?
What do you think I am?" He took a few steps, then came back, one hand clutching his briefcase, the other frozen in midair.

"You know, the crazy thing—" He took a breath. "The crazy thing is, I have loved you with all my heart. And now what? I am to let it die? Don't tell me to understand what you are doing. I can't. It is too much to ask."

Chapter Twenty-Five

Gail found Eric Ramsay in the library at one of the computers, the screen reflecting in his eyes. He noticed Gail and looked up. "Hey, boss."

She let herself down in the adjacent chair. "Miriam says you filed the Norris case this morning."

"Yeah. First in line at the clerk's office. I got the summonses and subpoenas issued, ready to be served whenever you say. They're in the file." Eric hit some buttons on the keyboard, and the screen went blank. He swung around in his chair. "Miriam told me about Irving Adler. I guess we can toss out his subpoena for deposition."

Gail nodded. Her head felt heavy, off-balance.

"And you found him," Eric said. "That must've been a shock. I don't think his death is going to hurt us, though. We've got a settlement going. Why should Odell back out now?"

"Odell wouldn't, necessarily, but Sanford Ehringer's attorneys might." She propped her cheekbone on her hand. "If Irving can't testify that the will was forged, what have we got?"

"Now what?"

"I'm going to go see Mrs. Tillett's housekeeper," Gail said. She closed her eyes. They felt hot and dry, as if someone were pushing them back into the sockets. "We've got her address. I called her. Eric, would you drive?"

"Sure. You look beat."

"I didn't get much sleep."

"Oh, hey." He put his hand on her back. "You ought to go on home, get some rest. We can talk to Mrs. Portales later."

She could have fallen against him and for a moment let him gently squeeze her shoulder. He had large, warm hands. "No, let's go now." She pulled away. "Eric—" She glanced into the room. A law clerk was at the far end of a corridor of ceiling-high shelves, turning slowly through a book.

"What?" Eric asked.

"I'm not going to make it till five o'clock. Do you have anything?"

"Sure," he said quietly. His hand went to her back again. "I've got something you could take. It's not too strong."

"I hate to ask," she said. "I don't do this, usually."

"Don't worry about it." He turned off the computer. "When do you want to go to Rosa's?"

"In a little while. I have to make a phone call."

Gail stood up. Irene had come over early in the morning to be with Karen, who wouldn't go to school. Gail wanted to see if Karen was still sleeping.

"Come up to my office first." Eric was gathering his notes. He was wearing navy-blue suspenders with little leather straps that buttoned inside the waist of his trousers. He stuck a thick enameled pen into his shirt pocket.

Gail said, "On the way to Rosa's I'd like to make a couple of side trips, if you don't mind."

"No, I don't mind. Where to?"

"I'm curious. I want to see what Wild Cherry looks like."

Half an hour later the two of them were ten miles or so north of downtown, heading up West Dixie Highway past an Italian pizza place, a discount store, a used car lot.

Eric slowed down. "It's up ahead on the right."

Wild Cherry didn't look as dangerous as he had described it two weeks ago. In fact, the place had neatly clipped hedges and a gold-trimmed sign. There was a red awning at the entrance, like a downtown hotel. The tree-lined parking lot was a quarter full at ten-thirty in the morning. A security guard sat on a stool outside. But still, you couldn't mistake what it was: MIAMI'S HOTTEST EXOTIC DANCERS. LADIES NO COVER CHARGE, DRINK HALF PRICE. LET YOUR FANTASIES RUN WILD.

Gail craned her neck as they drove past. "This doesn't seem too bad. How much money do they make here, do you think?”

"How much do they make, or how much do they report? These establishments can be money machines," Eric said. "Particularly one that's geared to tourists and businessmen. I had to pay ten dollars for a mixed drink, six if I'd wanted a beer. Plus a ten-dollar cover."

She looked sideways at him. "I thought you only stayed five minutes."

He grinned at her. "Can I put it on my expense account?"

"No, you probably enjoyed it too much."

"You ever been to a nude bar?"

"No."

"We can turn around. They let women in." Eric was wearing his sunglasses with the gold frames and leather trim. He playfully tapped the brake.

"I'll pass." Gail asked, "When you were talking to Howard Odell last year, did he mention Wild Cherry?"

"Not at all. He said he invested, but I didn't know it was in this kind of thing."

"Howard Odell is a hypocritical S.O.B.," Gail said. "Collecting money for the poor at the same time he's involved in companies that own nude bars and porno movie houses, and using Easton as his own slush fund, no doubt."

Gail had wanted to see what Larry Black thought, but he had not come in yet. His secretary said he hadn't even gone home last night and his wife, Dee-Dee, was frantic. Gail told Eric to take a left at Northwest 167th Street, a six-lane road of shopping centers, kosher delis, Chinese takeout, small storefronts. Naughty 'n' Nice Apparel Shoppe would be among them.

Eric asked, 'Tell me what happened last night. What did the police say?"

Gail described how Irene had knocked at Irving Adler's door. The paramedics arriving. Adler dead on the kitchen floor.

"They say it was of a heart attack. No sign that anyone broke in. The doors were locked. Just like with Carla Napolitano and Althea Tillett, if you think about it. Except there was a mangled dog in the garbage."

Eric took his eyes off the road to look at her. "Three dead people, three locked doors? Is that supposed to be a pattern?"

"And all three people were somehow involved in this case." She made a laugh. "Next, the body of Jessica Simms, the other witness, will be found stuffed into a kettle drum."

"It's possible." Eric said, "I think you ought to call that detective with the Beach police. See what he thinks."

"He'd think I was demented," Gail said. "What bothers me is Mitzi. Why would Irving Adler throw his pet poodle into a garbage can?"

Eric shrugged. "Maybe a car hit it, and he thought it was dead."

"No, he'd have buried her. Besides, a car would have flattened Mitzi into a little fur rug."

"Maybe Adler accidentally stepped on her," Eric said. "Then he became so distraught that he had a heart attack and died."

Gail remembered the neat kitchen, the carefully placed crackers on his plate. "I don't think so." She pointed through the windshield. "Slow down. It's up ahead on the left."

Eric turned into the parking lot of the strip shopping center, then cruised along the storefronts. Gail looked past him at the shop. Naughty 'n' Nice looked just like any other boutique, except for the black silhouettes of a man and woman on the sign, framed in a red heart. Mannequins in frothy nighties stared blankly back from the windows. A poster read FIFTY PERCENT OFF ALL TOYS AND NOVELTIES.

"Let's go," Gail said. "I've seen enough."

Eric braked at the sidewalk, then guided the Lexus into the flow of traffic. "You know, I used to think you were cold, uptight ... by the book. It was wild, you going to see Frankie Delgado that way, telling him that story about being a call girl. I'd never have expected it from Gail Connor. Now here we are, looking at a sex shop."

Her head on the headrest, Gail shifted her eyes toward Eric. "Better than tax law, right?"

They made their way to Okeechobee Road, which as U.S. 27 would eventually bisect the flat sugarcane fields fifty miles to the northwest. In Hialeah, the road ran past shops and gas stations on the right, with signs in Spanish. A drainage canal bordered the south side of the street, where tall pines shed needles on the rocky ground.

Finally Gail spotted the Aphrodite Motel. A mildewing goddess of poured concrete stood outside the flat-roofed, U-shaped building. There was a wood fence around it. High hedges divided the parking spaces for privacy, and there were a few enclosed garages. A guest could pay and get the key at a drive-up window while his secretary or neighbor's wife ducked down in the seat, ABIERTO 24 HORAS. Special hourly rates for business meetings. Visa and MasterCard accepted. A block beyond, there was another motel. Cupid's Arrow, ADULT VIDEOS AND WATERBEDS. It was, Gail decided, totally depressing.

The Lexus idled in the parking lot of the convenience store next door, air conditioner blowing through the vents.

"Hey."

Gail looked around. Eric was facing her in his seat, smiling through his sunglasses. "We're not in that big a rush. Let's go in."

She laughed. "Are you serious?"

"Sure. Come on."

"No." She let out a breath. "Jesus, Eric."

His smile faded. He turned around, put the car into gear, and gunned it out of the parking lot.

"I didn't mean to laugh," she said. "Really."

"Yeah." He gestured toward her file. "Give me Rosa's address."

She found it in her notes and told him to turn north on West Twelfth Avenue. She looked at him for a minute. His face was expressionless. Shaking her head, she watched the traffic. After a while, she said, "There were some files I didn't get to last night. I could use some help this afternoon, if you're not busy."

Eric adjusted the AC vent. "I'm not busy. Pretty soon I won't be busy at all. Paul Robineau gave me my notice yesterday. Take as long as I need to finish up, then get out."

"What? How can he do that?"

"He does what he wants, he runs the firm."

Gail said, "No. He should have told me. He knows you're working with me."

Eric pushed his sunglasses farther up the bridge of his nose. "No big loss. And I'm sick of it. Nobody likes lawyers, not even other lawyers. You're a high-class prostitute. They love you when they need you, then it's over."

"Then why did you go to law school?"

"It made as much sense as anything else. The pay's good." He laughed. "The hours are a bitch."

"Don't quit," Gail said. "This job is like anything else. You do the best you can, and you don't throw it away when it gets tough. Your clients come to you in trouble, and you help them. That's worth a lot."

Gail could see her own face in the lenses of his glasses. The mouth under them smiled, and the cheeks made ruddy circles. "I'm gonna miss you," he said. "Our little talks. Your pointers about life and the law."

"Forget it, then," she said, aware of how vacuous she must have sounded. Quotes from a self-help book. "Go north on West Twelfth."

He put on the brakes and turned the corner.

This part of Hialeah was light industry, small restaurants with a window at the front to serve
café,
and off-brand gas stations. A mile or so farther on, Eric turned east into a residential area of boxy houses with flat roofs and chain-link fences dividing the yards. They parked on the sparse grass outside the house where Rosa Portales was living with her sister. There was a shrine to the Virgin Mary under a palm tree.

Inside, Rosa Portales sat them down on the sofa. Tile gleamed on the floor and pleated curtains hung at the open windows. On the chrome-and-glass etagere were a statue of San Lazaro, a vase of artificial flowers made of feathers, and a silver-framed photo of a young man and woman in tux and wedding gown, their gazes fixed rapturously on each other. Rock music played faintly from one of the back rooms. Her nephew's day off, Rosa explained.

She sat on the matching love seat to their right with her legs crossed at the ankle, stockings shining on her plump knees. She wore a belted green dress and loose jacket. She had an exquisite manicure, with long red nails. Her short blond hair was fluffed and sprayed into place, with big earrings peeping out. Her lips were traced with brown lip liner. She was not what Gail had expected.

Rosa offered
café;
they declined. There was some small talk. Yes, living in Hialeah was quite a change from North Bay Road. No, Rosa didn't plan to be here long. How terrible about Mrs. Tillett. Yes, Rosa had met Irene Connor. In fact, Rosa would probably not have talked to Gail otherwise.

She had been born in New York. Her husband, a Puerto Rican, had been transferred to the air force base down in Homestead, and they had stayed. When he died, there were no children, and a friend recommended Rosa to Mrs. Tillett. For sixteen years, she had mopped, scrubbed, and polished Althea Tillett's house as though it were her own.

"Did they find who killed her?" Rosa frowned. There was a permanent crease between her eyebrows.

Gail said, "No. Not yet."

"I always spent Wednesday nights with my sister, or I would have been there." She made a little shudder. "Do they think Patrick was the one? It sounded like it, in the paper. He beat up Rudy, did you see that part?"

"Yes, I read that. Did you know them when they were kids?"

"No, the twins were in college already, and Patrick was finishing high school. I don't want to say anything bad, but he was strange. He would stay up in the attic with his books for hours. I don't think he could have killed her, though."

"What happened after Mrs. Tillett died? I believe Rudy and Monica came looking for a will?"

Rosa said, "Did you know I found Mrs. Tillett dead on the floor? Yes. I cried like you would not believe. The police asked me questions. They said I could clean up the floor the next day when they were finished." Rosa looked into her lap, her hands smoothing her skirt. "It was my place to do it for her, you know? I didn't want anyone else to. But it was real hard. That afternoon Rudy and Monica came over. I found them upstairs going through her papers. I said, 'What are you looking for?' And they said it was none of my business. And I told them if they were looking for a will, she didn't have one. But I guess I was wrong about that."