Suspicion of Guilt (6 page)

His thick brows rose; he expected a response. Gail drew a breath. " 'Intercede' isn't accurate. I mentioned the case to Larry and he said he would speak to you."

"Next time I suggest you try the direct approach in dealing with another attorney's clients."

Gail felt her cheeks flame. "All right I don't see that it matters, but if that's what you prefer, fine. As for Trans-State, I believe that I can do a good job. Larry knows my work and he agrees. Apparently you have reasons for giving it to someone else. If so, that is certainly your decision."

Paul Robineau slid his fingers down a black and gold pen, upended it, then turned it again. He wore cuff links of a striated gray stone that glittered with the movement of his hand. "Let me raise this other matter, which may help you understand my position on Trans-State. Jack Warner told me about Beltran Plastics. Apparently you've arranged a settlement. Correct?"

"Yes." Something else was coming.

"We've got a—what?—$400,000 case ready for trial and you let it go for $175,000. That's quite a hit"

"What do you want me to say? It was my case and I made the call. And not in a vacuum. Larry and I discussed it." She could feel herself sliding backward down a long slope. "It was a loser, Paul."

"Is that right? A week before trial and you know it's a loser."

"And you're in the banking division, not litigation. Give me some credit for knowing how to do my job."

He pointed at her with the black pen. "Don't tell me, Ms. Connor, what should or should not be of concern to me." His voice was rising. Anyone standing in the hall must have heard. "I suggest that if you want to become a partner of this or any other law firm, you pay more attention to winning cases than settling them for less than half of what they're worth. Is that understood?"

The clouds were moving from window to window on the shiny panes of the building to the south. Gail felt her stomach floating. Her mouth was dry as a stone, and her tongue clicked when she spoke. "You probably don't know what was involved. Oscar Beltran isn't—"

"Forget it." Robineau shifted his shoulders in the chair. "Look. I'm not trying to be an SOB. You're a good lawyer, I'll be the first to say so. But here's what I see. I see a tendency to compromise too quickly, and I think it goes deeper than your recent personal problems. You want to be more than just a good lawyer? You need a set of
cojones,
so to speak. And this is not—I promise you—a gender issue. I think you can be taken advantage of. And if you can, so can your clients. And ultimately, so can this law firm." He stared impassively at her. "And that is the basis of my decision on Trans-State. It would please me greatly to be proved wrong."

After a few seconds, she stood up, the muscles in her legs shaking. She gave him a polite smile. "Is there anything else? I have to be in court."

"No. That's it."

At the door she turned around. "You are wrong about me." He lifted his palms momentarily from the desk. "I hope I am."

In the ladies' room on the fifteenth floor, with its beige marble and faux gold faucets, Gail took the box of yellow tissue into the last stall and threw up until her stomach cramped and the sharp taste of acid was in her mouth. Shaking, she came out and patted her face with a wet paper towel.

She went the back way down another floor to her office and closed the door. At the bottom of her purse was one lint-covered Xanax. She swallowed it dry, then repaired her makeup before Miriam could buzz her and say it was time to leave for court.

Chapter Four

A table by the windows in the Hartwell Building's luncheon club usually gave a stunning vista of shimmery blue water curving into haze at the horizon. Today a downpour had turned the scene gray and indistinct. Palm fronds hung limply along the shiny streets. On leaden water a cruise ship pivoted slowly in the turning basin at the Port of Miami. Along the railing, passengers huddled under their umbrellas, little dots of color.

Gail wished she had told Anthony to meet her somewhere else, a restaurant with a booth in the back, a dark one. She wanted to sit next to him and lean against his arm.

A waiter with a tray backed out of the partners' private dining room, and for a second Gail could see rosewood paneling and a flash of crystal on white linen tablecloths. As a guest there herself, it had occurred to her that hanging out too long at these altitudes could make you think you owned the city— you and people like you. Maybe it was true.

This morning the power of the luncheon club had reached into the courtroom. The judge was a fiftyish blonde whose husband was an executive at First Union Bank. The other lawyer was a partner in a small firm in North Miami, a Ms. Rosenbloom—a smart woman, but struggling to make it, clothes showing some wear. Maybe the kind of lawyer Gail would be if she ever left Hartwell Black and tried it on her own. Ms. Rosenbloom was arguing against the admission of evidence in an insurance case. Gail had points on the other side, and cited cases one of the law clerks had found in the firm's research computers with CD-ROM laser disks, crosschecked through Westlaw, with the latest appellate court decisions attached. At some point Miriam came in quietly and sat in the last row of benches. She curled her fingers over the back of the next bench, chin on her hands.

The case might have gone either way on the law, but Gail could have bet, before the judge opened her mouth, how she would rule. Later in the elevator Gail explained it to Miriam: It was theatrics, in a way. You know the moves, the tone of voice; you hint you might appeal if the judge rules against you. And it didn't hurt that this particular judge belonged to Temple Beth Am, from which Hartwell Black regularly purchased a large block of tickets for the annual concert series.

She and Ms. Rosenbloom had shaken hands, being polite. Ms. Rosenbloom wasn't the kind to ride the case for the fees, telling her client when they lost,
Look, juries are unpredictable, I told you.
Gail wondered about putting Ms. Rosenbloom on the rack when it came time to settle. How tough would she be with her? How big a set of
cojones?

Walking back to the office, Miriam showed Gail what she had copied from Althea Norris Tillett's file in the probate division. There were only a few documents so far, plus a copy of the will. No inventory yet, and when it was filed, they would need the judge's signature to see it. Gail noticed that Alan Weissman had not signed all the papers. One had been signed by his partner, Lauren Sontag. She and Gail had served together in the Dade County Bar, had spoken on seminars at the state conference. Gail had meant to call Lauren to wish her luck in her run for the circuit court bench. What would she say now?
Good luck, Lauren. So tell me, did Alan help forge Althea Tillett's will?

Gail felt a hand on her back and looked up from her empty wineglass. Anthony. He bent to brush her right cheek with his lips, and she breathed in the light scent of his cologne. "I am so incredibly glad to see you," she whispered.

Anthony kissed her on the mouth. "I've missed you too." He propped a furled umbrella against the wall. The shoulders of his deep-green, double-breasted suit were spattered with raindrops. Tall and slender, he moved like a cross between a tango dancer and a Spanish duke. The gray was just beginning to show in his rich brown hair. Sometimes she had to look away from him; his dark eyes were that intense.

Gail said, "Lunch is my treat today,
quid pro quo
for your legal expertise, although I think I'm getting the better of the bargain." She caught the waiter's attention and asked for another glass of chardonnay—the first had just begun to ease her headache.

Anthony ordered mineral water and lime, then leaned back in his chair, looking at her. She had undone the top two buttons of her blouse. His eyes climbed to her face. "Where have you been? Two weeks. Gail, no one's schedule is that impossible." Adulthood in Miami had softened his Spanish accent.

"I don't suppose you want to come over tonight? I'm helping Karen do her science fair project."

He faked a sigh of regret. "Oh, what fun. Unfortunately, I have a meeting to go to."

No surprise. Whenever he came to her house, it was only to pick her up. He would sit in the living room tapping his long fingers on the arm of the sofa, Karen would stay in her room with the door shut. He had conspicuously made no comment about the pile of Dave's things in the garage.

Gail said, "Just don't disappear completely." Anthony gave her a slow smile that made her insides feel like the elevator cable had snapped. She leaned across the table. "Do that again and I might forget there are fifty other people in here."

"So." He flipped back the napkin from the basket of rolls. "What is this case we are supposed to discuss that entitles me to lunch at the Hartwell Club?"

Gail said, "An allegedly forged will in a multimillion-dollar estate. I'm not sure yet how multi. The decedent is Althea Norris Tillett, lately of North Bay Road, Miami Beach. She was a widow, a friend of my mother's, as it happens. She died in a fall down her stairs about three weeks ago."

"That's too bad." Anthony broke open a roll, still warm enough to steam. Under spotless white cuffs he had a lizard-strap watch on one wrist and a link bracelet on the other. "Who is your client?"

"Patrick Norris, her nephew. He claims that her late husband's children—a brother and sister—forged the will. They get the house and Mrs. Tillett's art collection and Patrick gets a quarter of a million dollars. Unless the will is a fake, then he collects everything, ten million dollars, maybe more."

"So naturally he wants to hire an attorney. What does he do?"

"He counsels at a drug rehab center. Works as a carpenter. I'm not sure what else. Patrick and I knew each other in law school, but he quit after two years. He said it was warping his moral judgment."

"What that usually means—" Anthony shifted the bread basket to find the butter. "—is that he was going to flunk out.”

Gail shook her head. "You don't know Patrick. He said law school in the mid-Eighties was like getting an M.B.A. He didn't care about making money."

Anthony buttered his roll. "He cares about his aunt's estate, no?"

"He says if he wins, he's going to build a model community in the inner city."

"Que santo."

"Not a saint. But he is untouched, in a way. His values are different from most people's."

"Evidently. Tell me about the stepchildren."

"Rudy and Monica Tillett. Twins. You might know the names if you were into the South Beach scene. According to Patrick, Rudy organizes activities for European tourists while they're in South Florida. Exotic diversions, and I don't mean a tour bus to Disney World. Rudy also designs parties for nightclubs. He did a jungle theme with everybody half naked and carrying spears, and an outer space
Cage Aux Folles
party. Monica is an artist, so she and Rudy often work together. I don't know how good she is. Anyway, they own a gallery on Lincoln Road. That's why they got creative with the will. They wanted Mrs. Tillett's art collection. Also her house, which they grew up in."

The waiter came back with wine and a green bottle of mineral water, which he poured into a stemmed glass. They ordered lunch, and when the waiter was gone, Gail reached into her purse for a copy of the will, asked Anthony to read it, and sipped her wine while he did so.

One elbow on the table, he slowly turned the pages. "If this is a forgery, it's damned convincing."

"Isn't it, though?"

"Where was this found? In a safe deposit box? Her lawyer's office? It could make a difference."

"True, but Patrick doesn't know. His stepcousins wouldn't talk to him about it." Gail explained why Patrick thought it was a forgery: the signature, the odd bequest of $250,000 from a woman who had never written a will in that way before. She explained the prior wills, how Althea Tillett had hoped to separate Patrick from his radical politics.

Anthony smiled a little at that. Gail could imagine what he was thinking of: family and politics. His father was still in Cuba, a hero of the revolution, blind now and growing old. His maternal grandfather, Ernesto Pedrosa, once a banker in Havana, had made a second fortune here. Anthony stayed out of politics but refused to denounce his family in Cuba; the ones in Miami pretended not to notice his occasional trips to the island. Gail wondered how he did it, walking that narrow line, pulled by both sides, keeping his balance. Quite a trick.

He asked, "What about these other signatures? Are they supposedly forged too? Witnesses, notary?"

"Patrick thinks they were in on it with the Tilletts."

The waiter returned with a tray. Gail ate her fruit salad and watched Anthony read. His grilled yellowtail sat untouched in front of him. A minute later he said, "Perhaps Patrick wants a good settlement. He'll go away if they give him a million dollars."

"Not Patrick. He truly believes someone forged his aunt's will. He wouldn't ask me to do this otherwise."

"Claro que no.
Pardon me." Anthony lifted a bite of fish to his mouth, then made a little noise of satisfaction, a nimbly growl in the back of his throat.

"I love it when you do that," she said.

He looked at her, smiled, and leaned closer, speaking nearly at a whisper. "On the way here I thought, Oh, lunch at the Hartwell Club. How tiresome. Except that I would see you, of course. I thought of calling you from my car. Gail, meet me at the Hotel Intercontinental. But then I would take you upstairs."

"And miss lunch?" Gail left her shoe on the floor and slid her toes up the inside of his calf. "I'd have you instead." He clamped his knees on her foot.

"You for dessert."

"Tell me yes, we can go now."

"Yes, yes."

He put his napkin on the table. "Let's get out of here."

"Are you crazy? I have a client coming at one o'clock."

"Say you're in conference." Under the table his hand skimmed over her instep, around her ankle, as far up her calf as he could reach.

"Don't do that." She tugged and looked to see if anyone was watching.