Suspicion of Malice (37 page)

His eyes were like beams of black light, moving
over her face as if searching for something. His lips
were pursed in concentration.

Gail pulled open her top drawer. "I nearly forgot. I washed and ironed your handkerchief. Thank you
for lending it to me. And there's something else I've
meant to return for a while." She set the handker
chief on the edge of the desk, then held out a small black velvet box.

He looked at the box in her hand. "What is that?"

"The earrings. The aquamarines. You should have
them back. When I took them by your office last
month, Raul said he couldn't accept them."

Anthony picked up his handkerchief. "No, you
keep them. They look nice on you."

"I can't. Really, it wouldn't be right. They cost a
lot of money. Give them to Angela." She set the box
on the edge of the desk nearest him.

He straightened the corners of his handkerchief. "I
don't want them back."

She dropped the box back into the drawer and
slammed it. "Fine. I'll sell the damned earrings and
give the money to charity."

He laughed. "What a childish response."

"So is yours."

The phone rang. Gail waited, then remembered
that Miriam hadn't come in today. She picked it up.
"Law offices . . . Bobby! Finally. Where are you? . . .
Where?
...
Oh, God . . . Why didn't you call me?"

Anthony asked, "What's going on?"

"Wait. Wait a minute." Gail put her hand over the mouthpiece. "He's at the police station. Frank Britton
picked him. up, and he went with them. I can't be
lieve he would do something so dumb!"

"Is he under arrest?"

"Bobby? Are you under arrest?" She looked back
at Anthony. "They took him in for questioning. What
should I tell him?"

Standing up and extending his arm across her
desk, Anthony motioned with his fingers for the tele
phone. "Let me have it."

Gail stared up at him. "What are you going to
do?"

"Give it to me."

She took her hand off the mouthpiece and said, "Bobby? Anthony Quintana is here. He wants to talk
to you. . . . It's all right, I promise. He's going to help you." She gave him the phone, praying she
wasn't wrong.

He pushed back his jacket, put a fist on his hip,
and walked slowly back and forth with the phone at his ear. "Bobby, this is Anthony Quintana. You're at
Metro-Dade police headquarters, is that right?
...
I
want you to listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you, and then repeat it back to me. 'My lawyer is on his way, and he has instructed me not to talk to you.”
Now repeat that back to me. What did I just say? 'My lawyer is on his way . . .' "

The lobby of the Metro-Dade Police Department had
shiny floors, an open reception desk, and glass cases
with crime lab displays. Gail tried to look at them,
but wound up pacing nervously while Anthony leaned a shoulder against the wall and read the
sports section of the
Herald.
Finally a detective ap
peared—Frank Britton's partner, whom Gail had last seen outside Bobby's apartment after the search war
rant had been served. He waited for the desk ser
geant to issue visitor tags, then escorted them
through a set of glass doors and into an elevator.

In the Homicide Bureau, Sergeant Britton stood
talking to another man in a corridor running along
a warren of open dividers upholstered in gray. Gail
recognized the military haircut, wire-rimmed glasses,
and beefy torso. The holster on his belt was empty,
but the man and the surroundings were sending
tremors into Gail's stomach. Britton broke off his con
versation and watched them approach. He and Anthony shook hands.

"Frank."

"Look who's here," Britton said. "Hello again, Ms.
Connor. My, my. Bringing in the big guns."

Anthony said, "I should complain about this, ques
tioning a suspect without his attorneys present."

"Soon as the Supreme Court says not to, then I'll
think about it. Bobby agreed to speak to us. He's not
in custody. If we did things by your book, we'd
never solve a single crime, would we?"

Gail asked, "Where is he?"

Britton nodded toward the plain gray door a few yards away. "Right there. We asked him about the
cash we seized from his apartment. Brand new bills. Two of them are right in sequence with some others
we found in a bank envelope in Roger Cresswell's car. Bobby says somebody lent him the cash. He
won't say who. It would be in his best interest to tell
us, you'd think. You want to go in there and see
what his problem is?"

"Ms. Connor is going to take Bobby downstairs.
Let me talk to you for a few minutes, Frank."

As they headed south again on the expressway, Gail glanced around at her client in the backseat. He was
staring out the side window. His black hair was a mess, as if he'd been hauled out of bed. His faded blue T-shirt had a rip in the shoulder seam.

Anthony's eyes went to the rearview mirror.
"We're going to Ms. Connor's office, then I'll make sure you get home. All right?"

“Fine." Bobby's knee was bouncing.

Gail exchanged a wordless glance with Anthony.

He said, "Bobby. While you were waiting down
stairs, I explained to Sergeant Britton that I'm helping
Ms. Connor out as a favor. I didn't mention Judge
Harris. Did they ask you anything about him, or did
you mention his name?"

"No."

"What did you discuss with the detectives? The money? Anything else?"

"They wanted to know where I got it."

"And you didn't tell them."

"No."

"Are you listening? This is a high-profile murder,
and they're under pressure to solve it, but Britton
won't rush into an arrest. He admitted that the pistol they took from your roommates wasn't used in the
crime. They're waiting for DNA results on the shirt.
I told Britton you'd been in a fight with Roger a few days prior to the murder, and that he'd bled on your shirt at that time, and you were wearing a different
shirt the night of the murder. Correct?"

"Yes."

"I told him we were developing some leads, and
that in a week or two we'd share what we have, if
he would keep our names out of it—Ms. Connor's and mine—for a little longer. There's a reason for
this."

Bobby's wary and sullen expression hadn't changed,
but he was listening.

"We're going to be talking to members of the
Cresswell family, using a story about investigating
Roger's financial problems. They won't talk to us if
they think we're trying to point the finger at one of
them. Do you understand so far?"

"Sure."

"This requires your cooperation. Does your friend
Sean know that Gail Connor is your lawyer?"

"I never told him."

"Could his sister, Diane, have mentioned it to
him?"

"I don't think so."

"Find out and tell her to keep it quiet. Will she
do that?"

"Yeah, Diane's straight."

Anthony maintained the warmth in his voice, but
Gail could tell from the occasional twitch of his jaw muscle that it wasn't easy. "I'm sure Ms. Connor has
already told you, but don't talk about this case with anyone. Not your friends or your family. Or with Angela. Is that clear?" Anthony turned his head to
look at him.

Bobby stared back. "Are you telling me not to talk
to her?"

A couple of seconds went by. "I said don't talk to
her about the case."

"All right." Bobby glanced at Gail, and she gave him a subtle smile.

Anthony continued, "We're looking for a better
suspect than you to throw to the police. We might
have one—Sean Cresswell. He gave you money that
could have been taken from Roger's wallet. This
doesn't prove Sean killed him. Maybe Roger gave it to him earlier that day. There are many possibilities.
When we get back to Ms. Connor's office, you can
help us sort through them."

"I could ask him," Bobby said. "I won't mention your name."

Anthony's eyes went to the mirror again. "Bobby. What did I just say? Don't talk about this case with
anyone. That includes Sean Cresswell."

With a touch of defiance, Bobby asked, "Why?"

"Because, unless he is mentally ill, he would lie to
you. Let us handle it. All right?"

"Fine." Bobby sighed and looked through the side window again.

The men took the client chairs, turned around to face
the sofa under the window, where Gail sat with a
legal pad on her lap. Bobby said, "Sean got the cash
from his dad. That's what he told me. He said he
had some mutual funds he couldn't get till he was
twenty-one, but his father sold some shares for him
and gave him the money."

"Do you believe that?" Anthony asked.

Bobby shook his head as if this were a particularly
painful revelation. "No. Sean didn't used to lie, not
to me. I mean . . . we were friends, you know, when
we were kids. Like family. I thought so."

"Yes. But you didn't give the police his name.
Why not?"

"I don't know. It didn't feel right."

A slight smile appeared on Anthony's lips. "I think it's called loyalty. But you can't keep any information
from your lawyers. You know this, don't you?"

"I know."

Anthony asked if Sean had a .22 pistol.

"His father does. Sean took it one time, and we
went target shooting. Dub has a gun closet. Hand
guns, rifles
..."

For the most part, Gail let Anthony ask the ques
tions. This was his meeting, arranged so that he
could interview Bobby Gonzalez. Gail had said she
would take notes.

Anthony wanted to know Sean Cresswell's where
abouts the night of the murder, starting from about
ten o'clock.

"He was over at the Black Point Marina with his dad and his uncle, then later on, about midnight, he
went over to South Beach. He said he was home
in between."

"What was going on at the Black Point Marina?"

"They take buyers out to show them the boats,
then they have dinner and get drunk. I went on a
boat trip one time with Sean, and that's what they
do. Dub makes Sean go along because he wants him to get a job in the company someday. Maybe that's why Sean never worries about school. His dad owns Cresswell Yachts. Half of it."

"What about the relationship between Roger and Dub?"

"It wasn't great. Roger was trying to take over,
and Dub was ticked off. So was Liz, Sean's mother. They hated Roger. It's not like they said anything to
his face, but I could tell. Not many people liked
Roger at the company, unless they were brown-
nosing."

"You didn't like him, did you?"

"No, I didn't. He fired me for stealing a disc sander.
He set me up."

"Why?"

Bobby took a minute to answer. "To show he was the boss. Sean asked his dad to get me the job, and
they hired me although Roger said they didn't need any more help. He put me to work laying down fiberglass in the molds. That's about the hardest job there. I was good at it, though, so he didn't have a
reason to fire me. Yeah, I might have been rude, but Roger pushed people. He wanted you to bow down. Yes, sir. No, sir. Anything you want, Mr. Cresswell."

"Did you hear anyone make serious threats
against Roger?"

"Like, I'm going to kill him'? No."

"Did he fire anyone else who might have carried a grudge?"

"Probably, but I couldn't name anyone. He wanted to fire the supervisor in the glass shop. That's Ted
Stamos.”

Anthony asked why.

"He wouldn't take his shit. Ted's been working
there since he was in high school. His father worked there. Ted has this picture in his office of the first Cresswell boat. He said his father made it. He knows
what he's doing, but Roger always wanted it done
some other way. Ted had to come down and
straighten out the mess a couple of times, and Roger
didn't appreciate it, you know, everybody standing
around watching Ted make him look like an idiot. Ted's a good guy. Roger told him to fire me, and he
wouldn't do it. Then a few days later security
found"—Bobby's fingers made quotation marks
around the word—"They found the sander in my
locker."