Solomon versus Lord

Thirty-three
A REAL ROMANTIC

“Did you get the report back from the photogrammetry expert?” Victoria said into her cell phone.

“Called yesterday,” Steve said into his. “Told me the shadow was blurry and crossed two planes.”

“Meaning?”

“Without triangular points, he couldn't do the trig equation.”

“So no height and weight?”

“He can't even say for sure it's a person.”

“So Katrina wasn't signaling someone to come into the bedroom.”

“More like Pincher can't prove she was,” Steve said.

It was the day after their meetings with Pincher and Zinkavich, and they were in separate cars, driving toward the mainland in adjacent lanes on the MacArthur Causeway.

Victoria had spent the morning combing through evidence files and Steve had been on the phone, inquiring about downtown office space. A real office in a high-rise, not the mildewed second floor of a second-rate modeling agency.

Office space for Solomon amp; Lord, Attorneys-at-Law.

As if they had already won the Barksdale trial and had collected a big fee.

As if she were going to practice law with him when the case was over.

Never seeming to consider the consequences if they lost. Or worse, if they lost and were humiliated in the process. Steve the Slasher and Victoria the Rookie. Already, a smart-ass Miami Herald columnist had dissed them: “Those South Beach defense lawyers might just have too much sand in their shoes and too few bullets in their briefs to handle a high-profile murder trial.”

If disaster struck, Steve could always go back to his penny-ante cases. But what could she do?

Real estate closings for Bruce, that's what.

With so much work to do and too little time to do it, they were splitting up for the day. Steve would interview Charles Barksdale's divorce lawyer, and Victoria would confront Katrina with the dirty laundry Pincher had been sniffing.

“Thanks for stepping up to the plate on Bobby's case,” Steve said.

“You've thanked me ten times.”

“Without you, I don't know what I'd do.”

“Eleven.”

The morning was cool and crisp, the bay flat and still. One of the Norwegian cruise ships was headed out Government Cut on their left, a family of gulls circling above the stern. As their cars passed Parrot Jungle, Steve blurted out: “I'm sorry I was such a jerk when we met.”

“You're thinking about Mr. Ruffles, aren't you? But let me remind you that you never paid my dry-cleaning bill,” she added.

The Miami Herald building loomed ahead. Steve would exit the causeway there and head down Biscayne Boulevard to Flagler Street, a murderers' row of lawyers' offices. Victoria would swing south on the expressway to Dixie Highway, then take LeJeune to Old Cutler Road and Katrina's bayfront home.

“Thanks to you,” Steve said, “maybe we've got a chance in Bobby's case.”

“Twelve.”

“I'm really depending on you for strategy. I'm clueless how we're gonna discredit Kranchick, much less what to do with Thigpen.”

“We'll work on it together.”

Just what he wanted to hear.

“How much do you know about Kranchick's autism project?” Her voice faded in and out over the cell.

“Not much,” Steve said. “She told me about some behavioral and drug therapy. Megavitamins and magnesium, that sort of thing.”

“In her report to the court, she called it a pilot project.”

“Yeah?”

“Last night, I looked it up on every medical database I could find. Not much there except some preliminary papers that are pretty vague.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Did you notice the foreign hospitals on Kranchick's CV?” Victoria said.

“I remember something in Argentina.”

“Pedro Mallo Hospital in Buenos Aires. Kutvolgyi Uti in Budapest. State University Hospital in Bulgaria.”

“So she likes to travel.”

“I ran the hospitals through the databases, too. They all have something in common. Pharmaceutical companies test new drugs in them.”

“So what's wrong with that?” he asked.

“Probably nothing. Kranchick's into research and testing, so the foreign venues make sense. It's just that the controls are looser there.”

“No FDA peeking over your shoulder.”

“Exactly.”

“You think something's not kosher at Rockland?”

“No way to tell. If we had the time and money, we'd hire an expert consultant, really go through their records.”

“I could get Cadillac Johnson.”

“You think you can bribe Kranchick with pulled pork sandwiches?”

“Cadillac's got other talents.”

“Unless he's an endocrinologist, I don't see how he can help.”

“Trust me on this. I'm gonna stop by the Sweet Potato Pie on the way home.”

“What for?”

“A couple slabs of baby-backs.”

“I stopped eating meat.”

“Liar, liar, briefs on fire.”

“Okay. Half a slab, extra sauce. But tell Bruce and I'll have to hurt you.”

“Our secret.”

“So what are you going to ask Cadillac to do?”

“Got a bad connection here,” he said, even though he could hear her perfectly.

“We have a deal, remember? Everything by the book.”

“Losing you,” he said, clicking off. He was working on an idea, and it didn't require an endocrinologist. Just someone with people skills and a measure of courage. The ability to pick a lock might come in handy, too.

Steve knew that Cadillac had played guitar in places where performers sometimes got knifed instead of paid. He'd sold encyclopedias door-to-door. He'd dealt blackjack in a riverboat casino. He was perfect for the job.

If Steve's plan worked, he could tell Victoria all about it when they went to court. If it didn't work, he'd take the fall, not her.

Fifteen minutes later, Steve was sitting in a richly upholstered chair, trying not to spill his Cuban coffee. He was in the office of Bluestein, Dominguez, Greenberg, amp; Vazquez. The late Charles Barksdale's law firm. Perched on the fifty-third floor of a bank building at Flagler Street and Biscayne Boulevard, Steve could see all the way to Bimini.

Unless a turkey buzzard was in his line of sight.

Which it was.

Steve's glance shifted from the red-faced buzzard with the curved beak to the bald lawyer with the half-glasses. The buzzard was balanced on an outside window ledge covered with shit, the lawyer on the corner of a teak desk covered with files.

“Charlie Barksdale was a real romantic,” said Sam Greenberg, the lawyer.

“Screech,” said the buzzard.

“Romantic, how?” Steve said.

“The sorry son-of-a-bitch really believed in love.”

Greenberg ran his firm's family law division, a euphemism for cutthroat divorces and killer custody wars. He was in his late forties, pale and overweight, conservatively dressed in banker's gray wool. Steve thought he had the look of someone who billed twenty-five-hundred hours a year at five hundred bucks per hour. A tired but wealthy look.

“So Charlie loved Katrina?” Steve said.

“He was nuts about her,” Greenberg said.

The buzzard kept its beak shut.

“Plus he liked having a trophy wife,” Greenberg continued. “Gave him self-worth.”

“His net worth not doing the job?”

“Some guys need trinkets on their arm. Me, I've been married to the same woman for twenty-two years. She's fatter than I am and a wicked scold, but I wouldn't trade her in. Hell, I couldn't afford to.”

Steve studied the photo on the credenza. A plump, smiling wife and three kids, one of college age, two younger ones with full sets of gleaming orthodonture.

Greenberg peered over his half-glasses and lowered his voice. “Hot sex, too.”

“Congratulations.”

“Not me. Charlie. After he met Katrina, he was a walking hard-on. ‘Nobody ever got my pecker so hard,' blah-blah-blah. I had to bust his chops to make him do the prenup. He said it violated his principles, ruined the romance.”

“When did he tell you he wanted a divorce?”

“A few days before he died. He's sitting right in that chair where you are now. Pissing and moaning. ‘The bitch is fucking my boat captain. I'm gonna divorce her ass.' The usual stuff. But really suffering. I'm dictating the petition, and he gets sick, goes to the rest room and barfs. I tell him to come back the next day, all the papers will be ready to sign.”

“But he never showed up?”

“Nope.” Greenberg slid off his desk, settled into his high-backed brown leather chair. On the window ledge, the buzzard hopped a step, spread its wings, tucked them in again. Smart birds, the scavengers winter in Miami, feasting on discarded burgers, media noches, and the occasional drug dealer stuffed into a garbage bag. They fly endless circles over the downtown courthouse, roosting on the ledges of the high-rise law firms, providing the source of endless lawyer jokes.

“I called Charlie when he missed the appointment,” Greenberg said. “He said he wasn't feeling so hot, he'd come in in a couple days. When he didn't, I sent the petition by courier to his office. Instead of signing it, he scribbled some nonsense on the ad damnum clause and sent it back.”

“What nonsense?”

“A poem or haiku or something.”

“Mind if I see it?” There'd been no handwriting on the photocopy of the petition provided by Pincher.

Greenberg walked to a teak file cabinet. “Charlie fancied himself an artiste, not just a guy who built condos on zero lot lines. When he'd pay my bill, he'd usually write a poem on the check.”

Outside, the wind rattled the windowpane, and the buzzard hopped off the ledge and soared down Flagler Street. In flight, with its Yao Ming wingspan, the black bird seemed as large as an airplane.

Greenberg drew a thin file from the drawer and handed it to Steve, who quickly found the original Petition for Dissolution. He turned to the last page, saw the formal legal language: “Wherefore Petitioner Prays that the Court Enter a Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage.”

Scrawled over the printed clause was a handwritten note:

Hide a few contretemps Defer a competent wish Cement a spit-fed whore

“What's it mean?” Steve said, thoroughly confused.

“Beats me. But like I said, Charlie-”

“Was a real romantic, I know.”

Steve looked at the poem again. What the hell was it? And why write it on the divorce petition? He wished Victoria were here. Maybe she could figure it out.

“Did you ask Barksdale about it?” he said.

“I phoned the next day,” Greenberg said. “But Charlie wasn't taking any calls. He was dead.”

Sitting in the Barksdale living room, Victoria watched Katrina flip through the glossy photos of her wrestling match with Chet Manko.

“If I'd known they were taking pictures, I'd have gotten a bikini wax,” Katrina said, making a face.

Victoria slipped a cassette into a portable tape recorder. “Frankly, we're more concerned about the audiotapes.”

Sade was singing “Smooth Operator,” but Katrina was still studying the photos. “Jesus, I look all washed out. That sun on the bay is brutal.”

Victoria refrained from saying that she'd look even worse after a few years at Dade Correctional Institution. “Kat, I really need you to listen to this.”

Katrina shrugged and tossed her hair over a shoulder. She wore a crisscross black-and-white halter mini that Victoria had seen at Saks. A Balenciaga design, sixteen hundred fifty dollars. Black ankle-wrap sandals with a hanging brass pendant. Giuseppe Zanotti. Six hundred bucks, at least. After Sade had finished singing about a man with eyes like angels but a heart that's cold, and after Manko had finished soliciting a murder, Katrina shrugged again. “What's the big deal? You heard me. I told Chet to forget it.”

“Pincher's going to say the tape shows you were considering Manko's offer, and that later you killed your husband without Chet's help.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Did you and Manko talk about killing Charles other times?”

“Sure. Chet wouldn't let it go. He had a whole plan. Next time we crossed the Gulf Stream, he'd dump Charlie overboard and claim it was an accident.” She shivered. “Just the thought of Charlie being eaten by a shark freaked me out. I told Chet to shut up, never mention it again.”

Victoria tried to evaluate her client. Was Katrina telling the truth? Where was the human polygraph when she needed him?

Her cell phone rang. It was Steve, saying he wouldn't have time to pick up the baby-backs, but he'd stop at the Italian deli on the way back to his place. She said to forget about the food, how'd it go with the divorce lawyer?

“‘Cement a spit-fed whore,'” he replied.

“I beg your pardon.”

He read her the poem, which she scribbled down. No, she didn't have any idea what it meant, either.

“Charles Barksdale's telling us something,” Steve said. “And we better figure it out before Pincher does.”

“What's ‘contretemps'?” Katrina asked, after Victoria read her the verse.

“A mistake, an embarrassing mishap.”

“Like getting charged with bumping your husband off?”

“More like spilling the soup on your date. You have no idea what Charles could have meant? ‘Contretemps'? ‘Competent wish'? ‘Spit-fed whore'?”

“Better not have been talking about me.”

“Think about it, Kat. Had Charles ever said anything like this?”

Another shrug, another hair toss. “Charlie was always quoting books, showing off. And writing stuff he called poetry. He never came out and said what he meant.”

“That's what poetry does.”

“That's why I never liked it. Me, I just say whatever the hell I'm thinking.”