Solomon versus Lord

Forty-two
DEAREST

The carnival started with Ray Pincher telling the panel he wanted to seat a jury that would be fair and impartial, not one that would favor the state. It was the first of numerous lies that will be told in the courtroom today, Steve thought glumly.

The first dozen souls in the box were fairly typical by Miami standards. Three retirees, two homemakers, an unemployed man, and a Protestant minister filed into the box. Then a cross-dressing South Beach party planner, a mime who failed to answer audibly, an exotic dancer noted for wrestling men in tubs of coleslaw, a beauty-salon colorist who specialized in pubic hair, and an elderly Hispanic who described himself as a freedom fighter against that butcher Fidel Castro.

Steve sat at the defense table beside Katrina Barksdale, who was demure in her gray suit, seeming to Steve neither slutty nor homicidal. Pincher sat ramrod straight at the state's table. His bulging eyes were alert and wary.

Standing a perfect six feet from the jury box, Victoria said: “Now, Reverend Anderson, you're familiar with the Ten Commandments?”

“Every one,” the minister avowed.

“The Commandments say, Thou shalt not commit adultery, and Thou shalt not kill. But do you understand, Reverend Anderson, that in this courtroom, we're concerned only with killing?”

“Indeed I do. Judging adultery is in someone else's jurisdiction.” The minister pointed skyward.

Steve heard someone whisper his name. When he turned, he saw Marvin gesturing toward the rear of the courtroom. Teresa Torano, Marvin's lady, stood near the door. Steve gave Marvin a What's up? look. The Maven nodded in Teresa's direction. Go boychik, go.

Steve rose and walked to the back row of the gallery, where Teresa had taken a seat. Her black hair was pulled back into a bun, and she wore a dark tweed jacket and matching skirt. When he slid into the seat next to her, she reached in her purse and took out an envelope.

“Cashier's check,” she whispered.

Steve looked at her blankly.

“One hundred thousand dollars,” she said.

“You, Teresa?”

“Me.”

“Marvin said something about asking his friends. I didn't think he meant you.”

“Something wrong with my money?”

“I'm just a little embarrassed, is all.”

“You should be. For not coming straight to me.”

“I don't know about this, Teresa.” If he was going to take the hundred thousand, he wanted her to know the spot he was in. “If Katrina's convicted, I don't get a fee. It'll take me years to pay you back.”

“So you'll work it off.”

“The funeral homes still have litigation?”

She smiled and folded the envelope into his hand. “No. But you can learn embalming.”

From her position in front of the jury box, Victoria glanced toward him. The glance seemed to ask: Why the hell are you kibitzing while I'm picking a jury?

“The money is for Bobby's case, yes?” Teresa whispered.

Steve nodded. “I'd rather not tell you more than that.”

“I pray for you to Philomena, Patron Saint of Children.”

“Thank you, Teresa. For everything.” He slipped the envelope into his suit coat pocket.

Victoria was asking the jurors if they understood that Katrina Barksdale sat before them an innocent woman, and that the state bore the burden of proving her guilty. Eleven jurors chimed variations of “yes,” “sure,” “yeah,” “uh-huh,” and “si.” The mime nodded.

Teresa whispered: “So, for you to pay me back before I'm in a rest home, I have to hope you get the puta off?”

“Hey, none of that. Katrina's my client, which means she's a saint. Like Philomena.”

“Por Dios.” Teresa scowled her disapproval.

“The picture of perfection,” he said, which brought another line to mind. “The woman is perfected.”

“‘Her dead body wears the smile of accomplishment.'”

“What?”

“The second line of the poem,” Teresa said.

“Holy shit. It's a real poem?” Several jurors turned his way; he'd raised his voice. Victoria looked toward him and pursed her lips, as if to say, “Shush.”

“‘Edge' by Sylvia Plath,” Teresa said.

Steve's knowledge of poetry was minimal. There was Olaf and the shit he would not eat. There were some brawny verses by Carl Sandburg he'd learned in college. “Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Gary, they make their steel with men.” And there were little ditties that began: “There once was a girl from Red China.” He could not name one of Plath's poems, but he knew about her, mainly from seeing the Gwyneth Paltrow movie.

“Sylvia Plath committed suicide, didn't she?” he said.

“Just a few days after writing ‘Edge.'”

“Wow,” he said. The pieces of the puzzle were coming together. He'd assumed Barksdale had written the line himself. But no. He'd stolen a real poem, then created multiple anagrams. Now Steve remembered the note Barksdale sent his wife the day before his death. Victoria had called it “quaint.”

“Teresa, do you know this line? Something like, ‘Dearest. Nobody could have been so good, from the beginning to the end'?”

She gave him a kind smile, a patient teacher to a slow student. “‘Dearest… No one could have been so good as you have been, from the very first day till now.'”

“That's it! Did Plath write that, too?”

Hoping now. A defense forming.

“No. Sylvia Plath didn't write it.”

“Damn.” Steve instantly deflated. He thought he'd been onto something. Suicide. But if the “Dearest” line didn't come from Plath, where did that leave him?

“Virginia Woolf wrote it,” Teresa said. “It was her suicide note to her husband.”

“Yes!” Steve gave her a hug. “You're beautiful, Teresa!”

She laughed. “You are a crazy man, but if I were forty years younger…”

“I can answer your question now.”

She cocked her head, not quite knowing where he was going.

“I'm going to get the puta off,” Steve said.