The Deep Blue Alibi

Twenty

Ten minutes and a pink taxicab ride later, Victoria and Griffin were in the War Room, her suite at the Pier House. An oak conference table and leather chairs, a wicker sofa, sailing prints on the walls. The miscellany of trial prep filled the suite. Cardboard boxes stacked on the floor; documents scattered across the table; a model of the Force Majeure on a sideboard.

Victoria kicked off her velvet-toed pumps, poured mineral water over ice, and sparred with her client. "So where did Stubbs get forty thousand dollars in cash?" she demanded.

"Like I told you before, Princess, I got no idea."

"The state will say you bribed him for a favorable environmental report."

"Let 'em prove it."

"They can subpoena your bank accounts, get all your records."

"Good luck to 'em."

"Meaning?"

"I've lived in a dozen countries. Even I can't remember where all my money is."

Victoria didn't know how to get him to open up.

Should she tell him what she knew, perhaps limiting what he would disclose, or should she keep the questions open-ended, hoping he would fill in even more? She sipped at the mineral water, buying time.

Outside the windows, tugboats guided a cruise ship into port. In the hotel parking lot, three TV news trucks sat side by side, resembling giant insects, their antennas poking the air. Victoria had the fear, not entirely irrational, that a TV camera attached to a mechanical arm would appear on her balcony and poke its lens into the suite.

"Uncle Grif, you have to tell me the truth."

"I have, Princess."

"Did you give Stubbs the forty thousand?"

"I didn't. I swear."

She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "I've spent the last two days going through the county's real estate records. Do you know what I found?"

"They're still selling waterlogged property in the Glades?"

"Two months ago, Ben Stubbs bought a lot in Key Largo for three hundred thousand dollars. No mortgage. All cash."

Silence. Griffin sat at the conference table, poker-faced.

"Where do you suppose Stubbs got the money?" she asked.

"Maybe he won big at jai alai."

"The money was wired from a corporate account in a Cayman Islands bank to an escrow agent in Key Largo. Want to guess the name on the account?"

"Nah. I bite."

"Queen Investments, Limited." She paused to gauge his reaction. Nothing. "Unusual name, don't you think?"

"The Caymans are British. Maybe they're honoring Queen Elizabeth."

"Or Queen Irene."

"Your mother?" He laughed, but his smile seemed artificial. "What are you getting at, Princess?"

"Uncle Grif, I've got the corporate filings. You're the sole officer of Queen Investments. You wired that money to Ben Stubbs."

He grunted, getting out of his chair, then walked to the window. Outside, the cruise ship eased up to the dock, hundreds of passengers lining the rails. "Nice work, Princess."

"Uncle Grif, why didn't you tell me you bribed Stubbs?"

He turned back and seemed to appraise her. Maybe trying to figure out just how much she knew. Usually, she got that look from an unfriendly witness, not her own client.

"A bribe?" Griffin said finally. "At the time, it felt more like extortion. Stubbs demanded the money."

"Whatever you call it, you lied to me."

"If you knew I paid off a federal employee, would you put me on the stand to deny it?"

"Of course not. That would be unethical."

"Which is why I couldn't tell you about the money. I needed to preserve my ability to deny."

"It won't work. If I found this, the state will, too. Uncle Grif, the truth might be better than a lie. Bribing Stubbs is a lot better than killing him. In fact, it could help the case."

"How?"

"Hypothetically, if you bribed him, you'd have no reason to kill him. You knew his environmental report was going to be positive. You just needed him to file it."

"You're saying we admit I paid off Stubbs?"

"It'd be ballsy; but without motive, the state can't win."

"Ballsy" bringing Steve to mind. It was just the kind of bungee-jumping tactic he loved.

"Hypothetically," Griffin said, borrowing her ten-dollar word, "let's say Stubbs wasn't happy with the lot in Key Largo, even though that's what he'd been yammering about. A place for his retirement. Let's say we're having dinner and the greedy prick says, 'Hal, you're gonna make millions off Oceania. Tens of millions. But you couldn't make a dime without me.' "

Victoria frowned, seeing where this boat was headed. "When would this have happened? Hypothetically?"

"A week before we get on the Force Majeure to come see you and Solomon. And suppose we're eating red snapper and Stubbs says, 'From now on, I'm your partner, Hal. I want a million up front and five percent of the casino profits.' " Griffin snorted a laugh. "Like he was some connected guy in Vegas. The stupid shit watched too many movies. No concept what it takes to build something like this. Saying he's my partner. I could have bashed his head in right there."

"Please tell me you didn't."

Seeing her case sink to the bottom of the Gulf.

"I told him to fuck off. But I never touched him. Not then. Not on the boat. What you gotta understand, Princess, people see this kind of money, they all want a piece. A county commissioner threatened to hold up a port license unless I paid him under the table. I told the bandit I didn't need no stinking license. Leicester Robinson, the barge guy, said he'd do his work for nothing up front, but he wanted three points of the gross. Points! Where do they get this stuff?"

"It wouldn't have been a crime to make Robinson your partner. He's not a federal employee."

"I told Robinson to fuck off, too. He backed down and was damn glad to get the barge work at cost plus thirty percent."

"Ben Stubbs," Victoria said, getting back on track. "After he extorted you, after you wanted to bash his head in, what happened then?"

"I calmed down. Decided to toss him some chum. The day before I brought him down on the boat, I'd put a hundred thousand in cash in one of the lobster pots. So now, when I pull up the pot, I say to Stubbs, 'Here's the best-tasting lobster you'll ever eat.' Up comes the money and I tell him I'll give him a hundred grand every lobster season the rest of his life. Which, come to think of it, I guess I did."

"What was Stubbs' reaction? He wanted a million and you only gave him a hundred thousand?"

"I gave him an annuity. He was good at math, so he took it."

"You tell anyone you were paying Stubbs off?"

"No."

"Not even Junior?" Thinking if Junior knew and hadn't told her, there were ramifications, both professional and personal.

Griffin shook his head. "I didn't want to implicate my boy."

"You think Stubbs told anyone about your deal?"

"Doubt it. No wife. Kind of a loner. And he didn't need an accomplice to pull this off."

"Anything else about Stubbs I should know?"

Griffin seemed to think something over. Then he said: "The last week or so, he was a little skitterish."

"Skitterish?" Thinking he meant skittish. Or maybe jittery. Or maybe a combination of the two.

"Kind of nervous and paranoid. He started using disposable cell phones so there'd be no record of his calls. Every time I needed to talk to him, I'd have a helluva time because he was using a different phone. He was like a scared rabbit."

"Maybe he wasn't as used to taking bribes as you were at giving them."

Griffin belted out a laugh. "Okay, Princess, you got me there. Maybe all those projects in the islands made me a little reckless. Jeez, in the Caribbean, you gotta put every politician's brother-in-law on the payroll before you even think about moving dirt."

Like an astronaut tethered to a space capsule, Victoria suddenly felt as if she were floating in a vast, dark, dangerous place. She tried to assess the damage. Assuming the cops didn't find a to-do note in Stubbs' hotel room-eat breakfast; buy Bermuda shorts; shake down Hal Griffin-there was still a chance the state wouldn't learn what was going on. Or at least not be able to prove it.

Still, any chance of putting Griffin on the stand just sank into the deep, blue sea. She couldn't let him lie, and without knowing what the state had, she could never subject him to cross-examination.

"Anything else? Please, Uncle Grif. Don't hold back."

"There is something that's been bothering me."

Oh, boy. Here we go.

"That lot in Key Largo. The cash from the lobster pots. Those were from me. Bribes. Extortion. Whatever. But I didn't lie to you about that forty thou in Stubbs' hotel room. The money didn't come from me."

"Then where'd Stubbs get it?"

"Damned if I know."

That made no sense, Victoria thought. But neither did lying about it. Two bribes are as bad as three. Without warning, the case had gotten even more complicated. Did the money trail lead to a third party? And if so, who? But could she trust anything Uncle Grif told her?

"The client who lies to his lawyer is like the husband who cheats on his wife. It seldom happens just once."

Another of Steve's laws. He would know what to do. Twisty, complicated cases were his forte. Probably because he preferred the serpentine path to the straight one.

"So, what now, Princess?"

Before she could answer, before she could even admit to herself that she wanted to ask Steve what to do next, there was a knock at the door.

"Room service." A woman's voice with a faint Spanish accent.

"We didn't order," Victoria said, walking toward the door.

"Suite Two-thirty-one," the woman persisted. "Champagne and caviar for three."

"You have the wrong room." Victoria opened the suite's double doors. A young woman in a pink uniform with a name tag reading "Evelia" stood there with a cart. A bottle of Cristal lounged in an ice bucket. Three place settings, two covered plates, and a slender vase of lilies as the centerpiece.

"I have the order ticket," Evelia said. "Suite Two-thirty-one. See?"

Another woman breezed by them and into the room. "Of course it's the right suite. Not bad. . But I would have gotten the southeast corner, for the breeze."

The woman walked with perfect posture. She was in her late fifties but could easily have passed for a refined and elegant forty. Her upswept hair, the same color as the Cristal, reminded Victoria of Princess Grace of Monaco. She wore a corded pink satin jacket, fitted at the waist, and a long matching skirt with a beaded hem. Covering her wrist-and half her forearm-was a John Hardy hammered-gold cuff bracelet. Altogether too formal a look for midday in Key West, but splendid for a sweeping entrance.

Splendid for The Queen.

"Grif, I hope you still like beluga," Irene Lord cooed.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Griffin's face froze somewhere between a smile and a stroke.

"Mother!" Victoria exclaimed. "I thought you were in Katmandu."

"It was quite chilly, dear." As if that explained it. Irene patted her hair. "But this damn humidity. I'll never get used to it."

"Mother, what are you doing here?"

"Do I need a reason to visit my only daughter and my oldest friend?"

"Irene, Irene," Griffin sighed. "After all these years. All this time gone by."

The poor guy looked like he was in a trance.

"Are you two just going to stand there?" Irene said, "or is somebody going to pour me champagne?"