The Deep Blue Alibi

Fifty-three

Two days later, in a blissful daze of Tylenol with codeine, Steve was semi-snoozing in the rope hammock strung between two sabal palms along the shoreline at Sugarloaf Key. He would have fallen asleep if his father hadn't been spouting profanities as he crab-crawled across the roof of his houseboat, wrestling with his satellite dish.

"Suck egg, cornholer!" Herbert yelled, then banged the dish with a wrench.

The Solomons were genetically impaired in home improvement genes, Steve knew.

"Still snowing," Bobby called out from inside the living salon. He was watching the TV screen as his grandfather tried to realign the dish.

"Hey, lazybones!" Herbert growled. "You might give us some help over here."

Steve rocked back and forth in the hammock. "If you'd fix the leak, so the boat wouldn't list to starboard, you wouldn't have to keep moving the dish."

"Like you know electronics."

"So why ask me to help?"

Bare-chested, wearing paint-splattered shorts, Herbert was glistening with sweat. He grunted as he tried to muscle the dish a few millimeters.

"Dad, why don't you come down before you have a heart attack?"

"Don't go spending a fortune on the funeral," Herbert ordered. "Not that you would."

"A blizzard now," Bobby reported from inside.

"To hell with it." Herbert climbed down the ladder to the rear deck.

Bobby stuck his head out a window. "Uncle Steve, can you fix the TV?"

"Do your homework. Television's bad for you. Especially Fox News."

A few minutes later, Steve heard the unmistakable clinking of ice cubes in a glass. He opened his eyes to see his father approaching the hammock. He carried two large glasses swirling with golden liquid.

"May I assume that's not root beer?"

"Ain't gator sweat, neither." Herbert sat down in a plastic chair alongside the hammock. "Scotch with a shpritz of soda."

"I hope it's more than a shpritz. Those are sixteen-ounce glasses."

"Should last us a spell. Good for what ails you."

"Is Bobby doing his homework?"

"He is if his teacher assigned a website with cameras inside the cheerleaders' locker rooms."

"Great." Steve sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the hammock. "Ooh."

"You okay, son?"

"When I was running on adrenaline in court, I was fine. Now I'm just a little woozy."

Herbert handed him a drink. "L'chaim."

Steve tilted his glass toward his father. "Confusion to the enemy."

The men drank, and Herbert said: "So what do you hear from Victoria?"

"Jury went out at eleven this morning."

"You oughta be there."

Steve shook his head, and billiard balls bounced between his ears. "It's her case. Not mine."

"So?"

"When she gets a verdict, it should be her moment. She deserves her autonomy."

"What kind of word is that? 'Autonomy'?"

"Victoria's word."

"Thought so." The old man took a long pull on the Scotch. "So we gonna talk, or what?"

"I dismissed the Bar suit, if that's what you're wondering."

"That ah already know."

"How?"

"Pinky Luber told me."

"You're still talking to him?"

"Talk? Hell, ah'm taking Pinky fishing next week."

"I still don't get it, Dad. It's like you forgot what he did to you."

"Ah haven't forgotten. Ah've forgiven."

"Is that some Zen thing, Dad? How do you get to a place where you just move on?"

"Comes with age and experience. And the knowledge that we're all damaged pieces of equipment."

Steve let himself smile. That was pretty much what he'd told Victoria. "We're all flawed." Could he hold his father to a higher standard than he held himself? "I shouldn't have poked around in your life, Dad. I had no right."

"Like ah said, the truth can be painful. You mad at me for what ah did all those years ago?"

"No, I guess not. Not anymore."

Herbert raised his glass in a salute. "You're a good kid. Ah should tell you that once in a while."

Steve let that soak in a moment and took another sip. The alcohol was already going to his head, and he'd barely made a dent in the drink. Then he blurted out: "I lied in court, Dad."

Feeling ten years old: "I'm the one who threw the baseball through the window, not Janice."

"What are you talking about?"

"In Griffin's case. I lied under oath."

"Jesus."

"Willis Rask said if I told the truth, Griffin would get off. But the state could never pin anything on Robinson."

"Fowles didn't shoot Stubbs?"

"Robinson ordered him to. But Fowles didn't do it. Stubbs got shot when they struggled over the speargun."

"Holy shit."

"Can you believe it? Junior Griffin was right from day one. Stubbs pretty much shot himself and Hal Griffin fell down the ladder trying to go up and call for help."

"What about that magnetic slate? You write that confession?"

"No, I didn't lie about that. Fowles signed the slate because he accepted moral responsibility for the death. I took that as permission to say he shot Stubbs."

"A helluva rationalization. Welcome to the club, son."

"The liars' club?"

"The ends-justify-the-means club."

"Like you and Pinky?"

"Like a lot of people, son. It's not all black and white. There are a thousand shades of gray."

"So I guess I owe you an apology."

"For what? Lying in court? Or busting my balls?"

"Both."

"Forget it. It's over."

"You're letting me off that easy? Don't you want to hit me with at least one I-told-you-so?"

"Hell, no. Ah want you to finish your drink, then fix mah damn satellite dish."