She felt Anthony's eyes on her and looked up. In the fading light, the purple silk seemed more a shadow than a garment.
He said, ' 'You understand that I must treat you like any other client."
"Of course," she said lightly. "I am quite able to separate friendship from business. I have to do that in my own practice."
He nodded. "You mentioned that you and your husband separated. Have you filed for divorce?"
"No, not yet. We decided to work out a settlement first." With her left thumb Gail involuntarily touched the place where her wedding ring had been. Her hand felt naked. "Should we put everything off for now?"
"It would be best. Will he help you if I ask him to testify?"
"I think he will."
"Where is he living?"
"On a boat at our marina. He hasn't asked to come back."
"You could ask him."
Gail shook her head, took a bite of bread.
"Pride?"
She reached for her wine. "I don't think so. Does it matter?"
"Forgive me for the personal questions," he said.
"Your relationship with your husband may be important."
"Well. Hmm. Why haven't I asked Dave to come back?"
"Perhaps because of his friendship with Renee."
Gail shook her head, considering the lights coming on in the houses across the inlet. "That doesn't bother me anymore."
"Are you still in love with him?"
She smiled. "Should I say so on the witness stand?"
"Gail. There is one thing you must do. Unequivocally." Anthony's words were clipped, the Spanish accent coming through. ''When I ask you a question—here, now, or whenever we discuss this case—you must answer it."
Her back straightened. "Look. You don't have to pull that Latino male act with me, all right?"
He said nothing, but she saw his lips firm into a tighter line. Finally she looked away. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."
After a moment, Anthony returned to his dinner. "The prosecution will be looking for motive. Love—obsessive love. Jealousy."
"I was never . . . obsessed with Dave." She pushed her hair behind her ear. ''All right, you want to know the truth? Dave's a responsible guy at heart, very conscious of what ought to be done. I probably haven't asked him to come back because I'm afraid he would."
Anthony finished the thought for her. "And you don't find duty sufficient reason to stay in a marriage."
"I suppose you think that's heartless of me."
He paused, then said, "My wife—my former wife— took Luis and Angie to my grandfather's house, weeping. What a horrible man she was married to. She expected this man—me—to bring her back, as I had done before. This time I said fine, you want to leave, leave." Anthony made a wry smile. "Another of my sins. And then I allowed her version of the truth to stand, being too proud —too foolish—to contradict it. My family—the Pedrosas—made their judgment about me. It took a long time for them to see me again as I am."
He turned his chair slightly and pushed his plate aside. "I told you that because it has stuck with me as a lesson on the importance of image. If your case goes to trial, the jury will get one version of the truth from the prosecutor, another from me. Juries want a murder trial to resemble a TV show. An image they can grasp. The good woman caught in a nightmare, unjustly accused."
Anthony's fingers played with his knife, setting it upright, sliding down the handle, turning it again. "Of course we will fight every piece of physical evidence the state produces, but the jury will be looking at you. Gail Connor, condensed into a few days. For me to do that— to do my job of establishing your innocence—I must have the reality, not the image. By the time we walk into the courtroom, I will know everything about you."
For a long moment Gail stared at him, his features less distinct now in the twilight. He was not asking for her consent. He would take what he needed from her. She pressed her hands together in her lap to keep them still. Astonished at its impact, she had felt a clearly sexual stirring. He wanted to open her in a way that was more than physical. Already she was deciding what she would tell him, what she could hold back. Not everything was relevant. There were things ... a swirl of self-involvement and jealousy and incestuous adolescent passion—none of it the image of the woman he would want to create in a courtroom.
After a while, Gail moistened her lips. She smiled. "Fine. Ask away." He glanced at her plate. "If you are finished, we can go inside. I want to read what you wrote, and then we'll talk."
While he made coffee Gail used his guest bathroom, then came out to see him already reading, her pages spread across the kitchen counter as coffee drizzled into the pot.
He looked around at her. "You've written a lot about this Indian, Jimmy Panther."
"I can't tell you how it ties in."
Anthony turned a page. "But I agree with you. It is odd, about the mask. After you speak again with your friend Edith Newell, I would like to know what she has to say."
Gail smiled. "I'll mail you more pages to read."
She kicked off her pumps and sat on the end of the sofa, her feet curled under her, sinking into dark green leather, one of Anthony's legal pads on her lap. He had instructed her to put down everything she could remember about her meeting with Britton and also—unless she had already included it in her notes—reasons why Dave might not have been truthful about having a purely chaste relationship with Renee.
A few minutes later Anthony set one cup and saucer on the coffee table near her and another opposite, where he eased himself into a lounge chair, feet on the ottoman. He reached over to turn on a floor lamp beside the chair. His eyes caught Gail's.
"You have a question?" he asked.
"Why do you think Dave lied?"
"Why assume he was telling the truth?"
Gail smiled, shaking her head. "I know Dave better than that. We've been married for nearly twelve years."
"You didn't know he was seeing Renee. Sending her cards. That's quite something to keep from a wife for— how long? Two years?"
"Wait a minute. What are you saying?"
"First I will give you a theory, which I have developed through observation. Premeditated murder is an intimate act with a simple motive based on passion. Hatred or love or greed, all passions. When a woman is the victim, I assume sex is involved. I start from these premises. If the conclusion is different—" Anthony shrugged. "Well, I am willing to be surprised. Now let us imagine that Dave wanted Renee too much, then killed her in a rage when she refused him."
She laughed. "You couldn't tell a jury that. It isn't true."
Anthony flipped through the pages of her notes. "You wrote that he has a hot temper, which he expresses now only on the tennis court. What do you mean by 'now'?" When she didn't answer, he looked back at her. "Has he ever struck you? Gail?"
She said, "That was years ago. I told him I would leave. He never did it again."
There was a silence. Anthony said quietly, "How badly were you hurt?"
She shook her head. "Not much. He didn't mean to."
"Did you have to see a doctor?"
"Yes."
After a moment, Anthony gestured toward the legal pad. ''Write it down. Everything. And the doctor you saw. I may look at your medical records."
"It doesn't matter. Britton says Dave has an alibi. They have his charge card receipts at the bar he went to."
"Did Dave tell you where he went?"
"No." Gail paused. "I wonder how the police found his receipts. He usually pays cash."
"Then Britton was lying."
"Bastard."
"If you were guilty, you might have caved in at that point. It is possible, however, that Britton found someone—a bartender—who thinks he saw Dave that same night and not another. Britton has to eliminate other possible suspects. What we must show is that the times don't correspond. That Dave could have established an alibi, then gone back to Renee's house." Anthony turned more pages. "And if not for passio
n, for money. You say the marina was in trouble. That was the business he started. All he had."
"But when I told him about the money he was completely surprised."
“It appeared so to you. If the trust papers were in your house, he may have seen them. When Renee reached thirty the money would go to your mother. Before that, to you. Indirectly to him."
Gail looked down at the legal pad, remembering what Dave had said. He had planned to buy a new high-lift truck. Add more boat storage space to the marina. She undipped her pen from the top sheet. "I hate thinking this way."
"I would hate to see you in prison."
She wrote for a while, remembering that Dave had not decided to leave her until after she had told him no, she would not put more money into the business. Over the rim of her coffee cup she noticed Anthony gather up her notes and tap them together on his thighs, making a neat stack, which he fastened with a paper clip.
She set the cup back in the saucer. "I have another question."
He looked at her.
"Was Renee having an affair with your cousin? You wouldn't give me an answer before, when I hinted at it that day on Flagler Street. And here's another question. Would you protect Carlos? I told Ben Strickland you were my attorney. He suggested you might throw me to the wolves to save Carlos."
Anthony leaned over to put the notes on the table, then crossed his legs at the ankle. "Is that what you think?"
"I told Ben no. That you don't like Carlos very much."
His expression didn't contradict her. He said, "Ben Strickland is wrong about throwing you to the wolves. Completely. As for your first question—Yes. They were having an affair."
"For how long?"
"About a year. They met when she went to work for Vista Title. The construction company used Vista to handle some of its closings, as you know." Anthony picked up his coffee. "I asked Carlos the same thing you're getting to. He says he was with another woman the night Renee died. Apparently it was enough of an alibi to satisfy the police. They talked to her."
"She could be lying."
"Perhaps."
Gail stood up and stretched her arms over her head. "Such a nice guy, Carlos. Having an affair with my sister and in bed with somebody else. If he was."
"I doubt he killed her. It isn't his style. Petty violence, perhaps. But this— It indicates a degree of control and calculation I doubt Carlos possesses."
"Now who's assuming things? Murder—an act of intimacy and passion with a simple motive. You said it." Gail sat on the edge of the coffee table, her knee brushing the ottoman. She noticed that Anthony's cream-colored socks matched his shoes.
She said, "Your grandfather mentioned he had met Renee. Once. Not a favorable impression, I gather. And if what I saw the other night was any guide, Carlos would do back flips through flaming hoops to please Ernesto Pedrosa. After all, Carlos has to protect his status as heir apparent to the Pedrosa empire, right? You might be a threat if you'd stop going down to Cuba to see your father. Or if you'd kiss Ernesto's butt as much as Carlos does."
Anthony was smiling a little, elbow on the arm of his chair, head supported on extended fingers.
"Let us. assume, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that Renee was in love with Carlos. That she wanted to marry him. The father of her child—"
"Are you sure of that?"
Gail spread her hands. "An assumption."
"All right. Continue."
She got up and began to walk back and forth in her stocking feet. "Carlos had been putting Renee off for months. She was fun to have around, but not the sort of girl you bring home to granddad. One Saturday night last March, after a disastrous party at her mother's, her brother-in-law brings her home, drunk. He leaves. Carlos is waiting for her upstairs in bed. Or maybe she calls Carlos and says come over. Now. She refuses to have another abortion; this is her last chance for a baby. She threatens to go to Ernesto, to go public, to chain herself to one of Carlos's bulldozers. Renee knows how to get what she wants from men. It looks bad for Carlos, then she passes out. He's been her lover long enough to know what those scars on her wrists mean. He throws her in her car, drives to the edge of the Everglades, carries her to the end of a nature walk. It's dark, but there's a moon, bright enough for him to take her wrist, to guide the razor blade—"
Her words came to a sudden halt. Gail drew in a shaky breath. "This, ladies and gentlemen, is what happened. You have seen Mr. Quintana destroy the credibility of Carlos Pedrosa's alibi witness. You have heard Carlos Pedrosa admit on the stand that Renee Connor was obsessed with him. That his grandfather would have disowned him if he had married her. These facts, I submit to you, create a reasonable doubt that Gail Connor, the victim's . . . loving sister—"
Gail made a little face, hiding the tremor in her lips. "Well. I guess that's why I do commercial law."
"Not bad," Anthony said. "If Hartwell Black lets you go, come see me about a job."
She let her gaze drop to the carpet, then walked across the room and through the French doors. In the darkness she could see easily past the screen. The inlet was shiny black, the sailboat quiet at anchor on the other side. Small shaded lamps in the low concrete wall of the dock cast pools of light. Music came from a fishing boat further up.
She heard Anthony's footsteps. "Gail?"
After a minute, she said, "You know, if I could only figure out who she was ... I'm going to be on trial for her murder and I can't help you—or myself—because I don't know why this happened. Isn't that what the police look for first? The reason?"
He stood beside her. "I should have sent you home after dinner. We can talk later. There's no hurry."
Gail lightly pressed her fingertips on the screen, unwilling to go just yet. "You told me about your friend Juanito, remember? How you saw him after all those years and he hadn't really changed? Well, I don't know about Renee. I don't recognize her at all. Carlos probably treated her like a whore. But to Dave she was the opposite. Unsullied as a virgin. Edith Newell thinks she was immature. My mother thinks she was misunderstood. Ben says she was mentally ill, some kind of pervert. And you ..." Gail glanced at Anthony. "You liked her. For her honesty. What did you mean?"
He took a few seconds to answer. "Just that... if you asked her what she thought, she would tell you."
"Yes." Gail smiled. "And sometimes even if you didn't ask. How come she got all the courage? She said things out loud I was embarrassed to think of, even if they were true. When we were children she would run along the seawall behind our house, doing cartwheels, scaring our mother to death. She liked being on the edge. Almost as if she wanted to fall off. She went to extremes—a bitch one minute, weeping the next, then laughing at herself. Maybe she was mentally ill, a little. Or giving a spontaneous reaction to what she saw around her, I don't know."
Gail turned around to face him, leaning on her hands, the metal railing of the terrace behind her. "Listen, I didn't come out here because of what you said about Hartwell Black letting me go. I'm not that nervous. Sure, this scares the hell out of me, but I know I'm innocent. And I've got some high-powered legal talent, right? What can happen?"
Anthony said, "It seems Renee did not get all the courage." Behind him, the light from the living room fell across the terrace floor in a long rectangle. The ceiling fan spun slowly, its blades barely visible.
She said, "When I was talking to you before, describing what happened to her, how she died, it was as if I were there. I could see her, but not whoever was standing over her. He was only this dark shape."
Gail pulled her hands out from underneath her hips, turning up her palms. "She had such small hands. They were slender and pale, like a little girl. I could put my thumb and forefinger around her wrists. When she was in the hospital, and the bandages were on, she laughed and held out her hands. She said, 'Look what I've done, Sis. I sure as hell trimmed my nails too close this time.' "
Gail smiled, then stood quietly for a moment. "Renee looked utterly exhausted. Almost as if she wish
ed she hadn't come back, but she was lying there making jokes about it. Her eyes had circles under them, but still they were like two spots of blue light in her face. So blue. It made me want to buy contacts."
"Yours are blue."
"Compared to yours, maybe. But not like hers. Mine have more gray. No, no. Renee had the looks, although she would deny it. She never liked that little gap between her front teeth, did you ever notice that? And that one dimple. She used to sit around with her finger poked into her other cheek to make a pair, but of course it didn't work. And the earrings. Four holes in each ear. Our mother cried over it. No, I'm not kidding, she did."
Gail lifted her hair away from one ear. "Look. She did mine, too."
Anthony leaned closer. "Four holes? Where?"
"Two in each ear. I only use one, and the other hardly shows. I was nineteen. She said it wouldn't hurt. She lied." Gail laughed, then let her hair fall back into place, her smile fading. Suddenly aware of the floor tilting under her, she grabbed the railing, holding on, the metal cold under her hands.
Anthony said something. A question.
She heard her own voice at a distance. "I'll never find her now. Someone did this and it's too late. Whatever she was, she didn't deserve this. Not this. And I was moaning about saving my own skin. Whoever did it should bum in hell. I don't care why he did it. I hope he dies." Gail's breath was coming quickly now, burning her chest. "I would use a razor on him myself and watch him bleed to death. He did that to her. My sister."
The water in the inlet ticked softly against the dock, lights wobbling on its surface under a black sky. The Everglades must have been this dark.
She sank, spinning in slow motion. A sudden slide of warm silk on her cheek. The terrace floor rushing toward her, then the porch railing above, falling away. White fan blades, circling. Something under her shoulders, then warmth around her head.
Her eyes opened to complete darkness. She rolled her face away from Anthony's chest. She lay across his thighs, his arms circling her, his back against the railing.
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