Suspicion of Innocence

by Barbara Parker

  "Judge Strickland and I made a list. Jack Warner and Larry Black from your office, the president of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers, the priest at your church, a few others. No politicians. By noon all of them had spoken on your behalf. They said that you are not going to flee Dade County, that you have long-standing ties to the community, that you have never been charged with a crime . . ."

  Gail listened while Anthony quickly related the discussions with the prosecutors, who had finally agreed to a bond of $1,250,000. Ben had made arrangements with the bonding company.

  "So much. Dear God."

  He seemed still incredulous that it had happened. "I did not dare expect this, Gail. It is, as I have told you, very rare."

  "Then I chose a good attorney."

  Leaning forward, he took her hands. His felt so warm she knew hers must be frozen.

  He said, "I'll go with you to Metro-Dade headquarters, and through the procedures there, but after that you will have another attorney. No, you must listen. Ben Strickland recommended Ray Hammell. I agree. He's an excellent lawyer. One of Hammell's associates will meet you at the jail. Do you understand?"

  She closed her lips on what she had started to say, then nodded. She studied the dark edge of his coat sleeve on a white cuff, a platinum ring, the fingers curled tightly around her hand.

  He said, "I can't represent you."

  "Because of what we did?"

  "Yes."

  She smiled a little, looking away. "You shouldn't have let that happen."

  "I know. But if I were in trouble myself, I would trust Ray Hammell. I trust him with you."

  "Not that." Gail looked back at him. "You should have told me about Renee."

  "Renee?"

  "You were her lover." When he didn't reply, she said, "Am I wrong?" He finally shook his head. "How did you know this?" "It doesn't matter." "It was over a year ago," he said. "No explanations."

  "Gail—" His eyes followed her as she rose to her feet. She said, "It's five till two. We don't want Frank Britton to come looking for me."

  The next hours ran together, one into the other. Frank Britton received them in the lobby of the Metro-Dade Police Department building. He and Anthony shook hands, exchanged pleasantries. And then Britton led them up the same way he had taken Gail the day before. He sat her down in his office, asked if she would like a cup of coffee, had someone bring it. Anthony gave Britton a document signed by Raymond F. Hammell, Esq., that said she would make no statements. Britton had a search warrant and asked for her house and car keys. He promised to return them. Paperwork was filled out, copies given. Then Frank Britton said it was time to take Gail down to be photographed and fingerprinted. A uniformed officer walked with her, and she looked back over her shoulder at Anthony standing at the other end of the hall.

  She rode to the Dade County Jail in a green and white Metro-Dade patrol car, handcuffed. A female officer sat in back with her, not saying much. There were scuff marks on the Plexiglas behind the front seat, and the handles had been taken off the doors. The car smelled like dirty underwear. Traffic was beginning to stream out from the city.

  Inside the jail, the corridors echoed, fluorescent lights glared overhead. A guard—a black woman in a gray uniform—guided her by the elbow. She took off the handcuffs and put Gail in a plastic molded chair in a small room to wait with several other women, most of them poorly dressed and sullen. They stared at her. After nearly two hours the guard came to get her, but didn't put the handcuffs on again. She took her to the lobby where a young man in a dark blue suit was waiting. He handed her her purse. He said his name, that he was from Ray Hammell’s office, and that he was here to take her home.

  In Renee's old bedroom at Irene's house, Karen lay under the quilt with all three cats stretched out around her, one across her chest, the others curled up by her hips. Gail scratched between the orange cat's ears and it began to purr.

  "Well, if the kids at school tease you, what are you going to say?"

  Karen sighed. She looked tired, Gail thought.

  "I am going to say ... the police have made a big mistake and my mom didn't do anything wrong and she will prove it."

  "Good girl."

  "And if they don't shut up I'll punch them." "Not good."

  They both smiled. Then Karen said, "Do I have to go to school tomorrow?"

  Gail straightened the lace trim on Karen's pajama top. "No. Not if you really don't want to. See how you feel about it in the morning."

  "Are we going to live with Gramma now?"

  "For a while. Is that okay?"

  Karen pulled the sleeping cat up to her chin and stroked its back. "I wish we could go home. Daddy too."

  "Oh, sweetie. I'm sorry things are so hard right now."

  Gail could think of nothing else to say. She kissed Karen, holding her for a while, feeling the warmth of her small body. She smelled of soap and freshly laundered cotton. Gail finally pulled away, turning out the lamp on the nightstand. Dim light came from the hall.

  "Mommy."

  "What, baby?"

  "Are you scared?"

  "Not so much anymore. It'll be okay."

  Karen said, ' 'You can sleep in here with me if you want to, so you don't get nightmares."

  Gail tucked the quilt around her. ''Well, maybe I will. Thank you."

  She heard Ben's voice at the door. "Are you girls turning in?" He came in quietly. "Good night, Little Bit."

  Karen held up her arms. "Good night, Ben."

  He leaned down and kissed her. "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

  "Your beard is itchy."

  He lightly pinched her cheek. "And you're my little flower, aren't you?"

  Gail smelled the bourbon on his breath. "Ben, please. It's nearly ten-thirty."

  She left the door open a crack so the cats could stick a paw through and get out. They walked toward the living room, Gail in her robe and pajamas.

  Ben put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her closer. "My God. Seeing you and Karen in there—It's like Renee was back again, alive. Sweet Jesus, what's happened to us all?"

  She maneuvered out from under his arm. When he looked at her, she said, "Sorry. I'm tired."

  "You going to work the rest of the week?"

  "Of course. This is no time for an unpaid vacation." Dave had made a trip to the house and brought back her clothes and makeup. He planned to stay there through the weekend, in case she needed anything.

  Ben said, "All right, Friday I'll come by and take you over to Ray HammelFs office." She had an appointment at four.

  "You don't have to. He'll probably make you stay outside."

  "No arguments. You're not going to go alone." Ben spotted his glass on a coaster on the coffee table and went to retrieve it.

  Irene, wearing her glasses, was still curled up on the far corner of the sofa with the phone at her ear, her address book open on her lap. She was calling everyone in the family, in-state or out. Earlier she had phoned both the headmistress of Biscayne Academy and Karen's third-grade teacher to prepare them for the eleven o'clock news.

  Gail followed Ben into the kitchen, where he set his glass in the sink. She poured herself a mug of milk.

  Ben scowled. "If we'd had Ray Hammell on this from the beginning there might not have been an arrest. I'm talking from the minute Britton got that bug up his ass. Hammell can smell a lousy case before it gets to the State Attorney's Office and the cops know it. That Cubano attorney of yours waited till Britton was about to come get you before he did anything about it."

  "He got me out, Ben."

  "Bull. I got you out. He called wanting to know what the hell to do. I was the one who got you out. What's he doing, taking the credit? And who's going to pay a hundred and twenty-five grand in bondsman's fees?"

  Gail put her milk in the microwave and pushed the buttons. She hated it when Ben started raving. She told him what she had already told him several times tonight. "I appreciate what you did for me, Ben. You know I'll pay you back
."

  "That's not the point. How many murder cases has he done? He's a damn drug attorney, don't you know that? He defended some of the biggest cocaine cowboys in South Florida. Where do you think he got his money? All those guys are hand in glove. Wouldn't surprise me a damn bit if he knew what Renee was into even before she did, he came in so fast after she was arrested."

  She stared at the numbers counting down on the microwave. "He had nothing to do with what happened to Renee. It was Carlos."

  "What do you mean?" Ben crossed to the cabinet where Irene kept his Wild Turkey.

  "I think Carlos was involved in that drug operation she got caught in. I can't prove it, but that's what I think."

  Gail explained what Dave had told her—the boat, the botched drug run. That Carlos used to supply Renee with cocaine.

  She said, "He needed money because he was embezzling from Ernesto Pedrosa's construction company. He tried kiting checks on closings at Vista Title. Renee found out about it. Maybe they both planned the drug run to the Bahamas, I don't know. But if it had succeeded, he'd be home free. As it turned out, she was the one who got stung."

  Ben eyeballed an ounce of bourbon into his glass. "The guy's a damn menace. And he thought he was going to buy my property. I'm glad I told Quintana to forget it."

  "When?"

  "Today during one of our many phone calls. I told him to tell his cousin Carlos the deal is off. I tore up the check and mailed it back." Ben tipped back his glass, then said, "With what you tell me now, I think Ray Hammell better put an investigator on Carlos Pedrosa."

  "So do I."

  Irene appeared at the kitchen door. "Well, I've called everyone I can possibly think of," she said. "And tomorrow I'll stop your newspaper for the next two weeks. You'll be here that long, won't you? And Dave's going to see about the lawn man." She tossed her notepad on the table. "Anybody want some tea?"

  Gail said, "I'm about to go to bed and Ben was just leaving."

  "She's rushing me off, Irene. Gail's little way of telling me I've had too much to drink."

  Irene reached up to pat his cheek. "Go on home, then. I'll take care of things here."

  He took her hand. "Irene, come up to Arcadia with me. Both of you, soon as this damn trial is over. I'm buying some property up there, did I tell you? We’ll build a house, what do you say?"

  "Ben, hush."

  "I can't take Miami anymore. It's going to kill us. Look what it did to Renee. What it's doing to Gail." He gave Irene his glass. "Put a little ice in there, will you, honey?"

  She poured the bourbon into the sink, then filled a cup with coffee and set it on the table. "Drink that." Ben sat down and lit a cigarette, his lighter snapping open and shut. He moaned softly and put his forehead in his palm.

  Irene said, "Gail, go to bed. You look positively exhausted."

  Gail held up her mug. "I was a little hungry."

  "Then I'll fix you a cheese omelet. Sit. It'll just take a minute." Irene went to the refrigerator. "By the way. Jimmy Panther phoned yesterday and asked me to talk to you about that mask. I said I'd call him today. I hope he'll forgive me if I don't because I am not putting that phone to my ear one more time tonight."

  "Jimmy Panther called you?"

  "He's sweet on me, I think." She laughed.

  Gail watched Irene crack eggs into a bowl. Precise taps. Breaking the shells open with one hand, then dropping them neatly, nested in their other halves, into the garbage disposer. Gail wanted to let go, to weep on her mother's shoulder, to feel those small, precise hands stroking her hair.

  Gail said, "I want to see what Edith Newell has to say. He and Renee were working on something together. I don't know what, but she's going to help me find out."

  "Renee never said anything to me."

  "Well, it's just too weird to be ignored. He found her body, didn't he? How did he know where to look?"

  Irene turned around from the stove. "Gail, you can't be serious."

  "In my position, I take everything seriously."

  Ben spoke up. "My guess is he was going to make a few more of those masks and try to pass them off as real."

  Irene gave him a look over her shoulder. "He would never do that. It isn't like him. Jimmy Panther has no regard for material gain. He says the Indians live the way all people are meant to live." The whisk clicked on the sides of the bowl. "He's a true shaman, as far as I'm concerned. You listen to him talk sometime. It's a religious experience."

  Ben extended his cigarette in the direction of the ashtray. The ashes fell on the table. "Jimmy Panther, AKA James Gibb, was once arrested for auto theft. Does he tell that to the visitors at the Historical Society when he's asking for donations?"

  "Everybody has mistakes in his past." The eggs sizzled when she poured them into the pan.

  "Irene, you are a gullible, silly woman."

  "That's not very nice of you, Ben."

  He held up his cup. "How about some more coffee?"

  She slammed her spatula down on the stove. "You come over here and expect to be waited on. I'm busy with Gail's omelet. I think you ought to call a cab and go home."

  Ben stared at her for a second, then pushed himself up. "Irene ... my dear . . . you are correct. I ought to go home. But I can drive myself four damn miles." He crushed out his cigarette. "Ladies. Good night."

  Gail felt an odd rush of pity for him, aware of her abruptness earlier. She smiled at him as he passed. "Good night, Ben. Thank you."

  He stopped and crooked both arms around her neck, pulled her out of her chair. His chest pressed tightly against her breasts, bare under her pajamas and cotton robe. She stiffened but didn't draw away.

  He lightly kissed her lips. "Don't you worry, darlin’ Everything's going to be all right."

  Gail came out of Irene's walk-in closet with an extra pillow. Irene was back on the phone. Her cousin Marian, who lived in Charleston, had just heard from Boyce in Atlanta who had spoken to Patsy in Tampa.

  One finger on the light switch, Gail stopped, looking down at Irene's dresser, at the bifold frame Anthony had brought to the funeral. She picked it up, saw the two girls in the backyard swing. The other frame showed Renee standing in the stem of a boat, big smile, and behind her a harbor in some Caribbean town or other. How pretty she was. Of course Anthony would have been attracted.

  Renee was wearing white shorts and a hot pink tank top. The wind lifted the brim of her straw hat. Her hair was dark blonde, not platinum. She must have stopped bleaching it at some point and Gail hadn't noticed. She studied the small hand holding down the hat. The nails were bare and clean.

  "Look at you," Gail said softly. "That's why I couldn't get a fix on you. Nobody else could either. Everybody with different opinions, telling me different things. You were changing. Becoming yourself, probably. Who would that have been, I wonder?" Gail brushed her thumb over the tiny face in the photograph. "I think I would have liked you, Sis."

  She started to put the photo back, then let the pillow slide to the floor and held the photo closer to the lamp. Two thin lines of light ran over Renee's collarbone, meeting at a pendant that hung between her breasts—a gold heart outlined in tiny diamonds. A present from Irene on Renee's twelfth birthday.

  Gail opened the first drawer of Irene's jewelry case, then another. From the third she lifted a small plastic zipper bag with a tag on it from the medical examiner's office. Connor, Renee. It held the earrings she had worn —gold loops, four pairs in various sizes. A pearl ring for the little finger of her left hand. Bangle bracelets. But no necklace.

  Gail sat down on her mother's bed and dialed her home number. Dave answered on the sixth ring.

  "I was beginning to think you were back at the marina," she said.

  "I didn't want to pick it up. I just watched Channel Seven news." He exhaled. "Jesus. Are you guys okay over there?' '

  "More or less. Mom's handling everything. She's wonderful." Gail's eyes were stinging. "Karen's not sure if she wants to go to school tomorrow."


  "Tell her to stay with Irene. She can miss the rest of the week. You probably should, too."

  Feet still on the carpet, Gail let herself drop slowly backwards on the bed until she stared straight up at the ceiling, tightly gripping the phone.

  "What's the matter, Gail?"

  Her voice was thick, her throat too tight. "I'm tired, I guess."

  He laughed, not unkindly. "It's been a shitty day, who wouldn't be?"

  "Oh, Dave." She closed her eyes, silence on the phone. "What happened to us? I thought we were okay. I did. Not perfect, but we had a balance. Balance ought to be worth something."

  "Gail—"

  "You should have told me. You should. I never saw it coming."

  "Maybe I didn't either."

  She wiped the tears off her temples. "You said I never let you near me. I was cold. Is that what you really thought?"

  "I don't know. I was probably mad at you at the time."

  She laughed. "People usually tell the truth when they're pissed off. Haven't you ever noticed? Well, the truth is, Dave—and I'm not even pissed off at the moment—the truth is, I have had a few rather odd revelations recently. I feel like I'm dangling over a dark pit. And it's not under me, it's inside."

  "Gail. Honey. You ought to go to bed."

  "Yes, I'm talking too much again."

  "Come on. I didn't mean it like that."

  "You're a very nice man, Dave. Irene said so and I agree with her." Gail sat up and reached for a Kleenex in the box on the nightstand. "I'm sorry I didn't make you happy."

  There was a long silence. Then he said, "You want to come back here tonight?"

  "Do you want me to? No. It's late." She blew her nose. "I really did have a reason to call you. Seriously. A question."

  "Okay."

  Gail reached around behind her for the photo in the bifold frame. "Was Renee wearing her necklace the night of the party?"

  "What?"

  "You know. That diamond heart she always wore. Did she have it on?"

  "Why?"

  "Dave, please."

  There was a silence. "Yes. She did."

  "You're sure?"

  "The chain got caught in my watch strap when I was helping her out of the car. Yeah, she had it on. Why do you want to know?"