Blood Money js-10

by James Grippando

  She’d just flagged the proverbial white elephant in their relationship. “Andie, it’s not like I started working on this case yesterday. You knew how much media coverage it’s gotten.”

  “I knew that my fiance was attacked and ended up in the emergency room. I came to help you.”

  “And I love you for that. But this is why I didn’t want to involve the police. No police report, no news coverage.”

  “Oh, so you’re saying it’s my fault because I called Detective Rivera?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Just, let’s not overreact.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” she said, again realizing that she was too loud. She took it down a few decibels. “I’m not even allowed to have a Facebook page. How do you think the bureau is going to react when they see this?”

  “See what? Some random guy snapped a picture. You’re acting like he works for Associated Press.”

  “Sydney Bennett’s lawyer is walking out of the emergency room at midnight wearing a neck brace. It doesn’t take Pulitzer Prize credentials to sell that shot to Faith Corso. The woman will have an orgasm-with or without erotic asphyxiation.”

  Jack had no rebuttal, but he needed to do something about the negative energy between them. He took a feeble stab at humor. “Don’t worry. Knowing BNN, they’ll Photoshop you out of the picture and insert Sydney Bennett.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “You’re right. It’s not.”

  Andie breathed in and out, saying nothing.

  Jack moved closer. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are.”

  “This will work out,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”

  Andie didn’t answer.

  “Let’s go home,” he said, taking her hand.

  She didn’t move.

  “Andie?”

  Her gaze was fixed on the sidewalk, no eye contact with Jack.

  “Andie, say something.”

  Finally, their eyes met.

  “I think I should stay at my place tonight,” she said.

  That put Jack back on his heels. They hadn’t officially moved in together, but only because Andie’s lease had yet to expire. Even Max had come to expect her on a daily basis and whimpered when she was away.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said.

  “It’s the smart thing. You were exactly right: It’s not like you started working on this case yesterday. I should have taken this precaution a long time ago. As it stands now it’s just for a few days, until Sydney Bennett is completely behind you and the media coverage goes away.”

  “And what happens the next time I handle a high-profile trial?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Really? You don’t know? I thought we had talked about this.”

  “We did, but on a whole different level. A little bit of local media coverage is one thing. This case is in the news nationwide, twenty-four/seven. The problems are on a different scale for me. I need to step back and think.”

  “Step back? You mean from us?”

  “No,” she said, struggling. “Just, step back from. . things.”

  Jack was having trouble seeing a difference, but her proposal didn’t seem negotiable. “Okay then. We’ll step back.”

  Andie dug her car keys from her purse. “I’ll drive you home. I’m glad you’re okay with this.”

  I’m glad you think I am.

  “Sure,” said Jack. “Perfectly okay.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tennis anyone?” said Jack, grumbling. He was still in bed, too tired to fight off the fuzzy yellow ball that Max was trying to insert into his master’s left eye socket.

  “Max, down!”

  In golden-speak, Jack’s words translated to something along the lines of Please hop your eighty-pound carcass right up here on the mattress and maul me until I take you outside. Jack rolled out of bed before Max landed his battered body back in the emergency room.

  Damn, I miss Andie.

  He’d managed to be awake for all of thirty seconds before the thought crossed his mind. Not bad.

  Jack stepped in front of the mirror and checked out the bruise on his neck. It was indeed high, like a hanging, just as Detective Rivera had pointed out. Whether it matched the bruising pattern on Celeste Laramore’s neck was a question beyond Jack’s pay grade. He’d be interested in the opinion of the forensic experts, which was simple enough to find out. All he had to do was call Andie and-

  No. Give her space. Call Rivera.

  A banging on the front door interrupted his thoughts. Jack knew only one person rude enough to come knocking so early in the morning, but then he checked the time and discovered how late it actually was: 11:09 A.M. The painkiller he’d taken before going to bed had knocked him out for ten hours. He pulled on a pair of jogging shorts and answered the door. His suspicion had been on the money; it was Theo.

  “Dude, I been calling your cell for an hour. You all right?”

  “Yeah, fine. I was just out of it.”

  Theo smiled. “Good drugs?”

  “Mi vida,” said Abuela. Jack’s grandmother was a few steps behind Theo, shuffling through the open doorway as quickly as she could. “Mi vida”-literally “my life”-was what she always called Jack, what he meant to her. They embraced, and Jack tried to say something reassuring in her native tongue, which, as usual, he mangled. She winced and covered her ears.

  “Ay. English, por favor.”

  Jack’s Spanish was notoriously bad. The death of his Cuban American mother in childbirth left him “culturally challenged,” a half-Cuban boy in a completely Anglo home with no link to his Hispanic heritage. Decades later, when Jack was in his thirties, Abuela had finally fled Cuba. For a time, her mission in life had been to give her gringo grandson a crash course in everything Cuban. He’d worked his way up to a C-minus before she’d virtually given up on making him fluent.

  “Your neck!” said Abuela.

  “It looks worse than it feels,” Jack said.

  “When you last eat?” Her English was only slightly better than Jack’s Spanish.

  “I don’t remember.”

  Abuela shook her head and went to the kitchen. Keeping him fed was the one aspect of his cultural education that had not failed. Jack closed the door, and he and Theo sat in the living room while Abuela searched the cupboard for something that in her book even remotely qualified as “food.”

  “Thanks for staying with Abuela last night,” said Jack.

  “No problem. What’s the plan going forward?”

  “I don’t know. We can’t leave her exposed. The threat was against ‘someone you love.’”

  “And you assume that means Abuela, not me?” Theo said with a cheesy grin.

  Jack ignored it. “I don’t assume it’s Abuela. We’re just being cautious. Andie thinks the threat is directed at her.”

  Theo glanced around the place. “Where is Andie?”

  “Work.”

  “Everything good between you two?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  Theo chuckled. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

  Jack was taken aback. “Did you talk to her?”

  “Nah, I read the blog.”

  “The blog?”

  “BNN: no-blood-money.com.”

  “Bonnie showed that to me. What are you reading that trash for?”

  Theo shrugged. “I take my bodyguard role seriously. Gotta suck up all the information I can.”

  “That’s even less reliable than Faith Corso.”

  “What are you talking about? It is Faith Corso.”

  “No, it’s not. Bonnie showed me the site. Corso was just a guest blogger, and there was a link to BNN.”

  “Not anymore. Faith Corso’s picture is all over it,” Theo said as he retrieved it on his iPhone. “Look at the address: www.BNN/FaithCorso/no-blood-money.com.”

  “Corso must have liked it so much, she took it over.”

  “Anyway, this morning’
s front page is all about your ass-kicking.”

  “I didn’t get my ass-”

  “Dude, I saw the picture. Nice neck brace.”

  “Damn, I knew I should have taken that thing off.”

  “Wouldn’t have mattered. Looks like the picture was taken inside the ER. Kind of grainy, like maybe a nurse or another patient snapped it with a cell phone from far away and then had to blow it up. Anyway, it’s the other picture that’s the money shot. You and Andie arguing outside the hospital. The caption says your fiancee dumped you.”

  Jack groaned.

  “Clever headline, actually: ‘Broken Neck, Broken Heart for Shot Mom’s Lawyer.’”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Is it true?” asked Theo. “You and Andie, kaput?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

  “Andie isn’t happy about the publicity this case is getting. She’s afraid the bureau might rethink her role as an undercover agent. When some jackass jumped out of the bushes and snapped our picture last night, it sent her over the edge. We decided to separate for a few days until the hoopla blows over.”

  “Cool. So you’re single?”

  “No, I’m not single. This is temporary.”

  “Really? Do you mean ‘temporary,’ as in temporary custody of the children awarded to the mother, pending finalization of the divorce, which always means permanent? Or do you mean ‘temporary,’ as in temporarily laid off, which means permanent only ninety-nine percent of the time?”

  “Why are you such a smart-ass?”

  Jack heard his cell vibrating on the kitchen counter. He got up and checked it. The incoming number was unfamiliar at first, but something in the back of his mind made him realize that he’d seen it before. The text message confirmed his hunch. The sender was definitely no stranger.

  “Something wrong?” asked Theo.

  Jack cleared the look of surprise from his face. “It’s from Rene,” he said.

  “Wha-a-at?” said Theo, chuckling. “See, dude, you are single. Man, word sure travels fast.”

  Rene had been Jack’s most serious steady after his divorce-until Andie had come along. Jack had sometimes wondered “what might have been” between them if she hadn’t been so geographically undesirable. The last time they’d talked, Rene was committed to Children First in West Africa.

  “She works at Jackson now,” said Jack.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “That’s where Celeste Laramore is hospitalized.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Says she needs to talk to me about the Laramores.” Jack glanced again at the message, then read aloud the last two words that Rene had typed in all caps. “VERY IMPORTANT.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jack drove across town to meet Rene for coffee.

  They were in agreement that the hospital was not the place to have a talk about the Laramores, but selecting an alternative had been surprisingly difficult, each trying to suggest a spot that was familiar enough to be findable, while at the same time avoiding a place with too many memories. They’d settled on San Lazaro’s Cafe in Little Havana, close enough to Jackson for Rene to get away on her break, but far enough to ensure that none of the reporters on “coma watch” would happen by.

  Jack found her at a booth in the back, near a sixty-year-old map of pre-Castro Cuba. She rose to greet him, and they exchanged an awkward air kiss that made them both smile.

  “How you been?” he asked as they settled into the booth.

  “Good, you?”

  Rene signaled the waitress to bring another cafe con leche for Jack. Small talk abounded as they waited for the coffee to arrive. Memories flowed, too.

  The first time Jack had laid eyes on Rene she had been covered with dust, like everything else in the grasslands of the Cote d’Ivoire when the Harmattan winds blew each autumn. She had been running a children’s clinic in Korhogo, and over a light lunch that involved some kind of unidentifiable meat, Jack found himself captivated by a woman who fully understood why he had turned down the big bucks of private practice to work long hours for little pay at a place like the Freedom Institute. The next day, a stunning strawberry blonde sans dust showed up in a dilapidated Land Rover for a trip to the cocoa region, and Jack’s tumble was complete. From then on, virtually every spare dime went to round-trip airfare between Abidjan and Miami.

  Inevitably, geography took its toll.

  The coffee arrived. As Jack stirred in a packet of raw sugar, Rene leaned closer, almost halfway across the table. A man less committed to his fiancee would have simply grabbed an eyeful of cleavage. Jack squirmed.

  “You like my necklace?” she asked.

  “Oh, your necklace.” He took a closer look. It appeared to be made of copper, with a colorful bead. “Pretty. Looks like an African work of art.”

  “The Senufo people hold on to their traditional beliefs very strongly. When I left Korhogo, the juju priest blessed the necklace and presented it to me at a ceremony. Probably two hundred people showed up, lots of them former patients at the clinic.”

  “Nice.”

  “The glass bead is actually a gris-gris,” said Rene. “Some people in this country associate that with voodoo, so the juju priest made mine teeny-tiny enough to wear on a necklace. Less conspicuous.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  “In Cote d’Ivoire they say it brings good luck. Some even believe it’s a form of birth control, but I’m not putting that one to the test.”

  “Good call,” said Jack.

  “So no jewelry for you?” she said, glancing at his naked ring finger. “I thought you’d be remarried by now.”

  The segue seemed rather calculated, and Jack wondered if she was playing dumb-if her out-of-the-blue text message had been prompted by the inaccurate reports that his engagement was off. Broken neck, broken heart. .

  “I’m engaged.”

  “Oh, I had no idea. Congratulations. Who’s the lucky woman?”

  He told her about Andie, though without so much as a hint at her undercover work. Even in the broadest of terms, however, the very concept of a criminal defense lawyer with plans to marry an FBI agent was sufficient to trigger the usual skepticism.

  “Sounds like. . a perfect match.”

  “Yeah. If there is such a thing.”

  She smiled, catching his drift. “Touche.”

  Rene had a great smile. All they needed now was for Andie to walk by like Adele, singing “Someone Like You.”

  Never mind, I’ll find. . It was time to shift gears-fast.

  “You still in pediatrics?” he asked, knowing it was a dumb question.

  “Of course. That’s what brought me in touch with the Laramore family. Celeste’s primary physician back in Tennessee is still her pediatrician.”

  Jack felt another twinge of pain for the family. The fact that she was still young enough for a pediatrician underscored the tragedy.

  “Are you one of her treating physicians?”

  “No. But one of my colleagues is on the team.”

  “So you two share information?”

  She averted her eyes, and Jack still knew her well enough to read her apprehension. “Look, Rene. I appreciate your reaching out to me. But I don’t want you to breach any confidences.”

  “No, this is totally on the up and up.”

  “You look uncomfortable.”

  “It’s a little complicated. His name is Dr. Ross. Stefan Ross. We’ve been seeing each other for about two months now.”

  “Got the picture. Two pediatricians at the same hospital date each other. Naturally, you share information.”

  “We talk. If I look uncomfortable, it’s because Stefan probably didn’t expect me to pass this bit of information along to the Laramore family.”

  “Like I said, if you’re breaking a patient confidence-”

  “No,” she said, interrupting. “Just the opposite. Trust me, there’s already a buzz about this at the hospi
tal. This is something that Celeste’s family should know. Something their lawyer needs to know.”

  “I’m not their lawyer yet. I’m considering it.”

  “After you hear what I have to say, you’ll want to be their lawyer.”

  “If you put it that way, I’m all ears.”

  “Just, please don’t ever attribute this to me.”

  “Understood.”

  She shifted in her seat, as if building up her nerve. Then she let it fly: “Celeste Laramore should not be in a coma.”

  Jack allowed her words to hang for a moment, the impact growing. “Exactly what are you trying to tell me?”

  “Let me put a finer point on it,” she said. “If it weren’t for BNN, she wouldn’t be in a coma.”

  Jack measured his response, trying to be polite. “Rene, I appreciate your concern for the family. But I have no intention of filing yet another frivolous lawsuit against a media giant whose television program allegedly provoked some loser to commit a violent act. Those claims just don’t cut it.”

  “I hear you,” she said. “And clearly, Faith Corso was talking about a claim along those lines when she broke the news that the Laramore family was considering a lawsuit against BNN.”

  “I’m aware of that report,” he said, stating the obvious. “But I can’t talk to you about what the family is considering.”

  “I understand. I didn’t come here to find out what’s under consideration. I’m here to tell you what you should consider.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I don’t think it was a coincidence that BNN was the first to report that the Laramore family is planning to sue them. They know what they did wrong. Faith Corso just got out in front of the story, trying to obscure the fact that the cause and effect is much tighter than anyone would ever suspect. Much clearer than BNN would like anyone to believe.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  Rene leaned closer, folding her hands atop the table, locking eyes with Jack. “Meaning that in both a medical and legal sense, BNN is directly responsible for what happened to Celeste Laramore.”

  “That’s easy to say. But proving in a courtroom that BNN was the legal cause of Celeste’s coma is the Achilles heel in the case.”