Cane and Abe

by James Grippando

  “Question,” said Green. “You mentioned that in the Palm Beach cases, the killer left a signature on the victims. Exactly what kind of signature are you talking about?”

  The sugarcane ash on the victims’ faces was still not public information. “Sorry, I can’t discuss that with you.”

  Belter spoke up. “Agent Santos, I appreciate that law enforcement has to be discreet in these circumstances. But as you know, this law firm has represented Cortinas Sugar for over half a century. Two of the four Palm Beach County victims were found in sugarcane fields owned by our client. On our advice, the company has been nothing but cooperative. One of our young partners is now dead, and she may be victim number five of this monster. Surely it’s time to bring us into the loop.”

  Victoria shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t have that authorization.”

  “Happy to let you call on our dime and get it,” said Belter. “The phone is right over there.”

  “All I can tell you is that we have not yet confirmed the existence of the killer’s signature in the murder of Tyla Tomkins.”

  Maggie Green nodded slowly, eyes narrowing, and Victoria could practically see the mind of a former prosecutor at work. “Not to be gruesome about this,” said Green, “but is that because you have not recovered the victim’s head?”

  Victoria didn’t want to get into all the other differences between the cases. “That’s correct,” she said. “And that’s more than I should be telling you. But I share this with you in that same spirit of cooperation you alluded to earlier, Mr. Belter. There are things I need to ask of you and your law firm.”

  “Ask away,” said Belter.

  “It’s very important that the FBI have full access to Tyla’s computer and e-mail accounts.”

  Belter glanced at his partner. “I anticipated such a request,” he said. “That’s Maggie’s area of expertise.”

  Victoria smiled a little, trying to lighten the mood. “So what’s the expert’s answer?”

  “No,” she said flatly.

  “We can get a subpoena,” said Victoria.

  “We can fight it,” said Green.

  “That would be really unfortunate.”

  “Probably not very good PR, either,” said Riddel. “Old My-ama white-shoe law firm blocks investigation into murder of its young African-American partner.”

  “I don’t see what race has to do with this,” said Belter.

  “I’m just sayin’,” said Riddel.

  Green leaned forward, palms flat on the table. “Here’s what this is about, folks. We’re a law firm. We have clients. Tyla represented many of those clients. We can’t just turn over her computer and e-mails. We have to protect the attorney-client privilege.”

  “Who were her clients?” asked Victoria.

  “Tyla was in high demand by all our clients,” said Belter. “She was extremely talented.”

  “What clients did she do the most work for?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Did she do work for Cortinas Sugar?”

  Belter exchanged a quick glance with his partner. “Yes.”

  “Was she doing any work for Cortinas when she died?”

  “Probably. Which is nothing unusual. Cortinas is this law firm’s biggest Florida client.”

  “What was she working on for Cortinas?”

  “Whoa, whoa,” said Green, intervening. “Now, see how quickly we can get into sensitive areas? We need to sort out the attorney-client privilege issues in an orderly fashion.”

  “What are you proposing?” asked Victoria.

  “First, I would suggest you submit your questions to me in writing.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Green continued, unfazed. “While you’re preparing those written questions, we will review Tyla’s hard drive and e-mails. We will then provide you with a privilege log that lists all documents we are unable to produce based on the attorney-client privilege.”

  “We’re trying to catch a serial killer, Ms. Green. This isn’t corporate litigation. We don’t have the luxury of time.”

  “We’ll move as expeditiously as we can,” said Green. “I’m sorry, but this is an obligation we have to our clients. No law firm in America would simply lie down to law enforcement and turn over the computer files and e-mails of one of its partners.”

  Belter folded his hands, obviously ready to wrap things up. “Anything else?”

  Victoria answered quickly. “Just let me know which one of you wants to accept the subpoena. That seems like my next move.”

  “Do what you have to do,” said Belter. “Maggie is our point person.”

  Victoria was about to push away from the table, but Riddel stopped her. “I have one little thing,” he said.

  “Certainly, what is it?” asked Belter.

  Riddel reached inside his coat pocket and laid a copy of Tyla’s phone record on the table. “Ms. Tomkins had a prepaid cell. She used it only to call a handful of numbers. I was wondering if you could help me identify this one,” he said, pointing.

  Belter leaned forward, looking carefully at the number on the printout. “That would be my cell.”

  Victoria showed no reaction, silently enjoying the detective’s pay dirt. She would have loved to take over, but Riddel had earned the right to make his point.

  “Any idea why she would have called you from a prepaid cell?” he asked.

  “We talked a lot,” said Belter. “I didn’t keep track of every phone she ever used. Maybe it had to do with international travel.”

  Riddel retrieved the printout, folded it slowly, and tucked it away in his breast pocket.

  “Are you married, Mr. Belter?”

  Belter seemed surprised by the detective’s question, but he answered. “Yes, happily. Almost twenty-two years. Two children. A son at Amherst, and our daughter is a freshman at Duke.”

  “Do your children use prepaid cell phones?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Parents like them because it’s a way to keep their kids from overusing their cell. Once the minutes are used up, no more phone. But law enforcement hates them because they’re virtually impossible to trace. In fact, we never would have linked this prepaid cell to Tyla if we hadn’t found the actual phone in her condo. They’re very popular with drug dealers, terrorists. Adulterers. Mistresses.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The detective glanced at Victoria. “You want to tell him what we know about Tyla’s call list? Or should I?”

  Victoria appreciated the lob, but she was happy to leave things just as they were. “I think Mr. Belter gets the point.”

  Belter seemed poised to launch an indignant denial, but a subtle glance from his partner sent a clear message: Say no more. Belter cleared his throat, rising. “I apologize, but I have a ten a.m. conference call and unfortunately must wrap this up. Is there anything else, Agent Santos?”

  “No. I got what I need. You, Detective?”

  “I’m good,” said Riddel.

  The parting handshake was a formality, and Belter asked the junior associate to escort the law enforcement officers straight to the elevator, as if they might sneak into Tyla’s vacant office and walk off with her computer if left to their own devices. The elevator doors parted, and they were the only passengers. They rode side by side in silence, eyes forward.

  “Well?” asked Riddel.

  Victoria’s ears popped with their rapid descent. “Well, what?”

  “Any doubt in your mind that Belter was doing her?”

  It wasn’t precisely the way Victoria would have phrased the question, but she was beginning to think Riddel was a guy she could work with nonetheless. She let the blinking number line of fifty-five floors tick all the way down to the lobby before answering.

  “None whatsoever,” she said as the doors opened.

  Chapter Twelve

  At four o’clock I left the courthouse for the day. By four fifteen I was back in the Graham Building, summoned by the state a
ttorney herself.

  Boomerang.

  I could go weeks without setting foot in Carmen’s office, so two visits in as many days under such uncomfortable circumstances exceeded my quota. Her follow-up didn’t come as a total surprise. The morning Tribune had run a story about Cutter and the multicounty investigation, and the quote by an “anonymous source” regarding my “reassignment due to a potential conflict of interest” raised more questions than it had answered. I had no idea who the source was, but the state attorney’s office was no different from a police station: both could be information sieves.

  “We have a problem, Abe,” said Carmen.

  It was just the two of us this time, Carmen behind her desk and me in the armchair facing her. She’d left out Human Resources, which I took as a good sign.

  “I know, I read the Tribune article,” I said.

  “That’s not the problem.”

  She slid her iPad across her desk. The screen was alight with six boxes, each a separate photograph. Each was a black-and-white image, a little grainy, with a date and time stamp on the bottom. They appeared to be frames from a security camera video. My hand shook as I tapped the screen, enlarging each image and moving on to the next one. I had never seen them before, but there was no mistaking the images: it was me and Tyla Tomkins.

  I swallowed hard, looking across the desk at Carmen. “We had dinner.”

  “I can see that from the photographs,” she said as she took her iPad from me. She brought up one image in particular and laid the device on the desk, the image facing me. “I see a bottle of wine on the table between you.”

  “It was after work hours.”

  “You two appear to be having a good time.”

  “Nothing happened,” I said. “I ran into her at a bar convention in Orlando. She invited me to dinner to meet a friend who was thinking about coming over to the state attorney’s office. When I got to the restaurant, it was just her. We had dinner, some wine, and that was the end of it.”

  “Fine, Abe. Whatever you say. The problem is that you told me in my office that you hadn’t seen Tyla in over a decade. These are date-stamped photos from a security camera. Are you saying the dates are off by a decade?”

  “No. The dinner was last September.”

  “So you lied to me?”

  I swallowed hard, busted. “That was wrong.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  Why. Of course it had started the way all lies started, with a little one. “Nope,” I’d said in response to Agent Santos’ question about any recent contact with Tyla. One word, one syllable, had painted me into a corner. From that point forward, I was wedded to the lie.

  “Because I could see that Agent Santos had already made up her mind that I had a thing going on with Tyla. I knew I was going to be pulled off Tyla’s case based on what happened ten years ago. But I didn’t want it going around the office that I got yanked because I hooked up with Tyla again and cheated on Angelina. That never happened, Carmen. But rumors become reality. So I kept the dinner to myself. I didn’t expect pictures.”

  “Or phone records showing calls to your cell from Tyla’s prepaid phone?”

  “Carmen, I swear. I never got any voice-mail messages from Tyla, and I never talked to her on the telephone. Last night I wasted almost two hours on the phone with my carrier trying to sort this out. I can’t get an explanation from anyone, but I still think it has something to do with the prepaid cell Tyla was using.”

  She sat back in her chair, then glanced out the window. “You shouldn’t have lied, Abe.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “This is a mess.”

  I couldn’t disagree. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How did you get these photographs?”

  “They were attached to an e-mail. Anonymous sender from an Internet café. But I have a theory.”

  “Can I hear it?”

  “Detective Riddel and Agent Santos had a meeting with Brian Belter and Maggie Green at BB&L yesterday. Belter’s cell number was on Tyla’s call list from the prepaid phone. Riddel raised it simply to test the waters and see if Belter and Tyla may have had more than a professional relationship.”

  “Really?” I said. “What did they come away with?”

  “Fire in the hole,” she said, “if you’ll pardon the pun. As Detective Riddel aptly put it, if you ask a man if he’s married, and his reply is not a simple ‘Yes’ but ‘Yes, happily,’ the red flags go up.”

  “Do you think Belter e-mailed these photos to you?”

  “The timing raises an eyebrow, don’t you think? We fired a salvo across their bow; they fire one right back? They have access to Tyla’s e-mails and appointment calendar. There could have been a reference to dinner with Abe Beckham. BB&L certainly has the resources to send out an investigator to check the tape from the restaurant’s security cameras.”

  “So their objective here is to forge the uneasy alliance of assured mutual destruction: the state attorney messes with BB&L; BB&L messes with the state attorney.”

  “That’s my assumption,” said Carmen.

  I sat in silence, thinking of the jam I was in. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.”

  “You know I should suspend you, right? You lied to me.”

  I nodded. “How long?”

  “Two days, without pay.”

  That was actually a relief. “Thank you.”

  “Lucky for you, Abe, I’m feeling merciful. I do things by the book around here, even brought in HR yesterday. But this time we’re outside the book. I’m leaving HR out of this. I’m not going to suspend you.”

  That surprised me, but I was grateful. “Thank you.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that I’m worried about you.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” I said.

  She sat back, her gaze drifting toward the framed photograph on her desk. It was her late husband. Pancreatic cancer had taken him in a matter of months.

  “After Sebastian died, people gave me a little time to get myself together. But it wasn’t long before they started to ask, ‘So, Carmen, when are you going to start dating?’”

  “I got the same question with Samantha,” I said.

  “Of course you did. There’s no right answer, except for this: Don’t start until you’re ready.”

  “That’s good advice.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes clouded with concern. “I wish I had given it to you a year ago. But I’m your boss, and I didn’t want to interfere. I kept my mouth shut. Pardon me for speaking up now, but I’ve always feared that you started too soon. I understand that you and Angelina dated before you met Samantha, that there’s a history between you. But healing takes time. I’m speaking to you as a friend now, not as your boss. I see Tyla as a symptom of a grieving man adrift.”

  “I did not cheat on Angelina.”

  “Abe, I’m not blind. Tyla is a beautiful woman. And she looks one heck of a lot like Samantha.”

  It was true. I’d thought it to myself, but this was the first time I’d ever heard someone else say it. “Nothing happened, Carmen.”

  “Just listen to what I’m saying. You’re a good person. You went through hell with Samantha’s death, and now you’ve got your hands full with a new wife, not to mention your brother-in-law under house arrest. If you made a mistake, own it. Not to me. This is not my business. It’s between you and Angelina.”

  I didn’t answer, but I understood what she was saying.

  “Okay, Momma’s through talking,” she said with a weak smile. “Take a walk, Abe.”

  “Thank you,” I said rising.

  “No need to thank me. Just don’t ever lie to me again.”

  “Never again,” I said. And I meant it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I smelled osso buco when I opened my front door.

  Angelina was a terrific cook, and her traditional osso buco with truffle oil risotto was absolutely my favo
rite dish in the world. I closed the door and followed my nose through the living room and toward the dining area. The lights were dimmed. Candles were burning on the table. A bottle of wine stood between two place settings. I picked it up. Empty. One of the wineglasses was missing.

  “Angelina?”

  I heard something in the living room. She was seated on the couch. The lights were so low that I’d walked right past her. I went toward her.

  “What’s the occasion?” I asked.

  She looked up at me, a glowering that turned away my kiss. Her face was red and puffy. She’d been crying. “I thought we were going to make a baby,” she said.

  Thought?

  I sat beside her. She scooted a few inches away, shaking off my attempt to put my arm around her.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She reached for the large envelope on the cocktail table in front of us. Without a word, refusing to even look at me, she handed it to me. I didn’t need to open it to know what was inside.

  “This is not what it looks like,” I said.

  Her eyes refused to meet mine. “There are dates on the photographs, Abe. It was after we were married. I was your wife.”

  The emphasis on I was telling; somehow, Samantha was to blame. “Angelina, I promise you that nothing happened.”

  She swallowed the rest of her wine, and her unsteady effort to put the empty glass on the cocktail table ended with a shatter. “Shit!” she said, rising, but she fell right back onto the couch. An entire bottle of wine was way beyond her limit.

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  She pushed herself up from the couch. I tried to help her stand, or at least keep her from falling onto the table, but she shooed my hand away.

  “Angelina, please—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Abe.”

  She crossed the room, ambling in the general direction of the hallway, even staggering a bit. I followed tentatively, then stopped when she wheeled and stared me down.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Your dinner is ready.”