Blood Money

by James Grippando

  “What do you know about Rene Fenning?”

  “I know I don’t want to end up like her. And I’m guessing you don’t want to, either. So you take off your FBI hat, you have a nice talk with your fiancé, and you tell him that when Sydney Bennett calls him, he better listen. You got it?”

  “Sydney—” she started to say, but Andie could tell she wasn’t there.

  Andie put her cell down. Max came to her and put his head on her leg, seeming to sense her stress.

  “Yup,” said Andie, rubbing his neck. “I think we got it, all right.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Whoa,” said Theo. “She is hot, hot, hot.”

  Jack was waiting with him outside the Patti & Alan Herbert Wellness Center on the University of Miami campus. A creek and rocky ravine circled the center like a castle moat, and the narrow footbridge over it was the only access to the main entrance—which made the bench at the end of the bridge a prime viewing spot for the endless stream of co-eds on the way to or from a workout. The clingy black spandex left little to the imagination.

  “Down, boy,” said Jack. “She’s probably twenty years old.”

  “And your point is . . . ?”

  Jack didn’t even try to explain. For more years than he cared to admit, beautiful twenty-year-old women had been mere girls to him.

  “I mean, dude, it’s not like I said I want to buy her a bottle of vodka or go vote with her.”

  “Theo, I get it. And by the way, you don’t have to be twenty-one to vote. It’s eighteen.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since before you were born.”

  “So she could vote to have sex with me.”

  Jack massaged that aching spot between his eyes. “You know, it’s a good thing only half the things you say are serious, or we just couldn’t be friends.”

  “It’s not that half the things I say are serious. It’s everything I say is half serious. There’s a difference.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Well . . . half.”

  Jack kept an eye on the main door. It had taken several phone calls from Celeste Laramore’s father, but Celeste’s roommate had finally agreed to talk to Jack. The plan was to meet outside the wellness center.

  “That’s her,” said Jack.

  “Whoa. She is totally—”

  “Quit,” Jack told him.

  Jenna Smith seemed to recognize Jack as she crossed the bridge. She was dressed like all the other young women on parade, though it was impossible not to notice that she spent a few more hours a week in the gym than most. Her hair was in a ponytail. De rigueur, a cell phone was in her hand.

  “Hi, I’m Jenna.”

  She extended her free hand, and Jack shook it. “Nice to meet you, Jenna. This is—”

  “Theo Knight,” he said, “head of voter registration.”

  “What?”

  “Ignore him,” said Jack. “Thanks for meeting with us.”

  She nodded once, more acquiescence than enthusiasm. “Mr. Laramore said it was important.”

  “It is,” said Jack. He led her to a picnic table beneath a stand of palm trees where they could talk. She laid her pink workout bag on the bench beside her and placed her cell phone on the table in front of her. Jack and Theo sat opposite her, the afternoon sun warm on their backs.

  “How is Celeste doing?” asked Jenna.

  Jack wasn’t sure how to answer. “We’re still hopeful.”

  “That’s the same thing Mr. Laramore told me.” Her phone chime sounded like a bicycle bell. She glanced at a new text from someone and quickly thumb-typed a response. “He also said you wanted to talk about the night Celeste got hurt.”

  “Right,” said Jack. “I watched a recording of your interview on TV. You told Faith Corso that you and Celeste had just come from a Sydney Bennett look-alike contest. Of course, now we all know there was no such contest.”

  “And you want to know why I lied.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” said Jack.

  She glanced at Theo. “Is he a cop?”

  “Him? No. He’s my investigator. You can talk freely.”

  Jenna drew a breath. “I lied because . . . well, because that was the story Celeste gave me.”

  “Say that again,” said Jack.

  “We went out that night, and she looked so much like Sydney Bennett it was freaky. She said we were going to a look-alike contest on South Beach. I say, ‘Okay, cool.’ Then she started driving and I say, ‘Hey, aren’t you going the wrong way?’”

  “What did Celeste say?”

  “She says, ‘Jenna, can you keep a secret?’ I say ‘Of course.’ And then she tells me that there’s no contest. That we’re going to the women’s detention center.”

  “Did she say why?”

  She shifted nervously. “She said she was getting paid a thousand bucks just to be in the crowd, act like Sydney, and get on television.”

  “Didn’t she realize how dangerous that could be?”

  “Well, we knew people were a little crazy about this trial, but most of them were, you know, women who like a good soap opera. We didn’t think anyone would be crazy enough to hurt her. And this was a thousand dollars, for like an hour’s work. Celeste really needed money. Her dad lost his job, so she was getting no help from home.”

  “I’m very aware of that,” said Jack, thinking of the health insurance problem. “But back up a second. I’m still not sure why you lied to Faith Corso. Why did you tell her you had just come from a look-alike contest?”

  “I was scared. I wasn’t sure if what Celeste did was illegal. She lied to me, so I figured she was covering up something. It wasn’t up to me to blow any whistles on her. We were BFFs. I went with her story. I mean, like I said, she asked if I could keep a secret.”

  “Do you know who paid her the thousand dollars?”

  “No idea. She never told me.”

  “Do you know if she got the money? Or was she supposed to get paid afterward?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know.” Jenna’s phone chimed again, and she checked it. “My friend’s getting tired of waiting. Is there anything else?”

  “Actually, yes,” said Jack. “Celeste’s dad e-mailed me some photographs of Celeste—about a half dozen or so from high school to the present.” He pulled them up on his iPhone, showing them to her.

  “So?”

  “I’m struck by the transformation,” said Jack. “She cut her hair. Changed the style. Darkened the color. The makeup got more noticeable. She seemed to favor tighter clothing. It seems like, over time, she was looking more and more like Sydney Bennett.”

  She scrolled through the pictures. “I can see your point. But what of it?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you,” said Jack. “Did you ever have a conversation about that? Was it something she was consciously trying to do?”

  “I don’t know about that. I mean, she was definitely interested in the case. More than most people I know, anyway.”

  “When you say ‘the case,’ do you mean the trial? Or was she interested before the trial?”

  “Before.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not sure. She had a criminal-justice class she was taking. I figured it was that. She even went and talked to Sydney’s lawyer, the guy before you.”

  Jack did a double take. “Neil Goderich?”

  “I don’t know his name. The guy who died.”

  “That’s Neil,” said Jack. “Celeste met with him? Do you know why?”

  “Not really. Like I said, she had that class she was taking. Or maybe she wanted a job. Working for a lawyer is lot more interesting than flipping burgers.”

  “When did they talk?”

  “Six months ago, maybe.”

  Jenna’s phone chimed again. Another text from her workout buddy. “I really have to go,” she said, rising.

  Jack and Theo rose. “You’ve been helpful, thanks,” said Jack.

  “No problem,” said J
enna.

  Jack and Theo stayed at the table as she crossed the bridge to the main entrance and disappeared inside the wellness center.

  “I take it you didn’t know she met with Neil,” said Theo.

  “You got that right,” said Jack.

  “What do you make of that?”

  He glanced at Theo, then back at the entrance doors. “I need to dig for some missing notes.”

  Chapter Forty

  Jack spent the rest of the afternoon at the Freedom Institute. Hannah Goldsmith met them there.

  “You gotta turn on the AC,” said Jack. A growing V of sweat pasted his shirt to his back.

  “Sorry, not on the weekends,” said Hannah. “Not in the budget.”

  Jack knew that rule. Hannah’s father had enforced it strictly up until the day he died.

  In twenty-eight years, the old house on the Miami River that was the Freedom Institute had changed little. Four lawyers shared two small bedrooms that had been converted into offices. The foyer doubled as a storage room for old case files, boxes stacked one on top of the other. The bottom ones sagged beneath the weight of denied motions for stay of execution, the box tops warped into sad smiles. Harsh fluorescent lighting showed every stain on the indoor/outdoor carpeting. The furniture screamed “flea market”—chairs that didn’t match, tables made stable with a deck of cards under one leg. The vintage sixties kitchen was not only where lawyers and staff ate their bagged lunches, but it also served as the conference room. Hanging on the wall over the coffeemaker was an old framed photograph of Bobby Kennedy. Hannah’s father had often said that it was the former attorney general who had inspired him to move on from president of the Harvard Law Review to founder of the Freedom Institute.

  “I honestly don’t know where else to look,” said Hannah.

  They’d adopted a team approach, combing through box after box of archived attorney notes. Neil had never been a computer guy, so if any notes of his conversation with Celeste Laramore existed, they would have been in hard copy. After a dozen boxes, they were empty handed.

  “I suppose it’s possible he didn’t keep any notes,” said Jack.

  “Dad always took notes,” said Hannah. “The problem is that he used everything from legal pads to toilet paper, and only he knew where he put them.”

  “It’s also possible that Celeste’s friend is dead wrong about Celeste ever having met with Neil.”

  “Before you draw that conclusion, let me call my mom,” said Hannah. “Could be some boxes at home we can check.”

  Hannah dialed. Jack went to the kitchen for a cold drink. The old refrigerator made a strange buzzing noise when he opened it. Jack silenced it with a quick kick to the side panel, the way Neil had taught him. He pulled up a chair at the table and checked in again with Andie.

  “Anything more from Sydney?” asked Jack.

  Andie had called several hours earlier and told him all about Sydney’s lecture to Andie as Jack’s fiancée, not to Andie the FBI agent.

  “Jack, really. Don’t you think I would call you if I’d heard from her again?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And the way she left it, the next call is to you, not me.”

  “Can’t wait,” said Jack.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Not sure. Just so much to do between now and Monday morning. Maybe we can do a late dinner.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Love you, ’bye.”

  Jack tucked away his phone and went back to the refrigerator. He wasn’t thirsty, but the chilly air felt good. It made him smile to recall the first time Neil had caught him cooling off in front of the open refrigerator, thwarting the no-AC-on-weekends rule. “My opposition to capital punishment has only one exception,” Neil had told him, “and you just committed it.”

  Jack walked to the living room where Hannah was giving a second look to one of her father’s boxes. Jack turned his attention to the countless plaques, awards, and framed newspaper clippings on the wall. It had been years since he’d read some of the older articles. While the newsprint had yellowed with age, the clippings still told quite a story, from Neil’s roots in civil rights litigation in the South—“Volunteer Lawyers Jailed in Mississippi”—to his role as gadfly in local politics: “Freedom Institute Lawsuit Against Miami Mayor Sparks Grand Jury Indictment.” All were impressive, but Jack’s gaze locked onto the framed article by the window with the eye-catching headline: “Groundbreaking DNA Evidence Proves Death Row Inmate Innocent.” Jack took a half step closer, reading a story he could have recited in his sleep:

  After four years in Florida State Prison for a murder he did not commit, twenty-year-old Theo Knight—once the youngest inmate on Florida’s death row—is coming home to Miami today . . .

  “Some legacy, huh?”

  Jack turned. It wasn’t Hannah. It was her mother—Neil’s widow, Sarah. She was carrying a box of Neil’s notes that she had brought from the house. Jack went to her, took the box, and gave her a warm embrace. He hadn’t seen her since the funeral.

  “How are you, Sarah?”

  “I’m doing okay,” she said.

  Hannah took the box from Jack. “I can go through this.”

  “Actually, I’m curious to see if the notes are in—”

  “Please,” said Hannah, shooing him along. “You can barely read my father’s handwriting anyway. Catch up with Mom. I can handle this. Really.”

  Jack thanked her and followed Sarah down the hallway.

  “Hot as hell in here,” said Sarah. “You been to the refrigerator yet, Jack?”

  “How did you know?”

  Sarah smiled as they entered the kitchen. She got a cold soda. Jack still had his.

  “I spoke with your fiancée,” said Sarah.

  “You spoke to Andie?” he said.

  “Do you have another fiancée?”

  “No. I’m just—What did you talk about?”

  Sarah took a seat at the table. Jack joined her. “You,” she said.

  “How did this come about?”

  “We talked briefly at Neil’s funeral. I got to know her a little. But seeing all that you’re going through with the Sydney Bennett case made me want to follow up.”

  “With Andie?”

  “Yes. Why does that surprise you?”

  “For one, she didn’t mention it to me.”

  Sarah smiled like an insider. “I gave her a lot to think about. She’s probably still processing it.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She drank from her soda bottle, then seemed to shift gears. But Jack could tell it was going to tie together somehow. “Do you know how Neil and I met?”

  Jack tried to remember the eulogies. “A Grateful Dead concert?”

  She laughed. “No. It was when I was living in Mississippi. I was married to a man I’d met at Columbia. College is a great equalizer, especially when you’re young and in love. He was from Jackson, so after graduation we went there to live. We bought a little house. Got a dog. I joined the Junior League with all the other well-to-do ladies on the north side of town. The fact that I was Jewish was our little family secret. I never told anyone. Not even his parents—they knew, of course, but they could handle it so long as I was willing never to mention it. One night we were sitting in the living room watching TV. This was the summer of sixty-four. Freedom summer. President Johnson had just signed the Civil Rights Act. The SNCC—Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—was recruiting hundreds of college students to come to Mississippi and register Negro voters. I was sitting right next to my husband on the couch when that story came on the news, and he just lost it. Started railing against the effing Jew-boy lawyers coming down to change things.”

  “I presume Neil was one of them?”

  “Actually, he was. But how we rode off into the sunset in his MG Midget is another story. My real point is this: I’d been pretending for so long that I was someone I wasn’t that my own husband had forgotten who I was.
Who I am. All for the sake of a relationship. Do you know what I’m saying, Jack?”

  Jack thought back to how this conversation had started—with her remark that she’d given Andie “a lot to think about.”

  “Let me guess,” said Jack. “You’re about to tell me that I’m Sydney Bennett’s lawyer not because a judge forced me to take the case. But because this is who I am.”

  “Wow,” she said, “you’re a quick study.”

  “No, I’m not. Andie and I had this same conversation yesterday. I asked her where it came from, and she said a little birdie sang in her ear. I don’t know how you did it, but you two seem to be singing the same tune.”

  Sarah smiled thinly. “I didn’t do anything, Jack. Andie’s a smart cookie.”

  “That she is.”

  Sarah sat back in her chair, glanced around the room. “Thirty-two years ago this month, Neil and I started the Freedom Institute.”

  “That is impressive.”

  She looked at him from across the table, her expression very serious. “It’s a shame it has to close.”

  “What?”

  “We had to let Eve and Johnny go last week. That brings us down to two lawyers. I can’t run this place. I haven’t practiced law in over a decade. I’ve talked to Hannah about taking over, but that’s asking a lot of a twenty-six-year-old lawyer fresh out of law school. And to be honest with you, I’m not sure she has the passion. With Neil gone, it’s going to die.”

  “That would really be sad.”

  “Yes, it would. Because when it dies, a little corner of justice dies with it. That sounds pretty corny, doesn’t it?”

  “From anyone but you it would,” he said.

  She reached across the table and squeezed Jack’s hand. “Go home to your fiancée.”

  He nodded, rose from his chair, and kissed her good night on the cheek. He was almost to the hallway when he stopped in the doorway and turned. “Thanks for having that talk with Andie.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “But watch out. Someday I could call in that favor. You never know what I might ask for in return.”