Licensed to Thrill: Volume 1

by Diane Capri

  All except Trey. I felt better that there was never anything I could have done for Trey.

  What I remember as the beginning was Mother’s Day. The day I met Trey’s son.

  I’d like to claim that I walked into the unexpected party with a sense of tragedy that belied Tampa’s beautiful spring afternoon, but really I was only feeling slightly out of sorts. I had envisioned a quiet interlude drinking lemonade and eating watercress sandwiches on Kate Colombo’s shady garden patio. The reality was quite different.

  When I arrived at her home, the driveway was full of cars, and street parking was as scarce as an innocent felon. After circling the block several times, I had finally given up and parked six blocks away in the garage on South Rome in Olde Hyde Park Village.

  Sunshine and temperatures in the low eighties, along with the promise of a casual brunch, had convinced me to forego my usual comfortable clothes in favor of a sundress and sandals with high heels for the short drive along the Bayshore and into Hyde Park.

  Act in haste, repent at leisure, I chastised myself—at the time only for my wardrobe—as I hiked my way back to Kate’s. My feet hurt and I’d begun to glow by the time I had walked from the parking garage in my foolish heels, under sunshine more sweltering with each step. The fashionably big spring hat I’d set on my head before I left home only made me feel hotter, despite my ultra short haircut. Once back at Kate’s, I looked around for a place to stash the beastly thing.

  The day continued to surprise me. Instead of a quiet afternoon, I’d blundered into an all-out party, consisting mostly of Kate’s new husband’s fashionable young friends. I saw messy, spiked hair in colors Mother Nature never intended. Tight, black leather miniskirts and belly shirts barely covered lithe bodies standing in every corner. Multiple piercings and tattoos made the guests resemble hip magazine tableaus not found in my social circle. I felt off balance, old and oddly out of place in Kate’s home, one of the few spots where I usually felt completely welcome and at ease.

  Maybe, thirteen years after I lost my too-young mother to cancer, I should have been able to deal with her loss more effectively. Perhaps I should have developed a personal philosophy about her death that allowed me to go on with my life. I was thirty-nine years old, but I still felt like a gawky and exposed sixteen-year-old on Mother’s Day. A calm afternoon with Kate usually helped, but it was not to be.

  As I made my way around Kate’s crowded house, I was thinking a lot about Mom. The familiar vivid nightmare that reprised the night she died had visited me again in the last hours before dawn that morning. Lingering unease clung to my body like the smell of lilacs that accompanied the dream. I was especially attuned to missing mothers. Or maybe I only think so now, in retrospect, as I try to sort out the events that followed.

  “That’s Wilhelmina Carson. The flamboyant judge your brother was raving about last week,” I heard a short brunette say about me to her companion, as I made my way through the crowd around the punch bowl in the dining room.

  I stopped for a cup of the fruity liquid and glanced surreptitiously at the speaker. Raving, hmmm? That could be a compliment. I used the hydrangea printed cocktail napkin to wipe my upper lip and dab at my brow. Threading my way through one pretty young thing after another, more males than females, I eventually made it to the back of the house. At the patio door, I looked for Kate and in a minute spotted her.

  Kate was standing with her new husband, Leo Colombo, on the backyard patio, which was surrounded by her wild English garden. She wore a royal blue silk dress that matched her twinkling eyes and took years off her age. Kate looked relaxed and happy, as the two of them talked with some of their guests. Leo’s boyish chin was outlined by a ridiculous black goatee I hadn’t seen before. Dark, sultry eyes and wavy black hair were the stock-in-trade of the successful Italian model he had been years before Kate married him and moved him halfway around the world.

  “What a hottie he is! They look so happy together, don’t they?” the punch bowl brunette lisped to her friend, around the stud in her tongue. They moved past me at the threshold, and into the backyard. Hottie? Where do these words come from?

  “Leo told me that he and Kate are soul mates. How romantic,” her spiky-haired chum with the nose ring sighed, causing the butterfly tattoo on her cheek to bat its wings.

  I’d seen Kate very little since she had returned home from Italy a few weeks ago and I missed her. We used to talk almost daily before she married Leo. Now, she talked to him instead. But Kate had invited me to her home for brunch on Mother’s Day, as usual. I’ve spent every Mother’s Day with Kate since her best friend, my mother, died and Kate became the woman I loved like a mother. A new husband, hottie or not, couldn’t change that.

  Kate saw me then and waved me over. “Willa, darling,” she said, as I bent down to receive her kiss on my cheek and allowed her to take my arm. She paused to introduce me to the other man standing with her and Leo. “This is Leo’s great friend, Harris Steam.”

  I see now—that’s where the real trouble started.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “REALLY? YOU’RE HARRIS STEAM? It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” I said as I pumped his hand, trying not to sound like an overly enthusiastic admirer, even though I was.

  Harris Steam was a local pop star who’d had a few hit songs that made it to the top of the charts. In the fickle way of the music business, he had since faded from the national scene, but that hadn’t made a dent in his local popularity. His fans here were rabid and faithful. His relaxed style of music combined a little reggae, a little folk, a little foolishness, and a lot of guitars. Think Jimmy Buffett, but with not as much success, or national fame.

  Harris, slightly taller than my five feet eleven inches, was probably in his mid-thirties, a few years younger than me, although his music style appealed to a somewhat older audience. He looked like a wavehead, as they say in North Florida—a dim-witted “surfer dude” from the old beach movies that rerun sometimes on late night television.

  Wraparound silver-framed sunglasses with reflective blue lenses hid his eyes, which were almost level with mine. Harris wore a wrinkled red Hawaiian shirt with the tails hanging outside his unpressed green shorts. His shoes were the popular Teva sandals that resemble a tire tread strapped loosely to the feet.

  But the smile made his relaxed appearance irrelevant. The display of ivory was a genuine toothpaste commercial, complete with sparkles and it was more infectious than a virus. I felt it spread to my face and stay there.

  “I’ve never met you before, but I owe you a debt of gratitude,” I said as I told Harris about the fateful effect he’d had on my decision to become a Tampa resident.

  On the day I resolved to leave my Michigan law practice and move to Florida, I was sitting in a blinding snowstorm in the middle of April. I’d been practically parked on the interstate for over three hours, moving toward my office at a snail’s pace in the dirty grey snow and snarled traffic. I was lost in thought about the choice to be made because my husband had unexpectedly inherited an historic old home down in Tampa. Should we move? Not?

  “Paradise Living,” one of Harris Steam’s most popular songs, came on the radio at that exact moment: Warm days, hot nights, cool breeze, bright lights; February paradise.

  The song and its message penetrated my brain in one of those “aha!” moments that make irrational decisions seemingly easy. I remembered there were places in the world where it doesn’t snow in April, where the sun shines year round and the blue skies beckon, where I’d never sit in traffic for three hours on the way to work.

  Like the song that accompanied my first kiss and the one that played when my husband proposed, “Paradise Living” was forever embedded in my psyche.

  “The rest, as they say, is history. We’ve been living in paradise ever since and never looked back,” I finished the tale—to smiles all around the small group.

  “If not for ‘Paradise Living,’ we’d be having this conversation in Detroit,” Kate added, c
ausing Leo to shudder at the very idea. Detroit is a great place for hockey teams and ethnic food, his wrinkled nose conveyed, but not for hottie Italian models.

  Harris removed his sunglasses to reveal hazel eyes and an earnest expression and focused on me as if I was the only person on the planet right at that moment.

  “An artist always hopes his work will bring pleasure to his fans,” he said. “If I can really make a difference, improve someone’s life in a meaningful way, well, then I’ve really succeeded. I’ve heard many stories just like yours and it’s good to know that my songs reach people on such a visceral level.”

  The words themselves resembled a line he might use to pick up women in a bar, but he came off more like a spiritual advisor. He continued to talk about how his music had changed the world and he shared his plans for the future. Although he looked like a punch-drunk wavehead, he was a serious man with serious goals.

  I could easily understand how Kate and Leo could have become so attracted to him. Harris Steam was definitely more than just a pretty face with a pleasant voice. Just meeting him brightened my day and made me want to listen to his music.

  Eventually, the four of us walked through the buffet line and moved over to the patio table. During a brief lull in the conversation, I had the chance to ask Kate the question that had popped into my mind when I couldn’t find a parking space out front. “Why do you have so many people here today?”

  Harris answered for her. “Kate and Leo were kind enough to host a Motherless Day party. For those who have no family to share the day with.” The unexpected words hit my stomach with a force like a blow. Motherless. Me, too, and I didn’t need to be reminded. “Pretty nice of them, don’t you think?” His words were genuine, his tone wistful. I sensed great sadness in his life, but maybe I was projecting a little of my own uneasy feelings.

  Knowing my history, Kate explained more gently, “Just about everyone here is alone today. Including Leo. His kids are with their mom in Italy and he was missing them. So we decided to have this party to perk him up.”

  Another surprise. And not a welcome one. What kids? I thought, as I looked over at Leo, who nodded at Kate’s words, to show, indeed, he needed cheering up.

  “Suits me perfectly,” Harris put in, turning to take Kate’s hand, the one Leo wasn’t holding.

  “How so?” I asked, realizing I had to say something and trying to get past the shock of learning that Leo had children of his own, in Italy or anywhere else.

  I’d been worried for Kate since I first met Leo Colombo and this piece of unwelcome news would only complicate their relationship further. I didn’t believe Leo was actually in love with Kate. As dear as she is to me, she was close to twice his age and if the punch bowl brunette was to be believed, Leo was such a hottie that he could have any number of women more suitable for him.

  I didn’t believe Leo and I didn’t trust him.

  Harris looked down at the ground, a slight red blush creeping up his neck to his cheeks. “My girls are with my ex-wife and my mother is in prison,” he replied, quietly, as if he was embarrassed to say so, but had no choice. At the time, I thought it odd that he would share such personal information, but in less than two seconds, Leo cleared that up.

  “Yes, Willa,” Leo said, jumping right in with his characteristic impetuosity. “Kate and I told Harris you’d be willing to help him get his mother out. Will you do it?”

  I was still preoccupied with Leo’s children and not paying as close attention to the conversation as I should have been. How could Leo be a parent, I thought. He was childlike himself. “Do what?” I asked absently.

  “You do that kind of stuff all the time. Look at all that trouble George was in and you fixed it.” I glared at him, to no effect. Leo apparently did not know the meaning of the word tact. He’d orchestrated this scenario so that Harris Steam and I would feel some sort of kinship, I supposed.

  How like Leo to think that having a loved one wrongly accused of murder would be a bonding experience for two perfect strangers. If I hadn’t been so appalled that he would mention George’s unfortunate experience in front of Harris Steam, I might have been a little quicker to understand what was being asked of me.

  Some time ago, my husband had been arrested for the murder of a United States Supreme Court nominee because of his political connections to the nominee’s enemies. No one who knew George would seriously consider him a murderer, but the charges had threatened our marriage and George’s misplaced sense of chivalry had nearly destroyed it.

  George thought he needed to protect me from the scandal and I thought he needed to participate actively in finding the real killer. We’d separated for a time over it. To save my way of life, I had taken matters into my own hands and discovered the identity of the killer. Still, it wasn’t the kind of thing I discussed with casual acquaintances at garden parties and Leo shouldn’t have brought it up.

  After my experience with George, I can hardly go to public events without being barraged with requests for help of all kinds from people who find themselves caught up in the legal system. I get calls and letters all the time, too. Even among my friends and colleagues, there are many who urge me to investigate and solve every murder committed in Tampa.

  “You must help Harris get his mother out of prison,” Leo repeated, “You have to do it.”

  Because she knows how I feel about people pushing their problems on me, I was surprised and a little hurt that Kate would allow Leo to do this to me in her home. I tried to hide the growing anger I felt toward both of them for putting me in such an outrageous predicament.

  “Harris, I don’t think I can help you,” I said gently. “I’m a United States District Court judge, which is more than a full-time job. Besides, I’m prohibited from offering legal or financial help in cases now that I’m a judge. I’m supposed to avoid any circumstance that would even appear to influence my judicial conduct or judgment.”

  A federal judge can be criminally prosecuted although even when that happens, it doesn’t automatically remove us from office. Still, just because something can be done, doesn’t mean it should be done. There were ethical rules that judges should live by and I tried to give him the practical and the ethical excuses together, so that he would politely back down.

  I expected him to say, “Of course, I understand. Please forgive me for asking.” Then, I’d let Kate and Leo have the full force of my displeasure another time. And it might have worked, if Leo had kept quiet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “OH, YOU DO THIS sort of thing all the time, Willa. You can free Billie Jo. I know you can,” Leo continued to push me.

  I wanted to throttle him. But I don’t actually keep my nose out of situations where my help is truly needed, and both Kate and Leo knew it. Sometimes, I do accept these challenges, when I see an injustice that I think is appropriate for me to resolve. That’s why everyone keeps asking. I figure I’m the best arbiter of what will improperly influence me or my decisions, which is not much.

  The truth is that I’m going to get criticized for whatever I do, so I might as well do what I think is right. What good is being appointed for life if you can’t follow your own conscience once in a while? So far, no one had tried to have me impeached for improper conduct and I didn’t believe I’d done anything to warrant such an action. Indeed, I’d have fewer problems with my colleagues if I allowed them to coerce me.

  But this was the first time I’d ever been asked to help free a convicted felon. Freeing criminals is more than a little bit out of my league and it would require much more time than I could reasonably take away from my work. Besides, the chances that Harris’s mother was wrongfully convicted were slim. Despite popular fiction, innocent people don’t get convicted all that often.

  I began to try to extricate myself from the situation as politely as possible. I must have known about his mother’s conviction, but until Harris raised it, I had forgotten.

  “Why is your mother in prison?” I asked, thinking that m
ore facts would provide me with a legitimate way to politely refuse his request, as I do most of the others I receive that are no less deserving.

  “She was tried and convicted for killing my father, back in ’72,” he answered. “But she didn’t kill him. She was just a convenient defendant.”

  Sure, I thought. That’s what they all say. I’ve rarely met a defendant who admitted guilt. The accuseds’ strongest defense is: deny, deny, deny. Even after they’re convicted, many inmates continue to protest their innocence and their families try hard to believe them. This was nothing new.

  In any case, it’s very difficult to prove the police have the wrong suspect after he’s arrested. Most police departments do a good and thorough job of investigating homicide. The Tampa Police Department was no different.

  So long after the murder was committed, it’s nearly impossible to demonstrate that the entire judicial system had completely failed. Especially when a convicted murderer has already served three decades. I, for one, find some comfort in the knowledge that we’ve all done our jobs.

  Most of the time, those of us charged with administering justice do it right.

  I must have looked as skeptical about his mother’s innocence as I felt because Harris put down his fork and leaned closer to me across the table.

  “I know what you’re thinking. But you’ve never met my mom. She wouldn’t kill anyone. She certainly couldn’t have killed my father. She loved him.” His desperation was plainly apparent, but was he right? Or was he just a child who wanted his mother back? That, I could understand only too well. “We’ve got to get her out of prison before she dies there.”

  “You mean she’s on death row?” I asked. If so, I could appropriately refuse his request. Attempting to free a death row inmate was more than a full-time occupation. I didn’t have the expertise to do anything that complicated, or the time to learn how to do the job, even if I had been convinced that I should get involved.