Legally Dead

by Edna Buchanan

  “I started packing but wanted to let you know that I’m going tomorrow.”

  “I should go with you,” he said.

  She shook her head. “We both know you should stay out of New York for a time. And Sidney would be even angrier if you were involved. He’s always been jealous of you. I’ll handle it.”

  On the way to Miami International Airport the next morning, Venturi said, “The last three people I dropped off at the airport won’t be back. Promise that’s not the case with you.”

  She smiled. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  He took her as far as security allowed.

  He’d been elated to see the others fly out of his life. This departure was painful.

  Her last words to him were, “Please see more of Keri. She’s a wonderful girl. Do me a favor, take her out to lunch, or a romantic dinner.”

  He called Keri later. Harried, with pregnant women lined up in her waiting room, she was too busy for lunch. She’d love dinner.

  She wore blue, with high heels and sparkly earrings. But her pager sounded shortly after they ordered. She rolled her eyes and made the call.

  “How far apart are the contractions?” he heard her ask. “You’re sure? Okay, take her to the hospital now. I’ll meet you there. Don’t worry. I’m on the way.

  “I’m so sorry,” she told Venturi.

  He hailed their waiter. “Can you wrap that to go?” He nodded toward Keri. “A doctor. She just got paged. It’s an emergency.”

  “That’s not necessary,” she whispered, as the people at the next table stared, engrossed by the drama.

  “Sure it is. Sooner or later you will be hungry. If all goes well, you’ll be ravenous.”

  In ten minutes, they were in his car with their carefully wrapped meals. He drove directly to the hospital and insisted they would dine together no matter how late.

  “It could be an hour or two, or twelve or twenty, we don’t know.”

  “That’s all right. You promised to have dinner with me and I’m holding you to it, even if we wind up eating shrimp scampi for breakfast.”

  She laughed. “You’re a stubborn man, Mikey.”

  He did a double take. “Mikey?”

  “Sorry. I’ve heard Victoria call you that and thought it was all right.”

  Only two people had ever used that name. She was the third.

  As they parked near the emergency room, a familiar sound, a low-flying helicopter pounding the air overhead, sent him back in time. It was about to land at the trauma center.

  “Reminds me of the military,” he said.

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “The trauma center’s full of military personnel, surgeons, registered nurses, and medics, training to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. We have more than four thousand major traumas a year, gunshot and knife wounds, burns, blunt trauma, and the sort of chaos they’ll see on the battlefield. Miami’s the perfect place to train for war.”

  Inside the ER, the anxious father-to-be, a short, middle-aged man wearing a guayabera, rushed toward them.

  He saw Venturi and how Keri was dressed. “Sorry to ruin your evening, Doctor.”

  “Not at all.” She turned to introduce them, but Venturi simply signaled her to call him and faded into the background as the flustered man directed her to a curtained cubicle.

  For the second consecutive night a woman woke him in the wee hours.

  “A girl,” she said softly. “A little early, a little jaundiced, but beautiful. Mother and baby are fine. The father fainted in the delivery room, but he’ll be okay, too.”

  “The guy actually passed out?”

  “Not unusual,” she said. “It’s relatively common.”

  She sounded happy and excited. So did he.

  “I’ll pick you up in twenty.” He rolled out of bed naked, this time without a gun.

  “Are you sure? It’s so late. Maybe we should take a rain check. I can take a taxi home.”

  “No way.”

  “Okay, I just have to check the baby’s footprint and sign the birth certificate. I’ll meet you outside.”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Things get crazy outside an emergency room after midnight. If I can’t find you, I’ll have you paged.”

  He warmed up their meals, nestled a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in an ice-filled cooler, and drove to the hospital.

  She was waiting. “Come on,” she said eagerly. “I want you to see her.”

  She took him to the third-floor nursery.

  “There she is. Right down in front.”

  Asleep, tiny fists clenched, her mouth puckered, she wore a pink ribbon in her soft downy hair. A pink knitted skull cap kept the back of her head warm.

  “Isn’t she precious?”

  “Nice work,” he said approvingly.

  “Well, I’m not a hundred percent responsible,” she conceded. “Mom and Dad had something to do with it.”

  She seemed giddy in the car. He’d never heard her talk so much.

  “I was so elated for the couple we will never mention. Now this.” Her long sigh was contented. “It’s the same feeling. A fresh start. Delivering new life.”

  “Life,” he said, “is what it’s all about.” He turned toward the marina. He had borrowed the keys to Danny’s boat, docked downtown.

  “I’m starved, Michael. Where’s my dinner?”

  He wondered if she’d ever call him Mikey again.

  She did. Under the stars, out on the water, then again on a blanket on the sandy beach of an offshore island in the bay. From a distance came the sound of drums, gut-quivering rhythms, and the African soul of Cuban rumba. Voices calling and responding, hypnotic sounds heard in secret Santería ceremonies. The moon sailed across a velvet sky; the lights of the city begin to dim. The music did not fade until the first soft blush of dawn in the east.

  “I have to be at the office in a few hours,” she said sleepily.

  She was awake and alert, her hand resting lightly on his thigh, as he drove her home. “I have just enough time to shower and dress but I’m not even tired. I’m still high on the last forty-eight hours. I feel great.”

  “Tell me that about four o’clock this afternoon.” He kissed her. “You’ll be cursing my name.”

  “I don’t think so,” she sang sweetly.

  At home, he listened to several messages from the other woman in his life.

  She was neither content nor happy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “The damage is far worse than I expected,” Vicki said later. “I can’t even sleep in my own apartment. Sidney jammed the toilets, turned on all the faucets full blast, and flooded the entire place.

  “I went to see him at Riker’s Island this morning. It was awful.”

  Venturi winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “I wanted to hear his explanation or apology. He had no intention of offering either. He was delighted to see me, thought I’d post his bond and hire him an attorney. You can’t say the boy doesn’t have chutzpah. He asked, then demanded, then threatened, then pleaded and threatened some more. I made it clear he’s an adult and owns the pink slip on his life. He can go on driving, but I’m not buying the gas, changing the oil, or paying for repairs.”

  “Good for you, Vicki. What’s next?”

  “I intend to prosecute. I’m meeting with the assistant district attorney tomorrow.”

  He gave his mother-in-law a silent thumbs-up.

  “In the meantime, I’m considering a rather drastic life change.” She paused.

  “Don’t tell you’re eloping with that jazz musician you were seeing last fall.”

  She laughed, despite the pain in her voice. “You know I like to stay too busy to dwell on the past. The business is my baby. I built it, worked hard, and it’s been fun. But I’m tired of it now. At this point in life, I find projects such as the ones we recently tackled far more fulfilling.

  “I’m mulling over a few ideas, but set nothing into motion, of course, until speaking to you.” />
  “What kind of ideas?”

  She took a deep breath. “I hope you don’t think me irrational.” The words tumbled out. “But after twenty-four hours back in this city, I’m seriously considering relocating, putting my apartment on the market. I’d sell the business, of course. I’ve had a number of nibbles, inquiries and offers in the past, when I wasn’t ready.”

  “Relocate to where?”

  “Where would you suggest?”

  It wasn’t like her to answer a question with a question.

  “Here, where else?”

  Her sigh of relief was audible. “I’d find a place of my own,” she said quickly, “a condo or a town house. I don’t want you stuck with a crazy mother-in-law on your hands.”

  Yes! he thought. “Listen to me, woman,” he said emphatically. “Go see the DA, call a good Realtor, get references. See who might be interested in the business, then get yourself on the next flight home.”

  “Home?”

  “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “Okay, Mikey. Love you.”

  “Ditto.”

  “By the way,” she added, “I called you very late. Your cell was off and you weren’t home.”

  “I followed your advice and took a doctor to dinner.”

  “It took all night?”

  “We can talk about that later.”

  He divulged no details, but she heard the smile in his voice.

  He was napping when Keri called that afternoon at four o’clock. She was not cursing his name.

  Then Danny called, sounding serious. “What’s up, bro? You asleep?”

  “Trying.”

  “It’s five in the afternoon, man. That means you scored big last night! I want every detail.”

  “Like crap.”

  “Had to be hot.”

  “Yeah. We went to the hospital and she delivered a baby girl.”

  “You know, man,” Danny said, clearly disappointed, “you’ve been alone too long. You forgot how to have a hot time, if you ever knew.”

  “You ever pass out in the delivery room, Danny?”

  “Hell, no. I cut the umbilical cord myself every time—with my teeth.”

  “Thanks for use of the boat, you sick bastard, and for telling me about that island beach.”

  “You’re welcome. Listen, I called for a reason. It’s important. We’ve got a new client.”

  Venturi sat up in bed. “What the hell you talking about?”

  “Can’t discuss it on the teléfono.”

  “Damn straight. Where are you?”

  “Pulling into your driveway.”

  They took a few beers to the war room.

  “If we don’t take this new client, she’s dead. For real,” Danny said.

  “She?”

  “You remember Judge Solange Dupree?”

  “Read about her, sure, the Louisiana judge whose family was murdered last year.”

  “Not murdered. Executed. Slaughtered. Her mother, her husband, and her little twin boys. They haven’t released it to the media yet, but there’s been a second attempt to kill her. Yesterday, as she left the courthouse. For obvious reasons she now has a car and a driver. The driver, an off-duty cop, was on a break when she was ready to leave her chambers. Normally, he escorts her to her car, but she was in a hurry and said she’d meet him in the parking garage.

  “He heads for the car on foot, sees her step off the elevator, then spots something under the car.

  “He gets her out of the garage fast and calls for help.”

  “A bomb?”

  “You got it. The bomb squad successfully defused it, after a few hairy moments. All the media knows is a bomb scare at the courthouse. But the truth is bound to leak out soon. It was the real deal.

  “Sophisticated, radio-controlled, enough C-4 plastique explosives to take out the car, the street under it, and God knows how many passing pedestrians.”

  “Close call.”

  “Third time will probably be the charm.”

  “Her security must be supertight now,” Venturi said.

  “A lotta good that’ll do. The people who want her dead are in it for the long haul. You know how our people drop their guard as time goes by. The bad guys have long memories. Ours are short. Too short. She’ll be protected for a while, but if we don’t step in, she’s dead.”

  Venturi remembered the case well. Dupree had presided over the trial of a major Colombian drug kingpin. The defendant didn’t want a jury. He chose to have the judge decide his fate. She proceeded with the highly publicized trial, convicted him on all counts, and sentenced him to consecutive life terms with no prospect of parole.

  After death threats, police posted a manned patrol car outside her home. But after several months and budget cuts, the car was gone and Judge Dupree’s protection was reduced to a patrol car passing her house at least once a shift, if not too busy with other calls.

  One Saturday shortly after dawn, Judge Dupree broke from her usual weekend routine and left the house alone for an early-morning jog. She enjoyed the spring weather, the rare sense of freedom, and the chance to stretch her legs, she said later.

  She’d be back in time for breakfast with her still-sleeping family.

  When she returned, emergency vehicles ringed her home. Police were restraining the press and stringing yellow crime-scene tape.

  Homicide detectives were surprised to see her alive.

  Her mother, her college-professor husband, and their children, three-year-old boys, had all been shot in the head execution-style. Her husband was slumped at the kitchen table in his bathrobe, an untouched cup of coffee and the morning newspaper in front of him. Her mother was killed in her own bed. The children’s bodies were found in an upstairs hallway as though they’d been caught scampering from their room after hearing noises.

  Police had not yet searched the entire scene but assumed that the judge was also dead, or abducted. Solange Dupree was the sole survivor. All she loved was lost, all but her work.

  After the funeral, she returned to the bench, stoic and dedicated, and under heavy guard. The murder investigation stalled. Only one thing was clear. Her days were numbered.

  “She’s not safe anywhere in the world.” Danny paced the room, cracking his knuckles. He seemed unusually agitated about a stranger’s fate.

  “I get the impression that this won’t be your first hello if we get involved with the judge,” Venturi said.

  Danny glanced over his shoulder as though fearing he’d be overheard. “Yeah. I know her.” His expression, body language, and tone of voice gave his words a singular significance.

  “How?”

  “Your ears only?”

  Venturi nodded.

  “I infiltrated an outfit that was running drugs, money, and guns out of Uruguay. They moved the money to buy the guns, which provided protection for the drugs.

  “For reasons I won’t bore you with, the case wound up in federal court in Louisiana. I couldn’t testify in open court, because officially I was never there. I didn’t exist. The government filed a sealed document requesting an in-camera proceeding that excluded the defense attorneys. Judge Solange Dupree presided.”

  “That’s all?”

  Danny turned to stare out a window at the sun-dappled canal behind the house. “She wasn’t married yet, although I think she was seeing that college professor. I wasn’t married, either.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me…”

  Danny quickly took the seat opposite him. “There’s something about her, Mike. She’s beautiful, sensitive, smart as hell, loves the law, the flag, justice, all that shit. She’s like us.

  “First time I saw her I wondered, fantasized, about what she had going on under that black robe. When I found out, it totally outdid my imagination. She has a tattoo. Believe it? Probably the only U.S. District Court judge with a tattoo around her ankle, a chain with a little red heart dangling from it.

  “I swear, it was pure animal magnetism. Nothing else was p
ossible. Me, a CIA spook, for God’s sake. With a damn federal court judge.”

  He read Venturi’s expression.

  “So we had a little thing. Very brief. Very hot. Okay, okay. Dangerous, totally unethical, conduct unbecoming. Might have messed up the entire case. But we weren’t stupid. We made sure nobody knew, just us.

  “They’ll kill her, Mike. She doesn’t deserve it.”

  Danny’s words did not make Venturi as uncomfortable as did their intensity.

  “She sounds stand-up, like she’s toughing it out, sending the bad guys a message. She might not be interested.” He fervently hoped she wouldn’t be.

  Danny shook his head adamantly. “We’re her only chance.”

  “With somebody that high profile and federal government connected, it would be next to impossible to pull off without a body.”

  “You want a body, we’ll get a body!” Danny said hotly. His energy filled the room as, back on his feet, he began to pace again, unable to contain his anger and anxiety.

  “The reason we’ve succeeded so far is because we had no links, no emotional connections to the clients,” Venturi said calmly. “Emotions create problems.”

  “You’re worried about me?” Danny jabbed his chest savagely with his thumb. “Nobody’s more professional. Besides,” he said, voice raised, “I’m married. With kids. How do you think I feel when I look at them and think about what happened to hers?” He sighed. “Look, I don’t even have to see her. I’ll work under the radar. You can handle it.”

  “How do we reach out to her, without her bodyguards, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office recording the conversation? She must be superinsulated. How do you penetrate that? She’s not picking up her own phone, answering her door, or shopping at the mall.”

  “She has a private number, a safe line, in her office.”

  “How do you know, after all this time? And if so, how do you know she’s not sharing it with the FBI?”

  Danny took a deep breath and gave it up. “Because she picked it up when I called. We talked. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met, yet she heard my voice and started to cry. She’s so ready to be out of there, Mike. Her brave facade is crumbling. She has nothing left. She won’t look back.