by Mandy Miller
Getting nowhere, Reilly stands, but something she says turns him around. I back up the video and increase the volume.
“Is Mr. Sinclair going to be okay?” she asks. A ploy to suggest she had no idea Sinclair was dead? Or maybe she didn’t know he’d died at the scene? Or didn’t know if she had killed him. If she had shot him.
I suck down the rest of my drink and cue up the videos of Serena Price and Principal Bannister’s sworn statements. Serena was saying she came to Sinclair’s office for her weekly counseling appointment, scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on August 24. She says she was late “because my car got a flat tire on my way to school.”
Sorenson: “So, what time did you arrive?”
Bannister: “Around nine, maybe.”
Sorenson: “What happened next?”
“It was really dark when I opened the door. I thought maybe he’d left because he thought I wasn’t coming. I flipped on the light and—” her voice cracks. “That’s when I saw…saw…” Wailing. “There was blood everywhere. It was simply awful.”
Asked what she’d done when she found the body, Serena says, “I screamed and ran for the door, but Principal Bannister came in. She wouldn’t let me leave. I wanted out of there. I didn’t want to look at him.”
Bannister stating she’d been greeting students when screaming erupted from Sinclair’s office. “I burst in. Serena was screaming.”
Sorenson again. “What did you do next, Mrs. Bannister?”
“There were dozens of students outside, on the way to class. I didn’t want anyone else to…to see the body. I made Serena stay with me. I tried to get her to calm down, and I called 9-1-1.”
Not much more than hasn’t already been in the news, front and center for potential jurors to prejudge Zoe based on the gun. Other than Zoe’s question about Sinclair’s being okay, I have little on my side. Nothing at all to suggest Zoe’s innocent, or at least not guilty. Worst of all, nothing to create any doubt, not even an unreasonable one.
The next fifty pages are phone and text message records from Zoe’s cell phone for the six months preceding the murder. A couple of numbers repeated with great frequency identified as belonging to Gretchen and Anton. Numerous other calls to local numbers in Broward’s 954 area code, but none exceeding a minute or two in length. All short, to be expected given that kids prefer text messaging to actual talking. Manny’s niece, Rosa, once told me, “Tía Garcia, calling on the phone is so 2001.”
An onslaught of texts follows the call logs. Typical kid stuff. Meeting at the mall or the movies. Which boy is cute. Which girl is a slut. Pages and pages of teenage angst.
Jake dips his head in front of my face. “How’s it going in there?”
I rub my eyes, burning from staring at the screen. “I should ditch the shrink and the sleep meds and just read this stuff. It’s deadly.”
“So to speak.”
“Sorry, another bad choice of words. I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep at all last night.”
He leans towards me, elbows on the bar. “I was thinking maybe…”
I reread a text from Zoe’s number, (954) 555-1666 to (954) 555-1341. “its me he likes skank not u, stay away or else i warn u.” Delivered 10:45 p.m., August 22, 2009.
“Maybe you and I could—”
“Holy shit, that’s the night before Sinclair was murdered!”
Jake leaps back. “What are you—”
“That’s what Sonny was talking about when he told me to ask Zoe about the texts!”
Jake shrugs and goes back to wiping down the bar.
I run a finger down the screeds of texts on the screen until I get to the reply text from (954) 555-1341 at 10:47 p.m., August 22, 2009. “LMAO ur a real buzz kill. sexy serena is what he needs now baby”
“I’ve seen that number (954) 555-1341 somewhere.” I repeat the number out loud.
I scroll back to the witness list which includes the witnesses’ names, addresses, and phone numbers. I scan down to (954) 555-1341, beside which is the name, Serena Price.
“No way!”
“Miss, did you say something?” Moose back at my side, another cigarette behind his ear.
“Leave the lady alone,” Jake calls from the kitchen, which sends Moose back to punching buttons on the jukebox.
I toggle back to the texts.
Zoe to Serena: “he thinks ur an ugly twat leave him alone”
Serena to Zoe: “he aint got no sugar 4 u go 2 ur corner and b blue without him better die”
The oldest texts between the two girls date back to February 1, 2009, hundreds about clothes, shopping, boys, parents, going to the beach, mani-pedis. All things best friends would talk about. YouTube clips of cats.
“What is it with cats?”
Miranda emits a grumbly growl, even though she looks like she’s asleep.
So far, all standard adolescent nonsense. Then all communication ceases—nothing from August 17 until the night before the murder.
I use my phone to log onto St. Paul’s website and pull up the academic calendar. “Holy moly! August 17 was the first day of school.”
“What did you say?” Jake says, his nose propped on top of the screen to get my attention.
I bat his nose away, power down the laptop, and shove it into my backpack. “What time you closing up shop today?”
He surveys the empty bar. “Soon, I guess. Given the obvious lack of interest.”
“What about old Moose over there? Isn’t he a customer?”
“Nope. Moose never pays. Does odd jobs around here, cleans up after I close, and I pay him in liquid currency. Miller Lite, mostly.”
“It’s about time for him to earn his keep.” I hop off the bar stool. “Moose, you’re in charge.” I scoot around the bar and grab Jake by the arm, Miranda by the leash. “You two want to take a ride?”
Jake doesn’t answer, but the goofy grin is all the evidence I need that he’s a willing participant.
Miranda? She just wags her tail. It’s all a game to her.
Chapter 18
Traveling east from the Star to the coast, it strikes me that Broward County is a ghetto sandwich. To the west, the suburbs, a sprawl of cookie-cutter homes and chain stores stretching to within spitting distance of the Everglades. To the east, beyond downtown Fort Lauderdale, the beach, with its waterfront mansions and high-end condos and a dwindling number of old-timey Florida places like The Hurricane. And in the middle, the ’hood, as Vinnie calls it. Block after desolate block of dilapidated buildings, pawn shops, and desperation.
“Hey, Counselor,” Jake says. “You’re the navigator here, so navigate.”
“What?”
“Where are we going?”
“Next light, take a left.”
I stuff the crime scene photos I’ve been studying in my backpack. “Not like anyone deserves to be shot in the crotch or anything, but can you believe the dude was found behind his desk with his pants down? Not exactly what’s expected of a faculty member at an elite private school.”
“I guess,” Jake says. “But what would I know? I went to public school, and you know how much shit happens there when no one’s looking, don’t you?”
I shift in my seat.
“I forgot. You’re Miss Fancy Pants. Private school all the way.”
“Let’s get back on topic, why don’t we? You saw the wedding band.”
“So?”
“Men, you’re all the damn same.”
I check over my shoulder on Miranda.
“What’s she doing back there?” Jake asks.
“Sleeping with one eye open. Or maybe she’s awake with one eye closed. Hard to tell. One thing I can tell you is she’s listening to everything we say.”
“How can you know?”
“Take my word for it.”
Miranda emits a confirmatory woof.
Jake’s eyes widen. “Scary.”
“Next right.”
“Your theory is the wife killed him?”
“Maybe, m
aybe not, but the spouse is the obvious place to start. I know I’ve wanted to kill Manny more than once.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure he’s felt the same way about me.” I say. “Take a right here. And then there was how Sinclair was found. Either he was…er…finding some pleasure in his own company, which normally doesn’t result in getting shot in the groin and the head, or he had other company that morning.”
“Come to think of it, I think that close-up shot with the skivvies showed he was shot in the balls, and that his—”
“Do not go there! Besides, that doesn’t mean anything.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t mean anything? The guy had a hard-on, for Christ’s sake!”
“Happens a lot when someone dies. It’s called angel lust. I’ve seen it a dozen times in murder cases and suicides. Can happen with fatal gunshots to the head. In hangings too.”
“You see some weird shit in your job, Grace. No wonder you drink.”
“Used to drink.”
“True, because if you still drank, I’d be making more money off your sorry ass every time you come into my place.”
“Hey, turn left here!”
We screech into the turn.
“Take it easy. We don’t need the cops to pull us over.”
“A little advance notice would be nice, Ms. Navigator.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re pretty demanding for someone asking for a ride.”
“I said sorry.”
“Can I assume we’re going to visit the weeping widow? She’d be all pissed off if he did have company.”
I pat his knee. “You’d make a great investigator, Jacko. Damn straight that’s where we’re going.”
“The police report says Sinclair lived at 456 Poinciana Court, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.” I pull my crumpled copy from my jeans pocket. “And it lists his Social Security number. Can you believe that? The state still put socials on public documents. I guess it drums up business for the State Attorney’s identity fraud unit.”
“Not that you ever spent any time there, did you? From what I hear, you were top-shelf cases all the way.”
“That’s ancient history.” I jab my finger at the Poinciana Court street sign. “Turn left,” I say, in time for Jake to jink into a two-block-long street running east from A1A to the beach.
“Jesus, Grace! A little notice, please?”
For Sale – Foreclosure signs litter the street, one on almost every lot, pallets of bricks piled high behind chain link fences marked Keep Out. No Trespassing. Plywood-covered doors and windows of unfinished McMansions, concrete victims of the real estate bubble bursting all over South Florida.
I wave the police report in the direction of a contemporary home, all angles and glass. “There. Number 456.”
“Pretty nice for a guidance counselor. Those palms alone are worth more than my bar.” “Which might not be saying much.”
“Always the smart ass. And, by the way, at least it’s paid for.”
I bite my tongue.
“Oops, my turn to say sorry.”
“No need. I got myself into the hole, I’ll get myself out.”
“Nice ride,” he says, referring to a black Corvette parked in the driveway.
“Park down there, on the opposite side.”
“Yes ma’am,” he says, pulling a U-turn and parking down the block. “How do you know if the wife is even home? Maybe you should’ve called.”
“No warning means no time to get her story together.”
“Or maybe not. Maybe we should be looking at Serena. And maybe there are other girls and Serena was jealous. Or maybe…”
I let the police report flutter to the floor. “Or maybe Zoe did it—end of story.”
“That’s not what I meant. But this woman just buried her husband. She may not want to talk, especially to you. What are you gonna say? ‘Hello, maybe you can help me. I’d like to know why your husband was caught with his pants down. Maybe you had something to do with it? And by the way, I represent the person accused of ruining your life’.”
I flinch.
“I didn’t mean, I know you and…never mind.”
I survey the graveyard of half-finished homes. “Look, I have no clue where this is going, but I have to follow the evidence, and it’s telling me there was more to Sinclair than meets the eye.” I pull back and look Jake up and down as if I’m seeing him for the first time. “Hey, handsome. I bet a guy like you’d be able to get the widow talking.”
He sticks a finger in his chest while raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, you.”
“Handsome?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I say, trying my hardest not to grin like a schoolgirl. “What do you say?”
He gives me a time-out sign. “No way. I agreed to drive you. And that’s it. Nothing else. Come on. Nothing’s happening here. Let’s go.”
“Calm down, cowboy. Please. A little assistance here,” I say, thumb and forefinger no more than an inch apart.
He bumps his head on the steering wheel. “If you want to talk to her, you go.”
“Or we could do it together?”
He gives me a crooked grin.
“Like I said—men!” I clear my throat. “We can say we’re investigating and that we’d like to ask her a couple of questions. Maybe not say exactly who we’re working for?”
“We?”
All conversation stopped as we saw a man leaving the house, carrying a couple of boxes stacked one on top of the other.
“You got any binoculars?” I flip open the glove box.
“Do I look like a perv to you?”
“Don’t play all innocent with me. You deep-sixed a few of my cases with your surveillance skills.”
He pulls a pair of binoculars from under the driver’s seat, exhaling hard through clenched teeth.
I grab the binoculars. “I knew it!”
I blow a layer of dust from the eyepieces and hone in on the man, bull-necked, with white skin tinged pink like an albino. His muscular bulk is stuffed into his jacket, an odd fashion choice for the Florida heat, until I see why. A bulge at his waist. “He’s carrying.”
Jake scoots farther down in his seat. “Another good reason to get out of here.”
The man deactivates the Corvette’s alarm with a key fob as he pans up and down the street.
“Duck!” I shove Jake’s head down low and tuck in beside him, but keep the binoculars rested on the dashboard like some cartoon detective.
“What the— What are you doing?”
“He might spot us! Whoever he is.”
“Maybe Sinclair was his buddy? Maybe he’s here to pay his respects. Maybe he’s a plumber. Damned if I know, Grace, but can I please take the gear shift out of my right nostril now?”
Boxes deposited on the passenger seat, the man slides into the driver’s seat and drives away. “All clear,” I say, pulling Jake out of his crouch by his collar.
“What does he have to do with any of this?”
“No idea.”
Jake flips the driver’s seat back. “Let me know when the next brilliant idea pops into that pretty little head of yours, why don’t you?”
I shove the binoculars into his chest. “Let’s go. I think I’ll cut the grieving widow a break. Maybe come back another day.”
“Why? Things seem to be getting interesting.”
“Maybe I want to know a little bit more about the Sinclairs before I go busting in like a bull in a china shop—like why some meathead with a gun’s taking stuff out of the widow’s house, and like what Sinclair might have been up to in his free time.”
“And like why there’s an unmarked cop car following the ’Vette?” Jake says.
Chapter 19
A colleague of mine once referred to Everglades State Hospital by its nickname, the Alligator Farm, and earned himself a night in jail courtesy of the judge for causing a mistrial. The name is squarely on point, however, given
ESH sits on a verdant hundred-acre campus, a stone’s throw from the Everglades.
The buildings, like the name of the place, are benign looking enough, bland government architecture circa 1970, but ESH gives me the creeps. I’ve been out here before on a tour led by administrators bent on extolling the humanity of the place, despite the barbed wire fences, padded rooms, and orderlies armed with stun guns. As we walked through the facility, I stepped over one man curled up on the floor of a common room in plain view of staff and other patients watching The Weather Channel. I left that day wondering what life was like at ESH if what I saw was the sanitized version.
Lauderdale West is only a receiving facility, a term more suited for the post office than a psych hospital. Once the patient’s crisis has passed, she gets warehoused here if she’s still a danger, like Zoe. When the Slims found out Zoe was being shipped off to a state psychiatric hospital, and not some private Club Loony, they were appalled, in the presumptuous way rich people get appalled when they find out money can’t buy everything.
“We will spare no resources to make sure Zoe gets whatever help she needs,” Anton said during our confab in the stairwell. And he better have meant it, because Dr. Michaels doesn’t come cheap. I hired him to do a private competency evaluation, “private” being the operative word. If the results are bad, meaning Zoe’s looking very much like the cunning criminal the State says she is, I’ll bury them, and the State will be none the wiser. If the results are favorable to Zoe’s case, I’ll milk every last mitigating diagnosis and rationale as to why Zoe isn’t in any shape to go to trial, let alone prison.
I hesitate to call Michaels a defense whore, one whose opinions can be bought, paid for, sculpted like putty and made to sound like they were written on stone tablets delivered by God himself, but that’s what he is. I saw it more times than I care to remember when I was up against a defense attorney representing a guilty client with deep pockets. The subtle craft of diagnosis is a fine art, not a science, and one man’s psychosis is another’s creative nature in the hands of the right hired gun. Michaels is a nice enough guy, though. But, like Zoe said, it’s easy to be nice when the money’s right.