States of Grace

by Mandy Miller

  The bed shifts back to center when Marcus raises his bulk to get me a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get those pieces of garbage.”

  “Thank God Manny didn’t get rid of that damn boat when I told him to,” I say, winking at Manny.

  Vinnie chimes in from his post in the corner, hands gripping his Marlins cap. “That’s one helluva boat.”

  Manny shoots me a self-satisfied smile over his shoulder. “And she wanted me to get rid of it a while back. Thought it was too Miami Vice for a City Commissioner.”

  “And it still is. Makes you looks like a wise guy.”

  Vinnie bats his eyelids.

  Manny jerks a thumb at Vinnie. “You should have seen this chicken shit. He was pasted to the seat as if he were walking into a hurricane. Never opened his eyes the whole way there and back.”

  “Hey, I thought I was gonna die out there,” Vinnie says, and we all laugh for a second, until what could have been hits us like a brick.

  Marcus hands me the plastic glass. “One thing I don’t understand is how these guys knew where you were?”

  “Educated guess.” I flip up the sleeve of the hospital gown. “The coordinates for Stiltsville.”

  Marcus nods. “Ah, the tattoo.”

  “Sonny used it as a road map to get rid of me, and the truth right along with me.”

  “And these two used it to find you.”

  “Thank God, even if they thought I’d relapsed,” I say, gaze shifting to the twinkling Miami skyline out the window, a jagged neon metropolis cut from the onyx sky.

  A shadow passes over Vinnie’s face. “When I used the master key to get into her apartment, I found her backpack on the table. And a bottle of Jack on top of the fridge.”

  “The bottle was unopened,” I say—I’d chosen Jack Daniel’s, my favorite, for my weekly test, to see if I could survive the temptation throughout the stress of Zoe’s trial.

  Vinnie rushes over and grabs my hand. “I know you don’t drink no more, sweetheart. But I know you don’t go nowhere without your backpack neither and it was there, and Manny and me, we were besides ourselves and—”

  “It’s okay, Vin. You guys saved me. And I’m forever in your debt. Maybe you and me, we can call it even.”

  Vinnie swipes a tear away with the Marlins cap. “Not a chance.”

  “I knew Stiltsville was the one place she’d go to be alone. To calm her mind,” Manny says. “She went out there when she was a kid. When she came back from the war—”

  “What he means, Marcus, is that I went out there to drink when we were married.”

  Manny steps to my bedside. “That’s in the past. And what’s past is past. Let’s leave it there, where it belongs.”

  I pull the sleeve back over the tattoo. “Stiltsville used to be my secret little piece of paradise.”

  “You’re safe, Gracie. That’s all that matters.” Manny says. “We’ll find you another special place.”

  “Deal, but only after we lock those pieces of you-know-what up for the rest of their miserable lives.” I point at Vinnie. “I didn’t use the bad word this time.”

  “All you needed was a near death experience to clean up your language,” Vinnie says, smiling.

  Marcus rocks back on his heels, arms crossed. “We’ll get them all. Sonny and the Slims and anyone else who needs arresting. But, one last thing, how’d Sonny know about Stiltsville?”

  Manny retreats to the window, a faraway stare replacing the forgiveness in his eye from a moment ago. “He’d seen the tattoo, hadn’t he, Grace?”

  To end the awkward silence, Vinnie pounds the fist of his right hand into the palm of the left. “Testa di cazzo, let me tell you what I’m gonna do to—”

  I give him a time-out sign. “He’ll get his. They all will.”

  A conspiratorial smile brightens Vinnie’s face. “If there’s anything I can do. I got skills, ya know.”

  “Speaking of what you can do, what did you do with Miranda? Where is she?”

  “She’s with Jake. I left the key under the mat when we went looking for you and called him to come by.”

  “Who’s Miranda?” Manny asks.

  “Her dog,” Vinnie and Marcus reply in unison.

  Manny lowers his head to conceal a smile. “You replaced me with a dog?”

  I point at Vinnie, trying not to laugh given the two broken ribs I got from falling off the chair. “Blame your partner in crime over there.”

  “Can I get you anything before I leave?” Marcus asks.

  “Thanks, but no. I’ll be getting out of here tonight. Doc says I must have had at least a little tolerance left, otherwise the opioid dose Sonny gave me would have killed me. First time in my life being a pill popper has ever been helpful.”

  “I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “Maybe not, but I seem to have lost my Spidey sense. I thought Reilly was the bad cop.”

  “People change, Grace.”

  “I’d like to believe that,” I say. I turn to Manny. “Would you two mind giving Manny and me a minute?”

  “Let’s get out of here, brother,” Vinnie says.

  “Who you callin’ brother?” Marcus asks, moving to the door.

  Once they’re gone, Manny sits on the side of the bed. “What’s this about?”

  “Why did you insist on coming over last night? I’m glad you did, but what was so important that it couldn’t wait?”

  “Britt came by my office yesterday afternoon.”

  “Britt? Why?”

  “He knows about our deal.”

  I prop myself up on my elbows. “What deal?”

  “The one we made to get you on Zoe’s case.”

  My mouth feels as if it’s stuffed with cotton balls.

  “He said I had to convince you to resign from Zoe’s case, or he would leak the details to the press and the Bar which, of course, wouldn’t be good for either of us. That’s why I needed to see you.”

  “How could Britt know what we agreed to?” I say, but then remember Britt and Gretchen talking outside the courtroom. I raise a hand. “Gretchen told him.”

  “That’s what he said, but how’d you know?”

  I fall back on the pillows. “Dammit! I should have known he was trying to screw me again.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw him after our mediation. He implied there was a story behind how someone like me got on a case like Zoe’s. He’s one vindictive bastard. He’d love nothing better than to see me fail, preferably in a publicly humiliating way.”

  “Why does he still have it in for you?”

  “He thought I got off too easy. He’d do anything to sink my career a second time and getting me out of the spotlight would be a good start.”

  “He told Gretchen he’d tell the world her husband is behind the FCP pill mill chain if she didn’t tell him why she hired you. Said he’d make Anton look like a drug pusher ‘of the lowest order,’ is how he put it, and that he’d make sure all his clinics got shut down and the pair of them locked up.”

  “Well, he’s going to get that last part.” My stomach turns sour. “Gretchen threw me and you under the bus to protect herself and the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed.”

  He hangs his head. “I’m so sorry, Grace. For everything.”

  “Like you said, let’s leave the past where it belongs.” I sit up and square my shoulders. “And we have to look on the bright side.”

  Manny raises an eyebrow. “You? Look on the bright side? You must have changed!”

  “Scary, isn’t it?” I say, landing a playful punch on his arm.

  We share a laugh for the first time in ages and the tightness in my chest loosens.

  “I mean, Gretchen may be a self-serving piece of work, but we don’t have to worry about Britt. He won’t follow through on his threat.”

  “How do you know that?

  “As it turns out, my nearly dying saved us both.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t understand.”

  “He needs me now. Why would Britt let a petty vendetta interfere with burnishing his political credentials? Now he can play the hero by dismissing a case against a wrongfully accused teenager set up by a crooked cop who tried to kill the long-suffering former prosecutor who fought and almost died in search of the truth. And then there’s the trials of the Slims and Sonny. Britt’s going to need my cooperation for those. I’m his key witness.”

  “It’s a win-win if you both keep your mouths shut about your—”

  “Our less than ethical behavior, yes.”

  Manny shakes his head.

  “The business of dispensing justice is a wonderful thing, isn’t it. All shades of gray.”

  “Like the rest of life, I guess,” he says, with a faraway look in his eye. “I should let you rest.”

  “One thing before you go. I don’t get why he would come to you and not directly to me?”

  “I asked him. He said he wanted what we elected officials call ‘plausible deniability.’ By using me as the messenger, he keeps his hands clean. He’s an asshole.”

  “And a coward. He knows I’m just crazy enough to tell him to go pound sand.”

  Chapter 36

  “Stay out of sight, okay? The chief would fire my fat ass if he knew you were here,” Reilly says.

  “The chief should have fired your fat ass a long time ago.” I point one of my crutches at him. “But then again, I’d like to think people can change.”

  “Don’t go getting all sappy on me now,” he says, shooing me behind a concrete pillar in the police parking area adjacent to the courthouse. “You know you got yourself busted, don’t you? I just brought the cuffs to your Mardi Gras party.”

  “Maybe,” I mumble. Then, louder, “But thanks for letting me be here, Frank.”

  “It’s the least I can do.” He flaps a hand in my direction. “Now get back behind that damn thing.”

  I’m grateful Reilly’s letting me see this nightmare to its conclusion, but I’m of two minds about him still. Right place at the right time? Or did he set me up? He has it in him—he framed Vinnie. If I had to, I could make either argument sound believable—but that’s my job, to make the unbelievable sound believable, a task made easier when the unbelievable is, in fact, the truth.

  He expels a deep sigh and I peek out from my hiding place. “Everything okay?”

  The hairs of his mustache twitching, he speaks in a tight tone freighted with the disappointment of the betrayed. “And to think I showed him the ropes when he got his gold shield, treated him like a son. Shoot, it was me who gave him his nickname.”

  “Yeah, what’s that? I can think of a few choice monikers for that bastard.”

  “Boy Scout. Can you believe it?”

  I stifle a laugh. “Maybe you’re not the best judge of character, Detective.”

  “That makes two of us, Counselor.” He flaps his hand at me again. “And get yourself back behind the damn post, why don’t ya? He’s gonna be here any second.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Piece of shit,” he mumbles, lighting a cigarette to wait for Sonny. Just like he does before every trial day. Except today isn’t any other day. Today they won’t be comparing notes, getting their stories straight. Today he’ll slap the cuffs on his own partner, the one who betrayed his trust. And mine.

  My nerves are on high alert, not only because of what’s about to happen, but because I’ve had no sleep. It was a long day yesterday at the hospital, telling and retelling my story. And Reilly persuading the brass to let him be the one to take Sonny into custody, even pissing off a judge in the wee hours to sign arrest warrants for him and the Slims. We decided to take everyone down at the one place they’d be for sure today—the courthouse. They have to act as if everything were normal.

  Reilly crosses himself at the sickly rumble of the engine of Sonny’s Jeep.

  Sonny pulls into the space beside Reilly’s car. The moment his feet touch the ground, a SWAT team swarms in from all directions, weapons drawn. The only words Sonny gets out of his mouth are a strangled “What the fuck,” right before they force him onto his belly.

  “Soren Sorenson, a.k.a. Sonny Sorenson, I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Brandon Sinclair, the attempted murder of Grace Locke, accessory after the fact in the murder of Serena Price, and witness tampering,” Reilly says, standing astride Sonny and cuffing his hands behind his back.

  A sense of redemption floods my body as Sonny strains against the cuffs, rolling side to side like a roped calf. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Frank,” he hisses, head ratcheted to the side, eyes wide, looking around as if he expects someone to say there’s been a terrible mistake.

  After two SWAT officers the size of mountains manhandle the flailing Sonny to his feet, Reilly gets in his face. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.”

  “Fuck you, Frank.”

  “You have the right to an attorney. And guess what? As luck would have it, we have one right here for you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?

  “You can come out now, Counselor.”

  The moment I step from the shadows, Sonny’s face turns whiter than the purest cocaine.

  “Bet you didn’t expect to see me here, Detective,” I say, crutching toward him, my stump purposefully in full view under the hem of my skirt. “That’s right, Detective, you have the right to remain silent, but that won’t help you. We’ve got you…What is it you said about Zoe? ‘Dead to rights,’ wasn’t that it?”

  As Reilly continues to read the Miranda warnings, Sonny’s nostrils flare in and out like the fire-breathing dragons in comic books.

  I stand back, content to watch, the sweet sense that justice is being done, an absolution of sorts. “I think we’re all even now, Frank.”

  “Seems as if we are,” Reilly says, shoving Sonny into the back of a waiting police cruiser, using the same motion he had used on me.

  ***

  Inside Twietmeyer’s courtroom, cameras click and clack like demented chickens. Reporters from every major local, national, and cable news outlet are here, expecting to witness the trial of Zoe Slim, a twice-accused murderer with a prep-school pedigree.

  Reilly’s in the last row of the gallery, head held high. I guarantee he’s licking his chops. I know I am. He’s seated shoulder to shoulder with Detective Chang, Reilly’s partner for the day, given his current one is indisposed. Reilly pats his jacket pocket, inside which is the warrant for the arrest of Anton Slim for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, money laundering, and a host of other charges related to the pill mills, some of which will stick, some might not. Regardless, like Sonny, the last thing Slim will see is a needle going into his vein, much like the one Sonny stuck in my arm, the injection a cocktail of the type of drugs Slim peddled.

  There had been a few moments, or, more accurately, more than a few, after my abduction when the gauzy euphoria wore off that I thought, No one would be any the wiser, would they? I could take the pain meds the docs in the hospital offered to prescribe for my injuries as readily as the quacks at FCP, They look so innocuous, those little pills, like candy the color of the waters swirling around Stiltsville.

  But then Manny saw that gleam in my eye, the one he’d learned to detect over time, but not soon enough to save us. The one, he says, that turns my face from an open book into a stone fortress.

  And when I saw that look in his eyes, the soul-crushing disappointment that what should have been for us would never be because of me, I asked for a double dose of Tylenol instead.

  ***

  The second arrest warrant is in Chang’s pocket. For Gretchen. It charges her with accessory after the fact in the murders of Sinclair and Serena, and money laundering. A stretch? Perhaps. It comes down to what she knew and when. She can bat her eyelashes all she wants, but the evidence will get her in the end, too. It always does. Un
less of course, she gets a persuasive defense lawyer with a talent for conjuring up reasonable doubt, a thought which raises goosebumps on my forearms.

  Two deputies lead Zoe in, hands cuffed in front and attached to a waist chain connected to leg irons. She’s wearing street clothes instead of a prison jumpsuit, but the baggy blue cotton skirt and wrinkled white blouse make her look more like an escapee from Goodwill than the daughter of a multimillionaire. Like a shriveled weed, she wilts onto the chair beside me. She has no clue what’s about to happen.

  The moment the clock above the door reads 9:00 a.m., Judge Twietmeyer takes the bench. Never one to shy away from the cameras, Britt’s seated at the State’s table with Hightower, a self-satisfied smile on his face intended to convey he’s solely responsible for exonerating a wrongly-accused teenager and uncovering a conspiracy involving law enforcement and one of the city’s most prominent residents. No matter. We’re all accomplices in this conspiracy for good, for now. Britt can wait. I have a long memory, too.

  The Slims are in their usual spot in the front of the gallery, faces pulled tight, which in Anton’s case is due to his feigning the distress of a concerned parent, and, in Gretchen’s case, Botox.

  “State versus Zoya AKA “Zoe” Slim,” Twietmeyer announces, the nasally sound of his voice evidence of a head cold. “Before we commence, I believe we have a preliminary matter to take care of. Is that correct, Counselors?”

  Hightower, Britt, and I spring to our feet and reply in unison. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Reilly extracts the warrant from his pocket with a flourish and unhooks the cuffs from his belt. Chang does the same, but with minimal theatricality given his role as a bit player in this drama.

  Zoe tugs on my sleeve. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain in a minute. Don’t say a thing.”

  Reilly and Chang approach the Slims who are seated directly behind the defense table.

  “Anton Frederick Slim, I have a warrant for your arrest for murder and conspiracy to commit murder and money laundering,” Reilly says.

  Chang follows Reilly’s lead with, “And Gretchen Marie Slim, I have a warrant for your arrest for money laundering and accessory to murder after the fact.”