by Diane Capri
“Stop. Just stop,” I ordered my spiraling thoughts under my breath.
The dogs ran ahead, and I slowed to a walk until we reached the house. I hosed the dogs down out back, put them in their kennels to dry off, and then climbed the stairs to the deck.
Peering around the side of the house, I spotted Ben’s unmarked sedan parked out front. Good. If he was planning to arrest me, he might as well do it now and get it over with, since I already had the day off. I might make bond and get released today. Be back at work tomorrow. Maybe.
I opened the back door and inhaled the delicious aromas of fried peppers and onions, but food was now the last thing on my mind. Ben stood near the stainless-steel fridge talking with George in hushed tones. George’s hands moved animatedly, as they typically did when he was speaking on a topic he was passionate about. Which, in this case, probably meant me.
Ben looked a bit haggard, as if he’d not made it home last night. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and a shadow of stubble darkened his usually clean-shaven jowls. His expression shifted from harried to guarded when he noticed me standing by the sliding doors.
“Willa,” he said, walking toward me.
We weren’t exactly friends, Ben and me. More like wary associates. He did his best to play nice with the federal judge, and I did my best not to annoy him any more than was necessary. Which was often difficult to do. He was prickly and so was I, and neither one of us was getting any softer.
George reached me first and slid his arm around my waist. He meant well. But his display of solidarity only made the knots in my stomach clench.
Ben cleared his throat, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Uh, I’ve got word on the deceased. He wasn’t alive when he reached the hospital. The doctors officially declared him DOA when they brought him in last night. I’m sorry.”
My heart plunged into my gut. I’d never swooned in my life. Not once. But I slumped against George and groaned.
George asked, “Do you know anything about the cause of death yet?”
“Not much. But what we do know is helpful for Willa.” Ben placed his hat on the table and rested his hands on his hips. “Early presumptive tests showed high levels of illegal substances in his system. They’re still determining exactly which drugs he consumed. Sometimes the presumptive tests show false positives, as you know, and the confirming tests will take weeks. But it looks like he’d taken fatal doses of illegal drugs.”
“Are you saying it was the drugs that killed him?” I frowned.
Ben replied, “I’m saying it’s possible but too early to know.”
“So, he was an addict, then?” I cocked my head. “That could explain why he lunged into traffic, couldn’t it?”
“Hard to say at this point. All I’m saying right now is that whatever drugs were in his system, it’s possible he’d overdosed and died before your car ever hit him. If that’s the case, he might have just collapsed into the road as you were driving past.” Ben shrugged and cleared his throat again, as if he didn’t want to deliver the obvious alternative. “It’s also possible he’d be alive now had you not run him over.”
“Right.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “So the medical examiner hasn’t pinpointed time of death, either?”
“Not yet. The lab results are preliminary as well as inconclusive. But it’s gonna be close to the moment of impact. Less than a minute one side or the other.”
“I understand.” I’d never wished anybody dead in my life, but I was silently hoping that the man had been dead before he fell into the roadway. Not that hitting a dead man was a lot better than hitting a live one. But at least it would mean I hadn’t killed him, and I wanted desperately not to be a killer.
I also realized the medical examiner might never be able to pinpoint the time of death so precisely.
Ben stepped closer and placed a hand on my arm. “I wish I had better information, but it’s still too early. You know these things take time. I’ll keep you posted as we learn anything new.”
“Thanks, Ben. I know you don’t have to keep me in the loop. But I really appreciate it,” I said.
He nodded. “George told me you’re not going to work today. That’s good. The vultures are swarming out there. I swear, if I had my way, we’d do away with social media completely. Everybody with a cell phone wants to be famous, and they think posting the most outrageous things they can find is the way to do it.”
I nodded quietly. Ben and Tampa PD had experienced plenty of nasty run-ins with so-called citizen journalists like that toady Rinaldo Gaines. Ben had good reason to distrust and dislike them. But most of his annoyance was due to his crusty personality.
Our police chief suffered an uneasy relationship even with the legitimate media. In his view, they highlighted the details of their stories as salaciously as possible to grab public attention, blame his people, and make his job harder. Sometimes, he was right. But more often, he was being too defensive.
Of course, he also held low opinions of lawyers. Truth was, even though the police and the judiciary were supposed to be on the same law-and-order team, he wasn’t all that fond of judges.
To be fair, not many media, lawyers, and judges would feature Ben Hathaway on their top-ten most-favorite lists, either.
Still, he was here when he wasn’t required to be, offering me information he wasn’t required to share, mostly because he was a decent human being and he knew I’d be grateful. Which I was.
“What about the man’s identity?” I moved away from George toward the coffee. I needed more caffeine, and lots of it. “Who was he?”
“Still don’t know.” Ben took the java refill I offered.
I waved him to a chair and sat across from him. The coffee was too hot to drink, so I waited.
“There weren’t many people walking around on Bayshore last night because of the nasty weather. But by the time we arrived, you’d drawn a small crowd. None of them admitted to seeing him until after he was hit,” Ben said.
I nodded and said nothing, although the man’s story seemed stranger and stranger.
“We went through his pockets. No wallet, no phone, no credit cards, no cash. Not even a house key.” Ben cringed and ran his hand across the back of his neck. “We’re looking at missing-person reports, but its tedious work, and we’ve had no luck yet.”
I carefully sipped the coffee. “What about the fingerprint match?”
“Well, that’s the weird thing, Willa. The guy had no fingerprints.”
“No fingerprints?” George scowled. “You mean they were removed? Like in the movies?”
“No.” Ben exhaled slowly. Poor guy really must have been exhausted. He was no spring chicken. All-nighters were unusual for him. “From what the medical examiner told me, he could have been born that way. Seems it’s a condition. Affects a certain percentage of the population for various reasons.”
George cocked his head. “So, no witnesses, no fingerprints, no wallet, no way to ID the body.”
“Yet. No way to identify him yet. But we’re working on it. And before you ask, yes, we’ve got DNA pending, which also takes a while.”
“You’ve got nothing but prison, military, adoption, and maybe organ-donor records on file, right?” I asked. “From that cohort, you think you might get a DNA match to a guy wearing thousand-dollar loafers?”
“It’s a long shot, I agree. We do what we can. He’s young enough; his parents might have preserved cord blood when he was born. And we’ve got some feelers out to those ancestry websites that collect DNA, too. We might get lucky. You come up with a better idea, let me know.” He glanced at the clock, drained the last of his coffee, and stood to leave. “I can let myself out.”
With that, he gave a curt nod and turned to leave. Then he turned back. “Willa, have you seen the video clips from last night from that Rinaldo Gaines? You should look. And then steer clear of that guy. Nothing good ever comes out of his mouth.”
I nodded. “Okay. He didn’t seem like the kind of man I’d be in
viting to dinner anytime soon.”
“He’s camped out at the entrance to your bridge right now. Don’t go outside. He’ll probably have a drone and use it to his advantage, not yours.” His words were gruff, but the warning was appreciated.
“Thanks,” I said, and he left. Which probably meant I’d pissed him off again. But we both knew a DNA match on the dead man was less likely than me winning the Powerball lottery. He needed a much, much better plan.
George kissed the top of my head and moved to the stove to plate our breakfast before it became dog food. “Are you doing okay?”
“Not really, no,” I mumbled. “I just keep replaying the drive home last night in my head. Maybe I could’ve reacted quicker. Maybe I could’ve stopped. But I didn’t even see the guy. He just showed up in the road. How does that happen? Where did he even come from?”
George set the plates on the table and rested his hand on my shoulder for several long seconds, infusing me with his quiet strength until a bit of the tension drained from my muscles.
“Let’s eat before the food gets any colder.” He sat across from me and waited until I reached for my fork and took a bite of the omelet.
I was hungry, and the omelet was delicious. I chewed a few bites and swallowed. “He’s dead because of me, George. This is not something we can simply wish away. I’ll be surprised if Ben doesn’t come back here with a warrant for my arrest.”
He opened his mouth, and I could tell what he was going to say, so I headed him off. “And don’t suggest I call a lawyer. If I need to, I will.”
He snapped his mouth shut, and we both ate a couple of bites before he spoke again.
“Listen, last night you said it seemed like the guy stumbled into your car, giving you no time to avoid him or to stop. You didn’t so much hit him as he hit you. You were just unlucky. If you’d passed that point in the road, he’d have been hit by the next car. This guy wasn’t going to make it out of the situation alive, Willa. No matter what.” George ate a few more bites and waited for me to comment. When I didn’t, he said, “Don’t get ahead of the evidence. Let’s wait until all the facts are in.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. I’d given countless others the same advice. But my doubts lingered. Yes, that man may have stumbled into my path. But Florida law required every driver to have her vehicle under control at all times. I had failed to stop within a safe, assured, clear distance. Simple as that. I’d still done that deed, even if he was dead before I hit him. Which was really unlikely anyway.
But what if George was right? What if he hit me? Then he’d timed his own execution. Was this a suicide after all?
Even in my own heart, I knew I was grasping and selfish to hope so.
I’d never killed anyone in my life. I desperately didn’t want this to be the first time.
But wishing didn’t make it so.
Hell, wishing couldn’t even get Rinaldo Gaines off my lawn.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wednesday, November 9
11:30 p.m.
We spent the rest of the day and evening at home, doing our best to pass the time. We heard nothing more from Ben Hathaway, and the legitimate news accounts dwindled to almost nothing. The citizen reporters and gawkers trolling for clicks pumped up their online speculations, but they had nothing new to fuel the fire, either.
Finally, I gave up and went to bed around midnight.
George drove me to the Sam M. Gibbons Federal Courthouse the next day because Greta was still damaged and sitting in the police impound lot for further processing. The Stingy Dudes trial was set to resume at ten o’clock.
Hillsborough Bay glinted in the sunlight as we traveled Bayshore Boulevard. The familiar sights along the way seemed oddly out of place under the circumstances.
Downtown Tampa was both bustling with workday activity and annoying because of all the new construction going on. The ever-improving scene gave the city a youthful vibrancy that encouraged people to move here and kept the tourists happy. But it made traveling to work and back a bigger hassle every day.
Harbour Island and the Marriott Waterside, across from the hockey arena, stood proudly welcoming at the waterfront. Shops, theaters, galleries, and restaurants in the popular riverfront districts were teeming with people.
I loved the drive. But today I wasn’t behind the wheel, and no matter how many times I tried to drag my thoughts into the long list of work I had to do, all I could think about was the accident.
We continued over Platt Street Bridge, under the convention center, and on toward downtown, where many of the beautiful historic buildings were disappearing to make way for newer projects. My building was one of the newer ones.
Chief Justice Ozgood Livingston Richardson—CJ—had finally found money in the budget to move me from my decrepit chambers in the old federal courthouse to shiny new offices in the Sam M. Gibbons Federal Courthouse on North Florida Avenue with the rest of my colleagues.
To say I’d been surprised by his call was an understatement. Later, I’d learned from a colleague that he’d been ordered to move me because the building had been sold. CJ wanted me under his thumb, and I was never going to be in that particular spot, regardless of the location of my office. Keeping the upper hand with CJ was one of the fun things about my job. I grinned.
My chance to get out of the crumbling 1920s building happened in mid-July, and we were finally settled into the new space. Now I had a lovely view of downtown Tampa and the Hillsborough River beyond instead of overlooking the HVAC units on the old parking garage.
George stopped at the private judge’s entrance, gave me a quick kiss and another reminder not to worry, and dropped me off. Then he hurried back home to get things ready for tonight’s dinner crowd.
Regardless of why I was moved to the new building, I loved everything about it. The new life was always better than the old, as my mother used to say. I greeted the guards and stepped into the elevator. Even the elevators were better. I rode the clean, roomy, zippy cars up to the third floor. I hadn’t become accustomed to the smooth and fast lift, so unlike the rickety death trap in the old building. Every time I exited the elevator, an involuntary smile crossed my lips and lifted my spirits. Today was no different.
The doors sucked open to a reception area decorated tastefully in shades of cream and taupe. My chambers were located on the right. There were several judges on this floor, each with our own individual chambers. Inside, separate assistant offices and offices for our clerks completed the spacious suites.
My judicial assistant, Augustus Ralph, was at his desk, impeccably dressed and ready for the day, as always. I gave him a weak smile as I passed. I wanted a few minutes of solitude before diving into my cluttered calendar.
“You’ll want to check these.” He followed me into my private office with a stack of pink phone messages and a cup of strong Jamaican coffee in his hand.
We had a computer system for messages now, but Augustus said he preferred the old-school pink slips we’d been stuck with in the old building. I suspected he was simply rebelling against CJ in his own way, but I didn’t mind. Thwarting CJ was a game many could play simultaneously.
“Thank you.” I flopped into my chair and set my briefcase down. He lingered at the door, looking a bit concerned.
“Is there something else?” I asked.
His brown gaze narrowed. “That’s a terrible thing that happened Tuesday night. I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” was all I managed to say.
He watched me another couple of seconds before he nodded and left, closing the door behind him. I flipped through the stack of messages. Most were from local reporters and news outlets, and I put them aside.
Three were from Chief Hathaway, requesting that I call him right away to discuss developments.
I dialed the phone, and an officer answered, cool and efficient. She put me on hold. Ben picked up a few seconds later.
“Thanks for getting back to me.” He sounded slightly out of breath.
“Thank you for calling,” I said, and meant it. This kind of VIP treatment wasn’t the norm between us, and certainly not how he treated suspects. Which gave me a bit of hope. “You want to question me further?”
“Your involvement in this thing seems straightforward. All your lab work was negative,” Ben said. “We can’t find anything wrong with your car, although we’re not done with the black box. We don’t have that expertise in-house, and Mercedes is being difficult about it.”
I simply nodded. Not many traffic incidents were tried in my courtroom, but I’d handled more than one product-liability suit against car manufacturers over the black boxes installed in every car by law. The data recorders had become much more sophisticated. It would reveal, for example, how fast I’d been driving and whether I was wearing my seatbelt. It would also show when and how I deployed the brakes.
There were limitations, too. The black box only recorded twenty seconds around the impact. And it didn’t record video or audio. Or at least, that’s what the manufacturers claimed. My guess was the temptation to do so would prove too great at some point. Maybe that point had already passed.
Like the blood tests and the search I’d consented to at the scene Tuesday night, I felt confident that Greta’s black box would back me up. I wasn’t worried about it at all.
“We might have a line on a couple of video cameras operating in the area at the time of the incident. Until we get them, we have your official statement, and that’ll be enough for now, unless something else comes up.” He exhaled slowly. “We’re just waiting for the autopsy results to confirm the cause, manner, and mechanism of death. All of which can take a while.”
“The medical examiner doesn’t think the manner of death was obvious?” The news about the video felt promising, but the lift was temporary and eclipsed by the autopsy news. I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger, feeling the headache throb behind my temples.