Bone Valley (19 page)

“No, I wouldn’t think you are.” But then seriously sick and uninsured means desperate. And desperate rarely improves the clarity of the choices one is forced to make.

“But M. David used this buyer for cover, sent out this real down-home guy, in cowboy boots and one of those little western string ties…what do you call those little string ties?”

“Um, I don’t know. Little string ties?” I said, western attire being outside the range of my expertise.

“Yeah, well this guy came out and talked about how he wanted a quiet weekend getaway, and how he didn’t believe in hunting. Snookered me right in. I needed money, and he seemed so…so nice. When I found out he was just a point man for Antheus, I was going to court to try and get out of the sale, claim fraud or something, but I didn’t have the money for lawyers, or the energy by then.”

Somebody needed to say something positive, so I gave it a whirl. “Well, just because M. David bought part of your place for his mining company doesn’t mean he can get the rest. I mean, a private corporation doesn’t have power of eminent domain. So, at least he can’t get any more of your land.”

“Well,
he
can’t now, I don’t guess, being dead and all. But Antheus Mines is still after me to sell out. I’m the only one of the original property owners in that swath of land out there who hasn’t been tricked or forced to sell everything. Now the value of my land’s plummeted because everybody just figures it will all be surrounded by this big ugly moonscape of strip mining inside a couple of years.”

Ah, the catch-22. Even if she held on to her animal preserve, she’d be surrounded by a phosphate mine, and her land would be unmarketable and worthless—except to the phosphate company. With the threat of the mine, no one would buy her land now, except Antheus. And, knowing her land was essentially valueless, Antheus wouldn’t even have to pay much for it. Hell, Antheus Mines could probably pick up her land dimes on the dollar after the hospital grabbed it for debt collection.

So to add to his list of sins, M. David had boxed in a seriously sick woman between a dragon and a whirlpool, and probably laughed all the way to the courthouse to record the deed to the part he and Antheus had managed to buy.

“How did M. David get away with so much for so long?” I asked.

“All I could figure was he was giving blow jobs to the devil.”

A too-hearty laugh exploded out of my lips before I could stop it. Yes, that would explain the strange impunity with which M. David had plundered his way through southwest Florida.

Until, that is, somebody stopped him facedown in a gyp pond.

“Guess the devil got a new boyfriend,” I said, thinking maybe M. David got what he deserved in the end after all.

It also occurred to me that if Antheus Mines was permanently denied any right to mine, then Lenora’s property value would once more soar. Both her land, and the un-mined Antheus land, would be ripe picking for still another housing development now that 90 percent of the retiring baby boomers from New Jersey, Ohio, and Michigan were moving to Manatee County.

I wondered how much of Angus’s determination to stop M. David and Antheus had to do with Lenora’s plight.

I wondered if it would have driven Angus to murder M. David.

For Lenora.

“Yeah, well, I was telling you about Angus,” Lenora said, interrupting thoughts I didn’t want to have.

“Yes, you were.”

“After our divorce, we were mad at each other for a while. But Angus grew up and came looking for me. We were just getting back to where we could maybe make it work, talking about getting married again. I wouldn’t let him live with me, though, and then I got sick, and now he’s dead.”

This story seemed to drain Lenora of whatever energy she’d had, and she slumped back in her chair. I was still standing, uneasily and uselessly, in the kitchen, near her chair. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was, though saying so didn’t make anything any better.

“Everyone suffers in life,” she said. “Mine is not special. I don’t take it personally.”

“Still,” I said, “I’m sorry.” The kitchen was hot, and I was sweating, the convection oven hummed and the smell of sativa was overwhelming. I deal with human tragedies for a living; that is, after all, what the tort litigation system was built upon. But with Lenora, there was no one to sue, or to defend, and no court of law that could make it better. I was at a loss.

“If you’ve got Episcopal nuns coming over, maybe I should turn off the oven and open the windows,” I said, looking for some action to dispel the mood.

“Oh, I don’t think they’ll mind. If they work with many chemo patients, I rather imagine they’re used to it. But the pot should be dry by now, so you could shut the oven off.”

By the time I had done just that, everybody who had been in the living room was suddenly in Lenora’s kitchen and a wave of claustrophobia hit me in the gut. I was giving serious thought to sneaking out the back door and calling a cab and going home to wrestle with my descending depression, but then the doorbell rang. Oh, good, more people to shove into a small room in a small house.

As I left the kitchen, everyone except Lenora pranced to the front door as if the pope was coming, and not just two nice church ladies. Delvon greeted them with a loud and hearty, “Praise Jesus,” and then everyone apparently talked at once, with Delvon talking the loudest.

“Perhaps you would like to meet Lenora?” I asked, hoping to get this show on the road. Like I was shepherding wayward puppies, I redeployed the nuns to the kitchen. Philip, Delvon, Dolly, and Jimmie trudged along behind like the faithful. Introductions were made, and after much bumping into each other and stepping on everybody’s toes, the faithful adjourned with Lenora and the nuns to her guest bedroom, where they would all pray over Lenora.

Not that I didn’t believe in the healing power of prayer, but I needed to be in a room where there weren’t already fifty other people breathing my air. And since I was here, I might as well check out Lenora’s bathroom and see if she, by chance, used sandalwood soap. It would seem natural for her to hide Miguel, given their mutual bond through Angus.

Curious as to what I might learn while nobody was watching me, I eased down the hallway toward what I figured was another bedroom, and I went in, spotting the door to the bathroom, and checked it out. No sandalwood—not even close.

Quietly, I peeked in the medicine cabinet. No sandalwood there, either. I drifted back into her bedroom. Her double bed was crumpled, unmade, but the sheets were a delicate eggshell color and clean. Near the bed was a chaise lounge with a flannel sheet wadded up at the base of it and a pillow smushed at the head of it. No doubt Delvon had been sleeping on the lounge, keeping his watch over Lenora.

“Lilly,” Philip said from the doorway. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, just hiding out. How ’bout you?”

“Wrong faith,” he said, and inched toward me. “Are you really all right?”

His voice was so tender, so soft. He took my hand. He was solid. He was strong. He was sane. I sighed. I wondered why I liked Philip best when I was sad.

“Yes. I’m really all right.” Inside my hand, his own felt warm.

“She’ll be fine, you know. Lenora is very strong. Please don’t worry so about her. And you gave her Delvon, and he is helping her get well. You’ll see.”

In the other room, I heard the sounds of “Amazing Grace,” and I leaned against him.

We stood that way for a long time, long enough that I realized the hymn was over, and the house was silent. “Come on, let’s go wait in the kitchen,” I said, thinking maybe we shouldn’t be hanging out in Lenora’s bedroom.

Delvon burst in, praising the Lord for the healing power of His love, and then he encircled Philip and me into one big, captive hug, spinning us until we struggled free and regained our footing.

“How is Lenora? Now?” I asked.

“Oh, fine. The nuns did a real nice job. Lenora’s resting for a moment. Then I think we’re all going out.”

“I done invited them all out for ice cream, my treat,” Jimmie said, joining us in the bedroom, which apparently had become the new staging arena.

Wide-eyed Dolly joined us, but she was no longer clutching her purse. “I think I’ll have those two pray over me for my arthritis,” she said. “And it wouldn’t hurt, Jimmie, for you to have a session too.”

Oh, what, they could do a healing prayer for bad grammar? I thought, then started edging out of Lenora’s bedroom, followed as I was by the faithful.

Eventually we did actually go out for ice cream, even the two nuns. The kid behind the counter took us all in without blinking more than once or twice, but a manager type sitting at a table and pushing paper around stood up and watched us, with alternating looks of puzzlement and concern on his face. We took our ice cream to a concrete table outside. Lenora had orange sherbet and we all held our breath to see if she could eat it.

She could.

After that, everybody else sucked up ice cream with goo on top. I had two modest scoops of vanilla, and no goo. But if I’d known this was almost going to be the last ice-cream parlor outing of my relatively young life, I would have had double chocolate with chocolate syrup.

Well, damnation.

Odell must have been a tad more security conscious than I’d figured.

That is to say, the key was no longer under the big rock by the door. No matter how many times I flashed my flashlight at the damp dirt under the rock, no key appeared.

Well, that certainly put a kink in my plans for an easy B and E. But, hey, lawyers thrive on challenges. So, in a sort of optimistic jitter, I started rolling over rocks, hoping Odell had merely moved the key to another hiding place. The overhead security light beamed down enough brightness to aid my search, which is one thing I don’t get about security lights—don’t they just help the burglar see better while he breaks in?

Grateful for my gloved hands, I picked up enough rocks to count as an upper-body workout at the Y, and still didn’t find a key. I checked over the door frame, under the mat, and in expanding circles outward, searched for pots or fake stones that might hide a key.

Nothing.

Being a lawyer, I’d come prepared with a backup plan of operation. I had the lock picks I’d sweet-talked out of Henry, along with his fifteen-minute lesson, which, as it turned out, proved to be woefully inadequate. Having Henry with me right now would have been much better: Henry, the dutiful son of a locksmith who had worked summers with his dad until he had a B.A. and a real job, Henry the malleable, Henry who wore a suit to our last B and E. Henry who might have made the lock picks do what I couldn’t seem to do—that is, open the damn lock. But Bonita had made me promise not to take Henry with me ever again on anything that was illegal. That was one sure sign she was favorably inclined to his proposal—that is, not wanting him arrested in case she did marry him. Given Bonita’s morality and strict religious outlook, in her mind a felon wouldn’t have made a good role model for her five kids.

Yeah, I could have used Henry. But I had promised.

So there I was, dressed for B and E bear with my gloves and my flashlight and my soft-soled shoes, in a deserted parking lot, outside a deserted building, which possibly contained secrets that would enlighten me on any number of topics, including my dead client and my live wanted-for-questioning client.

And I couldn’t get in the damn building.

Cursing, I gave the lock picks one more whirl, until even I knew they wouldn’t work, and then I tucked them back into my pocket, and glared at the building, thinking hard on my next option. The front door had a decorative panel of glass, which I could break out and maybe open the lock from within—but I didn’t want to make the B and E obvious, so I passed on that for the moment.

With my flashlight, I did a careful study of the front, then I walked around the office building, studying the windows in the back. Low windows with burglar bars and high windows with none.

I counted sixteen screws in the burglar bars on the window to Rayford’s office, and only the one I’d already played with was anything like loose. And wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have a screwdriver in my car.

I studied the high windows again. High windows with no bars, high windows that might be unlocked.

So how hard could it be to reach those high windows?

I poked around in the dirt below them, testing for solid footing. Not for me, but for my car. My idea being that I could drive my Honda out back, climb up on its roof, slide open the window—if it wasn’t locked—and crawl into the office that way.

The dirt seemed solid enough that I didn’t need to worry about getting the Honda stuck, but I would definitely leave car tracks that would suggest to anyone who walked around the building that somebody had been up to something. All in all, I had hoped to come, see, conquer, photocopy, and leave without a trace.

Giving up my plan was out of the question, so I drove the car under the window, parked it, climbed up on the roof, figured I could take a page from Angus’s book and wipe out the car tracks with a palm frond or something on my way out, and in short order became profoundly grateful I was both tall and persistent. I wrenched the unlocked window open.

So, if this lawyer thing and the grooming school didn’t work out, maybe I had a calling for common burglary. Could I actually make a living at that? I wondered.

I punched out the screen, crawled through the window, gauged the likelihood of harm in jumping from the window to the floor, and, risk-benefit analysis finished, I lowered myself down and dangled from the windowsill by my fingers, inhaled, and let go. A little tough on the knees in the landing, but nothing a good oomph sound and a solid curse didn’t cure.

Bingo! I was in Rayford’s office. Rayford’s office with all the file cabinets. Given that I was alone, it was three in the morning, and I was as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get in Sarasota County without taking an airplane to another country, I flipped on the lights.

Yeah, okay. Not my best move as it turned out.

I didn’t really know what I was looking for, so I started with the obvious—his desk drawers. Bills, booze, crap, and copies of the orange-defamation lawsuits complaints, and a long letter from the attorney who had signed the complaint. I glanced at it, saw it was an analysis of the suit, but didn’t readily appear to contain clues on the bigger issues, and I switched on the copy machine in the corner and put the letter on top. Worth copying to study later, I figured, but not worth memorizing on the spot.

While the copy machine hummed and droned to life, I plundered the first filing cabinet, which seemed to be all orange-grove stuff, well organized, but wholly useless to me. After checking the back and the undersides for hidden files, I slammed it shut.

The second filing cabinet was locked.

Oh, good. I mean, yeah,
oh good.
Rayford probably never in his whole life read the “Purloined Letter,” a Poe classic, and didn’t know the best place to hide something is in plain sight. No, he’d lock up his important stuff. Kinda like drawing a red arrow to it.

Hoping for a cheap lock, as opposed to the complex dead bolt on the front door, I dug out the lock picks and tinkered. Within about ten heartbeats, the lock unlocked. Way to go, Henry, I thought, pocketed the picks, and went to plundering.

Who would ever have thought the man was so impeccably organized? Suddenly, I had a warm and fuzzy feeling for Rayford. He had, get this, a file labeled “M. David/Groves” and one labeled “Groves” and two that made my heart go all a twitter, “Groves/Sales” and “M. David and Gyp.” In a jiffy, I had those files out and was heading to the copy machine, when I heard in the not-too-distant distance something that made my heart jump into my throat and about choke me.

The sound of a car or a truck approaching.

I jumped for the light switch, hoped the place went dark before the driver saw a light on, and checked Rayford’s door with my heavy-duty, hurricane-proof (read: expensive) flashlight, and discovered it was already locked. Secure for a few more moments, I grabbed up the lawyer’s letter and my collection of M. David files. So much for leaving no trace behind. I headed back for the high window.

When it hit me: I didn’t have a ladder. I couldn’t drive my Honda inside, and I wasn’t tall enough to leap up into the high window.

The burglar bars on the lower windows closed that escape route.

Nothing to do but shove Rayford’s desk under the high window, which I started doing, briefly horrified by how heavy it was and how much noise dragging it made.

I paused to listen to the sound of the car outside. Closer, closer, close, engine off.

Someone was jiggling the door, and tapping at the burglar bars out front, while my chest pounded and my hands and forehead sweated.

While I wiped my hands on my jeans, I heard someone walking around outside, then footsteps near the burglar-barred windows of Rayford’s office, and then someone banged on the window.

“Lilly, Lilly, let me in. It’s Miguel. We need to talk.”

Miguel?

Miguel breaking and entering into Rayford’s office?

Or, Miguel following me and waiting for that perfect chance to snuff me? I mean, if his plan to drown me had been wrecked by the red-faced man and the kid-rescue, then surely this presented him with an even more ideal spot. Alone. Night. Deserted building. Hapless, unarmed victim, and nothing obvious to tie my dead body back to him.

“It’s Miguel, let me in, Lilly. We need to talk. Now. Open the door.”

Yeah, right.

“Lilly, I saw the light. I know your car. I need to talk to you.”

So, the light hadn’t been a good idea, and, of course, he would recognize my ancient Honda. I made a pledge then and there to get a gold sedan or an SUV like everybody else in the legal world so my car wouldn’t keep giving me away, and then I fingered the heavy flashlight, and slapped it against my palm. Solid. Heavy. Police officers used flashlights as weapons, didn’t they?

If Miguel got inside, I’d just have to hit him over the head and make my escape, carrying the files with me.

In no time at all, there was a crash of glass in the front of the office, and the front door scraped the floor as it opened.

I put the M. David files on the corner of Rayford’s desk, which was now more or less under the window, but not quite close enough to use as a ladder, and I crouched in the corner behind the door, holding the heavy flashlight with both hands.

So how hard did you have to hit a man with a flashlight to knock him out? I wondered. Something, strangely enough, not covered in law school’s criminal law 101.