Bum Rap (11 page)

-26-

She Wears Short-Shorts

V
ictoria said she’d get home from the jail by taking one of those new car services—uberX or Lyft—so I said good-bye to the lovebirds and drove to my little coral rock house on Poinciana.

Granny was waiting for me in the kitchen, slicing fresh kernels of corn off the cob into a pot of steaming grits. A chunk of Reggiano cheese was waiting to be grated, and some green onions would go into the pot, too. Granny had become fancier in her cooking lately.

She took a look at my face and said, “You try to kiss a bobcat last night?”

“Something like that, Granny.”

“I got some witch hazel to put on those scratches. Ain’t even gonna ask what you look like under your clothes.”

“Sorry about the suit, Granny.”

“Always knew it was a waste of money. Like putting britches on a mule.”

I reached for the coffeepot, and she swatted my hand away. “You need some sleep.”

I didn’t disagree. I just ate my grits with some buttermilk biscuits that oozed with butter. I thanked Granny, went to my bedroom, and sacked out fully clothed until midafternoon. When I woke up, I felt worse than when I went to bed. Everything hurt.

I downed six aspirin with coconut water, showered, and put on a pair of faded Penn State running shorts and an old T-shirt with the saying “I May Be Old, but I Got to See All the Cool Bands.” I was alone in the quiet house, the only noise the quiet whir of the ceiling fans. Kip was at summer football camp. Granny had either gone grocery shopping on her bicycle or fishing in the Coral Gables Waterway. She had her own spot under the bridge that connects LeJeune Road with Cocoplum Circle, and she’d likely bring back a snapper or two.

I turned on the television and found the country music station on the satellite. Listened to Patsy Cline sing “Crazy” with that tremulous little hitch in her voice that makes you want to put your arms around her and protect her from the big, cruel world.

I hobbled into the backyard and toppled into the hammock that hangs between two palm trees. Cloudy and steamy hot. Palm fronds hung limply like wet laundry on a line. Humid as a jock strap after an August practice. Thunder boomed in the distance.

I grew drowsy again. I must have fallen asleep because I dreamed of a fine snow falling on a Vermont football field. I jogged across the field in a sweat suit, a whistle around my neck, shouting at my pale prep schoolers, all skinny arms and pipe stem legs.

“Hustle! Hustle! Hustle! And for God’s sake, hit somebody!”

Then I heard my name called.

“Jake. Jake. Are you awake?”

I blinked my eyes open. Victoria sat in a wooden rocking chair on the porch, ten feet from my hammock. Next to her, on a table—an old wooden wire spool Granny had sanded and painted—was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two tumblers. The bottle was full, so she must have brought it.

“Hey,” I said, using up all my witty conversation.

“How you feeling?”

“Tip-top.”

She gestured toward the booze. “Ice?”

“Straight up is fine.”

She poured us two tumblers, half-full. I didn’t peg Victoria for a sour mash whiskey gal. Maybe a cosmo or a margarita. Maybe a mojito with fresh-squeezed cane juice and pulverized mint leaves. But she took a long pull on the Jack Daniel’s, so I had some catching up to do. The first taste was golden heat in the throat, soothing to body and soul.

She was wearing short white shorts. Very short shorts. Her long legs were crossed at the ankles. On her feet were platform sandals with those crossing straps that go halfway up the calf and make a woman look like a Roman gladiator. Except on Victoria, they just accentuated her floor-to-ceiling legs with nicely developed calves. Pilates or weights, I imagined. She wore a stretchy pink tank top, which showed her well-formed delts and small, perky breasts. To sum it up, it looked as if a high-fashion model had just decided to plop down in my backyard for an after-work drink.

“I love Steve and I admire you,” she said between drinks.

“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

“But you both infuriate me. Steve lied to me! How can I deal with that?”

“That’s between you two. Leave me out of it.”

“Really? Then let’s talk about your strategy, which just happens to be based on Steve’s phony story.”

“What would you have me do? Withdraw because my client might be guilty?”

“
Might
be guilty? You said he was a murderer!”

“No. I said he was a killer. Not every killer is a murderer or even committed a criminal act.”

She polished off her whiskey. “You’re talking about self-defense.”

“One possibility.”

“Or defense of another. In this case, Nadia.”

“Possibility number two.”

“Stand Your Ground.”

“That’s three.”

“And there’s always accident.”

“Unlikely but yes.”

“Or insanity.”

“I forgot about that one,” I admitted.

“Instead of telling Steve to shut up, why don’t you get the whole story and defend him based on what he did?”

“We’ve been over this, Victoria. Two reasons. First, we have to defend him based on what he told the cops. Otherwise, he gets skewered on cross based on prior inconsistent statements and we lose. Second, if he tells me he shot Gorev and has no defenses, I can’t put him on the stand to say otherwise.”

“I know. I know. The one ethical rule you cling to.”

“Like a drowning man with a Styrofoam cooler.”

“I hate this game we have to play. And I thought you hated it, too.”

“I do, but I don’t make the rules. I just try to do my job and not hit anybody after the whistle.”

“Do you remember what you said the day I retained you?”

“I think I mentioned the retainer had to be paid up front.”

“You asked me, ‘Does it ever get you down? That nearly everyone is guilty.’ ”

“And you told me it comes with the territory. You were right. I was just venting. All these years banging my head against the courthouse door gets to a guy. But the truth is, if I only represented the innocent, I’d starve to death.”

“Today, in the jail, you seemed to relish it. That Steve may be guilty and you have a way to get him off. As if half-assed lawyers can get an innocent client acquitted . . .”

“Actually, they can’t.”

“But it takes the great Jake Lassiter to get a big fat NG for a guilty man.”

I hoisted myself out of the hammock, lurched to the porch, and eased my aching body into the chair next to Victoria’s rocker. It was getting dark, and in the distance, lightning flashed against a backdrop of silver clouds.

“You’re starting to worry me, Victoria. Are you able to sit second chair and help me win this thing?”

For the second time today, I saw tears fill her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“You started this conversation by saying you love Steve. That’s the touchstone. The starting point and the finish line. If you focus on that, you’ll be fine.”

A single teardrop tracked down her cheek. “I think Steve was screwing Nadia.”

“He tell you that?”

“Of course not.”

“Elena tell you that?”

“No.”

“So what’s going through your mind? Why would Steve cheat on you?”

“Because he’s a man, and men are assholes.”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that. But have you ever suspected him of anything? Ever caught him?”

She wiped the back of a hand across her eyes. “No. But before we met, he was one of those commitment-phobic bachelors who went from woman to woman.”

“Statute of limitations has expired on that.” As we talked, I was fighting an internal battle. Part of me wanted to torpedo their relationship, but the better part compelled me to say exactly what I believed. “So basically this is just some woman’s intuition thing.”

She refilled her glass. “Don’t be condescending.”

“All I’m saying, you have no proof. Victoria, it’s been a really long couple of days. You need to step back, get some sleep, then start going through those color-coded files of yours.”

She took a sip and closed her eyes, enjoying the taste of the whiskey. “You’ve been in committed relationships, right?”

I thought I knew where she was going, and I wanted no part of it. I’m protective of my private life, especially the embarrassing parts. “Sure. I’ve been involved with a couple women who should have been committed.”

“C’mon, Jake. Be serious.”

“Yeah, I’ve had relationships. What about it?”

“You ever cheat?”

“When there was a problem in a relationship, and I was young and stupid, instead of working on the problem . . . yeah, I stepped out.”

“Proves my point. Before all this happened, Steve and I had been arguing a lot. Some of our closeness had been lost.”

“Happens to everybody. Then you know what? If you’ve bonded and you love each other, like you two do, it all comes back together.”

“Maybe it’s too late.”

“Jeez, Victoria, you’re adding two and two and getting five. Steve didn’t cheat on you with a B-girl.”

“How can you be so sure?”

I didn’t want to answer, but it just came out. “Because I wouldn’t have.”

“What?”

“You’re the one who said how much alike we are. Solomon and me. Frankly, I didn’t see it, but maybe you’re right. And I wouldn’t have cheated on you with a B-girl or anyone else, and neither would Solomon.”

She took a long drink. Too long, if you ask me. “I’m lifting the Code Yellow,” she said.

“Meaning what?”

“Code Green, Lassiter.”

“Does that mean what I think it does?”

“You’re not half bad looking.”

“And you’re beautiful and you know it. So what? Where does that get us?”

“You want to make out?”

I laughed because it was . . . well, damn funny, coming from this gorgeous, smart, tipsy young woman who happened to be in love with my client. “Just where will we do this making out? The local drive-in movie?”

“My place. The male inhabitant is indisposed.”

“And after we make out, what then, Counselor?”

“Why don’t we take it one step at a time? See what happens. We’re both adults.”

“No, we’re not. You’re a sixteen-year-old girl who’s flirting with the captain of the football team because you think the guy you really like just kissed a cheerleader under the bleachers.”

“You’re rejecting me? No man has ever . . .” Her eyes welled with tears.

“There was a time when I wouldn’t have been man enough to say no. But those days are gone, and I’m not taking part in get-even sex. We’re not going to wake up tomorrow hating ourselves and each other.”

“I already hate you for turning me down.”

“Tomorrow, you’ll thank me. Look, I need you. Steve really needs you. And when this is over, you and I will have a drink—preferably coffee—and laugh about tonight.”

She pushed the tumbler of Jack Daniel’s away, apparently realizing there was no more need to loosen her inhibitions. “So we’re going back to work?”

“First thing tomorrow.”

“I want to find Nadia.”

“Why? So you can ask about Steve and her?”

She shook her head. “Purely professional. It’s always been our strategy to find her.”

“Haven’t you been listening? Our strategy has changed. No Nadia.”

She got out of the rocker, pulled her short-shorts down a bit from where they had been riding up into her crotch. “Elena called me. She wants to meet us tomorrow night after work. Said she thinks Nadia might talk to us on the phone.”

“Not interested.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll go alone.”

“You’re letting your personal feelings interfere with your judgment.”

“You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”

“Damn it, Victoria. It doesn’t work that way. The case has one boss. Me. We have one strategy. Mine.”

“If you change your mind, I’m meeting her on Tenth Street Beach.”

“In the middle of the night.”

“When she gets off work, four a.m.”

“It’s just a few blocks from Anastasia. Alex Gorev has to know that Elena and Nadia are friends. He could have Elena followed.”

“I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“I won’t be there to protect you,” I said.

“I don’t need you.”

And with that, Victoria Lord hopped off my back porch, wobbled just a bit on those long legs, turned at the corner of the house, and was gone.

-27-

The Cemetery and General Custer

B
y 7:00 a.m., I’d had my coffee—actually Café Bustelo espresso—and was jogging sou
th on LeJeune Road, thinking about Victoria Lord, about Steve Solomon, about the mysterious Elena, and about the missing Nadia. Today’s problem was simple. I should be working on getting discovery from the state attorney. Instead, I wa
s worried about Victoria and trying to decide what to do tonight.

If Solomon was a problem client—and he was—Victoria was an unreliable cocounsel. Refusing to take orders. Going off on her own mission. What she planned could be dangerous for her . . . and the case. Right now, breathing hard, my running shoes thudding against the pavement, I was worried more about her than
State v. Solomon
.

Jeez, what does that say about me? As a lawyer and a man?

I decided to push her out of my thoughts and concentrate on my strained breathing and aching body. I was wearing a nylon swelter sweat suit with elastic cuffs at the wrists and ankles to increase my body heat. I was trying to sweat out the champagne and vodka and the general toxins of my life.

Let me make it clear: only a madman does this in Miami in the summer, which runs roughly from May until Halloween. Even early in the morning, the heat rises from the pavement like steam from a New York City subway grate. As Yogi Berra reportedly said, “It’s not the heat, it’s the
humility
.”

I pounded along, passing El Prado and Hardee, then crossed the bridge over the waterway and onto Cocoplum Circle. Rivers of sweat rolled down my back into the crack of my butt.

I turned right, heading west on Sunset. A gray Range Rover followed me around the circle and slowed to match my jogging pace. I remembered a similar vehicle at the gas station and then on the Julia Tuttle the night I met Elena at the Russian church. I squinted and tried to see into the heavily tinted windows but couldn’t make out the driver. It could have been a man, a woman, or a well-trained chimpanzee. Then, instead of passing me, the Range Rover squealed into a U-turn and headed east on Sunset. Staring back into the morning sun, I couldn’t make out its license plate. The driver could hav
e been one of Gorev’s thugs following me, hoping I’d lead them to Nadia. Or maybe one of State Attorney Pincher’s investigators, trying to spook me. Whatever, there was nothing I could do about it.

I kept plodding along, passing Almansa and Mindello, then hanging a left on Erwin Road, and there it was.

The Pinewood Cemetery. It’s where I go to think.

One of the great little secrets of South Florida: Miami and its surrounding towns are young. We don’t celebrate much in the way of history. There aren’t any three-hundred-year-old churches or quaint houses dating from the Revolutionary War. But we have the Pinewood Cemetery, which holds the remains of our pioneers from the mid-nineteenth century.

It’s not a cemetery of manicured lawns. It’s a natural forest of scrubby palms, casuarina pines, and gumbo limbo trees with their twisted trunks and limbs. As a result, the place is almost entirely in the shade, and on windy days—which this one was not—a good breeze would whistle through the trees.

I padded across the floor of pine needles and sprawled out on a wooden bench in front of the grave of a veteran of the Spanish-American War.

Thinking.

Regardless what I told Victoria—
“I won’t be there to protect you”—
how could I not be? Generally, the beach is safe. Still, at night, there are robbers and rapists and the oc
casional Miami Beach cop who gets drunk and runs over sleeping (or screwing) tourists in a four-wheel ATV. Really. It happened not long ago.

I should have been thinking about the case. Figuring how and why Nadia snookered Solomon into riding shotgun. Was it her plan to rob Gorev all along? Did Solomon know? And if she brought the gun, how did Solomon end up shooting Gorev?

To hell with it. I don’t know the answers and on this sweaty morning, I don’t care.

I eased up from the bench and prepared to jog back home and take a cold shower. Or, at least, cool. Our tap water doesn’t really get cold. Before leaving this peaceful place for the real world, I passed a couple of old headstones, one a Confederate soldier from Tennessee and one a Union soldier from Massachusetts. The
n the tiny gravestones of infants, “Baby Girl Mary” and “Baby Boy James.” So common in those days and so damn sad.

A troubling thought came to me. Maybe it was the cemetery. Maybe it was my having been thrashed the night before last. Or even my feelings for Victoria, which I had yet to explore, much less express, even to myself.

Why am I so worried about Victoria?
Why is she in the forefront of my mind instead of the case?

Okay, let’s look at this logically. Nothing is more important in the practice of law than this: the client comes first.

In theory and in practice, that’s always the way I’ve behaved. Many years ago, I stood in the central courtroom of the old federal courthouse, a place of gilded chandeliers, marble pilasters, wooden wainscoting, and a ceiling of stars. The words
ornate
and
stately
don’t begin to describe the place. On that day, I took the oath of admission to the Florida Bar promising to support the Constitution.

I took the words seriously. Still do. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel means—in my opinion—
damn good
counsel. A lawyer who will take a punch for his client and maybe dish out a couple, too. In this regard, Solomon and I are alike. He’s proud to have been held in contempt for his clashes with prosecutors, judges, and witnesses. What was it he said to me that first day?

“A lawyer who’s afraid of jail is like a surgeon who’s afraid of blood.”

I criticized him then. Maybe it was his brash and boastful manner, but certainly not his theory of the practice, with which I agree. But now, here I was thinking about his lover . . . instead of his case. Here I was, drawn to Victoria Lord in a way that violated my principles. At least I could pat myself on the back for not succumbing to her whiskey-induced come-on. Oh, the self-loathing that would have caused!

But what about tonight—so late that it would be almost dawn tomorrow—and Victoria’s plan to meet Elena on the beach? How could I let her go alone?

After all these ruminations, I made a decision. I have a Florida concealed firearms permit. But then, who doesn’t? We have about nine hundred thousand residents licensed to carry concealed weapons, tops in the nation. Take that, Texas!

Anyway, I own a nine-millimeter Beretta. So tonight, very late, I planned to place it in a shoulder holster inside a lightweight sport coat, saddle up my old steed, and follow Victoria to the beach.

For some reason, I thought of General George Armstrong Custer in his buckskins, riding across the Montana plains that day in 1876. In my mind, I saw the general, a Colt .45 on his hip, six hundred soldiers with rifles under his command. I imagined
him thinking,
What could go wrong?