Plea of Insanity (19 page)

36

‘Avon Lady,’ Julia said with a shy smile when the door opened.

‘I’ll take it, whatever you’re selling. In fact, I’ll take two,’ Rick said, leaning against the doorframe that led into his apartment, looking her up and down with a smile of his own. ‘Come in.
Please
, come in.’ He kissed her softly on the cheek as she stepped out of the hall and into what looked like a photo spread for
Architectural Digest
.

An open living room, decorated in cool shades of blue, sea-foam green and arctic white, led into a modern kitchen with shiny stainless-steel appliances, gleaming glass cabinets and polished black granite countertops – all, remarkably, streak- and fingerprint-free. Sleek, modular furniture was purposefully arranged on dark bamboo floors; contemporary – and what looked like probably expensive – art hung on the walls.

‘This place is really nice,’ she said softly, as she walked up to a set of open sliding glass doors that led to a covered patio and an amazing view of a twinkling Miami Beach. Even through the stocky maze of buildings, she could make out the rolling white surf of the black Atlantic just a couple of blocks to the east. She thought of her own cluttered apartment – the one with the stunning parking-lot views – that she still hadn’t finished completely unpacking from her move south three years ago. Pre-framed posters from Michael’s Arts and Crafts decorated her walls; Glade scented oil candles accessorized the coffee table and mismatched furniture. She hadn’t made a bed since she’d moved in, and had no idea which box the real plates were even packed in. Considering it was her bed that she and Rick had always ended up in, she couldn’t help but wonder, with some embarrassment, what he thought of her when the lights were turned back on. ‘What a view,’ she managed. ‘Are you sure you’re employed by the same government agency I am?’

He laughed. ‘Remember, it’s just me here. No kids, no wife. No alimony, no child support. I got into this building years ago, before real-estate prices went through the roof. Before art deco was a really hot new word and South Beach was a cool place to be. A bit before your time,’ he added, smiling. She heard the pop as he worked the cork out of a wine bottle in the kitchen.

‘There was a time when South Beach wasn’t cool?’ she mused.

‘Yup. You might not know it, but I’m one of the few native Miamians that grew up in this city. My parents were from Cuba – fled during the revolution. Back in the day, it was old Jewish men who used to line Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue in their wheelchairs and oxygen tanks, instead of rappers in their tricked-up Benzes headed off to the VMAs. Rent
Scarface
one of these days, sweetheart.
That
was Miami Beach in the seventies and eighties – complete with domino games and ugly Guayabera shirts and cocaine cowboys just dropping bales of soft white snow from the sky. A city that had left its heyday a couple of decades back at the Fontainebleau with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Aaah,’ he said with a sigh, ‘a time when you could actually get a parking spot on Ocean Drive.’

‘Hey, I like Guayabera shirts.’ She couldn’t help her self. ‘Were hot dogs really a nickel back in the day?’

‘You’re a wise-ass.’

Julia smiled. ‘You really are old.’

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he said, as he headed across the room to her, two glasses of white wine in hand. ‘And you really are young.’

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she returned.

He handed her a glass, then kissed her – this time on the lips. His mouth lingered over hers. His breath smelled sweet and oaky, like Chardonnay. ‘Are you kidding me?’ he whispered. ‘I tell everyone. I’m very proud.’

She thought of Day’s words from lunch and felt her self blush. ‘Not everyone, I hope.’

He took a long sip of wine. ‘You mean the folks down at the rumor mill? No. I think we’re on the same page there, Julia. I want our business to stay our business; neither one of us needs to be handling personal PR during this case. Besides,’ he added, flipping her long hair playfully off a shoulder, and running his fingers down her arm, ‘secrets can be a lot of fun.’

She sipped her wine as he headed over to slip CDs in the stereo. She still hadn’t been able to fight off the queer, uneasy feeling from the morning’s arraignment. It had nagged at her all day in the office, until she finally decided to leave early and go for a quick run on the board walk in Hollywood to clear her head. A quick run had turned into ten miles, and her head was still no clearer. When she got back, there was a message from Rick, asking if she wanted to come over.

‘I was gonna order Chinese, if that’s okay with you,’ he said from across the room.

‘That’s fine. I like Chinese. I’m not really very hungry, though.’ Outside, the rain began to fall again, lightly between the buildings. The drops looked like tiny, platinum daggers in the yellow blur of the streetlights.

‘Where’d you disappear to this morning?’ he asked, looking over at her. ‘I turned to introduce you and you were gone.’

She hesitated for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t think the cameras are for me. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. So if it’s okay with you, I think I’ll just bow out when you hold a conference.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s fine with me, but I do think you’re gonna need to get over your camera phobia. And soon, too. I fielded a phone call from the French consulate this afternoon. Followed a couple of hours later by one from CNN.’

‘The French consulate? Why?’

‘Because our defendant is apparently a citizen of France, and the French historically don’t like it when we try to execute one of their own, even if he does also carry an American passport. They get very proprietary.’

Julia almost choked. ‘A French citizen?’

He reached over and took her wine glass from her. ‘More?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘A dual citizen, actually. Big difference. Or no difference, in my opinion.’ He headed back into the kitchen. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

She was stunned. ‘What does the consulate want?’

‘Access to Marquette and a promise not to seek the death penalty,’ he called out. ‘The first I apparently have to give them under the Vienna Convention. The second, I won’t, which I’m sure will get all the bleeding hearts at the ACLU hemorrhaging. It sets a dangerous precedent if we let our office be bullied by other countries that don’t like or agree with our laws,’ he continued when she hadn’t said anything. ‘Besides, I don’t care where you’re from, if you commit a crime here, then you should be subject to the penalties of US and Floridian law. I’m sure this will rise to some form of an international incident; it has before with other countries that don’t have the death penalty.’ He poured another two glasses of wine and headed back across the living room.

Julia said nothing. Smooth jazz floated from the speakers. She could feel the alcohol begin to work its magic and she closed her eyes. ‘I didn’t expect you to file the death-penalty notice today,’ she said suddenly, surprising even her self that she’d said it.

‘You didn’t expect me to file the notice, or you didn’t expect me to seek the death penalty?’ he asked quietly.

She was silent for a long moment. ‘Both, I guess. I thought it happened later on.’

‘Are you okay with it?’ He raised his eyebrows and those dark magnetic eyes asked the real question on his mind.
You’re not a bleeding heart, now are you?

She nodded and looked away. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine with it. I was just surprised, that’s all.’

‘This is fuck in’ bullshit!’ shouted Uncle Jimmy into the phone. He slapped his hand hard against the refrigerator, sending Nora’s magnetic fruit clips and to-do reminders to the floor
.

‘Jimmy, Jimmy, please. Julia’s in the other room,’ Aunt Nora pleaded in a hushed voice. ‘Keep your voice down.’

‘Excuse my language,’ Jimmy said, heeding Nora and lowering his voice just enough that Julia had to get out of bed and open the door a little more to hear. ‘I’m just upset here.’ She could see him through the crack in the door, red-faced and pacing in the kitchen, Aunt Nora sitting at the kitchen table, wringing a dishtowel in her hands. She could hear her own breath catching in the doorframe
.

‘What do they want from us, Jimmy?’ Nora demanded, crying, her voice a scratchy whisper. ‘I’m not letting her go through anymore! I already told them that.’

‘I know it’s not your decision, but … yes, yes, I know that, too,’ Jimmy said into the phone. ‘Listen to me … no,
you
listen to
me
– this bastard needs to fry for what he’s done. Did you see the pictures? Did you see them? Did you see what he did to them? You ask me, sir, what we want to see happen? You ask me what we
want
to see done? We want him dead!
That’s
justice.’

She shook the cold memory out of her head. ‘What do you think went wrong with him?’ she asked softly, thinking now of the pictures that lined the pale-yellow upstairs hallway. Nothing was ever what it seemed. ‘I mean, he led the perfect life …’

‘Never pretend to know someone’s life, Julia. You’ll only know what they want you to know, when it is they want you to know it. Remember that in this job, and nothing, and no one, will ever surprise you again.’

He came up behind her and ran his hand through her hair, moving it off her shoulder and exposing her beautiful, sculpted neck. He lightly traced the bowl of the cold wine glass over the soft curve of her throat. A delicious chill ran down her spine and she closed her eyes, losing her self in the moment. A few drops of wine splashed her skin, and he sensuously kissed them off with warm, wet lips as they ran down her neck and disappeared into her silk shirt. Her breath came in rapid starts, her chest heaving under his touch. She heard her self moan softly as his tongue slowly worked its way up to her ear, devouring an earring in its kiss. Pressing his body close to hers, he wrapped his free hand around her arm and across the front of her chest, finding the buttons on her blouse and undoing them slowly, one by one, with his deft fingers. She felt him growing, pulsing hard against her back. ‘Now let’s not talk any more,’ he whispered, unbuttoning the last button. ‘And especially not about him.’

She nodded, arching her neck back into his lips, offering her throat to him. ‘You’re in a good mood tonight,’ she whispered back.

With the fluted stem of the wine glass, he parted her shirt, revealing her ample, supple breasts. A fading tan line disappeared into a black lace bra. ‘Mmmm …’ he murmured at the sight. Slowly, he moved the cold, wet crystal over the delicate lace, making her nipples hard and erect. Running the glass slowly along the curve of her cleavage, with the stem he pushed the cup off of one breast, exposing it. Then the other. She knew she should turn away from the open sliding doors that she stood in front of, but she could not move. They were on the fifth floor, but with the living-room lights on, anyone could see in. She sucked in her breath as he poured the rest of the cold wine down her arched throat, letting it run over both breasts and down her pants.

He kissed her neck once again, his warm tongue lapping up the wine. ‘Despite the best efforts of the French, I had a great day, that’s why. A fantastic day,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘And now I think it’s getting even better.’

He turned her around to face him, slipping the shirt off her shoulders. She stood before him in the living-room light, trembling, her breasts exposed, the front of her slacks soaked with wine. He put down his glass and carefully unhooked the catch on her pants, pulling them over her hips with a tug of both hands till they fell in a heap on the floor with her panties. He exhaled a deep breath as he looked at her. ‘You are something special,’ he said softly.

Then, without another word, he picked her up and carried her into his bedroom.

37

‘Hool-ee-ah!’ The voice called across the lobby of the Graham Building. ‘Hool-ee-ah!’

Because it sounded nothing like her actual name, Julia kept walking with the crowd from the elevator across the lobby, dragging three humongous file boxes on a metal dolly behind her. As usual, she was running late, and today was her plea day, which the judge began right after morning calendar. She’d gotten three new cases this week alone, and five others in the two weeks before that, so just to keep her already unmanageable docket status quo since her last plea day, Julia knew she’d have to either try, plea, or in some other way get rid of, at least eight cases. With the state guidelines as strict as they were, and half her defendants qualifying either as habitual offenders or for minimum-mandatory sentences, she knew it wasn’t likely she’d be able to plea much out, unless the PD was in a good mood and willing to work with her on a bunch of crap drug cases. If not, she’d probably be in trial all next week, and because she’d surprised Farley yesterday by announcing she was counsel on Marquette – thereby making him look unprepared in front of the cameras – there was a strong chance the judge would look to even the score by sending her to back-up court the week after that.

‘Hool-ee-ah!’

The voice was almost at the level of an insistent scream now, and as people turned to look, so, finally, did Julia. That was when she spotted an obviously annoyed Marisol Alfonso across the crowded lobby. Dressed in a light-pinkcorduroy mini-skirt and matching jacket, she practically blended in with the dull Pepto-Bismol-colored lobby walls behind her.

‘Hool-ee-ah! Over here, honey!’ With one hand on her pinkhip, the other impatiently waved Julia over. Marisol her self did not move an inch.

There was really only one reason why Julia, already stressed and already late, actually turned around and began to walk quickly back across the lobby with a smile on her face – and even she knew it was pathetic. ‘Hi there, Marisol,’ she said sweetly as she rushed up. ‘I’m running really late,’ she began, trying hard not to sound impatient.

‘What? You no hear me calling you?’ Marisol said with a frown, her fleshy face growing dark.

‘No, I guess not. I’m in a real rush and I was thinking,’ Julia replied.
Perhaps if you’d actually said my name right I might have heard you
, was what she wanted to say, but, of course, didn’t.

‘Tha’s alright,’ Marisol said, dismissing the excuse with a wave of her hand. As quickly as it had come, the frown was gone, replaced by a big, toothy grin.

Julia could picture Marisol nailing a boyfriend in the head with a frying pan one minute, and then having hot sex with him on the kitchen floor the next. Her on/off switch flicked fast. Way too fast. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

‘Look,’ Marisol said, dangling a yellow mailing envelope in front of her, ‘I have something for you. It just came in and I was going to bring it upstairs to Rick, but I thought maybe you want to see it first. Ees, ah, on your case with him. The one from yesterday. The doc-door.’ She leaned in a little closer and grabbed Julia by the wrist, with her long pinkclaws and jingling bracelets. The dark look was back. ‘My friend in the mailroom says it come in this morning by messenger. He says ees
really
important,’ she said with a wink of her ultra-long lashes, dragging out the syllables in the word ‘really’ for as long as possible. ‘I thought you should take it upstairs yourself.’

Julia didn’t know if Marisol was just trying to spare her self a trip backup to the second floor, or if she was really trying to help her out. Either way, she figured this must be progress. ‘Sure. Thanks,’ she said with a nod of her head and a smile. ‘I’ll give it to Rick. I’m heading over to court—’

Marisol shook her head and the dark look disappeared again, replaced by another pinksmile. ‘Don’t wait, honey. My friend says you need to look at this
now,’
she said with a toss of her blackmane before walking off. She held her hand up to silence any further discussion. ‘You can thank me later,’ she called back over her shoulder and then teetered off into the lobby crowd on a pair of three-inch pink platforms.

Julia looked down at the envelope and saw that it was already sliced open. She slipped her hand in and brought out a five-page notice, neatly paper-clipped together in the corner and styled
The State of Florida vs. David Alain Marquette.
It was already stamped by the SAO mailroom with today’s date, and the time of 9:43 a.m.

Less than thirty seconds later, she was running like hell for the elevator.